Lost At Sea

by Erica Boyce

  She took a deep breath and stripped back the sheets. They were striped, flannel. She had let Lacey pick them out after Lacey’d finally admitted she wasn’t really into purple anymore. Nothing there. She heaved the bare mattress up onto one shoulder.

  Sure enough, there it was. A blue toiletry bag she didn’t recognize, smashed flat. She grabbed it up and let the mattress fall. She knelt on the floor and unzipped it. Inside, there were several squares of foil, burned black. A lighter. A couple of straws. A plastic bag, heavy with pills.

  It was true, then. She’d somehow hoped it was all a horrible mistake, the phone call and the hospital room and the intake forms. It was hard to explain this away, though. Impossible, even.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck!” she yelled. She yelled until her throat hurt.

  * * *

  She should’ve seen it, she knew. Lacey’s first counselor hadn’t said much to dispute it. He’d steepled his fingers in front of his lips and said, “And what makes you think that, Maureen?” It was like a cartoon of a therapist, and Maureen glanced at Lacey to laugh at him the way they once would have. But Lacey just stared at the floor, her face gray and grim.

  Ms. Bray, on the other hand, had admonished her outright. “Support her,” she’d said, “and try not to think too hard about the why.”

  Maureen wanted to beg her to tell her what she was missing. Motherhood had always come so naturally to her, once she’d finally reached it. Nanny or day care, curfew or none—when she made a decision, she never looked back and wondered. She knew instinctively what would work best for her daughter. But there was no fix for this.

  When she got home from that session, she looked Ms. Bray up on the clinic’s website. In her staff photo, the light reflected off her glasses a little, making her face opaque and unsettling. With her hair tied up, she looked even younger. Her credentials were listed under her photo—it seemed impossible she’d been practicing for twelve years. Across the bottom of the screen ticked quotes from various staff members, set in italics: “As a recovering addict myself, I have unique insight into the many struggles our clients face, and I find great joy in helping them overcome the hurdles between them and sobriety.”

  Without thinking, Maureen clicked her tongue and whispered, “Never trust an addict.” Her eyes widened to the point of watering when she remembered. She hastily clicked the browser window closed and walked away from the computer.

  * * *

  Her butt was going numb. She shifted around in her seat a little and turned the van back off. On the street nearby, a car slowed, then inched to a stop, its engine rattling. Probably a new patient getting dropped off. Despite herself, Maureen craned her neck to see his face. He had white-blond hair that reflected the sun.

  Maureen gasped. It was Matt.

  She had learned about Matt at one of their family appointments, only after Ms. Bray coaxed Lacey into talking about it. Her daughter had looked so miserable as she explained that she’d been ignoring his emails. She loved him, she said, even though he’d sold her pills. Maureen could’ve sworn Ms. Bray looked shocked and maybe a little accusatory when Maureen admitted she didn’t even know Lacey had been seeing Matt.

  Maureen hadn’t seen Matt in years. She and Matt’s mother had arranged a couple of playdates when the kids were small, but she’d found Mrs. Duvry to be a hard nut to crack, tough and unsmiling. One of those women who nodded instead of laughed, a distant look on her face. The pickups had just been too awkward, so Maureen had started to screen Mrs. Duvry’s calls. She’d always felt a little bad for Matt, growing up in a house like that, and for a while, she kept an eye out for him when she picked Lacey up from school. But then the years rolled on, and she’d forgotten him entirely as he was replaced by Lacey’s other friends in the back seat of her car.

  She had a feeling Lacey’d found a boyfriend when she started disappearing after school at the end of her senior year. Her mouth had a dreamy quality to it at dinner each night. Maureen hoped Lacey would tell her someday, when she felt ready. She wanted to ask about him, but Lacey had a good head on her shoulders.

  And now, there he was. Was he waiting for Lacey? Was he going to try to bring her back under with him? The rage took Maureen’s breath away. She clutched her car keys, thinking, it’s his fault. He’d always made her uneasy when he was younger, hadn’t he? There was something feral in his eyes then. He’d lured her daughter in and trapped her with something sticky-sweet and irresistible. It had landed in Maureen’s lap without warning: someone to blame. She reached for the car door, but before she could open it, Matt’s car pulled away.

  Maureen paused for a second. She couldn’t seriously consider chasing down some teenaged kid. She thought of Lacey’s pained face when she talked about Matt. No matter how much progress she’d made, Lacey would follow that boy right back down into the pit if he asked.

  Maureen started the car. She drove in the direction he’d gone, her left knee bouncing against the car door. It didn’t take long to catch up with him—he was driving so slowly. He might’ve even been high.

  In the end, he didn’t go far. Around four corners, a couple of miles at most before he parked in front of someone’s house. It was a nice, tidy house, with clean white siding and blue shutters. Maureen stopped two driveways down and watched.

  After a moment, he opened his door and stood up. He’d pulled on a knit cap at some point, and he tugged it down low over his eyebrows before walking up to the house. He knocked on the door in what could’ve been a special pattern of some sort; it was hard to tell from afar. The door opened almost immediately and swallowed him up.

  Maureen tapped on her window, a tuneless rhythm, the silver ring she wore on her middle finger with Lacey’s birthstone rapping sharply against the glass. It only took a few minutes. Soon enough, Matt was loping back down the front steps. He fiddled with something in his sweatshirt pocket.

  Time. Maureen sprang out of the car and hurried up the sidewalk, nearly tripping over the roots pushing their way up through the pavement. She got to Matt’s car and was about to knock on his window when she stopped, her hand raised in a fist. She saw him. He didn’t see her. He was clenching the steering wheel, a bag of something white and sinister pinched between his index and middle fingers. His head was bent over, and for a moment, she thought he was already gone, already nodded off. But he hurled himself back against the seat, once, and then again and again. When he finally stopped, the car was shaking, swaying back and forth like a cradle. He leaned his head against the headrest, eyes closed, and Maureen recognized something in his face that she didn’t quite want to see. She backed away from the car just as he dropped the bag in his lap and jammed his key into the ignition. As he drove off and a cloud of exhaust wafted over her face, she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t even blink.

  After his car had disappeared down the street, she turned slowly and, without thinking, walked up to the house. When she rang the doorbell, she noticed that her hands were shaking.

  The woman who answered the door had a blunt soccer-mom bob and a dish towel thrown over her shoulder. Her face opened up with surprise, and Maureen’s heart stopped. It was Ophelia Walsh.

  “Maureen? What are you doing here? I didn’t miss a meeting, did I?” She glanced worriedly at her watch while Maureen braced herself against the doorway, the wooden edge pressing sharp into her shoulder.

  Maureen swallowed. “What did you give to that boy?” she said.

  Ophelia froze. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw him. I watched him leave your house, and I saw him sitting in his car with a baggie of…something.” Maureen felt stupid. Maybe it wasn’t what she’d thought after all.

  Ophelia still looked pleasantly puzzled, but when Maureen didn’t apologize and retreat, Ophelia changed her mind. Her smile slipped from her face.

  That was all the encouragement Maureen needed. She pushed past Ophelia with all t
he roughness she could manage and found herself in their living room. Ophelia had left nothing in sight. There was no obvious evidence on the coffee table. Maureen heard the front door slam as she began wrenching open the drawers in the TV console. Ophelia just reached the living room doorway when one of the drawers slid out with a treacherous rattle. Empty orange bottle after empty orange bottle with Ophelia’s last name printed on them. Some drug dealer, Maureen thought faintly. Didn’t even throw out her trash.

  “So you found out,” Ophelia said. “What are you gonna do? Call the cops on me? I could get your daughter in a lot of trouble, too, you know.” She glared at Maureen, a dare.

  Maureen’s head began to pound. From Ophelia’s drawer to Matt’s palms to her daughter’s bloodstream. This was where it all started. It had to be.

  “How could you do this?” Maureen said. “You care about this town more than anyone I know.” It wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough.

  Ophelia broke her gaze and stared at the front door. “How could I not?” She looked back at Maureen. Her jaw was tensed tight, but her hands were working in and over each other. “My husband’s fishing business is about to go under, though he’d never admit it. We’re up to our ears in loan payments, and he hasn’t broken even in two years. Meanwhile, he put this place up for collateral.” She flung one hand over her head. “So if we can’t make our payments, the bank will take it right out from under us. He’s got this diagnosis. Chronic back pain from working on the boat all those years. He doesn’t like to take the medicine because it makes him all fuzzy.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So I pick up his prescription without telling him.”

  Horror built in Maureen’s gut. It was like Ophelia’d been looking for someone to confess it all to.

  “It’s covered by insurance. We’ve got a terrible policy that won’t cover so much as a pelvic exam, but it covers the pills. People will pay fifty, sixty bucks a pill. Did you know that? So now I’ve got a bottle of sixty pills, sixty Percs, and that’s a loan payment right there.”

  Maureen heard it as “perks” until she realized what she meant. Percocets.

  “So you tell me. How could I not?”

  “You could get a goddamned job is what you could do,” Maureen said through clenched teeth.

  Ophelia snorted. “Right. Sure. I’ve been raising kids full-time the last twenty years. Not a career woman like you.” Her eyebrow cocked air quotes around “career woman.” “I haven’t had anyone pay me for my work in two decades. Who’s going to hire me now?” She threw her arms out to the sides, and her eyes softened a bit. Help me. Please.

  “They’re just kids,” Maureen whispered.

  Ophelia’s face hardened. “They’re old enough to know what they’re doing,” she snapped. “Don’t you think for a second that they’re not. They’re junkies, that’s it. I’m not responsible for how the town junkies choose to spend their time and money. They’re a waste of town resources as far as I’m concerned. The sooner we let them kill themselves off, the better. Even if it means there’s no one left to buy this shit from me.”

  Maureen’s eyes widened. She struggled to take in this woman, this small and ugly woman to whom she’d served canapés on a cheap plastic silver tray.

  “Now, I’ll thank you to get out of my house.” Ophelia planted one hand at the base of Maureen’s back and steered her toward the door, her hand a sharp, bony knob like the nose of a gun. “I don’t believe we’ll be needing your services at our next Historical Society fundraiser after all,” she said, her voice suddenly smooth and pleasant. “Or at the Friends of the DP Library events for that matter. I’ll be contacting Rebecca shortly.” She opened the door and gave Maureen one final push that left her stumbling down a step before she caught herself. The door closed firmly behind her.

  It wasn’t until Maureen’s feet hit the pavement that she realized Ophelia had it all wrong. Ophelia wasn’t the one who had the upper hand here. Maureen was. All Maureen had to do was tell the library’s board—or anyone, really—that Ophelia was dealing drugs and the woman would at least be ostracized, if not arrested. This community that had lost so much to pills would not tolerate a dealer in their midst.

  Maybe they wouldn’t believe Maureen, though. Maybe, as the mother of an addict, she was no longer a reliable source in this town. She could leave an anonymous tip with the police, but Ophelia was probably already finding a new hiding place for the pills and coming up with a new rumor to spread to all the rest of Maureen’s clients if she found out Maureen ratted. She opened her car door, the sun-warmed metal nearly burning her fingertips. She slid into the driver’s seat and stared out the windshield. She felt utterly alone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lacey and Maureen got back home just in time for Ella to get out of school. Lacey, heeding Ms. Bray’s advice, had asked a few friendly questions over the course of the drive. When was their next event? Did Maureen think the weather would turn before then? But this time, her mom was the one with her mind elsewhere. She answered in single sentences that trailed off at the edges. Or at least Lacey hoped she was just distracted and not angry or upset. Maureen had plenty of reason to be angry and upset.

  As they pulled into the driveway, Lacey said, “I’m going to meet Ella.” Maureen turned to her, and Lacey was so relieved by her full attention that she had to tell the truth. “She doesn’t believe her dad is gone or doesn’t want to believe it. She asked me to help her find him, so we’re just going around town asking people about him.”

  Her mom sighed and rubbed the wrinkles out of her forehead. “Lacey,” she started.

  “I know,” Lacey said, flicking the handle of her door. “She’s so sad, Mom. I don’t know how else to help her.”

  Maureen leveled her gaze at her until Lacey looked away. “Okay,” Maureen said then. “All right. Do what you gotta do. But make sure you’re back by five, got it?”

  “Yup,” Lacey said as she tumbled out the door. The impact of her feet on the driveway sent a ringing buzz up to her knees. She steadied herself before walking on.

  Ella was waiting for her at their corner. She looked more tired than a girl her age should ever be. Her hair had pulled loose from her ponytail, and her head was down, backpack keeled over at her feet.

  “Hey, kidlet,” Lacey said. “How was school?”

  “The other kids are idiots,” Ella said, glowering across the street at an unsuspecting tree.

  Lacey hesitated before patting her shoulder. “Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. You wanna go somewhere and talk about it?”

  Ella looked at her like she was crazy, her face almost comically scrunched. “We’re going to the pawn shop! Did you forget?”

  In spite of herself, in spite of all her doubts and the wriggling of the beetle, Lacey smiled. “Nah, I didn’t forget. Let’s go.”

  The man working the counter at the pawn shop was the same one she’d sold her locket to. His round belly strained the seams of his shirt so you could see every stitch, and he breathed out of a slightly opened mouth, fluttering the hairs of his mustache as he did. Lacey kept her eyes fixed on the wall behind him while Ella approached the counter, hoping against hope he wouldn’t recognize her. He glanced at her only once before staring back down at his newspaper, impassive. A true professional.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Ella said, curling the fingers of one hand over the edge of the counter. “We’re looking for my father. Have you seen him?” She pulled a folded photo out of her backpack, uncreased it, and pushed it across the glass.

  “I can’t tell you about customers,” he said. “Confidential. Store policy.”

  Lacey could’ve sworn he looked right at her as he said this, but maybe she was imagining it. She stared down at the counter. It was a display case, with headless velvet torsos holding gold necklaces and turquoise chokers that had once meant something to somebody. She studied every piece, but of course, the lock
et wasn’t there. The librarian had it.

  “Please,” Ella said, “just look at the picture. He’s missing.” She tapped the photo.

  He puffed out his cheeks and held the photo up to the light. He recognized John—everyone in town would—and this time, he did look at Lacey.

  Lacey smiled apologetically.

  “You John Staybrook’s kid?” he said to Ella, handing the photo back to her. “I’m real sorry to hear about what happened to him. Been watching the reports come in.” He jerked his thumb toward a corner of the room behind him where there was a boxy TV mounted, its audio muted, black-and-white captions ticking across the bottom of the screen.

  Ella shook her head firmly. “It’s not what you think,” she said. “He didn’t take that tuna boat like they said. He left my mom because they got in a fight.” She leaned in toward the man, elbows on the counter, feet on tiptoe. “He tried to sell his wedding ring to you, didn’t he? We’re retracing his steps.”

  Lacey blushed at the we. She was aiding and abetting this hunt that could only end in heartbreak.

  The man studied Ella carefully, pulling at the skin under his chin. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. He came in here and tried to sell it.”

  Ella danced up and down on her toes.

  “I didn’t buy it, though. Plain gold band like that, all scratched up, isn’t gonna get much on the open market.”

  Ella leaned in even closer, her feet practically dangling up off the floor. “Was he mad?”

  He shrugged. “Nah. Seemed like he knew that’d be the case. Was acting all set to sell it anyway, actually, until I told him it’d probably end up getting melted down for cash at some point.”

  “I see,” Ella said. “Did he say where he was going next?”

  He shook his head and met Lacey’s eye again.

  “Thank you very much for your time, sir,” Ella said, holding her hand out. He folded it into his own huge paw and was shaking it solemnly when she tore away and pointed at the TV. “Look! They’re talking about him now!”