Winter Flower

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  Hayley smiled at me and took my hand in both of hers. She leaned forward and said, “You don’t have to hide with me.”

  I closed my eyes. This wasn’t possible. I was confused, but relief coursed through me.

  I knew that not everyone would react like Hayley. There were people out there like Cody and Billy, people who would hate me for who I was, or be disgusted, or even hurt me. But for the first time in more than two years, I didn’t feel alone anymore. I still couldn’t believe that my parents hadn’t freaked out—especially Dad. Every time I thought about his reaction I wanted to cry with relief. I felt … free.

  But it wasn’t just about me.

  “What about you? What happens to you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how it works. There are social workers and cops and … I don’t know what. They arrested my dad … so I just don’t know what happens next.”

  “It really bothers me that I’m leaving,” I said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be in Oregon, but I want to be here for you.”

  “I want you to go. Find your sister. Just—can we talk? I’ll text you? Every day.”

  I nodded. Then I felt myself tear up as I said, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  “Me too,” Hayley whispered.

  Cole

  Erin’s text message was a surprise. What are you doing now?

  I typed a reply: I’m sitting in the waiting room at the parole office. What about you?

  I had called and left a message with the parole officer first thing this morning. In my message, I told her it was an emergency and I needed to see her today, and that I would be in the waiting room until she had a moment. I’d been here for an hour waiting.

  I didn’t even know if she would see me today, but all I could do was wait and try.

  Erin’s response said: Having breakfast soon then canvassing a different part of town. This evening I’m visiting strip clubs.

  I closed my eyes, trying to shut out my surroundings for just a second. The reality of the places Erin was searching made my stomach ache. After I took a few breaths, I responded: If we find her—WHEN we find her—she’s going to need a lot of help. Therapy. Hugs. Just lots. Everything we can give.

  A few seconds passed before I saw the little dots appear, which indicated she was typing something. Then her message appeared: I know. She’s going to be really damaged. You saw the picture of her. That was a hard-looking woman in that mug shot. But our baby is underneath.

  Jesus. My eyes watered uncontrollably.

  “Cole Roberts.” The voice was loud, impersonal. The door to the back was open, and Sergeant Friendly looked out at me.

  I typed: They’re calling me.

  I stood up and strode to the door.

  “Your voicemail, you said it was urgent?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come on back, then,” she replied.

  She turned and headed into the back office. I followed her into the crowded cube and sat across from her at her desk.

  “What can I do for you, Cole?”

  I took a deep breath. Please, I thought. Then I spoke. “The FBI called a few days ago. My daughter turned up in Portland, Oregon. She was arrested for solicitation then released before they realized who she was.”

  Understanding flashed across Friendly’s face. “You want to go out there?”

  I nodded. “Erin’s already in Portland, she has been for several days. My son—we’re going to withdraw him from school for the remainder of the semester anyway. He was severely assaulted yesterday and is going to need some time away from the school here. My boss approved a leave of absence.”

  She nodded. “I see. How much time did they give you?”

  “Two months.”

  “Can you get me the name and number of your boss and the FBI agent who called? So I can verify everything?”

  “Sure,” I said. I took out my phone and pulled up the contacts. “Got a sheet of paper?”

  She slid one across to me with a pencil. I wrote Jeremiah’s name and number first, then Stan Wilcox.

  “Agent Wilcox works with the Child Abduction Response Team in Washington, but Erin said he’s in Portland right now.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I’m only allowed to authorize thirty days at a time. Which means if you’re still there in 25 days, I want you to call me and we’ll talk about next steps.”

  As she spoke, it took a moment for it to sink in. She was going to authorize it! I could go.

  “Okay,” I said, nodding. “Whatever you need.”

  “I’m going to make arrangements for you to meet with one of my counterparts in Portland. We’ll say in two weeks.”

  “All right.”

  “Give me a moment then.”

  She turned to her computer and began to rapidly type. I waited patiently—nothing else I could do, of course. A couple of minutes later, her printer began to warm up and spit out pages.

  She took the papers out—one looked like a letter, the other was a dense form. There were multiple copies of each. She signed and stamped them, then said, “I’ll be right back. I need to get my supervisor’s signature on the travel authorization.”

  She stood and walked away. I typed a message to Erin: They’re giving me permission to go.

  She responded: I’m so relieved.

  Was she really? Was she saying that because she felt like she had to? What did Erin even want anymore? More to the point, was there any hope that she could ever forgive me or trust me again? It seemed, from our talks and messages over the last couple of days … that there just might be some hope.

  What if the shoe were on the other foot? What if Erin had an affair, and I had been the one to find the careless evidence of a profound lie?

  I don’t know what I would have done a year ago or five years ago. I knew I didn’t have any right to expect it—I had no right to even ask for forgiveness—but I would crawl on my knees from Alabama to Portland if that’s what it took to convince her to take me back into her heart.

  I looked up from my phone when Sergeant Friendly reappeared. As always, she had a brisk expression on her face. She rapidly shuffled through a set of papers, dividing three copies of the documents into three separate folders. The first, she labeled and stuck in her own file cabinet. The second, she stuffed in a manila envelope, tied it off, then wrote a name on it. I didn’t think anyone used those anymore. The third folder, she handed to me. I flipped it open.

  On the left side was a letter from her to “To whom it may concern.” The letter stated that I was a felon, and I was authorized to travel from Alabama to Oregon, and gave her office and cell numbers in the event contact was needed. The second was an Alabama state form, which was the official travel pass.

  I closed the folder and looked at her. “Thank you for this.”

  “Just stay out of trouble, Cole.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She smiled, and said, “God go with you searching for your daughter.”

  Once I was outside of the building, I texted Erin to let her know I had the travel pass, and then I sent a message to Sam: I’m all finished at the parole office. How are things with Hayley?

  Sam replied immediately: We just said goodbye. I’m walking back to the van now. Meet you at home?

  I responded: See you there. I have to stop at the restaurant on the way so I may be a little later than you.

  Forty-five minutes later I drove up to the house. On the passenger seat were the very few personal things I’d kept in my office at the restaurant. Brian had already installed a relief manager there, and I didn’t expect to be back.

  The goodbyes at the restaurant had been surprisingly tough. Susan had cried, telling me that she hadn’t had a manager she liked in years. I’d asked her to talk with Dakota and the other second and third shift staff, to tell them I was sorry I had to leave so suddenly.

  I scanned the inside of the house doing a mental triage. I would pack clothing for myself and some of the things Eri
n had forgotten. I’d take some of my tools in the event we had a problem on the road, and would stash some emergency cash under the spare tire.

  I called out, “Sam, you here?”

  Sam called from the bathroom, “In here!”

  I started in the kitchen, packing a few things in the cooler like the peanut butter and jelly, but tossing perishables that I couldn’t bring with us. Once that was complete, I carried the garbage out, then went back to our room to begin packing.

  I was zipping up the suitcase when I heard the bathroom door in the hallway open up.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?” I said, as I turned to look. Then I stopped and stared.

  Sam was wearing his— no, her—own clothes, a white Oxford cloth shirt and a pair of black pants. She wore a pair of black loafers I never really noticed before and a pair of blue crystal earrings that matched her eyes, or would have if she hadn’t been wearing a pair of Erin’s oversized sunglasses. The black eye was noticeable, but not so much under the sunglasses as it might have been. She had very carefully applied makeup, disguising the rest of the bruising on her face, though the fine red C-shaped cut was clear. Her already long hair had been carefully styled into a feminine look.

  If I hadn’t known Sam his—her—entire life, I would have simply taken her as a youngish teen girl.

  “Are you going to say anything?”

  Sam looked anxious, and my stunned silence surely hadn’t helped that. It was a shock though, seeing Sam like this. For a second I doubted my ability to follow through, and a stab of grief for my son swept through me.

  But it wasn’t about me, it was about Sam.

  “You look pretty, Sam.”

  The sunglasses masked her expression. But with a lopsided smile, she said, “Thanks, Dad. I’m going to go finish packing.”

  Sam walked away, and I continued with what I was doing, even as I asked myself if I was making a mistake. Should I have pushed harder? Or insisted that Sam do some amount of therapy before … no. If Sam decided she was going to grow out of this, she had a couple of years before any permanent changes were even possible. I had to leave it to her to explore. No matter how strange it might seem to me.

  Forty minutes later, it was clear just how right that decision was, at least for now. I took Sam to Goodwill and gave her a fifty-dollar budget. For the next hour I was treated to the sight of Sam smiling for the first time in years, as she tried on outfit after outfit, twirling in front of the mirrors, trying on shoes and dresses and skirts, and each step of the way asking me how she looked.

  How could it be that I hadn’t realized how profoundly sad Sam was? We all were, of course, but Sam had carried extra burdens, including two parents who had simply failed to be there when she needed them.

  When I finally paid for the clothes, she asked the grey-haired woman at the register if she could put on her new clothes in the changing room before we left. The woman smiled and nodded, and Sam ran to the changing rooms practically giggling.

  “Your daughter’s beautiful,” she told me.

  “It’s her smile,” I said.

  Thirty

  Sam

  During our first stop headed west on I–20, Dad mapped out our route. The total driving time from Oxford to Portland was about thirty-eight hours. We were leaving at noon, so the plan was to drive eight to ten hours the first day, then twelve each on the second and third days. If all went well, we would arrive in Portland by Saturday evening.

  The first day we were mostly quiet, sometimes listening to my music and sometimes Dad’s. We stopped for dinner not long after crossing the Mississippi in Memphis—it was the first time I had ever seen the great river—and then got back on the road.

  During the drive, I felt surreal. After years of hiding and pretending, I was out, feeling like myself, and Mom and Dad were okay with it. I kept feeling like it was a dream, that I would wake up and find myself back in Oxford, in my room, door locked. Hiding. But here I was.

  Neither of us were ready to stop when we had our eighth hour on the road, so we decided to keep going, finally dragging into a cheap motel in Rock Port, Missouri at two o’clock in the morning.

  “Six a.m. okay?” Dad had asked, setting the alarm.

  “Yeah.” I wanted to get where we were going as quickly as possible, and we still had a long way to go.

  My dreams that night were confusing and muddled. Images of Cody going after Brenna with a knife. In the dream I got between them just in time and felt Cody’s knife sinking into my shoulder. In the dream it happened over and over again. The dream transitioned in the psychedelic way that dreams do, and I found myself in a long hallway with doors stretching into the distance. The doors were mug shots, Brenna’s face in the picture that Mom had sent. Somewhere in the maze of doorways and halls I could hear her crying, a broken wail that made my heart ache.

  “I’m coming!” I cried out in the dream. But I kept opening doors and not finding her. An alarm went off somewhere, and I was running out of time, running out of time to find her, and I began to run down the hall, throwing open doors and barely looking inside before I ran to the next. The alarm was getting louder and louder and so were her cries, and then I jerked up to a sitting position, wide awake, my heart thumping wildly.

  The cheap plastic alarm between the two beds was blaring. Dad was slapping at the alarm, finally hitting it with a loud bang, and the silence descended on the room. He sat up, his face bleary.

  Both of us stumbled around, foggy, as we got ready to get back on the road. While Dad was in the shower, I took a long and careful look at the kaleidoscope of yellow, purple, and black bruises spread across my face. It was actually worse today than it had been the day before—a good look at my face would give little kids nightmares. I covered it up as best I could—not very well—and by six thirty we headed next door to the stone-faced building labeled RESTAURANT in foot-high capital letters on the roof. Inside it turned out to be half country-store, half diner.

  It was weird. We’d talked so little, for so long, that in some ways I wasn’t sure what to talk about with Dad. We stumbled around different topics then went mostly quiet.

  We’d been there about ten minutes before two police officers approached.

  “Sorry to bother you both, but could we speak with you for just a moment?”

  “Sure,” Dad said. “What can I help you with?”

  What was going on? Did this have something to do with Dad’s probation? Was there some other issue?

  One of the officers motioned to me. “If you could come with me, Miss?”

  I looked at Dad, alarmed. He nodded to comply, so I got up from the table. The officer led me to the opposite side of the restaurant then stood so that my back was to Dad.

  The officer studied me impassively for a moment, then said, “That’s a pretty good shiner you got there, kid. And … is that a cut on your cheek?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I got beat up pretty bad. Day before yesterday.”

  “Someone here called it in. Suggested maybe that your father did it. Is that your father?”

  Comprehension suddenly swept through me. “Oh! No! He is my father, and no, he didn’t hit me. It was a bully at school. Really bad scene.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?” The officer looked concerned. “We can protect you if your father did. You don’t have to be afraid to tell us the truth.”

  I was starting to get anxious. What if they didn’t believe me? Dad had a criminal record for assault. Would they arrest him? Would he go back to jail? What would happen to me? Or Mom or Brenna?

  I shook my head. “No … he didn’t. If you want to call the cops where we live, they’ll tell you. It happened in Oxford, Alabama. Or you can check with my school. My dad’s never even spanked me.”

  “Oxford, Alabama? What brings you to Missouri?”

  “We’re on our way to Oregon. My sister was kidnapped two years ago. She just turned up there a few weeks ago and we’re going to see if we can find her.” />
  The officer tilted his head. “Kidnapped?”

  I nodded. “It was in the news and everything then.”

  “And school?”

  “Dad withdrew me for the rest of the semester.”

  “I see. Can you wait here for a moment?”

  I grimaced. “I’d really like to finish my breakfast.”

  The officer smiled. “Okay. Have a seat, eat your breakfast, and I’m sure we’ll be able to move on in a moment.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Then I walked back to the table.

  Dad was still talking with the other officer, clear on the other side of the restaurant, but after a minute he, too, returned to the table.

  I said, “I’m nervous.”

  “Don’t be,” Dad said. “You told them what happened?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “I did the same. And gave them the number for your counselor at school.”

  I swallowed. “Dad … do you think we’ll be able to find her?”

  He looked stricken. It took several seconds before he finally took a breath and started to answer. “I … I hope so. I don’t know. It’s still a long shot.”

  “But we’ll do everything we can,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  I didn’t find his answers that satisfying. Of course we would try our best. But it was bigger than just finding Brenna. The last couple of days I felt like a veil had been lifted. After all, what had hiding gotten me? Beaten up. That’s what it got me. If Dad hadn’t showed up when he had, if Hayley hadn’t called, if I hadn’t had location services on my phone … if, if, IF… Cody might have murdered me.

  I felt encouraged by Mom and Dad’s response. It was hard to tell with Mom, of course—we only talked on the phone for a little while—but Dad was present and engaged in a way I hadn’t seen in a long time. I knew he worked really hard, that he struggled to be able to make ends meet so we could eat. But when he wasn’t working, he was often at one end of the house and Mom at the other. And that wasn’t any good, because Mom needed him. And if we found Brenna, she would need both of them.