You’re not safe in that house.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
You’re wrong. For once in my life that’s exactly what I was.
Safe.
They don’t exactly have a very good track record of keeping Jenny around, do they?
This one excluded.
I was staying.
EIGHTEEN
Jake
What was it like?
Like a void.
A void is a hole, an absence of, a vast and utter emptiness. There’s no refuge in the void. There are no footholds or handgrips or guardrails. You’re in free fall with no bottom in sight.
What was it like?
Like a rupture in the natural order of things. One of those things being when you give birth to a child, they get to grow up.
What was it like?
Like developing an inoperable tumor on your heart. So it grows and grows and grows and every single morning you can feel it pressing there.
Until you don’t.
Did you miss me a lot?
And the answer was yes, of course he did. He missed the girl who took rides on his back, the one he could reliably amaze by pulling a penny out of her ear, or by transforming a yellow Splenda package—presto, whammo—into a blue Equal one at the Fairview Diner, she never asking to peek into the bottom of his fist where the Equal packet had lain scrunched and hidden.
He missed that girl, had been missing her even before she’d disappeared from their lives.
This twelve-years-older version of that girl—he didn’t know her, so how could he possibly miss her?
How much did you miss me, Dad?
Very much.
He’d taken a Method acting class at the community college he’d been forced to attend due to the atrocious grade point average he’d garnered senior year—thank the steady source of LSD he’d had access to, courtesy of his second-best friend, Curtis. The Method’s singular principle was as follows: Don’t act, believe. You are who the script says you are. And so is everyone else. All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. Thanks, William. Here was proof positive.
Yes, I missed you. Of course I missed you. Very much.
Saying this to the eighteen-year-old nymphette auditioning for the revolving platform at FlashDancers on Forty-Fifth Street. Not that he was a regular customer—but clients being clients, he’d had occasion to pop in loaded down with a suitable amount of one-dollar bills.
Was she sitting like that on purpose?
This is Jennifer Morrow Kristal. Morrow for Laurie’s father, who’d been saddled with an impossibly waspish first name even though he was half-Lutheran and wouldn’t be caught dead in J.Crew. Jennifer for his own grandfather Joseph, taking the first letter being a kind of homage.
This is Jennifer Morrow Kristal, who when she asks if I missed her will be told Yes, very much.
She’s a stranger now. But after a while, she won’t be.
This is Jennifer Morrow Kristal. Jenny for short. Jenny Penny for fun.
The detective at the station had said, You need to be prepared.
And he’d thought, We are, having prepared himself the entire length of the clogged Long Island Expressway.
Embrace her.
Embrace her.
Embrace her.
Not meaning it literally, though literally was exactly how it played out, but, okay, not at first. Laurie had been the one to meet her halfway across the room—such neediness on the girl’s face, but maybe that’s what she was seeing on their faces, too; weren’t they in need as well?
He staring at them clinging to each other like that as if he’d stumbled across an embarrassing intimacy, like the time he’d opened the bathroom door at a loft party in his twenties and seen his best friend’s girlfriend with her legs wrapped around a total stranger.
They say—whoever they are—that the loss of a child will either bring you together or tear you apart. In their particular case, it had done both—bringing them together so they could tear each other apart. But that was mostly at first, when the wounds were still raw, gaping, and actively bleeding. Way before they’d developed the kind of scabs that masquerade as healing, even though each of them couldn’t resist picking at them now and then.
She was a stranger, but soon she wouldn’t be.
When she’d walked into the kitchen that first morning, he was about to ask her if she belonged to Ben. Until he remembered. This is Jennifer Morrow Kristal.
And they’d sat around the breakfast table and did what families do around breakfast tables, which is pretend things are fine. Which wasn’t very different from sitting around a table with Ben. Pretending he was still the eight-year-old boy begging to kick around the soccer ball in the backyard or wash the car with him or traipse off to the computer games store, instead of the postadolescent stoner who’d broken away from his upstairs hibernation just long enough to down half a bagel before retreating back to his cave.
Ben. The crux where what you’d hoped meets what you’ve borne.
Ben.
Hope it stays warm a little longer, he’d said to Ben’s sister, playing the part of local meteorologist, because it was too early in the morning to play the part of Dad.
Or too late.
When Ben stumbled into the kitchen, blinking like someone who’d been trapped in a mine accident—remember those Chilean workers who’d subsisted on breath mints?—Jake thought Ben might want to take the stroll down memory lane with him, the kind of father-son talk Ben could actually relate to. My old drugs of choice versus his. Hadn’t the therapist suggested finding areas of commonality?
My sister’s where . . . she’s home? My sister . . . ?
Thinking that Ben needed to get with the program. The Method acting one. Sympathizing that it must be hard to get your head around something like that when you had a head, were in a head, whatever the expression du jour was—even though Ben denied having been anywhere near a joint. Who, me? You going to believe me or your eyes?
When Jake told him Mom and Jenny were at the mall that morning, Jake could see Ben’s face registering shock all over again. Maybe he’d thought he’d dreamed it.
Once upon a time, Jake had dreamed it too. Right after it happened, when he’d wake up and for just a moment, for that brief shift change when full consciousness relieved dull awareness, be ready to go and wake the kids for school.
Tell them to brush their teeth. To get dressed. And to please not fight this morning.
Kids plural.
That moment as fleeting as the brown mouse he’d once glimpsed scurrying underneath their fridge, when—and here’s the kicker—he was really talking about the elephant in the room.
He let the smallest edge creep into his voice when Ben asked him where Mom was.
Mom took Jenny to the mall.
After which Ben trooped back to his cave.
Ben.
Oh, Ben . . .
NINETEEN
When I opened the door, it wasn’t the landscaper.
It wasn’t Becky Ludlow either.
I’d made sure of that, peering down from my bedroom window before trekking downstairs to open it. I’d been hunkering down in my bedroom these past few days—it feeling like a bedroom now since it had a real bed in it. I’d eaten my breakfast and dinner there—bad cramps, I told Mom.
Making it downstairs to open the door felt like an epic journey.
Blame it on curiosity. A girl who looked like me was ringing the doorbell.
When I opened the door, she stopped looking like me. She was wearing a tight pink T-shirt that bulged around the middle. Same with her jeans.
“Yeah?”
She stammered something I couldn’t make out.
“What? Oni . . . ?”
She shook her head; her breasts
jiggled. “Toni,” she said.
“Toni? Okay. I’m sorry . . . what do you want?”
“I’m Toni Kelly. I thought . . . well . . .”
Toni Kelly. Toni Kelly. I didn’t understand that was supposed to mean something to me, until it did.
I was on my way to Toni Kelly’s house and I was taken . . .
“It’s so amazing . . . ,” she stammered, “I mean, really incredible to see . . . that you’re alive and everything.”
I didn’t know if I should hug her or shake her hand.
“Hey,” I said. “Toni.”
We trekked back up to my room. Like a playdate.
We sat on my bed and didn’t say anything at first.
She looked around the room.
“It looks different,” she said. “I mean, I don’t remember it that well or anything. Didn’t you have a horse collection? You know, those Breyer ones?”
“Yeah. They’re dog food now.” It was a joke, but she didn’t laugh. “I mean, my mom threw them out.”
“Oh. Right.”
More silence. The orange flower had fallen off the cactus—it was shriveled up on the floor.
“So . . . what’s it like?” she asked me.
“What?”
“Being home? You know . . . after, you know, all you went through?”
“Good.” I was fucking up my lines. She’d knocked me off-balance, her just showing up like this. I hadn’t prepared for running through old times with my six-year-old best friend. “Really great,” I said. “Unbelievable.”
That was more like it. She nodded along to that—people expected certain words from you, a proper gratitude for your newfound existence. You needed to follow the script.
“I thought . . . you know, you being home, being back . . . that I should stop by and say hello.”
“Right. Great. Thanks for coming.”
Silence again.
“Was it terrible? I mean, you don’t have to talk about it or anything. In the papers, they said . . . it sounds like it was really awful.”
“It was.”
“How did you . . . like, get away?”
“Look, I’d rather not . . .”
“Oh, sure. I mean, you don’t have to. I was just wondering . . . ’cause of what I read. Anyway, great to have you back.”
“Thanks.” I was counting the rolls of fat under her T-shirt. Three.
“Is it weird being home with your parents? I mean, not seeing them for so long. It must be really strange, right?”
“It’s okay.”
“And all those reporters? Wow. You know, we moved. After you were . . . after you disappeared, I think my mom freaked. Like there must be a kidnapper or something in the neighborhood. We moved to Bellmore. Not that far. But I saw all the reporters around your house—on TV. It looked fucking insane.”
“Yeah. It was crazy.”
“I mean, one of them called me . . . wanted to know how I felt?”
“They called you?”
“Yep . . . you know, because you were headed to my house that morning. When you were . . . you know . . .”
“Kidnapped. I was kidnapped the morning I was headed to your house.”
“Right.”
I was starting to get this feeling. Like I needed to ask her to leave.
“You look . . . great, by the way. I mean, after all you’ve been through. You really look great.”
“So do you.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“Hey . . . can I take a selfie?”
“What?”
“You know, a shot on my phone. Of you and me.”
“Why?” Yeah, it was definitely time to see her to the door and say thanks for coming.
“I don’t know. Is it a big deal? Just a shot of us together?”
“I’m really kind of . . .”
When she pulled out her phone, it felt like she was pulling a gun on me.
“Just take a second,” she said. “One little shot. Please . . .”
Okay, now I get it.
“Is that what he wanted?” I said.
She blushed. “Who?”
“The reporter.”
“Reporter?”
“The one who called you? Who wanted to know how you felt?”
“I don’t . . . huh . . . I mean, I don’t really know what . . .” Back to stammering again.
Jake had told them no, but reporters don’t take no for an answer. They find a way. Or they find a Toni.
“What did he say? Suggest you stop by for old time’s sake? Welcome me back to the neighborhood? Tell me how fucking fantastic I look? And while you’re there, hey, make sure you get a picture.”
“Hey. No need to be a bitch. I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“I’m sure he was. When you said you’d do it.”
“Like you’re such a big fucking deal. Like anyone really gives a shit. Just because you were like raped by Daddy or Father or whatever the fuck you had to call him . . .” Her face was still red, but not from blushing. A vein in her temple was throbbing up and down.
“Nice seeing you,” I said.
She stared at me with this truly venomous expression. Like if her phone was a gun, she would’ve pulled the trigger.
I didn’t bother seeing her to the door.
* * *
—
Ever wake up from a nightmare and find yourself in a worse one? Almost giddy that it was just a dream, then wishing you could be right back in the middle of it.
Mom was there. In my dream. My real mom, looking okay, too, the way she did during her court-ordered rehabs, not so shrunken and jittery, but almost mom-like. I was curious what she was doing there, in my house—this house, some house, I wasn’t sure whose. But I was surprised by her visit and asking her, Why? Why? The why are you here turning into a different why—it happens that way in dreams—turning into Why did you leave me by the motel? And she was getting real mad at me—the way she was that morning when I wouldn’t get into the stroller and wouldn’t stop hugging her knees.
She walked. Out of the house, out of the parking lot, out of the dream.
And I was screaming at her. Screaming bloody murder at her.
And then, suddenly, the screaming was at me.
Someone was screaming at me, and I had my head between my knees again because we were about to crash.
And die.
TWENTY
You can’t go up there.”
Where can’t I go?
“I said stop.”
Stop what?
“I’m not going to tell you again. I want you to leave.”
Leave?
I wasn’t dreaming I was in a house with my real mom.
I was wide-awake, in a house with my fake mom.
“Please get out before I call the police.”
The police?
There was a woolly blanket over my head. No, my head was the woolly blanket. It was saying, Let me go back to sleep. Please.
“Please, I just need to . . .”
Another voice. Two voices now. One yelling at the other one to leave and threatening to call the police. The other one pleading that she needed to do something, so don’t.
One of them was my fake mom.
The other one was my other fake mom. Two fake moms.
Becky Ludlow was in the house.
“I just need to talk to her. Make her tell you . . .” Becky again.
I got off the bed. I crawled over to the door and wedged my back against it. A hundred fifteen pounds of fear against a hundred forty or so pounds of anger. Put your money on fear.
I was dressed in Laurie’s blue Costa Rican T-shirt, which I’d since appropriated. My tattoo was saying VIDI: I see you.
If I make a break for
it out the window, I will (a) break my ankles; (b) break my neck; (c) break Laurie’s heart.
The one whose heart I’d broken before was still pleading to be let upstairs.
“I promise you. If you just let me talk to her, I’ll go. I promise. Just give me five minutes and after that—”
“You’re trespassing. You invited yourself in under false pretenses. I want you out.”
“I told you my daughter was kidnapped too. She was. Sarah was kidnapped.”
“You said you needed to talk to me—one mother of a kidnapped child to another. That’s what you said. I thought you were looking for a little . . . I don’t know what I thought you were looking for, but it wasn’t this.”
“I do need to talk to you—one mother of a kidnapped child to another. One mother of a kidnapped child who came back. Only she didn’t. Mine didn’t. And neither has yours.”
“Are you really going to make me call the police?”
“Listen. Do you know what it’s like? What a stupid question. Of course you do. Having to go on living? After your daughter . . . after the person you love more than life—because you do, it’s an expression people like to throw around a lot, but it’s true, you do love them more than life. I’ll tell you how I know that—because when my daughter disappeared, I stopped wanting to live, that’s how. I took sleeping pills. I woke up in a hospital having my stomach pumped and I still didn’t want to live. It’s twelve years later and I still feel like killing myself every day. You know how that feels? Opening your eyes every morning and wishing, wishing really hard, that you were dead. But there’s your husband and there’s your other child—yes, Sarah has a brother—and even though it kills you that you’d rather be dead than be a mother to your other child, that’s how you feel. That’s who you are. That’s what it’s done to you.”
“I’m sorry about your daughter. I am. But coming here and making these crazy—”
“Crazy? Yes, I’m crazy. Guilty as charged. You know how many times I saw someone—walking down the block, in an airport. Once we were at the movies, and I saw this little girl turn around in the front of the theatre. I jumped up and screamed, Sarah, Sarah, and this little scared-out-of-her-mind seven-year-old, she turns and looks at me—her mother was with her—and both of them, I saw it in their faces, they were looking at this crazy person. This lunatic. Crazy? Sure, I’m crazy. But not about this. Not about her . . .”
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