by Sasha Dawn
It would explain why the Goudys had to remove Rachel’s birthmark—Alana didn’t have one.
But what’s the motivation to replace a child who’s died or who you’ve killed?
Maybe they just thought the state wouldn’t know the difference between two blonde preschoolers. And they took Rachel to get away with murder.
Maybe that’s why the Goudys never adopted her. Adoption would call attention to the child.
But the question remains . . .
If all of this is true, or even if it isn’t, where is Chatham Claiborne now?
I’m nearing the lighthouse.
I should turn back.
But there’s something up the shore . . .
I keep running.
As I approach, I see a sand castle, worn by wind and water, but its remains are no less elaborate than the one Chatham sculpted weeks ago on this very same beach, complete with the criss-cross windows that delighted my sisters.
After the rave, Chatham said she’d keep building castles so Savannah would know she’d been there, so Savannah would know she’s still looking for her.
I catch my breath for a few seconds, then pull my phone from my pocket.
I take a picture of the sand sculpture and send it in a snap to Chatham.
Then I call Detective Guidry: “It’s Josh Michaels. This might be out there, but I’ve been mulling over some things Chatham told me over the past month or so, and I’ve got a theory.”
I tell him what I’ve been thinking about during my run.
He doesn’t give my theory affirmation, but he doesn’t tell me I’m nuts, either.
“So no word from her,” he says at the end of it all.
“No, sir.”
“You’ll let me know if you hear from her.”
“Yes, sir.”
I look at the sand castle one last time before I start my run back down the shore.
There’s no way to know for sure, but I prefer to believe:
She was here.
D i s s i p a t e
Even when I close my eyes, I see her—Chatham Claiborne—and all she created and conjured.
Right now, she’s sixteen squares of clay relief, arranged in a mosaic of four by four.
Sort of like the tattoo of her name on the inside of my left arm, and the scars it covers: permanent in this form.
It’s ironic, in a way, her creating something I can describe with such a word. But that’s the way I see her now. Molded, glazed, and fired. Permanent.
Every artist leaves her signature on her work, and Chatham’s may as well be art itself: each letter of her name is tucked away in the relief—one letter per tile.
Sixteen squares make up a whole, but each square is its own sliver of beauty, its own window into a world that is distinctly—solely?—Chatham’s, a corridor into the heart of the girl I’ve come to crave, the girl I’ve come to believe is as necessary to my survival as air or water, the girl I’ll forever search for.
She’s sand on a beach.
The flame licking at the wax of a birthday candle.
It’s Friday.
It’s been six days since the best and worst night of my life.
No one’s seen Chatham Claiborne since.
Guidry called to tell me what I already knew: that the prints on the Scrabble tiles were consistent with Rachel Bachton’s, and furthermore that the ring Damien gave to my mother did, in fact, include a stone which used to comprise half a heart, nestled in a charm on Rachel’s necklace. The police found the charm, with one-half of the heart missing, amongst other things in Damien’s closet.
But he’s not telling me the one thing I desperately need to know: where the hell is she?
Like I said before: knowing what happened won’t bring her home.
This morning, an Amber Alert was issued for Rachel Bachton, and a picture Aiden took of us at the Homecoming dance is circulating the press. I’m blurred out, as if I’m an inconsequential casualty in this whole mess.
I wonder if I’ll ever see her again. God, I need to see her again.
But that wonder and need will be here a good, long time, and I can’t focus on it tonight because tonight, I have a job to do out on the field.
“You good?” Jensen, all suited up, with his helmet at his hip, pauses in front of my locker, where I’m sitting on a bench, pulling at the shoestrings in my cleats.
I’ve yet to pull my jersey over my pads. “Yeah. Stellar.”
“You know, after the week you’ve had, no one’s going to blame you if you’re not up for this.”
“I’m up for it.”
“Robinson’s been throwing pretty well, you know. He’s not as fast as you are, doesn’t have instincts like yours, but if you feel you can’t—”
“I can.” I yank my jersey over my pads and give him a nod. “I got this.”
And I’m dedicating this game to Chatham Claiborne.
It’s the last game of the season.
“I can do it,” I assure him one more time. I didn’t come this far, or garner this much attention from college scouts, because I can’t. Word’s not even in my vocabulary right now. So I was dealt another shitty hand, played another shitty card. What else is new? Still, I’m here. I’m surviving.
On the field, I’m firing away with all the anger, all the frustration, all the hurt channeled into the cannon my right arm has become.
Connecting.
Boom, boom, boom. Touchdown.
Boom, boom, boom. Touchdown.
My name echoes through the speaker:
“Number fourteen, Michaels! With a twelve-yard sneak.”
“Michaels! With a fifty-five-yard pass to twenty-six, Novak!”
“Michaels . . . Michaels . . . Michaels!”
“And the Sugar Creek Cavs are going to the playoffs . . .”
The D-line hoists me on their shoulders. The O-line carries Novak off the field in the same fashion. Dude deserves it. He caught everything I fucking threw at him, and even some I placed just out of reach.
And as much as I appreciate Rosie bringing Maggie Lee and Miss Lina to see me play tonight—the first time ever—I wish Chatham were here to see it, too.
I go through the motions.
High fives in the locker room.
Chocolate cake at the Tiny Elvis.
Someone carved Rachel Bachton was here into all the tables. No one knows as intimately as I do how very true that sentiment is.
I stay at the diner past close, with the rest of the team, till they kick us out.
And when I leave, I can’t help glancing back at the second floor of the Churchill, where I’m sure Chatham’s mural is already scheduled for a fresh coat of paint.
“Hey there. Joshua.”
I stop in my tracks when I hear the voice, the slight lilt in her words. Pure Georgia. I smile. “Chatham.” I spin around to face her.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Savannah.” I’m standing face-to-face, for the third time, with Chatham’s sister. She’s dressed more conservatively today, in shin-length jeans and a baggy, black hoodie. Her toenails, which I see only because she’s wearing a pair of worn flip-flops, are painted a glittery purple. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail, and she isn’t wearing any makeup today. A watch is wrapped around her ankle, like it’s a piece of jewelry.
I can’t read her expression. Her casually turning up here could mean good things, or bad.
“She’s okay,” Savannah says.
A sense of relief flits through my system—Chatham’s okay—but instantly, knowing she’s okay isn’t enough. “Where is she?”
Savannah opens her mouth, almost like she’s going to tell me, but then she clams up.
I look at her hard. “You expect me to believe you don’t know? I’m pretty sure she met you after she left my place that night.”
Her nod is so minute that I would’ve missed it, had I not been paying close attention.
“People are looking for you, you k
now,” I say.
“Yeah. Don’t tell, okay?”
“God, do you know what I go through? Wondering where she is . . . hoping she’s alive . . . Come to think of it, it’s exactly what you put her through when you took off.”
This pisses her off. She sort of stiffens, and frowns at me.
“When you didn’t show at the beach on the last day of summer, like you said. What happened, Savannah? Why weren’t you there?”
“I saw someone I thought I recognized.”
“Damien? Chatham said she saw a man following her that day, too.”
“I was scared, so I had to leave. I found a place to stay.”
“On Sheridan Road.”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you staying now?”
She answers me with a silent stare. She isn’t going to tell me.
“This man . . .” I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll to the pictures of Damien feeding his girlfriend at the Tiny E. “This him?”
She studies the picture. “Yeah. He was there that day. At the farmers’ market. I think he knows Wayne.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. He was at the farm once or twice. But when I saw him, I got scared. I thought maybe Wayne told him I ran away and sent him to look for me. I didn’t know he lived here until my sister said she saw his cabin.”
“Yeah. He’s local.”
“Can we go somewhere else to talk?” she asks.
“Nowhere really to go to talk this time of night.” I cop a squat on the sidewalk, near the coastal-border-of-Texas crack. “Have a seat.”
She sits next to me. “Listen. She’s sort of overwhelmed with all this, you know?”
I can imagine.
“She’s sorry she misled you, but it wasn’t like she planned it. She never really was on board with my theory, and didn’t want to believe she was Rachel. She even thought for a while that I was the one who was kidnapped because she didn’t remember anything. She just couldn’t face it. But then you took her to the train car in that park. She started to remember. And when you took her to the cabin by the creek . . . Joshua, she thinks she might have been there before.”
“Why didn’t she tell me? Or at least tell the cops? She talked with them later that night, at my house. She called them. Why wouldn’t she have said anything?”
“You have to understand. She doesn’t even know who she is anymore.”
“I need to see her. Where is she?”
“She thinks you won’t forgive her.”
“What’s to forgive?”
“She’s afraid you can’t possibly love her after—”
“After what?”
“Well, after she lied about knowing me. At the rave. It was my idea, not hers. I told her to pretend. To stay anonymous until we knew what was going to happen in Moon River. Can you imagine what would have happened if Wayne’s friend found us together? If anything, you should be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at anyone. Christ, look at this.” I yank up my sleeve and display my tattoo. “Whenever she questions the way I feel, tell her what I’ve done to remember her.”
Savannah stares at the tattoo. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Well, I did. Tell her about it.”
“I will.”
“None of this is her fault. Savannah, if you love your sister—”
“Of course I love my sister.”
“—you’ll turn yourself over and tell us where to find her so she can start again. So she can reconnect with the family that’s been missing her for twelve years.”
“I took beatings for her. Did she tell you that?” She glances at me, but quickly averts her teary eyes, and continues staring out over Second Street. “I’d provoke him so he’d come after me instead. I made sure that asshole never laid a hand on her.”
“He shouldn’t have touched either of you.”
“I stole their money so I could come here. For four years I’ve been taking everything Wayne left around the house from quarters to twenties. But I paid for every cent in punishments. Whippings. Extra chores. Other things. They thought I stole the money for drugs, and sometimes I did. But most of it, I kept. I left her all of my money with practically a treasure map for her to find it.”
“In the stables.”
“I left her all my notes so she could follow when she’d finally realize I was telling the truth. I suspected for a long time where she came from, even if she didn’t believe me, and I wanted to bring her back here, so don’t you dare accuse me of not loving my sister.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I had to get her away from him.”
“Away from Wayne?”
She nods and wipes away tears.
“Alana . . . my first sister. She just didn’t get up one day. He hit us both, but she didn’t get up. Loretta wasn’t there to stop him that day, and once he got started . . .”
My heart aches for what I know she’s going to say next.
“He just couldn’t stop once he got started. He wouldn’t let up. He had her by the hair, and just kept pounding on her.”
I feel dizzy and lost, hearing all this.
“He told me she was sleeping. He told me if I wasn’t good, I’d be sleeping in the stables, too. Under the floorboards.”
“Jesus.”
“And then he had me convinced that the new girl we brought home was the same Alana. Only this time, she was good.”
I’m sick to my stomach. To think Chatham and Savannah had to live with that man . . .
“He preferred me blonde.”
“Blonde?”
“And not just any blonde. White blonde. Just like the new Alana. Loretta’s been bleaching my hair since I was about five.”
I understand a little better now why Chatham freaked out when I commented on her hair Homecoming night.
“Guy was sick,” she continues. “Wanted us to look a certain way while we mucked the stables and delivered calves.”
“She was good at delivering cows?”
“We were both good at delivering cows. Both hated it.”
For the space of a few minutes, we’re sitting there in silence. She shivers. Like her sister, she doesn’t dress for the weather. I put my arm around her and let her rest her head on my chest while she cries. I have sisters. I know how to deal with tears.
“I know she has to start being Rachel again,” Savannah says. “But what happens to me? Everything I do—everything I’ve done since she came to me—is for her.”
“Believe it or not, I’m in touch with that sort of burden.”
“So if she goes on with life, what happens to me?” she repeats.
For the first time, I realize this might be the reason Chatham took off that night, the reason she’s hiding from a truth she must have realized by now. That she’ll have to leave Savannah.
“Loretta and Wayne won’t get you back,” I say. “You know they’re in custody.”
“So I’ll be chucked back into the system for my remaining year-and-a-half before I’m legally declared an adult, in Georgia, away from my sister.”
“Do you think they’d do that?” I briskly rub her arm. She’s so cold. “Or do you think they’d try to accommodate what’s best for you and your sister? You’re both victims.”
“There’s an obvious solution for my sister. There’s no clear-cut path for me. She’s here, so I want to be here. But who’s going to take me in? You think I’m going to have a multitude of options?”
“Maybe not multitudes, but options? Yes.”
She pulls out of my grasp. “No nice family is going to take in a girl like me.”
“You don’t know that. It happens.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I’m not good at rules of the household.”
“Tell you what.” I reach into my pocket for my phone and cue up Guidry’s number. “If you agree to call the detective, and tell him where to find your
sister, I’ll get you a place to crash for the night. You can explore your options in the morning. I’m talking a nice place, great view of the lake. All you have to do is hit the call button.”
Hesitantly, she eyes my phone.
“You know Chatham won’t move on until you do,” I say. “And I know it sucks, having to be the responsible one, always having to think about her before you make a move yourself. But you and I both know: it’s just part of having little sisters. And would you trade being her sister for anything in the world?”
She takes the phone.
Makes the call.
Then I call and arrange her accommodations for the night.
I think Aiden’s going to like her.
J a b b e r w o c k y S l a i n
With tiles scattered about its perimeter, my Scrabble board still sits on the table untouched, as if waiting for closure.
And while I think I might never find it, Rachel Bachton’s family finally has the closure they’ve been seeking since they opted to go to the farmers’ market that morning—the morning Rachel was kidnapped.
I watched her reunion with her family from afar, just like everyone else. There was a parade of celebration, but she wasn’t in it. There were statements to the press, but she didn’t make them. Her parents have spoken on the news, and while they mention her slow reintegration process, and its successes, the world has yet to see her smile, hear her voice, or feel her contentment.
But whatever name she’s going by—Rachel, Alana, Chatham—I’m confident when I say that I do know her . . . possibly better than anyone. I memorized her smile long ago, and I can see it if I close my eyes and concentrate.
The police still have the tiles that used to occupy this game board. They’re in an evidence locker somewhere, bearing the fingerprints of Chatham Claiborne/Rachel Bachton. Maybe someday the police will bring them back. I’ve already decided that if they do, I’m going to shellac them together, make them as permanent as the clay relief Chatham designed and created, which still hangs in the art showcase at Sugar Creek High, like a memorial.
Chatham Claiborne was here.
I pull new Scrabble tiles from the sea of overturned squares and lay out sixteen of them one by one:
CHATHAM CLAIBORNE
I wonder when, exactly, Chatham realized who she was. If she’d known the moment she saw Savannah at the rave, if she’d pieced things together slowly, or if it all came flooding back like a tidal wave at the caboose or at Damien’s cabin.