Not Her Daughter

by Rea Frey

  I wave, smile, and insert my earbuds. I turn the corner by the school, making my way down the block like I did last time, where I heard the scream. Dogs bark. Tricycles tinkle while runners pound the pavement. A few bikers even huff an “on your left” as they whiz by.

  I’m pleased to see there’s a pulse here; it makes me feel good to know Emma doesn’t live in a hole somewhere, kept from the pleasant hum of suburban life.

  I walk down the block and around it, seeing no signs of the little girl or her family. It’s getting dark. I’m starving. Inflamed clouds loom overhead. I circle back toward the hotel.

  My nerves gather in a bundle at my willingness to stay and dig myself deeper into a self-made mystery. But there’s a reason I can’t let this little girl go. Not until I know she’s safe.

  I’ll try again tomorrow, I think. I’ll give it one more day.

  * * *

  I wake early and throw on my bike clothes from yesterday before grabbing a muffin and coffee downstairs. I clip in and hurry toward the school, thinking I have a better chance at drop-off than pickup. I’m going to see her today. I have to.

  I glance at my watch: It’s seven-thirty. Per the hours on the website, drop-off is officially at eight, so I have plenty of time. I circle the block a few more times, hoping I’m not becoming a bit of a distraction, when I see a few families walking their children toward the school. None of them look like Amy, though a few of the little girls give me pause. I see no red bow and hear no angry mothers. I keep riding.

  By eight, I’m bored and tired of riding the same few blocks. I could have easily missed her going in. Maybe she’s sick? It takes everything I have not to just go into the school, tell them I am following up on TACK business, and find her. But that would present its own handful of obvious problems.

  I decide to make one more round. I’m pedaling down the same block, heading away from the school, when I hear a shriek. The same shriek I heard on my first visit. The same anguished cry. My stomach lurches as I slam on my brakes and look around, unclipping one foot and leaning to the side. My heart is in my throat. I wait, but there’s nothing.

  Cars speed by, impatiently ballooning out to make room for the stalled cyclist on the side of the road. I don’t know whether to keep going or not; I want to know where that cry is coming from.

  I decide to keep riding, to keep making my rounds, when I hear a voice so memorable, I want to scream. “Come on right this minute. You’re already late.”

  It’s coming from the house to my right, a small green cottage with a van parked in the driveway. The yard is unkempt, and I can hear footsteps approaching on the gravel from behind the house. And then there’s Emma’s mother, just as red-faced, pulling a toddling little boy by the hand. Where is she?

  I don’t see the dad. I cycle a little farther and stop, positioning my small mirror to see them behind me. The mother is hoisting the toddler up into the van. I see the top half of her disappear into the back, her lower half swaying left and right in an attempt to buckle him in. She slams the door with the force of ten men and stalks behind the house. Elevated voices merge with the traffic, and then she is coming back again, struggling to pull herself up and into the van. Her tires screech as she reverses into the street, like she’s trying to get away from something. She barrels down the road, and I pray a child or dog doesn’t decide, at that very moment, to dash across the street.

  Her vehicle continues to shoot through the neighborhood with a sense of urgency. She speeds through the school zone, the crossing guard puffing her whistle and wagging her arms. Is Amy frustrated with her day already? Is she just running late? Is she a woman agitated by life?

  I pedal back to their house, wondering where Emma is, when she appears in her driveway, shuffling through the gravel, to see where her mom went.

  Her red bow ripples. Her ruby shoes halt. She is just as beautiful as I remember, and the maternal instincts I feel toward this stranger continue to surprise me. I am shocked by the audacity of it—this mother leaving her child—until I see the dad round the corner, yelling for Emma to come back right this instant, or else.

  I wonder what the “or else” could be. Will I see it? The hope of him not being an asshole quickly extinguishes; I feel relief and disturbance at his presence. I’m glad Emma isn’t on her own, standing in the chalky gravel, watching her mother drive away, and yet I want her to be. I want blatant evidence that she is not cared for, so I can … what?

  I’m afraid of the answer to that question.

  I begin to move on the opposite side of the street, keeping sight of that signature red bow in my small mirror. He tugs on her arm and tells her to hurry up, to come on. He drops her backpack at her feet. The bottom sags as she shrugs the weathered straps onto her shoulders. They begin walking toward the school, which is no more than a few blocks. He doesn’t hold her hand, and it’s clear she doesn’t expect him to.

  I am reminded of my own mother then, the way she would sometimes extend her right hand back if we were walking together, fingers stiff, as if she were a track star and I was supposed to pass her the baton for the last leg of the race. She never looked back, and if I didn’t trot up to retrieve her offering, she would snatch away her fingers, emit an agitated huff, and walk faster.

  Once, I’d stopped to tie my shoes at a flea market and lost sight of her completely. I knew by then to find a respectable-looking adult—no creepy mustaches, preferably no men, and no one homeless—and eventually Elaine would come back, impatience ravaging her features, as if I’d been the one to leave her.

  I can see the same agitation in this family, how they run hot and cold, as if programmed by faucets. The way Emma skitters to a stop at the end of the driveway and how her mother just peels away anyway, unconcerned. The way the father barks after his daughter and she comes running, as if her parents’ entire experience of Emma isn’t about Emma at all: it’s about them. These are the actions of a family who doesn’t think anyone is watching.

  But I am watching.

  Now Emma weaves dangerously close to the edge of the sidewalk. There is an intake of breath as I stop my bike and dismount, again squatting down to check for a fake flat. I know that if Emma is to accidentally walk into traffic, everything would shift. The father and mother would band together and re-create their history with their daughter, as if they lived a happy, normal life, but they would have gotten away with it: being shitty parents.

  She runs right up the steps to the front of the school. She doesn’t wave goodbye to her father. He doesn’t pat her on the head and tell her to have a good day. He’s busy looking at his phone, bringing it to his ear and raising his hands in an obvious early-morning confrontation. I watch a teacher usher her inside and shake her head.

  I decide to keep riding, satisfied that I’ve seen her, that she exists, that her parents are still awful, and she’s still here. She’s still the girl with the pretty red bow in the same red dress. The girl I first saw in the airport. The girl who rocketed back into my life when I was just starting to forget her.

  I move faster, checking both ways at stop signs before braking near the hotel. I dismount, remove my helmet, and slug the rest of my water.

  A mother and her three girls enter the hotel with their bright pink roller bags, giggling about something. I smile and wipe the sweat from my chin. I used to be in a state of constant envy of other young girls with their mothers, laughing, shopping, or stopping at the corner parlor to lick double scoops of ice cream. The way those mothers looked at their daughters—with tolerance, love, and patience—I could never recognize in my own. My mother only revealed annoyance, exhaustion, and intolerance. Even though I said so little and stayed so small, it didn’t matter. The way I exhaled, sat, ate, looked … it was all one giant trigger for her. I was a mouth breather, a huncher, a sloppy chewer, a tomboy with ratty hair and chapped lips. I spent my entire childhood feeling small, scared, and lonely.

  Did Emma?

  I knock the question from my brain again�
�so what if she does?—but I can’t shake the sight of her, the demeanor of her. It is like being taken back twenty-five years. The way Emma looks, the way her mother treats her. I recognize myself in her, and I want to help.

  I work a decision over in my head and straddle the line between danger and necessity as I pop my bike back into the Tahoe. My legs are wobbly with nerves. I unstrap my shoes and toss them in the car. I know it’s time to go home, that I should check out of the hotel and drive straight back to the office. Because now I’ve seen her again. I did what I set out to do.

  But there’s one question that cuts across the rest and keeps me rooted to the spot: What if she needs to be rescued?

  before

  Ethan strapped the canoe on top of his truck.

  “Are you sure that thing’s secure?”

  He looked at me, fake annoyance in his voice. “You know, I have done this before.” He motioned to the canoe on the roof. “Hence, why I have a canoe.”

  I lifted my hands in surrender before loading our cooler and thermoses into the front cab. “I’m just saying. I don’t want it to fall and impale some innocent driver.”

  Ethan tightened the last strap and tapped the canoe twice. “Well, there was that one time someone lost a head, but that wasn’t my fault.”

  “Someone should really tell you your jokes aren’t funny.”

  “Oh, my wife tells me all the time.”

  “Good one.”

  We slammed the doors and were on the open road in minutes, heading to Cannon Beach for an afternoon excursion. My heart was still rippling with pleasure at the sound of the word wife coming from his lips. Yes, it was a joke, and it was not about me, but that’s where we were headed. Someday, I would be Mrs. Ethan Turner. I could feel it.

  I watched the landscape zip by, thinking of all the people tucked in these remotely built houses, mowing their yards, drinking coffee by bay windows, and scribbling out their to-do lists for the day. Some of them were born and raised locals; some were transplants. Others were just passing through. It always amazed me how you moved to new cities, cracked open all the yummy secrets of a foreign place, and fit virtual strangers into your life like sticks of gum in a pack. You fell in love; you made friendships; you created babies; you shaped careers. Often, you moved and started all over again, leaving pieces of yourself everywhere you went.

  “What are you thinking about over there, Walker?”

  We’d only been together for seven months, but I knew. I knew this was it, the way people knew they preferred chocolate over raspberry, or voted Democrat or Republican. He was the one. I looked at him and smiled. He was too easy on the eyes. I couldn’t keep my thoughts from perpetually drifting to sex. I’d called Lisa in a panic after we’d first officially started dating—I’d asked him out after I wandered into his furniture shop—and told her we couldn’t stop having sex.

  “And?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Isn’t that bad or something? We can’t possibly keep this up, can we? It’s making my brain all … fuzzy.”

  “Oh, please. Get married, pop out a few babies, and you won’t even know what sex is.”

  “But you and Tom still have sex.”

  “Rarely. Because when we are both faced with a night of sleep or having sex, we choose sleep every time. No-brainer.”

  “Oh, please. Nothing is better than sex.”

  “Except uninterrupted sleep.”

  I couldn’t imagine a life where I’d choose to sleep next to Ethan instead of with Ethan.

  “Charlotte, stop it this instant, or I’m taking your train away. Do you understand me?” Her voice was muffled. “Sorry. Tiny terrorists at work. Are you using protection?”

  “Like condoms?”

  “Yes, like condoms, Ms. Au Naturel. Because I know you’re not on birth control.”

  “Yes … most of the time.”

  “I give you three months before you’re knocked up.”

  “I am not getting pregnant. We aren’t ready for kids yet. We’re not even engaged!”

  Lisa snorted. “Everyone isn’t ready for kids until they end up pregnant. Then you have no choice.”

  “We are being careful. I promise.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lisa shuffled something. A door shut. “There. Temporary privacy. This is the thing. This is new. It’s exciting. You think it’s never going to change, but it will. One day, you’ll look at him, and your stomach won’t flip. You’ll be thinking of the laundry you have to do when he’s on top of you. And pretty soon, with the demands of everything, sex just isn’t as mandatory as everyone thinks it is. Marriage is about so much more than sex. Tom’s penis could literally fall off tomorrow, and I’d be fine with that, because he fulfills me in other ways.”

  “How sweet.”

  “No, I’m just saying that you can live without constant sex. But you absolutely cannot live without sleep.”

  I hoped to never understand her point; I wanted sex, sleep, romance, and happiness. I knew Ethan and I would be different. We’d have well-behaved children, travel the world, get 8.5 hours of sleep every night, have sex five times per week, and still run our businesses. We wouldn’t become those exhausted, bickering, boring parents who only talked about the logistics of their days and got annoyed every time someone farted, got a cold, or forgot to take the trash out.

  “Hello in there? Are you stroking out?” Ethan glanced at me.

  I laughed. “Sorry.” I uncapped my thermos and took a swig of coffee. “Daydreaming.”

  “About?”

  I wiggled my eyebrows. “I’ll never tell.”

  “Is it something kinky?” He squeezed my knee, and a tingle throttled through my stomach.

  “No. I was actually thinking about our future.”

  “Are we naked in it?”

  Ethan hit a pothole and my thermos tipped, spilling hot coffee on my thighs. “Shit, that’s hot!” I swept the liquid from my legs, holding the thermos up high. I screwed on the lid and looked for a towel to mop up the mess. “Do we not have a towel in here?”

  “Take the wheel.”

  “What? I’m dealing with third-degree thigh burns over here.”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “Just take the wheel, drama queen.” With one hand on my thermos and the other steadying the wheel, Ethan removed his T-shirt and threw it at me. It covered my face and landed in my coffee-drenched lap.

  “I’m not using your T-shirt. What will you canoe in?”

  “I brought another one. It’s in my bag. Just use it.”

  I sniffed the shirt before lowering it to my lap, and Ethan groaned.

  “Pathetic how obvious you are in your affections for me.”

  “I’m this affectionate to all my suitors.”

  This was our running joke—trying to convince the other that we weren’t that important, when we were entirely each other’s world, and we knew it. I dabbed at the coffee and spread the red T-shirt across my lap.

  “So, you were saying? Naked future?”

  I swatted him on the arm. “No, not a naked future. Just, you know, the future.”

  “And what do you see?”

  I stared at the rows of trees whipping by, the empty road ahead of us, the warmth of our bodies bouncing on the leather seats. “I just see … us. Together. Happy. What do you see?”

  He smiled, his obliques flexing like fingers against his ribs. “I see the same thing. But in my version, you are most definitely naked.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Men. Always the same.”

  “What?”

  “Always after the same thing, I mean.”

  “Hey, you know me better than that. I want your heart and your body.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I took another hesitant sip from my thermos. The warmth spread through my entire body, down to my fingers and toes. Here I was, with the love of my life, heading for a fun weekend. Life didn’t get better than this. It couldn’t.

  * * *

  We arrived at Cannon Beach in no time, after a few CDs and ea
sy conversation. We unpacked the canoe, lowering it to the rocky, sandy earth. It seemed we weren’t the only couple who had this in mind: men, women, children, and dogs dotted the beach. We smiled at the strangers, fitting our canoe among the pack, and worked our arms over the next few hours, paddling to rocky bluffs, watching birds dip in and out of the water to claw at fish, their talons primed. The muscles in Ethan’s chest and shoulders contracted with every stroke. When sweat beaded my brow, he insisted I rest and eat my sandwich while he paddled.

  We decided to stay over in a camping area not far from the beach. He’d brought his small tent and a few sleeping bags. I finger-brushed my teeth and helped him erect the tent and build a small fire. I loved camping. It always reminded me of the good days with my father, both of us giggling and struggling to put up our cheap, flimsy tents.

  We crawled into our bags outside the tent, watched the stars, and talked about life. I knew Ethan had such a vastly different upbringing than I did. He was the product of a solid family who expected great things. I hadn’t met them yet—Ethan didn’t bring women home, but we had already arranged a dinner with all of us in two weeks—and I was excited to get to know the people who had raised him.

  We pulled our sleeping bags in the tent when the temperature dropped and snuggled against each other. He fell asleep instantly, twitching beside me, while I concentrated on the hum of nature and the hard earth beneath my spine.

  The next morning, we rose early and headed back, making a stop at Ethan’s to take showers and get some proper breakfast. He lived downtown next to all our favorite haunts. I showered first because we both couldn’t fit in the narrow stand-up. As I threw on my clothes, I emptied his duffel, pawing through the remains of our trip. I laughed at all the extra tools and clothing he’d brought, always over-prepared for any situation. He’d packed two pairs of tube socks and an extra for me. I smiled as I lifted them from his bag, folding them neatly to put away, but one was lumpy and hard. I fished deep into the wool and hooked my fingers around something velvety and firm. I immediately removed my hand and glanced nervously at the bathroom.