She Lies Close

by Sharon Doering

  And this is the system protecting middle- to low-class criminals.

  Nothing touches the wealthy. Their most heinous deeds are settled out of court because the most vulnerable chose money over dignity.

  I am like a recently discharged soldier who has squeezed himself into threadbare fatigues that don’t button over his newish beer belly, holed up in a log cabin off grid, black ink twitching on his muscled arms, furiously cursing the system through his dangling cigarette while he oils his gun.

  I splash my face with cold water until my shirt is drenched.

  21

  CROSS-SPECIES LOVE

  After I give my order at the Steak ’n Shake drive-through, I slip on my headphones to preview the “bunny versus dog” YouTube video. Wyatt waits silently in the back seat, statue-still, knowing one wrong move could crush his chances at having my smartphone in his clutches.

  It’s called “Heidi versus Peter Cottontail”. In the video, a woman is recording her Golden Labrador mouthing a kickball. The woman is laughing and cajoling Heidi (You want to get that whole thing in your mouth, don’t you, Heidi?) when a white bunny jumps out from the bushes and growls at the dog. This is a bunny in every sense of the word. Fluffy, cotton white, and clean. Someone’s escaped pet maybe. This is not of the wild mangy rabbit-type that destroys my tulips and has me cursing, fist shaking in the air, on a bright spring morning.

  Surprised, the Labrador drops the kickball and jumps back. The dog barks loudly, but most likely playfully; her tail is wagging. Her nose leading and sniffing, she takes a few cautious steps toward the bunny.

  I expect the bunny to dart away, as they do, but this one makes a hissing, growling noise and stays put.

  The dog, cautious but undeterred, moves forward, nosing the air, sniffing. The two animals are close enough to nuzzle, and that’s what I’m expecting to happen because cross-species love is popular online. It’s going to be one of those gorilla-takes-care-of-new-baby-kitten videos, I know it.

  I’m wrong. It’s more like those cruel stare-at-this-dot-for-sixty-seconds-and-something-remarkable-will-happen videos, but fifteen seconds in, a screaming devil face pops up and ruins your entire day and makes you question all of humanity.

  The bunny growls again, jumps forward, and swipes its paw at the dog. Startling. Strangely upsetting. The Labrador flinches, darts back, then trots, tail down between her legs, toward the camera (and presumably her owner). End of video.

  Rabies. Must be a bad year for rabies.

  Like flitting butterflies, transient flu-like symptoms settle upon me for a moment—heat blows through me, my bowels waver, and I shake off a chill—before lifting away.

  I tell Wyatt what’s going to happen so he doesn’t get spooked. I hand him my phone and lay my head back on the headrest.

  A minute later, he says, “That was funny.”

  “Yeah, but in a super creepy way.”

  “But,” Wyatt says as if we had a bet going, “it’s not inappropriate.”

  “Agreed.” My mind replays the rabbit’s behavior. “I didn’t know bunnies could swipe.”

  The car in front of me drives away, and I pull up to the drive-through window. I pay, partly with a few soft and worn singles from my wallet and partly with the change I keep in the well of my door. I am tempted to steal a sip of Wyatt’s shake from the fat red straw—cookie dough piled with whipped cream—but I pass it back, untouched, my hand left cold and wet. I still owe him. I shift into drive and pull away.

  “Hey, Mom?” he says tentatively.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you ever see that video of that girl who got kidnapped?” My tongue feels starchy. He adds, “She’s singing some old boring song in the video.”

  I am tempted to say, “No.” I am tempted to pretend I am above gaping at the car crash, I am above searching for the splash of blood on the splintered dashboard. But I owe him.

  “I’ve seen it. Have you?” I glance in my rearview mirror, relieved that his eyes are not waiting to meet mine. He’s gazing out his side window, watching everything rush by.

  “Tanner showed me after school a few days ago. His mom was talking with another mom, and he showed me on her phone.”

  I wait for him to reveal his thoughts, keeping my eyes steady on the road.

  “It’s kind of weird when parents post stuff about their kids. Tanner said her parents deserved it.” His tone is youthful and innocent, but the words hit like punches to my gut.

  Keeping my voice even, I say, “Do you think her parents deserved for their child to be kidnapped?”

  “Well, kind of,” he says.

  Anger clenches in me. Not at him, but at myself. I’m failing him. I am not talking to him enough about real life and tragedy. I am not guiding him toward empathy. He’s only eight and he’s victim-blaming. I take a deep breath.

  “No one deserves to be kidnapped, Wyatt,” I say firmly, irritation creeping in. “No one deserves for their kid to be kidnapped.” I should be asking him, probing him to find the right answer for himself, that’s what a good parent does, but I’m tense and impatient and want to make it clear.

  Child stars and their parents are this well-defined, easily recognizable entity everyone feels comfortable ganging up on, but so many of us are only a wig and a forced smile and a smear of blue eyeshadow away from that. Tons of well-meaning, loving parents post proof of their child’s beauty, intelligence, and talents on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.

  I would. I have the most deliciously precious photos and videos on my phone that I would love to share-brag. The only reason I haven’t is because I cannot properly time-manage my life.

  To put photos and videos of our children out there feels justifiable. We lose our sleep, our food, our money, our beauty, and our youth to rearing children. It feels justifiable to show them off. Look at my stunning child. Look at my artistic, intelligent child! I made this! It literally marinated in my amnion for nine months. It came from me. It is my accomplishment. I may be old and washed up, but look at this child! I did this.

  The parents who seek fame take it one itty bitty step further. Look at my brilliant child. I deserve more than a nod of approvement for this. I deserve, my child deserves, money, an award, fame.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he says, so easily swayed. “It’s still a little bit weird, that video. It’s like this fun video, and then she’s,” he pauses, “she’s gone.”

  “I know what you mean.” This conversation is a bit heavy. I feel an urge to flee from it. Which is exactly the problem. If he’s not getting empathetic cues from you, he’s going to get his opinions from kids like Tanner. “Hey, Wyatt? When we get to Grandma’s, leave your cup in the front seat for me. I don’t want Chloe to see it and start whining for sugar.”

  He laughs. “Why is she so obsessed with candy?”

  “Most little kids like candy,” I say, but that wasn’t what he’d asked. He’d asked why his sister was obsessed with candy. When Wyatt was Chloe’s age, he never whined or cried for candy. He would never sneak or lie or do anything, absolutely anything, for sugar. He would gladly take a cookie if you offered it, but he never ate from the sugar bowl or maple syrup bottle.

  My cheeks flush and my eyes sting. I’ve managed to keep the image of Leland Ernest walking into my yard and giving Chloe Tootsie Rolls out of my mind the entire day. But now it’s back, and I’m furious. How dare he?

  You’re not sure that’s what happened.

  There are other explanations. Oh, but I am sure.

  I slip on my sunglasses so Wyatt won’t see my tears.

  * * *

  I park in my mom’s driveway. Wyatt leaves me with his empty cup and runs around to the backyard. Sun is shining, and he thinks Chloe will be on the swing set.

  He’s right. Chloe runs in for a hug, and he catches her. They settle on the swings, sitting side by side and talking quietly. He’s probably telling her about the “bunny versus dog” video.

  My mom sits on a lawn chair t
en yards away from the swing set, which is made of metal poles and nails that protrude dangerously, waiting to snag clothing or flesh. It has a slide, two swings, and a carriage swing, all in a row. When Wyatt swings vigorously on the carriage, the anterior metal poles lift three inches off the ground, and my breath catches until the poles’ bottoms touch back down. I have never said a word about my hatred for this rusty, serrated, tetanus-ridden swing set because she bought it for my kids, and they love it.

  I hug my mom’s head gently, taking in her shampoo. It’s one of those color-resistant shampoos that smells like floral perfume spilled purposefully in a salon to mask the chemical stench of perm solution. I grab a resin chair stained with dirt and set it in the grass beside her chair. It’s identical to hers, but mine has a crack along the back. It bows and splits a little as I lean into it.

  “Valerie’s nanny said she can watch Chloe,” I say. “She’s walking distance from my house.”

  “That sounds like a good setup. Nice and close. That little one has too much energy.”

  My mom isn’t complaining. She loves taking care of Chloe, but she is also tired. She has used most of her vacation days to help me and can’t afford to lose her job.

  “It kills me because I want to be home with Chloe. I trust my friend’s nanny as much as I can, but it’s never enough trust. Not like I trust you. And sixty percent of what I make will go to the stinking nanny I don’t even want.”

  “Most people have to use daycare,” she says, a stiff tone edging her voice.

  My mom has had a tougher life than I have had. Her dad was hit by a truck while changing his Buick’s flat tire on the side of an icy road. My mom was seven, sitting in the front seat of the Buick, when it happened. My mom’s mother died of cervical cancer before my mom turned ten. An only child, she was handed off from aunt to aunt, not one of them enthusiastic to parent her, all of them hardened by their own troubled lives. Mom was cleaning houses before her fourteenth birthday.

  She thinks my life has been too easy. She thinks I am spoiled. She thinks I liked the idea of marrying a doctor so I could ride the cash train.

  Oh God, how I wish there were a cash train. I would ride it like a drunk twenty-something rides a mechanical bull at her bachelorette party.

  “I know, Mom. I know. Most people have to work. It’s pointless to complain. I’m tired and not thinking clearly.”

  “Are you eating? Every time I see you, you are thinner.”

  “I’m eating. Just anxious.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I do. I want to talk. I want to tell her about Leland. I want to tell her I’m hallucinating and sleepwalking. I want to tell her everything.

  But my mom has these bags under her watery eyes. She misses my dad. She worries about my divorce. She worries about my sister’s marriage. She worries about getting old and deteriorating in some unbeknownst way that will burden me or my sister because she does not have enough money saved. She has too many worries already.

  I want to tell Nate everything too. Nate loves me still. He loves the kids ferociously. But we aren’t a team anymore. We are friendly enemies, nitpicking each other over petty kid-related decisions without any shared sex or humor to soften the blows.

  Sex and humor, I realize now, are the glue of a marriage. Actually, sex is the glue. We are cavemen and cavewomen. Sex is so much more important than I imagined twenty years ago. Feelings of mind bliss and cosmic union during orgasm last for mere seconds, but the momentary high is surprisingly enough to outweigh the boredom and bitterness of incessant marriage.

  If I told him everything, maybe Nate would comfort me and ask how he could help. But what if he tried to take them from me?

  I can’t take that risk.

  “I’m fine, Mom. I don’t need to talk. The kids are healthy. I’m so lucky.”

  Wyatt and Chloe play tag. She laughs hysterically as he pretend-chases her.

  “After you get your rabies shot, go home and rest. I’ll feed them and drive them to your house sometime after dinner.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  A little stress melts away. Alone time is golden. Maybe I’ll jog. A jog might quiet this unhinged feeling. It’s like a gear has slipped inside me and, with the strain of time—all it takes is time—the interconnecting mechanical parts are on the verge of springing outward and away from each other.

  “Take my car. Tell me if you hear a clicking or if I’m going crazy.” She says it casually, jokingly, but I hang on her words. Does she really think she’s hearing things? Maybe the wobble is hardwired.

  “You’re not going crazy. If you hear clicking, I’m sure there’s clicking.”

  Standing, she says, “I’ll get my keys.”

  22

  AND WHAT DID YOU DO?

  Do you think he is a dangerous man?

  That’s what I want to ask Ethan Boone. That is what I need to know. Not the gritty, voyeuristic details of his daughter’s disappearance. I need to know everything Ethan Boone knows about Leland Ernest.

  I couldn’t ask before. It felt too selfish. Too cruel. Yes, your daughter has been kidnapped, has been missing for months, is obviously dead, but enough about you, Mr. Boone. Do you think my neighbor might be a danger to my happy, healthy children?

  Selfish? Clearly. Cruel? Hell, yes. But here’s the thing. I can’t go on like this. I am splitting into two separate people, and one of them scares me.

  I’m in my mom’s gray CRV. I’m wearing a Band-Aid on my upper arm from the rabies vaccine. The nurses got me in and out of St Joe’s in fifteen minutes.

  I turn onto Coppleton Drive. There’s action in the Boones’ driveway so I pull my car over to the curb three houses short of theirs.

  Natalie Boone sits in the driver’s seat of her SUV, checking her phone. Lila runs from the car, back into the house. An argument? Forty seconds later, Lila runs back out, a monstrous water bottle in her hand, the screen flapping behind her. No argument; she forgot her water bottle. She’s probably heading to basketball practice. She slides into the passenger’s seat, and Natalie carefully backs out and drives away.

  Should I ring the bell?

  Maybe Ethan Boone is home, watching television, a beer in his hand, enjoying a little quiet time. Is that possible? If your kid gets kidnapped, do you ever enjoy a little quiet time again? Kick back and enjoy a beer again? Do you ever truly enjoy anything again? How long must go by before you can flip through television channels and stop on a comedy? How long before you can sit down with your other kids and watch the movie Elf? Five months? Five years?

  You start out hoping with every ounce of your being that your kid isn’t dead, but at some point, you start hoping they are dead because the alternative, that they are alive and suffering, is too much to bear. At some point, all you want is for someone to find the body. All you want is closure. For your child, foremost. Then, for yourself.

  My hand is trembling as I open my car door.

  The Boones’ garage opens, and an old Saturn backs out. I get a glimpse of their garage—pristine, organized—before it closes.

  I shut my door, put my keys back in the ignition, and follow the Saturn. This car is crappy. Dent in the rusted bumper. The driver wears a baseball cap. Mason. I’m following the sixteen-year-old.

  He probably worked all last summer and this summer to save up for this car. Maybe his parents pitched in. It seems like good parenting: helping your teenage son buy a used car, teaching them financial responsibility. I’d like to do something similar with Wyatt.

  Mason doesn’t drive far. I follow him into a crowded Walmart parking lot. He parks far from the entrance. I park far from the entrance as well, but four rows down from him.

  He doesn’t get out of his car. He’s meeting someone.

  Ten minutes go by before another shitty car pulls up beside his driver door. This one, real shitty. Tinted windows. A cracked back window reinforced with cardboard and duct tape. I’m not excellent at identifying car models, but I’m th
inking along the lines of an early 2000s Pontiac Grand Am.

  Mason’s hand goes out his window. A hand reaches from the passenger side of the other car. There is a trade.

  Mason drives away.

  Drugs.

  Hm. Mason could be a normal teenager experimenting with relatively safe drugs like LSD, weed, or shrooms. Then again, normal, relatively harmless teenage drug use usually involves friends and parties. He’s flying solo.

  Could be he’s selling. Could be serious, maybe heroin. Could be he’s intertwined himself so tightly with shady characters and criminals that it has something to do with his little sister’s disappearance.

  Did you know Ava’s brother can’t stop crying? It’s survivor’s guilt or something.

  Maybe it’s just guilt.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later I am jogging on the street against traffic. My sunglasses shield me from eye contact.

  Smells of smoking wood and charring chicken shift with the breeze. Half a dozen people grill in their backyard and another half dozen burn branches so they won’t have to pay for yard-waste stickers.

  Basketballs boing, metal rims clang, dogs bark, and cicadas shriek, their calls rising and falling regular as ocean waves.

  Early evening is glorious. Wide blue sky, sunny and warm, but not uncomfortable. Cool breeze blows intermittently and casually from the east, an unusual direction for us. Mary Poppins weather.

  A woman in a floppy hat clips her rose bushes. An old dude watches a baseball game in his zipped-screen garage, the muted roar of thousands of fans flowing to the street. Women and men of all ethnicities and ages walk dogs and babies, sometimes both.

  I notice a tick emanating from deep inside my head, keeping rhythm with my left sneaker hitting pavement. I’ve heard it before, usually when I run. It’s got to be sinus-related; it has that moist crunching quality I connect with mucus, sinuses, and ears, but still. Could the ticking be a red flag, a symptom of something more nefarious? I imagine my brain, all its folded nooks and buried crannies, overheating, and counting down, tick by warning tick, the approaching meltdown.