by S. F. Kosa
She puts her hand over mine. Her touch is warm and startling. “This is going to be hard for you,” she says, “and I know this is already a hard time. I really hope it helps. But this is all I can do. I’ve told you everything I know, and now I need to step away from it. I don’t want to lose my job. Please.”
When I offer my thanks, she gives me a sad smile. “I hope you find her,” she murmurs, and then she leaves me there. Disappears into the night, back to the train, back to New York. I sink back into my seat, manuscript in hand. This is going to be hard. I already feel that, but I’m braced for it. Nothing is worse than Mina being gone.
I read the first chapter.
The character doesn’t even seem to have a name for the first few pages, and she walks around in a fog. Then I find out her name is Layla, and she doesn’t seem anything like Mina. Not the Mina I know, at least.
Until the little similarities start to peek out. Just a few lines here and there, but they stand out to me like a clown at a funeral parlor. The main character laughs when she’s happy, to the confusion of those around her. She hates seafood. Mina’s real-life neighbors—there they are, Chris and Aaron, transplanted into the story—are kind to the lost, drifting girl. She even gave the damn, determined pigeon a cameo.
I keep reading, page after page, searching for more clues, devouring my wife’s prose, hunched over the table as the tension rises. Before I know it, I’m several chapters in, almost halfway, deep enough for Layla to realize that her real name is Maggie and that she lost herself for two whole months.
And that she’s pregnant.
She walked away from her life, including her car, her keys, her phone, and her wallet…and became someone else. No memory of her old life or of the people who loved her.
The psychiatrist in the story warns that it might happen again.
“Closing soon, buddy. Last call.” The bartender taps at his watch.
I stand up and check my phone. It’s nearly midnight. And I have to get back, because a new, terrible, weird, hopeful, horrible possibility has presented itself.
Chapter Seven
It was her room, but it wasn’t. Years ago, before college and high school, before her father died and everything fell apart, back when she had laid her head on this pillow every night, she had been a different person. A little girl in another world. Her fingers tripped along the meticulous stitches in the square patches of the quilt bunched around her body. Did a square remain a square when it was pulled and twisted and distorted by every connecting stitch, every other square around it? Perhaps it became something else, but she didn’t know what to call it.
This room. White walls, white curtains, white sheets that she was not supposed to stain. Washed every week with bleach. Polished wood floors, no shoes, only socks, and break that rule at your peril, a matching dresser and desk and bookcase, no drinks, no food, no crumbs, nothing sticky. Stuffed animals at the foot of the bed. Flower Flopears, the elephant. Wilbur Longfoot, the kangaroo. Sweetie Flufftail, the rabbit. She hadn’t named them. And the person who had was gone.
With a brisk knock, her mother entered. Her nose wrinkled slightly. “When you’re ready, darling, I can run a bath.” She smiled. “I’ll put bubbles in. The lavender kind.”
Ivy was dressed for going out, someplace casual, some occasion that called for effortless. Linen slacks and a flowered shirt with an embroidered collar. Golden cross pendant dangling from a delicate chain, nestled into the hollow of her throat. Shell-pink nails and matching lip gloss.
“Bible study?” Maggie guessed.
“I’ve left supper for you in the refrigerator. Fried chicken and potato salad. And I made fresh rolls. Have one while they’re still warm!” Ivy fluttered near the window, pulling the curtains wide to let in the harsh afternoon sun, running her fingertips along the blinds. “I haven’t dusted these since May!” An accusation wrapped in gauzy self-blame.
“It’s fine, Mom.” Maggie turned her face into the pillow, fighting back a wave of nausea. “I just want to sleep.”
“Lying around all the time won’t help you feel better. I have a half hour before my group. If you want to get ready, maybe do your hair, you could come. The ladies would be so happy to see you looking pretty and well. They’ve been nonstop prayer warriors, and here you are.”
So they could take credit for her return. Did they want to take credit for whatever had happened to her while she was gone, too? No, no. God only brought the good things, and the rest, well, that was what happened when people didn’t behave according to His will.
All these things that could never be said aloud.
Maggie sensed her mother near the bed, raising the fine hairs along Maggie’s exposed forearm. She pulled the sheet up to cover her shoulders. “They told me to take it easy. You heard the nurse.”
“She didn’t mean forever. People need to see that you’re all right. It will make them feel better after so much worry.”
“People.”
“This isn’t just about you.” Her mother’s voice was low and sweet and dangerous, a straight razor against soft skin. Even the tiniest diversion from its path would bring blood. “When you disappeared, it hurt a lot of people. While you were gone, doing whatever you were doing without letting anyone know you were even alive, the rest of us were worrying ourselves to an early grave.” A blessed moment of silence, then the inevitable: “I bought a third plot at Woodside. I thought I might be laying you in the ground next to your father.”
“Mom, please,” she whispered. She couldn’t be sick. Not now. She pulled her knees to her chest.
Her mother let out a delicate sniffle. Maggie stayed limp as she felt her mother’s hand on her back. Rubbing. She gritted her teeth.
“What am I complaining for? I should just be grateful you’re home safe,” her mother murmured. “And we have this month to get you ready to go back to school. Your junior year! What a time in your life! That’s a blessing, too.”
A distant ringing from the landline in the living room. Ivy’s steps receded, swift and silent, until she reached the creaky spot a foot beyond the threshold. Maggie’s fingers clawed into her pillow at the sound.
The trill of her mother’s perfect laughter filtered down the hall, followed by the lightest of everything-is-all-right tones. As her mother chatted away, Maggie’s muscles unspooled slowly. Sunlight had turned the room a faint shade of gold, imposing its buttery stain on an empty white canvas. Her gaze darted to the plastic bag near the closet. She had to get that put away before Ivy did it for her; she never tolerated a mess. Untidiness was an insult to the Lord. A sign that you weren’t grateful for what you’d been given.
Inside the bag were the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d been hit. The clothes she’d been wearing when she’d run for her life. Or maybe not, but it had felt like it at the time. Wincing at the pull of bruises and scratches, wounds not nearly serious enough to keep her safe, she sat up. Slid off the bed. Crawled toward the bag. Sat in front of it. Her belly hurt, a fierce pang. She didn’t know if she needed to puke or to eat or both. Probably both.
Morning sickness. The realization raised another wave of queasiness, and her stomach became a fist. Swallowing hard, Maggie yanked the bag into her lap. She pulled out an oversized T-shirt. Haverman’s Helles House, it said across the chest. She pressed the fabric to her nose. It smelled of stale smoke and sweat, a combination that made her throat tighten. She coughed and tossed the shirt toward the white ceramic trash can next to the desk. She pulled a pair of shorts from the bag next, intending it for the same destination, but one pocket seemed bulky and misshapen. She reached inside and pulled out a wad of bills, which she counted quickly. Three hundred and twenty dollars. With a quick glance toward the door, she pressed the money to her chest, then crawled over to her bed and tucked it under the mattress.
She smoothed the sheet over the side of the bed. Pulled up the qui
lt and did the same. Neat, neat. She felt a little more powerful—until she heard the creak outside the door. Her mother reentered the room without knocking this time, her blue eyes alighting on her daughter sitting on the floor next to the bed.
“Did you fall?” Ivy scanned the room, spotting the plastic bag, the shorts on the floor, the shirt in the garbage. “Oh, dear.” She bustled toward the closet, scooped up the bag, the shorts, and the shirt. “I’ll deal with these. I put the suitcase we found in your car inside the closet, so there are clothes in there, but for winter and spring. I’ll buy you some nice, new summer clothes. I meant to tell you; the summer festival is this Sunday.”
Maggie pulled herself back onto the bed and sat on the edge as her mind scrambled for the words she needed. She’d had this all figured out in May, but her plans…her plans had been ruined. “I might have to work,” she tried. “The bakery. I have to see.”
Her mother gave her a pitying look. “Oh, I spoke to Doris at Flour Child. She said she hopes you feel better. Next summer, I’m sure it will all work out.”
Saliva filled Maggie’s mouth, and then she was lumbering past her mom, desperate to make it to the bathroom in time. It would be bad in so many ways if she didn’t. Her knees hit tile, and she lunged for the bowl while her mother cried out from the hallway. And then it was all dark and swirling and hands on her back and fingers scraping against her scalp, pulling at her hair. Then it was sour and hurting, acid seeping into well-worn grooves.
She opened her eyes when her mother pressed the rim of a cup to her mouth. “Will you be all right if I leave you?” Ivy was asking. “I can call to cancel—”
“No,” Maggie said. “My stomach is just unsettled. Maybe some of the medication they gave me in the hospital. I’ll be fine. I’m fine.”
“Yes.” Ivy straightened and washed her hands in the sink. After drying them, she pulled her blouse straight and examined her hair in the mirror. “You’re fine. Eat something, though. It’ll help get that stuff out of your system.”
She helped Maggie off the floor, wiped her mouth with a damp washcloth, and led her back to her room. Ivy tucked her into the bed that had known a different girl. One who believed in magic. It had all made sense to that girl, and Maggie could remember the safety that came with such certainty. She’d been a baby bird nestled in a warm, divine palm more secure than any nest. She’d believed in all the things she couldn’t see, the forces that pulled her toward good and bad, angels and demons and a God that heard her thoughts and had a plan for her, for her life, for everyone around her, for all time. And she was loved, and her soul would go on forever, as long as she followed the right path. It had been easy, once.
She couldn’t quite remember when it had stopped making sense. Was that another month she’d forgotten? A whole year? Or just a thread of memory that had been pulled from the intricate netting of her mind? Not that it mattered. She had other things to worry about now.
Her mother called out her goodbyes as she left, and Maggie edged over to the window to watch the car pull out of the drive. Then, stepping over the creaky spot by habit, she padded down the hall to the living room and began the hunt. Her phone wasn’t in her room, so it had to be out here somewhere. And sure enough, the charge cord snaked out of the front drawer of her mother’s writing desk, leading her to the treasure. There were dozens of missed calls, dozens of voicemails.
She looked for one number, one name, the one that had mattered most, but didn’t see it. Not even once. Wes hadn’t even bothered to try to reach her, to check in, to say hi, to say he was worried. Did he even know she’d been missing?
She stifled a low, pathetic whine with a hand pressed over her mouth. Then she listened to the messages that had been left since she’d been found. Two days, two messages. One from Reina, to see how she was doing. One from Dr. Schwartz, also to see how she was doing. Inviting her to call and follow up. Couldn’t take the hint. Couldn’t help even if Maggie gave her the chance.
But Reina…that was different. She pressed her friend’s number. She had to tell someone. As the phone rang, Maggie panicked. She hung up without leaving a voicemail.
Once she opened her mouth, it would be real. And she couldn’t pluck the knowledge out of Reina’s brain. Who knew who she would tell? Maybe even Ivy.
She froze as an idea occurred to her. There was one person who might be able to help if Reina and Dan had been telling the truth. She texted Reina: Hey. Sorry I missed you. Can you give me Esteban’s number? I’d like to thank him for trying to help me.
She pondered for a solid few minutes before finally sending it. After that, she gave in to the hunger that had been clawing at her. Knowing her mother would likely be gone for at least three hours, she settled in at the kitchen table with the food laid out around her. Her hands tore at the cold fried chicken, letting the greasy strands of bird muscle slide across her fingers and her lips. She scooped the potato salad out with those same polluted fingers, shoved it between the same oily lips. If only Ivy could see her now, slouched over the table, elbows on wood, napkin nowhere in sight, let alone folded across her thighs, mayonnaise beneath her fingernails, smears of barbecue sauce on her cheeks, gobs of both in the lank strands of hair swinging like pendulums on either side of her face while she rocked back and forth, back to swallow and forth to gorge.
She staggered away from the carnage as her phone buzzed. Reina was pissed that she was more interested in getting Esteban’s number than actually talking, she could tell. No pleasantries, no emojis. But she’d given Maggie what she wanted. Feeling reckless and drunken with the feast and the power of not being watched, she sent another text before she could consider whether or not it was sensible.
Hi. This is Maggie. Can we meet?
Oh, here came the debate. This was the guy who’d chased her through a parking lot, toward a road. She remembered the terror. It was the first thing, in fact, that she remembered since Student Lot A. Terror. And being chased. By Esteban.
But Dan and Reina had told her that was all a mistake. Esteban had been looking out for her. Trying to save her from herself. She—
I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
She let out a shaky breath. I’m sorry you got arrested.
It’s ok, as long as you really believe I was only trying to help.
She wasn’t sure if she believed that or not. Are you still willing to help?
??
She frowned. Bit her lip. Will you tell me what happened? I can’t remember. It seemed the safest way.
I have to be at work at 7.
Can we meet halfway?
Maggie tensed against a lurch of anxiety. It needed to be someplace public but not enclosed. She needed to be able to run, to get away. She didn’t want to be watched. Then she remembered just the place. How about the Salt Pond? There’s a visitor center.
They agreed to meet in an hour.
Maggie looked in the mirror for the first time since she’d come back to herself. One glance was enough to have her in the shower. Not because she cared so much about how she looked but because she didn’t want people noticing her, and a girl with circles under her eyes and congealed potato salad residue all over her face would probably earn some stares.
A half hour later, she had swiped her keys from her mother’s desk, along with a twenty from Ivy’s secret cash stash that she didn’t think Maggie knew about.
Maggie had learned so many of her mother’s tricks and games so long ago…but it hadn’t ever been enough. She caught the front door handle, her hand suddenly trembling. Confusion washed over her. As if she’d just popped into this place and time, into this mind and these thoughts. But the feeling departed as quickly as it had arrived, and her desperation propelled her forward. Out to the drive. To the carport. To the Corolla she’d apparently left abandoned in a ski resort’s parking lot miles from where she went to school, in the opposite direction of where
she’d planned to go. She sat in the driver’s seat, waiting to lose herself. Almost wishing it would happen, that she’d disappear, blink out, and when she awakened, her body would be her own again, and all would be well.
No such luck, either good or bad. Maggie examined the gas gauge and turned the key in the ignition and set herself in motion, keenly aware of every heartbeat and every second, keeping time for all the lives she carried inside her. She turned on the radio, Y101, and cranked it up until the relentless beat chased everything else away. He would be there at four, he’d said.
She made it to the parking lot of the visitor center with several minutes to spare. She parked her car and got out, skittered away from it like it was radioactive. As if someone might see the car, read the license plate, hunt her down. She strode along the sidewalk, momentarily focused on stepping on each and every crack, before pausing in front of the dry erase board that held the day’s schedule of talks. She was missing “The Mysterious World of Eels,” which had begun on the terrace about fifteen minutes earlier.
She sought out a spot along the split rail fence that separated the parking lot from the pond. Plenty of people around, bikers and walkers and families introducing their children to the history of Cape Cod as a respite from the packed, sweltering beaches. She’d been here before, seen it all. Several times. She rubbed her fingertips along the rough wood and watched the parking lot.
She could tell it was him not because she recognized him but because of the way he looked at her. Like he knew her. He drove a Corolla, too, only much more beaten up than hers. He closed the door gingerly, like he was patting the hand of an old lady, before coming toward her. Approaching like she was a wild animal. His lips formed a word, then changed their shape. “Maggie,” he said. “Hi.” He stopped about ten feet away. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”
“I washed my hair.”
He smiled. “You also look slightly less terrified. But only slightly.” He looked around as if the police might tackle him at any moment.
