Bleeding Heart

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “You talking about the trailer park?” demanded the twentysomething girl behind the counter. She had tattoos snaking down both arms and a silver stud in her lower lip. She was clearly put out that I’d interrupted her intense scrutiny of the Us magazine that sat open in front of her.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Is that what East Meadows is?”

  “Only one I know of,” she said, turning a page. “Down the road about half a mile. Turn right on Guyer’s Lane.” She glanced up, gave me a hard look, and said, “So you buying something or what?”

  I grabbed a roll of mints from the candy rack, paid her, and got the hell out. The first stretch of Guyer’s Lane, a dirt road, was occupied by a junkyard specializing in used auto parts. There was a huge mound of tangled mufflers and another of hubcaps, glinting in the afternoon sun. Remnants of what had once been a working farm rose up the hill behind this jumble: a graying eyebrow Colonial with plastic sheeting in its windows, a derelict barn, and a roofless milking shed.

  The road was potholed, following the edge of a field that had long since gone to seed. Goldenrod nodded above a thick carpet of overgrown weeds. Rusted barbed wire clung to the collapsing split rail fence. Over a small rise, the lane gave out abruptly onto a roadway that circled through a trailer park that had obviously been there for some time. Porch extensions, vegetable gardens, and aboveground swimming pools lent most of the small plots a homey, settled-in feeling, though there were a few trailers with rusting exteriors and boarded-up windows. In front of one of these paced a skinny dog, tied to an outdoor utility post, who barked frantically as I passed. I circled slowly, looking for number 34, which Mara had listed as her address, but very few of the house numbers were visible from the road. I was halfway around the circle for the second time when I noticed a white single-wide with a sunflower growing beside the door. I recognized the chipped clay pot, which was now dwarfed by the nearly six-foot plant. This was the sunflower, then just a seedling, that I’d given to Danny so many months ago. Someone—no doubt Mara—had secured it with string to a downspout. There was no driveway as far as I could see, so I parked the car in the grass in front of the trailer.

  The yard was a neat, carefully organized, outdoor paradise for a small boy. There was a miniature trampoline, a waist-high plastic pool in which floated three different water guns, a rope swing that seemed designed to deposit its cargo onto a well-padded pile of dry leaves. Wooden slats had been nailed to the maple tree that housed the swing, and halfway up its twenty-foot height sat a rudimentary plywood fort with an oversized umbrella for a roof. I knocked on the trailer’s aluminum doorframe, though I didn’t expect to get a response. Mara’s car wasn’t there, for one thing. And someone had lowered all the blinds on the inside. I knocked again, and waited, debating about what to do.

  “Nobody’s home there!” called a female voice from across the way. I turned around. An overweight blonde was sitting in a lounge chair inside a screened porch tent next to her trailer. “You’re looking for Mara, right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “They pulled out this morning,” she said. “You’re welcome to come over here. I’d get up, but I’ve just done my nails and I don’t want to mess up my handiwork.” I crossed the road to her. “That’s the grand entrance,” she said, nodding at a zippered door. I undid it and let myself into the surprisingly spacious and welcoming outdoor room. A brightly colored fake Oriental rug lay on top of wall-to-wall indoor-outdoor carpet. There were two lounge chairs, a small couch with a lively assortment of throw pillows, a round glass table upon which sat a jug of iced tea, an open box of Milano cookies, and a plastic caddy stacked with nail polishes and all the accoutrements for a mani-pedi.

  “I’m Shelly. Sorry, but I’m not going to shake,” she said, holding up both hands, fingers spread. Her nails, at least an inch long, were a vibrant turquoise. “Help yourself to a drink—and a cookie.”

  “Thanks,” I said, pouring myself a glass of iced tea and taking a seat on the couch, which I realized too late was a glider. I slid halfway off it as it shot out from under me, my drink sloshing across the rug.

  “Oops!” Shelly said with a laugh. “Sorry! Should have warned you. But most people who drop by know this place like it was their own. We’re a pretty tight little group here. Don’t get too many strangers out this way.”

  She couldn’t have been more cordial, but at the same time I heard the question behind what she was saying.

  “Mara works with me,” I told her. “Over in Woodhaven. She left early yesterday and didn’t come in this morning. I got worried. I don’t have her cell number. All I have is this address.”

  “You’re the gardener?” Shelly asked, looking me over skeptically.

  “I own a landscaping business,” I told her. “Mara’s been working with me for almost two years.”

  “I know,” Shelly said. “Because I’ve been taking care of Danny for almost two years now. What a great kid! We had such a ball together! Oh, boy, am I going to miss him.”

  “You mean they’ve left?” I asked, looking back across the way at Mara’s trailer. “For good?”

  “Well, I’ve got a feeling there’s nothing exactly good about it. But, yeah, I don’t think they’re coming back.”

  “What happened?”

  “Hell if I know,” Shelly said, blowing on her fingernails. “Mara came home in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. She seemed real upset. She asked me to keep my eye on Danny over here while she took care of some stuff. I asked her what was up, but, like always when I asked something she didn’t want to hear, it was like talking to a brick wall. Then I realized that she was cleaning out the trailer. Throwing a lot of stuff away. I couldn’t help myself—I went over there with Danny and asked again what was going on. I don’t know what the deal is with her, but I know she’s got one hell of a chip on her shoulder. The thing is, though, I’ve been taking care of Danny for a long time now. It’s really not about the money. I love that kid, and I know he cares about me. I don’t think I was out of bounds wanting to know was going on, was I?”

  “No,” I said, hearing the unhappiness in her voice. “I don’t think you were.”

  “Well, that makes two of us,” Shelly said, shaking her head. “Because she told me to keep my damned nose out of her business. Like I was some stranger, snooping around! She grabbed Danny and kept working. She started loading up the car late last night, probably after Danny was asleep. They left real early this morning. I guess she’d hoped none of us would be awake to see them take off. She gave him a Popsicle to distract him as she drove out. I know that’s why she did it. So he wouldn’t see me waving good-bye.”

  “What makes you think she’s not coming back?” I asked, looking across the road again. “She left all of Danny’s toys.”

  “That’s stuff me and Al donated,” Shelly said. “Stuff I never had the heart to throw away when Luke—that’s our boy—outgrew it. And anyway, she stopped by and told Pete—he’s the owner—that she was going. When he explained to her that he couldn’t give her back the deposit because she hadn’t given him any notice, she told him where he could put it. What a potty mouth! And right in front of her nephew!”

  “Nephew?” I asked. “Danny’s her son.”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “Well . . . ,” I said, trying to remember if Mara had actually ever told me that was the case. If not, she certainly let me assume it was so. I’d referred to Danny as her son more times than I could count, and she’d never corrected me.

  “Well, she told me he’s her nephew,” Shelly said. “Whatever the hell’s going on with her, I can’t believe she’d lie about something like that.”

  “But he calls her Marmy,” I pointed out. “Don’t you think that’s a baby name for Mommy?”

  “Nope. He meant Mara,” Shelly said with conviction. “Danny told me a couple of months ago that he missed his ‘momm
y.’ I asked him where she was and he told me she was in bed—and then he burst into tears. I didn’t feel right pushing him for more information. And he never mentioned her again. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to tell me even that. He looked real guilty after he’d said it.”

  I tried to make sense of Shelly’s revelations, but nothing seemed to add up. I’d thought of Mara as such a strong, capable, and loving single mother for so long, it was almost impossible for me to suddenly picture her in this changed, more distanced role. And why would Mara want to keep Danny’s real identity a secret from me?

  “So it wasn’t you who called Mara on her cell at work yesterday?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Whoever it was said something that really upset her. I think that’s why she left so fast.” I got up to leave myself, after thanking Shelly for the iced tea and the conversation. She got to her feet, too.

  “Listen,” she said, holding open the netted door and then following me out, “I know I came down pretty hard on Mara just now. I’m just real hurt that she took Danny away the way she did. But I’m also real worried about the two of them. They seem so alone in the world. And she seems to be in some kind of trouble. I’d do anything to help them, honestly. If you manage to get in touch with her, would you tell her that for me?”

  “Of course,” I said. We were two very different women, leading very different lives, but we felt the same way about Mara and Danny. And that made it seem like we had a lot in common.

  It was late afternoon by the time I got back to Green Acres, and the answering machine was blinking. I ran through the messages. Three from crew members checking in about their schedules. Two from clients. One from Ted Finari asking if I wanted to participate in his “Putting Your Garden to Bed for the Season” annual seminar at the garden center. At first I thought the last message was a wrong number. It had come in just a few minutes before I returned.

  “Hi, it’s Sarabeth at the hospital. Sorry to call here, but I can’t seem to get you on your cell. Please give me a call back as soon as you can. It’s—it’s important.” She left a number with a 570 area code.

  I was about to delete it, but then something made me listen to it again. It was the little stumble on “it’s important” that gave me pause. Whoever Sarabeth was, she had something to say that was making her nervous. I dialed the number.

  “Oh, you are still there!” she said before I had a chance to say hello. “I’m so glad I could catch you before you left. I’m sorry. I’m really so very, very sorry, Mara. But Hannah—she’s gone.”

  “I’m not—,” I tried to say, but Sarabeth ran on.

  “Once the infection started to spread there really was very little that anyone could do. Jack asked me to call. He’s just too—”

  “I’m sorry.” I finally interrupted the woman’s babble. “But I’m Alice Hyatt, Mara’s employer. What is this about? What’s happened?”

  “Oh!” Sarabeth cried. I heard muffled voices in the background. Then a clattering sound. Then silence.

  28

  I put the phone down and walked across the office to Mara’s computer. The screen filled with the same montage of photos I’d first stumbled upon the day of Mackenzie’s death: Danny and the young woman who looked so much like Mara, smiling into the camera. The handsome, twentysomething man standing next to an older man in front of a ranch-style house flanked by willow trees. For the first time I noticed the edge of a barn behind the house and a swath of cornfield. I located Mara’s iPhoto software, opened it up, and started to scroll through her library of photographs. Most were organized automatically by date. There were many shots taken around the ranch house, and these showed what seemed to be an extensive farm with outbuildings and a big red barn. In a photo dated four years ago, Mara and the other woman, who was obviously pregnant, stood with their arms around each other’s waists beside a pickup truck.

  Then I found a folder of photos marked “Events.” These weren’t just dated; someone had labeled most of them as well. There were numerous shots of what looked like typical family occasions—cookouts, Thanksgiving dinners, birthday parties. I stopped on one of a gap-toothed Danny, his face smeared with chocolate, sitting on the lap of the woman who looked like Mara. It was labeled “Hannah and Danny on his 2nd birthday.” Hannah . . . who I realized now had to be Danny’s mother. The “mommy who was in bed.” The woman they could do nothing for at the hospital. Who hadn’t regained consciousness. Who was gone. Mara’s sister.

  I felt heartsick for Mara—and saddened by the thought that the world had lost this lovely, laughing young woman whose face looked so familiar. I also suddenly felt like an intruder. I closed iPhoto and pushed back from the desk. I was tempted to shut down the computer altogether. But something made me hesitate—and rethink my qualms about digging further into Mara’s private life. Yes, I was upset by what I had inadvertently learned about the tragedy that had befallen her and her family. But still, I sensed that if I turned away now and decided that none of this was my business, I’d be letting Mara down.

  For whatever personal and obviously painful reasons, she’d taken on the tremendous responsibility of raising her sister’s child. She’d been a loving and unwavering presence in his life during what must have been a very difficult period for them both. And at the same time, despite these other burdens, she’d been a highly effective and loyal business partner for me. With a pang, I remembered her rushing to my defense when I made that crack about the maul during the police search. “It was a joke!” she’d cried. “She doesn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t do anything wrong!”

  Without Mara’s determination, I’m not sure I would have been able to make it through those frightening and uncertain days after Mackenzie’s death. But it wasn’t just that I owed her something. In her cynical and withholding nature I recognized my own wised-up self. I think Mara was actually more like me than anyone else I knew—including my daughters. Both of us had been forced by experience to believe that we were going to have to get through life pretty much on our own. And yet she’d come to my aid in more ways than she would probably ever realize. It was my turn now. I moved back to the computer.

  Her e-mails were all business related. So, seemingly, were the document and spreadsheet files. It wasn’t until I started to scroll through the Internet sites she’d bookmarked that I found anything that might be considered personal in nature. There was a long list of Web sites related to hydraulic fracturing: newspaper pieces, legal articles, research findings, government resources. She’d even bookmarked a couple of the posts that Tom had written for EcoCrisis.org. Her interest in all this surprised me. I remember the very first time the subject had come up between us—the day that Eleanor had called to arrange the appointment for me to meet Mackenzie—and I’d asked if she thought that fracking was a danger to the environment. “Maybe,” she’d replied with a shrug, “but so are a lot of other things.”

  As I continued to make my way down the extensive list of fracking-related Web sites, it became clear that she’d actually been putting a great deal of time and thought into the question. Many of the bookmarks involved disputes between people who had leased their land in Pennsylvania and the lessee—an hydraulic fracturing company called EnergyCorp. She’d saved dozens of related news articles, legal filings, and YouTube videos. I scrolled up and down through this cache of information, unable to make sense of why Mara would have wanted to save it.

  When the phone rang, I reached for it and answered automatically: “Green Acres.”

  “You’re still working!” Tom said. “I tried the house a few times, but you didn’t pick up. What’s going on?”

  I’d been so immersed in what I was doing that I’d lost track of time. It was almost eight o’clock. I explained to Tom about Mara’s disappearance, what I’d learned about her and Danny from Shelly, and what Sarabeth had unwittingly revealed to me about Hannah’s death.

  “I
’ve been trying to dig into things on her computer,” I told him. “It’s so strange. I’ve come across an enormous number of bookmarks about fracking. She acted totally uninterested in the issue the whole time I was working for Mackenzie—but from what I see here, I have to say she seems to have actually been almost obsessed by it. I wish I knew when she’d saved some of these links.”

  “Well, that’s easy enough to find out,” Tom said. “Do you want me to drop by and help you with this? I take it you haven’t eaten yet. I’ll pick up something for you from Radicchio’s on the way if you’d like.”

  Tom prided himself on being up on all the latest technology, and he enjoyed demonstrating his prowess in all things digital. After he arrived with some flatbread pizza for me, I pulled up a seat next to his in front of Mara’s computer.

  “A lot of people don’t realize that their viewing history is stored on their computers even after they think they’ve erased it,” Tom said, clicking away at the keyboard. After a moment, he continued: “Yes, you’re right. She was keeping tabs on the whole industry: news coverage, lawsuits, the latest research findings. This does seem a little obsessive. And she’s been tracking all this for almost a year and a half.”

  “Really?” I said, leaning forward to get a closer look. He started to scroll down the list of sites she’d visited the week I hired her as my assistant at Green Acres. Then he jumped ahead, scanning over the sites she visited the first few months in my employ. “Hold on!” I cried as I saw a link that stopped me cold.

  “What?”

  “Go back up again—slowly,” I told him. “There! Right there. Oh, my God. Can you click on that for me?”

  “Okay,” he said, giving me a curious glance. “The link’s dead. But I’ll just cut and paste it in. Here we go—”