Monique had cried out again, softly, when she’d seen the tarp he’d already lain out on the ground beside the car, a coil of rope beside it. “Please, no . . . I don’t want to die. Please don’t—”
Her last words.
She’d spoken them in English, he realizes now, as if she’d believed that her son might be within earshot and hadn’t wanted to frighten him.
He throws the foul-smelling garbage bag into the trunk and closes it. If he drives away now, his daughter will hear him and alert Cecile. He’ll have to wait until she’s asleep.
Back inside, he sits down at the desktop computer. Fewer than twenty-four hours have passed since he’d searched to see whether a corpse can bleed.
He waits for the computer to stir to life, remembering the boy, Monique, the farm . . .
Remembering Uncle Hugo, and all those nights spent fishing, reading, playing their homemade version of Jenga . . .
If the tower falls . . .
He opens his search engine and clicks on the history.
Can a corpse bleed?
There it is, like a wooden block snatched from deep in the layered foundation. The tower wobbles.
If it falls . . .
When he thinks of Cecile—of the lack of makeup, and the signs of her hurried departure this morning—he can’t imagine that she’d somehow sat here and stumbled across this.
He erases the search, and after a moment’s hesitation, begins another. This time, he won’t be so careless when he walks away.
Boy’s remains found in New York State.
Nothing of relevance.
He consults a map and tries again.
Boy’s remains found in Tompkins County, NY.
Nothing.
Back again to the map, this time zooming in on the area where he’d left the body.
Boy’s remains found near Cortland, NY.
This time, there’s a hit. But not for remains.
Toddler Found on Cortland Hollow Road
The article, dated yesterday, reveals that a little boy had been found on property owned by Levi Stoltzfus, an Amish farmer . . .
He hears the horse’s hooves clopping in his head, and he knows.
Even before he reads the description, he knows.
Two or three years old, wearing pajamas, shaggy blond hair, blue eyes, cannot or will not speak . . .
The Angler shoves back the chair. It teeters on two legs.
If it falls. . . .
The chair topples onto the parquet floor behind him.
You lose.
He yanks open the desk drawer and takes the passports—all of them, ensuring that Cecile won’t be able to follow him, or leave the country in his absence.
Even before he steps into the garage, his nostrils pick up the stench emanating from his car. He can’t possibly climb into the driver’s seat, much less make a four-hour road trip.
Nor can he leave the bag with his bloodied clothes.
“Papa!” he hears Renee calling inside the house as he gets behind the wheel, and rage uncoils like a venomous serpent within him.
He begins to drive, fury building with every breath of foul air forced into his lungs.
About to close the front door against the autumn chill as Laura Himmelstein’s red taillights disappear down the street, Jessie pauses, spotting headlights coming around the corner from the opposite direction.
Billy’s SUV.
She tilts her face to the sky. “Thank you.”
She’d been praying they wouldn’t come home before the social worker’s visit was over, in case Theodore is still in a mood. She’s certain it must have passed by now, though. A night out with his father is always a balm.
No, not always.
Billy has barely parked when their son throws open the passenger’s door and storms down the driveway toward the back of the house.
“What’s wrong?” she calls after him. “Where are you going?”
“To the coop! I hate him!”
“Theodore, you can’t say that about your—”
“Not Dad!” he shouts, and disappears into the yard.
She turns back to Billy, unloading bags, his movements stiff and methodic. Something pretty horrible must be going on if he’s not going to make Theodore come back and help. He lugs the bags toward the porch.
Jessie glances down at her sock feet, then at the puddle-pocked walkway. “Is there more? I’ll come help you.”
“Just the cat litter. I’ll get it.”
“No, I don’t mind. Just let me grab my shoes and—”
“I’ve got it!” Billy snaps.
He deposits the bags on the floor just inside the door like a brick deliveryman, and trudges back out into the night.
What the hell happened?
She carries the bags to the kitchen and confirms that Little Boy Blue is still busy with his puzzles. He’d worked on them the whole time Laura had attempted to engage him in conversation.
“I think he’ll come around, if you give him enough time and space,” she’d said in parting. “I’ve seen worse cases.”
So has Jessie, but this is her first foundling. Her other fosters have all had parents somewhere. Sick parents, addicted parents, violent parents, apathetic parents. Yet those children had known who they were and where they’d come from, even if there was no going back. It had given her something to work with.
She returns to the hall just as Billy closes the door behind him, plunking the box of cat litter onto the mat with a grunt. He pauses, head back, eyes closed.
“Are you okay? Is Theodore okay?”
“Not really.” He sighs and looks at her. “And not really.”
“What happened?”
“Dave Carver happened.”
“Oh, crap. Did he bring up the damned election again?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“I knew it.” She’d run into Dave herself a few days ago. He’d badgered her about presidential candidates, then man-splained why her choice was all wrong. “Would you believe he told me that a woman can never be an effective president, and that—”
“Politics weren’t the problem, Jess. It was about Theodore. That son of a bitch gave him a hard time about Espinoza.”
“Crap.”
Billy explains what happened and she shudders, imagining an angry, frustrated, frightened Theodore wandering alone into the stormy night.
“I picked him up before he’d crossed the highway. We went to get dinner, but he was too upset to eat, and I . . .”
“You what?”
“I didn’t want to make him.”
“That’s not what you were going to say. You couldn’t eat? Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” Yet he grimaces as he picks up a shopping bag from the floor and follows her into the kitchen.
“Billy, you don’t seem—”
“How’s Little Boy Blue? Did he eat?”
“He ate, and we had a little breakthrough.” She touches a forefinger to her lips and points toward the sunroom.
Her husband glances in. “He’s doing a puzzle! And he’s not sucking his thumb.”
She smiles, filling him in as they put away the purchases—until she finds the chocolate. “Billy, you’re not supposed to be eating—”
“It’s for the trick-or-treaters.”
“Halloween is a month away.”
“And Amelia . . .”
“She doesn’t like candy.”
“Who doesn’t like candy?”
“Come on, Billy, we both know this is for you. And it’s the last thing you need in your condition.”
“My condition? Here we go again. I told you, I’m—”
“What did you have for dinner?”
“Like I said, we didn’t really eat.”
“But what did you order?”
“A green salad and club soda.” At her sharp glance, he says, “It’s the truth! Ask Theodore!”
“Okay, I believe you, but . . .”
In a way
, she’d almost wanted to hear that he’d ordered a cheesesteak and fries, same as always. A salad makes her wonder if he, too, might finally be concerned about his health. She doesn’t like his pallor or the way he’s wincing as he bends and stretches.
The back door opens with a loud squeak, and Theodore appears.
“Dad, we need to go back to the store. I need a padlock for Espinoza’s coop. He’s still there,” he adds, sounding relieved. “But Mom has to watch him while we’re gone. Come on.”
Billy shakes his head. “Theodore, there’s no way we’re going to—”
“You said I can’t bring him into the house, so I need to make sure no one can kidnap him.”
Jessie puts a hand on his shoulder. “Honey, no one is going to kidnap him.”
“But—”
“Look, I know what Dave Carver said to you,” Billy tells him, “but I promise you that he’s not going to—”
“You can’t promise that!”
“I told you before, I won’t let that happen, okay? That jerk will touch that rooster over my dead body!”
“Don’t say that, Dad! It could happen!”
“It won’t!”
“It might!”
Jessie shushes them, looking toward the sunroom. Little Boy Blue is sucking his thumb again, staring down at the floor.
“Come into the living room,” she tells her husband and son. “We can figure this out in there. And keep your voices down.”
“Why?”
“Because Aunt Mimi is trying to sleep and you’re both too loud,” she tells Theodore, who has yet to notice Little Boy Blue.
In the living room, she tells Billy to sit down. He can’t quite seem to catch his breath.
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“I think you should.”
“Why? I’m fine!”
“You’re not fine, Dad,” Theodore tells him. “You haven’t been taking good care of your cardiac arteries. You have a plaque buildup.”
“Who told you that?” Billy looks hard at Jessie.
She shakes her head. They’d agreed not to tell any of the kids about his emergency room episode a few weeks ago, or the follow-up visit with the cardiologist.
“My health ed teacher told me. He says people like you are at risk for a heart attack.”
“People like me? He said that?”
“He said fat guys in their fifties who don’t exercise are at risk for a heart attack.”
“Terrific.” Billy shakes his head. “Thank you, Dr. Theodore.”
“I’m not a doctor. But I got a hundred and three on my test.”
“Well, I feel like I’ve got a hundred and three fever right now. Not because I’m having a heart attack. Because this has been one hell of a stressful day—week—and I’m done. I’m going to bed.” Billy heads for the stairs.
Theodore follows. “But what about the padlock?”
“There will be no padlock!”
“But . . .”
Up they go, bickering.
Left behind in the living room, Jessie sinks onto the couch. Billy isn’t the only one who’s done. She sits there, face buried in her hands, telling herself to just breathe.
Breathe . . .
Billy’s breathing had scared her. She should have pushed him to sit down, maybe even called the doctor. But she knows he hadn’t wanted Theodore to sense a hint of vulnerability.
Fat guys in their fifties who don’t exercise . . .
She knows the words had stung Billy.
Tact has never been their son’s strong suit. On a bad day, Theodore is temperamental. On a good one, he’s exhausting. And on this day . . .
Hearing a faint sound, she opens her eyes and finds that she isn’t alone.
Little Boy Blue has found his way to the doorway, right thumb in his mouth.
Seeing him, she thinks of the Titanic passengers in her nightmare. Petty’s robe is wrapped around the child’s shoulders like a blanket, and his desolate blue eyes stare at her as if she’s the last lifeboat about to disappear into the black sea.
“Hey there, sweetie. I was just going to come and see if you wanted to have a snack and a story before I tuck you in.”
No reaction, maybe because he doesn’t know what any of those things are.
She stands and forces a smile. “Come on,” she says. “I’ll show you.”
And I’ll help you stay afloat. No matter how rough things get from here.
What are the odds that Amelia’s first-ever biological relative comes from the same tiny town as her adoptive mother?
Impossible, that’s what they are. Or pretty close to it.
But there it is.
She stares at the screen, hearing Auntie Birdie’s voice, back in November 1989, when she’d come to New York for Calvin’s funeral.
“L’il old Camden County is growing,” she’d bragged to her grand-niece. “Near thirty thousand folks livin’ there now! I heard tell that Marshboro’s population will be over five hundred by the new millennium.”
“Your whole county could fit in a couple of high-rise blocks here in Manhattan,” Amelia had pointed out with a grin.
“Oh, but they wouldn’t like bein’ sealed in and stacked up to the sky like that, child.”
For the first time in her life, Amelia had wondered why anyone would.
Until then, she’d planned to return to New York after graduation. Someone needed to make sure Calvin ate properly, got enough rest, and monitored his blood sugar. She’d been racked with misgiving and worry when she’d left for Ithaca to begin her senior year, and he’d tried to reassure her, as always.
“Don’t go fretting any about me, Amelia. I can take care of myself. Now shush and hear me out,” he’d said when she’d opened her mouth to protest. “That is exactly what you told me when you went off to college the first time, remember? ‘I can take care of myself,’ you said. And so you have. And so I will.”
But the next time she’d seen him, after an emergency trip home, he’d been lying in a hospital bed, blood sugar spiraling out of control. And the time after that, well . . . it had been the last time.
Then she’d been alone in the world, scrimping to pay for her education and basic necessities, wondering how she’d pay back her student loans, or where she’d live when she returned to New York after graduation. With Calvin gone, though, she could stay in Ithaca with Silas and Jessie and her college friends, or even move down to Marshboro to be near Auntie Birdie and Cousin Lucky . . .
Aaron had walked into her life a few weeks into her final semester, and her fate had been sealed.
Sealed in, and stacked up to the sky.
Eighteen months later, she’d sent wedding invitations to Auntie Birdie and her daughter Lucky, the cousin Bettina had affectionately remembered for their childhood escapades. Lucky had returned the RSVP with regrets and a newspaper obituary clipping dated a few months earlier. Birdie was gone.
The loss of a woman she’d met only once in her life had hit Amelia harder than . . .
Well, harder than Aaron wanted it to, or thought it should have. He hadn’t said she had no right to grieve a woman she’d barely known, a woman who hadn’t even been a blood relative. But he had pointed out that Birdie had lived a long, full life, and reminded her that she had him now, and his family—parents, even, at long last. Her soon-to-be mother-in-law had invited Amelia to call her “Mom.” But she couldn’t bring herself to do it any more than she could call Aaron’s father “Dad.”
It wasn’t just that she’d already had a mother and father; no, she’d been thinking that if she ever solved the mystery of her past and found her biological parents, then they would become Mom and Dad. They’d share a blood bond with her, unlike anyone else she’d ever known. Looking back, it seems a foolishly optimistic notion, imagining that her birth parents—both of them, perhaps arm in arm and wearing gold wedding bands—would come along to pick up where Calvin and Bettina had left off.
That October, weeks before her we
dding, Amelia had called her cousin Lucky to offer condolences, and to see what, if anything, she knew about Amelia’s own past. Turned out that Lucky had no idea that Bettina’s daughter had been “adopted”—her interpretation of Amelia’s tale.
“I wouldn’t go tryin’ to dredge up the past if I was you. Just leave well enough alone. You had two parents who loved you. You were lucky. Me—that’s just my nickname. I never had a father. I don’t think my mama ever even knew who my daddy even was.”
“Did you ever ask her?”
“No, child. Because there were certain things you just didn’t talk about back then. Shouldn’t talk about them now, either, or ask questions. Just count your blessings and move on.”
And so she had, occasionally reflecting upon her fleeting connection with Bettina’s family, but no longer interested in visiting her Georgia hometown.
Now a quick Google search tells her that Auntie Birdie’s prediction had come true, and then some. Marshboro’s current population is 706.
Quinnlynn Johnson couldn’t possibly have grown up in that town and not crossed paths with Bettina’s relatives.
Amelia scrolls down the woman’s Facebook page, trying to make sense of the bizarre coincidence.
Then she spots a photograph.
The image screeches through her brain, collides with the truth as told by Calvin Crenshaw, and shatters it.
It wasn’t random at all.
There, on Quinnlynn Johnson’s Facebook page, is a photo of Birdie.
She looks exactly as she had when Amelia had met her, accompanied by a younger woman she recognizes as Bettina’s cousin Lucky, and a little girl whose broad smile revealed missing front teeth.
The caption reads: Me, Mama, and Grammy. #ThrowbackThursday
If Lucky is Quinnlynn’s mother and Birdie had been her grandmother, then Bettina would have been her cousin.
Amelia doesn’t merely have a biological connection to some random stranger down in Georgia.
She shares blood ties with Bettina’s family.
With Bettina herself.
Chapter Twelve
Saturday, October 1, 2016
A damp chill permeates Levi Stoltzfus’s denim trousers and jacket as he steps out of the house carrying a battery-operated lamp. This time of year, night lingers over the farm like a guest who’s overstayed his welcome.
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