All the Way Home

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “I’ll see you in my office for our regular appointment this week, and we’ll see if the little guy has done a somersault yet,” the doctor says with a smile, shaking Lou’s hand and giving Michelle a pat on her arm. “But in the meantime, you need to reduce the level of stress in your life. Take plenty of time to relax—­starting now. Go home and get some sleep. You both look exhausted.”

  Sleep.

  Suddenly, Michelle can’t wait to crawl between the sheets at home, close her eyes, and allow sleep to give her a reprieve from this horrible day.

  “I honestly can’t wait to go home to bed,” she tells Lou as the doctor leaves the room and Lou begins gathering her clothes from the cupboard where the nurse stored them earlier.

  “Bed? You’ve been in bed all day.”

  She scowls. “Well, I’ve hardly been resting. I’m hooked up to this machine, and I’m completely stressed out about the baby—­”

  “Yeah, but at least you haven’t been sitting on that hard chair for the past eight hours. My back is killing me.”

  She glares at him, wondering how he can be so insensitive. “I’ll trade places with you in a minute,” she snaps. “You see how it feels to have this giant baby wedged inside you, and how it feels to know you’re going to have to get him out somehow even though his legs are down and his head is up—­”

  “The doctor said before that if he doesn’t turn, a C-­section is an option.”

  “That’s major surgery! I don’t want a C-­section. How am I going to take care of a new baby, and Ozzie, if I have to recuperate from surgery?”

  Lou rubs his eyes. “Michelle, don’t worry about it until you have to, okay? Now let’s get going.”

  “I have to wait for the nurse to unhook me from this machine,” she says irritably, gesturing at the fetal monitor still strapped to her stomach. She adds sarcastically, “But if you want to go on without me, I can always walk home.”

  “Don’t be bitchy, Michelle.”

  “Me? Bitchy? You’re the one who—­”

  “Let’s not argue again. Please. I’m so tired of arguing.”

  “Is that why you spend so much time at work, Lou?”

  He stares at her. “Is that what you think?”

  “What should I think?”

  “Try thinking that I have to work as hard as I can to earn the promotion they just handed me. Try thinking that I have to keep my job so that we’ll have health benefits to pay for this baby, and your doctor bills, and Ozzie’s . . . try thinking that I have to come up with enough money to pay the mortgage every month and put food on the table and—­”

  “I’m not the one who thought we should go into so much debt to buy such a huge house, remember?”

  He sighs. “Now we’re on the house again? What is it that you don’t like about it, Michelle? What is it that you want to do? Move? Will that make you happy?”

  “Yes!” she blurts out.

  They’re silent for a moment. Out in the hallway, a cart clatters by, a reminder that ­people are around. Nurses and orderlies and other patients can undoubtedly hear them shouting, at each other.

  She shakes her head, realizing she’s gotten carried away. “I mean, no. No, I don’t want to move, Lou,” she says, utterly exhausted. “I just—­I’m just so stressed out. And you’re never home. And everything seems to be too much to handle, all of a sudden.”

  He watches her.

  She wonders if he’s going to reach out and touch her, stroke her arm, tell her that everything’s going to be okay.

  She wants him to do that.

  He doesn’t.

  And when he doesn’t, she wonders again if he’s having an affair. All this tension between them can’t just be due to her hormones and their financial troubles and their worries about the baby . . . can it?

  Helen, the pleasant, chatty nurse who’s been taking care of her, bustles into the room, drawing the curtain all the way back with a smile as though she hasn’t heard the bitter argument spilling out into the hallway. “Okay, Mrs. Randall, I hear we’re going to spring you from this joint. Let me get you unhooked from these machines and you can be on your way home to little Oscar.”

  “Ozzie,” Michelle corrects her.

  “Oh, that’s right. Ozzie! How could I forget? Like the Wizard of Oz.”

  Earlier, when she had first arrived and was making small talk to put her patient at ease, the nurse had asked Michelle how they had happened to choose such an unusual name for their little boy. So Michelle had told her the story about how she and Lou had always loved the classic Judy Garland film, and how Lou wanted to name the baby Glinda, after the Good Witch, if they had a girl. And they spent her whole pregnancy teasing each other with possible boys’ names connected to the movie—­Toto, and Munchkin, and Brick. And then, when she was in the long stage of early labor at home and they still hadn’t come up with a boy’s name, Lou popped the video into the VCR to take her mind off the pain. And at some point, they just looked at each other and simultaneously blurted it out—­Ozzie—­stunned that they hadn’t thought of that before.

  “And what are you going to name this baby?” the nurse had asked with a smile.

  “I’m not sure,” Michelle had said, realizing they really should sit down with the baby-­name books and come up with a list of names. They haven’t really even discussed it yet. Is it just that the novelty has worn off by the second pregnancy? Or is it that there’s something wrong between them, generating tension instead of anticipation about the upcoming birth?

  “Anyway,” the nurse says now, busily unhooking the wide elastic belt from around her stomach, “I’m so glad everything turned out to be okay.”

  “So am I,” Michelle says tightly.

  She glances at Lou, who is brooding in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest.

  But it’s not okay, Nurse. The baby is breech, and all my husband and I do is argue, and there’s a kidnapper on the loose in our neighborhood. Everything is falling apart, and I’ve never been more frightened in my life. And I have this feeling, this horrible feeling, that the worst is yet to come.

  “So you’re sure Emily never mentioned her brother?” Barrett asks, watching Rory closely. She looks pale beneath her freckles.

  “No, she never did. I’m positive. It’s just so strange, Barrett. Why wouldn’t she tell me? The shoplifting thing, I can understand. She was embarrassed or ashamed or whatever. But why not tell me about her brother?”

  “Maybe for the same reasons,” Barrett suggested.

  “You mean, because he was mentally retarded? But that wouldn’t have mattered to me. I would never have a problem with something like that.”

  “Apparently, Emily did. Maybe her father did, too. I’ve called St. Malachy’s a few times to check into it. They didn’t want to tell me much, but one time I reached an aide there who gave me some interesting information. She hasn’t been working there long, but she heard from someone who knew them that Emily and her father used to come to see David often, and even took the brother home with them for visits up until ten years ago—­”

  “Visits? At home?”

  “Did you see him there, then?”

  There’s a faraway look on Rory’s face. “No. No, but I remember a few times,” she says slowly, “when Emily mentioned that some relative was coming to stay with them. One time it was during Christmas, and another time in the summer—­she didn’t want to talk much about it, she only said that we wouldn’t be able to see each other while the visitor was around because her father made her spend time showing him around, that kind of thing. The first time he came, I suggested that I could come along, but she said her father wouldn’t like that, because he thought it should be just the family, or whatever. I never thought . . . it must have been her brother. He must have been the visitor. I never saw him—­but then, I didn’t pay much attention. The first t
ime it happened was during Christmas, and I was busy with my own family, the holidays, whatever. And the second time he came—­I remember now that it was right around the time that Carleen disappeared. So I was distracted. I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “It makes sense that she didn’t want you to meet him because she was afraid of what you might think. I understand that he’s profoundly retarded. And she was what, twelve? Thirteen? The age when all girls care about is fitting in, seeming normal to their friends.”

  “But that’s so incredibly sad.”

  Barrett nods. “Even sadder—­after Emily disappeared and Mr. Anghardt moved away from here, he never bothered with David again.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Nobody even knows. Maybe not. And David had no one else. His mother—­Mrs. Anghardt died giving birth to the twins. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t know there were twins, obviously, but I did know she died in childbirth. I just—­my head is spinning. I suddenly feel like I never knew Emily at all.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spring all this on you unexpectedly.”

  “It’s okay. It happens.” She smiles ruefully, as though her comment has a private meaning. He doesn’t press her about it.

  Instead, he asks, “Do you remember any details about the day Emily disappeared?”

  “That’s the thing . . . I really don’t. I was in such a fog. My sister had vanished right before that. I remember Emily telling me that she was sure Carleen would turn up alive. She was always there for me, trying to comfort me. And then she—­she was gone, too.” She shakes her head, staring off into space, then says abruptly, “You know what, Barrett, I actually don’t feel like talking about this anymore. Is that all right? Can we just talk about something else?”

  “Sure.” He tries to cover his acute disappointment. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe I should just go home and—­”

  “Don’t,” he says, reaching across the table and touching the hand clasped around her cup. “Don’t go home. Not yet.”

  She looks up, surprised.

  He looks into those green eyes of hers.

  Don’t go home, Rory. Stay here, with me.

  Trust me . . . even though you don’t want to.

  Even though you have every reason not to.

  “Do you want to go for a walk down to the lake?” he asks, holding his breath for her reply.

  It’s a long time in coming.

  Then she shrugs and says, “Why not?”

  Several hours later, the streets of Lake Charlotte are quiet, deserted. Most houses are dark.

  Not 52 Hayes Street.

  A female figure is silhouetted in a lit second-­floor window, looking out over the yard of the house next door. It’s impossible to tell from here who it is.

  No matter.

  Though she’s looking in this direction, she can’t possibly see that there’s someone standing here in the honeysuckle hedge, watching, listening . . .

  Waiting.

  Waiting for a chance to do what must urgently be done.

  I have to get that damn bicycle out of the dirt pile before that little brat digs the whole thing out and somebody realizes what it is.

  For all I know, that “Kirstin” license plate is still attached to the back of the seat. I have to get it. I have to destroy it.

  I would have done it last night, if that stupid Wasner girl hadn’t come barging out here, looking for her lost kitty cat.

  If only I hadn’t wrung the stupid animal’s neck when it came sniffing around me in the bushes while I was watching Rory the other night. But I had no choice. It was about to open its mouth and let out a big old meow, and then Rory would have turned and looked out the window, and she would have seen me here.

  And I can’t let her see me.

  Not yet.

  There’s a flash in the window overhead. The light has gone out. The second floor of the Connolly house is completely dark.

  But is somebody still there, looking out?

  Will she see the dark-­clothed figure walking back toward the woodpile?

  I can’t take any chances.

  No. It wouldn’t be worth it.

  I’d better wait.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  On Monday morning, a uniformed police detective shows up at the Connollys’ front door shortly after Maura and Sister Theodosia have left for daily mass.

  It’s Rory who opens it to see him standing there, and the first thought that runs through her mind is that something has happened to someone. Mom was in an accident on the way to church, or Kevin has been injured in Europe—­

  “Are you Molly Connolly?” the officer asks doubtfully.

  She shakes her head, careful not to slosh the coffee in the full, steaming mug she’d just poured herself in the kitchen. “I’m Rory. Her older sister.”

  “I’m Detective Mullen from the Lake Charlotte police. I need to ask your sister some questions. Is she here?”

  This is about Rebecca’s disappearance. They want to ask if Molly knows anything. God, I hate to put her through that.

  She remembers the hot summer morning ten years ago when she was questioned by Detective Doug McShane about her sister’s disappearance.

  “Did Carleen mention anything to you about running away, Rory?”

  Of course she did, Rory had thought. Carleen told anyone who would listen that she was dying to get out of here. But she didn’t run away. I know she didn’t.

  To Doug McShane, she’d simply said, “No, she didn’t.”

  “Do you know if your sister had any enemies, Rory? Anyone she mentioned having problems with recently?”

  Definitely. My father. And Sister Theodosia, this nun friend of my mother’s who’s been underfoot all summer. And, me. My sister can’t stand me.

  “No, Officer McShane, she didn’t have any enemies that I know of.”

  “Rory, did your sister ever mention dating anyone special? Did she have any boyfriends that your parents might not have known about?”

  You’d better believe she did. She had tons of boyfriends. She liked older guys. And she sure as hell wouldn’t have told my parents about any of them. She was always sneaking around with guys she shouldn’t be with.

  “My sister had boyfriends, Officer McShane, but I didn’t know their names.”

  Then, a few weeks later, Doug McShane was back, asking Rory whether Emily Anghardt had mentioned running away, or had any enemies, or had a boyfriend . . .

  Endless questions, and Rory had known somehow that they weren’t going to lead anywhere, known that there was no way she had information that was going to solve the mystery. She was as mystified as anyone else about what had happened to her sister and her best friend and those other girls.

  But as Doug McShane questioned her, she found herself feeling guilty, and filled with renewed anguish, as though there was something she should have known so that she could have stopped these horrible things from happening to her sister and Emily; as though there was something she should be able to tell the police so they could march right out and know where to find them.

  She doesn’t want Molly to go through that. God, no. She doesn’t want Molly to suffer any more emotional trauma than she already has.

  Rory looks at Detective Mullen standing on her front porch, at his crisp uniform and his gun holster and his no-­nonsense expression, and she says firmly, “Molly is here, but she’s still upstairs sleeping.”

  “Would you mind waking her?” the officer asks, and it’s more of a command than a request.

  Rory had checked on her sister on her way downstairs a short time ago. She’d knocked on Molly’s closed door but there was no answer, and after a moment’s panic, remembering that Rebecca had vanished from her bedroom,
just as Carleen had, Rory had opened the door and peeked in.

  Thankfully, Molly was there, sound asleep, looking so peaceful that for a moment Rory had stood there remembering what she was like as a tiny girl—­so sweet, so helpless, an innocent victim of the dark secret they had all been forced to keep.

  “Actually, I would mind,” Rory says, folding her arms across her chest and looking him in the eye. “My sister had an exhausting day yesterday, and she needs to rest.”

  “Listen, Ms. Connolly, I’m sure you know what this is about. And I don’t need to tell you that your neighbors, the Wasners, are beside themselves over the disappearance of Rebecca. They’ve told us that Molly was her best friend. She might know something that can help us to find her.”

  “I doubt that,” Rory mutters. “When she wakes up, I’ll have her—­”

  “Please wake her up, Ms. Connolly.”

  She stares at the man for a long moment, and then, realizing he’s not going to budge, sighs and says, “Fine. I’ll wake her up. But I can guarantee that when I tell her why, it’s going to be a while before she pulls herself together and comes down to talk to you.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “I figured.” She turns away from the door and starts up the stairs.

  “Dig, Mommy? Dig in dirt?”

  Michelle glances at Ozzie, notices that his Winnie the Pooh video has ended and automatically started rewinding. She shifts her feet on the padded footstool, trying to find a comfortable position, and takes another sip of her decaffeinated tea before saying, “Ozzie, we’re not going to go outside and dig this morning. Mommy needs to rest.”

  “But Mommy, you already rested.”

  No kidding. Any more rest and I’m going to go stir crazy, Michelle thinks grumpily.

  Still, she had promised Lou, before he left for the office, that she would try her best to do nothing but take it easy all day.

  “Just turn on the TV for Ozzie and let him watch videos all day,” he’d said when she pointed out that caring for a toddler isn’t very restful. “Or get Molly to come over and help you for a few hours.”

  But Molly had looked so wan and exhausted when they arrived home last night that Michelle hated to do that to her. Poor kid just found out her best friend is missing, and she was nice enough to bail Michelle and Lou out yesterday so they could go to the hospital. No, Michelle can’t ask her to come over and baby-­sit again so soon.