Forget Me Not

by A. M. Taylor

  I hear him suck in his breath, even across those thousands and thousands of miles, because of course he already knows, instantly, that I’m asking him to read to me the last words Nora ever said to me. It’s the last voicemail she left me—the last voicemail she left anyone—and I transcribed it years ago, worried I would lose it one day, which of course I did when I finally upgraded my cell phone. Nate’s the only other person in the world who has that transcript, and this isn’t the first time I’ve asked him to read it out to me.

  “Mads.”

  “Please, Nate.”

  There’s a pause before he says: “Okay. Just give me a second.”

  I wait while he turns on his computer I guess, and I can hear him moving about, and moving furniture around, and the sound of a Mac starting up. It takes a while of tapping and typing and then he says, with a catch in his throat: “Mads, it’s me. Where—oh God, Maddie I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I can’t read this out.”

  I can hear in his voice that he’s about to cry, about to break down, and I wonder to myself if I’ve done this purely to know that someone else is crying at the same thing, and at the same time, as me, to know that someone other than me feels the same pain. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “I’m sorry,” I croak, “I should never have asked. I shouldn’t have called—”

  “No, that’s—”

  But I cut him off before he can finish his sentence and I say, “I love you, Nate,” and then I hang up before he can reply, if he even replies at all.

  Back in my childhood bedroom, almost four years later, I managed to ask him what time I should be round the next day to look after Noah before crawling out of bed to root around in my bag for a bottle of diazepam I hadn’t had to use in months.

  Ange and I met for breakfast at CJ’s the next morning. It had taken me a little while to get out of bed; my limbs heavy, my brain sticky. I’d almost given up and texted Ange to cancel, but I didn’t want to do that to Elle. I lost so much time, so much of myself after Nora went missing. Days, weeks, months had slipped by, sometimes with me barely even noticing, at other times with a heaviness and a slowness so thick it spread itself all over everything, smothering me. I couldn’t be sure that wouldn’t happen again; I never could be, but I wanted to do my best, my very, very best to ward it off for as long as possible. I felt as though I owed Elle that. At the very least.

  The door stuck a little as I pushed it open, making a gentle sucking sound as it finally gave way and I walked into the overheated diner. The windows were temporarily frosted with condensation and I immediately started to unwind my scarf as I looked around the room, trying to find Ange. CJ’s wasn’t a chrome ‘n’ leather kind of diner. Just a wooden box by the side of the road with vinyl booths and a slightly off-putting plaid and taxidermy theme. The sloped roof met in a point in the middle of the building, atop which spun a slowly revolving sign that just said “waffles.” Ange was sitting in the booth furthest away from the door by a window overlooking the road rather than the parking lot, and she already had a cup of coffee in front of her when I sat down. The diner was quiet despite the hour; it was just before nine in the morning and normally it would have been busy, but there were only three other booths full of people and there was a general hush over the place that pricked at my skin.

  “Morning,” I said to Ange.

  “Hey. You sleep okay?”

  “Once I popped a couple of pills, sure.”

  Ange’s lips pursed just as she was raising her mug to her lips and she put the mug down before even taking a sip.

  “How about you?” I asked.

  “Not great. I spent most of the night emailing my editor and trying to write up an article about Elle’s death that he deemed printable.” She stared down into her coffee. “This is my fourth cup of coffee this morning.”

  I raised my eyebrows and said: “I should probably catch up then,” while signaling to a dyed-blonde waitress I didn’t recognize that I was ready to order. “Is the paper sending anyone else up to help you?”

  “No, I managed to convince them that I could handle it myself. They wanted to send up Elise who works for the crime desk but, in the end, I told them just to send up a photographer and I’d handle the rest.”

  “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, this isn’t just some random crime. This is Elle. You knew her. We were there when Katherine and Jonathan brought her home from the hospital, Ange. Are you really going to be okay writing in detail about her murder? Not to mention writing about Nora.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said shortly, looking up to smile at the waitress who’d just appeared at our table.

  “Can I get you girls anything?” the waitress asked.

  “Coffee,” I said before looking down at the plastic-encased menu, although God knows why I did; I already knew what I wanted. “Plus waffles, side of bacon, two eggs over easy. Bacon extra crispy though. Like, carcinogenic.”

  The waitress kind of chuckled but Ange gave me an edgy look.

  “Sure thing. And for you, Ange?”

  “Just more coffee, waffles and a fruit cup, please.”

  “Should I know who that is?” I asked Ange once the waitress had gone to place our order.

  Ange shrugged. “She’s been here about a year. Ruby. She’s nice. Never charges for maple syrup.”

  Before Nora disappeared CJ’s decision to start charging for maple syrup was one of the most controversial things to ever happen there. Ruby returned with a mug for me and poured me a cup of coffee before topping up Ange’s.

  “Your food will be right out,” she said before leaving us be.

  “I went by to see Willard Knowles before coming here,” Ange said. “Do you remember him?”

  “Yeah, of course I remember him.” Willard Knowles was the editor of the local newspaper, and both Ange and I had done work experience with him while we were still in high school. “Is the paper still going?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. It had always been on the edge of collapse, even ten, eleven years ago.

  “Yes and no. He’s gone online and he’s working out of his basement but the Forest View Examiner still lives. I went over to see if he knew anything about what happened to Elle. I’d been hoping to work out of his office, but when I saw his new setup I thought better of it.”

  “Depressing?”

  Ange shrugged. “Just a little weird. His photocopier is on top of his tiki bar.”

  I let out a short snort of laughter despite myself, and reached for my coffee.

  “He didn’t know much more than me; the police are keeping pretty quiet on this one. Willard thinks they’re waiting on the state police before they officially announce anything. But he did have some photos.”

  “Photos?” I asked, barely able to get the word out. I wanted to press pause, to catch my breath; everything was moving so fast, too fast. Two days before I’d stood in front of Elle, talking to her, watching her, worrying over her, and now Ange was talking about crime scenes and photos and I couldn’t quite figure how we’d got here.

  “Yeah. He went up to the scene as soon as he heard about it. I must have just missed him yesterday when I was there. They wouldn’t let him take any until the scene had been cleared and the body—”

  There were those words again. The body.

  The color drained from the room around me and I was drowning in silence.

  It was impossible for me to reconcile those two words with Elle. I didn’t want to slip into such anonymity so quickly and so easily. I wanted to hold onto her, as I knew her, for as long as possible, because I knew, so very well, and so very, very painfully, how quickly and easily that whole person would soon turn into an image, an idea, a talking point, and finally, just a memory.

  One of the strangest things about when Nora disappeared—around the time of the media furor, anyway—was how present and not-present she was. She was everywhere. In every article, on
every TV news show, she even made it into Us Weekly for Christ’s sake. But she was nowhere as well. There were no photos of a crime scene because there wasn’t one. The photo that got circulated to the media was the one taken in junior year for the school yearbook. She was just simply—gone. But Elle was being referred to as “the body” now. Stripped down to her most basic function. When I thought of Elle I thought of her either laughing while sucking on a milkshake aged sixteen, or staring me down hard-eyed while playing board games aged six. I didn’t want to replace that with this new image that was coalescing in my mind, based on scraps of information and an overworked imagination.

  “Maddie?” Ange was saying, reaching over to lay her hand over my forearm. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, swallowing, “I’ll be fine.”

  “So, Willard managed to get a picture of something that was left at the scene.”

  “What was it?” I asked, suddenly sharp.

  “It was this kind of symbol. In the snow.”

  “Do you have a photo of it?” I asked.

  “Not a good one, but Willard emailed it to me so that my paper could use it.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Are you sure you want to?”

  I swallowed, not sure if I could answer, not sure if I really did want to see the photo. I realized that it hadn’t quite sunk in yet; that I’d been skating over the surface of this loss, waiting for the ice to break under my weight and for me to fall through the frigid water below. I still couldn’t believe it, that all this was happening again, that Elle was gone, that Elle had been murdered. It felt ripped from the pages of a horror movie script, and yet I knew it had to be real because it all felt so familiar. I hated how used to grief Nora’s disappearance had made me, but I still wasn’t sure I was ready to confront the reality of Elle’s death, because doing so would chip away at my memories of her that were already starting to dim and distort.

  The body.

  The words echoed in my head and I shivered involuntarily as Ange said: “Mads, you want to see the photo?”

  I could have said no, of course, but I didn’t want to give up so easily. Elle—a lot like Nora—had often demanded attention, and if there was any time she deserved it, it was now. So, I nodded yes, and Ange flipped her iPhone towards me after scrolling through her photos. I stared down at the screen.

  “Does this mean anything to you? The symbol?” she asked.

  The photo was taken at a strange angle, Willard obviously having tried his best to get the clearest shot, but all I could really make out was a symbol drawn into the snow the way a child does. It was the image of what looked like a compass, except that where the four points should have read N, S, E, W, every single one pointed to an “N.” I stayed looking down at it for what must have been a long time because after a while Ange had to clear her throat just to get my attention.

  “You all right, Mads?” she asked.

  “Yeah—” my voice caught on the word and I took a gulp of coffee. “Yeah.” I passed the phone back towards Ange. “It’s that compass thing the Altmans have at their lake house. Their granddad made it when Noah was born, remember?”

  “What?”

  “The symbol. It’s a copy of the ‘N’ compass at their lake house. You don’t recognize it? All of the ‘Ns’ represent one of the kids, right?” I traced my finger around the outside of the circle. “See? Nate, Nora, Noelle, Noah.”

  “Shit, I didn’t even think of that. And we were just at the lake house on Sunday.”

  She shrank down into her booth with a heavy sigh as Ruby the waitress deposited our breakfasts in front of us. I smiled up in thanks and noticed her glancing quizzically down at the phone in Ange’s hand. Ange quickly made the screen go dark and said: “Thanks, Ruby.”

  “You girls need anythin’ else?” Ruby asked.

  “Just more coffee, please.”

  “Sure, you want me to keep it coming?”

  We both nodded and with that Ruby went off to get us more coffee. Ange deposited the contents of her fruit cup over her waffles and then poured over at least three quarters of her jug of maple syrup. I watched as she began cutting up the waffles, adding blueberries and sliced strawberry to the forkful and then swirling it around in a pool of syrup.

  “What do you think the significance is?” she asked as her dangerously loaded fork wavered towards her mouth.

  I looked down to focus on my own plate, breaking off a piece of crispy bacon with my fingers and distractedly dipping it into my jug of syrup. I couldn’t get the words “the body” out of my mind. It was ricocheting off everything else I heard or thought, tainting everything, draining the world of meaning.

  “I don’t know,” I said softly, wishing that I did. We were both quiet for a while until I asked: “So, did you get your article finished?”

  She looked up sharply, her brown eyes coming into focus on me before she swallowed her mouthful of waffle and said: “Well, it’s my job, right?”

  “I’m not judging you, Ange. Just wanted to know if you met your deadline.”

  Ange flattened her lips into a straight line, picking up her phone again and looking for something on it. “It should be up by now,” she said. “Yeah, here we go. You want to read it?”

  I nodded, reaching for her phone again and leaning back in the booth to read her article. As I did so a white noise roar screamed inside my head, drowning out the rest of the diner.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Madison Journal

  Teen Girl Murdered in Small Town

  By Angela Cairney

  January 9, 2018

  The body of a 17-year-old girl, Noelle Altman, was found just outside Forest View close to the side of the road just off Old Highway 51 in the early hours of yesterday morning, January 8th. She is believed to have died between the hours of 8 p.m. on January 7th when she was last seen and 7 a.m. on January 8th when she was found by a local woman who drove past and noticed an abandoned car.

  Noelle was the sister of Nora Altman who has been missing from Forest View since January 8th, 2008 when her car was found abandoned in the same spot by a local police officer. As with the disappearance of Nora Altman, the police currently have no leads as to the murder of Noelle Altman, and are asking that anyone with any pertinent information to please step forward. They do not think the two incidents are connected and a spokesperson has revealed that the possibility of suicide has been completely ruled out.

  The Altman family have requested peace and understanding at this time, and our condolences and heartfelt thoughts go out to them as they deal with this tragedy.

  It was a short article, and I read it quickly, drinking in the few facts Ange had managed to glean from somewhere. What time Elle was found, when she was believed to have died, the exact location she was found. It was all relevant, pertinent, and yet it didn’t feel real. How could I be reading about Elle?

  “The same spot,” I said, lingering over that detail. “How close was it exactly to where Nora’s car was found?”

  Ange raised her eyebrows. “Really close. Willard said her body was a little ways off in the woods, but you could see the road still. The car was right by where the ribbon is.”

  I reached for my coffee, as if going to drink some, but couldn’t lift it to my lips. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I could still see the headlines and photographs that filled the newspapers in the days and months after Nora’s disappearance. But that little patch of land where her car had been found existed somewhere inside me, desolate and snowy, even in the summer when the sun managed to warm my skin and my mind managed to crawl its way out of a perpetual winter. For Elle to have been found there—to have been left, abandoned there, as if she were nothing but a scrap to be discarded and forgotten—gave shape to her death in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Whoever had done this may as well have placed Elle within the chalk outline of the body Nora had never left behind.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wisconsin Daily News

  Family Fear
s for Missing Teen

  By Gloria Lewis

  January 15, 2008

  It’s been seven days since Wisconsin teenager Nora Altman went missing from the small town of Forest View, and her family is concerned. “This isn’t like Nora,” her father, attorney Jonathan Altman, said at a press conference held in nearby Waterstone last night. “She has never left home without telling either her family or friends where she is going, and we are very, very worried that something terrible has happened to our wonderful girl. We remain hopeful that she is somewhere, healthy and alive, and if that is the case then Nora, please come back to us. Please get in touch. With anyone. To anyone who may have taken her, may have hurt her … I beg you, please come forward. Please bring our girl back.”

  An emotional Mr Altman was unable to finish his statement and plea to the wider public to be on the lookout for the tall 17-year-old girl who went missing over the course of the night of January 7. Her car was found abandoned by the side of the road, on a lonely and unpopulated stretch of Old Highway 51 the next morning, January 8, by local policeman and friend of the missing teen, Officer Leo Moody. It was Moody’s father, Chief of Police Patrick Moody who took over from Mr Altman at the press conference, issuing the description of the brunette and asking the public to report any sightings, and for any witnesses who may have seen her as she exited her vehicle or later on that night to come forward.

  In a separate statement, the police department made it clear that despite the family’s fears they do not yet suspect foul play. Nora is a popular, smart, and tenacious young woman by all accounts, and there is no evidence yet that she left the area under anything other than her own steam. Nora Altman is described as being roughly five foot nine with dark brown, almost black hair and blue eyes. Anyone with any information regarding her whereabouts is asked to call the number below.