by Rea Frey
“Does it really matter?”I pried the door open and stepped through to the living room, sliding it shut behind me. I smiled at Emma. “You doing okay?” I poured myself another cup of coffee, leaning against the kitchen counter. In another life, this was what I’d always wanted: a little girl on the rug, Ethan outside, our beautiful family tucked away in these woods on a spontaneous summer getaway. How cruel and unusual life could be. Yet here we were, together at last. Finally.
before
I hid near the bathroom, on all fours. I tried not to giggle, though it was hard because this was a fun game and my mother didn’t allow much fun unless her friends were around. I loved when they had their Friday-night card games and I could stay up late, spending time eavesdropping near their ankles. It was the only time I could be free, when I could get away with reading books late into the night or watching movies until my eyes felt glassy and raw.
The six of them were talking over each other, their voices sloshed with alcohol. White plumes formed and then spread, heavy with the scent of tobacco. My father kept waving his hands through the smoke, as though he were picking through cobwebs. He had an allergy to cigarettes, but he would never make my mother go outside to smoke. Instead, he’d be up half the night coughing and wheezing, and she never even bothered to ask him why. I listened to them talk for a while, mostly about adult things I had no knowledge of.
I scooted forward a bit more, feeling like a baby, crawling toward the dining room. My knees pressed into the hardwood. It grew quiet as the game got serious, the slap of the cards and poker chips filling time. Billie Holiday crooned on my father’s record player. My mother loved jazz, vinyl, 1920s costumes, long cigarette holders, and especially Billie Holiday, with her warped, delicious voice and tragic life.
My dad liked anything she liked. He told me she’d gone nuts when she’d first seen his record player. She’d immediately bought armfuls of records, and they’d stayed up drinking whiskey and listening to old-school country, classic rock, and authentic blues the whole night. He told me that’s when he fell for her, when he glimpsed how excited he could make her from such simple things. That excitement could easily power a room, or in his eyes, the world.
I edged closer so I could hear our neighbor, Marilyn, who tended to whisper instead of talk, as though she were always letting you in on a secret.
“It’s just … children like yours. You know.”
“Children like mine? What’s that supposed to mean, Marilyn?” My mother’s voice was clipped as she counted her chips for a tentative bet.
“Oh please, Elaine, you know what I mean. You have it so easy. That child follows you around like a morose little puppy dog, so eager for your affection. All she wants is for you to notice her, which you never do. You treat her like a nuisance. Like she’s not even yours! You have no idea how rough it could be. My boys are just so difficult…”
I sat back, trying to understand what she’d just said. Children like me? What did that mean? I didn’t follow her around like a puppy, did I? I didn’t even particularly like my mother, and I figured everyone could tell. I pricked my ears to see if my father would defend me, but he stayed silent. They were already on to another topic of conversation. I had just been preparing to crawl into the room and scare them, hoping their chips would come filtering down like rain, but now I didn’t want to.
I stood, shook out my left foot, which had fallen asleep, tiptoed back to my room, and roughly palmed my bunny rabbit, Roxie, from my bed. I plucked at her soft fur, yanking out small tufts and balling them in my fingers like dough. I wanted to go back out, to spy, but I felt defeated. Did my mother talk about me behind my back? Did she let strangers and friends say bad things about me too?
I slipped under the sheets, my curtains parted so I could see the bright moon hanging like a hook in the sky. It was barely more than a sliver, but I could see the man in the moon, smiling down at me with only half his face. It seemed the whole world was smiling, but not me. Not tonight. I didn’t have anything to smile about. My mother thought I was a nuisance, apparently. Everyone did. I would look up the word nuisance in the dictionary tomorrow and ask my dad what that really meant and if he would describe me that way too.
I pulled my rabbit closer and made a decision that I wouldn’t ask my mother for anything ever again. I’d make sure I wasn’t following her around, that I wasn’t asking for affection or attention.
I closed my eyes, but their laughter shook my walls and kept me up late into the night. Well after midnight, I got up and stuffed a towel at the base of my door to block the cigarette smoke. It always clung to my hair and clothes and made me want to take a shower. Finally, when it was beginning to lighten outside, I drifted off, after their friends had left, the rev of their engines alive in our driveway, and my mother and father went off to bed.
* * *
Over the next few months, I tried my best not to bother my mother. She was gone more and more, so it was just me and my father, which I didn’t mind. We played catch, went for ice cream, and made dinner together on the nights my mother went out. She wanted to be an actress and was always auditioning, meeting casting directors, agents, or other actors for drinks. All she’d ever wanted was to be on TV. She insisted that would never happen in the Midwest and told my father over and over she wanted to move to Los Angeles.
He had a small but important job at the local steel mill, and he couldn’t just leave without someone bringing in income. Los Angeles had more glamorous work than what my father was used to, and they constantly fought about him not being able to find work if we moved to California.
Once, my mother had landed a commercial for Dawn dish soap. She made a copy of the check and framed it in our kitchen. Whenever my father talked about budget, poring over our finances with a huge calculator and his specs, my mother would tap her fake nails against the frame and insist that she contributed.
Though all my clothes came from Goodwill—because she rationalized I’d just get brand-new clothes dirty at school—my mother came home with purses, jewelry, and vintage clothes that were heavy, colorful, and looked very expensive. I never asked her where they came from or why she didn’t think to get me some new clothes, or even a toy. Sometimes, when she was gone, and I was bored of playing dress-up with all of her clothes, I’d start in on her makeup and bras, pretending to be an actress too. I painted my face and spritzed her perfume on my collarbone, the way I’d seen her do a thousand times.
If she ever asked where something went, my dad would make up some lame excuse that he’d moved it, washed it, or that her makeup had rolled under the bed. He knew what I was doing, could hear me in their room, singing and dancing in my mother’s clothes and favorite cosmetics, but he never told me not to.
On the weekends, I played with other kids in the neighborhood, though I never had a real best friend. Indiana felt temporary—maybe because my mother wanted to live anywhere else but here—so I never invested too much in the other kids. I went to school, did my studies, and played.
But my heart wasn’t in it, and my friends could tell. I was never on the invitation list for parties or sleepovers. They’d all come into school after so-and-so’s birthday party, excited with the retelling, and I would just sit and eat my lunch out of my brown paper sack and pretend it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t unpopular, but I was forgettable. A nobody. A nuisance.
My mother was the personality in the family, and there was no room for anybody else. There were so many days when I wanted a sibling, just someone I could play with or take care of. I would never utter a word of this to my mother, who carried a disdain for children the way most people did for spiders. I was secondary to whatever she was feeling, doing, or thinking. I learned to live small and tread lightly. I didn’t ask for much, and I expected even less.
Every time I got excited about something, disappointment would edge its way in, so much so that it became a way of life for me. So I would pray. I wasn’t sure if I believed in God, or who He was, or if maybe He
could be a She, but if there was one, I’d wish for something to happen. Something to change.
I needed something solid—a sign, a best friend, an awesome vacation, a new mom. I was too young to be so disappointed, but that’s what my mother—in all her self-absorption and Hollywood dreams—had done to me.
after
Ethan woke late. I’d already put Emma to bed and decided to drown my sorrows in a pot of decaf and a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I heard Ethan before I saw him, his heavy footsteps coming out of the basement like a warning. I was just licking the last crumbs of bread and peanut butter from the knife when he emerged from the shadows at the top of the stairs.
I cleared my throat and busied myself with sifting the pre-ground Peet’s into the cone filter. I filled the carafe from the tap, poured it all the way to the top, and pressed start before turning around.
“No more Chemex?” he asked. It was the closest thing to a peace offering, so I took it.
“Oh, you know. Didn’t really plan this all out very well.”
We both laughed, a sad, long giggle that sputtered and died in the living room. “I’m sorry for ruining your plans … with your friend.”
He waved me off and walked to the kitchen, crossing his arms and leaning against the island. I could smell the earthiness of his skin. My whole body began to tingle, and I cleared my throat again. He was only a foot away. How easily I could close that gap and fall into him.
“So what now?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I mean … where does work think you are? How is the whole world not looking for you? Did no one see you take her?”
I bristled at the word take, but I knew he was right and that I was more than lucky. I shrugged and stood on tiptoes to pull down a mug from the cabinet.
“Can I have some too?”
I looked at him, startled. “Coffee? You drink coffee now?” The rage coiled inside me. I could see him drinking coffee with his new girlfriend, and it made me want to scream.
“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “It’s grown on me.”
“Well, it’s decaf, so it’s not like you’re going to get a caffeine boost or anything.”
“That’s fine.”
I begrudgingly pulled down another mug and waited until the pot was done to pour us both a cup. Almost six years of begging him to have a single cup of coffee, and he wanted one now? When we were dealing with this?
We blew on our cups and sipped with hesitation, both of us careful not to burn our tongues. How else had he changed? What other secrets did he have?
“So, this family. Give me details,” he said.
“I’m sure the media is telling the world more about them than I can.”
“Well, I haven’t watched much, but you know … a missing white girl gets a lot of media attention.” He cracked his knuckles and exhaled.
“Yes, she does. However unfair that is.”
“I think I saw there was a petition to clear the woods.”
“The woods…” The woods had given me cover. The woods had allowed me to get here.
“The woods what?” He took a long swallow.
“Nothing. I’ve been reading everything, but from my phone. Which gets spotty service at best. The password changed.” It came out accusatory. “I mean, it just takes forever for things to load.”
I moved to the dining room table and pulled my sweater tighter around my chest with my free hand. No matter how hot it was outside, the temperature always dropped inside the cabin after sundown. It was inevitable. “I mean, I know this is crazy. But if you’d seen these parents … her mother, the way she shook her and yelled at her. And how hard she slapped her. It was awful.”
“I’m sure it was, but…”
“I know, I know. But I did something terrible too.”
“You have to remember that one slap is not abuse. Think about how you were raised. How I was raised! I got spanked all the time. It doesn’t necessarily mean—”
“Stop. I know what I saw. I know what I heard. The way she screamed, it was … primal almost. And I know parents have bad days. I’m not saying they don’t. But she was the same when I saw her in the airport, months ago. Emma wasn’t even doing anything, and her mother was just terrible to her.”
“Wait, so you’ve seen this girl more than once?”
“I told you that.”
“I was practically sleepwalking a few hours ago.” His body deflated into the chair across from me. “Besides all of that, you just don’t—I mean, she could be sick or, I don’t know, problematic, or have issues. You just don’t know, Sarah.”
“And again, we’ve been over that too. I know all of this. But she had bruises all over her body and that awful handprint from the slap and—”
“But those could be from anything. Not the slap, obviously. But the bruises.”
I slammed my hand on the table. “Look, this girl hasn’t had a single issue the entire time I’ve had her. The entire time! She’s literally the easiest damn kid I’ve ever been around. She sleeps as though she hasn’t slept in years. And eats everything I put in front of her. I know children. Children are my life, my business. And I know—I know that she’s better with me. She’s safe.”
“Okay, great. She’s safe. So just turn her parents into CPS and call it a day.”
“Are you kidding me, Ethan? Do you seriously not remember anything we discussed when you got here? That system is broken. There are good people who work for these children and do the best they can, but the system is just too big for them to make a difference. It’s a horrible process for the child, and it’s almost impossible to prove neglect from parents by a total stranger. At best, she’d get placed in social services. That’s not happening. I won’t let it happen.”
Ethan spun his mug around. “It’s just not your place to say what can or can’t happen. You took an actual child from an actual family. This isn’t hypothetical or whatever. It’s a crime. An actual criminal offense. That you could go to jail for. That I could go to jail for, even. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, I understand that.”
He leaned forward. “No, but do you really? Do you understand that this is real? I mean, this isn’t like a reaction to our break—”
“Oh, give me a break. This is not some desperate plea for attention.”
Ethan drummed his fingers on the table. “I can’t believe you took a child. How does that even happen?”
I rolled my eyes. “I know. Trust me. It’s insane. I realize that. But, I don’t know. When I saw her again, it’s like I was supposed to do something. Like I was obligated to. Haven’t you ever known something to be, I don’t know, just … true?”
He locked eyes with mine—a torturous moment—and then looked away. “There’s a difference between saying something and doing what you did. You have to know that.”
“Of course I do.”
An awkward silence fell between us. “Anyway.”
“Wait, no.” I put a hand on his, and the warmth startled us both. I pulled back. He stood. “Ethan, please don’t shut me out. Just talk to me.”
He walked back and forth, clasping his fingers behind his head. Finally, after a few tense moments, he sat. “About what?”
“Let’s just put this situation aside for one second.”
“Fine.”
“I just want to know why.”
“Why what?”
“Why it wasn’t me.” God, I sounded pathetic, like some bad Sex and the City episode. Why wasn’t I The One, Mr. Big?
Ethan folded his hands in front of him and looked at me with more intensity than he ever had. He was silent for a full minute. I wanted to shake him, demand he tell me everything already, to just explain it to me so I could finally move on with my life. But I had waited this long. I didn’t want to push.
“Look…”
“Sarah?” Emma stood in the doorway, her eyes closed from the bright kitchen lights.
I jumped up. “What is it, sweetie? Are yo
u okay?”
“I’m thirsty.”
I grabbed a small glass from the kitchen, filled it halfway, and handed it to her. She drank with her eyes closed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Do you need to pee?”
“No.”
Ethan’s eyes were on us, sizing us up, judging. I walked her back to the room and helped her climb into bed.
“You just get some good sleep, and in the morning, you can help me make pancakes, okay?”
I could feel her smile in the darkness. “With blueberries and chocolate chips?”
“And real maple syrup.”
“Yay.” She pulled the covers up high to her chin and was back to sleep in minutes. I crept out of her room and pulled the door shut as quietly as possible.
“You’re good with her.”
“You sound surprised.” I grabbed the coffeepot and refilled our cups.
“Well, given the situation, I am. It’s just surprising how—”
“Normal it all seems?”
“Well, not normal, no. But something like that, I guess.”
I sat across from him again, eager to pick up our conversation. “So you were saying?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Another time. We have to figure out what you’re doing with her. You can’t stay here. You know that, right?”
“I know. And I’m sorry for bringing her here. I am. It was just … remote enough and far enough. And I didn’t think you’d be here now. I thought—well, I don’t know what I thought. Sorry.”
“You put me in a horrible position. Horrible.”
“I know.” We both drank our coffee and listened to the sounds of life outside. “We never came here too much during the summer, you know.”
“Sarah, I have to tell you something.”
The sickness flopped in my belly, a fat, wild salmon just caught in a gill net. Please don’t, I wanted to scream. If he was getting married or having a baby, I would literally kill him with my bare hands and add murder to my kidnapping charge. I wouldn’t be able to take it.