A Guide for Murdered Children

by Sarah Sparrow

  Another strange thing was that Tim somehow got it into his head that he had a drinking problem, which was absolute nonsense. He never drank hard liquor and only had a half-glass of wine a few nights a week. But one day (and yes, she thought it was three months ago) he announced that he’d be attending AA meetings two or three times a week, not far from the house. She did her best to interrogate him about that, jokingly asking if he’d been stashing bottles of liquor like Jack Lemmon did in one of their favorite movies. He was closemouthed and adamant about his decision. She never liked interfering in his private life and thoughts—oh, they talked a lot about mutual interests and worries; it wasn’t like they hid things from each other—and in the end, she thought, Who am I to say? If Tim thinks he has a problem and if those meetings make him happy, I’m all for it. And they did make him happy; whenever he returned from AA, his mood seemed buoyant, lighter. She loved having dinner ready for him when he got home, with the kids already in bed. It felt romantic.

  It crossed her mind that he was having an affair. They hadn’t been physical in months, but that was never high on their to-do list. They were spooners. And besides, her husband was cuddlier than ever. She knew in her heart that unfaithfulness wasn’t a possibility.

  What she couldn’t have known was that Tim had actually died months ago and the reason he made those day trips was to find the person who had murdered the child he’d joined forces with. Battle Creek and Lansing were false starts—in private conversation, Annie assured him that things sometimes took a moment to “geographically come together”—and he finally found his man in Flint. The killer was about thirty-five, on parole for exposing himself to a child. As he strangled him, the boy José receded while the brute strength of Tim Norris, enhanced by what felt like superpowers, took over. (Tim looked into the man’s eyes the entire time.) As the life went out of him, José the child could finally remember what had happened.

  Ten years ago, in Kissimmee, Florida, a man outside a convenience store waved him over. He was dressed like a policeman, sort of, but his car was a regular one with a dent in the door and duct tape holding a headlight in place. He told José that something happened to his dad and he was there to take him to the police station. He wasn’t an aggressive kid and when the man’s tone became forceful, José got in. They traveled on dirt roads for an hour before pulling over. The man took him to a barn and said, “We’re going to do some things that you’re probably not going to enjoy—but that’s life. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t enjoy.” At five in the morning, José died from internal hemorrhaging. He was buried in a swamp.

  All of the details flashed before Tim’s and José’s eyes as they strangled him. Tim saw the faces of two other children the man had killed too—one in Louisiana, one in Kansas—and felt their release, prompting the engineer-landlord, not the child-tenant, to offer a simple prayer: May you rest in peace. When he loosened his hold on the murderer, he was flooded with emotions belonging to José; for the first time since melding with Tim Norris, the boy yearned for his Kissimmee home. How he missed his parents! Tim and José cried for the hour it took to get back to Detroit and sang the popular song, José’s papi’s favorite, that his family used to sing on weekend road trips:

  Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena

  Hey, Macarena!

  Drawing on Tim’s more developed sense of regret, José felt a pang of guilt. Why hadn’t he bothered to contact his mother and father, his sisters? To see what they looked like now, where they lived, and if they were in good health? It didn’t seem “natural,” it was so selfish, so mean, even though Annie had already addressed the topic. She reminded all of them how the Guide informed them that those who returned wouldn’t give the parents and siblings they’d left behind much thought, and while that seemed callous, it was “as it should be.” Spying on the family one lost would only be a distraction, an encumbrance to effecting the moment of balance.

  That day, they drove directly to the Meeting from Flint so that José could take his birthday cake. The Porter knew at a glance that José had fulfilled his purpose.

  When he saw Annie, he was distraught, blurting out how he wanted to see mi papi y mi mama and what should he do? In her experience, the urge to visit family was nothing new—she encountered it in 90 percent of her children after their moment of balance. She took his hands in hers, noticing that he’d lost his blueness, which was expected when a mission was complete.

  “I’m afraid there isn’t time for that, José,” she said gently. He bowed his head in sadness. “But your family will always be with you and I think you know that. They’re with you now.” José nodded and she knew the landlord Tim was helping the child to make sense of her words. “When you take your cake, don’t forget to thank Tim. And Tim—when you get home, don’t forget to thank José as well! Make sure. Sit in the driveway before you go in and thank him. It’s so important to thank those who’ve helped us in this world. In any world.”

  José grew stronger during the Meeting, no longer preoccupied by the family he had lost. He sat listening to everyone with a smile on his face, and all of them could see that he had been released. When he blew out the candles, he thanked the landlord-tenants for their fellowship, and then he thanked Tim, saving Annie for last. He spoke to her in Spanish. The others became emotional, even though they couldn’t understand his words.

  The Meeting ended with a raucous “Macarena” and the song stuck in their heads for more than a few days.

  HEAR ME, WILLOW

  1.

  Willow went through a thousand head trips about all the ways he was going to maneuver his neighbor into bed, then bam—there they were under the sheets, moaning and grinding away.

  Nurse Dixie outmaneuvered him.

  And he felt alive again, no shit.

  —take that, Miranda!

  She was almost thirty years younger, and it wasn’t just the freshness of her body that excited him. (Not that it wouldn’t have been enough.) No, it was the pure psychology behind her attraction, or his interpretation of it, anyway: that she likely had a thing for older men. Something about that theory was as hot as it was self-serving. And it wasn’t just the daddy thing that turned him on. It was the boldness of a youngster who said fuck it, who grabbed the old bull by the horns and took the perilous leap into AARP World. She wasn’t a knockout, but Jesus—the sly twist of her mouth, more pronounced than Adelaide’s, sent him over the edge.

  The staying power of the things he loved in women always amazed him. The hair on their arms, the way they laughed or got shy when he looked in their eyes as they fucked, the sounds they made in bed while transported to another place. Women were a wild and messy feast. He loved the way they talked, the words they chose, hell, he loved the way they farted. The staying power of lovemaking itself amazed. By all rights, fornication was a foul, dumbly repetitive, crazy-stupid act, and that it managed to consistently transcend dropped the detective’s jaw. The way it could heal, the joy it brought, the intense spirituality of it—that fleeting fusion with all humanity. Willow got all misty and mystical just thinking about its divine puzzle.

  “So how long you been a cop?”

  “Longer than you’ve been on the planet.”

  In the short while they’d known each other, they hadn’t really spoken all that much. Getting into bed hadn’t required the usual investment of time-consuming nonsense, which only spiked his crush. And now, just talking with the lady was one more aphrodisiac.

  “Are you retired?”

  “Not really,” he said. “I kind of have a new job”—he said it like that because he still couldn’t believe it—“that’s why I’m here in Macomb.”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be playing Fast and Furious?” she said, with a crooked smile.

  “Those guys aren’t cops. But you tell me,” he said, referring to recent events.

  “Well . . . you were pretty furious—and not too fast, I
’ll give you that.”

  She winked, cuddling up. They made out a while.

  I could fall in love with this woman . . .

  He got up to pee and then Dixie did the same as he went to the kitchen for Diet Dr Peppers. She came into the living room and sprawled on the couch, fishing a roach from her purse.

  “You smoke?”

  “Nope.”

  “ ’Cause you’re a cop?”

  “ ’Cause I’m sober.”

  “That’s cool. Mind if I indulge?”

  “Actually, if you want to do that, Dixie, I’d appreciate it if you went outside.” He was matter-of-fact, not mean.

  “No worries.”

  She put the roach away and lit a cigarette instead.

  “Temptation can be . . . tempting,” said Willow, trying not to sound defensive. “‘The phenomenon of craving’ and all that.”

  “So you’re in AA?”

  “I try to be.”

  “I’ve been to some meetings—mostly Al-Anon. It’s crazy how many nurses and doctors I know are drug addicts. But I never really drank because it gives me migraines. My dad’s an alcoholic, though. And I never liked painkillers because they make it hard to poop. I do like weed but I don’t get too crazy. I take it mostly for my headaches.”

  “Are you having one now?”

  “Nope! You haven’t given me a migraine—yet.” She stared at the wall opposite them. “I love that you painted on that! I promise I won’t tell the landlord or you might have to arrest yourself.” She scrutinized the creation. “What is it?”

  “What does it look like?” he said. “I mean, to you.”

  “A fence?” She tilted her head. “Like, a fence lying on its side? It’s hard to . . . It’s kinda dark in here. But is it—”

  “Train tracks.”

  “Ah! Okay. Yeah, I can see that.”

  “It’s kind of whatever you want it to be.”

  She smiled and said, “C’mere, Rorschach,” then kissed him. Despite his older-man tricks, Dixie had all the power—it wasn’t even close. It was ridiculous the amount of power a woman had. “Willow . . . such a sad and beautiful name. ‘Dixie’—I mean, what does anyone think of? Dixie cups and rednecks. But Willow . . .” She began to softly sing, stroking his neck with her perfect, slender, chewed-up fingers. He’d always liked a nail-biter. “‘Willow, weep for me. Willow, weep for me. Bend your branches green, along the stream that runs to sea . . .’ Mom used to sing us to sleep with that.”

  “Your voice is really beautiful.”

  “Ya think? You’re lucky I wasn’t stoned! My singing tends to be a little more dramatic when I’m high.”

  “That’d be okay. I like drama.”

  “Careful what you wish for.”

  2.

  After she left, around 10:00 P.M.—she had to get up at 5:00 for a morning shift—Willow lay on the couch, his mind wandering.

  He thought of how good it would have been to smoke that weed. How good the sex would have been . . . not that it could have gotten much better. Replaying choice bits from their rumble in the jungle, he felt himself becoming aroused, like some kind of teenager. There’s hope for you yet, ol’ boy.

  He went to the bedroom and tried to sleep. Sniffed the pillow where her head had been. Sniffed the sheets and started playing with himself, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was restless.

  Hungry.

  Without thought, he got up, got dressed and drove straight to the Early World Diner.

  It was a quarter full.

  Random folks: a solitary older woman, three kids with piercings and spiky hair, an old vet (not his neighbor) out way past his bedtime. Prolly got some bad news from the VA. Willow ordered fried chicken, a lifetime ritual he liked to indulge après sex.

  The solitary woman walked toward him. When he glanced up, she smiled.

  “Willow?” she said, eyes twinkling.

  “Yes?”

  “Annie Ballendine, ‘World’s Greatest Volunteer’—we met the other night at the hospital.”

  “Oh! Yes—hi,” he said, his own smile fading.

  She shook his hand and then plunked herself across from him. “You surprised me the other day.”

  “How so?” said Willow, perplexed.

  “I wasn’t expecting you so soon. But there you were. I came to you tonight—here,” she said, laughing, “because I didn’t want any more surprises!”

  She charmed and terrified him all at once. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

  He was still trying to be affable. He wouldn’t want Adelaide to get a bad report.

  “I understand,” she said. “I felt the same way when Jasper—Mr. Sebastian—paid me a visit my first time. But I didn’t have the luxury of being in a cozy little coffee shop, enjoying a lovely late-night meal. I was ‘in hospital,’ as they used to say. The nut ward.”

  “What is it that you want, Annie?” he said, with an edge to his voice.

  “What do I want?” She smiled. “Well, what I want is just one thing.”

  Willow felt himself softly come asunder. He didn’t know what was happening (yet absolutely knew). The part that was ignorant dug in and spun its wheels. Would she ask for money? Blackmail him over some old felony? The spinning tires splattered mud in a frenzy, deepening the rut. Was she the mother of some douchebag he put behind bars, here to exact an explosive, fatal revenge?

  But the part that knew stiffened, and made him wonder if he would be able to survive the ordeal that was coming. What ordeal, though? Instinct only told him so much. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut, waylaid by imperial powers commanding him to drop everything and set off on an expedition to climb Everest, without oxygen.

  Their booth contracted, like the cabin of a train.

  “Give me one thing, Willow,” she said.

  “And what’s that?” he said numbly.

  “Your attention. I want your attention.”

  REUNIONS

  1.

  He felt hungover when he got to the office in the morning.

  They talked—Annie talked—for more than an hour, while he listened, insensate. Willow figured he’d retained only 10 percent of what she said, if that. He spent the morning cautiously revisiting the few snippets he was able to recall, fearing a more comprehensive effort might somehow prove injurious.

  His wheels stopped spinning; they’d fallen off entirely.

  What the woman described was nothing short of madness. He had already begun a heroic struggle not to be sucked into the vortex, but to Willow it was insane that he even felt susceptible. He wondered if he’d been poisoned. She shook my hand before sitting down . . . maybe that’s when I absorbed the pyschotropic powder. As a detective in New York he’d interviewed every crackpot known to man, sometimes climbing deep inside their heads; Annie had climbed into his. He dredged up a phrase from college psych books—folie à deux—a term that defined the sharing of a delusion or mental illness by two people. Maybe this is what that looked like. Or the beginning of it . . .

  At the moment, the only thing that offset the disorienting outlandishness of Ms. Ballendine’s bullet points was Dixie. When his thoughts became too crazy, he flashed on their carnal moments and it settled his nerves—the sole shared delusion he was up for.

  During Annie’s monologue, he wanted to bolt but his feet were encased in cement. He was shocked when she spoke of the train, reminding him that it was the place where they first met. “You had a Tom Collins—remember?—that was a new wrinkle.” She even referred to his wall paintings, saying that many years ago she’d been compelled to do a mural “in the same theme myself, in the room where I lived during my apprenticeship.” She discreetly paused whenever Willow zoned out; though it didn’t have much effect, Annie occasionally touched his hand, to comfort. Then she would ask if he had any quest
ions, like a doctor trying to interview a patient who’d just had surgery and was still under the fog of anesthesia.

  “You don’t have to know the ‘whys and wherefores,’ because there aren’t any, not really. At least none we can understand. But what is important to know, as a father, is that you’re going to be a father again. Which is marvelous, isn’t it, don’t you think? And it’s important to know as well that you have arrived—you’ve disembarked and you’re in the station now, whether you know it or not! We don’t have a choice about such things. I’m just like you, Willow. I didn’t have a choice either. And like you, I’m no one special—but I can show you what to do, where to go, how to be. That is my privilege and my honor.”

  She patted his hand and then stood to leave.

  “You’ll be fine,” she said. “You just need a moment to integrate. And thank you for giving me your attention! It’s really all that I wanted.”

  2.

  The new recruits were waiting for him like anxious children in detention when Willow walked in.

  Jesus. They’re just kids.

  What was Owen thinking?

  “They’re greener than green,” the sheriff had said. “But I’m telling you, Dubya, they certainly have the aptitude. Mark my words—in a few months, they’ll be known far and wide as the Cold Case Kids.” Like an amateur soothsayer, he added, “I have a feeling about those two.”