The Lost Girls

by Heather Young

  “He wrote me! And I never knew! I thought he didn’t care. But you took them! You opened them, and you read them, and you never gave them to me!”

  Lilith picked up an envelope and read Maurie’s name in that boyish hand. “I’ve never seen these.”

  I crossed my legs beneath my skirt. My panty hose scraped together. It was a hot night, and they were wet behind my knees. I said, “She didn’t take them. I did.”

  Maurie whirled on me. “Liar. You don’t do anything she doesn’t tell you to do.”

  Well, that hurt me. I wanted her to know she was wrong. I wanted it very badly. So I gripped the arms of the chair and said, “His mother asked me to do it. She didn’t want him with you. They were a nice family.”

  I shouldn’t have said that, I know, even though it was true. Maurie’s face wrenched. I’d never thought she looked like Father, except for the coloring, but her anger did something to her eyes, giving them that intense, deep-seeing quality his had. “You bitch,” she said.

  Lilith stood up. The letters fell to the floor. “Don’t talk to Lucy like that.”

  “It was better this way,” I said, and my voice shook only a little. “Those things never last.” She was right; I’d read the letters. I’d read them many times. I knew how much he loved her. But they were only fifteen.

  “How would you know?” Maurie’s voice was acid. “Nobody’s ever loved you.”

  “I said leave her alone,” Lilith snapped.

  Maurie spun back to her mother. “Do you understand what she did to me? Do you? All I’ve ever wanted is to get out of here! He was the only one who ever loved me, who ever wanted me. And she wrecked it!”

  A quivering silence followed. I was terrified Lilith would look at me, and of what I might see in her eyes if she did, but she didn’t. With a forced calm, she said, “Stop it. He was just some boy you played with for a month every summer. He wasn’t some knight in shining armor.”

  Maurie jabbed a finger at her. “You don’t know what it’s like for me, stuck out here with my mother, a dried-up virgin, and an old woman who can’t stop talking about a girl who died twenty-five years ago.” She waved her arm at Mother, who shrank as though from a blow. “Do you even know what people say about you? About me?”

  “I don’t care what they say. And if you don’t like it here you can leave. You don’t need some boy to take you.”

  “Really, Mother?” Maurie’s voice raged with bitter contempt. “Like you did? After my daddy died you just sat here on your ass, and you’re going to keep sitting here until you die. So will Lucy, because she doesn’t have the guts to leave. I know what this is about. You both lost your chance. So you had to ruin mine.”

  It took everything I had not to move. Lilith stepped close to Maurie until her face was inches from her daughter’s. They were the same height, with the same dark hair, the same strong bones from which Lilith’s skin had begun to slip. When Lilith spoke, her voice was quiet and hard. “I didn’t lose my chance when your father died. I lost it when you were born.”

  Maurie went white. In her chair by the television Mother gave a low sob. I closed my eyes. To this day, I don’t know why Lilith said such a cruel thing. Maybe it was to give Maurie the shove she needed to get out. Maybe she even believed it. If that were true, it would be a great relief to me. But in all the years that followed, I never found the courage to ask.

  “Fuck you,” Maurie said. Her voice was quiet now. “Fuck all of you. You’re going to die in this dump. But I’m getting out.”

  And she did. The next morning, before we woke, she drove the car to town and took the first bus that pulled into the station. We got the postcard two months later, from Minneapolis. She’d gone looking for him. She must not have found him, or it hadn’t turned out well, but she would never let us know that. Instead she wrote about her sophisticated life, sharing an apartment with two other girls, working in a restaurant, going out at night. Honestly, it all sounded pretty low to me, but she had a job and a place to live, and that gave me great comfort. Lilith hadn’t seemed worried that her daughter was a runaway at seventeen, but the thought had made me sick with fear.

  Six months later she was in Chicago, and it was the same story, but this time there was a boyfriend she was sure she’d marry. A year after that she turned up in Detroit with no mention of the boyfriend. On it went: Kansas City, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, and then towns so small we’d never heard of them. Sometimes there were boyfriends, sometimes not, but it never stopped, even after you were born. The way she dragged you back and forth across the country, it was clear she never caught up to whatever she was chasing.

  When she came back that summer, though, something was different. On the surface she seemed relaxed, glad to be home, but she jumped when the phone rang, and I knew she wasn’t chasing anymore. She was running. That was what made me think she might be back for good. Because there’s no better hiding place than here. And, I told myself, she had you to think about. She’d rarely mentioned you in her postcards, and apparently she never told you about us, but you were old enough to want to belong somewhere, and where else could you have that? We were your only family, even though we were strangers. I watched you read in the hammock and walk barefoot down the lane to the lodge, and I could feel you unwind as the summer went on. Surely, I thought, Maurie would see that staying here was the best thing for you.

  I will admit, too, that I wanted her to stay. Despite all the trouble she’d been, despite all the worry she caused me and the things she said the night before she left, I loved having her home. She acted like nothing had ever gone wrong between the three of us, and I believe she was glad to see us. She lay on the beach in her bikini, her body too thin but her skin rosy in the sun, or sat with her legs over the arm of the porch swing, dangling her sandals from her toes, and laughed with her mouth wide open. Best of all, she did something to Lilith, something that made Lilith’s eyes glow as they used to do, before Emily and Father and the rest. I would have done almost anything to keep them that way.

  Then one night in late August, the four of us went to dinner at the lodge. We didn’t often eat there, especially after Matthew added those cabins, but most of his guests were gone now, so when Maurie suggested it we agreed. It was as empty as we’d hoped, with just two other families who were well along in their meals and three Indian men at the bar. After Matthew’s summer girl took our order, he brought the food himself. By then the other diners had left, so he pulled up a chair and we had a nice, easy time for a while, listening to Maurie’s stories about the places she’d been. She could tell a story, even when she was the butt of the joke, so she made her life sound like a wild, funny ride instead of the miserable, vagabond existence it was. “Remember, Jus?” she’d say. “Remember when we went to Six Flags, and rode the roller coaster?” You were so proud of her, your beautiful mother, reshaping your life into a grand adventure there at the table.

  After a while, Maurie asked why Abe didn’t join us. Matthew told her he was closing down the kitchen, but she shook her head. “Why don’t you ever let him out of there?”

  “He works in the back,” Matthew said, in a tone that told me he didn’t want to discuss it. Maurie said that was just an excuse.

  “Do you think he’s some sort of pervert?” She was smiling, but Matthew’s arm tensed next to mine. I didn’t like this conversation either. Matthew’s father had kept Abe in the back for one reason, but I knew Matthew did it for another.

  “I’m going to get him,” Maurie announced, and walked to the back door.

  Matthew looked at you, where you sat fiddling with the last of your French fries. “You don’t have to sit here with us old folks. Why don’t you get a book from over there and go read on the porch?”

  It was clear you wanted to stay, but it hadn’t been a question, so off you went.

  A minute later Maurie came out with Abe. He was still a handsome man then. His shoulders were broad and he hadn’t gotten fat the way some big men do. His hair had al
most no gray in it, and his face was as unlined as a man twenty years younger.

  Maurie went to the bar, where she ordered beers from the girl. The three Indians watched her while she waited and she smiled at them. When she brought the mugs, two in one hand and three in the other like the practiced waitress she was, she set them on the table. “Now that it’s just us grown-ups, we can have a party.” She didn’t ask where you’d gone.

  I’ve never been much for beer, so I sipped mine. Abe drank his as if it were a Coke, and Maurie wasn’t far behind. The conversation wasn’t as much fun as it had been. Matthew stopped talking altogether, and Lilith sat stiffly, watching Maurie as she draped herself over Abe’s arm and talked about some man she’d known in Abilene who ran a dog racing park. Abe blinked his slow eyes, always at Lilith. I was glad Matthew had sent you to the porch.

  When Maurie finished her beer, she picked up her glass and Abe’s and went to the bar for a refill. This time she stood a little closer to the Indians and said something to them with a toss of her head. They were rough-looking, with long hair past their collars and pants dirty from outside work. They’d come over from Olema, just for the beer; they weren’t overnight guests. I’d noticed more Indians hanging around the lodge since Matthew’s father retired. I didn’t know why—Lord knows they had plenty of bars in Olema—but I knew Matthew had longed to be part of his mother’s tribe as a boy, so I’d been happy for him.

  Now one of them put his hand on Maurie’s hip below the belt loops of her tight jeans. She shook it off playfully, then took the beers and came back to us. The Indian said something to his friend, and they looked over their shoulders at her. When she sat she wound her arm through Abe’s and ignored them in a way that wasn’t ignoring, if you know what I mean.

  I said it was getting late. Lilith agreed, and Matthew told Abe he should finish with the kitchen.

  “Let him finish his beer,” Maurie said. “You never let him have any fun.” She patted Abe’s hand. “Come on, let’s toast to old times.”

  In Lilith’s eyes I read an agreement: we’d stay long enough for Abe to finish his beer, then we’d leave.

  “Speaking of old times, how come you never left this place?” Maurie asked Matthew. “Didn’t you want to be an astronaut or something?”

  I didn’t remember telling her that. Matthew didn’t look bothered, though. In fact, he smiled at me. “Life has a way of turning out differently. I’m happy enough.”

  I believed him. I still do. After all, he could have left. When his father retired, he told him he could sell the place if he wanted, but Matthew expanded it, taking out a loan to build those cabins. Now he has a nice business going, with many of the same families coming up year after year. I know he stayed because of Abe. But I do think he likes it here. Sometimes the dreams of children are just that.

  Maurie shook her head. “I don’t know how any of you stand it.” I looked toward the porch, where you were reading. She caught my glance. “She only likes it because she’s a kid.”

  “Did you like it when you were a kid?” I asked.

  That stopped her. She turned her glass around on the table. “I did,” she said. “For a while.”

  Then she said she was visiting the restroom. On the way she passed the Indians, and when the one who’d touched her winked at her, she poked him with a finger, laughing. He grabbed her around the waist. “Come on, stay here,” I heard him say. She looked at us, then shook her head. She leaned in and said something with a smile as her hand tried to dislodge his arm. He pulled her tighter against his leg.

  Abe stood up. His chair crashed to the floor behind him. Matthew told him to sit down, but Abe walked to the group at the bar. His shoulders were massive in his white tee shirt and cook’s apron, and he outweighed the man who was holding Maurie by thirty pounds. He lifted him off the stool by his upper arms and set him on the floor. “It’s time to go.”

  The Indian was drunk enough to be stupid. “Why don’t you let the lady pick her own man? It’s obvious she don’t want no retard.”

  Abe shoved him so hard he staggered into the closest table, tipping it over in a violence of wood and cutlery, and everyone was on their feet. The Indian’s friends pulled him toward the door. Abe followed, his large hands in fists, but Matthew blocked his way. In the commotion Maurie scurried to the center of the room. I checked the door to the porch and saw you standing there, the book forgotten in your hand.

  “Get him out of here,” Matthew said to the men, and they hustled their friend out while Matthew talked to Abe, his voice low and soothing. “It’s okay. The guy was drunk. You’re good. You’re a good man. You’re a good man, Abe.” His hands were on Abe’s upper arms, rubbing up and down. Abe’s shoulders slumped. Matthew took his face between his hands. “There you are.”

  “What the hell was that?” Maurie’s hands were on her hips and her eyes were fierce. “Jesus Christ, Abe. I’m thirty-eight years old and you still won’t let me talk to a guy? Get over yourself. You’re not my goddamned father.”

  Abe swung his head to her. His mouth opened. Slowly, his eyes slid to Lilith. Her face was as blank as a doll’s. For a long moment nobody moved. Then Maurie snapped her chin up, grabbed her purse from the table, and walked out.

  The next day she left. She’d been here too long, she said. She needed to get back to her life. We asked her to leave you with us; we tried to persuade her it would be best for you to have a stable home, but she said you were better off with your mother. And so you went. We heard nothing for almost two years, and then the postcards started again just as before. She never came back. Not when I wrote her that Mother had died, or that Lilith was sick. Not even when Lilith was buried next to Mother and Father, the small circle of mourners drawn tight around her grave.

  Justine

  That afternoon Maurie volunteered to pick Angela up from school, and when they came back they had a bunch of Lloyd’s Pharmacy bags filled with Christmas decorations. The girls unpacked plastic Santa Clauses, tinsel, ribbons, candles, and lights while Maurie fished out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a carton of eggnog and made herself a drink. Then she handed Justine an invitation. “This was in the P.O. box.”

  Justine wondered why Maurie had checked Lucy’s mail, then decided it was exactly the sort of thing Maurie would do. The invitation was to a holiday party at Arthur Williams’s house on Christmas Eve. “We don’t have to go,” she said.

  “Sure we do. This is their big annual thing.”

  Justine glanced at her mother. There would probably be a lot of people there she knew. People who’d known her when she was a girl. “Are you sure you want to?”

  “Why not,” Maurie said, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to want to do. Which it was, unless you were Maurie. Although Maurie did love a party.

  Maurie pulled a receipt from one of the bags. “Here you are, Mrs. Vanderbilt.”

  Justine had to look at the total twice to make sure she read it right: $121.86. That was two weeks’ worth of groceries. She’d been planning to get decorations—she just hadn’t gotten around to it yet—but she’d have gotten them at the Walmart for less than half what these cost. “Mom, this is too much.”

  Maurie raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d thought you were going to.”

  Melanie and Angela stopped unloading the decorations. They looked from their mother to their grandmother. Justine said, “Never mind,” and put the receipt in Lucy’s junk drawer next to her list of things to do.

  Maurie went to the living room with Angela, their arms full of baubles. After a moment Melanie followed. She hadn’t spoken much to Maurie since the ice skating incident, in that way she had of never letting a good grudge go. Maurie had pretended not to notice, in that way she had of never admitting she’d done anything wrong. Justine poured herself a glass of eggnog and, after a moment’s deliberation, added a splash of Jack Daniel’s.

  When she was a girl, they didn’t have Christmas ornaments because everything they owned n
eeded to fit in the back of their car. But every year, sometimes before Thanksgiving and sometimes as late as Christmas Eve, Maurie would have a fit of seasonal enthusiasm and buy light strings and holiday candles. Then she’d play Christmas music and drink eggnog with Jack Daniel’s while she and Justine strung the lights along the walls. Justine had loved how the lights’ determined, colorful cheer transformed whatever drab apartment they were staying in. It was the only time she wished the girls at school could see where she lived.

  Now her mother turned on the old radio in the living room. Eartha Kitt was singing “Santa Baby.” Melanie and Angela debated where to put the nativity scene while Maurie ripped open packages of lights. Justine watched from the doorway.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Maurie said. “Go get the hammer and some nails from the basement.”

  When Justine got back, Maurie was standing on a chair in the corner, a string of lights over one shoulder. She pounded the nail to the beat of the music, then turned around on the seat, swaying her hips and snapping her fingers. Angela laughed and Melanie smiled, her head nodding in time. Justine picked up a piece of tinsel from the pile on the floor and, using the other chair, hung it over the door to the entryway.

  When it was done, they stood in the middle of the room and looked around at the tinsel glinting in the lights and the Santa Clauses smiling their elfin smiles from every surface. They’d moved Maurie’s paper bags to the dining room, so the room didn’t look like a recycling project anymore. “It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” Maurie said. And it did. The house, with its heavy, well-crafted furniture and high ceilings, wore the gaudy trappings with a dignity none of Justine’s childhood apartments could have hoped for.