The Quiet Girl

by S. F. Kosa

  “And your stepfather?”

  “They separated a few years ago, I guess. I was in school.”

  “Already in college?”

  “No, high school. I went to boarding school.”

  “Your choice?”

  Maggie studied Lori’s feet. She wore sensible flats, brown, rounded toe. “It was a good school.”

  “Was it difficult, to be away from home?”

  “No.” It was a tight lump of a sound.

  “Was it good, to be away from home?”

  Maggie glanced at the chessboard like her eyes had been yanked there, a fish on a hook. Sickness curdled in her gut yet again. She pressed her hands over her face.

  “It’s not easy, being home,” Lori said.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Maggie, tell me about your mom.”

  “Such a shrink.”

  “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

  Maggie’s eyes popped open beneath her palms. She sat up straight. “Oh God. You probably charge a thousand dollars an hour. I—”

  “You know what? Let’s worry about that another time. We can do a sliding scale. We’ll make this work for you.”

  “I can’t use my mom’s insurance.”

  “We’ll make sure this is confidential. And I’d really like to know about your mom. You have the same eyes, but you seemed really different otherwise. Apart from your mutual suspicion of people in my profession.”

  “You met her.”

  “Briefly, at the hospital. I introduced myself as part of the team. She made it clear that my services were unnecessary. And I take it she doesn’t know you’re here.”

  Maggie shook her head and let her hands fall from her face. “My mom’s fine. She’s just really religious. Thinks anything can be fixed with the power of prayer.”

  “You don’t agree.”

  “I think it’s bullshit.”

  “Does that cause tension?”

  Maggie scoffed. “I’d never tell her that. It’s not worth it.”

  “Not worth it to tell her you don’t share her beliefs.”

  “They’re important to her.”

  “Aren’t you important to her?”

  “She’s my mom, so…obviously?”

  Lori shrugged one shoulder. “Did you get along with your stepfather?”

  That fucking chessboard. Maggie winced and pulled her gaze away yet again. “It was fine. We’re not close.”

  “Did you know him before your father died?”

  “Church,” Maggie muttered. “He went to our church.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Saliva pooled in her mouth. “Lawrence.”

  “You said they divorced.”

  “No, I said they were separated.”

  “Was there a lot of conflict in your house?”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

  “So you don’t talk to him anymore.”

  “Did you hear me say we weren’t close?” She cleared her throat as the sound of her own voice reached her ears. “Sorry. God, I’m such a bitch sometimes.”

  “I did hear you say that,” Lori said. “But you also said he went to your family’s church. And though you don’t believe anymore, you told me your mother doesn’t know that, so it seemed plausible that you might still attend services with her.”

  She sounded so reasonable, so logical. “I try not to be home on Sundays.”

  “Does your mother question that?”

  “She’s always inviting me to some Bible study or another. The church is the center of her life.”

  “At what point did you decide it was bullshit?”

  “If there is a God, he’s a sick and twisted fuck,” Maggie said. “Easier to believe there isn’t one.” One piece was overturned. The black pawn at g7. A white pawn sat naked and oblivious at e4. She clutched at her knees, pulling them closer. Black allows white to occupy the center.

  “Maggie, how can I support you today? You’re dealing with so much.”

  The note of concern struck and vibrated inside Maggie, bringing her up, her feet to the floor, her hands to her lap. A nice young lady. One who didn’t cause trouble. She’d been acting like an idiot child. “I’m fine. Really. I just…” She laughed, realizing tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes. Her fingers darted toward the coffee table, snagged a tissue. She remembered the middle-aged lady who’d come out of this office before her, leaving with a tissue of her own. A parting souvenir. She dabbed at her eyes and snickered at herself, at this whole stupid situation. She shouldn’t have come.

  She’d needed to come. She’d wanted Lori to fix her. “I’m so stupid,” she whispered.

  “It’s quite obvious to me that you’re not,” Lori said. “And I’m pretty good at assessing intelligence. In fact, I think your intelligence is making this even harder for you. You feel like you should be able to control your own mind.”

  “If I can’t, isn’t that the definition of crazy?” Her phone vibrated in her purse. She looked down. Esteban. She’d have to unlock the screen to see what he had to say.

  “None of us has complete control. Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t want to black out and come to weeks later, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Then we should figure out what triggered this episode,” Lori said. “It might be painful, but digging deep and understanding it could help you. In a lot of ways.”

  Digging deep. Maggie stood up, her thoughts breaking apart and reconfiguring second by second, each time a different, ghastly shape. She glanced at the chessboard again. That fucking pawn. Who had knocked it over? She marched over to the board and righted it. Moved it to g6. The Modern Defense.

  She swept every piece from the board. The sound of them hitting the wall sent a chill through her, made her gasp. She froze, her eyes bouncing from the fallen white queen to the startled-looking woman standing nearby, surrounded by black pawns, the white knight resting against the toe of her right shoe. “I’m so sorry,” Maggie muttered, dropping to her knees and raking at the pieces. “God, I’m so sorry.”

  Lori knelt down and began to pick up the pieces, too. “You have nothing to apologize for, Maggie. It’s okay. Let me do this.”

  Maggie rose to her feet, her eyes burning. “I should go.”

  “You don’t have to. This is really okay.”

  Her shoulder hit the closed door. The escape hatch. “I didn’t mean—”

  Lori stood up and placed a handful of pieces on the board. “I have this time available next week, but I also have a slot open on Friday. I think it might make sense—”

  “I have to go.” Maggie shoved the door open, surfacing into the overly air-conditioned hallway, jogging through the waiting room.

  Clutching her souvenir tissue between clenched fingers.

  When she made it to the parking lot, she looked at her phone again. Read the text from Esteban.

  And knew what she needed to do.

  Thursday, August 6

  I leave Mina’s parents’ house by three and head for Boston, still reeling from the sheer weirdness of what’s happening. Whatever Rose’s motives, she was right that I should go and see Devon. I was supposed to have her for a few days this week as well as the weekend, and she must be wondering where the hell her dad has gone.

  I can’t help but make a little detour, though. Brewster has only one library, and it’s open. I slide along Route 6, past traffic crawling in the other direction, people in search of sunsets and waves. I roll into Brewster looking for something more fundamental, more desperate. The library is adorable in the way so many things in this part of New England are. It’s maroon with yellow trim, quaint and welcoming. Not a lot of cars in the parking lot; it’s a great day for the beach.

  I walk in
to the hushed, cool interior and find the reference desk. “Hi. Is Amy around?”

  The librarian, with horn-rimmed glasses and almost-buzzed silver hair, looks me up and down. Her eyebrows rise. “And you are?”

  “My name is Alex. Her dad told me I could find her here.”

  “Oh,” says the lady. I can see the debate behind her eyes as her gaze slides over me yet again. Stalker? Suitor? Good or bad news? She smiles. “I think she’s in back. Hang on.” She rises and heads through a doorway behind her.

  I spend my waiting time reading a wall display about the history of the library, started by twelve Brewster ladies in the mid-1800s. It reminds me of Scott and his pilgrim roots. Rose and her Southern heritage. All these deep ties, and yet as I think of Mina, I can’t pin her down anywhere.

  “Can I help you?”

  I spin around to see a short, mousy woman with frizzy brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She’s wearing a long skirt and a loose, short-sleeved shirt. She has the same blue eyes as her father, the same forlorn yet defiant look in them. “Amy,” I say. “I’m Alex Zarabian.” I offer my hand, and she shakes it.

  “I saw you on the news last night,” she says. “You know my dad?”

  “I just came from the Richardses’.”

  She nods, unsurprised. “I’m glad he has that community. They all support each other, no matter what.”

  “Do you have some time to talk?”

  “About Mina.”

  It’s not a question. I nod.

  “I can’t tell you much,” she says.

  “Anything might be helpful. I’m just trying to understand…everything.”

  She gives me a strange smile, with the corners of her mouth angled down. “There’s a little reading lounge.”

  I follow her into a sitting area next to a bay window looking out on a patch of woods. She sits in a rocking chair, and I sink onto a worn leather couch. “Your dad told me that you and Mina were friends.”

  “That was a long time ago.” She’s watching me with an almost amused curiosity. “Surely she’s made new friends since middle school.”

  I shrug. “The Cape has always meant a lot to her. I mean, we live in Boston, but she escapes to Provincetown whenever she can.”

  “Weird how people do that.” She continues when she sees my confusion. “I thought she’d leave and never come back.”

  “Because she thought she was too good for it?” That’s what Amy’s dad said. Winn Dalrumple, too.

  So I’m surprised to see the genuine puzzlement on Amy’s face. “Why would you say that? I never said that. No, I just thought…she wasn’t happy here.”

  “She told you that?”

  Amy looks out the window. “She never told me much. I didn’t understand it then, okay? We rode the bus to P-town every morning, only twenty kids or so from Truro, and we sat together every day. Lunch, too. In class, she was always the teacher’s pet. Always with a stack of books. I was, too, so we fit.” This time, her smile is right side up. “We’d make up stories—she was good at it, even then. I’d draw the pictures, and she’d write a few pages to go with them. At the time, I thought that was what we’d do when we grew up. Write books together.”

  “Did you have a falling out?”

  “It wasn’t like that. She…pulled away, I guess. Lost interest? One day, she didn’t want to do it, and I thought she’d change her mind, but she didn’t. She wasn’t mean, though. She seemed like she was somewhere else. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. She quit all her activities, one by one.”

  “Including chess?”

  She nods. “She was the best player, too. Tournaments and everything.”

  I still don’t get that. “Did something happen to her? How old were you?”

  “We were in eighth grade. I remember because it was our last year at the school—high school’s in a different town. We had to go on a tour of the school, and Mina stayed home that day. My parents told me she was going away for school.”

  “You didn’t know why?”

  “Not at the time. But a few months later, I overheard something one night. My parents talking. It was unseasonably hot, and the windows were open. Their bedroom was next to mine, so it happened sometimes.” She looks over at me and sees me there, leaning forward and desperate for answers. “It might not have had anything to do with it.”

  “It was about Mina.”

  She shakes her head. “Dad told Mom that the Richardses were having trouble.”

  “I’m surprised either of Mina’s parents would share that kind of thing.” Rose is all about appearances, and even Scott’s friends seem to think he’s a mystery.

  “Scott had asked my dad about renting one of his properties. My dad has a couple of cottages near the bay side. Wanted a month-to-month lease. And my mom said that Rose hadn’t been herself lately, and my dad wondered if they were having problems. I guess it was temporary, though. I mean, they’re still together.”

  I sit back, somewhat disappointed. Doesn’t every marriage hit a rough patch at some point? But it might also make a weird kind of sense, matched up with Mina’s manuscript. In the book, Maggie’s father, someone she has happy memories with, is dead and gone. And there’s a stepdad, with whom she isn’t close, who’s separated from Maggie’s mom. In Mina’s life, could these two characters be the same man? The engaged, fun-loving father who transformed into the stoic man I know today? “You think that’s why Mina got so withdrawn? Her parents were fighting and Scott had moved out?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. She left for sleepaway camp that summer, and then she was off at school. I got the address from my mom and wrote her, but she never wrote back.” She doesn’t sound sad, merely relating old facts no longer stitched to the pain they once caused. “I ran into her once or twice after that. Truro’s a tiny place, only a few restaurants. She was friendly, but her life was somewhere else.”

  “Did you ever hear anything about her disappearing?”

  She ponders the question for a second. “I guess she sort of did? Or at least I heard things, but I never thought of it like that.”

  So many questions crowd my mind that I can’t get them out fast enough. Rose said no one outside the family knew, but maybe that was a lie, to keep me from asking their friends about it? “What happened? When was it? Did you talk to her? I—”

  She holds up her hands as if trying to stem the flow. “I was in school. My freshman year at URI. I just remember my mom told me that Mina wasn’t starting college until the spring, and she’d been away all summer. My mom hinted that she wasn’t doing well. She said Rose was taking care of her. I figured she’d had a nervous breakdown or something. It happens, right? But I saw her at Christmas services that year with her parents, and she seemed fine, mostly? She’d gained a little weight, and her hair was really short, but she told me she was headed to Amherst in January. And she did, and I haven’t seen her since. Congratulations, by the way.” Her gaze is on my ring finger. She sighs. “And I’m sorry.”

  I leave the library with more questions than answers, glad I have the manuscript tucked into my bag. I skim over what I’ve read so far to confirm what matches and what doesn’t. Amy didn’t seem to know much about Mina disappearing, but what she described—Mina being away for the summer, then being home with her mom and out of school for a semester—sounds like the aftermath of the fugue she writes about in the book. Only she was younger than the character she’s created—only eighteen or so instead of twenty. Why would she age the character up? And I’m still puzzling over the whole stepfather-father thing. If so much of this is true to her life, and Rose and Ivy line up right down to the flower names, where’s Scott in the book? The father, the stepfather, or both? And was she really pregnant, or is that fiction, too, to spice up the drama and tension of the novel? Amy described Mina as having gained some weight when she saw her that Christmas, but that is
n’t definitive in the slightest.

  I want to keep reading, but Mina’s manuscript isn’t the only lead I have. And I need to get back to Brookline, but it’s rush hour, so I make yet another detour, this one even more uncertain but less than a twenty-minute drive from Brewster. It would be a waste if I didn’t even try.

  I make it to Harwich by half past four and pull up in front of the Mariner. It’s a standard gray clapboard structure on Main Street, across from a bakery. The interior is dark and plain and smells like yeast and grease. There are people at the bar, but it’s not crowded this early.

  The bartender has his back to me and is drying a set of pint glasses. When he turns to speak to a patron, I see him in profile, and my insides clench. It’s Stefan Silva. Has to be. I edge onto a barstool and wait for him to spot his new customer. During the few minutes it takes, I watch him. He’s built. Looks like he works out. Broad, sloped shoulders. Tats up the arms. Olive skin, black hair slicked back into a ponytail, beard. The ex-con that Mina had to see, had to speak to. This man from her past.

  The one she put in her book. Subtract a few years, and this is Esteban, straight out of the novel.

  “What can I get you?” asks Stefan as he turns to me, smiling, revealing a dead gray canine tooth that isn’t even a surprise. His eyes narrow. “Oh.”

  “Saw me on TV?”

  His nostrils flare. “What can I get you?”

  I glance at what’s on tap even as my thoughts churn at the eerie similarity between the man in front of me and the character from Mina’s book. This, at least, is a near-exact match. “The Mayflower IPA.”

  He fills a pint and slides it over to me. “I’m working,” he says quietly.

  “You’re not that busy.” When he starts to turn away, I lean forward. “Please.”

  Maybe the urgency in my voice turns him around. “I have no idea where she is,” he says. “The detective already called me. I was working the night she disappeared. Right here the whole time. Then straight home to my wife.”

  “I’m trying to figure out where she might have gone, all right? And I know she was trying to contact you.”