by Lisa Preston
Paul winced as she finished, one hand stroking her hair. “It was a different time. A terrible time. There are so many stories of such significance, of those farthest extremes. Evil and love. Sacrifice, I suppose.”
“But they left one behind,” Gillian whispered. “They left an injured boy on the shore and rowed away.”
He opened his palms, beseeching her to accept. “But the Istoks weren’t soldiers, they were kids. They were desperate. Who knows what you or I would have done?”
“I would not have left a child behind. I didn’t leave Becky. I …” But she had left Becky. Sobs wracked her chest. Somewhere between the pain of the past and the mystery of the future lay all of an individual’s possibility, all of human potential. “I went back for her.”
He hugged her and held her as she tried to cry herself out.
It didn’t work. Gillian shook and became incomprehensible, red-faced, starting and stopping to talk, something about swearing she could do better if only she had the chance. Her chest was heaving as he finally held her at arm’s length, gently shaking her shoulders. She trembled, trying to stop, trying to tell him what she had to say. It was past time, but the finality made her bawl again.
He took her hand, then hesitated and focused past her shoulder. Gillian turned and saw Liz standing there with her child.
“Your door was open …” Their nonpaying tenant’s timid voice didn’t fit this room, this house, even though Gillian and Paul weren’t noisy people themselves. They just weren’t mice. Gillian squeezed her eyes shut for one second, quaking with fury.
“It’s all right,” Paul said to everyone.
“What … what’s going on?” Liz’s voice quavered. She asked her question with fear, like she was afraid of more than Gillian’s tears and tension and all that it might mean.
Gillian thought of Liz knowing that Gillian did not want her here. She felt like she was falling into a well of guilt, and she would drown. She couldn’t talk without crying so she didn’t try, just let her shoulders shake. She shook like a person dying of exposure, freezing to death.
Paul made a calming motion with one hand, squeezing Gillian’s hand with the other as he explained to Liz, “She got more information on a story she’s been looking into. A boy … was left behind.”
Liz muffled a pitiful squeal. “Please. Tell me. What happened? Did I …” She began gasping in panicked, croaking hiccups.
Gillian frowned at the mousy woman who seemed to grow more frightened each nanosecond. Why would Liz wonder if the drama involved her? Happening upon people upset in their own home did not make it her business. Not understanding a situation shouldn’t leave anyone thinking another’s calamity was linked to her.
Unable to speak, not trusting herself to be civil, Gillian waved to Paul and he explained more to this stepsister stranger. He spoke quietly, quickly, relating the sad details. The war, deportations, orphaning, a struggle to leave, shepherding other little ones along the way. The boat in the night, taking the children by twos into the sea. Men in the darkness, closing in.
Confusion clogged Liz’s face as she struggled to absorb Paul’s words.
Gillian shook her head, thinking of her own struggles. It was long, long ago. It was hard and buried and somehow immediate.
Liz bent over her baby’s burbling, wiggling form and lifted the child. “What happened—”
Gillian shouted the finish, “What happened was they left a boy. They left him alone in the dark, in the woods, in terrible danger. Just left him there.”
A horrific, keening shriek carrying everything unholy careened off the walls, the ceiling, made Gillian cringe, made Paul wince. The piercing scream was Liz’s, but it seemed to come from everywhere in the room, bouncing up and beating at them. The glass in their framed photographs on the walls shot the scream back, the walls seemed to bend. The potted ficus and trailing pothos leaves that often swayed with the air circulation of the furnace now seemed to respond to the scream, recoiling, wilting. The front windows, which often flexed when large trucks rumbled too fast down the street, shuddered as the ultra-decibel yell went on.
Paul’s wince involuntarily hiked his shoulders up to brace his head as he stared at the wretched woman.
Gillian felt herself drain, knew she’d gone pale.
Liz bolted through their house to the kitchen, escaping into the garage with her baby. It too started to shriek.
The screaming unhinged Gillian. She could not speak, thought she could not breathe. Don’t lose it, she told herself. Don’t hyperventilate. She clapped both hands over her nose and mouth, moaning softly as she tried, tried to keep it together.
Paul looked torn, his gaze switching back and forth between his slowly collapsing, mute wife and the kitchen door to the garage, where his stepsister had fled.
They could hear the baby screaming in the studio, frightened by its mother’s fear. Soon it wailed nonstop. Gillian brought her hands over her ears. Paul had to hear it for once.
“Baby crying. Baby crying.” Her lips moved, but her whisper was so soft, the words were inaudible. So she had to shout at Paul as he moved his face to hers, perplexed. “Baby! Crying!”
She thought of Igor, not much more than a baby, pictured him perhaps whimpering when he died, perhaps going in brave silence. She thought of the other little ones, legs dangling in the cold Black Sea while a boyish Alexandru Istok carried them from the shore to Agnes in the boat. She thought of Stefan, the boy they left behind, watching them as they rowed away, sealing his fate. Gillian crumpled, twisting to the floor.
Paul turned again, to the open front door, to Gillian folding herself into a tiny shape. Faced with the choice, he stayed with Gillian, murmured comforting words and stroked her back. But soon he suggested, “I should go check on her.”
“Go,” Gillian agreed.
Gillian stared through the open front door at the uniformed police officer.
“Seattle police,” he said. “Ms. Brayton?”
Gillian shook her head and found her voice. “You have the wrong house. There’s no one here by that name.”
“I’m at the right house. I’m here to see Elizabeth Brayton.”
“I …” Gillian faltered. “What?”
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
Mute again, Gillian nodded. She realized she was still on the floor, wadded into as tiny a shape as she could manage. She didn’t know where Paul was, where Rima was, or how much time had passed since Liz’s soul-rending scream.
The cop looked down at Gillian then past her. She turned and saw Paul.
He hurried up and helped her to her feet. The cop watched this and glanced around.
“Where is Elizabeth?”
“This way,” Paul said, beckoning toward the kitchen.
Gillian shook her head, quivering. “Oh, Liz. I hadn’t heard that last name and …”
Lifting a hand to stop Paul, the cop turned back. “Ma’am, are you okay? You don’t seem okay.”
“I don’t know.”
The cop turned back to Paul. “And where is Ms. Brayton?”
Paul’s shoulders dropped, and he went through the kitchen door with the cop following. Gillian crept after them, wanting to know why the police were there, but feeling like a stalker, a bad, bad person.
Paul looked back, pointing to the circular staircase in the corner of the garage. “In the apartment up there.”
“What’s her relation to you?” the cop asked, crossing the garage.
Paul’s voice betrayed puzzlement. He cleared his throat. “Noth—she’s my step … my sister. She’s my sister. She’s been living in our studio.”
“You fighting with her tonight?” He had a foot on the first step.
“No, no,” Paul said.
“But you’re kicking her out?”
I am dirt, Gillian thought, watching them spiral up the stairs.
Paul held up his hands in defense, in explanation, glancing back at Gillian with a wry expression, following the cop. �
��She’s been staying here awhile. It was never meant to be permanent.”
“She said something to our dispatcher about having to leave, we had to come quick.” He was halfway up the stairs.
Gillian’s face set, honored that Paul refused to disparage her, wouldn’t rat her out about wanting Liz gone. He was in her corner, as always. How incomparably priceless and how undeserving his devotion to her felt.
“Uh huh,” the police officer said. “Do you have a landlord-tenant agreement with her?”
“No. Is this what this is about? She called you? She seemed so upset. I’ve been knocking, but she wouldn’t let me in.”
“So there was a little tiff today?” The cop’s voice came from the top of the stairs.
“No, no. My wife had an upsetting day at work. She was crying. Liz came in, saw Gillian—my wife—upset and then she got upset, but I don’t know why. We have no idea what Liz is upset about. She screamed and went up to her place, up to our studio apartment where she’s been staying. I didn’t know she’d called the police.”
Gillian could only see the men’s legs now. She held her breath as the officer called out, “Seattle Police,” when he knocked. Then Liz let both men inside.
She heard the child crying.
She wanted to vanish.
After a time, Paul came down the stairs alone. Gillian startled and rushed back into the house. When he found her on the living room loveseat, Paul faced her but stood silent.
“There’s more,” she said, too worn out to ask.
Paul sat beside her, quiet.
She could wait him out. She did.
Paul sighed. “All right. She … Liz had a husband. Has a husband, it turns out. He was abusive. She ran away from him, but when she was leaving him, she saw something or did something that was, well, I don’t know what it was, but it’s why she called the police. And now they want a formal statement. And she has to speak to what they called the originating jurisdiction. It seems this whatever-it-was occurred in another county, out west, across the water, on the peninsula.”
Gillian shook her head.
“There’s more,” Paul said. “Now it’s your turn. There’s more to it. To us. Please talk to me.”
But they were interrupted by the cop knocking loudly on the door frame and a-hemming at them.
“Yes?” Paul asked.
The cop looked at Gillian. “Ma’am? I’m about to take a recorded statement from Ms. Brayton. Would you be willing to sit with her while I do that?”
Gillian shook her head. “There’s no way she’d want me there.”
“She requested you. Sometimes, with these things, a person feels more comfortable talking with another person there. Would you please do this?”
Paul looked at her and gave a barely discernible nod of encouragement.
Gillian felt her jaw tighten, but she rose to follow.
The officer looked at Paul. “Ms. Brayton’s son is crying and I need to record this statement. Will you—”
Paul shot a hand up to interrupt, nodding. “I’ll take care of the child.”
The three of them went into the garage and up the steps. In the studio, Liz sat at the little dinette, her child wailing on the floor an arm’s length away. The boy reached for his mother when Paul lifted him. He was still reaching for her when Paul carried him away, down the stairs to the main house, cooing comfort.
Gillian sat where the officer indicated with a sweep of his hand, in the chair beside Liz. He said some rapid official words into a recorder and told Liz to describe her last night on the peninsula. Gillian cocked her head at the monotone description of a chase, threats, blows, kicks, and being terrified her son would be orphaned or killed when her husband killed her, then somehow a boy’s voice in the dark made her husband stop killing her, set her free.
Gillian’s head spun and she couldn’t take it all in.
Then the officer asked Liz to recount prior assaults.
Liz described occasions when her husband raped her. And because Gillian had promised the officer she’d be quiet, she wept in silence.
When the cop ended the official statement, he asked Liz for the clothes she’d been wearing the night of the last assault. She rose and retrieved a folded garment sitting apart from her other clothes on the shelf by the Murphy bed.
The cop held it high in one hand, allowing it to drape. Gillian looked at the housedress, long-sleeved, a red paisley print, ripped and dirty at the knees. There were other stains, reddish-brown drops at the collar, chest, and knees. He spread it out on the floor, photographed it, then placed it into a clear plastic bag that he closed with tape marked: Evidence.
Gillian opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“Thank you for being here, ma’am,” the cop said to Gillian. “You can go back downstairs.”
In the kitchen, Paul glanced up from feeding the child bits of banana. Gillian looked away in an instant, unable to meet his gaze. He scooped up the boy, saying, “Let’s go see your mommy.”
Gillian retreated to the living room, stayed there when Paul came back. She heard him making maté. A few minutes later, she saw the blue-uniformed police officer escort Liz and her child outside. He had the dress in the evidence bag tucked under one elbow. In each hand he held stuffed white plastic garbage bags. Liz held her son in one arm and two bags in the other. Gillian’s vision was blurry through the rain-spattered window, through her swollen eyelids.
They were getting in the police car.
She ran for the front door, startling Paul, and flung it open.
“Wait!” she screamed.
But the police car was pulling away, with Liz and her child in the backseat.
In the street, in the rain, Gillian stared up at the empty window above the garage.
She opened the garage door, ran up the studio steps, and pushed the door open. Empty. Every trace of Liz and her child had vanished.
“There’s more,” Paul said again. “It’s your turn.”
The sky rumbled outside. They were on the loveseat. He had a bombilla filled with strong, steeping maté. She had nothing. She had nothing to say.
“Gillian, where did the police take her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what is going on with us? Can you tell me that?”
She shook her head. “If there’s no point in trying, if you cannot get what you want …” Her halfhearted effort petered out.
“Trying?”
“I ache for a very different kind of life than what … we have.” She’d thought she’d remember something work-related, probably a spectacular photo, as the defining moment of her life, but no. It was this, now.
This is the part I’ve really dreaded, she thought. This is where we part.
I will not find a man as good as Paul again.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sorry it’s worked out this way and sorry for the way I’ve been, but I’m leaving you.”
CHAPTER 22
The kid escaping out his bedroom window and running off was not Ben’s first guess. By the time he’d run around the house, hollered for Greer in every direction, come back in the front door to ask Ryan if the boy had come in, caught up again with Deputy Osten who stood looking in the side yard, he was yelling for Greer as loud as he could.
“Well, Jesus Christ, we’re not going to lose the kid on my watch,” he snapped at Ryan and the deputy. “Find him.”
“I’ll check inside the house again,” Ryan said. He threw the front door open again and ran up the stairs.
“The barn,” Osten said, pointing at Ben. He squatted down to peer at low spots under vehicles and bushes. “I’ll look outside the house more.”
Three grown men running laps, Ben fumed. He ran to the pasture that flanked the ancient barn and counted noses. The pony, old Tib, the draft team. Clipper was gone.
Sweat made his chest clammy right away, cold sweat. A breeze sifted the air on a forty-degree, sunless day. How had they not heard hoofbeats? Perhaps Greer had r
idden away at a walk? He must have gone to the woods beyond the pasture. Any other direction would have let them see a boy on horseback, even with the elapsed minutes.
Deep in the field, turning at the edge of the woods, Ben heard noises in every direction. The deputy strode down the driveway, calling Greer’s name. A muffled echo resonated from the house where Ryan hollered for Greer inside. The horses snorted softly in mild consternation. Branches cracked farther into the woods.
Ben whirled to wave at the house for attention, then ran deep into the trees, pelting toward the rustling in the woods.
“Greer?” he called to nothing. “Hey, Greer, buddy. Wait up.”
Relief flickered as the gelding’s body became visible, but fear flared as the horse trotted away, weaving through trees, under little or no control. Greer bobbed on Clipper’s back, a lump tucked up tight over the withers. Then Ben lost sight of them, gone like a mirage. He snaked through the trees.
“Greer! Stop. Right now,” Ben ordered into the woods.
There, down the slope, behind the clump of cedars.
I’m going to spook the horse if I keep running at them, he realized.
Clipper hesitated, ears pinned in reaction to the boy’s drumming heels on his ribs, curving his neck to nicker at Ben.
The horse wants to go back to the barn, Ben decided, murmuring reassurance as he eased up to the gelding.
A branch broke under Ben’s heel. He stumbled.
“Steady, boy,” he called. “Greer? Sit tight. Wait for me.” His voice was shakier than he’d hoped.
Ben gulped as he approached. The horse wore nothing, no saddle, no bridle. Absolutely nothing told Clipper to stand, to hold steady under the rider. Clipper flicked his ears. Ben watched the horse deliberate in its horse-way: To bolt, wander, or wait?
He moved faster, still thirty feet to go. “Greer, hop down from him. Right now.”
Greer sobbed into the horse’s neck, eyes screwed tight, shutting out the world.