The Air We Breathe

by Christa Parrish

  The woman on the other end of the phone wanted to know her name, kept asking questions—“Is she bleeding? Is she able to communicate the problem? Does she feel like she needs to push?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” Molly answered. She called out the door to Claire, relaying the questions. Claire’s head lolled against the glass. “Just tell them to hurry.”

  “They’re coming,” Molly said. And then she found herself outside the door, her body wrapped in February air, and she crouched down, too—crawled, almost—making her way toward Claire. When she got to her, she only sat there; she didn’t have a blanket for her, another coat to ball behind her head, or even a word of encouragement. But Claire took Molly’s hand and held it against her stomach. “Pray,” she said.

  So Molly did, asking God to protect Claire’s baby, the words safe in her head, the only way she knew how to pray. The ambulance pulled onto the dead brown grass, its red lights staining the road, its siren bringing people into the street. Two men loaded Claire into the back and drove away, leaving Molly on the wood patio, still gripping the phone, still kneeling on the decking.

  Still outside.

  She looked across the street; Tobias watched her from the window of the pizzeria. She looked to the door, which stretched away from her, like in a cartoon movie, the distance insurmountable. She pressed her back up against the window, flattening herself as close as she could get to the building, and inched along as if she stood on a high ledge, with the street fifty stories below her. She crept toward the door, her head facing the pizzeria, facing Tobias, until her fingers wrapped around the entrance to the museum and she slipped back into the lobby, not opening the door far enough to set the cackling off. Her breath came in rapid puffs. She squeezed her hands into fists, opened them, shook them, trying to warm them.

  “Molly?”

  Louise watched her from the office doorway.

  “They took Claire to the hospital.”

  “I know. I saw.”

  Molly didn’t move. Couldn’t. She sucked in the familiarity of the museum. It replaced the outside within her, filling her with the things she knew. “You didn’t come.”

  “By the time I heard the siren, I thought . . . Well, the EMTs were there, and there was nothing else I could do.”

  “I want to go to the hospital.”

  “Baby, that’s not really necessary. There’s nothing you can do there, either.”

  “I want to go. Will you take me?”

  Louise tugged the waistband of her yoga pants. “Are you sure you can?”

  “Take me, please.”

  “I’ll bring the car around front.”

  Molly waited until she heard the hum of the engine beyond the glass, and then the ding ding ding as her mother left the keys in the ignition and the car door open to come get her. Knocking near her head. She stepped away from the entrance so Louise could push inside, hold Molly by the arm. “Come on.”

  The air didn’t feel as shocking as before, and in three strides Molly was in the car, the lock pressed down, her belt holding her against the seat. She sat straight, almost cocked forward, the headrest a boulder against her skull. Louise drove, lifting her hips up to wrangle her phone from her back pocket, and called Mick. He didn’t answer; she left a message telling him where they were going and why. Molly closed her eyes, felt the vibrations in her feet, the potholes in her hips. The car made several turns, Molly swaying with them, and stopped with a jerk. Louise turned it off. “We’re here.”

  Molly looked around. They were in the hospital parking lot, their spot directly under a lamppost, the entrance three rows of cars away, plus two driveways and a landscaped median. She didn’t unbuckle, only stared at the glass door, opening and closing automatically as a few people went in and out. And then no one.

  “Moll?”

  “Just a minute.”

  She thought, Wrap your fingers around the handle and pull, but her arm rested limply on her leg. She thought, Find the red button on the seat belt and push, but again her hands remained tucked between her knees. She tried to slow her breaths as a familiar tingle pooled at her collarbone, her shoulders, and dripped down into her elbows, her wrists. She closed her eyes.

  “Why don’t I pull up front? You can go in and then I’ll park,” Louise said.

  Molly nodded.

  Backing out of the parking spot, her mother maneuvered around to the entrance, under the carport. Molly touched the door handle, metal, not cold like when she first got in the car, but warm from the heat vent blowing on it for the entire thirty-minute drive. She pulled slowly.

  “It’s locked,” Louise said, and she pressed the button on her side, all the latches clicking open.

  Molly flinched. “I can’t,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s okay. We’ll go home.” Her mother lifted her foot off the brake and the car rolled forward. She turned from the parking lot, humming three tuneless notes over and over, in varying patterns. She reached over, patted Molly’s knee. “It’s okay.”

  “For you,” Molly said.

  “Baby—”

  “You’re happy I didn’t go in.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t want me in there. You don’t want me to see her.”

  “I never said th—”

  “And you don’t want me to be able to do things.”

  “Things? What sort of things?”

  “Go outside.”

  “Stop. Now. I know you’re upset about that woman—”

  “Claire, Mother.”

  “I know her name.”

  “You never wanted me around her.”

  “Why are we doing this now?”

  “When are we going to do it? When are we ever going to get anything out in the open? You took me away from her.”

  Louise adjusted the rearview mirror so the headlights behind her weren’t so bright in it. “Just stop. You know exactly what happened.”

  “I needed her.”

  “You should have needed me,” Louise snapped. “I loved you. I sacrificed for you. I went insane every day you didn’t speak. I’m your mother. She was some stranger in the park. And still you picked her over me. Why, tell me that? Because of the religion thing?”

  Molly lowered her head, thin tears tracing the side of her nose, crawling up into her nostrils as she sniffled. “She was there.”

  “I was there.”

  Not the way I needed you to be. But she couldn’t say that.

  Her mother sighed, softened. “I’m sorry about Claire. Really, I am. I’ll call the hospital when we get back and try to get an update.”

  “Fine.”

  “Moll—”

  “It’s fine.”

  Louise closed herself in the bedroom, but Molly had no interest in sleep. Or television. Or opening her Bible. Most of the time the Word was a comfort, but times like tonight it became her biggest accuser. Everything she read ignited her past, burning it brightly before her. But the fire never consumed it; those awful things came out the other side of the flames shinier than before.

  She didn’t want to be angry at her mother.

  She didn’t want to blame Louise for the life they had now.

  She didn’t want to be confronted by her own part in it all—her choice to go to the bank after the post office, her inability to be the daughter she should have been, her reaction to Thin Man when he—

  No, she wouldn’t go there.

  Instead, she dug through the junk drawer in the kitchen and found a pocket flashlight, metallic purple, a stocking stuffer last Christmas. She snuck out into the wax museum, through several displays, and sat down near Shirley Temple. The curly-topped kid had always been Molly’s favorite, probably because she’d been closest to Molly’s size when they first arrived. She stroked the wax Toto and remembered all the secrets they’d shared, all the times she’d confided that she hated her mother, hated her life
, hated herself. Told her about Henry. She tried now to talk to the figure but felt foolish. She had more than that now. Tobias, for one. Perhaps Claire again. Even the girl who left the Bible felt more real than a wax figure. Molly had been swapping bits of her dead life for a living one these past few months. Now she needed to let go of the rest.

  “Sorry, Shirley,” she whispered.

  Back in her room, she dug the Bible from beneath her pillow, opened to the front cover and ran her finger over the squiggle of black permanent marker in the upper left-hand corner. She felt the indentation of a ballpoint pen, barely perceptible. Digging through her pile of schoolbooks, she found her math notebook, ripped a page from the metal spiral, and placed the unlined top part over the marker stain. Gently, she rubbed the side of a sharpened pencil on the paper. A name appeared, and a phone number.

  Ellen Josephine Hicks.

  555-3127.

  Molly went into the office; her mother never shut off the computer. She did an Internet search and found the Colorado Springs area code—719. She slid her hand over the phone.

  What am I thinking? What would I even say?

  The clock in the corner of the computer monitor read 11:48. She wouldn’t be calling anyone this time of night, even with the two-hour time difference. She wrote the phone number on the bottom of the paper, along with the name. Creased the paper with her thumbnail and, holding it tight over the corner of the desk, tore a thin strip off. She folded it in half, and half, and half again until the scrap was the size of quarter. Back in her bedroom, she taped the square to the underside of her top dresser drawer.

  Maybe she would call tomorrow.

  21

  CLAIRE

  FEBRUARY 2009

  She watched evening television from the hospital bed, local news and reruns. But even with a canned laughter track echoing in the room, she couldn’t stop replaying her conversation from thirty minutes ago, as Beverly pleaded with Claire to call Andrew and tell him about the episode with the baby.

  “It was just a scare. Nothing’s progressing. The doctor is probably sending me home in a couple hours. I don’t want to worry him,” Claire had said.

  “Mmm-hmm. He’s not going to be happy when he finds out.”

  “Are you going to say anything to him?”

  “You’re not?”

  Claire rubbed one eyelid with her middle finger, the other with her thumb, listening to the membranes squish beneath the pressure. “I don’t know.”

  “Think about this one, Claire. If they’re releasing you, let me know. I’ll make some calls, get someone from the church to pick you up.”

  She sighed. The doctor had examined her, said her cervix wasn’t at all dilated. She’d be monitored for a bit longer, to make sure the baby’s heart rate stayed strong and the contractions didn’t start up again, but he expected it was a one-time thing, brought on by dehydration, or stress, or overexertion. Perhaps a mix of all three?

  “Maybe,” she had said.

  She closed her eyes. The hospital gown and sheets left her feeling cold, as did the thin cotton blanket the nurse gave her. She wanted to buzz and ask for another, but the nurse hadn’t been happy about getting her the first one. Her feet were ice; she covered her right with her left, trying to warm them, remembering when Caden would climb between her and Daniel in bed, his bare feet always cold, and he’d stick them between her legs. “Go get socks,” she’d growl, her skin sprouting goose pimples.

  “I have none that match,” he would tell her.

  She adjusted the head of the bed a little higher, pulled the pillow out from under her and covered herself with it.

  She wished Andrew were there.

  The same unhappy nurse had brought her a newspaper, too, snagged from another room—the Sudoku puzzle half filled, the crossword started, the first five across clues written in, the first two down, and then the fourth, and a half-dozen random words here and there. Most were wrong, and the previous reader had used pen. Claire stretched, her fingertips hooking the strap of her purse on the side table. She rummaged through for a mechanical pencil, licked the top of the eraser, and patted the excess spit onto the back of her hand. Then she erased the inked words, gently, only rubbing one small hole in the newsprint. Started over. She didn’t bother to look at the clock; just filled in clues, one after the other, like old times.

  She rarely solved puzzles anymore, didn’t attend the monthly meetings at the library, didn’t write them, except if she was inspired by a theme she found original, which had happened maybe twice since her wedding to Andrew. The crosswords were part of her old lives, the one with Daniel and the kids, and then the one after them. Andrew had said to her, “You know, you don’t need to write these anymore, if you don’t want to. We don’t need the extra money.” She had taken that to mean, You’re done.

  She and Andrew had married not long after Hanna disappeared—seven months—and with two words she had become a wife and mother again. “I do.” Poof. She’d wanted to impress her new husband, so threw herself into the proper-wife role with abandon. Schooling Jesse, running errands, having meals on the table when Andrew walked through the door, keeping the house clean, including those pesky tasks she rarely did previously—dusting the ceiling fan blades, wiping down the floor molding under the beds, folding underwear first in thirds, and then in half. By the end of the first year she had exhausted herself, and she cried to Heidi, telling her she couldn’t let up because this was what Andrew had thought he married. A dynamo. Not a dud.

  “He just wants you,” Heidi had told her. “But who is that anymore?”

  She hadn’t lied to him about who she was, not really. Not intentionally. She’d presented the picture of the woman she strove to be, who she honestly thought she should be. Andrew liked that picture. “That’s just how I feel, too,” he’d said over and over, his eyes brightening each time the two of them stumbled onto common ground.

  Later, Claire found herself not telling him things she thought he might disagree with; she didn’t want the light to dim, to lose her chance with him. Commission. Omission. She told herself there was a big difference. Yeah, two less letters. Two missing letters in a crossword puzzle meant unfinished. Still she ignored the pressure building up, walled herself up into the perfect Christian woman model advocated from periodical and pulpit. After she had worn three-inch wedges to church all summer, Heidi pointed to her feet and asked, “What is that?”

  “Andrew likes it.”

  “There’s a big difference between doing something for your husband because he likes it, and doing it because you don’t want him to find out you don’t.”

  And her friend’s words had wrapped her marriage into a pretty package with metallic paper and ribbon and gift tag—perfect on the outside, but when Claire shook the box, it was hollow.

  Empty.

  I don’t know who I am anymore.

  That was why staying on Dorsett Island was so important. A little bit rebellion. A little bit adventure. A whole lot of telling the world, Yes, I still have a mind of my own. A chance to get back to the woman she was before her marriage to Andrew. Not that she wanted that whole package—she could do without the loneliness and confusion and TV dinners—but at least she could put on a pair of pants without thinking, What if he doesn’t like me in these?

  A knock on the door. Claire jerked, looked over, saw that pizza boy standing there, the one she’d met the other day at the museum. “Can I come in?” he asked.

  “Sure, yeah.” She sat up, moved the pillow back behind her. The boy helped her, shimmying it down so it fit in the hollow of her neck. “Thanks.”

  “No prob. And it’s Tobias.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No big deal. You just had that look.”

  “I guess I did. I am really bad with names, like I said.”

  He swept his hand over his head, removing his hat. Stuck it in his back jeans pocket. “Are you okay? The, you know, um, baby?”

  “Yes. Everything’s good. False alar
m.”

  “Oh, good. I, uh, hope you don’t mind me coming by. I know it’s really rude, but I wasn’t sure I’d have another chance to talk to you. I guess I’m sorta cornering you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re expecting from me. I already told you I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

  “I already know,” Tobias said. He unzipped his fleece jacket, took out a thick, rumpled rectangle of white paper. Unfolded it.

  “The twelve-year-old girl who recently returned home after being abducted has disappeared again, police said Sunday. Hanna Suller and her mother, Susan Suller, were reported missing by family friend Claire Rodriguez after she showed up at the Suller home for a visit. According to Avery Springs Police Detective John Woycowski, police found blood at the scene, and a van registered to Susan Suller has not yet been located. ‘There was no sign of forced entry,’ Woycowski said, ‘but some sort of struggle took place in the house.’

  “When asked if police had any leads, Woycowski replied, ‘Not yet.’

  “Hanna Suller was kidnapped from FSR Bank when it was held up by three men in May. Her father, Henry Suller, professor of Entomological Studies at Sutcliffe College, and security guard Ralph Pitkin were killed during the robbery. Hanna Suller escaped two weeks later when one of her captors, Bobby Bailey, died of a heart attack. Police are still looking for Bailey’s accomplices. ‘We’re not ruling out the involvement of someone with intimate knowledge of the Suller girl’s case,’ Woycowski said. ‘With recent news reports that Hanna had started speaking again, there could be someone out there who didn’t want her to talk.’

  “Rodriguez could not be reached for comment.”

  Tobias refolded the pages.

  “How did you find that?” Claire asked.

  “I knew your first name. I knew Mol—Hanna’s. You mentioned the town you two used to live in. It didn’t take all that long.” He sniffed. “Molly always says the Internet is her friend. Maybe not now, huh?”

  “Are you okay?”