The Year of Fog

by Michelle Richmond

  “Of course.”

  I can hear Jake pouring a cup of coffee, a spoon clinking against the sides of the mug as he stirs the sugar in. “You’ll come over? We’ll ride together?”

  “Yes.”

  I scan my closet for something black, put on tasteful makeup, and go over to Jake’s house. We ride to the church together, not speaking, his eyes on the road, his face unreadable. I stand in front of the congregation at the big Catholic church, the church whose windows I’ve admired numerous times from the street. Most of the people we would have invited to our wedding are here, along with Emma’s school friends and their parents, the volunteers from the command post, Detective Sherburne, police officers who helped with the investigation. Someone, perhaps one of Jake’s students, leaked the service to a reporter, and many strangers are in attendance as well. Even Leslie Gray is here, along with her cameraman.

  Jake and I sit in the front row, holding hands. He is quiet, composed. Resigned.

  Several people get up and talk about Emma—her first-grade teacher, her cello instructor, the mother of her best friend. We’re fifteen minutes into the ceremony when Lisbeth arrives. She walks to the front of the church, presses past me in the pew, and plants herself on Jake’s other side.

  When it’s my turn to speak, I look out at the crowd of somber faces and name all the things I love about Emma. I tell anecdotes in which Emma comes alive for the audience, repeating funny little things she said, making the mourners laugh at her dream of being a stonemason. I thank the good people of San Francisco for their support.

  As I return to my seat, Lisbeth stands. It occurs to me that she’s about to take the podium, as if she has some right to eulogize a child she doesn’t even know. Jake grabs her firmly by the arm. “No,” he says, in a voice loud enough for half the church to hear. Lisbeth clears her throat, attempts a smile, and sits back down.

  When the service is over, I ride to the cemetery with Jake, behind the hearse that carries a small, empty coffin. The burial is a private ceremony, just me, Jake, the priest, a couple of teachers from Jake’s school, and the family of Emma’s best friend. Lisbeth is absent. As the coffin is lowered into the ground, Jake finally allows himself to cry in public.

  I find myself crying, too. Yet, the whole time, I want to shout that this is a lie. There is no truth to this coffin, no truth to the small grave, the upturned earth, the smell of fresh-cut grass. Emma is alive.

  “Maybe it’s time,” Jake says as we’re driving back to his house.

  “Time for what?”

  “Our wedding. It wouldn’t have to be a big affair. We could just go to the justice of the peace.”

  I briefly consider the possibility. Maybe it’s not a terrible idea. Maybe we could forge a fragile peace in the early months of our marriage, learn to live together under these new terms, maybe even find a way to be happy.

  “Well?” he says.

  “You know I want to marry you, Jake. You know I love you—”

  “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Abby. Ever since her little shoe appeared, I’ve been thinking about trying to find a way to keep going. You see these parents on TV, parents who lose a child and turn their grief into something significant, something positive. And it occurred to me that I can’t be like John Walsh. Maybe it’s selfish, but I can’t keep reliving this for the next thirty years. I want to get some kind of life back. Maybe one day you and I could start trying to have a baby. I know we can’t replace Emma, I know another child won’t eliminate the pain, but we have to find a way to move on.

  “Do you remember a conversation we had a long time ago, when we first decided to get married? I told you that I loved you for a dozen reasons, and only one of them was that you would be a good mother to Emma. That hasn’t changed.”

  “I just don’t think this is the right time, Jake.” I don’t know what else to say, how to explain to him what I’m feeling. Part of me wants so badly to be with him, to get back to some sort of life together, that I wish I could take back my words as soon as I’ve said them. But the fact is I don’t want a life based on a falsehood, on the illusion of Emma’s death. My mother always accused me of desiring too much, of getting an idea in my head and being too stubborn to revise it to fit reality. But this is what I want, this is what, in clearer moments, I am still able to visualize: Jake and me and Emma, together as a family. Nothing less.

  After a quiet reception at Jake’s house, I go home, change clothes, and take the coast road south out of the city. It’s four in the afternoon when I reach Half Moon Bay. I spend a couple of hours there, talking to surfers, showing the picture of Emma, the sketches of the couple from the van. On the way home I stop at the Taco Bell in Pacifica, which is perched on an absurdly beautiful piece of beach with panoramic views of the ocean. It’s been a good surfing day, “a fine west swell” according to the surf report being broadcast on someone’s radio, and the surfers are giddy, spent, wolfing down tacos and bean burritos as if they hadn’t eaten in days. I order a Coke, sit alone at a tiny two-top, and search the faces in the crowd.

  The northbound lane of the coast road is crowded with day-trippers, and it takes over an hour to get back to the city. I take the Great Highway and veer right on Point Lobos Avenue, following Geary up through the Richmond, past the Alexandria and the Coronet. The latter has just closed down after eighty years in business, one more grand old movie house lost. It was Emma’s favorite theater; now, the marquee reads: Future Home of The Institute on Aging.

  I stop in front of the church and go inside. In front of the altar a few candles still burn. I sit in the second pew and stare up at the flickering candles, the Virgin Mary, the shiny figure of Christ spreading his arms wide on a gilded cross. The church is empty save for a homeless man sleeping in the back. I lower the bench, kneel, and make the sign of the cross. I wait for some electricity in my fingers, a voice whispering from the dark. Jesus is calling, the choir used to sing. If there is a voice, surely I will hear it now.

  Kneeling, hands folded, forehead pressed to my thumbs, I pray and cry and beg, making promises to a God I’ve never met. I am emptied, as the preachers always said I should be, but no great spirit wafts out of the dark to fill the void. At some point I hear a shuffling of feet. The church is filling with parishioners for evening mass. As I walk down the aisle toward the door, eyes scan me briefly and look away. I must look like some lunatic in my wrinkled clothes, my sand-covered shoes, my matted hair.

  In the car again I turn on the radio, just for something to fill the black space in my brain. On KALW, Roman Mars is leading a fund-raiser. On KQED, Michael Krasney is interviewing Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster. I turn the dial past commercials and talk shows, skipping several stations until I finally find music. It’s that Wilco song, of course, and I know I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to get it out of my head.

  54

  And thou, Mnemnosyne mine, who art hidden beneath the thirty seals and immured within the dark prison of the shadow of ideas, let me hear thy voice sounding in my ear.

  —Giordano Bruno

  THE HYPNOSIS appointment is on a Monday. Dr. Shannon has a posh office in Palo Alto, just off the square. The lobby is done in oak, and artwork in expensive frames adorns the walls. A single white sofa stretches around the entire room. An attractive young man sits at an antique desk, recording something in a big ledger. His eyes are a startling shade of green—colored contact lenses. He takes my name, gives me a clipboard and pen, asks me to fill out some forms.

  At precisely one o’clock, the assistant ushers me into a large room that smells of leather, where a sturdy woman in an orange pantsuit and purple scarf is perched on a tall chair.

  “Dr. Shannon,” she says, offering her hand. She has a big, toothy smile, and tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose that make her look like a wholesome country girl. She’s nothing like I expected. When I talked to her on the phone and explained the reason for my visit, her calm, deep voice made me imagine a thin woman in a bl
ack sheath, someone aloof and sophisticated.

  “Please have a seat, Abby.”

  I sink into the recliner, feeling at an immediate disadvantage. Dr. Shannon is up high, in her hardback chair, while I’m down low with my knees in the air. “Before we begin, you should know a couple of things,” she says, staring at me with a disturbing intensity. “First, memory is a deep sea.”

  I nod, mesmerized by her pantsuit, her whimsical ideas about color, wondering where she got the idea that orange is the new black.

  “Second, one cannot conquer memory, just as one cannot conquer the sea. One may dive into it, explore, but one may not own it. Understand?”

  I nod again.

  “Third, one must always come up for air. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to help you dive in, then I’m going to lead you up for air.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Maybe I should tell you I tried this once before. I had a lot of hope for where it might lead, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Maybe you weren’t ready yet,” she says. “Are you ready now?”

  “I think so.”

  She glances down at my feet—knee-high black boots. “You might want to take your shoes off and get more comfortable.”

  I unzip my boots and place them by my chair, embarrassed that I didn’t take the time to match my socks this morning.

  “Good. Now I’m going to lead you into a state of deep relaxation, and then I’ll ask you to talk about that day on the beach. When you come out of hypnosis, you should be able to remember everything clearly. You may experience changes in your body, like a feeling of lightness or heaviness.” She glances down at her notes. “On the telephone, you said you want to remember all the details of the day your little girl disappeared, correct?”

  “Yes, my fiancé’s little girl.”

  “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

  “I’m most interested in the minutes leading up to the disappearance, after we arrived at the beach. License plates would be good. Anything specific about the people in the parking lot. Especially this couple in a van. Any markings on their van would be helpful.”

  “Let’s begin by closing your eyes,” Dr. Shannon says. Then she begins to talk, her voice deep and smooth. She says that I am comfortable, that I am tired, that memory is a deep, warm sea. She says I should trust her. She tells me to dive in. For a while nothing happens. She keeps talking, a low monotone. At some point I feel my body becoming lighter, as if my arms are floating.

  “Go back to that day at Ocean Beach. You’re in the parking lot with Emma. Tell me what you see.”

  “An orange Chevelle. There’s a man inside, reading the paper. Windows down. Hula girl on the dashboard.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “A line of ants struggling along the pavement. Emma stops to look. A dead sand crab. Emma’s yellow bucket, her red plastic shovel, her blue shoes. She’s stomping the ants and the crab.”

  “Very good,” Dr. Shannon says. Her voice is quiet, steady. The scene becomes more vivid, and I feel the details of that day washing over me. The hum of cars on Ocean Boulevard. The fog like some pleasant dream. The foam crackling, a sandcastle that’s been mostly washed away, with just one rounded turret remaining.

  “Let’s stay in the parking lot for a while,” Dr. Shannon says. “Take your time.”

  I see a rope stretched taut at the edge of the lot, where the asphalt is crumbling away. The rock wall is disintegrating. “California is falling into the ocean,” I say, aware of my mother’s words coming out of my mouth, her oft-repeated refrain. As I child, I used to look at the U.S. map on the wall of my father’s study and imagine the country breaking apart neatly along the California border, the whole state simply dropping off and floating away.

  “What do you see in the parking lot?”

  “A yellow van, one of those hippie numbers. There’s a woman looking out of the window, smiling, waving at Emma. The driver’s side door is open, and there’s a man standing there, barefoot, shirtless, waxing a surfboard.”

  “What does he look like, this man?”

  “Good-looking, unshaven, sandy blond hair, muscular arms. He winks at Emma and says hello. She looks up at me, and I squeeze her hand. She squeezes back; she’s small but so strong. She has little calluses at the base of her fingers from holding on to the handlebars of her bike. ‘Hi,’ she says. The man replies that it’s a beautiful day. He has a lazy eye.”

  “Which eye?”

  “The left.”

  “Tell me about the van. What does it look like?”

  “Pale yellow. Rust around the tires.”

  “You said there are curtains in the window. What color?”

  “Blue, trimmed with little red beads. And there’s a crack in the windshield covered with duct tape.”

  “Very good. What else?”

  “There’s a bumper sticker just below the window where the woman is looking out. Big white letters on a blue background, but the only one I can see is a T. There’s a small figure of a man riding a wave over the top of the T.”

  “Good. Now, walk around to the back of the van. Can you see the license plate?”

  I see the place where the license plate should be, a blank rectangle, but nothing more.

  “What color is the license plate?”

  I feel my palms sweating, and my arms feel light, weightless. I’m aware of the importance of the license plate, but unable to make anything of it. I feel a warm hand on my own.

  “It’s okay,” Dr. Shannon says. “Look at the man. Describe him.”

  “His fingernails are very short. He’s wearing a bracelet—a thin silver chain with something dangling from it. On his chest there’s a tattoo, a wave breaking over his nipple. At the apex of the wave, an oval birthmark.”

  “Does he have any other tattoos?”

  “No, that’s all.”

  “Any scars?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, Abby, now I want you to concentrate on the surfboard.”

  “It’s a longboard, propped against the van. A reddish color.”

  “Does it have any markings?”

  “In the center, there’s some sort of insect.”

  “What kind?”

  “No, not an insect, a frog, a golden frog.”

  “Are there any words on the board?”

  “Something etched into the wood on the tail. A brand, maybe.”

  “What does it say?”

  “I can’t read it.”

  “You’re doing well,” Dr. Shannon says. “Let’s talk a little bit about the woman in the window. What does she look like?”

  “Blonde. Older than the man, leathery skin, too tan. She looks kind of crazy, you know, like she’s not quite right.”

  “What makes you think she looks crazy?”

  “I don’t know, just a feeling.”

  “Can you tell me anything more about the van, Abby?”

  I search and search, but nothing more comes to mind.

  “What about the other cars in the parking lot?”

  “There’s a postal truck, a motorcycle.”

  “What kind of motorcycle?”

  “Small, red, a Honda maybe.”

  “Is there anyone on it?”

  “No.”

  She coaches me along for several more minutes, asking questions I can’t find an answer for. I’m trying to get closer to the man and the yellow van, but each time I take a step, they seem to move away, becoming less distinct.

  A hand on my arm. “Time to come up for air, Abby. We’re in my office. Now, slowly, I’d like for you to open your eyes.”

  Dr. Shannon has moved her chair closer to mine. She smells faintly of cigarettes. Am I imagining it, or is there a thin trail of smoke in the air beside her? She lets go of my hand and begins jotting notes on her yellow pad. “How do you feel?”

 
“Fine. Was I hypnotized?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I didn’t feel hypnotized.”

  “That’s perfectly normal.”

  “Did we get anywhere?”

  “You tell me. Think back on the information you revealed. Is any of it new?”

  I notice for the first time that Dr. Shannon’s purple scarf is printed with white monkeys. Some of the monkeys are smiling, some frowning, and some are sitting with their hands in their laps, like obedient schoolchildren.

  As I sift through the memories, I feel a sinking disappointment. I’ve been through all this stuff before—just the same tired details, the same meaningless clues. “But the frog,” I say. “That’s new. I didn’t remember the frog on the surfboard before. Or the bumper sticker.”

  “Good,” she says. She seems pleased but not at all surprised. She stands up and does an odd little bow, an indication that we’re finished.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Certainly. Give my regards to your brother-in-law.”

  I meet Jake for lunch at La Cumbre. We sit at a table in the back, beneath a tiny square window. He slides a knife into his burrito. Beans and salsa bleed onto the plate. He looks at my untouched food. “You’re wasting away.”

  I stab at the burrito with my fork, sip sugary orange soda from a bottle. Tinny Mexican music drifts from the speakers. It’s “Hotel California,” with the lyrics redone in Spanish. On the wall above Jake’s head, there’s a painting of a dancing woman in a ruffled red skirt and heels.

  “I went to a therapist,” I blurt.

  “That’s good, Abby.” In his eyes I can see he is pleased with me. “Did it help?”

  “Not a therapist, really. More of a—”

  “A what?”

  “Well, she was kind of a hypnotist.”

  He sets his fork down, rests his elbows on the table. “Why?”

  “I wanted to remember. And I did, I came up with something. Remember the guy in the van? During hypnosis, I was able to see his surfboard clearly.”

  “What are you saying?”