Untethered

by Julie Lawson Timmer

  “Part of me wants him to go ahead, move out. The thing is, though,” she whispered, and Char leaned even closer, “a bigger part of me wants him to stay. For things to never, ever get better. Between him and me, or me and Stevie. It’s my penance. Living unhappily for the rest of my life. With a son I can’t be a proper mother to anymore. With a man I don’t love anymore. A man who no longer loves me.”

  Sarah hung her head and wept. She sniffed a few times, and Char saw her move forward for the tissue, but she didn’t get far before she sighed and gave up, lacking the energy to reach her purse.

  Char kept driving, and said nothing. Not out of spite, to make Sarah suffer in silence, but because what Sarah had confessed was so private, so raw, that it seemed more respectful to say and do nothing than to offer a response that could never come close to healing that level of pain.

  • • •

  Sarah reached forward, finally, and touched her hand to the dashboard. “They were mean to her,” she whispered. “My poor, poor child.” Gently, she moved her palm in an arcing motion across the plastic, as though it were the pudgy, freckled cheek of her daughter.

  Suddenly, she snatched her hand off the dash and raised it to her mouth. “Pull over,” she whispered. “Please!”

  Char did, and before they had come to a complete stop, Sarah’s door was open and she was out of the car, stumbling off the shoulder and into the ditch. She fell to her knees, leaned forward, and threw up. Char stabbed the hazard button and jumped out. Kneeling beside Sarah, she lifted the woman’s dirty ponytail away from her face. Sarah had nothing left in her stomach, but she continued to retch, her body convulsing over and over until finally she lay on her side, too weak to hold herself up.

  She curled into a tight ball and covered her face with her hands. “What have I done?” she whispered. “What have I done?”

  • • •

  Char pulled into the next rest area, where she led Sarah into the bathroom and helped her clean up. When they were finished washing the trail of vomit off her chin, and had rinsed all traces of it out of the ends of her hair, Char stepped back to take a look. It would have been better to take the woman to a truck stop and put her under a shower. She looked like someone Char had picked up on the side of the highway.

  They drove in silence. Char was afraid to speak. Anything too forgiving would feel like a betrayal to Morgan, and anything too damning would be piling on. Surely there wasn’t an insult Char could come up with that Sarah hadn’t already used on herself.

  “I have wondered about her,” Sarah said quietly, “worried about her, every single minute of these past two weeks. If she was getting enough to eat. If she was having baths regularly, brushing her teeth. If they were making sure her hair’s clean. If she was frightened . . .” She sniffed. “All the things you worry about with your kids, you know?” She turned to Char as though waiting for an answer.

  Of course I know—I’m the same when Allie goes away. Is that what she expected Char to say? As though they were any two moms on any playground in America, talking about their children? As though Morgan had merely been at sleep-away camp for the past two weeks?

  When Char didn’t respond, Sarah turned away and dropped her chin to her chest. She raised her hands a few inches above her legs and fanned them away from each other. Enough, she seemed to be telling herself. You don’t get to talk about her as though she’s yours.

  That’s right, Char wanted to tell her. You don’t get to share these worries with me. You don’t get to wonder out loud to me about how she is. You don’t get to look at me with that wretched expression and wait for me to tell you that I get it, that I know what you’re going through. As though there’s this kinship, this sisterhood, this understanding between mothers, and you’re still part of it.

  It would be so satisfying to say it to her out loud, Char thought. To scream it at her. To put her in her place, remind her who she was: not Morgan’s mother anymore, but the woman who had promised a child she would keep her forever, and then dumped her less than two years later.

  If Sarah appeared to have the smallest shred of dignity, if she had made even the slightest attempt to excuse her conduct, it would feel so good to ask her, what did she think Morgan was worrying about all this time?

  It would be so easy to hate her, if she didn’t so clearly hate herself.

  Thirty-six

  They stopped for gas near Lima, Ohio. Sarah offered to man the pump while Char went to the ladies’ room. She texted Allie as she walked. I know you’re sleeping. At least, I hope you are. Please stay put. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come and get you. We’ll work something out with Morgan. I promise.

  She didn’t take her eyes off her phone screen as she opened the door to the gas station, took the bathroom key from the cashier, and made her way to the ladies’ room. Still no response. She took a deep breath and told herself it was a good thing that the girl wasn’t responding. It was eleven thirty, three hours since Allie said she had stopped for the night. She hoped both girls were sleeping.

  She put her phone in her pocket and leaned over the sink, splashing cold water on her face. Sarah had offered to drive the next shift, but Char wasn’t sure the woman was in any condition to do that. Char wouldn’t sleep in the passenger seat anyway. She wouldn’t sleep at all, anywhere, until she saw Allie again.

  She was drying her hands when her phone rang. She stabbed the “accept” button without looking at the screen. “Allie!” she said.

  “It is not,” Lindy said. “But you sound somewhat desperate to hear from my daughter, Charlotte, as though you’re worried about her. As though she is not, in fact, at a sleepover after all.”

  The self-satisfied tone in Lindy’s voice kept Char from attempting another lie. “Uh . . .” she said.

  “I dialed her by accident,” Lindy said. “I was actually not calling her on purpose to check up on your story. She answered—on the cell phone you told me she had left at home, by the way—and assumed you had already filled me in on the situation.

  “I am her mother, after all, even if you’ve forgotten. Before I could say a word, she launched into an apology about taking the convertible and skipping school and racing down an interstate highway on her own with that little friend of hers from that afterschool club.”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “Save it!” Lindy shrieked. “There is absolutely nothing you could say to me right now that will make me feel remotely okay with what you’ve done!”

  “Lindy—”

  “I can’t believe you, Charlotte! I had no idea things had gotten so out of hand up there. You certainly have given me no indication of it during our telephone calls. Now I’m questioning everything you ever told me. For all I know, Allie’s been skipping school this entire time, drinking and doing drugs and who knows what else with those questionable new friends of hers.”

  “Oh, come on, Lin—”

  “I never should have left her with you!” Lindy interrupted. “I blame myself—to a degree. It was too much for you. I should have known something like this would happen. I wondered, when you first told me about those kids she’s been spending time with—that you have let her spend time with. But I stayed out of it, because I thought you had it under control. Clearly, I was wrong.”

  Nice try, Char thought. You stayed out of it because that was easier for you. But what she said was, “Lindy, please. That’s completely unfair. I haven’t lost control. Things aren’t out of hand. I’m about to—”

  “My unlicensed daughter took a car without permission and is right now driving illegally, who knows where, with a little girl she is not related to!” Lindy screamed. “I’d say things are about as out of hand as they could get, wouldn’t you?”

  “She stopped at a hotel,” Char said. “I’m pretty sure she’ll tell me where they are when she wakes up, and then wait for me to go and get them. I mean, I can’t be ce
rtain, but there’s a good chance of it—”

  “If that’s a victory in your mind, that’s a problem.”

  “Lindy, look. It’s late. We’re both on edge. But trust me—”

  “It’s not late where I am, Charlotte, and I am just getting started. And no, thank you very much, I will not trust you. Not anymore. I’m calling the police, like I just told Allie—”

  “No!” Char said.

  “Which I assume you haven’t done yet,” Lindy continued, “based on that little outburst. And based on the fact that if you had involved the authorities immediately, as you should have, this entire incident would be over, my daughter would be safe, and you and I would be having this conversation while you stared at her through the bars of a jail cell.

  “For God’s sake, Charlotte! Were you waiting for her to suddenly get tired of the whole thing and turn around and come home? Do you know anything about my daughter? How determined she is, how strong willed? Honestly, I’m dumbfounded by your lack of urgency. But then, it’s not your child we’re talking about, is it?”

  Char set her phone on the side of the sink and clasped her hands behind her back to keep herself from hurling it against the wall or crushing it with a fist. The woman had wasted no time releasing her claws. Not Char’s child? As if shared DNA was what mattered. Char may not have donated a single cell to Allie, but she had shown ten times more concern for the teenager’s well-being in the last five years than Lindy ever had.

  She reached for her phone and prepared to say as much to Lindy. But she pulled her hand back before it made contact. She turned and paced three steps away from the sink, then turned and paced back. Telling Lindy off would feel good, but it wouldn’t help Allie.

  She took a deep breath and lifted the phone. “You need to call her back and tell her you’ve changed your mind,” she told Lindy. “Please. Do it now.”

  “Why on earth would I do that?”

  “Your daughter is an intelligent girl.”

  Lindy sighed. “While I appreciate the compliment, Charlotte, this isn’t the time to—”

  “Lindy, think about it. She’s not going to sit there and wait for the police to spot the car in the parking lot. She’s probably packing up right now, getting ready to leave. And she shouldn’t be driving now. She’s been behind the wheel all day. She must be exhausted.

  “Plus, she won’t keep driving the convertible if she knows the police are looking for it. She’ll dump it instead. Trade it for . . . I don’t know . . . whatever beat-up thing the hotel clerk is driving—”

  “Are you serious?” Lindy cackled. “My daughter is a fifteen-year-old high school student from the Midwest, not some criminal mastermind. ‘Dump the car’? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Any kid who’s watched a single cop show on TV would think of that,” Char said. “And Allie’s watched plenty. She knows that’s the only way to track her. And if she trades it, we won’t know how to spot her. The police won’t, either.”

  “Am I to assume you don’t have her phone set up so it can be tracked, then?” Lindy asked. “Bradley and I discussed this at one time—”

  “No,” Char said. “He didn’t do that.” He did tell me about that discussion, though, she wanted to say. He told you that tracking a kid’s phone was hardly a way to engender mutual trust and respect. You mocked his “mutual trust and respect” idea and told him it was about exercising unilateral power. That conversation was a reminder to him of why it was such a good thing, for Allie’s sake, that you live so far away.

  “How long ago did you talk to her?” Char asked.

  “Minutes ago, only. I called you immediately after—”

  “Call her back! Now! Tell her you’ve changed your mind. Tell her you’ve decided the police don’t need to be involved. Tell her you and I have talked, and you agree with my plan to go pick them up and bring them home. Tell her—no, ask her nicely—to let you know where she is, and to stay put until I get there—”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think, Lindy! Just do it! This second! You can yell at me all you want tomorrow, once I have her in my car on the way back to Mount Pleasant. But if you want her safe, you’ll call her right now and tell her all of that.”

  Lindy let out a breath. “I suppose you have a point,” she said. “I’ll call her back. But I must say, it rankles me to let her off the hook—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Lindy! If you have to feel ‘rankled’ in order to keep her from disappearing into the night, then do it!”

  Thirty-seven

  Sarah dozed as they sped through Dayton, then Cincinnati. Char reached for the radio knob, then looked at her passenger, who seemed peaceful for the first time in hours, and retracted her hand.

  She thought about how close Lindy had been to sending the police after the girls. How close the Crews had been to being caught. She couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or upset with herself for convincing Lindy to stand down. She would hate for Stevie Crew to end up in foster care when he had two parents who loved him and wanted him. She would never want that for the little boy. But the idea of the Crews putting Morgan through all of this and not suffering any consequences for it made her sick.

  Sarah shifted and Char turned to look at her. A long strand of oily hair hung in her face. She looked no better in the dim glow of the dashboard than she had in the afternoon sun in Char’s family room—still pale and thin and sickly, her lack of grooming showing she had completely given up on her appearance, and herself. The woman’s marriage had collapsed, her relationship with her son was all but destroyed.

  So, there had been consequences for Sarah and Dave.

  But what about Morgan?

  What were the Crews planning on doing with their daughter after they got her back to Mount Pleasant? Would they have her move back into her old room, start up again at school, as though nothing had happened? Surely not, given their concerns about Stevie.

  Were they thinking about trying the next family on their list, the one who had been the finalist along with the people in Ohio? Did they actually believe Char would let that happen? That Allie would?

  Char didn’t want to see them lose their son. But she would threaten them with a call to DHS, and to the police, if she thought they were even considering something like that. They would never call her bluff, not when it meant gambling with their boy.

  • • •

  It was almost one in the morning. Char had gone through both of the coffees Sarah bought at their last stop, and still, she felt herself sinking lower in the seat, squinting more to make out road signs, averting her eyes faster at oncoming headlights.

  The silence wasn’t helping. She had made long drives on her own before and had always relied on talk radio or long chats on the phone to get her through the miles. But she didn’t want to wake Sarah. She tried humming a tune in her head, but she was too tired to stick with it.

  She glanced at her phone. She still hadn’t told Will what was going on. She wondered if she could whisper a voice mail to him without waking Sarah. Or maybe she should pull over and text him. He would be so angry with her, when she told him what both she and Allie had been through and he realized how long she had left him in the dark.

  She would claim distance: what could he have done from South Carolina, other than fret? And the late hour: by the time Sarah had dozed off, giving Char the opportunity to call, it was too late, and she hadn’t wanted to wake him. He wouldn’t buy it, though, so when she saw a sign for a rest area, she eased her car off the highway and onto the exit ramp.

  It was good to have an excuse to stop. She would get out of the car, use the bathroom, splash water on her face. See what they had to offer in the vending machines. She should buy something nutritious, to give her brain adequate fuel for more driving.

  Or chocolate.

  She sent her brother five texts, one after the othe
r, explaining all that had transpired since she had arrived home from CMU that afternoon. Then she sent a sixth: Please don’t be mad at me for waiting so long to tell you. She was about to put her phone in her pocket when a thought occurred to her, and she sent a seventh message: And please don’t call me until morning. I don’t want Sarah to wake up.

  She needn’t have bothered with the last one. When she got back into the car, three chocolate bars in one hand, a fourth, half-eaten, in the other, Sarah was awake, rubbing her neck and stretching her legs. “I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she said. “That may be the longest I’ve slept at one stretch in two weeks.” She smiled at Char. “Thanks for letting me.”

  Char couldn’t bring herself to smile back, but she handed two of the bars to Sarah as she climbed in and buckled up. Sarah turned the chocolate bars over in her hands and then set them, unopened, on the console between the seats. In the five hours they had been together, Char had consumed four cups of coffee and twice her daily caloric allotment in chocolate. Sarah had taken two sips of water but not one bite of anything solid.

  “You should really eat something,” Char said. “At least finish your water.” She gestured to the bottle at Sarah’s feet.

  Sarah put a hand on her stomach. “I don’t keep much down lately.” She touched the bars. “But thanks for these. Feel free to eat them if you’re still hungry.”

  “Even I draw the line at two,” Char said, patting the bulge below her seat belt. She considered making a crack about how she should try Sarah’s diet, but there was no way to make it funny.

  “I know you think I’m weak,” Sarah said. “Going along with this . . . dreadful thing . . . just so my husband wouldn’t leave me. And you’re right. I am weak. I’m a weak person.