I knew I should run after Todd. Seeing his mother on TV like that, with no warning, was a shock to me—I could barely imagine what it must be to Todd. But Freaky knew better. Leave him alone. He doesn’t want you.
Frankly, I was afraid of my brother. Since Mom’s disappearance, and that time he’d called her a “whore,” Todd’s personality was definitely volatile—unpredictable. At Mr. Sheehan’s house and now back home, Todd spent hours working out on fitness machines and lifting weights. He boasted he could bench press his own weight, two hundred twelve pounds.
The Don Spence Show resumed, now with Don Spence and his guest Reid Pierson live in the studio as before. You could see that the two men had been talking together, even laughing, during the taped segment; obviously, Dad had no idea of what had been broadcast and seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers. And Don Spence didn’t give the slightest sign, how he’d stabbed his “friend and rival” in the back. He concluded the interview with an enthusiastic remark to the effect that Bud Blount was certainly right, it’s the American way of justice, “innocent till proven guilty.” Dad was allowed the final words, peering into the TV camera: “I just want to appeal to everyone—anyone!—who might have vital information about my wife, Krista Pierson, who’s been missing since August twenty-seventh. Please help us! We are offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who provides information leading to Krista’s return. And, Krista”—here Dad’s voice began to quaver, and tears flooded his eyes—“if you’re watching this, please, darling please, let me hear from you. Please come back. I love you, darling, we all love you and miss you. Krista, please.”
Samantha was bawling now, so I had to hold her. Staring at the TV screen as the camera drew back to show Don Spence and Reid Pierson seated companionably together, talking out of earshot, as the theme music came up, loud.
TWENTY-THREE
remember mr. rooster!
. . . I was bicycling somewhere almost familiar, I was in a hurry and anxious and my heart was beating fast. Where was this place? Hilly, with a smell of water? I couldn’t see very clearly. There were houses, I guess, but wide spaces between them, and their colors were vague. Mom? Mommy? I was trying to be Freaky Green Eyes, but I was afraid, and Freaky is never afraid. I seemed to know that if I got where I was headed, I would be safe, but there was a problem with the bicycle, it was Mero Okawa’s bicycle and the handlebars were too high and the wheels were weirdly asymmetrical, I couldn’t keep my balance and kept falling. Mom? Where are you? My voice wasn’t my own but a much younger voice.
There was a pale-green house floating by the side of the road, with big, spreading apple trees in the front yard. I knew that this was an important house but I couldn’t remember why. Suddenly I saw the river—it was meant to be the Skagit River, I knew. I was trying to pedal on Deer Point Road, to Mom’s cabin, but the road was uphill and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the pedals turn though I was Freaky Green Eyes, and knew what I wanted, and wasn’t afraid.
Mommy! Help me.
A rooster began to crow. I recognized him: Mr. Rooster! He was perched on the peak of the old hay barn. I wiped at my eyes and could almost see him. He was confused somehow with a parrot with bright-green feathers but actually he was Mr. Rooster, and he knew me. That was why he was crowing: to encourage me.
But the crowing was in the room with me, and waking me. I opened my eyes, confused.
It was Samantha crying, in her sleep. She’d crept into my room and was lying curled up like a kitten on the outside of the covers, near the foot of the bed. As if she’d been fearful of crawling under the covers with me and waking me.
TWENTY-FOUR
the secret burrow: september 11
Next morning I took the nine-thirty-five Greyhound bus from Seattle to Skagit Harbor.
I guess I behaved what you’d call recklessly. I made my decision fast. It was Freaky-impulsive but I knew it was right, after that dream of Mr. Rooster calling me.
Without a car, it’s so hard to get around. I ended up taking a city bus from Yarrow Heights to downtown Seattle, across the floating bridge; I wasn’t even sure where the Greyhound terminal was—I’d never been there before. I’ve taken lots of ferries, but not many buses. This bus seemed to take forever! I was anxious, I guess I was a little paranoid, thinking somebody might recognize me from that fleeting glimpse of “Francesca Pierson” on The Don Spence Show the night before.
Then, at the Greyhound station, which was crowded with the kinds of characters you don’t see at airports, I became worried somebody might not only recognize me, but recognize me and call my father, or the Seattle police. Where are you going, miss? Why aren’t you in school? I hid in the women’s room until my bus left. I undid my ponytail and managed to twine strands of hair around my head and fit them by force beneath one of Todd’s old discarded U. of Washington baseball caps. In my not-new khakis, with a kind of pale-sickly freckled skin and no makeup, I could pass for a malnourished guy, if you didn’t look too closely.
I’d called Twyla before leaving home, to say I wouldn’t see her in school today. Immediately Twyla picked up on something tense and excited in my voice. “What’s happening, Franky?” she asked, and I said, “I’m not sure yet, Twyla. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I wanted to tell her more, but couldn’t find the words.
I told Twyla to tell our teachers at Forrester that I was staying home today with a mild case of flu, and I’d get my homework assignments from her. Since August 27, Twyla and her mother had both been wonderful to me, calling to ask if there was anything they could do to help, but mostly there was not.
Sometimes I just wanted to scream at them, Leave me alone! But I knew better.
I bought a round-trip ticket to Skagit Harbor. But I had no idea when I’d be returning. I just didn’t think of it at all.
While the Bellingham bus was loading just before nine-thirty-five A.M., I waited in line practically hiding my face. I kept thinking, What if Dad knows? What if Dad finds me? I guess I was having crazy thoughts. By the time the bus was loaded, and the door was shut, and we were chuffing along in midmorning Seattle traffic, I was so relieved I could have cried.
I had a seat by myself, pressing the side of my head against the windowpane. It was halfway true that I had flu—a sickish sensation through my body, like dread. A special hiding place, she’d said. I shut my eyes hoping.
“Skagit Harbor.”
I was the only passenger getting off. There was no bus station in Skagit Harbor, just a coffee shop and bakery where bus tickets were sold. It seemed strange to me, and lonely, to be back here in this town I’d loved, by myself. It seemed wrong. I was restless from sitting so long on the bus. My legs yearned to run, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Now that Labor Day was past, there were fewer people on the street. I hoped no one would recognize me.
I saw posters for the Skagit Arts Festival, which had been last weekend. I wondered if it had been a success, without Mero Okawa and Krista Connor participating.
I wasn’t prepared to see the narrow white facade of the Orca Gallery with a CLOSED sign in the front door. In the display window were colorful canvases, pottery and ceramics, a glossy silk screen of wildflowers and cattails with the small initials k.c. in one corner.
Quickly I turned off Main Street and walked uphill, away from the river. The morning had begun cool and misty as usual but was becoming lighter now, the sun pale and glowing behind thin clouds. There was a smell of the Skagit River here, and a smell of wet leaves. I was feeling lonelier and lonelier. I kept thinking, Mom is waiting for me, but where is Mom? It was hard to shake off the conviction that she was really here, I’d hear her voice in a few minutes. I couldn’t remember why I’d been so angry at her. It seemed unbelievable to me now.
But she wasn’t waiting for me, I knew. No one was waiting.
No one knew where I was, in all the world.
A Freaky kind of freedom—I tried to think it was a good thing.
Then, cr
ossing Third Street, I saw a familiar house. The pale-green house of my dream: where Garrett and his family lived.
Garrett Hillard. Hilliard? I hadn’t heard the name clearly.
I wondered if he would remember me. The red-haired freckled girl he’d met a month before her mother disappeared. Before the scandal, the crime scene on Deer Point Road, the police.
I had never tried to contact Garrett, to explain or apologize. To give any reason why Samantha and I hadn’t been there, at my mom’s, when he’d come to take us sailing.
In that other dimension. Where it hadn’t happened yet. Where Garrett came, he took us sailing. Where we were friends.
Suddenly I was walking up Deer Point Road, at the edge of town. It was like my bicycling dream; I felt breathless, my heart beating hard. I didn’t want to be here really. I was afraid, anxious. But Freaky nudged me: C’mon! No turning back. I saw the little wood-frame houses painted such striking colors, blue, tawny yellow, lavender. And there was Mom’s cabin, painted maroon. She’d been so proud of it, and of the ancient box elder looming over it. I stopped in the road and stared. It seemed so strange—the yellow sunflowers were still decorating the shutters and the edge of the roof. You wouldn’t have known that something had happened here except there was yellow tape circling the cabin and the tree, with the continuous warning in black letters: SKAGIT CO. SHERIFF DO NOT CROSS • SKAGIT CO. SHERIFF DO NOT CROSS.
The police investigation hadn’t turned up much helpful evidence, beyond the obvious fact that the missing couple had departed the premises quickly.
I had no wish to slip under the yellow tape and peer into the cabin windows. I had no wish to see into that shadowy interior. Because she isn’t there. Nobody is there. Instead, I crossed through the wildflower meadow toward the rear of the lot. I was worried again that people might be noticing me. Since August 27, residents of Deer Point Road would be quick to take note of strangers, any sort of strange behavior.
I heard a dog barking close by. I wanted to think it was Rabbit.
But no, Rabbit was gone. I knew.
Mr. Rooster! There he was, preening at the peak of the old barn roof. I smiled to see him. He was more tarnished than I remembered, and askew on his perch, but handsome, impressive. Roosters are such vain, beautiful birds. I listened, and heard, or thought I heard, actual roosters crowing, from a farm on Deer Point Road. This was a farm that sold vegetables and fruit by the roadside that Mom had taken us to. I remembered hearing those roosters in the early morning, waking from sleep in the loft bed and confusing them with Mr. Rooster.
Around the corner of the barn, in the midst of tall weeds, was the big sand-colored boulder, shaped like a mutant, slightly rotted pumpkin. And partly hidden by the boulder, easy to miss unless you knew what you were seeking, the burrow Mom had identified as a groundhog burrow. A special hiding place, she’d said. Someone could leave a secret message for someone else in this burrow. No one would ever look here. I knelt in a tangle of morning glory vines and reached down to grope inside the burrow. I pressed my cheek against the boulder and groped desperately for—what? My fingers found something. Paper? Plastic? I pulled it out, excited. A plastic waterproof bag, and inside it a journal with a lavender cloth cover and a purple ribbon tied around it. When I opened the bag, the sweet-spicy smell of my mother’s dried flowers overwhelmed me.
TWENTY-FIVE
“they shut me up in prose”
They shut me up in Prose—
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet—
Because they liked me “still”—
Still! Could themself have peeped—
And seen my Brain—go round—
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason—in the Pound—
Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down upon Captivity—
And laugh—No more have I—
Emily Dickinson. 1863.
This poem! My mother had written it out in purple ink at the front of her journal. Her handwriting was beautiful as art.
The pages of the journal were made of cream-colored, finely textured paper that had a feel, when you rubbed your thumb over it, of grain. There were about eighty pages in the journal, but my mother had used only about one quarter of these. The rest were blank.
I read and reread the poem by Emily Dickinson. It was a poem I had never seen before. “They shut me up in Prose”—I felt that I understood what the poet meant, though I couldn’t have explained it.
I was excited, trembling. I was scared of what I would find in this journal. But I was happy, too. I knew! My dream had led me, Freaky had led me. I felt Mom close beside me. Whatever happened now was meant to be.
Between the second and third pages of the journal, a sheet of paper had been inserted. Here, my mother’s handwriting was hurried.
Francesca, dear—
If you’re reading this, it means that something may have happened to me.
I hope not. I hope I am wrong. Be brave, darling.
I love you and Samantha SO MUCH.
Your mother
The first section was headed SANTA BARBARA/APRIL 19.
The waves! The waves of the Pacific breaking on the sand, wind and the cries of gulls. It’s just sundown. God help me, I’ve run here to hide. My decision has been made for me. I have no choice now.
For months, years I’d known the marriage was over. But fearful of knowing. But now, this afternoon, I know.
Quietly he said, I’LL KILL YOU. BEFORE I WILL LET YOU AND THE GIRLS GO. Not a threat but a vow. Not anger but calm. This new, terrible calmness to him. When he pushed into my motel room I’d thought he would beat me, choke me, but he only shook me by the shoulders, to make me listen. Seeing me at the arts & crafts fair with the others, strangers to him but friends to me, he understood for the first time. Seeing that I had a life apart from him, that I was happy here.
IF YOU REFUSE TO BE MY WIFE, YOU GIVE ME NO CHOICE, AND IF YOU TRY TO TAKE THE GIRLS FROM ME, I’LL KILL THEM, TOO. That terrible calmness in R. I had not seen before.
His voice shook, saying, MAYBE IT WOULD BE BEST FOR ALL OF US TO DIE, KRISTA. NOT TODD BUT THE FOUR OF US. I THINK SOMETIMES LIKE NOW, YES THAT WOULD BE BEST.
The next section was YARROW HEIGHTS/MAY.
My weakness is I love R. even now. But I can’t live with him.
His strong fingers. In my sleep I feel them.
No one would understand, R. is not mad. R. is wholly sane. Vicky doesn’t understand/urges me to see a lawyer/therapist/marriage counselor. I can’t tell her that I must work my way through this myself, to consult any stranger would be “betrayal”/would incur R.’s wrath.
Because Seattle is such a small city, R. says. Rumors will spread of the Piersons’ marriage. He can’t bear it, the public sign of failure. “Reid Pierson’s wife? The second wife? Moving away from Seattle?”
Bonnie Lynn Byers. A mystery.
My husband’s first wife. Whom I never knew.
So young when she died: 26.
He never speaks of her except to say she was “careless”—her death was “an accident, caused by carelessness.”
Last night I sat with Francesca and Samantha and we watched Reid Pierson the sportscaster on TV. The girls adore him. They bask in pride for their famous daddy. I must protect that image of him, in their minds. I must find a way to save myself/save them. My mind beats sometimes like a butterfly trapped in a wire enclosure. The sky is beyond, but I can’t get to it. My wings beat/beat/beat against the wire, desperate for a way out.
The public, he says, is waiting for Reid Pierson to fail. They loved him as a football star and they loved him injured, forced to prematurely retire. The public R. fears/loves/dreads. His TV personality. His TV smile, makeup. Hairpiece. Reid Pierson is not going to fail, he has warned me.
I must not upset the children. They will only fear me/shun me/despise me. R. has turned Todd against me, these past few w
eeks. Since Santa Barbara. When I missed the family “celebration.” Once, Todd loved me—what a lonely, melancholy little boy he was, having lost his mother. But now, if I touch him, he shrugs me off. If I try to talk to him, he walks away. Last night he said, Look, you’re not my mother, you’re my stepmother, OK?
These past few weeks the girls are starting to be aware of the tension in our household. I’ve seen Francesca stare at me. Her beautiful green eyes. She is so like me, at that age. I fear for her sensitivity. “Franky.” Gazing at me in alarm/disgust. She seems to know what’s hidden by the scarfs I wear. My long sleeves. Maybe she has overheard R.’s angry voice. I know she blames me. In her place, I would probably react like this. For she loves her father blindly, as Samantha and Todd do.
(Sometimes I feel like poor Rabbit cringing when R. storms into the room.)
Today driving Francesca home from Forrester, tried to talk to her. Asked about her swimming/diving and she lashed out at me with such bitterness I was stunned. Says she hates the name “Francesca.”
R. has said “maybe” to Skagit Harbor. Our last evening together before he flew east for five days, he was more understanding/romantic. So I have hope.
The final section, the longest section, was SKAGIT HARBOR/SUMMER. Mom’s handwriting here was erratic, sometimes beautiful and clear, but sometimes almost illegible, as if she’d been writing quickly, or in the dark. I couldn’t bring myself to read every page, every passage. I just couldn’t.
Deer Point Road, Skagit Harbor. Work/work/work! Cleaning/scrubbing/sanding/painting! I love it.
R. calls me/expects me to call him. Which I am happy to do. On the phone we are often friends. I think R. can feel generous/forgiving in allowing me Skagit Harbor “days at a time” (his words).
Except: I miss Francesca and Samantha. So much. He won’t allow me to bring them here. (Not yet.) When I call home, Francesca never seems to be there. Her cell phone is turned off. Vicky has said she can’t get through either.
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