Still Missing

by Chevy Stevens

  I even dug my hands through the soft garden dirt surrounding the cabin—I wouldn’t have put it past the sick bastard to bury her where we planted food—and crawled under the porch. Nothing. The only place I hadn’t searched yet was the shed.

  The summer sun had been beating down on the metal shed all morning, and as the door opened, the odor of his already decomposing body rushed toward me in a nauseating wave. I grabbed a gasoline-scented rag off the bench and held it against the bottom of my face. Then, concentrating on breathing through my mouth, I tiptoed past his body. Flies that had hitched a ride in with his corpse the day before hummed around the tarp, as loud as the generator.

  With trembling hands I dug everything out of the freezer. She wasn’t in there, and the shelves held nothing but lanterns, batteries, kerosene, and ropes. I found a trapdoor with stairs to a root cellar, its dank scent fresh compared to the stench of death above. All it contained was canned foods, house hold items, a first aid kit, some boxes, and in an old coffee can a roll of money with a pink hair elastic wrapped around it. I hoped the elastic didn’t belong to another girl who’d been hurt. It wasn’t a lot of money, so I figured he had more stashed elsewhere. His wallet still hadn’t showed up, not in his pocket when I grabbed the keys or in any of the cupboards in the cabin, but I’d never seen him with one. One of the keys hadn’t fit any locks yet and I hoped it was for the van, hidden somewhere, his wallet inside.

  In a wooden crate I discovered a rifle, a handgun, and ammo. I stared down at them. I’d never really seen the gun he threatened me with the first day, only felt it in my back and saw the butt of it in his waistband. It looked small next to the rifle, but I hated them both. One had killed the duck and one had forced me into this hell. My hand moved for just a second to the spot on my lower back where it had been pressed. I closed the crate and shoved it behind some others.

  Each time I opened a box I was afraid I might discover my baby’s body shoved inside, something that needed to be stored away and neatly labeled “Practice.” But the final box only held my yellow suit and all my photos and newspaper ads. When I opened it I caught a trace of my perfume and I pressed the soft material against my nose. I tried the blazer on over my dress but it felt wrong to wear it—like I’d put on a dead girl’s clothes. I left the suit in the box and only took the photo of me I thought was from my office as I headed back up and out into the light.

  The only area I hadn’t searched was the surrounding forest, so after I drank some cold water, I stuffed an old packsack I’d found in the cellar with protein bars, the first aid kit, and a Thermos of water. I was about to head out when I spotted the photo on the counter next to my baby’s blanket and one of her sleepers. I added them all to my packsack of treasures.

  Soon after I stepped into the forest on the right side of the cabin, the steady rush of the river and the chirp of the birds that usually clustered in the clearing faded and the only sounds were my footsteps muffled by the blanket of fir needles covering the ground. I spent the rest of the afternoon climbing over and under dead logs, digging at every slight mound, and sniffing the air for any trace of rot. I never went into the woods any deeper than fifteen minutes from the cabin and worked my way toward the highest point of the clearing in a sweeping radius.

  When I finally made it to the top, I discovered a narrow trail at the edge of the woods heading into the forest. Crowded with salal and lady ferns, it was a vague line discernible only by the odd faded machete mark on the tree trunks. Some of the trees, Douglas firs reaching higher than I could see, were a couple of feet around and their trunks were blanketed in moss, which meant it was a moist forest. I was probably still on Vancouver Island.

  I looked back at the clearing one final time and prayed that if there was a heaven—and I’ve never wanted to believe more than in that moment—then my baby was with my dad and Daisy.

  As I headed down the trail, I spotted a possible break in the tree line in the distance and after another five minutes I stepped out of the woods onto an old gravel road. Judging by the potholes and lack of tire tracks, it hadn’t been used for a while. About ten feet down, the bank dipped in slightly on the right.

  Moving toward it, I realized the dip was the start of a smaller road veering off the main one. The Freak would’ve had to hide the van close to the cabin, so I decided to follow it. Not much wider than a truck, it was covered in grass and if you were driving by you probably wouldn’t even notice it. It curved around to run parallel to the main road, about twenty feet of trees between the two.

  Farther down the road I came across a small white bone, and my feet stopped along with my heart. I scanned the ground inch by inch, then found a bone too large for my baby, and within a few feet I nearly stumbled on the skeleton of a deer.

  I followed the road until it ended in a wall of dead broom bush and branches. At the bottom, a piece of metal glinted in the sun. With frantic hands I ripped the vegetation away. I was staring at the back of a van.

  A quick search of the glove box turned up no wallet or registration papers, not even a map. Peering between the seats into the dim back of the van, I noticed some material wadded into a ball and reached for it. It was the gray blanket. The one he used to abduct me.

  The sensation of the rough wool in my hand combined with the scent of the van was all too familiar. I dropped the blanket like it was on fire and flipped around in the seat. Trying not to think about what had happened in the back, I focused on turning the key in the ignition. Nothing.

  I held my breath. Please start, please start…and tried the key again. Nothing. My body dripped with sweat in the sweltering van and my legs stuck to the vinyl seats, where my dress had ridden up. With my forehead against the hot steering wheel I took a few calming breaths, then popped the hood. I spotted the disconnected battery cable right away, tightened it back up, and gave the engine another try. This time it came to life immediately and the radio began to blast country music. It had been so long since I’d heard music that I laughed. When the DJ came on I caught the words “…back to a commercial-free hour.” But no clue to where I was, and when I tried to find another station, the knob just spun around.

  I threw the van in reverse, backed down the little road, ran right over some saplings, and shot out onto the main road. It hadn’t been graded for a while, so I took my time coming down the mountain. After about a half hour my tires hit pavement, and maybe twenty minutes later the road straightened out.

  Eventually my nose caught the familiar scent of ocean air tinged with the sulfur from a pulp mill, and I came into a small town. Stopped at a red light, I noticed a coffee shop on my left. The smell of bacon drifted through my open window and I inhaled the aroma with longing. The Freak never let me have bacon, said it would make me fat.

  My mouth filled with saliva as I watched an old guy sitting near the window pop a piece of bacon into his mouth, chew quickly, then shove another one in. I wanted bacon—a plateful, nothing else, just strips and strips of bacon—then I’d chew each piece slowly, savoring the salty yet slightly sweet juices every crunch released. A big bacon fuck-you to The Freak.

  The old guy wiped his greasy hands on the shoulder of his shirt. The Freak whispered in my head, You don’t want to be a pig, do you, Annie?

  I looked away. Across the street was a cop shop.

  SESSION NINETEEN

  Hope you’re feeling better this week, Doc. Guess I can’t give you a hard time for canceling our last session, considering I was probably the one who gave you the cold. I’m feeling better myself, about a lot of things. For starters the cops called early this week to tell me they nabbed the guy who’s been doing all the break-ins, and yep, it was just a teenager.

  You’ll also be happy to hear I haven’t slept in the closet since I last saw you, and I’ve stopped having a bath at night. Now I can shave my legs in the shower and I don’t even need to wash and condition my hair twice. I can pee over half the time without having to do any deep breathing and I eat when I need to. Sometim
es I don’t even hear The Freak’s voice when I break one of his rules.

  Only thing that keeps nagging at me is that stupid photo The Freak had of me—the older one. I hadn’t thought about it once since I came home, too much other shit going on, but then after I mentioned it to you the other day I came across it in a little box where I keep the stuff I brought home from the mountain, during another of my many that-bastard-must-have-stolen-something searches of my house.

  The real estate company where I worked had cubicles and I kept a corkboard above my desk with lots of photos pinned to it, so I figured maybe The Freak had snatched it from there. If he said he was looking for a house, he could have been in the office meeting with any of the Realtors. That might even have been when he first saw me, for all I know. But why would I have had one of just myself up in my office? And why am I driving myself nuts trying to figure it out? It’s not like it matters anymore. Hell, sometimes I think my mind just looks for shit to obsess about. It’s like trying to put a group of kids to bed—one worry finally drifts off, and another is out and running.

  This week I was thinking about how in the past Christina and I would’ve gone over every minute of Luke’s visit, analyzing it scene by scene, and I had a wave of missing her. Reminding myself how relieved I’d felt after I made my list, and how proud I’d been when I finally faced Luke, I dialed her cell before I could chicken out.

  “Christina speaking.”

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Annie! Hang on a sec—” I heard muffled sounds of Christina speaking to someone, then she came back on the line. “Sorry, Annie, hectic morning, but I’m so glad you called.”

  “Shit, it’s tour day, isn’t it? Want me to call later?”

  “No way, lady—I’m not letting you off that easy. I’ve been waiting too long for you to pick up the phone.” We both paused.

  Not knowing how to explain my avoidance of her and everyone else, I said, “So…how have you been?”

  “Me? Same old, same old.”

  “And Drew?”

  “He’s good…he’s good. You know us, nothing ever changes. How are you doing?”

  “Okay, I guess….” I searched my mind for something interesting in my life I could share. “I’m doing some bookkeeping for Luke.”

  “You guys are talking again?” Out came the fake Russian accent. “Vell, vell, vell, that’s good news.”

  “It’s not like that—it’s just a business thing,” I said, quicker than I meant to.

  She gave her I-know-you’re-full-of-shit laugh, then said, “If you say so. Hey, how’s your mom doing? I saw her and Wayne downtown the other day and she was looking, ummm…”

  “Pissed out of her mind? Seems to be the theme lately. But she did come over a couple of weeks ago to bring me back my photo album and some pictures of Dad and Daisy I’d never seen. That shocked the shit out of me.”

  “She thought she lost you—she’s probably still trying to come to terms with it all.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t feel like getting into it, so I said, “I was wondering what my house is worth these days.”

  “Why? You’re not thinking of selling, are you?”

  Not wanting to talk about the break-in, I said, “It’s just not the same since Mom rented it out—doesn’t even smell like me anymore.”

  “I think you should give it some time before you—” A voice said something to Christina in the background. “Darn, my clients just arrived out front. We’re already late, so I’ve gotta run, but give me a call this evening, okay? I really want to talk to you.”

  During and after the phone call, I missed Christina more than ever, and I did think about calling her that night, but her sign-off told me she was gearing up for another of her this-is-what-you-should-do talks and I just couldn’t deal with it. So when I heard the knock on my door Saturday afternoon and looked through the window to find Christina, who’s always dressed to the nines, standing on my front porch wearing white overalls, a baseball cap, and a shit-eating grin, I didn’t know what the hell to think. I opened the door and saw she was holding a couple of paintbrushes in one hand and a huge paint can in the other. She handed me a brush.

  “Come on, now, let’s see what we can do about this house of yours.”

  “I’m kind of tired to day. If you’d called—” She blew right by, leaving me talking to my doorstep.

  Over her shoulder she said, “Oh, please, like you answer your phone.” She had me there. “Quit your whining and get your ass in gear, girl.” She started pushing one end of my couch, and unless I wanted my hardwood floor damaged, I didn’t have much choice but to join in moving all the crap out of my living room. I’d always wanted to paint the beige walls but I’d never gotten around to it. When I saw the gorgeous creamy yellow she’d chosen, I was hooked.

  We painted for a couple of hours, then took a break and sat outside on my deck with a glass of red wine. Christina won’t drink anything under twenty dollars a bottle and always brings her own stuff. The sun had just gone down, so I turned all my patio lanterns on. We sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Emma chew her rawhide bone, then Christina looked me straight in the eyes.

  “So what happened between us?”

  I played with the stem of my glass and shrugged. My face felt hot.

  “I don’t know. It’s just…”

  “Just what? I think if people are friends, they should be honest with each other. You’re my best friend.”

  “I’m trying, I just need—”

  “Did you follow up on any of my suggestions or did you block them out too? There’s a book out now by a rape survivor you should read, it talks about how victims had to build up walls to survive, but then afterwards they can’t—”

  “It’s that. The pressure. The endless, constant ‘you shoulds.’ I didn’t want to talk about it, but you just couldn’t let it go. When I tried to tell you I didn’t want the clothes, you just steamrolled right over me.” I stopped to take a breath. Christina looked stunned.

  “You were trying to help, I get that, but man, Christina, sometimes you just have to back off.”

  We were both quiet for a minute, then Christina said, “Maybe if you explained why you didn’t want the clothes?”

  “I can’t explain, that’s the problem, and if you want to help, then you just have to accept me the way I am. Stop trying to make me talk about shit, stop trying to fix me. If you can’t do that, then we can’t hang out.”

  I braced for fireworks, but Christina nodded a couple of times and said, “Okay, I’ll try it your way. I need you in my life, Annie.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, good. I mean, that’s great, because I want you in my life too.”

  She smiled, then her face turned serious. “But there’s something I have to tell you. A lot of things happened when you were away…. Everyone was so emotional and nobody knew how to handle it. And—”

  I held up a hand. “Stop. We have to keep things light. It’s the only way I can do this.”

  “But Annie—”

  “No, no buts.” I had a feeling she wanted to tell me she got the project—I drove by her signs in front of it the other day—but the last thing I wanted to do was talk about real estate. Besides, it made sense that she got it, and I was happy for her. Hell, I’d way rather it be her than whoever I was competing against.

  She stared at me hard for a few seconds, then shook her head.

  “All right, you win. But if you’re not going to let me talk, then I’m going to make you paint some more.”

  With a groan I followed her back into the house, and we finished the rest of the living room.

  After we said our good-byes on the porch and she was about to step into her BMW, she turned back.

  “Annie, before, I was just being the same way with you as I’ve always been.”

  “I know. But I’m not the same.”

  She said, “None of us are,” and shut her door.

  The next afternoon I decided to go through a coup
le of boxes of my stuff I’d found in my mom’s carport when I was borrowing some gardening tools. The first one was full of my real estate awards and plaques, which I put away in my office without hanging them. The second box, with all my old art supplies, drawings, and paintings, interested me much more. Tucked into the pages of my sketchbook was a brochure for an art school I’d forgotten I wanted to go to. For once, a trip down memory lane wasn’t lined with screaming ghosts, and the smell of charcoal pencils and oil paints made me smile.

  I pulled out my sketch pad and the brochure, grabbed my pencils, poured myself a glass of Shiraz, and headed for my deck. For a while I just stared at a blank page. Emma was lying in one of the last rays of the setting sun, which made her coat glow and accentuated the shadows on her. With my pencil I followed the curve of her body on the paper, and then it started coming back to me. Reveling in the sensation of my hand brushing against crisp paper, I watched my simple lines create a form, then smudged some of them with my finger-tips for shading. I kept working at it, changing the balance of light and dark, then stopped to gaze for a few seconds at a bird whistling in a tree near me. When I focused back on my paper I was startled—no, shocked. I’d glanced away from a drawing of a dog, but when I looked back I saw Emma. Right down to the little cowlick at the top of her tail.

  I sat there enjoying my sketch for a few minutes, wishing I had someone to show it to, then my attention turned to the brochure. As I flipped through it I smiled at notes I’d made to myself. But my smile faded when I noticed I’d circled the tuition fee and put a big question mark beside it.

  Mom got a small inheritance when my grandma died, but when I asked about using some of it for school, she said it was all gone. Whatever was left when she hooked up with Wayne no doubt disappeared before the ink was dry on the marriage license.