“William,” his mom said, warningly. “Seat belt laws. Unless you want to die of internal injuries.” She flicked on her high beams and a wall of fog bounced the light back.
Will squinted sharply and held on tight.
Back at home, in the garage, Josephine hustled Will into her car. “Come on,” she goaded when she saw him glancing back at Douglas’s SUV over his shoulder.
“What about Dad? Shouldn’t we bring him inside?”
“No time. And anyway, I couldn’t carry him even if I wanted to.” She sighed, jaw clenched. “Unless you think you can carry him.”
It was a rhetorical question, but Will still shook his head.
“He’ll be fine. He’ll sleep it off. It’s the best thing, I promise.”
It didn’t seem like the best thing to Will. It was the point in late October where Indian summer rolled directly into wind-chill warnings. According to his mother’s dashboard display, the outside temperature was just a few degrees shy of freezing.
Still, his mother was right. There was no conceivable way to heave-ho his father out of the car. He watched the garage door creak down as she backed the car away, and prayed to God that his dad would really be fine when they returned. In spite of everything—the trip to Doc Martin, his dad’s persistent pressuring about public school—Will was feeling closer to Douglas than he ever had. Please, please don’t let him overdose or get too cold, Will thought. Please don’t let him choke on a rerun of his cauliflower soup.
The police station was located down near the waterfront. Will watched the streetlights reflecting on the surface, forming wavy columns of citrine-colored light. It did something to him to see the nighttime Hudson, so dark and unswimmable. Even in summer it was never a body of water that tempted you to wade in, pants rolled up unfashionably over your knees. It was less a body of water than a tipping ground, a rippling vat of murder weapons, sewage runoff, and PCBs.
The Hursts had tried to avoid talking about it last year, but police had made sure that they knew the deal: actual missing persons were a rare thing around here. Ninety-nine point nine percent of all vanished girls (they were mostly teenaged girls) were found enjoying destructive lifestyles that involved drug debts, the oldest profession, and boyfriends of low-level intelligence. The remaining point-one percent of all cases were usually found, decomposed, downriver from here. For the second time in a year, Will found himself hoping that Rose was safe and sound as opposed to any alternative that put her down in that black sweep of river.
It certainly didn’t seem like anyone was expecting them when Will and his mother walked into the station. For thirty minutes, they waited in a shoebox-sized room, while various cops kept doing what Josephine always called “the beverage dance”: “Water?” they’d say, sticking their crew-cut heads through the door. And: “We’re swamped tonight. Just a few minutes more, we promise. Tea in the meantime?” Every time, Will’s mother shook her head politely and addressed them by name. “No thank you, Sergeant Flynn,” she said. “We’re just fine, Captain Rossi.”
“We’re just waiting on Detective Donnelly,” one of them said. “He’s the one that’s familiar with your daughter’s case.”
Josephine nodded. She looked much more worried than she had at home. She twiddled her wedding ring and picked at the hem of the beige dress that was a tasteful echo of her new hair color. “Oh, Will,” she said. “Oh, Will, I don’t know what I’ll do if Rose isn’t okay.”
“She’ll be okay,” Will said automatically, putting his hand over her ice-cold one. Though he had no idea if that was true.
Will had been expecting a detective who was something like his old public school principal: someone with a brassy voice and an air of authority that he wore like a big-and-tall suit. But Donnelly was all weary looks and thoughtful pauses. He seemed like someone who had his retirement date marked and circled on his calendar.
“I understand you have some concerns about your daughter,” Donnelly said. He had a smell that reminded Will of old books and pine tree air fresheners.
“We’re probably overreacting,” Josephine said. “It was just my husband—He managed to log in to Rose’s old e-mail account, and there were some unread messages.”
All the messages were unread, Will thought. Every single one. But it was his mom’s rule that children didn’t butt in on adult conversation. The back of his throat fizzled. Josephine shot him a look, and he mouthed Excuse me.
“And your husband—” Donnelly started.
“He’s still home on the computer. Sleuthing. He wanted to wait until he had more information about her boyfriend, Damien.”
“Can you tell me Damien’s last name?” Donnelly asked. “It was missing from last year’s report.”
“Koch,” Josephine said. “At least, that was the name he gave me when he called last year. I pulled Rose’s credit report too.” Josephine slid the sheet across the table. “I can’t believe I never thought to do it sooner.”
Donnelly said nothing as he studied the piece of paper. “Has Rose had contact with anyone in your family?” he asked.
“She’s been corresponding with my younger daughter. For how long, I don’t know.”
Donnelly nodded, poker-faced.
Josephine touched her neck. “I don’t know much about computers, personally. That’s unforgivable, I know, especially given my husband’s expertise. But I wondered how accurate those in-boxes are. I did have a mortifying thought while I was sitting here: Maybe Rose deletes her sent e-mails. I’d never forgive myself if we’ve just come in here and wasted everyone’s time.”
“You’re a mother,” Donnelly said. “It’s your job to be concerned. So, just to be clear, these e-mails are the only thing that made you worry that your daughter’s gone missing again?”
“She left her blow dryer,” Josephine said with upturned palms that said she knew how silly it sounded. “Evidently, she left it when she ran away last year. But she took the big things, as you all probably remember.” She started the rambling list again: “Her makeup, her computer, her cell phone.”
“I remember. There was no signal on her cell phone. We couldn’t track it.” He tapped a chewed fingernail on the credit report. “According to this, she never paid the balance owed to her provider.”
“Oh no,” Josephine cupped her mouth with her hands. “Oh no, we missed that. We thought this was good news, didn’t we, Will?”
Will sat up taller, like a witness called to testimony. He nodded.
Josephine reached over and smoothed the back of Will’s hair in a reassuring way. “We’ve always assumed Rose changed her number or switched her provider.”
“The only inquiries here are for new credit cards.”
“Yes. Yes, I saw that.”
Donnelly looked down at his notepad. “So,” he said. “E-mails, hair dryer, cell phone. Nothing else?”
“Her pregnancy journal,” Will said automatically, without thought or foresight. He instantly shrank in horror. He’d spoken without being spoken to. He’d just been sucked in by the ambience of the police station. It had been too easy to imagine himself as a real detective, bringing his police supervisor real clues.
There was a beat.
“I’m sorry, a pregnancy journal?” Donnelly asked. His furry brow bent in a bewildered shape. “Do you have reason to believe your sister is pregnant?”
“No.” Will’s whole face was blazing. His tongue felt like the sashimi his parents liked to order from the red-lanterned restaurant in town. “I mean, Rose isn’t pregnant now. She was. A long time ago. Last year.”
“So you believe Rose has a baby?”
Will’s mother had a displeased look on her face. “No. No, she chose not to have that baby.”
“You’ll have to excuse me.” Donnelly lifted one apologetic shoulder. “I don’t have any children myself. A pregnancy journal is …?”
“A nine-month journal,” Josephine answered. “A place to track your moods and weight gain.”
“Rose wrote about being sad and kind of scared.” Will was careful not to look at his mother. “There was a little bit in there about Damien.”
“And you brought this journal with you?”
“No.” Will’s gaze fell to the linoleum. His mind flashed to Douglas at home in the garage. “We … I forgot it at home.”
“Don’t worry, love.” To the detective, she added: “It was a meaningless thing. We’d been hoping it would tell us more about Damien. It didn’t.”
Donnelly nodded. “So the last time you saw Rose …”
“In our home,” Will’s mom answered.
“In your home the morning before she left for school last year? Or in your home the night your son got hurt?” He gestured to Will’s splint, and Will fought the urge to cover it self-consciously with his other hand. “It’s just—Didn’t your other daughter see Rose in your house last week?”
Will looked to his mother, expecting her to ask when and why police had talked to Violet.
Instead, Josephine’s face was a mask of cool self-assurance. “Yes,” she said, firmly. “Yes, Violet saw Rose that night. As a matter of fact, we all did.”
VIOLET HURST
VIOLET SLEPT FITFULLY, in strange contortions, her arms shielding her face and her fingers losing so much circulation that she couldn’t feel her clenched fists. Maybe her low-threshold worry about Edie was to blame. Violet was poised for emergency, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was too attuned to each ordinary whisper, tossing and turning with every footstep and squeaky gurney wheel.
A nightmare woke her three hours too early. She’d dreamed the impossible: that the flashlight darting around her room was coming not from the hospital corridor but from the lawn outside her barred window. When Violet crept over for a closer look, the light hit the pane hard and refracted back over her sister’s face. Rose’s expression changed, in a flash, from shocked to pleased; she even flashed a Peeping-Tom smile. Violet’s whole body wailed from the shock. She woke gasping, sweaty and shivering, the night nurse (the nice one) whispering, “You’re safe, honey. You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you here.”
Kind as it was, it didn’t feel true.
• • •
Later, in therapy, Sara-pist wore a pleased look that bordered on callous. “What was it about this dream that disturbed you so much?”
“I think it was the way she caught me off guard. And the fact that she would intrude on me here, when she knew I was hurting. Where she knew it would be embarrassing.”
“So it felt like she wanted to connect? Or like she wanted to hurt you?”
“Both. Like hurting me was the only way she could connect.”
“We really need to work on these trust issues … Do you know what IRT is?” Violet shook her head and pulled her sleeves down over her wrists. “Image reversal therapy. That’s where you change how the nightmare ends so it no longer upsets you. If you could give the dream an ending that wasn’t scary, what would it be?”
Violet rubbed her hair. It felt like it had grown an inch in just one week without a clipper. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I’d go outside and confront her. I’d tell her I’m trying to work on my shit, and she might consider doing the same, instead of running around playing gotcha.”
“That’s good.” The shrink nodded. “Keep running it over and over in your mind with the new ending.”
“But there’s a logistical problem with that ending.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t go out and run her off. Because I’m in a locked ward.” The shrink took off her glasses and took a sip from her mug. “Funny thing you mention that,” she said. “You’re discharging me?”
“I am,” said Sara-pist.
Finally, she could stop Josephine’s smear campaign. She could make her escape from Old Stone Way. Violet clenched her fingers. “What does my mother think about all this?”
“She said she’s not going to press charges, provided you apologize for what you did to Will.”
“Okay.” Violet felt helpless and just wrong, having to apologize for something she hadn’t done. But it wasn’t the end of the world. She could do it. She didn’t need validation. She knew she didn’t hurt Will, and with Rose offering to take her in she had a plan and a place to go, and that was what really mattered.
“Your mom also said she’d work hard to honor the fair-fight contract we’ve come up with,” Sara-pist said. “She’s not going to come to you anymore about the ways you’ve disappointed her in the past. She’s gonna try to keep her issues in the here-and-now.”
“Great,” Violet said, although she didn’t believe it for a second.
Violet found Edie in the dayroom, rubbing her eyes and doing a vintage jigsaw puzzle. According to the tattered box, it was a portrait of the astronauts of Apollo 11.
“I think that one’s missing pieces,” Violet offered.
“Is it? Thank fuck.” Edie dropped the piece she was trying to shoehorn into Neil Armstrong’s face. “I thought I’d gone stupid or something.”
Violet helped her scoop the pieces back into the box. They were curling and yellowed with age. “They’re discharging me,” she said. “I’m going home.”
“Shit,” Edie said. “To your parents’ house?”
“I’ve thought about it, and I’m gonna try Rose.” Violet gripped her knees where she knelt. Maybe adrenaline was the reason she couldn’t stop shivering. She was equal parts liberated and scared.
Edie leaned over the moon and hugged her. “I’ll call my roommates,” she said. “If it doesn’t work out with Rose, I’m sure they won’t mind if you stay at our place for a while.”
It was tempting. Violet had a flash of the student houses she’d been to once or twice in New Paltz: teacup ashtrays, bowls of comforting rice-based meals, wet towels drying on old radiators, good music, container gardens, tapestries on the walls. But as terrified as she was to see her mother, she couldn’t bear the thought of having unfinished business with Will. She couldn’t run away and leave him behind, hating her, the same way Rose had left her.
“I’ve been thinking,” Violet said. “About narcissists. How do you get them to leave you alone?”
Edie frowned, ever the damaged scholar of psychology. “Almost impossible,” she said, shaking her head. “They almost never give up anyone who’s given them narcissistic supply. If you ignore them, they come on stronger. First, with the charm-offensive, and if that doesn’t sway you, they’ll settle for stalking you.”
“So they won’t listen to reason.”
“Unh-uh. There’s really only two ways to deal with them. You can mirror them. You know, flatter them, take their shit, don’t set any boundaries. Be a doormat, basically. Or you can limit your contact with them.”
“But how can you cut them off if they won’t leave you alone?”
“You’re talking about your mom?”
“Yeah.” Violet eased the decrepit lid onto the puzzle box. “Or whoever.”
“Well, you could scare her. If she has a secret—like if she hits your brother, or she claims Rose illegally on her taxes—you could use that to threaten her. It won’t take much. Just drop a hint or two. Bluff and say someone, a neighbor or something, knows all about it. Let her imagine the details. Narcissists have paranoid minds anyway, and deep down, they know they fall short of the front they put up.”
“So if my mom thinks I have something on her, she’ll let me go live with Rose?”
Edie made a small, humming sound. “Maybe.” Her brilliant-blue eyes looked unconvinced. “You could try to manipulate her.”
Violet shook her head. She had a bad reaction, almost physical, to the thought. She was no ceramics artist where her relationships were concerned; she either cherished them or she smashed them. She had no desire to go sticking her thumbs in people, molding them to her will.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Edie said. “I just mean, give her so much attention that she prac
tically ODs. Narcissistic supply is like a drug. When they’re high on it, they’re like toddlers. You can trick them into thinking they’re getting their way.”
“So you really think if I blow enough smoke up Mom’s ass, I can convince her to give me some space?” The irony wasn’t lost on Violet. That was exactly the way Rose had broken free: she’d been such an obedient daughter, such a model Hurst, that Josephine had backed off on her overbearing-mother routine, giving Rose enough space to do a runner.
“You might. Just make it look like it’s in her best interest. Maybe play it like you can be your mother’s mole. You can go live with Rose and report back with useful information. You don’t have to deliver on the promise once you’re there.”
After leaving the dayroom, Violet went to the phone booth and dialed Rose’s number. It was still work hours; Rose’s phone was off. It rang once, and an automated message introduced Violet to her sister’s message box. After the beep, Violet left her cell phone number and the news of her discharge. “Text me sometime today,” she said. “Mom or Dad will sign me out of here. I’ll go to the farm stand afterward and get my paycheck. After dark, I can meet you tonight, anywhere within walking distance of Old Stone Way. Choose a place, and I’ll be there. I know what to do.” She paused, then added, “I learned from the best.”
WILLIAM HURST
MAYBE THERE is no truth. That was the anthem of liars everywhere. Will knew that, and still he couldn’t stop thinking it. Because his mother’s truth was the only available option for him, and her “truth” was an outright fabrication—a bigger L-I-E than the Long Island Expressway.
For another forty minutes, Will sat in that cold, bright police room and swore up and down that he’d seen Rose, jogging down the Hursts’ eighteenth-century staircase as if she’d just popped home for a forgotten scarf or textbook.
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