by T. Greenwood
She shakes her head, closes her eyes.
“They can’t do this. We have papers,” I say. “We paid the agency . . .”
“Thirty thousand dollars,” you say, nodding, and this makes me hate you.
“The papers have been signed,” I say. “You told us everything would be finalized.”
“I’m trying to reach the agency,” she says. “No one answers.”
“Call them again,” I say. “Find out when we can get our daughter back.”
“It is terrible,” she says. “I am so sorry. There is nothing I can do.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “This must be a mistake.”
And I stand up, make my way to the door. “I’m going to the orphanage,” I say to you.
You look like you have just woken from a dream. Disoriented. Dazed. You shake your head. “No. Let’s go back to the hotel,” you say. “I’ll call Oliver. We need an American attorney. Someone to contact the agency directly.”
“No,” I say. “I’m going to find her.”
I don’t know if you are following me. I can’t hear anything but my own breath. By the time I finally get to the orphanage, my body is slick with sweat. I lick my lips and they are salty, but I don’t know if it is sweat or tears or both.
I ring the buzzer and then bang on the closed door until my knuckles are bloody, until a small crowd has gathered. And when my arms no longer work, and my legs will no longer hold me up, I sit on the ground, look up at the bare branches of the jacaranda tree. The ground beneath me is plastered with their wilting petals.
“Please, get up. We need to call Oliver. Call home,” you say.
But I can’t get up.
“Get up,” you yell, and I don’t recognize you anymore.
But my body complies. I feel it moving, sense the pavement under my feet. But I feel as though I am watching this from far away. From above.
In the hotel, I climb into the bed and stare at the ceiling fan rocking and spinning its useless circles. I listen to you on the phone, trying to make sense of this. To get answers to the questions. But no one can explain who took her. And when you call the agency, the phone connects to nothing. The numbers like the wrong combination to a lock.
For three days, I cannot get out of bed. For three days I do not bathe or eat. I can barely sleep, and when I do, I dream of stillborn babies. That I am in the hospital being told that I have given birth to a dead child. But Esperanza is not dead.
She is just gone.
I wake up later—minutes? hours?—consumed with anxiety.
This is when the self-loathing sets in. After the giddy thrill is gone, after the release, after the alcohol has run its course through my body, metabolized, turned into sugar. It is with this jolt that I have awoken nearly every night for years now. Every fear, every regret, every sorrow amplified in this miserable hour of the night. In this terrible abyss. At home, I used to press my hand against Jake’s back, count his heartbeats in order to distract myself. To keep from reciting the litany of failures and fears.
But Jake is not here. And I am afraid that if I search for my own heartbeat, that I will find nothing: the ticktock of this clock stopped. It is irrational, I know, but this is the mad hour, the manic hour. A time to endure, to survive. I feel like a warrior in a battle with myself, my brain and heart locked in conflict.
There is no logic to any of this. The thoughts that consume me are fragmented. I think of Plum, the fairy. I worry not about the danger she could have been in, all of the terrible things that could have happened to her, but about the gumdrops. How do I get the gumdrops there so that she will still believe? So that I can salvage that wonder, that magic, that I have somehow stolen by my own selfish concerns. And I wonder if this is why Jake is sleeping with another woman, because I am selfish. Because after a while I stopped caring about him, stopped giving to him, stopped feeling anything but disappointment. Every wish and want and demand I had of him left unanswered. I’m so tired of failing, he’d said. I try to imagine Jess, conjure her. I wonder if she will move into the house when I am gone. I try to picture her in that lilac room. Which inevitably transports me to Guatemala. And then there I am again, my brain circling endlessly to this vortex. Like water to a drain. No matter how far I stray, my mind is determined to return to that moment. That horrifying moment. That black hole, rabbit hole, inside which I find myself every single night. But even as I let it consume me, it becomes confused by a new pit, the widening aperture, the depths of which I cannot even fathom.
But when morning comes, as the darkness dissipates, so too does the madness. And I am gifted with a sort of amnesia. A forgetting. Until night falls again.
As the sky lightens with the first hints of dawn, I feel like shit. I feel dour: my mouth, my breath sour. I fumble around in the pocket of my jeans crumpled on the floor looking for some gum. A hard, stale stick of Juicy Fruit that floods my mouth with a terrible sweetness. I spit it out into my hand and chuck it into the wastebasket by the door.
I am parched, and my head is pounding. I don’t want Plum to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. What I need to do is to get some fresh air, to run, to maybe even take a dip in the lake. A baptismal dunk in the cold water. I want water inside me, but I also want to be submerged.
And so I pull on my bathing suit, a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and quietly make my way to the road, careful to steer clear of the camp.
The sky is opaque, the trees filmy with mist. It must have rained last night, though I don’t recall hearing it. Everything is wet, and the dirt road is muddy. As I start to run, I have to dodge puddles and potholes. I leap across one particularly large puddle, and my head pounds when I land. If I run hard enough, I wonder if I can sweat the rest of the toxins out of my body.
I run on the left side of the road, so that any oncoming cars will see me, though it is early and the summer people have not yet begun to arrive in earnest. It is the last Saturday of June, though, and by next weekend, the camps around the lake will be full: the Fourth of July celebrations in full swing. But for now, I am completely alone.
While my brain is fuzzy, my head still thick with the hangover, my body seems to be revived. I am hardly even out of breath when I will myself to keep going as I pass Sharp’s driveway and push farther, to the place where the road curves away from the water. Where I lost her. I lost her.
I consider running past, just continuing on. Past Lisa’s driveway (I picture the note on the door, battered, tattered, and flapping in the breeze). I imagine the journey to Hudson’s, where I can buy a huge bottle of Gatorade, sit outside at one of the picnic tables, and replace my electrolytes. Rehydrate. But my legs are slowing.
We may have gotten Plum back yesterday. But that doesn’t change a single thing about the fact that there is a wolf in these woods, and a little girl. I feel myself tumbling headlong into the rabbit hole, into that awful abyss.
I peer into the trees, into the thick green tangle. She is out there somewhere. I believe this. I have to believe this. But still, I feel the inklings, the awful tickle of doubt that scratches away at my certainty. I stop and bend over, breathless. I hold on to my knees and try to keep from passing out. My eyes fill with stars. No, I think. Keep it together, Tess.
I walk across the road to the edge of the woods, and look again. The rising sun burns through the trees, creating scattered beams of light. It is like a cathedral. Jake and I honeymooned in Italy, and we spent an afternoon at the Duomo di Milano. Of course, it was majestic, ostentatious, overwhelming. But more magical than any of the architectural feats were what the stained glass windows somehow did to simple sunlight. How nature and man seemed to merge in these colored beams. How light was transformed, imbued with grace. I remember thinking that this could be enough, for some, to prove the existence of God. I remember being stunned into silence by it.
And like a penitent, I am drawn to the light again.
There is no path here. I am waist high in ferns and other folia
ge. I push through the brush, twigs scratching at the bare skin of my legs. I dodge the low-hanging branches, the rain that has gathered on the leaves spilling onto my skin, cooling it. These are the woods between Sharp’s house and Lisa’s house. If I am correct, she was here. After I saw her, she would have had to pass through this patch of woods to get to Sharp’s trailer, where I found the barrette. I think about Alfieri driving past me that night. Maybe he was headed to Sharp’s. If she stumbled onto Sharp’s property, then maybe he found her? I think of the dog growling at me through the window, baring its teeth. Sharp.
I walk with purpose, though I have no idea where I am going, only what I am looking for. Others have searched here, I have searched here, but we must have missed something. Of the thousands of clues left behind, what did we not see?
A bird calls out loudly, startling me. I clutch my chest and then laugh. It’s just a bird. Jesus, get a grip. But then I hear something else. At first it sounds like the low rumble of thunder. But the sky beyond the tops of the trees is bright. There are no storm clouds looming. The sound is incongruous with the sky.
I hear it again, and I stop, wonder if my ears are playing tricks on me. Birds call out, and I proceed. But then I hear it again; it sounds almost like snoring, a sort of gargling and croaking sound. And then I hear movement through the brush.
It’s something growling.
My heart starts to pound hard in my chest. My legs opt for flight before my brain has time to react. But I don’t run back to the road. I run deeper into the trees. The growling sound intensifying.
I run as fast as I can, stumbling over exposed tree roots and brush, slipping on the damp pine needles that carpet the forest floor. I run blindly, deeper into the woods, stupidly thinking I am somehow going to lose whatever it is that is tracking me if I disappear into the forest. Is this what was going through her mind when she fled from me? That she could lose me if she herself were to become lost?
Tears are streaming down my eyes now, but in the distance I see something, which makes my pace quicken. There’s some sort of clearing, a place where the trees open up. And in that clearing is a building.
It’s red. Just a sliver of scarlet, like a shimmery red piece of glass in the light.
It’s hard to see, between the fog and the trees. But there is a spot of color in the distance, and I know that if I can just get there I will be safe.
I can’t hear the growling sound anymore, but I worry it is simply because my ears are occupied with the sound of my blood pulsing in them. I don’t turn around. I don’t stop. I just run and run until I reach the clearing and see now that it is a house. A dilapidated one-story house, a shotgun house. Red clapboards. Red roof. It is encircled by red quince bushes, red and pink columbine. An aneurysm of red. There is a grassy hill on the other side of the house, and sitting in the driveway is a broken-down red pickup truck.
So much red, Mary had said. Could this possibly be what she saw?
I turn around, peering into the woods behind me as if to confirm with the trees what it is that I’m seeing, and that’s when I see the dog.
A brown pit bull, its shoulders hunched, teeth bared, stares at me with beady, hungry eyes.
And so I run to the porch to bang on the back door of this house, readying myself for the attack. Waiting for his teeth to sink into my bare calves, to tear apart my flesh while I pound at the door. I imagine the futile struggle, prepare myself for death by dog.
But miracle of miracles, the door is ajar. I push into the house and slam the door shut behind me. The dog is on the porch within seconds. I can hear its nails scraping against the wooden door, and I wonder if it is strong enough to get inside.
“Help!” I scream then, suddenly aware I have just entered someone’s home. And I realize I might not be any safer in here.
Still, I lock the deadbolt, my hands trembling. My entire body convulsing with what could have happened outside. And what might happen next.
“Help!” I scream again, hoping for mercy.
But I am met with silence.
No one is home. I have come into the back of the house, a small, dark foyer. There is a doorway to my left, and in front of me is a kitchen. It is dark in here, dusty. Pink floral wallpaper curls like peeling sunburned skin from the walls.
It’s then that my senses are able to refocus, and the smell hits me. It is something rotten. Meat, tinged with a sort of sickening sweetness. I feel my stomach roiling, and I turn to the door on my left and hope that it is a bathroom. I lift my T-shirt to cover my nose, but the stench is too potent. I push open the door to my left and see a toilet. Dirty, rust-ringed, but I am so grateful. I kneel onto the filthy linoleum and vomit.
My head is pounding now. The hangover winning.
I stand back up, flush the toilet, and peer into the cracked mirror over the sink. I turn on the rusty faucet, though it is missing its handle, and the water runs brown into the cracked porcelain sink.
I need to get the hell out of here, but I am trapped. I go back out into the hallway and peer out the window. The dog is poised on the porch, still barking and growling. I feel like I might be sick again.
I am afraid to find what is causing the smell. It is unlike anything I have ever smelled before. Like rancid meat. Like garbage left out in the sun.
What the hell am I supposed to do?
“Hello?” I cry out again as I make my way into the kitchen. Flies buzz over the sink, piled with dishes, and the trash can, which is overflowing. Maybe this is where the smell is coming from?
Every cupboard door is open, and there are open jars. A peanut butter jar scraped clean, an empty bag of sugar. Potato chip bags, the plastic innards of cereal boxes with only crumbs remaining. There is a can of something—soup?—with a knife sticking out of it, as though someone has stabbed it. Thick lines of ants crisscross the counter, swarm in shuddering huddles on the crumbs.
“Hello?” I try again, as if there’s any chance that whoever lives here could somehow still be here, lurking in the shadows.
The kitchen opens up to a dining room, though there is no dining room table. The room is full of boxes and bins. Garbage bags filled with clothes, some opened, the sleeves of sweaters and shirts reaching out.
The next room in this long chain is what appears to be a bedroom. There are two mattresses on the floor. One wall is painted a sort of Pepto-Bismol pink, and there is a purple Disney princess sleeping bag on one mattress. No sheets, caseless pillows, their ticking stained with yellow circles. There is a plastic Barbie castle in one corner. A box of condoms scattered on the floor. I can barely breathe.
I shield my eyes from the bright sunlight that pours through the bare windows in the last room, the living room. I step carefully across the threshold and gasp.
The woman sits prone on the chintz couch. Head thrown back as if in laughter. As though whatever happened to her occurred mid-conversation.
As my eyes adjust to the bright light, I can see that her skin is blistered. Bloated. Around her arm is belt of urine-colored tubing. A needle stuck in her arm, poised like a dagger in this putrefying, petrified flesh.
I turn away, bile burning my throat, the stench burning my eyes. Weeping, I return to the bedroom. I want to throw open the windows, but the dog is circling outside. I sit down on the mattress, afraid I might pass out. I put my head between my knees and try to breathe deeply, but it feels like I am inhaling the gases, and I worry that the toxins will enter my lungs, permeate my bloodstream.
I look up again, see a dresser I hadn’t noticed before. The drawers are pulled out, the contents erupting. On top of the dresser is a wooden box, a McDonald’s bag, and a framed picture.
I stand up and reach for the picture, knowing before I even look what I will see.
A young woman, presumably the one in the other room, stands in front of this same red house. She has one hip jutted out, her face gaunt, defiant as though challenging whoever is taking the photo. She seems not to even notice the little girl perched on h
er hip. The child leans her head against the woman’s chest, thumb stuck in her mouth. Her eyes are wide and her hair is curly. She’s wearing a bright pink raincoat, the sky behind her ominous. And on her feet are a pair of ladybug rain boots.
I cover my face and run to the kitchen, to the counter where I saw the soup can. I can see now there is blood on the blade; she must have been trying to open the can with a knife. This would be how she got the cut in her hand. She was just trying to eat.
I feel a sob rising in my throat, but then this tremendous sorrow turns to rage.
This goddamned woman, this mother, shot up in her living room, overdosed, leaving her four-year-old child to fend for herself. I study the signs on the kitchen counter: the empty bread bag, peanut butter jar, torn Jell-O packets. On the stovetop is a pot with dry macaroni noodles burned to the bottom. I open the refrigerator and find an empty twelve-pack of Miller High Life, a bottle of Sriracha, a half gallon of sour milk. In the freezer, which is a cavern of ice, I see a few loose Otter Pops and a freezer-burned pound of ground beef.
How long was she here alone with her mother’s body?
I see this house, this rotten stinking house now as she must have. I wonder if she ate that whole bag of sugar. The floor is gritty with it.
I imagine her trying to wake her mama up.
And I think then of the dog. That goddamned dog that Lisa or Sharp or Alfieri seems to have set free to roam these woods. The guardians of whatever illicit activities are going on here. I try to piece together what happened. How she found her way from this house to me in the road, and why on earth she would have fled from me. I could have taken care of her.
And now, I am terrified it is too late.
I still don’t know her name. And so as I frantically make my way back through the house, checking each small room for some signs of life, I have nothing to call out to her. Stupidly, ridiculously, I scream, “Hello? Hello?”