Brave Girl, Quiet Girl: A Novel Page 8

  “Brooke?” he asked. Like he might be wrong about that.

  “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning,” I said.

  “You came all the way over here to tell me what time it is?”

  His voice rumbled through my gut. Smooth and familiar. Remember, I had no skin. Which made it a singularly bad time to see my ex.

  “No. No, of course not. I’m just surprised that you were sleeping.”

  And on that note, a new voice pierced me. It didn’t rumble. It was high. It felt discordant. It came from the back of the house.

  It said, “Who is it, David?”

  “Ah,” I said. “It’s like that. Got it.”

  “We’ve been divorced for two years, Brooke. I have a right to be seeing somebody, you know.”

  “I never said you didn’t.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Right. I guess you didn’t.”

  Then we stood in complete awkwardness. He did not invite me in. I didn’t entirely blame him.

  I watched his face from the periphery of my vision. His eyes. He has the bluest eyes on the planet. Most people don’t have blue eyes. In the movies, in romantic novels, nearly everybody does. In real life, they’re rare.

  Except at David’s house.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked at last.

  It felt as though a day had elapsed. It might have been ten seconds.

  “Everything,” I said.

  “Is Etta okay? Where is she?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “How can you not know where she is?”

  “Good question. Seems life is playing a cruel joke on me.”

  “You literally don’t know where she is?”

  “I literally don’t.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “She was stolen.”

  “Holy crap,” he said.

  “Yes. Holy crap.” Another awkward moment. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here, David. I guess it doesn’t have much to do with you. The cop that’s investigating . . . you know, trying to find her . . . she kept asking if I’d told you. And I kept trying to explain that it didn’t have much to do with you. But I guess I walked away from that conversation seeing it her way. A little bit, anyway. Feeling like it did concern you. Maybe. Some.”

  I watched his blue eyes again from the corner of my own. He was staring down at the welcome mat. Except it wasn’t a welcome mat. It said GO AWAY. I was beginning to feel as though it were speaking directly to me. Also as though it might be good advice.

  When he spoke again, it startled me. Skinless me.

  “You know I don’t wish any harm on either one of you, right?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “See, this is why.”

  “This is why what?”

  “This is why I never wanted kids. Because right off the bat your whole world revolves around them, and you’re so attached, and then if something happens, it’s like the end of the world. It’s too much pressure for me.”

  A swirl of stunned thoughts ran through my head. This was totally news to me. I had never imagined that David didn’t want children because he was afraid he would care too much. I thought he was afraid he wouldn’t care enough.

  I wanted to tell him that was a ridiculous way to live. Not having something because if you had it you might lose it. But it was a hard point to make in the moment. Because I was in the middle of the horrible loss he had just been describing. Still, I wouldn’t have traded having Etta for anything. Even if the unimaginable worst happened. Which I was incapable of even imagining.

  I didn’t say any of that. It was all too overwhelming in my head.

  Another painful pause. But at least it was the last. And I knew it.

  I moved into a different emotional moment with him. Suddenly I could see only what had driven us to divorce.

  I said, “Well. I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”

  I stepped down off his stoop. Headed down the stone walkway to my car.

  “Keep me posted, okay? Let me know what happens.”

  I waved my answer without turning around.

  As I started my car I wondered, perhaps for the first time, what on earth had possessed me to seek out that exchange.

  “So, we have it narrowed down,” Grace Beatty said. “Or, at least, we hope we do. Of course, we’re relying on this guy’s memory. But we have patrol cars going up and down the streets in what we think is the most likely radius. And of course they’ll gradually spread out if they don’t find her there.”

  I opened my mouth to speak. Then I closed it again.

  I was sitting on a hard chair near her desk. It was making my hip bones hurt. I had been sitting there for quite a while. I had my hands in my lap. My skinless lap.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You looked like you had a question.”

  I opened my mouth again. Closed it again.

  Then I surprised myself by going for it.

  “You think this guy’s enough of a monster that he’d purposely give us bad information about where he left her?”

  An image flooded into my brain. Behind my eyes. Looking up at the guy’s face. In hopes of identifying him later. Seeing only a black ski mask. It had made him look like a monster. A faceless monster.

  “I don’t,” she said. “No. But not because I have faith in his good character. Because it’s been made painfully clear to him that he’s responsible for what happens to Etta. He’s already looking at reckless endangerment charges. Possibly even depraved indifference. And that’s if he’s lucky. That’s assuming we find her and she’s fine. This guy wants very, very badly for your daughter to be found, and to be okay. But probably only to save his own skin.”

  I remember thinking he was lucky. To have skin.

  I don’t believe I said so out loud.

  After that, and after some time that’s too fuzzy to properly relate, I found myself doing something I now see as ridiculous. Even for that horrible day.

  I went out and tried to find her.

  It was ridiculous because I knew far less than the police knew regarding where to look. I hadn’t been there when they questioned The Monster. His every word had not been related back to me.

  I knew only that he had been heading south toward San Diego. From West LA. On the 405. And that he had been driving for maybe twenty minutes when he got off the freeway and put her out of the car.

  Then again, time could be a very fluid thing. I was proving it that day.

  Try to understand. I had to do something. If I didn’t, I felt as though I might explode.

  I found myself cruising down a crowded boulevard north of the airport. Pulled over toward the curb, going slow. Cars honked at my slowness. Pulled around me. A couple of drivers gave me the finger.

  I had my windows down, and I was calling my little girl’s name.

  I guess I figured that was one thing I could do better than the police. If she heard my voice, she would come to me. What if she heard a police officer call to her? What would she do? Hide?

  I had no idea. It was a theory we’d never had to test.

  So I had my voice, and that was good.

  But she’d only hear me if she were maybe twenty yards away. And the range of where she could have been abandoned was maybe twenty square miles or more.

  That was bad.

  It was an overwhelming, sickening thought. But, oddly, that was not ultimately the realization that turned me for home.

  This was the realization:

  I was driving slowly because, if she were magically near, she might run into the street. Or she might anyway, just out of fear. I was driving as though my daughter were dodging traffic nearby. Because that was a horrible possibility.

  And then it hit me.

  The other drivers were not being careful. Nobody was looking out for Etta except me. And there were thousands of them. All not driving as though my daughter were dodging traffic nearby.

  I pulled over
to the curb, where there was no stopping. And I cried. And cried. And cried. And cried. And cried.

  When I got home—or maybe I should say “back to my mother’s house” and leave the concept of home out of this—my mother gave me an odd look.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table. Drinking something from a mug. Could have been tea. Could have been booze. I had no time to wonder.

  “Where have you been?” she asked me. She sounded distinctly irritated.

  “At the police station.”

  “Well, I called there, and you’d left some time ago.”

  I was standing in the kitchen, tapping my keys against my thigh. Wanting just to walk away from her. After all, I was an adult. I didn’t need to answer to my mother.

  Only trouble was, I felt like her minor child in that moment.

  “I went to see David. And then I drove around.”

  “And what if that Officer Beatty had tried to call you?”

  “She has my cell number. I told her to call me on my cell.”

  I watched her face twist into a mass of negative judgment.

  “Your cell phone was stolen.” She plainly thought it was foolish of me to have forgotten.

  “I got a new one. And I called and told her that. Why? Did she call here?”

  “No.”

  “Did somebody else call me here? Anybody? Is that why you’re giving me the third degree?”

  “David called here,” she said, her face untwisting. “Because there was something he wished he’d said when you were there.”

  I felt a rage boil up in me. Granted, I was angry in general. Skinless. Unable to cope with the slightest irritation. But it was more than that. This was an ancient rage. Festering, and nearly as old as I was.

  “Then why did you even ask me where I was?” I shouted.

  She looked down into her mug. And did not answer.

  I learned a lot from her face in that moment. I always wanted her to tell me why she was the way she was. But it was clear she didn’t know. She wasn’t concealing an answer from me. She had none. Her life had been set in opposition to the world. To other people. Particularly to me. But she couldn’t explain it any better than I could.

  I walked away. Or started to, anyway.

  “Don’t you even want to hear his message?”

  I stopped. Wondered if I did want to hear it. It was a bit of a toss-up.

  “Fine,” I said, because it felt easier. “What did he say?”

  “He’s afraid he sounded too uncaring when you were at his house. And he didn’t mean to. He feels very bad for you and Etta. He hopes you find her soon. And that you’ll let him know.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  And I finished walking away.

  I don’t know how much later it was when I climbed out onto the roof again. Just that it was dark.

  I had slept some. Out of sheer necessity.

  I did it again. Said my prayer again. Though I don’t suppose it’s right to call it a prayer, since I was talking to a person. To whoever had her.

  Then my mind drifted to other possibilities. That no one had her. That she was utterly alone. That she could even be . . .

  No. I couldn’t go there. I dragged my attention back again.

  Somebody had her. I had to believe that.

  So why aren’t they calling? my brain shrieked to me.

  I forced my focus back again. And spoke in my heart to that person.

  Please help her not be afraid. Please get her home to me.

  In that moment it was all I had.

  Then I realized it. The thing I’d never wanted to come had arrived: it had been about twenty-four hours.

  Chapter Eight

  Molly: What’s Your Name?

  “My name is Molly,” I said.

  We were snuggled up close again, in our hole, and it was getting dark again, and I was getting terrified and she knew it. You can’t be that close to someone and not feel their fear, because fear is a real thing that you can feel and kids are actually very good at that—better than grown-ups sometimes, I think.

  “Molly,” she said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Molly,” she said.

  “Your name is Molly, too?”

  “Molly,” she said again, and this time she pointed at me—pointed one tiny little baby finger right against my heart, so I would know who she meant.

  We were out of apple juice and we were getting low on crackers, and I was going to have to come out of hiding with her soon, and I knew it. Even though those boys could be out there, and we might run right smack into them, and they might take her away from me. But still I was going to have to do it because I had nothing to give her to drink, so even if the boys took her away, anything was better than her getting too dehydrated, because she could die, and maybe if they took her away at least they would be smart enough to give her some water.

  Still, with them it was hard to know, because smart was not exactly a specialty of theirs.

  But I would have to come out with her soon because I was about to have no choice, and I had never been so scared in my life and she knew it. Why she wasn’t screaming her head off was beyond me, except she was a very smart little girl, and she knew I desperately needed her to be brave and quiet, and she was trying to do it for me.

  Which was pretty amazing for such a little kid. I had so much respect and love for her I almost thought it was going to explode me.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her again.

  “Molly,” she said, and pointed to my heart with one tiny finger.

  “We’re going to have to go out there and flag down a car,” I said, and she fussed and cried some because she could tell I was getting more and more scared.

  But I didn’t mean up on the freeway, because I had already decided that was out of the question. The fence was too high to climb with the baby in my arms, and then if we got up there it was too dangerous to be there, and the cars couldn’t really stop for us anyway, like I think I said before.

  No, we were going to have to go down to the street right below us, and pretty soon, too, because I knew from last night that after a certain hour of the evening the cars just pretty much stop coming there. It’s all businesses there, but not like little shops that would stay open. Businesses like industries, like people go to work there in shifts and then they stop going there at all, and then we’d be all alone again for another night. But I didn’t know when that would happen, so I figured I’d better hurry.

  But here was the thing—the big problem. I didn’t hurry—I didn’t go at all, because I was so scared I couldn’t move, because I kept thinking of running into those boys, and the looks on their faces when they took her away from me. And even worse than that, I thought of the look on her face when she lost me—not that I’m so much or so great, but I knew she trusted me and I was the only thing she had and it had been that way for just about a whole day. I pictured how she would cry and reach her arms out to me and call, “Molly!” I saw that in my head even though I really, really wanted not to.

  And then I just got all frozen up like concrete and I couldn’t make any muscles in my body move at all.

  But something happened that moved me—the baby reached for the apple juice bottle even though she pretty much knew it was empty. And so then I knew she was trying to tell me she was thirsty.

  So then I moved, because I just had to. No matter how scared I was, I just had to bring myself to do it.

  “Come on,” I said to her. “We have to try to get you back to your mommy.”

  “Mommy!” she said, and then she started to cry a lot.

  I had purposely not been reminding her of her mommy—not that I think she forgot—because I figured it might be a little easier for her not to cry if I didn’t keep bringing it up.

  But now what did it matter anyway, because we were getting ready to walk out in plain sight, so if those boys could see us, they might as well hear us while we were at it.

  I starte
d to say a prayer while I was carrying her down the hill, but then I remembered that God and I were not on speaking terms because he hated me—at least according to my mother. I didn’t really believe her, but just the fact of someone saying a thing like that to you can leave this bad taste in your mouth that never seems to go away.

  No, it was just the two of us—just this baby and me, and that’s just the way it was and I had to accept it.

  I walked a little bit out into the street because there was a big truck coming. I walked right out where we would be in his headlights but he wouldn’t totally run us down if he didn’t stop. I was so scared I felt like I was swallowing my heart back down every time I swallowed, which was hard to do anyway because I hadn’t had anything to drink for a whole day.

  The roar of the truck was getting louder and louder and the baby was screaming and crying because she was so scared, and I was waving my one free arm like crazy trying to get him to stop.

  Then at the last minute he just swerved around us and kept going.

  I stood there in the street, watching him go, and then I started to cry a little bit myself, because the situation we were in had just gotten so desperate and I was so scared, and I hadn’t eaten or even had a drink of water and I was tired and dirty and this terrible thing needed to be over but it just wouldn’t end.

  It just wouldn’t end no matter how bad I needed it to.

  I looked all around us in case those boys were coming, but I didn’t see them. I didn’t see anybody.

  Then I saw a car come around the corner and I stood right in front of it. Even though that was a little dangerous for me and the baby, but I had to make them stop this time. It was getting late, and I was afraid it would be night again, and we couldn’t make it through another one, and they had to stop.

  They just had to stop.

  The headlights of the car were making me blind and the baby was still crying in my ear and I was yelling to the driver about how I needed him to stop because I found this baby and somebody needed to call the police and it was a desperate situation. Even though I pretty much knew he probably couldn’t hear me.