A Guide for Murdered Children

by Sarah Sparrow

  1.

  He wrote the address on the wall of his Port Hope double-wide.

  Day by day Willow added doodles and filigrees—with Sharpies at first, then with a set of multicolored markers he picked up in town—to the numbers, street name and zip code of the locale that the handsome woman on the train had given him. The ornamental designs were becoming almost beautiful. Willow never knew he had it in him; might have to start wearing a beret. He really did think it was the sort of mural that a woman he was trying to seduce would be impressed by. Trouble was, if he spoke of its true origin, the gal might think he’d gone mad. He was wondering if maybe he had.

  He still believed that his drinking was controlled, if controlled meant falling short of bingeing. But Dubya was spooked because experience had shown that the illusion of self-will wouldn’t last. He had an inkling about what was keeping him at least temporarily from the cliff’s edge. He told himself it was because he had a goal—to remember what happened each night in the recurring dream he’d been having since awakening on the train in Pittsburgh. In order to do that, he needed to moderate. Blackouts weren’t conducive to memory retention.

  The suicidal consequences of relapse had yet to hit him full force; Willow was still in the honeymoon phase of denial. But it sure felt shitty when he telegraphed fake sobriety by getting extra solicitous—almost perky—during phone calls with his daughter. Ugh. He didn’t want to break Pace’s heart for the thousandth time and there was just no upside in being honest with her, other than to expiate his own guilt. (He wasn’t even sure if he felt guilty anymore.) The girl had enough on her plate. She and Geoff were setting a date for Larkin’s surgery at Children’s Hospital in Detroit, and that he could help his grandson swelled Willow’s heart. It was a vaccine that did wonders in tamping down his horror of the thing he sensed was lying in wait.

  He’d been manically clipping photos of trains from all kinds of magazines, scotch-taping them to the wall on the periphery of The Address, giving the whole of it a blue watercolor wash. He stepped back now to give it a look.

  Jesus. This could be in the fucking Whitney.

  When the phone rang, he thought it might be Miranda the bodyworker. He was beginning to think the old girl was falling in love with him. Love was a mystery. Sometimes it began with a warm, wet hand towel. Sometimes it ended that way too.

  “Dubya?”

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “Your favorite Zen Dyke-ist.”

  “Renata?” he said, in pleasant surprise.

  “Well, shit, Willow. How many other Zen Dyke-ists do you know?”

  “You never called me Dubya.”

  “Yeah, well, consider it ‘contrary action.’ Like the Big Book suggests.”

  His body both relaxed and stiffened. They’d been through the war together and he wondered if he’d be able to lie. “You in Fort Lauderdale?” he said.

  “I am. Home unsweet home.”

  “God, it’s good to hear your voice.”

  “It’s good to hear yours, Mayor Wylde. Sunday mornings just aren’t the same without your news, sports and weather report. You always put a smile on my face, buckaroo.”

  “Feels kinda like a dream, right? The Meadows? Like it happened a hundred years ago.”

  “Maybe it did—you know, in our past lives. But I can’t decide if it was a dream or a nightmare.”

  They laughed over that.

  “So what are you doing with yourself, kid?” he said.

  “Same old same old. Up at three A.M. for meditation. Read the sutras then bike to the zendo by six. Work in the kitchen till eight, then cook something special for the Roshi. Home by four, where I make spiritual use of my valuable downtime shooting up Sex and the City, Seinfeld, and the various multiple Bourne identities that are my drugs of choice.”

  “Nice.”

  “And you, my friend?”

  A grace note of heaviness was in her voice, like she knew.

  “Getting used to the world again, I suppose. As pointless as the exercise sometimes feels.”

  “Still doing the deal?” she asked.

  “Well . . .” Renata cut him off with a giggle, having intuited the rest. He was relieved. “Actually, Renny dearest, Dubya ain’t doin’ the deal so well. Let’s just say at the moment that I’m leaning more toward progress than perfection.”

  “Okay, guy,” she said, without judgment. “Wanna share?”

  He sighed. “I decided to go to New York to get my old job back. I had some crazy idea they’d be dying to have me. I had no business being there at all. And I think . . . Jesus, Renata. I think it must have been one of the most fucked-up trips of my life.”

  She guffawed. “Been there, done that.”

  “I won’t even get into all the crazy bullshit that went down. I mean, shit you would not believe. Long story short: I took the drink. Took the opiates too.”

  “And how are you doing now?”

  “Oh, I guess I’m still into it . . . but not like I was. It’s quieted down.”

  “You know, I had a feeling about you, Willow. And when I kept on having it I thought, ‘You know what, Renata? Pick up the goddam phone and call the man.’”

  “I’m so glad you did, babe. I really am. You’re the first I’ve told.”

  “Are you going to meetings?”

  “Trying. There aren’t too many in Port Hope.”

  “Well, see if you can find one. They have ’em online too. They’re actually supposed to be pretty decent.”

  “I’ll do that,” he lied.

  “You can probably Skype into one so you can at least see fresh newcomer meat.”

  “That’ll work, so long as they can’t see me. ’Cause at the moment, I am not a sexy sight to behold.”

  “Newcomer chicks ain’t picky. They’re crazier than shit but they ain’t picky.”

  “Yeah.”

  They hung there awhile just breathing, not talking.

  “Just don’t die on me, Willow.”

  “I don’t plan to. Not anytime soon.”

  “You know what they say about a plan.”

  “I know, ‘God laughs.’ Guess that’s why I’m an atheist—eliminates a major source of sadistic hilarity.”

  “Hey, you want me to come out?”

  The offer surprised and moved him, touching off a reflexive stir in the gonads. She was a dyke but he’d known many in his time who experienced the phenomenon of SDC—Sudden Dick Craving. She wasn’t Kate Upton, but hell, she could run circles around Miranda the masseuse. In that split second of cold male arithmetic, Willow chastised himself; she was a friend, and a helluva good one. He knew that her intentions were nothing but selfless and altruistic.

  “No, I don’t think so, Renata. Not at this time. But thank you, that means a helluva lot—really. Tell you what, I’ll make you a promise. If my shit goes way south, I’ll take you up on it.”

  “If your shit gets wild, Mayor Wylde?”

  “If my shit gets wild and purple. And that’s a promise.”

  He was getting ready to wrap it up when the words tumbled from his mouth as if spoken by someone else. “Hey, remember those dreams I was telling you about, the ones I was having before the Meadows?”

  “About the train?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought they were kind of beautiful.”

  “Well, I’m having them all the time now.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah—they’re . . . completely vivid. Hi-def. Like, four-D.”

  “Sounds more like Higher Power than hi-def to me.”

  “But instead of just watching the train go by—like from the outside, the way I was doing?—I’m inside now. And there’s a woman . . . there’s people—”

  “Maybe it’s the Sober Train. It’s either that or the DTs.”

 
“I don’t know what it is, Renny. But I do kind of look forward to going to sleep. Just to see what’s next.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing, Willow. ‘What’s next’ is a beautiful thing. Or can be. We ought to grab on to whatever seems to promise a little bit of serenity. God, I still dread going to sleep. It’s so damn hard. But I never was any good at it.” She paused. “Ready to make a second promise, Willow?”

  “You got it.”

  “Don’t let that peace train derail, okay? You know the Dylan song—blood on the tracks and all that.”

  “I promise.”

  “And try to find a meeting. Seriously.”

  “I will.”

  “I love you, Dubya.”

  “Love you too, Miss Contrary Action.”

  “‘May those who find themselves in fearful wildernesses—the children, the aged, the unprotected—be guarded by beneficent celestials, and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood.’”

  “Amen to that, kid.”

  “And in the words of Shakyamuni, ‘Keep coming back.’”

  2.

  A few nights later, at 3:00 A.M., no longer able to dispel the compulsion, Willow drove two hours due south to Armada. He had no say in the matter. He felt like a somnambulist.

  He took the M-19, the highway running parallel to his usual route to Pace’s home in Marlette, because he got paranoid that his insomniac daughter might glance outside her window to catch his car whisking by.

  A ludicrous fantasy but again, he couldn’t help himself.

  Then all of a sudden, as if teleported in the predawn darkness, he was curbside at the address the woman had given him in the dream: 22147 32 Mile Road.

  He sat stupefied in his ten-year-old Pontiac, listening mindlessly to One Direction, Fifth Harmony, Twenty One Pilots, 99 Souls—all the numerical Top 20 bands of the day.

  The windows of the house were dark.

  He got that shiver of blueness again and looked out toward the ridge; he couldn’t have known that he was only a few miles away from the trail where Lydia Molloy had died and been (provisionally) resurrected. Though he never asked, What the fuck am I doing here?, the phantom question’s troublesome corollary still loomed—

  —What now?

  He hadn’t drank or drugged in forty-eight hours, a goosey sobriety summoned out of respect for what was required of his bizarre, puzzling, fearsome mission. (Mission was the precise word that floated to his foggy surface.) Yet amid the chaos of his emotions, he felt deeply connected. It wasn’t until somewhere between Marlette and the outskirts of Armada Township that Willow realized he had somehow managed to conjure his childhood self, that preternatural boy who misguidedly thwarted his own eerie gifts for fear of hurting others. As he raced to the terminus on 32 Mile Road, he felt like his mother was riding shotgun and Nana was in the backseat, the aroma of their beings banishing the funk smell of month-old fast-food detritus. The two matriarchs were content. They seemed to approve of the journey their Wylde-child had embarked on . . .

  They approved of his mission.

  He switched off the radio and listened to choral works on his iPhone playlist. Awash in the sixteenth-century harmonies of Duarte Lobo, he began to weep with the notion that whatever he was doing was either crazy or holy. And for the first time, he understood they were two sides of the same coin.

  At seven in the morning, when the first light went on—was it the kitchen?—Willow left his car. He stood on the porch a few minutes, frozen and vacant. He tried to feel his mother and grandmother’s presence but could no longer. He looked back at the Pontiac, as if he might see them there, but the vibe was gone.

  Should he ring the bell or knock?

  He did both.

  In a panic, Willow realized he hadn’t done an iota of preparation for what was imminent. Suddenly he was ashamed of the arrogance that had propelled him to this freakish endgame—as if not even the simplest plan was needed because it was all just another part of his recurring dream. To save himself and buy time, he thought: When they answer, I’ll just say my name. But say it to whom? Everything was too real now, grossly undreamlike, and he became so shaken by his quixotic act that even his sobriety sobered up. He almost sprinted back to the car, where two options would present themselves: either drive to a bar or drive to a psych ward. Both seemed preferable to the mess he’d gotten himself into.

  The porch light went on and the door opened. A man glared at him, his face a grimace of puzzlement.

  “Willow?”

  The uninvited visitor stared back, his mouth agape. “Owen?”

  He almost fainted from the shock.

  A woman in a robe appeared behind Owen Caplan, with a look of terror. What was Willow doing here? He looked so strange and awful—it could only mean one thing. “Is it Pace?” she said, heart pounding furiously. Her carotid looked like it swallowed a tiny frenzied animal. “Willow! Did something happen to Pace?”

  “No! No, no, no—”

  “Is it Larkin? Did something happen to Larkin . . .”

  The blood had drained from her face.

  “No, they’re fine,” he said definitively. “Everyone’s fine.”

  “Then what is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Husband and wife waited for him to speak. When it became obvious no explanation was forthcoming, Owen took the path of grace and said, “Come in. We just put some coffee on.”

  AMENDS

  1.

  They poured him a cup and Adelaide asked if he was hungry. His arrival had been so rash that any pertinent discussion was politely suspended. They’d only moved in a few days ago and the place was a mess, filled with boxes and old and new furniture. She assumed Pace had given him their new address; he must have pried it out of her, because their daughter knew Adelaide didn’t want that information “out there” just yet. It wasn’t that she had a problem with her ex knowing where they lived. It was more about her growing accustomed to controlling her space, the small and large details of her private life.

  She was crawling out of her skin from the effort to keep her mouth shut but followed her husband’s gentle lead. She’d leave the interrogation to him. After all, Owen was the professional in the family. Thoughts swirled amid the silences and small talk: Maybe he’s here to get help. Maybe he wants us to check him into rehab. I hope he’s not here for money—

  After an awkward twenty minutes, Owen said, “Honey, let me and Willow talk awhile.”

  The toast popped up and she set it on the table with a rectangle of butter from the fridge. On the way out, she touched Willow’s shoulder, and it was a comfort to him.

  “Are you in trouble?” said Owen, after she left.

  “I—I don’t know,” said Willow.

  He felt better having shakily declared the truth.

  “Are you sober?” The guest nodded, eschewing a timeline. “Because you don’t seem sober. You look hungover.”

  “I am,” he laughed, uncomfortably. “But not from booze.”

  “Okay,” said Owen, staying neutral.

  His demeanor reminded Willow of the caring, nonjudgmental counselors at the Meadows.

  “Is there something I can do, Dubya—that we can do to help?”

  Willow hadn’t seen the man since the Rummer kids disappeared. (Owen and Adelaide had been hooked up awhile by then.) He’d seen pictures of his old partner on Facebook and whatnot—he wasn’t on Facebook himself but had Pace’s password—but hadn’t gone snooping in a while. And now, sitting in the kitchen like Mr. Vulnerable Hot Mess, with hat, heart and shrinking cock in hand, being stared at like some homeless person trying to wrangle a bed at the Salvation Army (which was pretty much how he felt), Willow held no resentment or animosity. At least he didn’t think he did but was too blown out to feel much of anything. Owen Caplan had stolen his wife—well, not really, but that was the spin Willow promoted
during the divorce and for years after. He’d managed to make some sort of peace with it.

  Twenty-five years or so before, he was an out-of-control Chicago cop who thought the move to Nowhereville would be the solution—what AA calls a “geographic”—so they packed up the debris of their lives and shipped out to Saggerty Falls. Quaint and quiet, the semirural village was free of the corrupting hubbub of the Windy City, and seemed as good a place as any to lose control again. A little more slowly this time, at least. But slow got fast and the Falls became one more place to burn down. As a card-carrying member of the Victims of America Society, he eventually blamed the arson on “the dynamic duo”—his scabrous term of endearment for Adelaide and Owen. To his reckoning, they were even the cause of his estrangement from Pace, which was only another pile of victim horseshit. It was funny but as the years went by he actually became grateful that Adelaide and Owen found each other. Their union saved a lot more grief than everyone had signed up for.

  His head began to clear. He knew there was no way he could reveal the weird truth behind his visit. I’ve been having a recurring dream that I’m on a train. A lady wrote an address down and told me to memorize it. It turned out to be your house. Willow thought it outlandish that he’d actually been entertaining such a confessional, right up to the point when Addie left the kitchen.

  No, that just wouldn’t do . . .

  He let his liar’s instinct take over instead.

  “This isn’t easy for me, Owen.” He did a little squirming, though most of it wasn’t an act. “This is—this is tough. But the reason I came . . . well—I just . . . I really wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done. Not just for Adelaide but for my daughter. For Pace. And . . . even the way you welcomed me into your house this morning—it’s just—it was kind. Very, very kind. And I appreciate it. If I was sitting where you were, I don’t know if I’d have done the same—probably not! I’da kicked my sorry ass to the curb. So I just wanted . . . I’m here to apologize. To make amends.” He emphasized the word, as if putting a tiara on his bogus brainstorm, fully aware that Owen might recognize it as one of the muddy jewels of AA’s sunken treasure chest. “I wanted to make amends for all the ways I mistreated you. Both of you. I spent a lot of years getting high. I was a terrible husband, a terrible father and a terrible cop.”