Sight

by Adrienne Maria Vrettos

  He glares at me. “No problem.”

  “The night before this picture was taken,” I say, holding up Brian’s photo, “the kid ironed his own shirt and hung it on a hanger. His brother helped him with the ironing board, setting it up so it was low enough for Brian to reach. His brother put his hand on Brian’s and showed him how to smooth out the wrinkles. Brian’s brother is a real swell dresser. They put the shirt on a hanger together and hung it on the shower rod. Brian doesn’t have his own closet; he has a box under the bed. In the morning his mom comes home from work and Brian is sitting on the couch in his freshly ironed shirt, his cuffed socks, his clean pants. She tells him he’s a handsome boy, kisses him on both cheeks. He catches the bus to school.” I pause. I look at Armstrong. “There is something green out the window.”

  Armstrong looks at the one-way glass window on one side of the room.

  “No,” I say. “There is something green out the window of the bus, and Brian sees it.” I’m starting to cry. “He goes to school, and sits for his picture, smiling this ridiculously huge smile. Like his eyes disappear under his chubby cheeks. The kid’s so cute that everyone laughs—his teacher, the older kids, and the photographer. And after him, all the kids try to give their biggest smiles—just like Brian, they say, and the class pictures come out looking like everyone’s on mood elevators. After school he gets on the bus for the ride home.” I clench my fists. “There’s something goddamn green out the window!” I yell. “Why can’t anybody see it?”

  Officer Armstrong raises his eyebrows. He’s enjoying this.

  “Three weeks later, yesterday, Brian wears his picture-day outfit to school again. After school he gets off the bus and walks toward his house, and when he’s out of sight of the street …” I take a deep breath, seeing the rush of color as someone grabs Brian’s right arm and pulls him, dragging him. I see the torn knees of Brian’s little-boy jeans, holes in the fabric rimming with blood. “Brian thinks, You’re stretching out my shirt, and he thinks, My knees are scraping the driveway, and he thinks, If I open my mouth wide enough, I can breathe, and he thinks, I can’t breathe.”

  I can’t see the man dragging Brian. I can see only a hint of his posture as he walks purposefully forward, leaning ahead as he walks. As if he were walking through a snowstorm. I’ve seen that posture before.

  “He’s taking Brian to … There’s something green.”

  “Who is it? Kermit the frog?” Armstrong asks. I can tell he’s trying hard to keep his stupid smirk off his face. “Can you see who took the kid?”

  I look at Deputy Pesquera when I answer. “It’s him.”

  “It’s who?” Armstrong asks. “And what’s the green thing?” He’s getting frustrated. I’m afraid he’ll walk out of the room, afraid that he won’t keep pushing me.

  I look at Armstrong. “Ask me.”

  He glares at me.

  “It’s not a game,” I say. “I don’t know that answer till you ask me the question.”

  “Who took the kid?”

  “The Drifter took him.”

  Armstrong blinks. “What’s the green thing?”

  “Ask me,” I plead.

  “I am!” he barks. “Is it … bigger than a bread box?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Is it on wheels?”

  I nod.

  “Is it a car?” I shake my head.

  “Truck.”

  I pause. “Yes.”

  “Commercial? Or like some mud-covered truck you’d drive up the mountain?”

  “It’s like a boxy truck.”

  “Sounds commercial,” Armstrong says. He studies me for a second, and then says to Officer Cronin, “See what an APB picks up on a green boxy truck.”

  “There is a long road with sharp rocks and they hit the undercarriage—ping, ping, ping.”

  “Dirt road?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “Gravel. Like, clean gravel.”

  “What else?”

  I can see something else. “Oil? Do you make oil down here?”

  He laughs. “This ain’t Texas.”

  “Wind. Do you pull wind for energy?” I ask. “Because there’s windmills there, I can tell you that.” I can see more now. “There’s fake water.”

  “Water. There we go.” He stands and glares down at me. “Well, thank you for coming down and wasting my time.”

  “A windmill,” I say. “Like, a nonworking windmill. It turns, but doesn’t do anything.”

  “Could be a minigolf course?” Cronin says.

  “No. Say something else.” I lock eyes with her.

  “Is there grass there?” Cronin asks, sitting in the chair next to Armstrong. He looks at her, annoyed.

  “Real grass, but it looks fake.”

  “Fake grass, fake water, fake windmill,” Armstrong says.

  I look at him. “It’s like short, spongy grass.”

  “Is there a clown? Is it a minigolf course?” Cronin asks.

  “No. But the same sort of grass.”

  “Like an office park?” Cronin asks suddenly. “Do you know what an office park looks like?”

  I nod. A couple years ago we went down to visit the new warehouse where they make Open Earth.

  “Let’s look at office parks in the area,” Armstrong says. “Ones with windmills.”

  “Oh!” I say. “You’ll see the red from his shirt, he’s still wearing it. But it blends in with the red bridge.”

  “There’s a red bridge?”

  “I guess so. Yes.”

  “A red bridge and a windmill,” Armstrong says, studying me.

  I nod.

  He inhales deeply. “Okay. Wait here.”

  Deputy Pesquera follows Armstrong and Cronin out of the interview room, leaving me sitting alone at the table. I pull Brian’s photograph out of my sleeve, where I’d tucked it earlier, and slip my arm up under my sweatshirt. I peel the Band-Aid away from my chest, and slide in the photograph. I press the edges of the Band-Aid back against my skin.

  The Drifter leaned forward to drag Brian to the truck, just like he had leaned forward against the wind and snow, just like when he left Clarence in the woods.

  They find Brian in an office park, hidden by the employee picnic table area, which overlooks the decorative windmill and bridge. Employees ate their lunches today, enjoying the warm, dry weather. No one noticed the shock of striped shirt lying in the shadows.

  Twelve

  “Where were you last night?” Pilar asks. I can’t answer for a second, because she looks so wrecked.

  “I was … out,” I say.

  “Liar!” She’s in tears. “I called your house. Your mom said you were sick.”

  “That’s what I meant,” I say. “Pilar, are you okay?”

  “Did you hear what happened? Down the hill? What the hell, Dylan!” She’s clutching her books to her chest, her knuckles white from gripping them so tightly.

  “I did hear about it, but that’s down the hill. It wasn’t up here.”

  “Bullshit! Stop lying! Why are you always lying?”

  I step back.

  “Why do you pretend like everything’s okay? It’s not okay, Dylan! He’s back! He’s coming back and you just refuse to admit it!”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, reaching out to her. She pulls away from me.

  “I’m never going to sleep again, Dylan.”

  “Yes, you will,” I say. “They’re going to catch him.”

  “Are my eyes abnormally big?” she asks.

  “No,” I lie. Her bloodshot eyes are almost bulging out of her head.

  “Because they feel big. I haven’t slept, Dylan. I can’t sleep. What if he gets Gracie?” She lets go of her books, dropping them to the floor, and grabs my shoulders. “What if he gets my Gracie?”

  “Hi, guys,” Cate says, coming up behind Pilar. Cate motions to me with her eyes, flicking them off to the side, anxious for us to get away so she can pepper me with questions. This morning, when I called her, I didn’t let h
er talk at all, I just told her not to come over this morning, that I needed some time with my mom.

  I ignore the way she’s now pulling lightly on the sleeve of my sweatshirt, trying to pull me away, saying, “Dylan, come with me to the bathroom.”

  I move out of her reach, my eyes still on Pilar.

  Cate sighs at me and then looks at Pilar. “Oh my gosh, Pilar, are you okay?”

  Pilar is trying not to cry. “Dylan,” she says.

  “Oh, no! Don’t cry, Pilar,” Cate says, pulling Pilar into a hug. Pilar resists, trying to push away, but it’s like she has no strength, and her arms end up hanging limply at her sides. She collapses against Cate, crying.

  Why didn’t I think of hugging her?

  “I know, I know,” Cate whispers, stroking Pilar’s hair.

  Pilar is crying, and I can hear that she’s saying “Stop.”

  Cate looks at me over Pilar’s shaking shoulder. Something in Cate’s face. Happiness? At what? Being needed?

  “Pilar, would you do me a favor?” Cate says, in a voice so comforting it makes my skin crawl. “Would you come down to the nurse with me? They let you take naps there. Maybe you’ll feel better if you get some sleep.”

  Cate smiles at me. “Dylan will come.”

  Pilar finally pulls herself away from Cate, and reaches for my hand. Hers is cold. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Good girl,” Cate says, taking Pilar’s other hand. Pilar doesn’t object. I don’t think she even notices.

  When we get to the nurse, Cate convinces her to let us “tuck Pilar in.” With Pilar curled under the blanket, looking angry even in her sudden sleep, I turn to follow Cate out of the room. Something clenches the back of my leg, and I turn. Pilar’s staring at me hard with glassy eyes. “Stay here,” she says, giving a tug where she’s squeezing my leg.

  “Oh, okay,” I say. I sit down next to her on the cot. Cate makes a move to do the same and Pilar wrinkles her lip. “Not you, princess.”

  I look at Pilar, and then at Cate.

  “Sure. I have to go to class anyway. Feel better, Pilar,” she says, and I can hear her voice wavering. It’s not till she’s out of the room that Pilar lets go of my leg and lets her head fall back onto the pillow.

  “I can’t sleep with all her clucking,” she says, her eyes closed, her face relaxing into a mask of sleep. “Just sit here.”

  “What?”

  She wrinkles her brow, but keeps her eyes closed. “I don’t care. Sit here and maybe I’ll fall asleep.”

  She actually snores. A real, perfectly formed snore that has me clapping my hand over my face to keep from laughing and waking her up. I start to get up and she stirs a little. I’m stuck, which makes me immediately have to pee more than I’ve ever had to pee in my life. I wait a loooooong twenty seconds and then try to get up again. Pilar wrinkles her nose in her sleep. I look up and see the school nurse watching me from where she’s doing paperwork at her desk. She comes over and reaches out her hand, saying in a voice I fear is far too loud, “It’s all right. Back to class. She’ll be out for a while.” I let her pull me up, and Pilar stirs but doesn’t wake. At the entrance to the nurse’s office I ask, “Is she down here a lot?”

  She looks at me brightly and doesn’t answer. I don’t make her recite her oath of nurse-patient privilege. I just leave.

  I wake up with a gasp just after two a.m. and reach for the phone.

  I dial a number. It rings three times before a sleepy voice answers. “Hello?”

  “I had a nightmare,” I say, my voice sounding small in the dark of my room. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “You had a nightmare?” Cate whispers. “About that little boy in the desert?”

  “No. I was walking down the hall of the police station, toward the interrogation room, and there’s a mother there, and she sees me walking toward her and somehow she knows that I’m there to see her dead child, and the mother starts screaming and screaming and screaming.”

  “Holy crow” Cate whispers. “That gave me goose bumps.”

  I hold my own arm out into the glow from my alarm clock. “Me too,” I say.

  “That means,” Cate says quietly through a yawn, “that our goose bumps are psychically connected. What number am I thinking of?”

  “It’s three in the morning. I can’t think of a number,” I say.

  “Oh my God!” Cate croaks.

  “What? Were you thinking of the number three?”

  “No, nine, which is a multiple of three. Okay, guess again.”

  I stretch out under the covers. “Ummm, seven.”

  Cate’s quiet for a second. “If by seven you mean four, then you’re totally right! Guess again.”

  “Um … four,” I say.

  “… teen. Fourteen. Totally right again!” she whisper-yelps. “Okay, let me try you. You are thinking of the number … ten.”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, come on! Eleven?”

  “Nope.”

  “Four?”

  “Nope,” I say, laughing into my pillow.

  “Three?” She sighs. “Onetwothreefourfivesixseven—”

  “Seven,” I say.

  “Dude,” Cate says quietly, “I’m totally psychic.”

  “Totally.” I giggle. “I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Okay, me too. Hey, Dylan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you dream about them? The kids you’ve seen?”

  Her question makes the dark get darker, and my mom’s room seems very far away from my own.

  I swallow and whisper, “Sometimes.”

  “How come you don’t talk about them more, then? I mean, to me. You can talk to me about it, you know?”

  “I know I can,” I say.

  “Good!” she says cheerily. “See you tomorrow. Happy Friday!”

  We hang up and I pull my covers over my head.

  At first I thought that Cate would keep my secret. She would tuck it into her heart and hide it, like I do. But she didn’t. She is biting my secret in half to see what it is made of.

  There’s something I didn’t tell her, though. I knew what numbers she was thinking of.

  Thirteen

  “Dylan?”

  It’s been so long since Pilar’s called me on the phone, it takes me a second to recognize her voice. It’s Sunday afternoon; I haven’t seen her all weekend.

  “Hey, Pilar! How are you feeling?”

  “Can you come over?” she asks, her voice leaden.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Can you come over?” she asks again.

  “Sure, let me just ask my mom.”

  “Tell her you have to, just for a couple hours.”

  “Okay. I’ll be over soon.”

  “Are you sure she’s home?” Mom asks when we get there. All the lights are off. “It’s Pilar, Mom. She’s saving electricity.”

  “Oh. Don’t let her read in that light. She’ll go blind.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell her.”

  “Lock the door behind you.”

  I don’t knock, just let myself in. Pilar is sitting on the couch in the dusky light, Grace asleep beside her, her head resting in Pilar’s lap. I sit down, rubbing Grace’s little feet.

  “Hi, Professor,” I say softly.

  “I keep falling asleep,” Pilar says.

  “Okay.”

  “I keep falling asleep, and I can’t fall asleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you think it’s doing to all of us?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, it can’t be good, right?” She gives a harsh laugh. “It can’t be good for us to live through this. Do you think it’s, like, messing us up? How can we ever be happy knowing these things are happening? How can you live a normal life when you’ve seen these things? I think it might have done something to me, Dylan. I think that little kid down the hill—I think it did something to me.” She looks at Grace. “I keep falling asleep,” she says
, “and I can’t. I can’t fall asleep. You have to sit here, Dylan. You have to sit here and promise me you won’t fall asleep. If I sleep now, I can be awake tonight. You have to sit here with us, Dylan.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t fall asleep.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “You’re the only one I trust, Dylan. You’ll stay awake, right? When I wake up, I won’t be so crazy. I just need some sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know what tomorrow is, right?”

  “What?”

  “Eleven years. Can you believe it? It seems like yesterday.”

  “I know.”

  “Stop saying …” Her eyes close, and then she shakes her head, opening them again. “I think I love Gracie more than my mom does, don’t you? My mom says she does—”

  “I think Grade’s the most-loved kid on this mountain.”

  “Clarence was loved and it didn’t matter at all,” she says, sitting back against the couch cushion. “The Drifter still got him.”

  “Pilar?”

  Her eyes close again. “Hm?”

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “I have something to tell you,” Pilar says back, opening her eyes and blinking heavily. I don’t know what to do. She’s so scared. And I don’t want to scare her more.

  “I love you,” I tell her.

  “I love you, too, Professor,” she says.

  She sleeps like that, sitting straight up, facing me. The sun goes all the way down and I count the stones of the fireplace in the darkness. When the clock strikes five thirty, I carefully get off the couch and go into the kitchen, lighting a candle so I won’t wake Pilar. There’s tofu thawing on the counter, a printout of a recipe beside it.

  “Okay,” I say aloud. “I can do this.”

  By six o’clock I’ve impressed myself by cooking up a passable stir-fry. Grace woke up a few minutes ago, and has been sitting sleepily at the counter, eating the oat cereal I laid out for her, and coloring. Pilar’s parents’ car lights sweep across the room. I switch the kitchen light on and walk over to the couch.

  “Hey, Pilar?” I say. “My mom’s coming soon. Do you want to get up?”

  She gasps. “I’m up.”

  “Okay.”

  “Turn on the light,” she says. I do. Her house looks so much more alive in the light. She rubs her eyes, squeezing my hand. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.” She gets up. “You cooked? Oh, Dylan, thank you.”