Molly sighed. “Fine.”
He held the curtain open for her, and she slipped through, him following close enough she smelled him. Not cologne. Laundry soap. And his hat—sweaty, unwashed wool. A gray smell, sort of dark, earthy, like decomposing logs in the woods. She remembered that smell from the times her father took her exploring when they went camping, turning over dead stumps or peeling the bark off to find the insects there—beetles and centipedes and ants and grubs. He had been an entomologist at the New York state university, his office filled with dead insects under glass, encased in resin, floating in jars of fluid. He’d taught Molly the scientific names, pointing them out, asking her to repeat them. She did, and unlike history the insects stayed with her, and she couldn’t think about bugs without his face appearing.
After her father died, Louise had boxed up all the insects he had at the house and dropped them off at the school. Molly wished she could have kept just one collection, her favorite, a display of twenty-six butterflies and moths, the colors and patterns of each lepidopteron forming a letter of the alphabet. Molly knew her mother sent them away because she loved him. The reminders hurt more than being without his presence.
That’s the other thing she remembered about her father, and her mother, too. They’d been in love, went everywhere together when they could. Sometimes they brought Molly; often they didn’t. She didn’t mind, not so much, because when her parents got dolled up to go out on the town—the sparkly dresses, the handsome black suits, the jewelry, the slick hair and red lips—they had a way of looking at each other that Molly loved to see. She would sit on the toilet and watch her mother apply her mascara in the bathroom mirror, darker than workdays, thicker, adding eyeliner and shadow well up to her brow.
When the doorbell rang, her mother would say, “Run down and let the baby-sitter in,” and Molly would, hoping either Francine or April would be standing on the other side of the door—not Stephanie; all she did was watch MTV and talk on the phone for hours—because they were the nice ones, the ones who played games with her and sometimes let her braid their hair. And then Molly would watch her mother walk down the stairs, her father waiting at the bottom for her, and they would tell Molly not to eat too much junk and not to give April a hard time. And then they’d go, and she wouldn’t miss them, not until bedtime, when she longed for her father’s bearded kiss on her cheek.
Would Tobias feel that way about her, with a kind of love that glittered on date nights?
They went through the classic-movie room, the TV-show room, the hall of historical figures. Molly pointed out some of the statues, telling Tobias how she had repaired the lips on this one or had sewn a new skirt for that one. Or that George Washington had once been on display at Madame Tussauds, or Shirley Temple’s pet dog in Bright Eyes also played Toto in The Wizard of Oz.
“You do like Wiki.”
“No. I read that on the sign in front of the display.”
Tobias laughed. “Man, you must think I’m numb as a stump. I can read, you know. Promise.”
Molly shook her head, stared a little too long at him, and he at her. He leaned forward, his face coming a little closer to hers. She turned away. “The Chamber of Horrors is next.”
“What about the museum’s secrets?”
“What about them?”
“There must be some.”
“You should ask Mick the next time he’s here. I don’t know any.”
And then they stood there, in the Chamber of Horrors, staring at the Frankenstein monster’s grotesque form on a table, curly wires coming out of his head, his chest. A light bulb blinked as the mad scientist, posed over a large switch, prepared to pump electricity through the stitched-together body. It was Molly’s favorite scene, the creator giving life to his creature. The spark that pulsed through one’s body when Christ touched it. She thought of Milton’s poem, quoted in Shelley’s novel—
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
—and of her mother. It was her cry, her “How could you do this to me, God?” Molly never felt that way. She’d watched enough Pastor Gary sermons to know God had a purpose for the sadness.
She wished He’d clue her in to what it was.
She thought about telling Tobias, giving him a bit of her, a thought she’d shared with no one, but he turned and looked at her with such sorrow in his dark eyes that she had to turn from him. Instead, she said, “I used to talk to them.”
“Who? The figures?”
She nodded. “When we first came here. I was lonely.”
“Are you still?”
“I don’t talk to them anymore, if that’s what you mean,” she lied.
Tobias rolled the hem of his hat up so it no longer covered the top of his ears. “Come outside with me. I hate seeing you stuck in here.”
“My mother—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then, what?”
“It’s all dead.”
“It’s wax.”
“It’s dead. All the characters and people shown here, none of them are still alive. This place is a mausoleum, and you’re spending your days wandering around it. You glow with life, Molly. You should be somewhere else.”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. Like where?”
“Well, where do you want to be?”
She thought about what he said, about the statues. She didn’t think of them as dead, or living. They were her secret keepers. She shared her stories with them—not because she thought they were real, or they understood or would speak back, but because they were all she had. “Nowhere.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What do you know?”
“I know my grandfather has lived his entire life five miles from where he was born, took over his father’s business. My own pops is the same. I don’t want that.” He kneaded the back of his neck. “I got accepted to Cornell as a transfer in the fall.”
“Oh,” Molly said. “That’s not around here, is it?”
“New York.”
“Oh,” she said again, quieter this time. “That’s good, right?”
“It’s good.” He paused. “You could come with me.”
“I don’t even know you.”
“I don’t mean that way. Apply to school there. Or any of the other schools around there. There’s a ton. I’m sure you’d get in to one of them. We could rent a trailer, load up my car, and drive together. You’d know someone. So would I. It would be really great.”
“I’ll probably just do college online.”
“Why?”
“It’s cheaper. And Mom needs me here. To help.”
“She doesn’t, Molly.”
“Yes, she does.”
“No.”
“Tobias, stop. You don’t understand.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Well, you don’t.”
“Then tell me.”
She wanted to. For the first time since that horrible day she wanted to pour out her story to someone who wouldn’t melt with the heat of a butane lighter. But she couldn’t tell him, not really. He would be horrified—by her past, the lies, the Chamber of Horrors she kept in her head. She would lose the little bit of him she had.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Molly!” He yanked off his hat, dark hair partly matted to his head, partly standing up in greasy spikes. “I don’t know what to do here.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“So you keep telling me.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s not. You know it, and I know it.” Tobias shook his head. “I guess this place has a few secrets after all.”
8
HANNA
SEPTEMBER 2002
She slept with her mother every night now.
When Hanna had first come home, Susan would tuck her into the twin bed, stroke her hair, and whisper
sweet words to her. When her mother tried to leave, Hanna shook and squeezed Susan’s arm until she climbed under the blankets and said, “Baby, I’ll just stay until you fall asleep.” If her mother tried to get up before then, Hanna would whimper and cling some more until, eventually, Susan dozed off and Hanna settled into some half-slumbering state where she was as aware of each house-shifting creak as she was of her own dreams.
It was hot and crowded in the twin bed. Her mother—struck unaware by sleep and missing her father—cemented to Hanna’s back, creeping in closer and closer so Hanna had to move into the crack between the mattress and the wall to get away from her. She liked that cramped space, though, the wall cool against her, the scent of paint and dust and the memory-foam topper Henry had bought for her—before . . .
When it became clear Hanna wouldn’t be staying alone at night anytime soon, Susan put her to bed in the master bedroom, and they would both fall asleep in the glow of MSNBC.
Hanna was still getting used to the new mother. For eleven years, Hanna had only known the other Susan—the one who was affectionate and attentive, who worked as the curator of the university museum but still always made it to Hanna’s classroom parties and choir concerts. The one who cut her peanut butter sandwiches into hearts and wrote little notes on her napkins to find at lunchtime. The one who bought the Disney Band-Aids instead of the plain tan ones, even though Henry complained it was a marketing ploy and decried consumerism’s effect on society. Her mother would laugh and pull a Lilo and Stitch toothbrush from the shopping bag.
The new Susan looked mostly the same, though in past months had taken to pulling out her hair. Sometimes on her head, but mostly on her arms and face; her eyebrows were wide and patchy, and she hardly had eyelashes. She cleaned constantly, moving tornado-like from room to room, scrubbing walls and washing drapes, and cleaning the dust from the piano keys with Q-tips. Hanna had followed her around at first, until one day Susan snapped, “Can’t you find something else to do besides stare at me?” After that, Hanna spent more time in her room alone, even though her mother apologized. Susan spoke to her less, touched her less. Saw her less.
And she never, ever laughed.
But neither did Hanna.
They used to giggle all the time, making silly poems about the things they saw, talking in Mary Poppins accents around her teddy-bear tea parties, teasing Henry about what they called his absentminded professorisms—like shutting his car keys in the refrigerator or forgetting his shoes under the seat of the airplane when he’d taken them off while flying to Toronto.
Dr. Diane said the laughs would find their way back. Maybe sooner, if Hanna would talk.
She wasn’t not speaking on purpose. She tried sometimes, but the letters jumbled and their pointy edges stuck in her lungs, because even though the words were in her head, the sounds came from her chest, her diaphragm quivering up and down, trying to push them out. She felt them all the time, though, all the unspoken words lumped together and filling her up. Dr. Diane said she might explode if she didn’t talk. Hanna believed her.
It had been four months almost since her father died. She couldn’t remember much about the two weeks she’d been held captive. She vaguely recalled her escape but had clear pictures of being in the hospital after she was found. The aides had restrained her with thick Velcro after she tried to bite the nurse with the big nose. Despite being older than Hanna’s mother, that nurse moved faster than the young one in the Mickey Mouse shirt. Hanna managed to gouge some skin out of her cheek when she stuck in an IV needle. Several pairs of hands held Hanna down while others strapped cuffs on her arms and legs, and then the big-nosed nurse gently slid a syringe into her upper arm—it didn’t hurt at all, not even a pinch, unlike the IV, which had felt like a dull nail hammered into her vein—and shushed her softly.
Not long after, Hanna became all rubbery and soft. She wanted to wipe her eyes, but being tied to the bed, she could only wiggle her fingers. She tried to picture them growing long, curving up to her face so she could wipe away the sleepiness, though the image did nothing to satisfy her itch.
She didn’t want to close her eyes. They might come for her.
She had twisted her wrists in the restraints until her skin stung. It kept her from dozing off.
Hanna’s wrists. Hanna’s wrists. I love to scratch Hanna’s wrists.
She remembered the curtains being drawn around her bed, but the big-nosed nurse hadn’t pulled them until they met in the middle, so Hanna could peek through the window into the hallway. Then she heard the door open, and her mother yanked one side of the curtain. Susan wrapped herself around her daughter’s body, kissed her hair, her forehead. When she realized Hanna hadn’t hugged back, she looked down, tore open the restraints.
Hanna still didn’t lift her arms.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
Her mother looked like her mother but smaller, as if all her bones had shrunk while Hanna was gone, and her skin—too brown from the tanning salon already—had wrinkled in with deep creases. Her eyes were deeper in her head; if they sunk back any more, she’d lose them in her skull.
After Susan came, there had been questions from police officers and doctors she didn’t answer. There had been X rays and blood work and a physical exam. And there had been that other exam, with her feet in the stirrups—like the women having babies on television—and the white sheet over her legs, and the hawk-nosed nurse poking around down there while her mother had held her hand and silently wept.
“Morning, baby,” Susan said, waking, hugging her too quickly against her blouse—she’d fallen asleep in her clothes. “Breakfast?”
Hanna nodded.
“Meet you downstairs.”
Hanna scurried to her own bedroom, put on socks and a pair of leggings under her nightgown. Then she wriggled into a sweater, the nightgown falling like a skirt from her waist to knees. In the kitchen she found a bowl of Lucky Charms with milk. Before, her mother would never buy sugar cereal, except once a year for camping trips; then she let Hanna have those little boxes with Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes, the ones where her father cut back the flaps and Hanna ate right out of the box.
“You don’t see Diane today,” her mother said, shaking coffee into the maker. “I thought we could bake cookies. Or we could try a walk again.”
Hanna scooped some cereal onto a fork, was lifting it to her mouth when someone pounded on the front door. She jerked, the soggy marshmallows jumping onto the table, sticking to the front of her sweater. Susan tensed, too. When the knock came a second time, she told Hanna, “Wait here,” and went to the door, where Hanna could see the shadow of a person behind the white cotton panel covering the long glass pane.
Her mother moved the curtain aside, then unlocked the chain and dead bolt.
“Mrs. Suller, how are you this morning?” Detective Woycowski said.
Susan relocked the door after the detective stepped inside. “Fine. Can I get you some coffee?”
“No, I’m good. I was hoping I could talk to you for a moment. Privately. And then maybe to Hanna, too.”
“You’ve found something.”
“Maybe.”
“I wish you would have called.” Her mother looked at Hanna, sighed, and directed the officer to the room that used to be her father’s study. “Give me a minute.”
Back in the kitchen, Susan ran water over her hands and combed her fingers through her hair, used the pads of her thumbs to wipe the crusted sleep from the corners of her eyes. She tucked her blouse into her jeans and wiped a napkin over her teeth. “Finish your cereal,” she told Hanna.
And Hanna waited, listening to the cloudy murmurs from the study, behind the pocket doors, low at first, then her mother’s voice louder and tenser. Finally footsteps in the hallway, and the detective came in with Susan. He sat in the chair next to Hanna. “How are you today?”
She mixed her Lucky Charms around.
“Hanna, your mom and I were talking, and I’d li
ke to show you some pictures again?”
Hanna swallowed. She churned the cereal faster. A tingling swept over her, like she was being washed in tiny red-hot stingers, starting at her feet and working upward, to her stomach, chest, face. She’d been stung by a wasp once; it felt like that all over. She nodded again, because she had to, because her mother was looking at her, wanting her to.
The last time she’d looked at Detective Woycowski photos was two weeks after she’d been released from the hospital. Two weeks after her escape. He had come into her bedroom, sat on her bed next to her, his weight causing her to dip toward him, and showed her six pictures. She recognized the one in the uppermost left-hand corner. Fat Guy. Her eyes had snapped to Detective Woycowski, and he nodded. “I know you see him, and I know you were able to escape when he had a heart attack. It’s hard, Hanna, but please, just point.”
Hanna had touched Fat Guy’s face with the tips of her first three fingers.
“That’s a brave girl,” the detective said, and left the room with Susan. The door still open, Hanna had heard them clearly, her mother cursing Fat Guy, whose uncle was a professor at the same university at which her father had taught. It was the uncle’s apartment where they had kept Hanna; the neighbor had reported an odd smell and the police found Fat Guy, also known as Bobby Bailey, or Bogus to his friends. Residents at the apartment had also noticed at least two other men coming and going, though no one had paid close enough attention to describe them much past male and white and in their twenties or thirties.
“We’ll keep searching,” the detective had promised Susan. “Maybe when she starts talking . . .” And the twisted feeling in her chest, the one that felt like her lungs were being wrung out like the dish towel her mother used to wash their van, had slowly tightened. They didn’t know about Thin Man or Short One, but were looking for them.
She wasn’t gonna tell.
Susan now took the fork from her. She fisted her hands, pressed them hard against the woven sisal place mat. Detective Woycowski gently moved her bowl to the center of the table, replaced it with a sheet of paper. “Okay, Hanna, just look at these pictures, and if you see one of someone you know, point to it.”
The Air We Breathe Page 7