Still Mine

by Amy Stuart

  “So you’re okay if I take her for a bit?” Clare asks.

  “I’m ready to go,” Louise says, standing.

  Wilfred shifts from foot to foot on the other side of the storm door. Clare makes a point of adjusting the camera around her neck. The photographer.

  “I’ll take good care of her, Mr. Cunningham.”

  “Have her back in two hours,” Wilfred says without making eye contact.

  “We’ll go for a short walk. Not too far.”

  They will walk the length of the gorge, down to the creek where Louise was trying to go the other day, see if anything stirs, if any clue or memory bubbles to the surface. Clare guides Louise around the house and across the back field, surprised by how nimble she is, how deftly she manages the steep descent at the back of the property. Giddy at her freedom, Louise walks too far ahead of Clare to manage any conversation, her purse swinging. All Clare can do is pant with the effort to stay close. She used to be fit, used to be able to run far and fast, chased as she always felt. But all those months of driving, of motel living, have taken a toll on her body, and now her legs burn, her shoulder aches.

  By the time Clare catches up, Louise stands over the waterfall, the clearing with the fire pit up ahead. If anything stirs in Louise, any sense that this was the last place her daughter was seen alive, she doesn’t show it. Clare lifts her camera and snaps a photograph.

  “It looks like someone lives here,” Clare says.

  “It’s a gathering place,” Louise says. “We used to come here to have campfires.”

  “Is this the spot you were trying to find the other morning?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Clare tries again. “Who comes here now?”

  “The younger folk, I guess. Shayna and her friends.”

  They navigate their way down to the fire pit. Clare is certain there are more discarded beer cans than there were the other day, that someone has partied here in the meantime.

  “What a mess.” Louise bends to collect the cans and toss them to the center of the pit.

  “Tell me about your daughter,” Clare says.

  “She’s a good girl. She’d never leave a mess like this.”

  “Maybe it was her friends. Does she have a lot of friends?”

  Louise does not look up from her task. “I’m sure she does.”

  “Do you like Jared?”

  Awaiting a response, Clare clicks a photograph of Louise at work. She seems not to have heard the question.

  “She was always Daddy’s girl,” Louise says. “I gave her whatever she wanted, but he was the one for her. I couldn’t compete. They’re so alike. Both so serious. He used to bring her down to the mine on his days off. He was issued a citation once for letting her ride a coal car. They adored each other. Then she grew up and she just got so fiery. When she was a teenager they fought like mad. He couldn’t bear to let her go.”

  “Do you worry about her?”

  Finally out of breath, Louise sits on a log.

  “Do you have children?”

  “No,” Clare says.

  “When you do, you’ll see. All you do is worry. All he does is worry.”

  “Do you see a lot of Shayna?”

  “Every day.”

  Clare brushes the log next to Louise and sits. She will have to navigate this conversation carefully.

  “Do you know where Shayna is now?”

  “She’s not here,” Louise says, a shadow passing across her face. “Wilfred takes me to see her.”

  “Where?”

  “In the garden.”

  Clare thinks of Sara’s description of rehab, the dealers in the garden.

  “He drives you to town?”

  “No,” Louise says. “She planted the cucumbers.”

  “Who, Shayna?”

  “No. The other one.”

  It feels almost shameful, pressing this woman, muddling any lucidity still to be had, capitalizing on her frailties. They both fall silent and listen to the sounds. Honking. Music.

  “What is that?” Louise says.

  “It must be the parade. In town.”

  “Well, we have to go,” Louise says, taking Clare’s hand and squeezing it.

  Clare remembers Sara saying something about it last night, Sunday’s celebrations, the last remnants of homecoming. Before she can muster a next move Louise is already on foot, headed downhill into territory Clare has yet to explore. The sounds grow louder. After a few minutes they come to a path that takes them up, Clare scrambling to keep Louise in sight as they reach the dead end of a side street. Clare recognizes it, Sara’s house and then Jared’s across from it, both of them parked in their drives. The gorge connecting everyone. Louise is already halfway down the block. Clare hooks her camera under her arm and runs to catch up. She is parched, a headache taking strong hold, the hangover no longer at bay.

  The fog retreats against the heat of the sun breaking through the clouds. The road is scattered with cars and trucks in vague formation. Louise and Clare stroll arm in arm on the sidewalk. Two young girls with batons stride alongside a fire truck, Blackmore Volunteer Fire Brigade scripted in gold against the dulled red of the cab. The odd person stops them and greets Louise, old friends introducing themselves again in case she happens not to remember. Clare knows enough not to let the conversations meander to hazardous territory. To Shayna.

  Clare is surprised by the bustle. Still, like everything else around here, this parade must be a shell of its former self. The sidewalk is not crowded. Most of the townspeople must be in the parade, leaving few as spectators. Clare and Louise wander north and find a stretch of open sidewalk, then sit on the curb, knees tucked up. Clare looks to the sky to absorb the sun. Around them a few children sit on their parents’ shoulders with balloons tied to their wrists, their faces turned south to where the parade crawls toward them. She can imagine what homecoming might have looked like when the mine was open, when Blackmore was alive and well, when those who’d left still bothered to come home for a visit. But Louise seems enthralled anyway. If the parade is a trickle, she doesn’t notice or care. Clare makes a show of taking photographs, lifting her camera every time she makes eye contact with a stranger.

  Every man in Blackmore looks loosely the same, descended from the brawn of their miner fathers, thick shouldered and strong. The parade is led by a convertible with a banner on the side that reads MAYOR BILL MCGRATH: SERVING BLACKMORE FOR TEN YEARS RUNNING! The man perched on the backseat is Donna’s husband. Donna waves to the crowd from the front seat. Their conversation in the bathroom last night washes over Clare. You might want to put a cork in it and go home, Donna said to her. You’re asking for it. Perhaps she’d been right.

  “She’s nuts.” Louise points to Donna. “Look at her. Waving like the queen.”

  “That’s Donna. She works at Ray’s.”

  “I know who she is.”

  Next come the fire truck and the pair of out-of-sync baton twirlers. Louise clucks when they both drop their batons. A man squeezes into the space next to Clare and sits. He wears an old baseball cap that reads MINEWORKERS LOCAL 118. Alongside him is a boy Clare recognizes as Sara’s son.

  “Hi there, Louise. Nice to see you out.” The man waits for some flicker of recognition. When none comes, he offers his hand to Clare. “Steve Gorman. You must be Clare. Blackmore’s lone tourist.”

  “I am. Nice to meet you.”

  “This is my grandson, Danny.”

  “We’ve met.” Clare winks at the boy. “He’s quite the cyclist.”

  “We’re headed home to see his mother. He’s got a bit of a stomachache. Don’t you, Dan?”

  Daniel buries his head in his grandfather’s lap.

  “You’re Sara’s father-in-law,” Clare says.

  “I am.”

  “She was telling me you look after Danny on the weekends.”

  “I do what I can,” Steve says, lowering his voice. “You looking after Louise?”

  “Just helping out. I�
�m staying next door. I offered Mr. Cunningham some help.”

  “I’m surprised he took you up on it.”

  “So am I. You know him?”

  “We worked together for thirty years.” Steve Gorman leans closer to Clare. “Listen,” he says. “I’m about to stick my nose in, but would you take some advice from an old man?”

  “I might.”

  “I heard about last night. At Ray’s. They’re latching on to you because you’re new. All of them. Be careful. They’ll suck you in.”

  “Who will?”

  “Just take it easy. That’s my lowly advice.”

  Next to his grandfather, Danny holds his head between his legs.

  “I should get this boy home,” Steve says. “Just wanted to stop and say hello. Louise? It was great to see you out. Give my best to Wilfred.”

  “I will,” Louise says, her gaze distant.

  On the sidewalk Steve Gorman rolls the boy over in his arms and sets off. Clare and Louise wander up the block in search of another vantage point. The light and sounds of the parade disconcert Clare, a crushing pain forming between her ears. Before falling into bed last night she’d loaded her gun, sliding bullets one by one into the chamber, then peeling back a loose piece of wall paneling in the bedroom to hide it. She feels swarmed here, anxious, wishing she’d brought it with her. What good is a gun tucked away?

  Clare guides Louise to sit on the curb in front of Ray’s.

  “Wilfred will be here any minute,” Louise says.

  “I don’t think he’s planning to come.”

  “Of course he is. They just had to pick something up after his shift. Shayna wouldn’t miss this.”

  Next comes a group of veterans, Blackmore’s War Heroes, two pushed along in wheelchairs and three others upright and spry in their faded uniforms. At a break in the parade Clare’s eyes land on Jared Fowles. He stands directly across the street, tipping his ball cap in salute, a water bottle in his hand. Who knows how Louise will react to her estranged son-in-law? Clare tries to shoo him with a slow shake of her head, but Jared doesn’t stand down. Please don’t come over here, she wants to holler at him. But he crosses anyway, placing his hand on the last veteran’s shoulders as he passes. Only when he hovers over them does Louise take notice.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Sit down,” Clare says. “You’re blocking our view.”

  Jared sidles up to Clare so that their arms touch.

  “Hi, Louise,” Jared says. “You look well.”

  “Thank you,” Louise says without looking away from the parade.

  “Not even a flicker,” Jared whispers to Clare. “Should I be insulted?”

  “Be quiet,” Clare says.

  “Is Wilfred here?”

  “Do you see him?”

  “Jeez,” Jared says. “It’s nice to see you too.”

  She nudges him over, out of Louise’s earshot. “I’m worried you might upset her. She thinks Shayna is on her way here. Sometimes she thinks I’m Shayna.”

  “Wouldn’t that be convenient?” Jared says. “Lets me off the hook.”

  “Don’t you care what people think? Everybody is looking at us.”

  “I know what they think. It doesn’t matter if I care.” Jared reaches over and tugs on the strap around Clare’s neck. “And they’re looking at you. At this camera.”

  Clare straightens up and takes his water bottle from him, draining its contents.

  “You disappeared last night,” he says.

  “I needed some air.”

  In the midday light Jared shows his age, the skin around his eyes lightly cracked. But he is handsome, still disarmingly boyish. A group of small children dressed in flags of the world walk by. Louise stands and claps for them, reaching out to touch their little hands as they pass.

  “She has no idea who I am,” Jared says.

  “That could change any minute. You really should leave.”

  “You’re not being very nice.”

  “This is making me uncomfortable. Show Louise some respect. Isn’t she your family?”

  At last Clare sees it, the smallest wince across his face. He tilts toward her.

  “What are you up to? Pretending to be Shayna?”

  “Don’t say that. She might hear you.”

  “You can tell Louise not to worry. Her daughter’s not dead. There’s no tragedy here. She took off.”

  “Took off where?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Have you heard from her?”

  “No.”

  “So how do you know she took off?”

  “Because she was threatening to do it for months. Said she hated it here. Hated everyone. Hated being dragged to rehab. Hated her father. Hated me. The world was an awful place and this town was the worst of it.”

  “Surely she’d know people are worried about her.”

  “Sure,” Jared says. “Whatever drama she can muster. She loved to torment us.”

  There is scorn in his words, but still, Jared’s look bears more sadness than anger. He may well be right, that even necessary escapes can be partly motivated by the need to punish those left behind. Seared precisely into Clare’s mind is the image of her husband’s shotgun perched high on the wall of their mudroom, the ammunition nearby. Sometimes, as Clare stood in the kitchen washing dishes, he would take it down and fiddle with it at the table, pointing it to her left, then to her right. You’d never leave me, right? he would say. After he’d go outside, Clare would watch him through the window as he fired at any living thing that dared traipse across his property.

  I will leave you, Clare would think, studying him as he paused to reload. I will leave you with nothing.

  The blast of a horn rights Clare back to the parade. The makeshift marching band has lost its configuration, the saxophonist about to knock up against the trumpeter. Clare’s hand rests on the damp concrete of the sidewalk. She squeezes her eyes closed to ward off the throb in her head. Louise isn’t there.

  “You okay?” Jared says.

  “Where’d she go?” Clare says to Jared. “Where’d Louise go?”

  “I didn’t see her walk away.”

  Clare jumps to her feet. She walks against the parade’s flow, her pace quick but restrained. Behind her, Jared keeps up. It takes them less than a minute to reach the tail end of the parade.

  “We’re looking for Louise Cunningham,” Jared announces to the group.

  “Where is she?” a man asks.

  “If we knew that, we wouldn’t be looking for her, would we?”

  At this admonishment the man grits his teeth, then turns from them to fiddle with the float. This must be the parade’s main event, this large papier-mâché rendering of a mine’s entrance. Four children in overalls and hard hats with headlamps sit along the edge of the flatbed truck. One boy fiddles with a costume mustache taped over his lip, his cheeks and hands smeared with black, the look of coal dust. The banner draped across the float reads BLACKMORE’S MINING MUSEUM: OUR MEN, OUR HISTORY. The pickup truck starts its engine and the float lurches forward. The parade will soon be over.

  “You walk back up the other side,” Jared says. “I’ll head down this way. Give me your number.”

  “I don’t have a cell phone,” Clare says, though she can feel it wedged into her pocket.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Can we focus?”

  “Jesus. Meet me at Ray’s in thirty minutes whether you find her or not.”

  “What will you do if you find her?” Clare asks.

  “What do you mean? I’ll bring her back.”

  “She doesn’t recognize you. She might refuse to come with you.”

  “I can convince her.”

  “Shouldn’t we—”

  But Jared is off in a jog. The miner’s float is already a hundred feet ahead of her. The boy with the mustache watches Clare, his eyes bright against the dust on his face. The onlookers fold down their lawn chairs, gawking at Clare as though she were famo
us, a small-town novelty.

  Clare retraces their earlier path up the main road, then down Sara’s street, her wits dull. Louise. White sweater, white hair, blue jeans. Everyone should know her. How could she disappear so easily? Where might she go? Should she wander toward home, back to the Cunningham house, it will be Jared who finds her. Or Wilfred. The gorge. Clare slows when she spots Charlie sitting shirtless on the front stoop of Sara’s house, cigarette in hand. He stands and wanders down the walkway to meet her.

  “I was just about to go looking for you,” he says. “And here you are.”

  “Louise Cunningham is lost.”

  “She’s always lost.”

  “Did you see her pass by?”

  “Nope. But I just got out here. Old man’s home and he doesn’t like me hanging out with the boy.”

  Charlie flicks his lit cigarette onto the lawn. Clare watches it, the curl of smoke rising from between the blades of grass.

  “My truck’s still at Ray’s. I blame you for that.”

  “I put your keys inside your door.”

  “I’m stranded.”

  “You were drunk,” Clare says.

  “Don’t you want to know why I was coming to find you?”

  “I need to find Louise.”

  “And why is that old lady your problem?”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  When Clare makes a motion to move past him, Charlie steps out onto the road and faces her. With his shirt off he looks stronger, taller. Two hundred feet beyond him is the guardrail, Blackmore falling away, a residential street cut off by a precipitous drop.

  “I want you to be my guinea pig,” Charlie says.

  “What? Not now. Please?”

  There is a pleading to Clare’s voice. She can feel the desperation setting in, Charlie tapping at that rousing part of her. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded wad of paper towel. Inside it is a ragged, pea-sized rock. The headache grips her now. She knows what this pill will do. Wash it clean.

  “It’s a prototype,” he says. “A special blend. All the good stuff rolled into one.”

  “No.”

  “Take it for later. Just take it. Put it in your pocket.”

  They do a small dance, Clare trying to step around him, Charlie moving side to side to block her. He laughs as though it were a game, but Clare wants to cry, the tight swirl returned to her chest. Finally Charlie grabs hold of her wrist and pries open her hand, planting the rock in her palm. Instinctively she closes her fist around it.