Left

by Theanna Bischoff

  Greg catches Natasha’s eye, but looks away. Sticky black tar oozes up her esophagus.

  JOSIE

  www.findnatashabell.com

  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. —Genesis 28:15

  MISSING

  Natasha Summer Bell

  Missing From: Calgary, Alberta

  Last seen: July 6, 2002

  Date of Birth: November 11, 1972

  Age: 29 years

  Sex: Female

  Height: 5 feet, 6 inches

  Weight: 124 lbs

  Build: Thin / athletic

  Eyes: Blue

  Hair: Long, dark brown, with long bangs

  Race: Caucasian

  Clothing: Last seen wearing orange athletic tank top, black leggings, black windbreaker, black digital Timex wristwatch, grey running shoes with pink laces

  Identifying characteristics: Pierced ears, pale birthmark on back of left shoulder

  IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT NATASHA BELL, PLEASE NOTIFY LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT IMMEDIATELY.

  Two days ago, my lifelong friend and maid of honour, Natasha Summer Bell, went for a run around 9:00 p.m. and never returned. Those of us who know and love Natasha know that she would never leave on her own, and we suspect foul play. Her purse, cellphone, keys, and vehicle were located at her home. There has been no activity on any of her bank accounts since the night of July 6. Police dogs were unable to track her scent further than her front yard. It is possible that the person involved in Natasha’s disappearance is not a Calgary resident, due to the number of visitors in town for the Calgary Stampede. Natasha is the kindest, most loving, most generous person I know. Please summon all your prayers for her safe return! WE LOVE YOU NATASHA!!!!

  Josie Carey McKinnon

  JOSIE AND NATASHA HAD BEEN FRIENDS SO LONG THAT periodic arguments were pretty much expected. Okay, so they had never had an argument of this magnitude, but the timing of it—what with it being their last conversation—was still purely coincidental. One hundred percent. Josie is sure of it.

  The whole thing started over coffee. Separately, both girls drank dark roast in the mornings, but together, they indulged in chai lattes, full fat milk, whipped cream sprinkled with cinnamon. None of that half-sweet nonsense. A few sips into her drink, Josie had inquired whether Abby had considered giving her baby up for adoption so that it could have the stable, two-parent home it deserved.

  Josie and Solomon had been trying to have a baby ever since their wedding day almost a year ago. At her last appointment, Josie’s GP had told her to just relax; apparently, for women under thirty-five, they would not run tests until a couple had been trying unsuccessfully for twelve months, but, in the meantime, she could buy a basal body thermometer and start tracking her cycles. The booklet she’d purchased on natural family planning suggested that she stick her fingers up inside herself and feel for the consistency of her cervical mucus. How embarrassing! She would do whatever she had to do, but creating her new family wasn’t supposed to be this hard. Her mother had married in her early thirties (practically elderly for her generation)—and had still conceived naturally only a few months into trying, a set of twins, no less! In a couple of weeks, Josie and Solomon would pass the twelve-month mark and then what?

  Josie had wanted to ask Natasha about it, what with her medical background, but Solomon had said, “That’s between a man and his wife.” He didn’t think anyone should announce a pregnancy until after three months, when the possibility of miscarriage decreased. Josie didn’t agree—if she did have a miscarriage, she would want Natasha’s support. Natasha had been there when she’d had her appendix removed in the eighth grade; when she’d been bullied because an allergic reaction to her band class flute gave her a nasty rash around her mouth; when her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. But Solomon was Josie’s husband, and she had promised to honour and obey him.

  The comment about adoption had grown from a tiny seed in Josie’s so-far-childless brain; perhaps Abby, obviously unprepared to raise a baby, would consider an older, wiser family friend to raise the child. She and Solomon had opened their hearts to God for a baby—maybe they hadn’t had one yet because God was preparing them to be the parents to Abby’s little one.

  But Natasha was livid that Josie would even suggest adoption, and Josie hadn’t even mentioned anything about the fact that she and Solomon were trying to conceive but not having any luck. Natasha said that Abby was maturing a lot, that the baby’s father and his family were prepared to be involved, and that both Abby and Natasha were very much looking forward to the baby’s birth. The baby was almost here, and Tash didn’t want her to grow up thinking she wasn’t wanted. Natasha always referred to the baby as a girl even though Abby hadn’t found out the gender.

  The conversation had only gone downhill after that. But Josie doesn’t want to think about that now.

  Despite Natasha’s vehement no, Josie had mentioned adoption to Solomon anyway that night while getting ready for bed.

  “Are you serious?” Solomon squeezed a glob of toothpaste onto his toothbrush. “Think about genetics. Nature plays a huge role, you know.” He began to scrub at his back molars. Josie sat on the edge of the tub, suddenly shivering. Could he brush his teeth any slower? Finally, Solomon spat into the sink. “Especially a child conceived in sin—and by teenagers, no less. No, I want our own biological children.”

  “Okay, well what about—?”

  Solomon put his toothbrush down on the edge of the sink. “Jesus will give us the family we’re meant to have. If He doesn’t give us children, then it’s not part of His will.”

  Josie had always figured that they both wanted children, so of course they would become parents however they could, even if that meant adoption or fertility treatments. She felt tears sprout at her eyes. She stood and walked out of the bathroom to the laundry room, tugged the load of fresh white towels out of the dryer, and sat at the foot of the bed, folding perfect rectangles.

  Sometimes Jesus’ will didn’t make any sense. Why would Jesus give a baby to Abby when she was still in high school? Josie’s brother and his ex-girlfriend had a two-year-old boy, Finn. Two years old, and Finn already came from a broken home. A cousin of theirs had also had a baby out of wedlock when she and Jason were teenagers, and, last she heard, that child had been suspended from school for getting into a fistfight. It didn’t bode well. The sanctity of marriage, of family—these were very important to society. She and Solomon would make excellent parents, committed to raising their child in the Church. So why were they the ones having problems conceiving?

  And yet, as she folded the last towel, she felt guilt in her stomach, hot like vomit. Who was she to question God’s infinite plan?

  ABBY

  Orange tank top, black leggings, black windbreaker. She said an hour, max.

  What time was that?

  Around nine, I think, before the storm.

  Does she usually go running by herself that late?

  She’s a nurse, she works weird hours.

  Does she have a cellphone?

  She left it here—she never takes it running, she says it’s too clunky in her pocket, it bangs up against her hip the whole time...

  What about her wallet? Keys? Any ID on her?

  I found her purse in the closet, her keys and her wallet were in there. I don’t know if she took any ID out.

  We’ll have a look. When she left the house, where were you?

  Here—asleep. Well, I watched some TV after she left, then I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up and she wasn’t here. It was past midnight.

  You slept through the storm?

  I didn’t set an alarm! She said she’d be an hour, max!

  This is her house? Or your house?

  Hers—but I live here with her.

  You got a recent picture of her?

  Uh, I could find one. I’ll have to grab on
e of her albums. Or maybe on her camera. She takes a lot of pictures, but I don’t know if she’d be in any of them—

  Where are your parents?

  I didn’t call them. Should I call them? We’re—Natasha and I aren’t really talking to them. They’re mad because I decided to, to keep it—the baby. Natasha was helping me out, she said I could live here.

  Write their phone number down—here, right here.

  Her biological mom isn’t in the picture. You’d have to ask our dad about that—

  Did you call around to any of her friends or anything?

  Her boyfriend—well, her ex. I thought maybe she went over there, or, I don’t know, maybe—I thought maybe there’d been an accident, she got hit by a car or something.

  This boyfriend, what’s his name?

  Greg.

  Greg what?

  Morgan. He said he was coming. He’s the one who said I should call you.

  What’s his phone number? Write it too. Address too, if you have that.

  I don’t know it by heart. When he gets here, you can—

  They split up?

  She broke up with him—last summer. She wanted to get married, he wasn’t ready…

  So, a year ago? But you thought she might go there?

  I...they were still in touch, sort of—he was a part of the family for so long...

  How long were they together?

  Since high school. Ten years? Or more, even. You should ask him, he’s coming over, he should be here by now—

  Does he have a temper? Would he ever hurt her?

  What? No! Greg is like, the nicest—someday they’re going to get back together. He still loves her. This isn’t—she’s probably hurt, somewhere. I’m going to be sick.

  Did she have any debt? Any financial trouble, vices, addictions, things like that? She on any medication?

  No, she’s a nurse. She’s a health nut. She’s always on my case about eating better, working out.

  Okay, okay. Now I need you to make a list—people she knows, people she would confide in if she was in trouble. Places she might go if she needed a break or something, if she just took off.

  She didn’t just take off—she left dinner cooking. I’m having a baby—

  What about this breakup, was she depressed at all?

  I mean, yeah, she was messed up about it, anybody would…but that’s not—

  Messed up? What do you mean?

  I didn’t mean it like—she would never run away or hurt herself if that’s what you mean! I’m having a baby! She’s really excited about it. She wouldn’t just bail, I’m telling you! Something’s wrong.

  GREG

  THE CLOSEST THING GREG HAD TO AN ALIBI WAS HIS VISIT to the walk-in three days prior, a throat culture positive for strep and a prescription for amoxicillin. The consequences, he supposes, of ignoring the first tickle of a sore throat and tromping around in Fish Creek Park with a group of undergrad students collecting soil samples.

  On the sixth of July, Greg had called in sick and spent the whole day and night at home. Alone. Four days after Natasha went missing, he had still not yet thrown out an empty Styrofoam container of wonton soup, nor wiped the spilled, now dried soya sauce off his counter. He had not opened or eaten his fortune cookie. Natasha always opened fortune cookies before her meal. On one of their dates when they were both still in high school, she’d once found only a blank slip of paper inside.

  “You think it’s bad luck?” she’d joked.

  “You can have mine,” he’d said, sliding his slip across the table to her.

  “Ten percent off your next meal,” Natasha read. “Clever.”

  Standing at his kitchen counter, Greg took the uneaten fortune cookie in his palm and crushed it, still inside the wrapper.

  “When did you see her last?” the detective had asked.

  June twenty-eighth, just over a week before. Greg had been at home, at his kitchen table, trying to fix a pencil sketch of a line of flowers along the Bow River. He was drawing from a photograph, but the shadows looked wrong; he wished he could go back down there to really see it, to get the angles and the light right, but he’d taken the photo at the beginning of April, and the flora would be fuller now, other species would have bloomed in the background. He wouldn’t be able to replicate the day’s weather, the way the sun reflected off the water. He flipped his pencil over and used the eraser to scrub at a darkened petal just outside the range of the sun.

  Then Natasha’s number lit up his call display. He’d let the phone ring one extra time, closed his sketchbook, and took a deep breath before answering. “Hello?”

  “Greg, thank God—I can’t get the cat out of the basement. I’m supposed to feed her like, every hour, she’s hiding behind a box in the back of the crawlspace; all I can see are her creepy little eyes. Natasha’s going to kill me.” Just Abby, having another crisis. His lungs deflated.

  He left campus a little early and went over, helped Abby literally sweep Natasha’s cat, Larkin, out of the crawlspace with the kitchen broom. Greg held a throw blanket around everything except Larkin’s head as Abby pried the yowling cat’s jaws open to actually get the syringe of mashed food inside, and even then, Larkin regurgitated a clump of brown pulp onto the carpet before scurrying under the living room couch. Larkin was a bony, grey feral tabby of indeterminate age, with half a tail; Greg had spent full weekends at Natasha’s without ever seeing Larkin, who trolled under beds and behind boxes. Did the cat ever eat? Health problems or no health problems, Larkin would probably outlive them all.

  “You have to do this every hour?” he asked.

  Abby pressed the lid back onto the plastic container of pureed food. “Yes! Natasha took her to the vet yesterday, apparently she has fatty liver syndrome—she won’t eat on her own. We have to do this until she starts putting on weight. Tash thinks Larkin is her baby. God help us when she has an actual human spawn...” She bit her lip then, catching herself. Greg remembered a family dinner, Natasha’s stepsister, an aspiring psychologist, teasing about how he and Natasha would parent—good cop, bad cop respectively. Certainly none of the Bells had expected Abby to procreate before her much older half-sister.

  Greg recalled Abby in preschool making her bedroom furniture “shiny” with Vaseline while he and Natasha made out on the couch instead of babysitting; Abby in kindergarten, trying to pour her own juice and spilling an orange tidal wave across the table; Abby, in grade school, mid-punishment, standing face to the corner in the living room, sneaking glances and sticking her tongue out at them.

  Abby put one hand on her lower back, which thrust her pregnant belly out even further. In grey sweatpants and a white T-shirt (clearly Natasha’s, given the emblazoned 10K run slogan), she looked like a child in pajamas. A child having a child. “You have to stay,” she whined.

  Abby turned the TV on to some daytime talk show and Greg zipped out to grab them some lunch and pick up his laptop so he could at least edit his dissertation in-between feeding shifts. His drawing would have to wait—he never sketched in front of other people. Maybe Abby’s diversion was a good thing—it would force him to stop procrastinating.

  But when he got back to Natasha’s, Abby had fallen asleep on the couch, her belly a lopsided mound. Greg put Abby’s saran-wrapped sandwich in the fridge, turned off the TV, and stretched a blanket to cover her bare feet. How many times had he and Natasha cuddled under that blanket to watch movies? Every time they went to rent a DVD, she had to get red licorice. Did she watch movies without him, now? Or with someone new? He wanted to know.

  No he didn’t.

  Greg lured Larkin out from under the sofa with a bag of catnip and then wrangled a second syringe of liquefied food into her himself, earning a fine slash across one forearm. He watched as beads of blood welled along the linear wound. Larkin scurried back to her safety zone.

  He hadn’t asked Abby what time Natasha’s shift ended, when she might be home. He opened his laptop, paced around while it booted up. When Gr
eg had given his supervisor the last round of edits, his supervisor sent it back heavily marked, red scrawl at the top, Not up to your usual standards. Had he brought his laptop charger? Damn. The battery looked pretty low. Oh well. He powered down the computer and slid it back into its case.

  He rinsed some of the dishes in Natasha’s sink and loaded them into the dishwasher, then wandered upstairs. In the doorway to Natasha’s bedroom, he hovered, then stepped inside and made his way to the dresser where Natasha had arranged several toiletries she used regularly. There was the silver watch he’d given her for an anniversary, face up. He’d had the back engraved, but in the moment, couldn’t recall the inscription. He picked it up and turned it over. Until the end of time. Cheesy. Especially since their relationship had clearly had an expiry date. He set the watch down, careful to leave it in the same position.

  Dark hair clung to her hairbrush. For months after they broke up, Greg had found long dark hairs in his lint trap. He picked up a delicate bottle of perfume and turned it over in his hands. He took the lid off and spritzed the cloudy liquid into the air in front of him. Inhaled. The smell came, too strong, not like her at all.

  Something sounded like movement downstairs. Shit. He scrambled to put the cap on the bottle. Now he would smell like it, and she would know that he went into her room, and—

  But Abby was still asleep when he went downstairs. Larkin’s accusing eyes started out at him from underneath the recliner.

  Greg didn’t tell the detective about going into her room, about touching her things, about the perfume.

  The detective wanted to know if Greg had actually seen Natasha that day. If she’d come home while he was still there. If they’d talked.

  Yes, and yes, and yes. Abby had roused, groggy, saying her back hurt. She wanted to take a shower, and said Natasha would be home soon and could take over feeding Larkin. Greg debated going back home, but Natasha’s lawn looked like it needed mowing, and he would rather mow a lawn than work on his dissertation. He would rather anything than work on his dissertation.