by David Bell
“Caitlin’s fine.”
I sat up, rubbed my eyes. The clock read 8:45, later than I would have thought.
Abby looked distracted. I couldn’t read her mood.
“It’s weird, sleeping in the same room with her,” she said. “It makes me think of when she was little and she’d crawl into bed with us. Or if she was sick and she’d come to our room and watch TV. It’s hard to believe sometimes. .”
“What?”
“She’s the same girl. She’s so different in so many ways.”
“I understand. I think about the fingerprints and the scar on her knee. Those seem to ground me a little, remind me it’s really her.”
And deep down, I knew. She possessed the same qualities. The stubbornness. The willfulness. The obstinacy that could burn like hate.
The secrecy.
“Will we get her back, Tom? All the way?”
It hurt for me to say it, but I began to formulate an answer to that question. “She’ll never be the same as if she’d spent those four years here. With us.”
Abby nodded. “We won’t be the same either, will we? I think about everything that might have been different. If I’d continued to work. If you’d worked less. If we’d had another baby. .”
I reached out, placed my hand on her upper arm. I felt her beneath the fluffy robe, our first real contact since the hand-holding in church. “We still could,” I said.
“Tom. .”
I applied some gentle pressure, drawing her toward me. She gave in, leaned her head down close to mine. I brushed my lips against her cheek, then moved to her mouth.
She pulled back. “No, Tom,” she said, her voice gentle but firm.
“Why?”
She stood up and pulled her robe tighter around her. “We can’t.”
“We’re married,” I said. “We’re here. Our child is here.”
“Our energy needs to be on helping her,” she said. She fussed with her hair. “That’s why I came in here. I want to go to church today. It’s been a while.”
“So go then,” I said, leaning back.
“I want Caitlin to go with me.”
“No.”
She ran her tongue over her teeth. “I could take her with me. It would be good for her to get out of here, to see some other people again.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not there.”
“You can say no to this now, as I figured you would. But at some point, she has to leave the house. She’s going to have to go to school and have friends and have a life. We can’t keep her here at home forever.”
“We should start small and get her to speak again.”
“She speaks to me.”
“About what?”
“Little things, Tom. Little things. Is the bed comfortable, or do her clothes fit? It’s a start.”
Abby left the room on that note, so I got out of bed and looked in on Caitlin. The blinds were drawn, making the room gloomy, so it took me a moment to see that Caitlin’s eyes were open. She was lying on her back, the covers pulled up to her chin. She was looking at me but not saying anything. “Mom’s going to church,” I said. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kiddo.”
She rolled over, turning her back to me.
Once Abby was gone, I made toast and coffee in the kitchen, then ate a bowl of cereal. I went outside and brought in the Sunday paper and found a story on Caitlin’s return in the local news section. The reporter had called for a week straight, and we’d stuck to the script of no comments and making requests for privacy, but someone with the police must have spilled the beans, because the story mentioned all the sightings of Caitlin with the man in the sketch. Ryan was quoted-at the end of the article-and simply said the investigation was continuing and that they still considered it a case of abduction and kidnapping.
I heard stirrings upstairs. Footsteps in the hall, the toilet flushing. Caitlin didn’t seem eager to shower on a regular basis. Most parents of teenagers saw their water bills shoot up. Abby reminded Caitlin to shower every few days. But I heard the water running upstairs, which I took as a good sign.
I resisted the urge to go check. I poured another cup of coffee and started the crossword puzzle, listening with one ear for the water to stop. I waited as long as I could and was about to throw my pencil down and check when it did stop. I breathed a sigh of relief. I heard more footsteps above me and managed to drink my coffee in a little bit of peace. That lasted a few minutes, until the cup was empty; then I couldn’t wait and decided to go upstairs and check in on her.
She wasn’t in the bathroom-the door was wide open, the mirror still steamed over from her shower. And then, with some alarm, I saw she wasn’t in the master bedroom. The windows were all still closed.
“Caitlin?” Calling out for someone who wasn’t speaking to me anymore seemed odd, but at least she’d know I was looking. I checked Caitlin’s bedroom. Nothing. “Caitlin?” I stuck my head in the guest room door. She was there, sitting on the bed. At first, I didn’t know what she was doing. Then I saw the phone-my cell phone-in her hand. She was entering a number. “What are you doing?” I asked.
She slammed it shut and tossed it onto the bed.
“Who are you calling?”
I grabbed the phone and opened it, but whatever number she’d been entering was gone. I checked the called numbers. The last one was a call I’d made, so she hadn’t actually placed it, meaning there was no record of the number.
If only I’d waited. .
“Were you calling that man?” I asked.
She started to stand up. I held my hand out, a silent request that she stay seated and listen to me. She didn’t like it. She stared at me through slitted eyes.
“You don’t get to make calls or do anything else until you talk to us. And I mean for real. Not just bullshit.” I jabbed at the air with my index finger, but my hand shook. “Who was it?”
Her glare slowly turned into a smile. A smirk, really. I saw some of Buster in her. It made me even angrier.
“Stop it,” I said.
“Someday I hope you do find out where I was and everything that happened to me,” she said. Her voice sounded deeper, huskier. She sounded more like a woman, more like Abby. “I can tell the truth will hurt you more than not knowing.”
I slapped her across the cheek.
She looked shocked more than hurt. She raised her hand to her cheek, her mouth wide open.
“Fuck you, asshole.”
She was up and past me, storming out of the room. I thought about reaching out for her again, or following her, but I couldn’t find the will to do it. I let her go.
Caitlin closed herself in the master bedroom. I didn’t bother knocking on the door or apologizing. I went back downstairs but didn’t eat or drink. I tried to look at the paper, but my eyes couldn’t focus. No way I could do the crossword puzzle. Rather than helping my daughter, I’d failed her once again. I didn’t seem able to understand what she needed from me as a father.
I replayed the scene with Caitlin. I wished I couldn’t remember it. I wished it were gone. Erased. But it played in my head on a loop. Every word. Every gesture.
The slap.
About the tenth time through, something stuck out. A phrase. It caught in my brain like a fishhook. Something Caitlin had said:
Everything that happened to me, she’d said.
Not everything I did or everything we did.
Everything that happened to me.
Abby’s car turned into the driveway.
Then I heard two voices coming in the door. Abby’s and a man’s.
Pastor Chris.
He was there, the smile plastered across his face. He held out his hand. “Tom, I haven’t seen you since Caitlin’s return to us.” Us? “I want you to know I’m here in a strictly pastoral capacity,” he said. “I want to help Caitlin.”
“How is she?” Abby asked.
“She took a shower. I took that to be a good sign.”
Abby smiled. She looked pretty.
I tilted my head toward the dining room. “Can I. .?”
She hesitated and looked at Chris, then back at me. “I think if you have something to say, you can say it in front of Chris.”
I hesitated. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Is this something about Caitlin? You said she was okay.”
“I can go-” Chris said.
Abby cut him off. “No. Tom? Is it Caitlin?”
“She’s fine,” I said.
“Then what is it?”
I shook my head. “She said. . she tried to talk to me. .”
Abby came closer. “That’s good, Tom. It’s good she tried to talk to you. What did she say?”
The doorbell rang.
I looked at both of them. “You didn’t invite more church freaks, did you?”
“Tom. .”
“I’ll see who it is,” Chris said.
“Tell them to go to hell,” I said.
Abby stayed close, still watching me. “What did she say, Tom? Is it important?”
I shook my head. “She said. . something happened to her. . while she was gone. .”
“What? What happened to her?”
“We didn’t get that far. I. . we didn’t. .”
Chris came back, a tentative smile on his face.
“Someone’s at the door for you, Tom.”
“Who?” I asked.
“It’s a woman,” he said. “She says she’s a friend of yours, and she knows something about Caitlin. Her name is Suzanne or Susan.”
I found Susan on the porch, where she stood smoking a cigarette. She wore the same kind of clothes as the first time we’d met, except her sneakers had been replaced by muddy hiking boots. When I came outside, she turned to face me.
“Ah, Tom.”
“I didn’t know you made house calls.”
“We go wherever we’re needed.” She pointed to the two empty porch chairs, so we sat. “I apologize for the intrusion on your family life, but I’ve been thinking about you.”
“You were?”
“I saw your good news in the newspapers,” she said. “Your daughter is back. You must be a happy man.”
“It’s a complicated adjustment in a lot of ways.”
“Right.” She dropped the cigarette on the porch and ground it under her boot. “I’m sorry about this. It’s a bad habit I picked up in college and then returned to a few years ago. I do it when I’m anxious.”
“What are you anxious about today?” I asked.
She rubbed her hands together as though keeping them warm. It was a cool day, and I wished I’d worn a jacket.
“What has your daughter said about where she was?”
“Nothing.” I looked down. “She won’t talk about it. She told us not to ask her about it. Why do you want to know?”
“And so you haven’t asked her?”
“The therapist told us not to.”
“It’s best to follow the lead of the experts in these cases,” she said. “At least that’s been my experience. They know what’s best.”
“I take it you didn’t just come to talk to me about the merits of therapy,” I said.
“Like I said, I’ve been thinking about you. This story. It’s been in the papers, so it’s been in my mind. Do you still have that flower, or did you give it to the police?”
“I still have it. I should have given it to the police-”
“You probably should-”
“You know, I’m sort of in the middle of a larger crisis here. I appreciated talking to you the other day, but I don’t think I have time for whatever you’re thinking about. Just get to the point or go.”
“You’re right. Of course.” She dug into the pocket of her shirt and brought out a pack of cigarettes. Her fingers shook as she dug one out and struck the lighter. “Sorry,” she said, blowing the smoke plume in the opposite direction of where I sat. Around us, normal life went on. A few doors up, our neighbors raked their leaves onto a large blue tarp. A child laughed somewhere, a bright, distant trilling. “This man,” she finally said, “the man from the sketch, you believe he’s the one who took your daughter from you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I think you’re right, Tom. I think he did.”
“What are you saying? Because of the flower? What?”
She shook her head. “Not because of the flower.”
“Then what?”
“Tracy,” she said. “Tracy Fairlawn.”
“What about her? Did you talk to her?”
“Not for a while,” she said. “But I’ve spent a lot of time talking with her in the past. She’s a very troubled young woman. When you and I met the other day, I was trying to protect her, to value her privacy, the confidentiality of the things she has told me over the last year.”
“Drugs?”
“Among other things.”
“Are you saying she’s not reliable? Or believable?”
“I think she’s believable, Tom. Especially about this matter.” She looked down at the burning tip of the cigarette as though she didn’t know how it had ended up in her hand. “Tracy knows this man, the one she saw in the club. She knows who he is.”
I held tight to the armrests of the chair. My neighbor dragged his tarp full of leaves out to the curb.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know it,” she said, her voice acquiring an edge. “I don’t.”
“Tracy sent me to you.” My words came out sharp, ringing through the afternoon air. A picture formed. “You two are doing this together, aren’t you? She sends me to you, and you lead me around by my nose-”
“I can only guess at Tracy’s motives, but the thought crossed my mind that she wanted me to communicate something to you on this account. She was right. I knew about this when you came to see me the other day. Then I saw the news in the paper. I couldn’t keep it to myself. I looked your address up in the phone book and came over here.”
“You’re quite a saint,” I said.
“I thought long and hard about whether I should get involved further,” she said. “About whether I should tell you. But if I had to guess, I think Tracy wanted me to tell you about this. I think that’s why she gave you my card and name. She has a difficult time talking about this issue, and she probably wanted to use me as a kind of proxy. I have incomplete information as it is, and it feels like-it is-a violation of the trust Tracy and I built.”
“Don’t make yourself out to be more important than you are,” I said. “You’re not a priest or a therapist. Now where is Tracy?”
“I told you-I haven’t been able to get ahold of her.”
“I’m calling the police.” I started to stand. “They’ll find her. They’ll come down on you, too.”
“That’s not the solution, Tom. And neither is this anger.”
I was still on the edge of my seat. “What else do you know? There’s much more to this story, and you know it. Spill it.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Goddamn it, spill it!”
“Have you seen that ghost girl lately, Tom?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Have you?”
I paused. “Yes, she was outside our house one night.”
“Did she say anything?”
I slid back in the chair. “I went after her, but she ran away.”
“Remember what I told you about that?”
“That sometimes we see what we want to see. That it’s a form of wish fulfillment to see that girl.”
“Right.” She dropped the cigarette and ground it out. “And it’s the same for Tracy.”
“Why would Tracy want to see what she saw in that strip club?” I asked.
“Not why she would want to see that man, but why would she want to tell her story. To you. Why would she care about that man being captured or revealed?”
“Because it’s
the right thing to do.”
“You’ve met Tracy. Do you think that’s a primary motivation for her?”
I stood up. I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. “Get out of here,” I said to her. “If you’re not here to help-if you’re just here to talk in riddles-then get lost. I’m calling the police.”
“Tom?” she said.
“Fuck off.”
She reached out and put her hand on the phone. “Tom? Are you sure you want to know what Tracy knows?” She nodded her head toward the house. “Your daughter is home. She’s alive. When we talked, you were worried about her being dead. That was your fear. Well, you have your answer.”
“I’m calling,” I said.
She kept her hand on mine. I waited.
“Put the phone away,” she said.
I held on to the phone, but I sat down.
“Tracy Fairlawn,” Susan said. “She was taken.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tracy told me about this as I got to know her. It took a long time for her to confide in me, which is why I struggled with telling you this.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m listening.”
“About six years ago, when she was fourteen. She was walking home one night, alone, and a man stopped and offered her a ride. She took it. The man took Tracy to his house. She doesn’t know where he lived. He drove around a lot, in the dark, and she didn’t know the streets very well because she wasn’t driving yet. When she got to the man’s house, he fed her and gave her something to drink. They talked and listened to music, and when Tracy wanted to leave the house and go home, he wouldn’t let her. He held her there against her will, in his basement. He locked her in. He raped her repeatedly.”
For a long moment, I couldn’t say anything. I felt cold again, even though the wind was calm and the trees still.
“How did she get out?” I asked finally.
“He let her out,” Susan said. “After about six months-six months of rape and terror in a locked basement room-he put her in his car again, blindfolded, and drove her around and around. Eventually he let her out on a country road in Simms County, twenty miles away from here. She made it to a gas station and called her mother.”
“What did the police do?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.
“What do you think they did?” she asked.