“But you do love me.”
He sighed, his fight gone. “Ain’t it the truth.”
It was a light moment, that dissipated the closer they came to Leila’s street and was forgotten completely when the flashing lights atop the cruisers at Leila’s house came into view. Neighbors were standing in small clumps, keeping their distance. A bald-headed man in an undershirt was watching the goings-on from the sill of the third-floor window.
Memory, and the smell of tragedy pulled the knot in Emily’s stomach tighter.
Leila was on the front steps with the baby on her lap and the three other children looking out from the door behind her like caged beasts, eyes wide, noses flattened on the misshapen screen. The children were silent. Leila was the one making noise this time, a wailing sound, halfway between a whine and a sob.
Immersing herself in Leila’s grief, Emily sat and slipped an arm around her shoulder. John and another officer were hovering, with two more officers wandering around the house.
Leila’s eyes went to Brian. “I was out back hanging the wash. I had the baby, but th’ others was s’posed to stay inside. Travis followed me out.”
“Travis is the two-year-old?” Brian asked.
“I told him to stay inside, but he’s never listening to what I say. I told him to stay with the others, and that if he didn’t something bad was gonna happen to him, but what was I s’posed to do, stay inside watching him every minute? I had to go out to hang the wash, and then when I came back inside, he wasn’t there, and th’ others told me he was out, so I went back out, and he was there, and then he wasn’t.”
“Did you see anyone around the house?” Brian asked.
“I didn’t see no one. I was hanging out the wash. There was so much of it, nothing stays clean for long, they’re always spilling stuff all over the place. I try my best, but I can’t do everything, not with them squalling all the time.”
Brian turned to John and said in a low voice, “Has someone searched the house?”
“He isn’t in the house,” Leila cried. “He came out, after I told him not to. I told him so many times to stay inside with Lissie and Davis and Joey, but they’re always doing awful things to him, even when I tell them not to, so he wanted to come out.”
“Sam’s in there now,” John told Brian. “Hooks and Munroe are out back. We got a description of the boy. I put it on the horn.”
Brian made to lean against the stair rail near Leila, but caught himself when it started to give. “Did you actually see Travis outside?”
“He was right there, walking all through my clean laundry, pulling on things so I had to slap his hand.”
“What did he do then?”
“He sat down and screamed.”
The baby started to cry. Leila put it to her shoulder and began a convulsive rocking. Emily offered to hold her, but Leila didn’t respond. Her eyes were fixed on Brian.
“What did you do then?” he asked.
“I went back to hanging the laundry. He got quiet, and I didn’t hear anything else.”
“He didn’t cry out, maybe when someone snatched him up?”
“I couldn’t hear. The baby had been sleeping in the basket and woke up and was crying then, too, so I couldn’t hear nothing.”
“Do you remember the last time I was here?” Brian asked. His eyes had grown demanding.
Emily would have told those eyes most anything.
Leila answered, “Yes.”
“The man you saw hanging around the house?”
She nodded.
“Was he back again after that?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“Did you see him?”
“I guess. But as soon as I get a look out the window, one of the kids is needing something or other, and by the time I’m back there, he’s gone.”
Brian’s eyes were steady. “Same guy, dirty blond hair, kinda short, wearin’ a wool cap?”
“I guess, but I don’t know if he’s around. Like I said, one of the kids is always wanting me for something. I don’t get a minute of free time to be looking around.”
Brian left them and took John out of earshot, but Emily knew what he was saying. He was saying that Leila had described the first man as tall, dark, and wearing a baseball hat. He was saying that something wasn’t right, and while nearly every other impulse in Emily was crying, Look for the child, get a description, put out an APB, there isn’t any time to spare, a small one was agreeing with him.
“We’re taking a look around,” Brian called and set off with John.
Leila looked miserable. “I can’t be a mother to these kids the right way.”
From behind came a high-pitched, “Where’s Travis, Momma?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Momma, can we come out?”
“No,” Leila shrieked without turning, “you can’t come out until I say, and I’m not saying it yet.”
“They aren’t bad kids,” Emily coaxed softly.
“But I can’t take care of them by myself. One wants something, and then the other wants something, and then the baby is crying and wet and spitting up. I can’t do everything, not by myself.”
“Didn’t someone come to see you, after we were here last?” Brian had arranged it. Emily had insisted. “Someone from Social Services?”
Leila nodded. “She didn’t stay long.”
“What did she say?”
“She said I was doin’ okay.” Leila started shaking her head hypnotically. “But I’m not. I’m all alone here. I need help.” The head shake outlasted the words.
At this stage nineteen years ago, when Daniel had disappeared and the police had arrived, Emily had been in a panic looking for him. She had been running around the parking lot, looking under and behind shrubs, under and behind the employees’ cars. She had been asking nearly as many questions as the police.
Leila wasn’t in that kind of panic. She seemed more overwhelmed by her children, in general, than worried about Travis.
It struck Emily that Leila knew about Daniel, just like the rest of the town did, and that if she was looking for an attention-getter, Emily’s presence last time might have put a bug in her ear.
“Where do you think Travis is?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Would he have wandered off by himself?”
“Maybe.”
“Has he ever done that before?”
“Well, he plays out here with all the other kids. When they go across the street, he goes, too.”
Brian returned. He put a foot on the stair and an elbow on his knee. “Do you have any idea why someone would take Travis?”
“No.”
“What about his father? Could he have come and taken the boy?”
“I keep asking him to do it every time I see him, but all he says is he’s going to Boston to find work and he can’t take Travis, so I have to keep him. That’s what they all say, but they’re not the ones stuck with the kids.”
“We can get you help,” Emily said softly. “The first woman must have misunderstood. There are ways to help young mothers like you.”
“There are?”
“Of course.”
Leila looked at her as though she was afraid to hope, but wanted to more than anything.
Brian’s voice gentled. “Tell me about Travis. Does he play hide and seek?”
Leila began picking tiny wool balls off the baby’s dirty sweater. “He runs after the bigger kids sometimes.”
“Where do they hide?”
She went on picking. “I don’t know. Under the porch. In the Henzis’ shed. Sometimes behind the trash cans.”
“Anywhere else?”
“The dig.”
“Where?”
Even Emily had had trouble catching the words.
“The dig,” Leila repeated, frowning at the sweater. “Down the street. Where they’re building.”
Brian caught Emily’s eye for an instant before asking Leila soft
ly, “Do you think I should check there?”
Leila didn’t look up. She hesitated, then nodded.
The following Monday night, Emily discussed the experience with Kay and Celeste. “They found the little boy in an empty appliance box that someone had dumped off there. He had a little pile of dirt with him and was happy as a pig in you-know-what. One of the neighbors confirmed seeing Leila carry him there.”
“Is she being charged with anything?” Celeste asked.
Kay said, “John couldn’t get himself to do it. Leila has problems enough without. Technically, she put him there like it was a playpen, with every intention of going back for him later.”
“But she reported him missing. She got half our police force out looking for him. Isn’t that false something or other?”
“Technically,” Emily echoed Kay, “and if she were living in a big city, she’d probably have been taken into custody for it. But we all know Leila. She isn’t evil. She is simply and totally overwhelmed by the portion that’s on her plate. So she’s doing what she has to do to get attention. It’s a classic cry for help.”
“Will she get it?”
“Hopefully. I talked with her mother. Not much by way of sympathy coming from that front, but the woman did agree to stop by. Brian also raised a stink with DSS. They’re sending another worker over this time, one with more stamina than the first.”
“Will they take the kids away?”
“I hope not. Leila loves them in her way, and they’re not being mistreated, at least, not yet. DSS may suggest a temporary placement while she pulls herself together. Can you imagine—five children, and she’s just twenty-one?”
Celeste snorted. “I couldn’t handle one child at twenty-five.”
“Was it difficult for you?” Kay asked Emily. “Being with Leila when they thought her little boy might have been kidnapped?”
Emily remembered arriving at Leila’s house, the neighbors milling, the cruiser lights flashing. “At first. I was back in the post office parking lot. The scene had the same panicky feel.” She waved the image away.
“How’s Doug?”
The missing-child image was gone, but not the unease—different cause, same intensity. “Doug is Doug.”
“The weekend was a bust?”
“By my standards. He refuses to talk.”
“About anything?” Celeste asked.
“Anything substantial.” Emily had tried so hard, had been solicitous and easygoing, had modulated her voice to sound innocent and nonthreatening, just curious. “He won’t talk about his work. He won’t talk about mine. He won’t talk about Grannick, couldn’t care less what’s happening here. He’ll talk about Jill. He’ll talk about the weather and how it may affect his flights. That’s it. He certainly won’t talk about Daniel.” She studied her fork. “Brian thought there might be a connection between Doug’s attitude toward our marriage and Daniel’s disappearance. So I asked Doug if he ever thought about Daniel.”
“What did he say?”
“He said no. Then I asked if he thought Daniel’s disappearance had shaped his life any. He looked at me like I was dumb.” Which was nothing new, but still hurtful, particularly given the subject matter. “He said of course it had shaped his life, anything that serious shapes a person’s life. When I asked in what ways, he rolled his eyes and said he wasn’t in the mood to give a lecture in elementary psychology, and walked off.” She looked at her friends. “I don’t think he likes me anymore.”
“Jerk.”
“The man doesn’t know what he has.”
Emily’s insides were jangling. Thinking about Doug set it off. “Yeah,” she sighed, “well, he doesn’t seem to care. I can’t make him talk. I can’t make him listen. He has his own agenda and won’t deviate from it. Do you think he’s trying to tell me something?”
“Like what?” Kay asked.
“Like he wants a divorce.” She hated the word, but it kept coming to mind.
“Your husband is a self-centered man,” Celeste argued. “If he wanted a divorce, he’d ask for it.”
“Does it follow, then, that if he’s not asking for it, he doesn’t want it?” Emily asked. She was trying to reason things out, trying to get a grip on this man who had grown so elusive. “Should I keep fighting to find something worth saving?”
“Do you want to?” Kay asked.
“I think so.”
Celeste looked mystified. “Why?”
“Because I’m married to him, he’s my husband, we have a child.”
“At some point, those things become secondary.”
“Maybe. But I’m not there yet.”
For several minutes, no one spoke. Emily picked at the remains of her sandwich, wondering if she was foolish clinging to something with so little substance, wondering why it had so little substance and whether it could ever have more.
“What are you going to do?” Celeste asked.
“Keep at it, I guess. We’ll be together in Boston for Parents’ Weekend. I may get the opening I want.”
Oh, she would get the opening. The question was whether Doug would take it. Emily knew the others were thinking the same thing. She could see it on their faces.
“Back up a little,” Kay said. “How did you come to be discussing Doug with Brian?”
Emily felt her cheeks warm. “Brian lives over the garage. He sees how little time Doug spends home.”
“You and he talk about things like that?”
“Sure. He’s cop, like John.” It was a good point, she thought. “He asks lot of questions. He does it in a way that makes it hard not to answer.”
“It’s the eyes,” Celeste said. “I warned you about those.” She raised her soda to her mouth and remarked around the straw, “I hear you had lunch with him the other day.”
“He was free. So was I.”
“I hear you made a nice couple.”
“Who said that?” Emily asked, evading the issue.
But Celeste had a one-track mind. “You do make a nice couple. Would you be interested in him?”
“I’m married.”
Celeste held up a hand. “If you weren’t, would you be interested in him?”
Emily made a show of deliberating. She finally shrugged. “Why not? He’s a nice guy.”
“Nice? Those eyes alone can make a woman melt.”
You should only know the half, Emily thought with another, even greater rush of warmth.
“Hypothetically,” Celeste went on, “if you weren’t married to Doug, would you be looking at other men?”
“I don’t know.” But she did. Brian would be first on her list, if she weren’t married to Doug.
“Would you be interested in sex?”
“If you’re asking,” Emily said with a sigh that she hoped sounded bored, “whether I think it’s all right for you to be wanting sex, I think it is. I just think you have to be selective about who you have it with.”
“Do you want sex?”
“This minute, no,” she snapped, annoyed that Celeste persisted. “In the future, yes.”
“You don’t think people outgrow it?”
Emily gave her a look. “You don’t believe that. Why are you asking me?”
“I want to know if I’m strange. Am I oversexed, looking for a lover at my age?”
“You’re only forty-three.”
“Forty-three isn’t twenty-five.”
That struck a familiar note. “Ahhh. You’re thinking about the boy who answered your ad.”
“He isn’t a boy. He’s a younger man. I’ve talked with him on the phone twice now. He’s nice. Sounds very mature. Seems totally comfortable with the idea of having sex with an older woman.”
“He talks about it?” Kay asked. It was the first thing she’d said in a while.
“Yeah. It’s kinda racy. But safe. Phone sex is.”
“What happens when you meet him?” Emily asked.
“I doubt I will.”
“Why not?”
&nbs
p; “Because I’m not comfortable with the idea of his having sex with an older woman. Besides, there are enough others closer to my age to keep me busy for a while, even with the marathoner and the doctor crossed off the list.”
“You crossed off the doctor?” Emily asked in surprise. She had thought Celeste was meeting him later this week.
“He sent a message through the magazine—urgent, he said, so they actually called me on the phone to tell me that he won’t be in Boston this week after all.”
“Why don’t you just reschedule?”
“Because, A, he had his secretary call the message in, and, B, when I tried to call back, I got his answering service three times. I don’t need that. I don’t care how wealthy he is. I don’t want to be dealing with a secretary, or an answering machine, and I don’t want to be squeezed in between meetings. I have no idea why he placed his ad in the first place. That was one thing about the widower, Michael. He made me feel like he had all the time in the world just for me. Okay, so there weren’t any fireworks, still, I liked that feeling. Besides, I’m meeting the veterinarian on Wednesday. And then,” she grinned, “on Sunday,” she sighed, “the architect.”
Emily had been hearing about the architect for days. “I hope you’re not setting yourself up for a fall.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you, he is going to be the best. I just know it.”
Kay hung behind a bit when they left the Eatery. When Celeste climbed into her car, she attached herself to the nearby parking meter, and when the car pulled away from the curb, she didn’t move.
Emily joined her. “You were quiet back there.”
“I was uncomfortable.”
“With Celeste’s men?”
“More than that.” It was late. She had school tomorrow. But there were things on her mind that would keep her awake anyway, and, awkward as it was to express, she needed feedback. “Are you in a rush to get home?”
“Me? For what?”
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