Losing Francesca

by J. A. Huss

  I realize I just missed everything Case said. "What?"

  "Fiona."

  My stomach twists at the name. "What?" I say again.

  "She's back," Park says.

  We stare at each other.

  "Back?"

  "She's back home. At the Sullivans' house. I saw a girl coming out of the woods with Angela, and we were talking to Jake and Quinn and they said she's Fiona."

  "Fiona. As in I've-been-missing-for-twelve-years Fiona?"

  "That'd be the one," Case says.

  "What's she look like?" My heart is beating so fast I can barely breathe. In fact, if I don't get up off this creeper I think I might pass out. I push off the undercarriage and slide out on the smooth concrete floor, then get to my feet and stand still as I deal with the blood rushing to my head.

  "Long brown hair, tall and thin. She's real pretty, actually."

  "Looks kinda like those pictures you see of her at the library bulletin board, except older, of course," Park offers.

  "What about her eyes?" I ask.

  "Gray," they say together.

  "Like a weird gray color, like silver almost," Case says. "I could see them from across the parking lot. It was strange, that color. Did she always have those eyes?"

  I have to turn away before I say it, that's how shaken I am. "Yeah. She always did."

  That's who that was last night.

  Fiona.

  Fiona. I say it to myself again and let out a long breath.

  "She doesn't speak any English, though," Case adds.

  "What?" I laugh this time. It breaks the spell and I manage a real sentence. Sort of. "How the hell does that happen?"

  "The kidnappers had her in Italy this whole time, so she speaks Italian." They both shrug.

  Maybe that's why she didn't say anything last night. But at least she doesn't know I was talking shit about her when I was leaving. "Is Sean home?"

  "Nah," Park says. "He's at work today, otherwise we wouldn't have been there."

  I nod at them as the wheels spin in my mind.

  Fiona.

  My feet are walking across the driveway towards my dirt bike. I'm on automatic pilot right now, I've got one thing on my mind, just one thing. I start up the bike and spin gravel as I speed down our driveway towards town.

  Woods on the Lake is not a big town by any stretch, but it's got all you need close by. The town itself is only a few square miles total, but there are plenty of other towns as you travel the shoreline of Lake Erie up towards Pennsylvania. Our house is just outside of town and we own thirty acres, most of it heavily wooded and untouched, but there's a bit of beach as well.

  We used to have a lot more lakefront property but after the parents died several years back, my older brother Renn decided to sell some to the Sullivans to pay off the house. And we didn't care really. That's not why our families, or what's left of them, aren't friends. It's because Frank Sullivan always thought Renn was too reckless and immature to care for us after the accident, and I was a total disaster with my arrest record. It was a pretty tough struggle there for a while. But now that Renn is what I'd call professionally successful, and I finally have steady mechanic work, people around here seem to have a little more faith in us to keep Case and Park out of prison.

  Still, they're teenage boys. They do what they do.

  Sean and I have never exactly been enemies, but he's never liked any of us around Lindsey and if he knew Case has a serious crush on her, he'd definitely come over and start shit with me. Not that I'd care, I'm pretty sure I could kick his ass, but I've tried to cut back on the fighting since the parents died, so I'd rather not go to jail on account of my little brother's choice in teen love affairs.

  I pull into the garage where Sean runs the parts counter and park the bike. I only then realize I forgot to wear a helmet and I'm riding my dirt bike on the street. Fuck. I look around for cops—we only have three on duty at any one time, so I don't see any, but they don't like me at all.

  My attention returns to Sean's work.

  OK, why am I here?

  I guess I could grab another air filter for the Jeep. That'll work. The door chimes my presence and Gary comes out of the back to check things out, still chewing on his lunch and holding a big can of iced tea.

  "Hey, Brody."

  "Hey," I call back. "Sean in today?"

  "Yeah, let me get him." He disappears in the back calling for Sean.

  When Sean is home from school he runs the parts counter, Gary does repairs, and never the two jobs shall meet, it seems. I browse the shelves a little, pick up a new lighter, and then grab an air freshener before Sean finally makes it up to the counter.

  "What can I get for you, Brody?"

  "Uh, air filter for the Jeep. Thanks."

  "What you do, lose the last one?"

  "Oh, no. I just like to have a spare."

  "Spare air filter?"

  "Just get me the fucking air filter, will ya?"

  "Just tell me why you're here."

  I slap my lighter and air freshener on the counter. "Air filter, 1978 CJ7."

  "I just got off the phone with my dad, Brody."

  "Good, how's he doing?"

  "He said Park and Case were hanging out with Lindsey this morning, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume you know exactly how he's doing."

  I let out a long breath. "Is it really her?"

  He drops the hardass attitude as soon as I do. That's typically how it is with Sean and me. We play this game and eventually we move on or get over it and decide to be normal.

  "She says she's not, she insists she's not. She has no memories of us, so she says."

  "So, can you do a DNA test or something?"

  "Frank is not our father, you know that, right?"

  I did know that. Everyone knows she was adopted. They reported on it endlessly at the time of the… kidnapping or whatever it was. But Sean doesn't wait for an answer.

  "But she is Fiona. We're almost one hundred percent sure because of the eyes."

  I picture her eyes again, staring down at me from that tree last night. "So, she's what? Got amnesia?"

  "No," Sean laughs. "She's lying. Failed four polygraphs over the last two months. Just flat-out lying. She had three different passports on her when she was taken."

  "But why? It makes no sense."

  He shrugs as his gaze wanders over to the window. "She's lying about everything, Brody. Her name, her father's name, where she comes from. No one's ever heard of her. There's no record of Francesca Sabatini in the town she claims as her home in Italy. There's no record of her here in the US."

  I just stand there with my mouth hanging open, looking pretty stupid.

  "The FBI went through all her stuff and found an Italian passport that says she's Francesca Sabatini and lists a father and mother who never lived at an address that never existed. She had an Italian driver's license, fake, some receipts from Australia, and one carry-on with two outfits in it. That's it. She bounced into L.A. off a sixteen-hour flight from Brisbane, got a facial recognition scan at customs, and was flagged for review."

  He blows out a long breath of air and starts to look like he's tired of talking so I urge him on with a hand gesture.

  "They put her aside, held her for suspicion, and started checking out her story. The customs card she filled out on the airplane said her destination was Washington D.C. but she had no connecting flight to get there and she listed a hotel she was not booked for. By this time they figured she was a drug trafficker or something and threw her in jail until the facial recognition came back as Fiona Sullivan. We had the database updated about six months ago. My dad hired an artist to recreate her face with age progression." He shrugs. "We both thought it was pointless, but I guess you just never know."

  I turn around and scratch my chin. I need a shave, I absently think. "She's Fiona?" is all I can manage to say.

  "She's definitely Fiona. I'm just not sure what to make of things right now and I know you have this obsessi
on with her and you probably want to know everything, but that's all I have. Frank is not being very forthcoming about his talks with the FBI. He's not even telling Angela."

  "I'm not obsessed, by the way. We were friends, that's all."

  "Brody, you were seven years old when she disappeared. You looked for her out in the woods until you were eleven. And they went missing in Italy when we were on vacation, so how that even made sense to you, I just don't know."

  I shrug. It was disturbing. One day you're thinking about how you'll be able to give your first-grade girlfriend a Fruit Roll-Up to show her you care on the morning bus ride to school, and then she's just gone. "Did they find your mom?"

  He shakes his head. I probably shouldn't have asked that, but sometimes my mouth gets ahead of me. I know I wouldn't want anyone asking about my parents. "Can I see her?"

  "No." He doesn't even think about it. "Please, just leave her alone. If she wants to talk to you, she'll find you. She's not talking to any of us, refuses to speak English, in fact. She's a mess."

  "Well, maybe she just needs to trust someone?"

  "And you're the guy she should trust? Not me or my dad, but you?"

  I shrug and turn away, raking my fingers through my hair.

  And then a customer comes in, dinging the little bell.

  "You still want that air filter?"

  "Nah. Thanks though, for telling me all this."

  I turn to leave, but he calls out after me, "Don't come by, Brody. I mean it."

  I nod but don't turn, then get back on my bike and pull out into the street, still half dazed with thoughts of Fiona running through my mind. I promptly get pulled over by Abe the Asshole Pig for the bike not being street legal. He probably cut short his donut break to bust me for this but the ticket barely registers in my brain. I just sit there on my bike, resting my head on my handlebars and staring down at the road as he writes me up and tells me to appear in court in three weeks.

  And the next thing I know I'm pulling back into my driveway, still lost in my thoughts.

  I have to see her. I need to see her.

  Chapter Five - Francesca

  Lunch is quick and easy—we eat sandwiches standing up outside in the backyard and then everyone goes right back to work.

  Which is a relative term for these people because no one seems to mind what they are doing. All the various girls, I learn, are either owners of horses that the Sullivans board for a fee, or they are just town kids who do odd chores in exchange for lessons.

  I basically sit around and watch the kids work. They turn the horses out on the pastures, four at a time, until they have all been exercised. Some of the horses get bathed in the outside washing station, and Angela is busy giving lessons to some little kids who ride the sweetest ponies I've ever seen. Their parents trailer them in just for this purpose and they're dressed up like they're posing for an equine clothing catalog.

  Lindsey has her own group of lesson kids in another arena on the far side of the farm. These girls are big and they are jumping a course. I watch them from a rickety wooden picnic table under a very large tree that provides just the right amount of shade.

  "Do you jump?"

  Aimee is standing next to the table with her pony's lead in her hand.

  "Sì."

  "Oh," she says wistfully. "Angela and Dad won't let me jump. They say I'm not ready."

  "Oh," I say. I can relate. It takes a while to be ready to jump. When I told Sean I took lessons I really meant I've been riding consistently for as long as I can remember. We actually have a bunch of horses at home and I've owned too many to count off-hand at school.

  I point to her pony and then motion for her to put her foot in the stirrup. She takes the hint and hops on with little effort, then I take her pony by the bridle and walk it into the indoor arena where no one wants to be because it's too hot.

  I let go and wave her on to warm up and then watch her as she fiddles with her boot and her leg position.

  "No, guarda." I take her foot and reposition it so her heel is pointed towards the ground. "Come questo."

  She gets it and sighs. "I know, Angela always tells me that too, but it hurts to make my foot go that way."

  "Ah." Yes, I can understand. Riding horses means you hurt a lot. Pain and horses go together like peas and carrots. If your thighs aren't sore, you have burns on them from rubbing up against a bumpy saddle. Or your calves ache from squeezing, or your back hurts from sitting straight or bouncing too much. Sometimes your head hurts, as well. And that's just when you're doing everything right. If you fall off, things get much worse. "Advil," I say.

  She laughs. "I think Advil counts as English."

  I laugh with her. "No! Advil è Advil in italiano."

  "There you are! I've been waiting for you, Aimee. Get your butt in the ring!" Angela scowls but it's not real. She is teasing and she looks happy. We watch Aimee direct her pony out of the arena and Angela turns to me. "Would you like to ride?"

  I shake my head. Not because I want to be difficult, it's just I don't feel like it. "Caldo."

  She nods, and I know she probably thinks that means cold and not hot, but oh well. She smiles and walks out.

  My first afternoon as Fiona Sullivan is not so bad, I finally conclude as I take my place back on the picnic table to watch the lesson. I mean, they don't bother me. They don't ask me any questions, and Frank stays as far away from me as he can.

  I'm pretty good actually. I really do sorta feel like I'm just a guest here. Just hanging out for the summer, like camp or something. Yeah, like a horse camp. I'm at a horse camp.

  It's not so bad.

  And when Fiona's birthday rolls around on the fifteenth of August, I'll be a free girl. My birthday was back in May, so in my mind I'm already eighteen. But here in America they say that doesn't count. That I'm Fiona, so I have to use Fiona's birthday.

  It's weird how a government can suddenly declare you're someone else and no one, not even your own father who is a very important man in other places, can make it stop.

  Thinking of him makes me feel very sad. I can only imagine how he felt last night, knowing I was staying at the Sullivan home for the first time.

  I drag my attention back to the lessons going on in front of me.

  The ponies are cantering around the arena now. The girls who were trailered in are fair riders, but Aimee has a very nice seat and her leg position, regardless of her sloppy foot, is also excellent. Either that or her pony has a very smooth gait and her legs are glued to the pony's belly. Aimee blows those rich kids out of the water with her skills.

  The oldest rich girl is just rounding the far corner of the arena when the dirt bikes come racing down the back road. Her pony shies, not bad, but she's just a little girl, and she falls sideways in slow motion until she plunks on the ground and starts to cry.

  I have to hold down my laugh.

  Angela is waving her fist and screaming at the troublemakers, but they are long gone.

  I wonder if that was dirt bike boy? I couldn't see them, there are too many trees and shrubs in the way from this angle.

  The fallen girl refuses to get back on the pony and suddenly the lesson is over. Angela walks with the girl's parents apologizing while Aimee just sits on her pony in the middle of the arena, a very sad look on her face.

  "Cosa succede?" I call out to her.

  "I wanted to ride! And that stupid girl…"

  I look back over my shoulder to see if the parents are listening, but Angela has them all the way across the parking lot where they are trying to load the unhappy pony in a trailer.

  "Shhh!" I say. Then motion for her to take her pony back out to the perimeter and continue. She smiles at me and breaks into a smooth canter.

  I watch her do this for several minutes and it's like she never gets tired. I wonder how long she'll keeping going round and round before she stops?

  There is a small cross jump in the middle of this arena. It's a very low obstacle and most horses would ste
p over it instead of waste the effort and energy it takes to jump. So when Aimee comes around the next time I point at it and she squeals.

  I don't need to tell her twice, she aims straight for it and her pony lifts his feet like a pro. Aimee bobbles a little, yanking on the reins, but she stays on. I clap for her and call her over.

  Her face is flushed with happiness and she's all out of breath and sweating like crazy from the cantering. She stops her pony and leans down over the fence at me. "I think I love you, Francesca. I hope you never leave."

  I smile at her and nod so I don't break her happy moment, but inside I hope she's wrong.

  August fifteenth cannot come soon enough for me.

  Chapter Six - Francesca

  I spend the rest of the afternoon helping Aimee gush about her pony, who is called Heavenly, even though he is a boy and that's kind of a girly name. We wash him, towel him down, brush him out, we even pretty up his hooves with oil and make them sparkle. There is a show here at the farm this weekend, she tells me, and that's why it's so busy. She's not allowed to participate because she's Frank's daughter, but she and Lindsey ride in shows almost every weekend all summer long.

  Sean and the other boys, Jake and Quinn, are gone the whole day. Aimee says that the twins hang out with the Mason boys, even though Sean forbids it. No one really listens to Sean when he's not around, but if he is—she wags her finger at me during this part of her speech—you better not let him know you're not listening to him.

  I nod. Sean does look like a pretty straight guy. I can't imagine these Mason boys are as bad as he makes them out to be and I shudder to think what he'd say about my father, given the chance.

  We are just finishing up braiding the pony's mane when all the boys suddenly appear.

  "Well," Aimee says. "It must be seven o'clock."

  I just stare at her with a weird look on my face.

  "Dinner time. Everyone has to be home for dinner or you're in big trouble. The only time you get out of it is if you're Sean and you're working, or when Lindsey and I are at a show. And even then, we have dinner at seven somehow. Even if it's just pulling off at a McDonald's and eating with the horses in the parking lot."