There is a hunch, a premonition of some sort.
A spark of the whitest light I have ever seen sears into my eyes like a camera flash. The ground shifts as if someone is picking me up. I am on my back, looking up at the ceiling fan blades as they wop-wop like helicopter blades. They slice the air, disturb the light, turn it into snow.
I’m in a blizzard yet again, the same blizzard I keep seeing over and over. I can’t escape it—can’t hide from it either.
Like a monster, it just won’t go away.
ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO, 1988
Camelot Mobile Home Park. I read the sign. I don’t know what the word Camelot means. But I know what a mobile home park is. It’s where I live now. Small paved walkways lead to similar houses just like ours. They are not really houses, I don’t think they are—they shake and hum when it rains and strong winds come through the cracks in the wall. Mobile homes are what they’re called.
Outside my window I see a long driveway with occasional weeds peeking out from cracks in the concrete. Sometimes I can see Mom through the window as she walks from door to door. She collects the rent, she tells me. I watch children play through the window. They must be smarter than me, must be because they get to go to school and I don’t, and so I study more, study harder, force my mind to make connections, do my math even though I have to imagine things like balloons or pizzas to understand the concept of multiplication and subtraction. And one day, once I catch up with those children, then I’ll get to go to school too.
The coffee table is covered in books. Most of them have torn pages and crayon marks but I don’t care. I love books. I read anything I can get my hands on.
I have many questions when Mom comes home for lunch: Do airplanes fall out of the sky and what’s the meaning of “Lockerbie”? What are the rules of tennis? Most of those questions I can’t ask because she’d know that I changed the channel from the only one I’m allowed to watch. Mom only stays for a little while and when I tell her I have more to ask about she tells me she’ll get me a book that will answer all my questions.
“All of them?”
“Yes. All the words in the world are in it,” she says and hugs me. I hang on to her shirt, I don’t want her to leave, and I need to know about that book.
“When?” I ask and don’t really believe her. There’s no such thing as an answer to all questions.
“Soon.”
I want to cry. Soon is like saying never. Like soon I’ll be going to school. Soon we’ll have friends over, soon, everything that never happens is soon. I cling to the thought of owning such a book, vow that the first words I’ll look up are Camelot, then Lockerbie, then tennis game rules.
I have a schedule. Reading Rainbow after Mom leaves. I write down all the words I learn as I watch and then The Jetsons comes on. After The Jetsons I read until Mom comes to make lunch and checks my workbooks. I have so many questions: Why can’t I get on the bus with the other kids in Camelot? Why am I not allowed to play outside?
I did sneak out that one time. The girl’s name who was playing outside I never asked as if I knew I wasn’t going to see her again. We stole chalk from the bucket by the community board and we drew squares on the concrete, picked the biggest rock we could find—there were plenty in between the patchy grass and the crumbling road—and we played as the sun was beating down on us. When Mom pulled up in her car, I ran back to the trailer and locked the door behind me, pretending to be studying. As if I could trick her, make her believe that she had seen another girl looking just like me outside while I was inside practicing my upper- and lowercase letters. She was mad, but not that mad. But I can’t do that again. Ever.
As I learn to read and draw, as I begin to prefer the news channel to The Berenstain Bears, as my mind expands, the road leading to the trailers crumbles a bit more with each passing day. And then we leave.
The stolen chalk, the stones, and the memory of the nameless girl are all I take with me from Camelot the night we pack up the powder blue car and drive farther west.
West, is what Mom says, We are going west, as if it is going to be the end of all our troubles.
Ten
QUINN
QUINN was awakened by the sound of slapping wings intensifying in the trees around her. Morning faded in like a scene on a stage accompanied by a screeching murder of crows. She gathered the colorful woven fringed rectangle of a blanket and tucked the wet, reddish stain into the innermost fold. She wasn’t sure what to do with the blanket and even though Sigrid didn’t care where she was and when she returned home, walking in through the back door with a sapphire blue-and-maroon-striped Mexican blanket might cause her to ask questions.
Quinn decided on the route through the woods instead of the dirt road, even though it would take longer, but there was no rush, Sigrid didn’t rise before noon on any day of the week. In the soft morning light, the trees were no longer menacing with their long and dark shadows, and sun rays fell through the branches, warming her skin. She stopped in her tracks when a sound pierced the air like the whip on the back of an unruly horse. There was a voice, then two, maybe even three? They multiplied, projected toward her.
Quinn found herself standing in front of a man who fixed his eyes on her rumpled dress and tousled hair. His thick lips and his unkempt beard made her uneasy.
“Who we have here?” he asked and turned a bottle of beer upside down, his lips sucking every drop out of it.
Quinn clutched the blanket closer to her chest, suddenly remembering the way her body had left an imprint on the earth after she had gathered it up off the ground. If she had left one hour earlier or one hour later, they would have never met. Strange how life is. I should have gone down the dirt road, Quinn thought, shuddering as she became aware of more voices around her. She caught a glimpse of three other men in camouflage pants and shirts approaching them.
The woods suddenly seemed dark and musky, the canopy of live oaks shielding the sun from reaching the forest floor, merely lifeless sticks emerging from the ground. Quinn stood motionless. The man held up the empty beer bottle, inspected it, and then tossed it into the woods. The amber glass landed gently on a bed of pine needles and moss, hardly making a sound. Without a word, he unzipped his pants and released a powerful stream of urine merely inches from her feet. Quinn felt a warm droplet touch her left foot when he fanned the stream left to right.
As her fingers clawed themselves into the blanket, she thought of something to say. “What are you all up to?” She hated that her voice shook. She watched him unshoulder his shotgun and gently lower it to the ground. Quinn managed to get the words out with a smile but then realized the man hadn’t zipped up his pants.
“Huntin’ season,” he said.
“What are you hunting this time of year?” Quinn asked, no longer able to force even a hint of a smile on her face. She was shaking. Her brain was only able to gather one characteristic per man: Beard, Bony Fingers, Pony Tail, and Pimples. Beard was staring at her when she faintly became aware of his hand moving rhythmically by his unzipped pants. She scanned Bony Fingers’, Pony Tail’s, and Pimple’s eyes. Not one of them was going to stop Beard. There was no way they were going to stop, period. Not a single one of them.
Run.
Like a rabbit, Quinn turned on her heels and bolted down the path. She barely got ten feet away, didn’t even have time to break into an all-out sprint, when she stumbled over roots and skeletal branches strewn about like bones. Her legs had springs and she recovered quickly. As if her mind had no mercy, everything was magnified, her surroundings in the light of day seemed like an alien landscape and the man pursuing her was a giant—but then her brain flooded and nothing mattered but the path in front of her.
Quinn quickened her pace but each of his steps was worth two of hers and just as she recognized the clearing to her right—beyond it the road, not too far—his hands grabbed her. One snatched her neck to the si
de, the other clamped tight around her right upper arm. Quinn felt panic rise up in her throat as the scent of beer and something foul like deer urine consumed the air around her. She yanked and wouldn’t have minded if her arm had dislodged just so she could get away, but his hand didn’t budge and so she went for him with her free arm, her nails searching for his face. His skin was slippery with sweat and she couldn’t get a hold of him.
“Hey,” he screamed, slapping her hand away, “stop that.”
He crossed her arms in front of her and held her by her wrists, one of his hands big enough to latch on to both of hers, and with the other he slapped her, twice, left, right, then his fist, three, maybe four times. Quinn tasted blood, metallic, she could smell it even through his stink of animal and liquor and filth. She dropped to the ground but he pulled her back up, pushed her against a tree, the bark hard against her back.
Please, she wanted to say, please let me go. Don’t hurt me. Don’t do this. Please. Please. Please. Please please please please please please please please please please please. She searched his eyes, hoping for a hint of mercy, but they were amber like the eyes of a wolf. The only sound was the man’s breathing and then he looked at her, his lips curled backward, exposing yellow-stained teeth.
The woods went quiet. Even the birds chirping their morning’s sweet cantata became silent. And he waited for the others to catch up.
—
Later, by the time Quinn reached home, the wind had dried her hair and her dress was merely damp where it hugged her body. She entered through the back door, into the kitchen, where the aroma of bacon and syrup hung heavy in the air. Her mouth felt swollen and dry and she doubted she’d ever be able to eat another morsel of food. She showered, changed, and went to bed, where she remained for three days. Sigrid never so much as checked on her; she barely looked at her as they passed each other in the hallway on the way to the bathroom.
“What’s going on?” Sigrid asked on the fourth day, after dinner, during which Quinn merely rearranged her peas and flattened her mashed potatoes on top of a pork cutlet.
Quinn felt hot one moment, cold the next, her cheeks flushed and her skin clammy. “Nothing’s wrong.”
Sigrid took one look at her plate. “Are you going to eat that?”
“I’m not hungry,” Quinn said and took a sip of water, hoping it would cool her swollen tongue. Her throat barely allowed the water to pass. She pushed the plate toward the center of the table.
“Your father didn’t leave me a rich woman and wasting food is not something I condone.”
“I understand.” Quinn bit her lip. “Maybe I have the flu or something.”
“In July?”
“It feels like the flu. I don’t know.”
“Eat.”
“I can’t. I don’t—”
“Eat.” This time sharper.
Quinn remained silent.
“Eat, child.” Sigrid’s voice was steady and low but carried the fury of a tornado.
“I can’t eat. I feel sick.”
Quinn didn’t even recognize her own voice. She pulled the plate closer, picked up the fork and began eating. Her stomach lurched and gurgled, but she finished her plate. Later, after she threw up, she sank back into bed. When Sigrid came to check on her hours later, she was delirious and hallucinating. Strawberry fields, you said, Sigrid later told her. I need to get to the strawberry fields.
When Quinn awoke, she wouldn’t have known where she was if it hadn’t been for the constant stream of nurses and doctors. The diagnosis remained elusive to Quinn. Pelvic infection, the doctor said, hydrosalpinx, he told her. The infection caused your fallopian tubes to be blocked and filled with fluid.
Benito, Quinn thought. I wonder if Benito knows what happened. What they did to me.
“How long have I been here?” Quinn asked when her thoughts became clearer.
“Two days. You are on heavy antibiotics. We have to wait for the infection to completely clear up. You are young and healthy, but . . .” The doctor paused and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry to tell you that your fertility will be affected.”
Affected. Quinn wasn’t sure what that meant, had never thought about anything remotely related to fertility, was detached from the whole diagnosis. Nevertheless she tried to make sense of it all, but not for one second did she consider telling the doctor what had happened.
After her fever ceased and the pain was dull and manageable, she tried to erase it all from her mind. She imagined that a fine paring knife cut out the part of her brain that held the memory of it, but regardless of how hard she tried, the images didn’t disappear, and instead she felt a longing for the woods, the pure creek and its cold water running over her. She longed to immerse herself in it, even wondered how far down the bottom was.
After the doctor left the room, absolute clarity was bestowed upon her. She wondered if it was possible to live life as a ghost. She could not live one more second in this body as the person she used to be, and that’s what she felt like anyway, a mere ghost of the girl Quinn. It was that or nothing at all.
Eleven
DAHLIA
WHEN this latest episode is over, I’m famished. I pop a TV dinner in the microwave. I’ve been living off microwaved and prepackaged food all my life. I haven’t developed an aversion to it—its American ingenuity comforts me: the divided trays, the thin plastic covering, and the eventual sliding of the empty tray into the box. Even now I stick with the foods I ate in my childhood: meat loaf and mashed potatoes, chicken-fried steak and corn.
While I eat, I stare at the papers I thumbtacked to the wall the previous day: composite woman, my Jane. I refer to them as my missing people as if it is up to me to tape a red Located sign over their pictures.
After I eat, exhaustion takes over. I want nothing more than to close my eyes and stay on the couch for the rest of the day, but it’s Wednesday and I have to pick up my mother at Dr. Wagner’s office.
My hair is still wet from the shower when I pull into the parking lot of the clinic located next to the Metroplex compound famous for same-day lap band surgery.
Minutes later, a middle-aged woman in pink scrubs shows me into an office. I’ve barely had time to look around when Dr. Wagner enters the room. The first fragrance I notice is the minty scent of hand sanitizer as he furiously rubs his hands together. When he’s satisfied, he extends his right hand toward me.
“Dahlia Waller. I’ve heard so much about you.”
I manage a cheerful smile and shake his cold hand. He sits and inserts some sort of ID card in a slot of his laptop. With his posture straight and his coat as white as snow, he hits the keyboard, his every movement precise and purposeful.
“How’s my mother doing?” I ask and the image of the finely arranged crickets pops into my head. I imagine her with her packed bag on her lap staring at mauve-colored plastic cups on the tray of her bedside table, her hair styled, her eyes staring straight ahead, impatiently looking toward the door.
“She’s ready to go home.”
“Good,” I say and clear my throat.
“Did you ever find her purse?”
“Not yet, I don’t know the exact location the police picked her up,” I lie. My mother’s purse had completely slipped my mind until last night. “I’ll track it down after I drop her off at home.”
Dr. Wagner takes a deep breath in. He seems annoyed by my inefficiency, and I feel the need for him to like me. I want him to know that I’m here for her, that I love my mother. Despite her craziness. Despite everything. And that I need her to be okay, but I also need her to answer my questions.
“She’s upset about her purse, and I think if you keep her away from any anxiety-inducing thoughts, the better her mood will be. Anyway.” A short pause and another key on the keyboard, then there’s eye contact. “This is not how I usually go about this but . . . would you mind telling me a
bout your mother?”
“Tell you what about her?” How can I possibly make him understand her ways? And most of all, do I even trust my recollections? Sometimes flickers of memories pop into my head so outrageous they might as well be out of books or a movie, or someone else’s life altogether. I furrow my brow and I realize that words are just going to fail me. I don’t know where to begin. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Well, whatever strikes you as significant?”
When I ask him how much time he has, he raises his hands as if to say, Whatever it takes.
I’m a mere curator, but he asked, so I’m going to try to answer. Telling him about my mother is a difficult undertaking. I try to think of an analogy, and the best I can come up with is catching a fish with my bare hands. Not impossible, yet it requires very specific skills.
“She’s very private. Always has been.” I say that as if it makes up for my inability to categorize her and tell him what he needs to hear . . . to what? Come up with an appropriate diagnosis? “Suspicious. A recluse, in a way. She has her routine, doesn’t deviate much from it. Easily angered.”
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