by Wendy Walker
Please, please, please! Let us go back to my car and then my life two hours from here, no matter what’s become of it. I crave it now and I don’t even know why. I crave my irreverent daughter who hates me and my cruel son who dismisses me. I miss my husband who pretends to be asleep when I come into our bedroom to be with him and I miss the dogs who want nothing but food. God help me, but I even miss the pain that never leaves.
It comes from a hidden place. A primal instinct. This missing of things.
The truck makes a turn and picks up speed.
“They’re empty,” he says now. “We were on our way to get them filled but the station was already closed.”
I look at the gas cans. I swear I can hear liquid splashing inside them but maybe I’m mistaken. Or maybe what I hear is nothing more than a few drops left at the bottom.
Why would he lie? The gas station was closed.
“What can we do?” I ask now.
“Road’s blocked. Tree just came down. Didn’t you hear it on the radio? Only one way to go now.”
I didn’t hear anything. I can’t hear a radio over the sound of the engine. And how was it reported so quickly?
The girl seems to know where we’re headed.
I open my purse to grab my phone. I have to tell them what’s happened, John and Nicole. I dig through the contents—wallet, brush, mints, tissues. I take them out and place them in my lap until the purse is empty.
Now I remember—the phone was in the charger, out of the purse, sitting on the seat.
I have no phone. A new kind of fear rises.
I ask now—
“Do you have a cell phone I could use? My family is probably very worried.”
Alice looks at her folded hands which sit in her lap.
And the man shakes his head.
“No. Sorry. I left it at the house. Don’t worry. We’ll be there soon. You can make your call and we’ll see what can be done about getting you home.”
“Or you could just stay with us tonight!” Alice says. Again, turning back. Again, with exuberance.
The man is smiling now.
“One thing at a time,” he says.
And so we drive. We make turns. Left turns. Right turns. Deeper into the woods.
I can’t bear the silence. I can’t bear not knowing what this is. So I do what I think would be normal if my mind weren’t running in circles.
“I’m Molly, by the way. Molly Clarke. I really appreciate your help.”
Alice giggles nervously. The man stares ahead.
I try to catch his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Can I ask your name as well?”
He looks at Alice. Alice stares back at him and pokes his shoulder with her finger.
He shrugs, his attention returning to the road. His face is amused.
It’s Alice who answers.
“His name is Mickey Mouse!” she says. Then she laughs.
The man smiles and I realize this is a little game they play. Alice gets to make up his name for strangers.
I play along, though I feel ill.
“Should I call you Mickey or Mr. Mouse?”
He laughs out loud but doesn’t answer.
The truck moves slowly through the storm. The storm moves quickly around us. Time and distance lose their calibration.
I cannot see beyond the headlights. The wind is powerful, rain blowing sideways. Falling hard. Turns and turns, avoiding fallen trees, the man tells me, though I can’t see them from the second row.
He does not make conversation. He does not ask the obvious questions, like who I am or where I’m from. I think then that he is just nervous about the storm, about getting Alice home safely.
I taste the blood on my lip from where I have bitten down too hard. I am warm now but I can’t stop shaking.
The truck slows again and this time stops fully. Alice perks up. She looks out and sees what I see—a tall metal fence. There is a gate with a lock and we are stopped in front of a dirt driveway.
The man gets out. Alice doesn’t ask why. He pulls up the hood of his jacket but it does little to keep him from getting drenched. He runs up to the gate and stops at a large chain that winds between two of the fence posts. It looks as though he’s turning a manual lock. One hand holds steady. The other twists, then pulls hard. He unwinds the chain and a section of the fence swings open.
I look at the lock on the car door which brushes against my right arm. It did not release when he left the truck, but still, I slide my hand to the handle and pull as softly as I can. It does not click open. A child lock must be on. I see through the console and wonder if my body will fit between the seats—if I can climb over into the driver’s side and make an escape through that door. Alice is too small to stop me. But loud enough to call to the man and, surely, he would catch me in fewer than a dozen strides.
Then I stop myself. We are at a house. A family lives here. Maybe there’s a wife, more children. Alice and her father were just out to get the gas in the cans which sit on the floor beside me. And some bottles of water. I see them in the front seat by Alice’s legs. They happened upon me. They offered me a ride.
Stop being so Molly, I tell myself. But Molly killed her child. Molly knows that unthinkable things can happen and now she has thoughts that are sometimes not realistic, that are hyperbolic, as John would say. Still, she thinks them. Because one time, they were real. And they did happen.
Molly.
I think about the log in the fireplace last night and wonder if that was a crazy, senseless thought. And Evan with his cruelty … and Nicole—does she really hate me?
Alice speaks now.
“We’re home!” She sounds victorious.
The man runs back. He gets in and closes the door.
“Wow! That’s some storm!” he says, shaking off the rain.
He pulls the drive shaft down and the truck moves through the open gate. On the other side, he stops again. Gets out. Runs to the fence to put back the chains. And locks us here, inside this property on this dirt driveway.
He gets back in and we drive. I pay close attention this time. I watch the speedometer hover at twenty-eight miles per hour. I count the seconds in my head. I count them like a school girl. One Mississippi … two Mississippi …
I count to twenty. That’s maybe a sixth of a mile—a sixth of a mile to get from the road to the house.
I try to store this information somewhere inside my scrambled mind. I try to picture what it means for this property and the house that I can see now in front of the truck when it comes to a stop.
The man shuts off the engine and removes the keys.
He gets out and runs to the passenger side. He opens my door, then Alice’s, and he scoops her up. She wraps her arms around his neck and squeals when the rain hits her face and her body. She presses herself against him the way a child does in the arms of her father, and a wave of relief takes me by surprise.
Alice loves this man and he loves her. Where there is love, there cannot be danger.
“Come on!” he calls to me now. I get out and follow behind them. I feel myself pull my inadequate but fashionable rain jacket up over my head as far as it will go and I laugh because I am overwhelmed now, with this relief. The laughter brings tears, which I stifle before I catch up to my rescuers.
I see little as we walk. Just the shadow of a large porch with posts and wide steps with no rail. I watch my feet as I climb. One, two, three, four …
Six steps bring us to the porch floor. Three steps bring us to the door, which opens without a key. A waft of dry air emerges, smelling of must and wood.
When the door closes again, we are all three inside, immersed in the darkness. The rain pounds on the roof but it is quieted by the walls which absorb the sound. The man sets Alice down and walks to a side table. The darkness is suddenly broken by the bright light of an electric lantern.
“I’m gonna try to start the generator,” he says. “I think there’s enough gas in there to last the
night. Alice, why don’t you show Molly to the guest room. Get her a towel from the closet.”
He says my name so casually, like we’re old friends.
Towels and guest rooms and lanterns. There are no other family members here, but this will do. Yes, I think. This will do—until I can make the call.
He hands me the lantern and goes back outside. Alice takes off her mask. It’s a white medical mask, the kind you can buy at the drug store. I’ve used them before when painting a room, though that was years ago, when John and I were just starting out. When we used to do things ourselves because we had more time than money.
The thought of my husband steals my breath as the feeling rushes in. I still love him. Even if he has stopped loving me.
Alice has bright blue eyes and soft blond hair and skin like snow. It never sees the sun. Still, she is not gaunt. Her cheeks are rosy from the cold. And all of these colors—the blue and yellow and white and red, they are stunning. The colors of youth. The colors of a little girl. It fills my heart, then empties through the hole I made five years ago.
I carry the lantern and follow closely behind her through a living room and past a door to a kitchen on the right. Then down a hallway where we stop. She opens a closet which holds towels and blankets and sheets. Normal things. Normal.
She pulls out a worn white bath towel and hands it to me. I take it with one hand and wipe my face dry.
“Come on!” she says cheerfully.
I look down the hallway but don’t get my bearings. There are doors which are all closed.
I want to be dry. I want to be warm. I want the man to return so I can use the phone and call my family. These things all feel close now and so I want them with greater urgency.
We enter the first room on the left. It has a bed and a dresser and an oval mirror which hangs on the wall. The bed is neatly made with a quilt and two pillows. It has a private bathroom which I can see through an open door. The one window has been boarded with plywood. For the storm, I tell myself. Like the diner back in town.
“This is the guest room. You can sleep here tonight,” Alice says. “I sleep right next door.”
I smile at her. She smiles back. But I have no intention of sleeping in this house.
John will come for me—even in the storm. Even if he doesn’t love me.
“Can I wait with you?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say. The house is dark. I understand. But then we both hear footsteps moving about. Stopping, shifting, moving again. A new light comes down the hall and suddenly the man is there in the doorway.
“Go get ready for bed,” he says to Alice. He holds two lanterns and he gives one to her. She obeys, leaving us alone.
Then he speaks to me.
“I turned on the generator. It’ll run the heat. Use the lantern to get around tonight. There are some clothes in the dresser. You can wear those if you want.”
I stare at the man now, the towel pressed to my face all the way up to my eyes.
“I need to make that call—I’m sure my husband will find a way to get me home.”
Even as I ask, I already know the answer. I know because he hasn’t offered me a phone and that is strange. Not Molly strange, I think. Truly strange.
And then the answer comes.
“The thing is—we don’t get cell reception out here and the landlines are down. I just checked the phone in the kitchen.”
I nod and manage a polite smile. I don’t know why I do this. A habit from living where I live, in a culture of emotional suppression.
“Can we try, at least? Maybe a different part of the house, or outside? Or I can borrow the truck and call from the road, farther down?” And then I continue, rambling now. “Because my husband and daughter are going to be very worried. I was supposed to be home over an hour ago and I left my car on the side of the road. I’m sure people are already wondering whose it is. I imagine the police will be looking for me and I would feel terrible using up their resources like that.”
I ramble and stare at his face, searching for acknowledgment or surprise or anything resembling a human response. But he just watches me, watches my lips move, and smiles sympathetically.
“We can go in the morning—as soon as the sun is up,” he says when I stop talking. He places his hand on my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I know it’s strange to be in someone else’s house. I would feel the same. But we’re not in the suburbs here. You could have gotten hurt out there—that wind would have knocked you right off your feet. And the cold—it’s going down below thirty degrees tonight.”
He looks at me. I look at him, frozen until he takes his hand off my shoulder.
“You okay?” he asks.
Again, I nod politely, as I wonder why he mentioned the suburbs. How does he know where I live?
He leaves me alone then. I stare at the space where he stood and I let his words sink in. I let the words find reason inside my unreasonable head.
I am the very embodiment of suburbia. Surely he just put pieces together. He must see people like me driving through here every day, on their way to the schools, stopping to get gas.
And there is a dangerous storm outside. Wind. Rain. Cold. Roads are likely blocked. Lines are down—power, phone. Everything on a wire is dead. And there’s no cell phone reception. All of those are facts that I either know to be true or are likely true.
Stop being so Molly! I command myself.
I close the door to the bedroom. I look in the dresser and find clothing. Women’s clothing. I find pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. They are dry. And they smell of laundry detergent.
They are freshly washed. And I wonder if this means they are freshly worn.
Where is their owner?
I go to the bathroom and close the door. I take off my wet clothes, put on the dry clothes of a strange woman. Back in the bedroom, I hang my wet clothes on everything I can find. A chair. A radiator. A dresser. A bedpost.
I climb beneath the quilt and sheets. I curl myself into a ball. The tiniest ball I can make myself into. I leave the lantern on at the foot of the bed because I am not quite ready to be in the dark.
I let the fear show its face and then I tell it exactly what it is. Just like my unreasonable thoughts are remnants from the past, this fear is just guilt. That’s all. Just guilt. I did something stupid and now my family will worry and the police will come looking. But I will make it right in the morning. Like the man said. As soon as the sun is up.
Facts are facts and the facts add up. Fear is just guilt finding a way in. Finding a way to masquerade because I don’t want to face it.
It folds around me like another blanket. A familiar blanket.
This blanket of guilt.
4
Day thirteen
Hastings Pass.
Nic hated this road. She hated the way it fell off at the shoulder into dirt and gravel and how the dirt hung in the air long after being kicked up. She hated the thick, brown cornfields that stood high on either side like a scene out of a Stephen King novel. She hated how it was straight as an arrow, but rose and fell over the small hills so she could never pass a car that was driving too slow.
Hastings Pass intersected Route 7 at the Gas n’ Go. It was a left-hand turn coming from the south. A right-hand turn coming from the north.
Her mother had been coming from the north. The car parked just under thirty feet from the station. Parked on the shoulder and abandoned.
The call had come the day after the storm. Friday. Midmorning, before they’d even noticed that she hadn’t returned home. Nic had been sleeping off one of her nights. Her father had gone to the office like it was any other day. Never thought about the meat thawed on the counter, or the dry cleaning hanging on the door, or the dogs not fed, or the coffee not made. He said he assumed she’d gotten in late and was asleep in the guest room. How considerate she was not to wake him. He didn’t check for her car. Didn’t think to. Didn’t notice. His mind had been preoccupied with relief, Nic i
magined. It must be hard to look at your wife after being with another woman.
She wanted to hate him for that. But there was no road map for what their family had been through. Molly Clarke reminded her husband of his dead child. Molly Clarke reminded Nic of the way Annie died, and the role she’d played in the series of events that led to her death. And wrapped up in the horrible memories of that horrible day were the sweet memories of sweet moments, and there was no way to untangle them.
Strong arms holding her. Soft hands brushing her hair. The smell of homemade bread and bubble bath. A loud voice cheering on the sidelines. A soft voice whispering in the dark. It’s okay, I’m here. So many sweet, sweet memories that were now too twisted with grief to be remembered.
Molly Clarke’s voice and face and smell could provoke feelings that were at war inside her. Agony and bliss. Rage and love. Nic had avoided her, just like her father had. It was painful to be with her.
Two miles down Hastings Pass was the police station. Past the inn and the diner. Past the bar, the auto body shop.
After the downtown were strips of houses on small lots of land—ranches, capes, colonials, in various states of disrepair. A scarce few seemed cared for, but in a way that evoked desperation, a last, futile breath. Flower baskets hanging on a broken porch.
Then came the station and town hall. After that, Hastings Pass continued to the river, with dirt roads on either side leading into the woods where there would be bleaker dwellings, deeper poverty.
The gray sky added to the grimness, an exclamation point on the despair. Nic remembered now, how it crept inside.
They had never gone down Hastings Pass before the disappearance. Her mother said it made her uneasy. The few times Nic had gone with her to visit Evan, they had not even stopped at the gas station.
And now Nic knew everything about this town they had always driven past. Hastings was built to support a chemical company in the 1950s. The company used the river to dispose of its waste. No one knew any better. Or no one gave a shit. A pharmaceutical manufacturer eventually took its place and sustained the town until the recession pulled it under. And then the dominoes fell.
