Girl on the Run

by Abigail Johnson

  Her mouth opens.

  “Mom!” A girl calls from upstairs. “I can’t find my phone charger.” Her voice is competing with the rain, so it’s a little muffled, but I hear it and, without even thinking, I take a step forward.

  “No!” The woman—Laura—stops me with a guttural whisper as her hand shoots out to clutch the doorframe and bar my entry. Then, in a voice that is all sweetness and ease, one that is at complete odds with the fierce expression on her face, she calls back, “I put it in your nightstand.”

  Malcolm, Laura, and I are as still as statues as we wait. Moments later, we hear, “Found it!”

  Laura scans my face, a more thorough examination than the initial one. Nothing changes in her features, nothing, but I see the skin around her knuckles turn whiter where her hand is still wrapped around the door.

  “You knew,” I say, my voice an accusation and a statement all in one. It’s so obvious now. I didn’t have time to process the implications of her reaction when she first answered the door. But from the moment the girl upstairs spoke, the girl who has to be my sister, I couldn’t think of anything else.

  Laura recognizes me, and my skin itches like swarms of insects are skittering their tiny legs all over me.

  “How do—”

  She puts a hand up, and her nostrils flair in warning at the volume of my voice. I wasn’t shouting, but I wasn’t whispering either. It takes her only a second of stillness to make a decision, and then she snaps into motion.

  “Inside,” she says, forcing her arm down as she steps back, making room for Malcolm and me.

  Malcolm’s hand is warm and solid on my back, and I have no idea when he put it there, but I’m grateful for the encouragement to take that first step into the house of my father’s widow.

  I don’t notice a single thing about the house Laura leads us through, or the room she shuts us in. All the questions I need to ask, all the explanations I need, get tangled up together, and nothing comes out, not even after she closes the door and turns to face me again.

  Laura has gotten over her shock. She stares at me less like the ugliest part of her past has been exhumed and crawled its way onto her porch, and more like she’s resolved to contain and remove the nightmare as soon as possible.

  “What do you want?” She doesn’t ask who I am, doesn’t waste time asking why I’m here. She gets right to the point, so I do exactly the same thing.

  I lift my chin. “How do you know who I—”

  I cut myself off because I already know the answer. There’s only one other person alive who could have told her that Derek Abbott was my father. “When did my mother tell you about me?”

  There it is again: the nostril flare. That subtle betrayal to the otherwise perfectly composed face. I think she’s considering not telling me, but then we all hear footsteps from the floor above us. Grace clearly doesn’t know about me, and if the performance at the front door is any indication, Laura is adamant that she never find out. Another nostril flare, and she starts talking.

  “She didn’t tell me. I saw the way she was holding her stomach that night. Like recognized like.”

  My heart freezes still when I ask my next question. “Did she kill him?”

  Her eye twitches. “Yes.”

  “You’re lying,” I say, my voice breaking as I lunge forward.

  Malcolm catches my arm to hold me back. Laura doesn’t move.

  “No,” I say, shaking Malcolm off. “You knew who I was the second you saw me. I could have been a boy, or she could have miscarried. You knew who I was. Me.” I stab a finger into my chest, right over the ring hidden beneath my sweater. “What’s my name?”

  Another eye twitch. “I don’t know.”

  I lock my jaw. “What’s my name?”

  “I told you, I don’t—”

  “Grace!” I call out. Not overly loud, but a warning. I take in a deeper breath. “Gr—”

  “Katelyn!” The word is half strangled as it leaves her throat. “It’s Katelyn. And if you speak my daughter’s name again, I will call the police.”

  My eyes bug out. I wasn’t sure, not until the moment my name left her lips. Gone is the locked jaw, the lifted chin. My heart isn’t frozen; it’s on fire. “Where’s my mom?” My question is pleading—shaking, even.

  “I don’t know.” She whips away from me, moving to the door, presumably to listen and make sure Grace hasn’t heard anything. “I warned her a few times over the years, told her whenever they were getting close to finding her.”

  “Why?” Malcolm asks, speaking for the first time as if he knew I couldn’t. “Why would you help your husband’s mistress, the woman you just told us killed him?”

  Instead of answering, Laura moves to a cabinet set against one wall. Opening the upper door, she reaches deep inside and pulls out a locked wooden box. Producing a key from her pocket, she unlocks it and lifts the lid before taking out a cell phone. It’s small and simple, and the same brand as the disposable phone Mom left me with at the motel. “Here. I used this the last time I spoke with her, which was days ago. I don’t have her number. It’s always blocked, and she changes it constantly.”

  “You’re the person she called that night,” I say as the connection slams into me. I turn to Malcolm. “Before we ran, my mom made a call. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but she was confirming that we needed to leave.”

  Laura doesn’t deny it. “That’s all I have. You can take the phone and go, or you can wait for the police to get here.” She punctuates her threat by removing her own cell phone from her pocket, holding it as casually as someone would a weapon when up against an unarmed man.

  And then her eye twitches.

  I take the disposable phone and pass it to Malcolm without shifting my gaze from Laura. “Can you find her from this?” I ask him.

  “Maybe. I need a computer.”

  I raise my eyebrows at Laura, whose slight frown is now the only indication that she’s anything but calm.

  “I don’t have one in here.” It’s clear she wants that to be the end of the discussion, but it’s just as clear that I’ve called her bluff. I know the word accessory as well as she does, and I’m happy to repeat it to the police we both know she won’t call.

  “There’s a computer in the office.” I can feel the ice in her stare as it bores into me, and I shiver. “Please do not make any noise that will bring my daughter downstairs.”

  I sink my teeth hard into my lip and nod. I heard Grace’s voice. It’s not enough, but it has to be right now. I get my mom or my sister. Laura won’t give me both.

  We follow her to another room, and Malcolm practically dives at the computer when he sees it.

  “This is yours?” he asks with a note of awe. There are three monitors, and the entire setup looks impressive even to my untrained eye. I don’t even recognize the logo embossed on the backs.

  “My husband’s. He’s out of town.”

  “What does he do?” Malcolm’s hands hover above the keyboard like he’s afraid to touch it.

  “Computer stuff” is the flat answer Laura gives him. I’m sure she could perfectly recite his job title and the parameters of his work, but she’s determined to tell us as little as possible.

  Malcolm nods, then flicks his gaze to me. “I can find her.”

  His words and the promise behind them help thaw the cold from Laura’s glacial stare as Malcolm starts working.

  “How did you find me?” she asks.

  Without looking up from the computer screen, Malcolm raises a few fingers to claim his due.

  “Computer stuff,” I say, and her gaze snaps back to me. I take in the slight but noticeable tremble in her body. She’s holding herself together by sheer force of will, and I’m suddenly, shamefully, reminded that she has every reason for acting the way she is. “I’m sorry,” I add. �
��I wouldn’t have come here if I had any other choice. I only just found out about…about everything. I didn’t know about any of you.” My gaze drifts upward. “I never dreamed I had a sister.”

  Like lightning, she crosses the room and seizes my upper arm in a grip so tight I cry out. The sound jerks Malcolm from his chair, ready to come to my aid if I need him. Laura leans in to me, her grip not loosening in the slightest.

  “My daughter is nothing to you. Do you understand me? She is not your anything.” Her teeth click together as she bites off the last word, and I flinch. “I can’t call the police. From the very first, I made a choice that cut off that possibility for me. But I will protect my daughter.” Her fingers dig deeper, like she wants to crush the bone. Just as fast as the assault came, she releases me, and I’m the one left shaking. “You stay away from her.”

  My head is moving, nodding, agreeing to something I can’t possibly agree to. I stop rubbing my arm the second I realize I’m doing it. I’ve never even laid eyes on my sister and I’m giving her up? Is this what my mom did, cower under the threat of this formidable woman?

  And yet, she’s afraid of me. I can see it in the way she’s trying not to start whenever I shift my weight.

  I remember the false fierceness I had to put on with Malcolm when we were first thrown together, the hardness I could only begin to play at, because the truth was that he terrified me.

  I terrify Laura.

  But why?

  Grace has to know that her father died before she was born. She would have grown up in a world where her paternity wasn’t a secret. She could have Googled him and watched the exact same news story I had, and so many more. She had to know who my mom was too, or at least who the police and press said she was. None of this would have been kept from her the way it had me. Grace isn’t a child. She’s older than me, almost nineteen. As for me personally, finding out about my existence might be a shock, but not the earth-shattering one that Laura is treating it as.

  It doesn’t make sense.

  I’m missing something.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” I say.

  A burst of panic shows me the whites of her eyes. “The one on this floor is being remodeled.”

  That leaves upstairs. Where Grace is. Grace, who Laura wants me as far away from as possible.

  In the end, she has no choice but to take me there. Malcolm is the lesser threat in her mind, and she isn’t about to take her eyes off me.

  This time, my gaze sweeps methodically over every inch of the tastefully decorated home: the cream paint, the subtle cornflower-blue accents, the plush white furniture. I’m not looking at the decor though; I’m looking for pictures. I don’t see any on the way to the stairs, and none line the pin-striped wallpaper as we ascend to the second floor.

  Laura moves slowly, cautiously, in front of me. Her shoulder blades are pulled so tightly together I think they might burst through the back of her cardigan. I can hear Grace—we can hear Grace—presumably in the bedroom at the end of the hall.

  The door is only half closed, and if I lean all the way to the right, I can glimpse a sliver of her room. Her walls are purple, like a hazy sunrise that’s still caught up in the night before. My heart beats faster. She’d hear me if I called out now. I wouldn’t even have to yell.

  But Laura is stopping, opening a door to a bathroom, and we’re still a dozen feet from Grace’s room. I hesitate, and Laura doesn’t have to voice a threat. Every inch of her promises a lethal response if I fail to do exactly what I swore: keep quiet.

  I cry in the bathroom, even though I’m close to finding my mom, closer than I’ve been since this nightmare began. My grandfather didn’t know me. He screamed at me and was so lost in his past that he couldn’t find the present. But Grace could know me.

  I flush the toilet, because Laura is listening. Then I wash my hands and splash water on my face. I don’t linger over my reflection. I don’t recognize it anyway.

  “Mom? What are you doing there?”

  Grace. I reach for the door the second I hear her in the hall. But the handle doesn’t turn. Laura is holding it from the other side. I can imagine her leaning back against it, blocking Grace’s view so she won’t see the handle fighting against her. I promised to be quiet, but nothing more.

  “Hmm?” Laura says, sweetness and ease. “I was thinking about replacing the wallpaper up here. What do you think?”

  Footsteps. I push harder on the handle. It doesn’t give an inch.

  “I like it the way it is,” Grace says. There’s something about her voice. Something I’ve heard before but can’t place. “Why are you…Who’s in the bathroom?”

  There’s no outward show of defeat when Laura finally releases the handle and lets me open the door. She even smiles at me as I nearly stumble into the hall.

  “Grace, this is Katelyn. She and her friend stopped by to use your father’s computer. Katelyn, this is my daughter, Grace.”

  I see her feet first, her sparkly turquoise-painted toes, her black yoga pants, and the loose, Doris Day T-shirt that I would kill to add to my collection.

  And when I see her face, a piece falls into place.

  “Hi, Katelyn.”

  She smiles at me, and I feel it. That instantaneous, shocking cementing of one person to another.

  “Hi,” I say back.

  It’s like I’m meeting every celebrity I’ve ever idolized all rolled into one. I can’t take my eyes off her. We don’t really look alike. Both of us favor our mothers more than our father in terms of coloring, but she has bangs like me and, as we stare at each other, we both lift our left hands to brush them from our eyes at the same time. I laugh, and the sound turns watery. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this much happiness. It should be radiating from my skin.

  “Grace is a really pretty name,” I tell her. And it’s apparently the exact perfect thing to say, because she lights up.

  “Grace was my great-grandmother’s name. Do you want to see a picture of her?” She barely waits for me to nod before she takes my hand in hers and leads me to her room. She doesn’t notice the distressed half squeak that escapes from her mother.

  Grace’s room is a mess, and I love it. It’s how my room would look if I ever felt settled enough in one place to actually live in it. I spot a few books that I read growing up, in piles on the window seat, and makeup scattered atop a mirrored vanity. There’s a robe tossed onto a white four-poster bed, and a fluffy orange cat lounging lazily atop it. Grace doesn’t release my hand even when she brings us to a stop in front of a wall that is covered in framed photos.

  “That’s her.” She pushes a short finger into the face of a striking woman who could have easily graced the silver screen. “And that’s her again.” The same woman, slightly older and gazing lovingly at a bundled baby in her arms. “And again, and again, and…” Her finger taps out an obviously well-rehearsed pattern as she traces her great-grandmother’s life from some of its first moments to its last.

  “She was beautiful,” I say, staring at one of the earlier pictures, one Grace lingered over too. It’s an older photograph, black and white, a bride on her wedding day. Grace’s great-grandmother’s hand is wrapped around her husband’s, and the ring I’ve worn by my heart for years is on her finger.

  “Mom’s trying to get Grandmother Abbott to let me have Great-Grandma Grace’s wedding dress, but Grandmother Abbott says it’d be a waste and I’d never fit in it anyway.” This admission doesn’t seem to bother Grace, or maybe she’s grown so accustomed to hearing similar things that she no longer lets them affect her. Either way, I’d know which one Grace loved more. One has years of her smiling photos framed on Grace’s walls, and the other is stiffly referred to as Grandmother Abbott.

  “I don’t have to wear it,” Grace continues. “But to have it so I could see it sometime, I’d like that. I never met Great-Grandm
a Grace, but mom says she was nice, that she would have been nice to me. She would have let me stand next to her in photos and would never have called me”—I catch just enough of her mumbled words to make my ears burn hot and my fists clench—“defective…unsuitable…”

  I can’t even imagine someone saying such vile things to her own granddaughter.

  Laura’s arm slides protectively around her daughter. “Remember, we don’t listen to the things Grandmother Abbott says. I’m taking care of everything. But now, I think it’s time for Katelyn to leave. I’m sure her friend is waiting for her.”

  If I hadn’t seen her face as she spoke, I’d never have known from Laura’s voice that she was close to grabbing my hair and dragging me down the stairs. Another second and I think she would have.

  “Grace, why don’t you give Elvis his brushing. His fur looks a little tangled to me.”

  Concern flashes in Grace’s eyes as she turns to her cat and moves to scoop him into her lap. The last sight I have of Grace is her snuggling his soft fur as he begins to purr.

  Laura takes my arm again to lead me away, and her grip tightens with every step until we reach the foyer. Malcolm is standing there, looking like he wants to be anywhere else.

  “Did you find her?” I no longer care about keeping my voice down. Laura shut Grace’s door when we left. I almost want him to say no, that he needs more time, so I can go back upstairs with my sister, but his quick nod douses that hope.

  “Then you need to leave.” Laura swings the front door wide open, and all three of us are slapped with the wind and drizzling rain.

  “How far?” I ask. Grace is walking around upstairs again. I bet she’s getting the comb to brush her cat. Elvis. It’s a cool name for a cat.

  And Grandmother Abbott is a bitch.

  Malcolm eyes Laura before answering, and I appreciate his discretion. “Close enough. But we can’t walk.”

  Laura is staring at the dark sky outside. She blinks and breathes, then spins on her heel and walks to a narrow table just past the stairs. She returns and holds out a set of car keys. “I will report it stolen in the morning.”