by L. G. McCary
Where is it taking me now?
My stomach lurches me back to the bathroom, and I grip for where the toilet should be. Thankfully I find it.
I’m having a panic attack. I must be. I wipe my lips with a piece of toilet paper. I’m just having a panic attack. I will ride it out and find Rylie.
My stomach twists again. I scream into the foul-smelling toilet bowl. I don’t know how I have anything to throw up. I’ve barely been able to eat all day.
I force myself up from the floor even as the world is spinning around me and splash warm water on my hands and face. I am so cold, but the heat stills my chattering teeth. I stumble through the house, looking for the right memory. I have to tell Her. I have to stop Her. She has to listen to me.
She’s standing in the kitchen. I’m too dizzy to stand, so I end up on my knees.
“Don’t let her go!” I scream, speaking the words as clearly and slowly as I can. “Please! Don’t let her go!”
She stares at me, frozen in terror. She mouths, “Who?”
The ice stabs me in the heart as I point back to Rylie’s room. She runs past me and disappears.
“Please! You have to listen!” I scream, scrambling for a piece of paper and pen on the counter. I’ll try earlier. I have to try!
I write “Don’t let Rylie go!” on the sheet and hold it in Her face as she appears in the laundry room doorway. She ignores me. I pace the room over and over, trying to find a version of Charlotte that will listen to me. One of them has to.
“God, please! Make me listen!” I scream, falling on the cold tile of the kitchen. “Why can’t you make me listen?”
The sobs tear through me. I slap the tile with my hand.
“Please! Please listen!” I cry.
I close my eyes and scream into the floor in agony. It’s pointless. I know it’s pointless because I’ve already seen myself try it! I won’t listen.
My phone lights up with a call, and I see David’s number. I have to pull it together. I take a slow deep breath and answer.
“Charlotte? Is everyone okay?”
“Rylie is missing.” The wall of ice hits me again, and I can’t speak. I stare as She stands in the kitchen, yelling without a sound. She’s yelling at David. I turn away and walk into the living room, keeping my eyes on the floor.
“She never...” I swallow the sobs in my throat.
“Charlie, what happened?”
“No one knows where she is.”
“Have you called my mom?”
“Yes, she’s coming.”
“Good.” I hear his fast footsteps through the phone. He’s probably racing to his car since he didn’t check a bag. “Did you call Renee to check?”
“Yes, she hasn’t seen her. I’ve called everyone, David, even Yvonne! No one has seen her. I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “I shouldn’t have let her go.”
A knock on the front door sends my heart racing, and I stumble through the hallway to open it. My mother-in-law is dressed in an old T-shirt and sweatpants.
“You weren’t answering my messages.” My mother-in-law shuts the door behind her and hugs me. “Did they find her?” I shake my head and can’t stop the tears.
“David’s on the phone,” I manage to get out between sobs.
“Here, I’ll talk to him.” I let her take the phone and sit on our couch, unable to stop the sobs. I have to get control of myself. I can’t find Rylie if I can’t calm down.
“Charlie, do you want to meet him at the church?” she asks. I manage a nod and try to breathe. She finally hangs up and sits next to me, her arms around my shoulders. I wish my mother-in-law could see all these ghosts floating around the room. She’d understand that this is serious. Rylie isn’t forgetting to call. Something is horribly wrong.
“Let’s get you calmed down and you can meet David at the church,” she says gently. “She’s going to feel terrible about doing this to you, Charlie. Goodness, one look at you, and that will be punishment enough.”
Forty-Two
The drive to our church is short with no traffic on the road. I probably shouldn’t be driving at all, but I don’t have a choice. I shiver with cold. The church is mostly dark, but the youth building lights are on. Jerry, Ellie, and several other youth sponsors are waiting for me in the front hallway.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Madsen,” Ellie says. She’s crying, and she hugs me hard. “I don’t know what happened. I’ve been here all night! She was here and then she was gone. Stupid sardines!”
“We’ve gone through the whole church,” Jerry says. His eyes are red, but I’m too angry to feel bad for him. “Diana just mentioned that maybe she fell asleep somewhere, so we’re going to canvass again and yell louder.”
“Rylie wouldn’t fall asleep.”
“I don’t think she would either,” Jerry says. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. We are calling all the parents who had kids here tonight to check if she went home with one of them. And I called the police. They’re sending someone.”
The word police makes me sick to my stomach.
“Did you use the sanctuary for worship?”
“Yes.”
“We should check the sanctuary again.” I don’t know why, but I have to go to that stage in the sanctuary. She’s spent so much time on that stage for praise dance performances. It’s her space.
Jerry hangs his head and nods. “The side door should be open. The lights are off though.” He points down the hallway instead of through the atrium. “I’ll wait here for the police.”
I step into the stillness. I can see streetlights outside through the stained glass.
“Rylie? Are you in here?” My voice echoes off the vaulted ceiling, and the rafters creak from the wind outside. I walk down the aisle, trailing one hand over the arms of the pews. I remember doing this as a child. The hollow tap of my fingers against the cool smooth wood beats a rhythm that reminds me of a heartbeat.
I walk to the table in front of the stage. The simple wood frame is as old as the church itself. The front panel reads, “In Remembrance of Me.” I sit on the front row and bow my head. I don’t know what I’m looking for. She’s not in any of the pews.
This church is full of memories, but which one matters? Which one will bring Rylie back to us? I think of the hollow eyes of the Other Mes over the years. Maybe I won’t find her. Maybe this is all inevitable and I didn’t know how to tell myself the truth.
I finally raise my eyes from the communion table to the baptistry. Someone has left the curtains open. I look at the tall wooden cross that hangs over the water and let myself remember Rylie’s baptism. She loved the white robe they gave her to wear. She wanted to keep it, but I told her we could take a picture instead.
The cross blurs through my tears. I need to do something more than remember. I lower myself to my knees on the edge of the stage, but I can think of nothing to say. How can I pray? I have no more words.
As I lay my forehead against the green carpet, the cold hits me. She went under the water, excitement lighting her face like a candle. I can almost hear Pastor John saying, “Buried with Him in the likeness of His death. Raised to walk with Him in newness of life.”
I wipe my tears away and peer into the baptistry. I see Her, eyes shining with pride and love. It replays in front of me. I know Rylie is bounding out of the baptistry and soaking my clothes with a hug. But I can’t see my little girl. I can only barely see the Other Charlotte, wrapping Her arms around empty air and mouthing words of love. My head is heavy, and I drop it back against the carpet as the memory skips back and forth. I don’t need to look up to know that the Other Me panics. Now I’m the weeping one. I don’t want to see her fear. I want to remember my daughter.
If I can reach out to the past, if I can see it in front of me like it’s real, why can’t I change it? Why can’t I stop Rylie from disappearing? If these memories can see me, why can’t I stop myself? Why won’t I listen?
Tears gouge down my cheeks and burn the backs of my ha
nds. I lay against the steps and wail. My voice belongs to a wounded animal, and I cannot control it. It comes out of my throat unbidden. The sound scares me. I vaguely remember crying out like this when Rylie came into the world.
“Charlotte?” It is David’s voice behind me. I struggle to my feet. It feels like I have been weeping for hours. Days. He gently pulls me into his arms, and we sit together on the front pew.
“Charlotte?” I hear Jerry saying from behind us. “Is this Rylie’s?”
I look up to see him standing next to a police officer who is holding a fluorescent pink backpack.
“Yes. That’s her ballet shoes.” I choke over the sob in my throat. “She wanted to show Ellie a new song.”
Jerry can’t look at me. The officer sets the bag down on the pew next to us.
“We found it behind the check-in desk,” he says. “Does your daughter have a phone?”
“No,” David says. “Not until she turns thirteen.”
“Can you describe what your daughter was wearing tonight? Hair color and eye color?”
I tell him everything I can remember. David stands up and starts pacing back and forth in front of the altar as the officer talks to Jerry and the dispatcher.
“So what are you doing to find her?” David says, grabbing my hand. “What do we do?”
“We are doing everything we possibly can,” the officer says, giving us his full attention. “I have a daughter, and I would be losing my mind if this were my girl. We are using every resource we have.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I nearly drop it, trying to get it out. Please let it be Rylie calling. Please God, let it be my daughter.
The screen flashes with a notification for an Amber Alert. It’s for Rylie.
Forty-Three
The police promised to watch for Rylie on patrols and told us to stay home in case she comes back. Comes back from where? Rylie has been missing for hours. I wander from room to room in the house, staring at her bed, the pile of ballet laundry, her favorite cereal in the pantry. And I watch myself laughing, grinning, then crying, screaming, and always picking up that horrible phone call from Ellie in the chair in the kitchen. The Other Me is everywhere. I conjure Her up with every regretful memory. Even the happy memories sting. It is like walking in the Arctic in summer clothes. I’m assaulted by the cold that precedes and the pinpricks of pain that follow every memory. I wonder if I will ever be warm again.
David stopped following me a long time ago, and my mother-in-law gave up soon after him. He sat on the back porch, staring into the empty yard. Empty to him. It’s filled with the fog of broken moments I feel more than remember. All the times I wouldn’t cartwheel with her or play with the Frisbee. All the times I was tired and wanted to get dinner finished and Rylie in bed.
There’s one room I’ve avoided. I can’t face it. My studio sits cold and dark as I wear a pathway in the carpet with my bare feet.
It’s almost five o’clock. David is still sitting on the porch. He hasn’t spoken since two.
One of my paintings of Rylie is slightly off-kilter. She sits on a swing, her four-year-old face surrounded by a halo of curls. I straighten it with a finger. It was the first time I tried to paint after Rylie was born. The memory is murky. I turn away from it and watch the Other Me in a blur of searching in a cabinet that is no longer there and pantomiming painting in the kitchen. It was so long ago. Then I realize there is a monster lurking in the cabinet in the studio. It’s the painting. Her painting. My painting. The room quiets for a moment as I let my mind go blank. I don’t want to think anymore. Every moment is another moment without Rylie. Another moment she could be hurt or dying. It hurts to breathe. I would give anything to change what happened.
It’s a crazy thought, but it snatches me up in a moment. What if I made Her? What if painting Her somehow made Her real? I spent so many hours trying to get that face right, to find the right shade of blue, the straggly eyebrows.
I have to destroy it. If I destroy the painting, maybe I’ll stop this. If I trapped Her in reality by creating the painting, maybe I will destroy Her if I destroy it. And if She is the link between now and my past, maybe if I end Her, I will stop the past from happening.
All I know is I have to try.
The cabinet is a mess, but the canvas is there in the back, wrapped in a paper bag. The image mocks me, captured in painful detail by my own brush before I knew what I was seeing. I need my razor blade.
I pull out the thick blade and set the painting against the wall where I won’t damage the furniture when I smash it. First, I’ll break the frame. Then I’ll shred the canvas into tiny pieces. If I obliterate Her, maybe I’ll reset back to when I can change things. Maybe I’ll stop it this time. I slip on the old pair of tennis shoes I use to work in the yard so I won’t hurt my feet.
The first kick snaps the side of the cheap frame. The second is harder. With each kick, I get angrier until I’m hurting myself through the shoes. The frame finally gives. I grab the razor and slash it from the top to the bottom right through her face and hands. It feels like blasphemy, like defiance. Cut after cut goes through the paint and the fabric as I will Her into nothingness. It started with the painting, and it will end with it.
“Charlie, what are you doing?”
David looks at me from the doorway in horror.
“I’m going to burn it.”
“No, honey, wait!” He moves to stop me, but I push him away and keep slashing. I have to stop it. I hear him begging me to stop, calling my name over and over. I imagine the razor cutting past the paint into something deeper. It looks like I ran the canvas through a shredder.
“Charlie, please stop.”
I ignore him and go to the garage to grab the metal bucket I once used for mop water. The matches are still on the top shelf in the kitchen cabinet. I stuff the shredded pieces into the bucket and put it outside on the porch.
“Charlotte, don’t,” my mother-in-law says from the doorway. I ignore her. David waves her away.
“Put it out further. Acrylic smoke is toxic.” He seems to have given up trying to stop me. He unreels the garden hose from the corner of the patio.
I strike the match on the box and drop it into the bucket. It burns slowly, then all at once. The smell is terrible. I back away and watch as the flames consume the painting.
I close my eyes and stand still, waiting for something to change. To start over. The acrid plastic smell of burning acrylic stings my nostrils and I shiver in the dark, but nothing happens.
“Charlie,” David touches my shoulder like I’m made of glass. “Why?”
“I had to. It’s all my fault.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how, but this is all my fault.”
“Charlie, I told you to let her go to the lock-in. I agreed.”
“It’s all my fault! It’s me! It’s me, David!” I run back into my studio and throw the closest canvas to the floor. “This is all my fault!”
“Stop!”
“I did this!” Every brushstroke seems to be laughing at me. I blindly tear at the canvases and stomp over them, ripping my studio to pieces.
“This isn’t your fault! Charlie, your paintings!” David yells. “Please don’t!”
“It’s me! I did this. I’m to blame!”
“No, you’re not!”
I whirl around to him, and the dreaded cold hits me. She materializes in front of me, blocking my view of David. There’s my old beautiful long hair, the clean artist’s smock, and paint-smudged fingers.
“Yes, I am!” I scream. She flinches and covers Her mouth with her hand. I see the mask fall back over Her face as She turns to respond to David, and I crumple to the floor. It didn’t work.
God, why? A moan oozes out of my throat like poison. David kneels over me and reaches for my arm like he’s being forced to pet a rabid dog.
“Charlie, don’t.”
“She blamed me,” I cry. This ache in my heart is like labor pain. It h
its in waves with each fresh realization of how much I pushed Rylie away.
“You didn’t do this.”
“But I did! David, we’re never going to find her. God, please kill me. Take me instead, please!”
“Charlotte.” His voice is rough with anger, and he grabs me by the shoulders. “Never say that again. Never, you hear me? We are going to find her.”
“Why did I let her go? Why?” The question wrenches out of me over and over. I am utterly broken, and I will never be mended. David cannot put this back together. No one can.
I stare at the brick wall of our house and shudder as the ice hits again. Inside, I can barely see Her walking from the kitchen to the living room and diving back behind the kitchen wall. I remember being so terrified of something moving outside. Now I know it was me. Such a strange moment to remember when my child has vanished. What is the point? I can’t change anything. I can’t stop her from leaving.
Why didn’t I listen? Why didn’t I keep Rylie safe?
Forty-Four
David asked Nana to stay at the house while he goes to the police station with more photos of Rylie. Her picture will be shown on the local morning news. I’ve let David handle it all. My phone has been blowing up ever since people started waking up. Message after message pings in the car speaker system as I follow the back road around the loop to the lake.
Rylie won’t be at the lake. I know she can’t be here, but I have to look.
The car bumps the concrete block at the front of the parking space, and I stomp the brake. The park is empty. It’s too early for kids to be playing. There are two other cars in the parking lot that probably belong to runners or bikers. I lock the car and zip up my coat against the wind off the lake. It will probably be hot once the sun is fully up. Patches of gray clouds race above me as I force myself down the path we’ve walked together more times than I can count. I don’t want to find her here, but I have to look.
The asphalt path winds through the patches of trees around the lake. I follow it to our usual spot.
