No one could be so monstrous as to kill Mikki, an innocent thirteen-year-old girl. Who could have so dark a heart? Even the Huns hadn’t been able to kill me. Mikki’s abductors would not have hurt her either. No. They would have broken camp and run, taking Mikki with them, eventually stashing her someplace. Just as I’d been stashed in a rectangle in the Atlas Mountains.
Where was she?
Finally, something worthwhile to think about.
Chapter 18
After three days with no bread being delivered through the doorway, I knew the plan.
With only water left to sustain me, the Huns—or whoever was on the other side of the locked door—were waiting for me to starve to death. It was perfect, really. And who could blame them? All they’d wanted was to make some quick cash by kidnapping a rich, spoiled American, and instead they had ended up with a lifelong dependent. Not a good deal for them. They didn’t have it in them to outright murder me. But to let nature take its course once food was out of the picture? I guess, after weeks of thinking about it, they’d decided their consciences could live with that.
I didn’t really mind anymore. What had been happening in the rectangle wasn’t life. It was merely inadvertent survival, one breath following another. Still, I’d kept on drinking the water and eating the bread, feeling grotesquely euphoric when it arrived accompanied by olives, the flavor exploding in my mouth with near-hallucinogenic vividness.
At most there were three of them. The first one, a perfect, salty-meaty-oily orb, would disappear down my gullet before my eyes had time to register its existence. The second soon after. By the third, I’d attempt to exert self-control.
With the olive soaking in its bed of succulent juices and the shorn crust of bread carefully arranged on a cracked ceramic plate, I’d scurry to the shaded comfort beneath my slanted roof. Once settled, I’d pick up the slippery drupe and admire its dark color and the sensual texture of its skin, glistening with translucent oil, pungent and spicy. My trembling fingers would hold it out in front of me, as if it were the world’s last remaining Fabergé egg. I would extend my tongue and wait for the intoxicating impact of taste buds against olive, savoring the sensation for as long as I could.
Eventually I would rub the olive against my teeth, as if testing a pearl. Finally, sinking it into the fleshy nest of my mouth, I would suck away the olive’s oily residue from my fingers, then bite down and consume the tantalizing fruit. Immediately after, I would toss a morsel of bread into my mouth. I’d let it sit there, absorbing whatever essence remained of the olive and its flavors. Although nowhere near the heavenly sensation of the olive itself, the subtle replica had its own gifts to share in prolonging the experience.
I don’t even like olives.
Ordinary and commonplace become extraordinary when commonplace is gone. And in the extraordinary are moments of joyous escape.
Could a man who got so excited over olives be prepared to die?
My most fervent hope was that whoever had Mikki would give her an olive. Just one. Or, better yet, Reese’s Pieces ice cream. It was her all-time favorite.
I had grown used to waking up every morning, high atop my stone perch, with Mikki gone. We had a routine. Every night she came to me, and as she lay cradled in my arms I would tell her my stories. Then, sometime after I’d fallen asleep, she would silently slip away. So when I awoke on the fourth day since the bread deliveries had ended, I was stunned to see her staring down at me.
It was true. I was right. They hadn’t killed Mikki after all. She’d been alive all this time. Kept from us, but alive. And now here she was. With me. Everything was going to be alright.
At first all I could manage was a stupid, crooked smile. My body had grown very weak. I’d barely been awake for more than a few hours the previous day. I didn’t feel hungry, but I was still aware enough to know that my body must be.
Mikki smiled back. I felt the soft, warm palm of her hand rest against my forehead, then move slowly down my left cheek.
“Mikki.” For some reason, the best I could manage was a hoarse whisper.
“Isaque ihla wawal?” The words flowed smoothly from her mouth. I couldn’t quite make them out, but it sounded as if she was asking me if I was okay. Typical Mikki, always thinking about someone besides herself. She was the one who’d been imprisoned and kept from her family for months and months. Me? I was a relative newbie at this. Besides, I was her father. I should be looking after her. I should be the one asking if she was okay. But somehow I couldn’t quite get the words to work in my mouth.
I struggled to sit up. The best I could do was to pull myself up far enough to rest on my elbows, the bone aching and skin burning where they rested against the stone. I stared at my lost daughter, delirious with happiness. It was back. Happiness was back. God, how I missed it. God, how I missed her.
At thirteen, Mikki was tall, almost the height of her mother. But on our nights atop the pedestal, she was still a child—sometimes nothing more than a wriggly baby, sometimes her six-year-old size. This worked well, making it easier for the two of us to fit within the stone’s indentation. Not to mention that the thirteen-year-old version I knew from back home was no longer keen to cuddle with her old dad.
Beholding my daughter through a feverish haze, I idly wondered how and why she came to be here this morning, taller than ever, towering over me, gazing down at me with the eyes of a Madonna. With some effort, I turned and craned my head to see over the edge of the pedestal. I saw that she’d dragged over a collection of old crates and piled them against the stone platform in order to climb to the top. I also noticed that not only was she bigger and older than she’d been last night, or any night, but her face… it was different.
More words I couldn’t understand burbled through her lips.
Suddenly I was concerned. “Mikki, what’s wrong with you? What’s happened to you?” My God, what did they do to her?
She responded, her voice calm, loving.
Alarm bells began to clang. I tried to sit up, and again failed. Something was wrong. This was not my daughter! “Where’s Mikki?”
My brain began to clear. The soupy gobbledygook that now resided there most of the time disappeared into the recesses like murky dishwater down a garburator. I studied the face, so close to mine. How had I ever mistaken this person for Mikki? This woman’s hair was dark and shiny, like wet coal. Her eyes were those of someone twice Mikki’s age. Her satin-like skin was the color of weak tea. She wore a colorless shawl of delicate material—silk, maybe—that felt pleasingly cool whenever it brushed against my skin.
I fell back and stared up at my grate roof, bitterly disappointed. I wasn’t so far gone as to be unaware that, at times, I’d been falling into periods of lack of focus—delusion?—thanks to the combination of starvation, extremities of heat, mental anguish, and boredom. But I was okay with that. At times like these, delusion can be a dear friend.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten.
She was still there.
It was clear that this woman did not speak my language. Nor could I speak hers.
My eyes followed as she placed a small hand against her chest, skin glistening as if oiled, nails smooth and short. She said one word. She was telling me her name.
“Asmae?” I repeated the word to confirm.
“Naȃm,” she responded, her voice so beseechingly sweet and kind that it nearly made me weep. She then spoke at length, hurriedly, until her words stumbled, and then she looked away as if embarrassed to have gone on for so long.
I had no idea what she was talking about, but given the circumstances and my condition, I made an educated guess: “I suppose you thought I was dead?”
She shrugged and said something more, slower, as if that would help.
We weren’t getting very far. Wincing with the effort, I positioned my hand on my chest, as she had done, and croaked my name: “Jaspar.”
She smiled and did her best to repeat it. I did my best to smile back, feeling s
elf-conscious about my teeth, my breath, me in general. It hurt to smile. The skin of my lips had grown permanently chapped and cracked from too much sun—not to mention unaccustomed to the act.
Asmae made a motion as if using a spoon, and then pointed down. She wanted me to come off the pedestal to eat. I was happy to think bread might be back on the menu. Maybe even olives? I nodded feebly, but barely moved.
She pulled back. I watched as she took full note of the state I was in. When she was done, her eyes reaching out for mine, she silently took my dirty, rough hand in her tiny, tender one, and squeezed—lightly, but enough for me to know that she was doing it. Then, very carefully, she lowered herself off the pedestal and was gone.
For long moments after, I could still feel her touch on my forehead, my cheek, my hand. Touch. Such a small thing. It had been so long since anyone had touched me without intending to cause pain.
I knew how powerful small things could be. For Jenn and me, it had been nothing more than a plastic, pink barrette. That one small thing that gave us something we wanted, and then took everything else away.
Chapter 19
One of the great joys of being self-employed is never having to wake up to an alarm clock. Even so, six days a week an alarm did ring in our bedroom, at exactly 6:00 a.m. Jenn was a light sleeper and a disciplined riser, so it rarely managed more than a peep before her hand shot out from beneath the covers to silence it. I usually didn’t remember it. I’d wake on my own about an hour later, get Mikki to school or wherever she had to be that day, and eventually end up behind my computer.
In the two months since that awful morning in our front yard, standing beside a mailbox that had yet again failed to deliver a letter from our daughter’s kidnapper, we’d created a new version of our lives. While Jenn returned to work with a vengeance, working longer, harder hours, I’d taken to sleeping in, later and later every day. What did I have to wake up for? The emptiness and resounding silence of an abruptly-childless house was nearly unbearable. The laughing, the petty squabbles, the occasional tears, the distinct scent of a teenage girl’s perfume—always something flowery and named after a singer I’d never heard of—the mysterious phone calls ripe with gossip and secrets about boys, the constant texting and selfie-taking. The assorted accoutrement of someone enslaved to fashion and pop culture—scattered magazines, smears of makeup on the bathroom sink, megalithic piles of disposed Kleenex, bottles and vials and jars of haircare and skincare product. Shoes, shoes, shoes.
All gone.
GONE.
Most of the stuff was still in Mikki’s room, but no matter how I tried to preserve it—even going so far as to spritz the air with her perfume—the essence of my daughter was slowly, inexorably, agonizingly disappearing.
Unlike Jenn, who’d taken on more responsibility at work, some days staying at the office until the wee hours of the morning, my own work repelled me. It wasn’t that I had writer’s block, because I could almost understand that. No, this was something deeper. I felt as if I might never want to write again. Ever.
The pressure was on. In The Middle, as big as it had been, for as long as it had been, was becoming old news. Everyone who was ever going to had bought the book, seen the movie, raved about it, or torn it apart. It was so yesterday. My agent, my publisher, my accountant, my fans, were all asking the same question: what’s next?
The money wasn’t running out—yet. But it would. Jenn was making a decent salary, but we had a large monthly nut to crack, and we were young. There was still a lot of life left to pay for. And I needed to work. Not just for the money, but for me.
The day after our bitter realization by the mailbox, Jenn woke up, woke me, announced she was going back to work, and did it. She never looked back. At first I couldn’t understand how she could do it. Secretly, I began to judge her for the apparent ease with which she did. But slowly I figured it out. She was reaching out for something to hold on to. During the relentless storm of what had happened to us—what was still happening to us—she’d wisely grabbed an anchor. I, however, opted for floating aimlessly about. I was jealous of her.
The police assured us that they were still on the case, still actively searching for Mikki. Words can lie. The looks on their faces told the truth. Clues and leads had all but dried up. The damn TV expert was right. The longer Mikki was missing, the less probable it was that she would ever be found. And if she was—well, it wasn’t likely to be a happy ending to the story.
Jenn and I did our best to support each other. In spite of her declarations that she didn’t blame me for not coming home early on the night of Mikki’s disappearance, deep down I doubted her. And I doubted myself. I told myself I wasn’t to blame; our therapist did the same. But guilt is an intrusive, nasty thing, nearly impossible to eradicate entirely.
I needed to write. Something—anything—to run interference with my mind. I needed the distraction. I needed Jaspar Wills back.
As unexpected and unsolicited as it had been, the fame and attention that had attached itself to In The Middle was nothing short of extraordinary. The media circus, the TV and radio talk shows, the speaking engagements, the travel opportunities, the glitzy parties at clubs and mansions, the invitations to be everything from a guest of honor at literary conventions to a judge at beauty contests, the adulation of millions—all of it was heady, exciting, addictive stuff. I wasn’t the first—nor would I be the last—author to experience this, but I’d ridden the wave for significantly longer than many of my peers who’d had similar runaway hits. It helped that I was keen to do it, that I was young and had plenty of energy. The subsequent movie adaptation was like exchanging a match with a firecracker. Suddenly the book had a whole new life, a new rash of fans, people discovering my writing for the first time—followed by a fresh round of interviews and events, this time on a scale even bigger and ritzier than before.
Then, it was over. Suddenly, instead of people holding out copies of the book for my autograph—eyes wide with admiration, words dripping with praise—they stood before me empty-handed. Asking to be filled up, to be given something more—and quickly, because if I didn’t comply they’d forget about me and move on to the next literary superstar holding the magic keys to the zeitgeist. Maybe it would be a teenage lesbian werewolf with an especially kind heart, or a cooking guru with recipes for heart-healthy fast foods made in a deep fryer, or an alien who arrives on earth from outer space dispensing relationship advice with the clichéd lesson that we all have the same problems no matter where in the universe we’re from.
I wanted to do it. Badly. I wanted to give them exactly what they wanted. I knew I could do it. I had it in me, ideas for a hundred more In The Middles. Once the whirlwind of traveling and promotional activities and—let’s be honest—fete-feasts was over, I’d have the time to allow my creativity to unleash the next something special. I would do it.
Then, my daughter was taken and my life imploded.
I’d lost confidence that I would ever get my old life back—or anything resembling it. I lived only for sleep. Deep, mindless, soulless, blinding, undemanding sleep.
So when the alarm startled me awake, its jarring blasts insisting that a bomb was about to detonate next to my head, it took me a moment to figure out what to do. Eventually, I rolled over to Jenn’s side of the bed and took a poorly-aimed swipe at the damn thing. Nothing. The bleating continued—persistent, ear-splitting. I opened one eye and locked a hate-filled gaze on the ugly clock face. Where the hell was the doohickey that shut this thing up?
When several more slaphappy attempts went unrewarded, I pulled myself up on one elbow, grabbed the clock, forced my second eye open, and stared uncomprehendingly at the contraption, the shut-off procedure not particularly intuitive at six o’clock in the fucking morning.
That’s when it struck me.
It was 6:00 a.m. Where was my wife? Why wasn’t she here to shut off the alarm like she always did?
I studied the tangle of bed sheets as if that would help
. No water glass on the nightstand. Jenn always brought a glass of water to bed with her and never took the empty one back to the kitchen in the morning, leaving that chore for me. I searched my sleep-fogged memory for clues.
At least once in the course of every night of our marriage, even if it was just for a few minutes, we would unconsciously slip into the spooning position. As far as I could recall, that hadn’t happened last night. Why not?
The alarm ringing in my head began to rival the mechanical one next to it.
Suddenly another bell joined the clamor.
What the hell is happening?
The phone.
I grabbed it and shouted into the defenseless receiver. “Hold on!”
Who’s calling the house at six in the morning?
With unnecessary might, I pulled the alarm clock’s cord out of the wall.
The bleating continued. Damn battery backup.
Fuck redundancy systems!
I turned the device upside down, looking for the battery compartment; instead I found a switch labeled “Alarm On/Off” and gratefully moved it to the desired position.
Blessed silence restored, I returned to the phone. “Hello?”
“Jaspar? Is that you?”
It was Jenn’s friend, Katie. “Yeah, Katie, I…”
“Jaspar, Jenn’s in jail.”
“What?” Nothing about this morning was making sense. “Why?”
“She’s been arrested. For attempted murder.”
Chapter 20
The police precinct's waiting room was as cheerless and uninviting as the fittingly overcast Wednesday morning. Katie Edwards, newly minted toast-of-the-town newsy—thanks to her friendship with my wife and resultant primetime access to the goulash our lives had become—was as camera-ready as you’d expect a reporter-on-the-rise to be. I found her multitasking between iPhone and iPad when I walked in. She was laughably well put-together for so early in the morning, especially compared to my barely-conscious, unshaven, uncaffeinated, distraught self.
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