by T. Greenwood
“Do you have any idea what would happen if these kids’ parents found out?”
“What?” I say, baffled.
“They’d be gone. Every last one of ’em, and where would that leave me?”
I don’t know what to say. I am stunned.
“And why should I believe you anyway? You come here making shit up about some little girl in the woods, and now you’re telling me my own neighbor’s some sort of pervert?”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
The dog barks louder and louder.
“Let him in,” Lisa hollers over her shoulder. I can see the silhouette of a boy behind her in the living room. I hear a sliding door open, and the sound of nails across the floor as the animal comes running through the house, barking, barking.
I start to back up.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I just thought it was your right to know.”
And then the dog is at the precarious baby gate that separates me from Lisa. It growls, its teeth bared. It’s a large black dog, a square head, its ears hacked off.
Holy shit. It’s the dog from the white truck.
“Plum, honey. Go get in the car. I’ll be there in one second,” I say, and she runs to the car in the driveway. I hear the door slam shut.
The dog is growling, pushing against the baby gate.
Lisa yanks the dog back by its collar with her free hand and starts to close the door. “Wait,” I say. “Whose dog is that?”
She stops, just as the door is about to slam shut, but she doesn’t answer me.
“It’s just that I saw someone, the night I saw the girl. He was driving a white truck, and he had a dog. That dog. I remember the ears.”
I can only see a sliver of her now. Somewhere in the depths of the house a baby cries.
“It’s my dog,” she says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And then she is gone. The door slammed shut.
I go to my car and open the driver’s side door. Plum is already reading a book she’s pulled from her backpack, eating an apple slice from a plastic ziplock bag.
“That was a mean dog,” she says, without looking up from her book.
I nod. “I know. I’m sorry if you were scared.”
“I wasn’t scared,” she says. “I wonder what happened to its ear. It looks like somebody cut it off with scissors. No wonder it’s mean.”
I nod again.
I am reeling as I back out of the long driveway. A half dozen little faces are pressed against the house’s windows, peering out at me.
Plum shoves her book back into her backpack and sits staring out the window.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods.
I shouldn’t have dragged her along on this little visit. But then again, I hadn’t exactly expected it to go like this either.
“I miss Zu-Zu,” she says softly.
“Oh, sweetie,” I say, partly relieved that her sudden sullenness has nothing to do with whatever it is that just happened at that house. But mostly I am concerned. Her eyes are full of tears.
“I bet you do,” I say. “Maybe when we get back to the camp we can write her a letter. Put together a care package for her?”
“What’s a care package?” she asks, interest piqued.
“It’s like a box filled with things that she loves. Treats. Books or cookies. Something to make her happy if she’s feeling homesick.”
“I got homesick once,” she says, nodding knowingly. “At my friend Maddy’s house. Daddy had to come get me in the middle of the night.”
I nod.
“What if Zu-Zu gets homesick in the middle of the night? Would my daddy go and get her?”
“I’m sure he would,” I say. “But if we send her a care package, maybe it will keep her from getting homesick.”
And thinking about care packages makes me think about art camp. About the smell of the musty cabin, the lumpy mattress. About the girl I was back then. A girl who could find poetry in chickens. A girl who wanted nothing more than to make beautiful things with words. I feel suddenly, strangely homesick for that girl with all her beautiful longing and hope.
Plum looks out the window again, studies the green that whirs past us as we drive the last stretch around the lake before we see their house through the trees.
“I didn’t think I would miss her. Because she’s actually not very nice, but I do. I even miss her yelling at me.”
I smile and we pull into the driveway.
The clouds I saw at the pool earlier are filling the sky now. We eat dinner outside, but the air feels ominous, thick. Effie builds a fire in the stone fire pit, and we make s’mores. Effie’s all turn out golden and perfect. I burn almost every single one.
When Plum goes in to bed, Effie and I sit by the fire and I tell her about what happened with Lisa. First, about her strange reaction about Lincoln Sharp.
“Isn’t it weird that she’d be more concerned with losing business than with the safety of the kids?” I ask.
Effie shakes her head. “Jesus.”
“Do you know her well?” I ask. “Lisa?”
“No, not at all. Just from my bookmobile route,” she says.
“Have you ever seen a dog there before?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Not that I can remember. Why?”
And so then I tell her about the dog.
“Why would she lie about it being hers?” she asks. “It doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure it’s the same dog as in the truck?”
“Yes. I remember because its ears were messed up. Like somebody tried to cut them off with scissors.”
“I have never understood why people do that,” Effie says.
“What’s that?”
“Cutting their ears. It seems so cruel.”
I think of Plum’s similar reaction. It’s so funny to see how traits—both physical and personality—are passed down from parent to child. Physically, Plum is the perfect amalgam of Devin and Effie. But her personality is all Effie. Sweetness and compassion, a raw vulnerability, that reveals itself tender, like a bruise.
“Oh my God, I totally forgot to tell you about Ryan, the lawyer. Remember that art camp I went to in high school? He went there too.”
“Seriously?” she says.
“I know. I don’t remember him, but he remembers me.”
“That’s nuts,” she says.
“I always forget how small this town is.”
“So he says you can’t go to the cops about this guy. What are you supposed to do now?”
“I don’t know. My plan had been to get Strickland to dig a little deeper. To at least go check this guy’s place out. But Ryan said that I shouldn’t give the cops any more ammunition. They’re trying to make the case that I’m a liar, that this whole thing is some sort of elaborate scheme to get attention. I guess he thinks this is just going to exacerbate the problem. But meanwhile, there’s a freaking pedophile living down the road, next to a day care for Christ’s sake, and nobody seems to give a shit.”
Effie sighs, rubs her temples with her fingers.
“Never mind that there is a little girl somewhere out there. While we’re here playing point-the-finger, she’s probably cold and hungry and scared.” What I don’t say is that all of this is assuming she’s still alive.
We both look at the fire, watch as a spark alights on a sliver of wood. Listen to the crackle and hiss as it catches, as it sparks and ignites. As it combusts and burns.
We sit by the fire until it is not much more than a pile of blackened remains and glowing embers. I can see Effie is exhausted, but I also know she’d stay out here with me all night if I needed her to.
“You should go to bed,” I say.
“You okay?” she asks.
I nod, and she stretches and yawns before standing up. She comes over to me and hugs me. She smells like burned marshmallows, and I can see a little bit of white sticky fluff in her hair.
“You’re wearing some o
f Plum’s s’more,” I say.
“Ugh,” she says. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
“I’ll be in in just a little bit,” I say.
After she goes inside, I use a stick and break up the remaining embers, push them around until they turn to ash. I finish the bottle of wine. When the fire is nearly out, I make my way across the dewy grass and into the camp.
I know I need to check in with Jake. It’s Monday; the auction was today. Despite everything, he’s going to want to share the news. But now that the auction is likely over, or at least the bids are all in, I wonder what excuses he’ll come up with to stay in New York. I know that he won’t come back with Devin on Wednesday. I almost don’t want to hear his lame attempts to justify his absence. I’m already angry as I dial his cell number.
Effie is in the shower; I can hear the groaning pipes in the walls.
I sit in the kitchen nook, doodling on the notepad Effie keeps near the phone. The phone doesn’t even ring but rather goes straight to voice mail, and this pisses me off. It’s nearly midnight. He’ll tell me tomorrow that he was out celebrating. That the entire office went down the street for drinks. And I won’t have to ask if she was there. Because I will hear it in every single one of his sighs. In between his words.
“Hey, it’s me. Just calling to check in to see how the auction went. You’re probably out celebrating. Give me a call tomorrow,” I say. And then I hang up.
Effie comes out of the shower with her hair turbaned in a towel. She smells like soap. She looks at me expectantly. “Did you get a hold of Jake?”
I roll my eyes. “No.”
Effie says, “Try not to worry. I’ll help you figure out what to do tomorrow.”
I think she’s talking about Jake. As if there can be a solution to this problem. As though any of this is fixable. Or worth fixing even.
She goes to the sink and gets a glass of water.
“There’s got to be a way to get someone to look into this Sharp guy. Maybe I can call it in for you? Like an anonymous tip?”
I shrug. “I just need to sleep on it, I think.”
The first time I hold her, I am alone.
The woman at the orphanage said that I was allowed to come twice a week until the paperwork came through. That I could not leave the building with her, but that I could see her. Speak to her.
My stomach is in knots as I follow the tiny woman through the orphanage, to the courtyard where she is sitting, playing with the stacking toys. The rainbow-colored plastic rings of my own childhood.
“Esperanza,” I say. I have been practicing her name. Like a prayer. Like a poem.
The children are held only twice a day; when she hears me say her name she holds out her arms. And so I go to her, not waiting for permission from the woman who has finally allowed me entrance here.
And then her fragile legs wrap tightly around my waist, and I breathe the scent of her hair. Her tangled hair. Her cheek is feverish against the bare skin of my chest. Her heart thumps against my own.
I bring her gifts. The soft stuffed dog, which she calls Amada, pan dulce, champurrada, embroidered dresses. But mostly I hold her. For each hour I am allowed inside these walls, I cling to her. Study her tiny fingernails, the lines that traverse her small pink palms. I memorize the shape of her nose, her eyes. I commit to memory the exact hue of her skin. Mine, I think, as she plays with my hair and curls into me. Mine.
It is impossible to leave her. Tears sting my eyes as her cries follow me down the long dark hallway and back out into the heat and sunlight.
At night I describe her to you, as if the simple act of saying her name, of explaining the smell of her skin (like a sweet spice with no name, like citrus) can make her real to you.
“When are you coming?” I ask. I have been here for five weeks. Any day now, she will be able to come home with us. “Her hands . . . ” I start, but realize that words sometimes fail. There are no words to describe what it feels like when her hand curls around my own.
“This is really happening?” you ask.
“Yes,” I say, certain of this, perhaps for the very first time. “Please. Come as soon as you can. I need you. She needs you.”
I wake in the middle of the night, breathless, at the sound. An explosion. The sky detonating outside the cabin. It feels like someone has shaken me awake, but I am alone, twisted up in the cool sheets. I look at the window, and rain beats against the glass like pellets. I’d forgotten about the thunderstorms here, the electric buzz of the air. The violent utterances from the sky. In the city, storms are merely inconveniences. Never like this. Never consuming like this.
Thunder cracks again, and even though I know it is the storm this time, rather than a bomb, I still startle at the sound.
Normally, I have to drag myself from sleep, especially after a bottle of wine. But I am wide awake, my entire body electrified. A flash of lightning fills the cottage and I see myself, my legs, my arms, illuminated.
I feel an uneasiness, something I can’t quite pinpoint. Because while my body is wide awake, my brain still feels muddy. Thick. It’s almost as if I’ve forgotten something. It feels like a tickle at the back of my throat. An itch. And then, as my hazy thoughts begin to clear, clouds parting, lightning flashes again.
The little girl.
Oh my God. She is outside, alone, in this storm. I feel like I might cry. My throat constricts, my chest compresses. Thunder rumbles ominously, a warning. A threat.
By the time the lightning flashes again, I have crawled out of bed and am getting dressed. In the dark, I dig through my open suitcase for a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I slip on socks and my sneakers. I am not sure where I will go, what I will do. I only know that I can’t stay here in this safe little cottage, protected from the assault going on outside, while she’s out there alone. I feel the same nagging anger at Jake, at Andrews and Strickland, at all the people who have given up. At myself, even, for letting them.
I push against the door, but it resists. The wind and rain seem to want to keep me inside. When I am finally able to get the door open, the moment I step onto the little wooden porch, I am drenched. Water, the psychic said.
I’ll need a flashlight, I think. And so I run up the pathway toward the camp, slipping on the slick grass, feeling my knee buckle then quickly righting myself. But the door is locked. Effie locked it behind me when I left last night. We never worried about locking the doors before, but now even she doesn’t feel safe here.
I run back to the guest cottage, duck inside, and fumble around my purse, looking for my keys, which have a penlight as a keychain. I pull my sweatshirt hood over my head and go back outside to my car, unlocking it with the key rather than using the remote to keep it from sounding its alarm. But as the engine clicks on, the radio blares, and I move to turn it off. I turn on the heater, feel the warm air blow from the vents across my goose-pimpled skin. I check the glove box for a flashlight, but there’s nothing inside save the car’s registration, a couple of CDs, a charger that plugs into the lighter.
I back out of the driveway slowly, and then I am on the road. I drive south around the lake, but I can’t see the water. I can only see the rain that is coming down in hard sheets now against my windshield, all of the windows. It’s like I’m in a car wash. I click the wipers to the fastest setting, but their sweeping arcs are futile against the watery assault.
I don’t know where I am going; I only know I can’t stay inside that safe cocoon of a cottage while that little girl is out here. How could I have not considered the rain? The weather? This is New England in the summer. It is hospitable to no one, never mind someone exposed to the elements.
I feel overwhelmed by the sense that I have failed her: that the pathetic search, the ambivalent police, are my fault. I imagine if it had been anyone else who had found her, if it had been Devin or Jake for Christ’s sake, people would still be looking. Searching. The search wouldn’t end until she was found. Until she was safe. But I am unreliable. Untru
stworthy. Unhinged.
There are no other cars on the road, but I still drive slowly, cautiously. Part of me hopes that she will just appear again. That she will emerge from the woods into the low beam of my headlights. And this time I won’t be distracted. This time I will go to her, grab hold of her; this time I won’t let her go.
But the road in front of me is empty. My headlights illuminate nothing but rain and dirt, trees. She isn’t going to simply materialize. The idea that she will come back is magical thinking. I know this. It’s the fingers crossed, breath held inside a tunnel. Another foolish wish on a star.
A couple of miles down the road, I pull over and turn off the engine. Without my headlights, it is dark. I really wish I had a real flashlight. It’s stupid to be out here like this. When I get out, I feel like I have been swallowed by the night. Like a blind person, I try to navigate the road using my other senses, but the rain distorts things. Confuses things. I find the edge of the road and walk. I walk for at least a half a mile, searching. I study the edge of the road, looking for the mailbox. Looking for the driveway that leads to that man’s house.
Everyone else has given up on her. But I have not. I will not. Not until I find her.
I should be afraid, but instead I feel only determination as I walk up the dark gravel driveway. Sharp’s porch light is on, an eerie beacon, but the truck is not there, which, I hope, means he’s not home. I feel emboldened by his absence. And it isn’t until I get to the collection of trailers that my pounding heart catches up with me.
It is still pouring rain. My clothes are soaked, heavy. I feel like I am carrying an extra fifty pounds. Stealth is nearly impossible, and so I am grateful for the storm. For the cacophony of rain. Of thunder. I’d forgotten how loud storms are. How deafening.
I walk slowly, carefully, through the labyrinth of metal outbuildings: this maze of rusted husks. There’s a teardrop trailer, two horse trailers. Grass and weeds grow through them, nature trying to reclaim the metal. There’s one of those campers that attach to a pickup truck, but the hitch is sunk into the ground. This is like a graveyard. Like a strange garden.