by Nicole Baart
said, ‘This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
Eli offered the bread to Abigail, held it for her in an offering so sweet and so heartbreaking that she had no choice but to take it. It was heavy and fragrant in her hands. It was dark and exquisite. It was holy. The little sound that slipped from her lips was neither a gasp nor a sob but a fragment chiseled from the shattered heart that she tried so hard to contain.
“The body of Christ, Abigail, given for you.”
She pulled off a piece, and though her throat was suddenly and inexplicably strangled with tears, she placed it in her mouth like an obedient child and felt the perfect subtlety of it. It was slightly warm. It filled her mouth. It overwhelmed her with a sense of vulnerability.
Eli took the wine and raised a glass. “In the same way, he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he poured it and said, ‘This is my blood, poured out for you, for the complete forgiveness of all your sins. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
Abigail accepted the glass and brought it to her face. She drank deeply of the scent, letting the complexity of it overcome her until her senses were filled with the extravagance of the earth and minerals, the extraordinary fruit.
“The blood of Christ, Abigail, given for you.”
The wine exploded in her mouth, the shock of it almost painful after the simple delicacy of the bread. She let it wash over her tongue before she swallowed it, before she took it into herself and felt the warmth of it inside her. It burned a little going down; it left a hot trail from the tip of her tongue to her center.
Abigail didn’t know if she deserved it, if she had the right to sit at this table to eat and drink, to partake of something that she felt she had no part in. But for this one moment in time, with the candle glowing and the bread and wine before her, inside of her, it didn’t matter. She was drowning, but she didn’t struggle for air; she opened her mouth and took it in. It washed over her, in her. Abigail felt it fold against every hidden place, every secreted thought and hope. It felt absolute, unconditional.
It felt like home.
†
Hailey didn’t come home the following day or the next. She didn’t come home the day after that.
Lou nearly lost his mind with fear and grief, but Abigail was convinced that Hailey was fine. Or maybe not fine but certainly not dead or in danger. Abigail was sure that her sister had left of her own volition, that her abandonment was nothing more than a cruel and narcissistic act designed to allow Hailey to fulfill her own selfish and self-destructive desires. The levelheaded accountant could almost picture the gorgeous men, the wild parties. It made her sick.
And though they were motivated by two very different emotions, both Lou and Abigail were desperate to find Hailey. They called her high school and talked with the guidance counselor. They got the names of a few people whom the teachers considered to be Hailey’s friends and tried to solicit their help, but no one seemed to know where she had disappeared to or why. Lou and Abigail even prowled her regular haunts in the hope of catching a glimpse, of hearing a telling snatch of conversation, anything. But their hands were tied.
Even the police couldn’t do much. After Hailey had been gone for forty-eight hours, an officer came to Lou’s trailer to check things out. Since Hailey was eighteen, he explained that she was no longer a minor and was legally allowed to take off on her own. But all the same, he poked around in Hailey’s room and asked Lou a dozen questions, all the while writing something on a small notepad. A half hour later, he told the distraught father that he would keep his eyes and ears open. He promised to call if anything came up.
Five nights after Hailey disappeared from her father’s trailer, Abigail’s phone rang in the middle of the night. She had been sound asleep, and when the little device on her nightstand began to sing, Abigail almost screamed in shock. But some small part of her was tense and ready, waiting for the call that would interrupt her life with news of Hailey.
Tossing the thin sheet off, Abigail sat up straight in bed and turned to place her feet flat on the floor. She needed the stability, the grounding presence of the solid floor beneath her. Flexing her toes against the cold laminate, Abigail took a deep breath and reached for the humming device.
It was a number she didn’t recognize. Abigail clicked on the phone. “Hello?” Her voice was hesitant, tinged with fear.
“Abby?”
“Hailey? Where are you?” Abigail demanded, her words splintered with concern even though she had promised herself that if her sister called, she would be as cold and resolute as steel.
On the other end of the line, Hailey began to sob. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Are you drunk? high?”
Hailey didn’t answer. “Please come and get me. I want to come home.”
“You have to tell me where you are.”
“It’s a big stucco house with a circle driveway and a fountain in the middle.”
“You just described thousands of houses in Rosa Beach. I need an address.”
There was a shuffling sound on the line, followed by a few hard sniffs and then the thud of muffled footsteps.
“You still there?” Abigail asked.
“I’m going outside,” came the faint reply. Did it sound slurred? Was Hailey slurring her words?
After several seconds of silence, punctuated only by indiscernible sounds that made Abigail’s heart thump painfully, Hailey said, “The house number is 1562.”
“It’s a start, but I need a street name.” Abigail reached for a pen and a scrap of paper in the drawer of her nightstand. Finding it, she squinted at the paper and scrawled 1562.
Hailey was silent for a while. “I’m two houses from the corner,” she finally said. “Want me to walk to the intersection and read the sign?”
“Are you in a good neighborhood?”
“What?”
“Are you safe? Is it a safe neighborhood?”
“It looks fancy,” Hailey replied.
“Go ahead then; walk to the corner.”
More shuffling, more time. Eventually Hailey told her: “I’m at the corner of Riviera and Middleton.”
“Is there a bush nearby? a place you can hide?”
“Yes.” Hailey sniffled.
“I want you to stay there. Don’t go back to the house, okay?”
“But—”
“Just listen to me. Stay there. I’ll find you.”
Abigail terminated the call before Hailey could protest. Then she tossed on a pair of running shorts and a sweatshirt and raced for her computer. A quick Internet search informed her that the intersection of Riviera and Middleton was less than six miles from her apartment. Since it was the middle of the night, she could be there in ten minutes, tops. As she grabbed her car keys, Abigail couldn’t help but wonder if Hailey had been there the whole time. Only ten minutes away from her building yet her sister might as well have been halfway across the world.
It was with a thrill of anticipation that Abigail acknowledged she wouldn’t have to fly halfway across the world to fit her fingers around Hailey’s scrawny neck.
But when Abigail pulled up to the four-way stop at Riviera and Middleton, daydreams of strangling her sister had taken a backseat to her fear of finding the girl at all. Would she be here? Or had she gone back to the strange house undoubtedly filled with strange people? What sort of a state would she be in? What had she done in her absence?
No cars or pedestrians were around at 2 a.m., and Abigail put her car in park at the stop sign and got out. “Hailey?” she called softly, scanning the darkness for signs of life. “Hailey, it’s me.”
For a moment, all was still. Then, amidst a whisper of rustling leaves, the unkempt girl emerged from behind a swath of ornamental grasses flanking a short, white bench. She stood there for the span of a few heartbeats, deliberating, until reason apparently won out and she came forward one cautious step at a time. It was as if she was afraid to a
pproach Abigail with too much enthusiasm, too much transparent relief. But Abigail could read her face even at such a distance, and it was suffused with blatant gratitude.
As Hailey closed the space between them, Abigail boiled in a melting pot of emotions. Anger and resentment bubbled prominently, but underneath her fury, Abigail couldn’t help but pity the forlorn young woman approaching her. Hailey cut such a pathetic silhouette in the darkness, so frail and wretched and sorry that Abigail felt the stirrings of compassion for her. She knew better than anyone that her sister was incapable of making sane and logical decisions; she could hardly be held responsible for herself. And no matter what she had done, the sad fact remained that whatever had made her run away was also the thing that made her life miserable.
“Hey,” Abigail said when Hailey was only a few paces away.
Hailey stopped for a minute, staring at her with eyes made cloudy by tears. Then she jogged forward in a few stumbling steps and threw herself against Abigail.
The two girls all but crashed against the car, Abigail pinned beneath the slight weight of her sister as Hailey clung to her.
“I’m so sorry,” Hailey wept. “I’m so sorry I ran away. I’m so sorry I did this to you and Dad.”
The hands that had wanted to strangle Hailey clenched and unclenched. Abigail faltered, torn and confused because a part of her wanted to push her sister off and shout at her for being so self-centered and egotistical. But relief was mingling with the heat of anger in her blood, and Abigail reluctantly wrapped her arms around Hailey. She smoothed her hair away from her face just like their mother once did and lifted the long, golden strands off her sweaty neck. She soothed her, and though it was more or less mechanic, her hands were tender.
“Let’s go home,” Abigail whispered.
There was no question as to what Abigail meant by home. Neither girl wanted to face Lou in the middle of the night—not after he was rendered unconscious by his prescription sleep aid—so Abigail drove back to her apartment, the swanky flat that she had bought when Johnson & McNally hired her a year before.
The drive back to Abigail’s place was silent and so was the quick trip up the stairs.
But when both women were inside the apartment, Abigail slid the dead bolt home and turned on her sister. “Where have you been?”
Hailey closed her eyes. “I know. I should have never—”
“I didn’t ask for an apology. I asked for an explanation.”
“It’s complicated. I—”
“Hailey.”
She pressed her fingers to her temples and massaged the gentle curve of skin. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“No, I probably won’t. But you’re going to tell me anyway. You owe me that at least.”
Hailey’s eyes snapped open and she fixed Abigail with a cold stare. “I don’t owe you anything.”
“We’re family,” Abigail countered, her gaze equally as chilly. “I’ve spent the last eighteen years of my life trying to be a good sister to you.”
For a moment, the two women played tug-of-war with their eyes. Each was determined, each unwilling to give in because each was sure she was right.
Then Hailey sighed and moved around the kitchen island to sink onto a stool. “I know. And you are a good sister. But you don’t understand, and sometimes I feel like you’ve never even tried to.”
“What do you mean I haven’t tried to?”
“You haven’t tried to understand me.”
“I know what you were saying. I just don’t know what you meant. I fully understand that you have an illness,” Abigail explained, hardening her hands and gesturing calmly, logically, as if the stiff planes of her fingers could prove her knowledge of the situation before her. “I know your diagnosis. I’m well aware of the medications you’re supposed to be on. . . . I’ve even been to therapy with you. Multiple times!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then help me understand, because I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Abigail didn’t mean to shout, but Hailey crouched as if she expected her sister to slap her. Abigail withered a little, then came across the kitchen to bend over the island, her forearms on the faux marble surface and her face level with Hailey’s. “What do you mean?” she tried, softer this time. “Why don’t I understand you?”
“It’s just . . . you have no idea how hard this is.”
“I know it’s—”
“You have no idea how trapped I am,” Hailey interrupted. “What it feels like to live inside this mind, knowing that I should feel one way or another but I just can’t. I can’t. There are times when everything in my life tells me that I should be happy, elated even, with the way things are going, with the way my life is turning out . . . but I can’t. There’s a disconnect somewhere that won’t let me feel what I know a normal person would feel. Should feel.”
“Then take your meds,” Abigail tried to reason.
Hailey’s eyes went dull. Blank. “You don’t get it.”
“No. No, I’m trying.”
“Forget it.”
Abigail was at a loss for words. She didn’t know how to bridge the distance between them, how to be strong and gentle, authoritative and encouraging. So she left the murky waters that they had somehow entered and set herself on higher ground, reverting to the question that still had not been answered. “Why did you leave?”
“Escape,” Hailey said simply. “I needed to escape.”
There was nothing more to say. How could Abigail counter that? Read a book. A nice beach read with a happy ending. Escape into that. Or watch some mindless TV. Go for a run, take a long bath, go to church. . . . “Have you found a church in Rosa Beach?”
Hailey’s lips curved slightly, a token smile that was bittersweet and short-lived. “I’ve been going to Christ the King for nearly two years. I’ve invited you to go with me at least a dozen times.”
Abigail shrugged off the guilt trip that Hailey was obviously trying to burden her with. She hadn’t brought up the topic of church to censure herself. “What about that? Have you prayed about your illness? Have you . . . have you asked for healing?”
“Every single day,” Hailey said, her voice thick with emotion, “for the last thirteen years, I’d guess.”
“So where’s your answer?” Abigail was surprised at the ferocity behind her words, the wrath.
“I’ve gotten it,” Hailey assured her. “His answer is no.”
†
Abigail settled Hailey on the couch with an afghan that Melody had made when her eldest graduated from eighth grade. At first, Abigail tried to convince her sister to take her bed, but Hailey flat-out refused, insisting that the couch was more than fine. Abigail suspected the small act of sacrifice was a sort of penance, one tiny way of making up for the agony that she had caused by disappearing.
And though her heart twisted at the sight of Hailey curled in a fetal position on the narrow couch, Abigail couldn’t help feeling that maybe a little atonement was a good thing for her. After all, she had abandoned her family and done heaven only knows what while she was gone. When Abigail bent to give her sister a one-armed hug before making her way to her own bedroom, she was sure that she caught the sickly sweet scent of something illicit. Alcohol? Drugs? Either way, it didn’t matter. Abigail didn’t want to know.
In the silence of her bedroom, minutes ticked by and then one hour and two, but no matter which way she flipped, Abigail could not find the elusive spot that promised sleep. She tossed and turned, wondering and worrying about the troubled woman on her couch and trying to decide if she should go back out there and try to build a bridge between them.
But she didn’t have to. Hailey came to her.
When the shadow first appeared in her doorway, Abigail caught her breath, wondering if Hailey had decided to leave again. Or maybe she was ill. Maybe she needed something. Was she sleepwalking?
Abigail decided not to say anything. She stayed perfectly still, her eyes fine slits that be
trayed nothing of her wakefulness in the dim room.
Hailey tiptoed slowly across the plush carpet, as if she was afraid of startling her sister. At the edge of the bed, she paused, seeming to search in the darkness for any clue that would alert her to Abigail’s state.
After a moment, she must have decided that her sister was asleep, because she carefully lifted the corner of the sheet and lowered herself inch by inch until she was lying on the edge of the bed. She balanced there for a second, her feet still on the floor. Then she lifted her legs, too, and lay stretched out beside the prone shape of the woman who was her substitute mother, her sister, her role model, her friend. She took a shuddering breath.
For once Abigail didn’t feel the least bit conflicted or confused. She reached out a strong arm and circled it around her sister’s waist. She pulled her close.
Hailey didn’t seem startled. She put her hand on top of Abigail’s and whispered, “Someday I’ll be well. I’ll find some incredible guy who will understand, who will be able to really know me. . . . You know, keep me sane. We’ll have a kid or two. It’ll be great. You’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will,” Abigail whispered back. “You’ll make an amazing wife. A great mother.”
They were words, nothing but words. Neither woman believed them for a second. But it was comforting to say them out loud, to claim them.
Abigail and Hailey were quiet, lying there together in a communion that couldn’t be duplicated in a hundred years of trying. They breathed. They listened to the sound of stillness in the quiet haven of the room.
And then Abigail asked, “Do you still go to church? I mean, have you gone recently?”
Hailey squeezed her sister’s hand, answered as if she knew the question was coming. “Yes.”
“Why do you go?”
“Because I love the sights and sounds. The candles, the icons, the incense . . . And I have an affinity with the Virgin Mary. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be her? I’m sure everyone thought she was crazy, too.”