“Darling…” Arthur says. He moves a hand toward hers, but she draws it away.
I’d been filling in the pieces since my time with Ellis. What she had told me when we were together had been a version of the truth. Molly had talked about California, but now I knew from Ellis exactly what she’d been doing during that time. She had left out the facts, but kept the spirit. Most of it, at least. There was no version of the truth that she had ever told me that even hinted at her abduction. I knew by now that I had come here to do with the Vandermeers what Molly had done for me. Not to tell them the truth, but to tell them a version of the truth.
“Please,” Ada says. “Just go on.”
I take in a breath. “After that, she applied to colleges and got into Columbia. After graduating she got an internship in the publishing business and worked her way up at a magazine. She had a good job, and she was successful at it. That’s about when we met.”
I stop speaking. A quiet falls over the room.
“Thank you for sharing with us,” Arthur says. “Why she never tried to contact us, or call us, or write… I’ll never understand.”
Ada looks away, lifting a hand to her face. It's trembling and I see a tear in her eye. She wipes it away and turns back without meeting my gaze.
“Okay,” I say. “I suppose it’s time to hear your side of the story.”
Arthur nods. Ada folds her hands in front of her, saying nothing.
“I told you some of this before,” Arthur says, “but here’s the whole of it. People said they saw her riding her bike around town, and later some other folks saw her get out of a car on Main Street and go into a warehouse. Some other folks had seen her talking to an older man the previous day. And that’s it. The part of town she was seen in was more rundown. Old warehouses and things like that. Nasty business often happened there, inasmuch as this town would get nasty business. They found a warehouse where it was clear someone had been setting up shop. But that was where the trail ran dry.”
“Wasn’t there any search for her?” I asked.
“Oh sure, there was,” Arthur says. “But it wasn’t long before the police changed their mind from it being a case of a kidnapping, to it being a case of a runaway.”
“A runaway?” I ask.
“Molly had no history of drugs or violence—no black marks on her record at all. Police didn’t believe someone like her would willfully go away with a strange man as witnesses had suggested. Instead, they believed it was a secret romance gone bad. She had fallen in with the wrong guy, went to go meet up with him, and got caught in something dangerous.” Arthur’s voice cracks, and he looks down at his hands.
“The worse part,” Ada says, “was them suggesting that she had willfully run away. Yes, this was the early seventies, and it wouldn’t have been the first time a young girl ran away with an older man. But the idea that she would choose to leave us. You can understand we were angry.”
My stomach burns with guilt. I now know the truth, that it had been a kidnapping, and that Molly had been stolen away through time by a group of time travelers from the future whose motives were still unknown. Could the truth really do anything for Ada and Arthur Vandermeer? I want to tell them. I want to go to the car and take every piece of evidence I’d gathered over the years and spread it all out for them to see.
But I can’t.
Instead, I lean forward, placing my hands near hers. “I’m so sorry. If it’s any consolation, I believe she’s still out there. Alive, somewhere. And that she wants very much to return to you, but she can’t.”
Arthur leans forward, slamming a hand on the table. “Let’s cut the shit.”
“Arthur!” Ada exclaims.
I look up at the old man, surprised.
Arthur turns his gaze to meet mine. “I suppose it’s time we get to the point of why you came here.”
“I came here to get to know you and to learn about Molly’s past,” I say. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
Arthur shakes his head. “That’s not the real reason why you came here.”
“And what do you think that is, exactly?”
“Arthur, don’t,” Ada says.
The old man glances at his wife and then turns back to fix his stare on me. “You don’t believe she’s still alive. You came here to say goodbye.”
“Oh, Arthur,” Ada says, her voice quiet.
I stare at Arthur and he holds my gaze, his eyes cold.
“My wife still doesn’t want to believe that our daughter was lost for good that day, almost thirty years ago. I’m afraid that she’ll never accept the truth.”
After a long silence, I look back over at Arthur. “You told me that you believed she hadn’t died in that car crash. That she had merely disappeared, just like what had happened to you.”
Arthur looks down, his expression dropping. “That was the one thing I regretted saying to you.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because my daughter’s disappearance so long ago was nothing like what happened to you, and it was wrong for me to suggest otherwise…” He clears his throat. “But it’s been thirty-four years. I’ve read your book, and I believe you think you saw her again that day in Chicago. But even if you really did, that was six years ago. If she wanted us to see her again, then she would have made that happen. So, no. I don’t expect to see her again. My daughter may not be dead, but she is gone. I’ve received my closure. I hope you can do the same.”
He stands suddenly, his chair screeching on the hardwood floor, and then walks in quick, halting steps toward the stairs and out of the room.
A warm wind blows in through the open window of the guest bedroom. It’s dark out. Well past 10 P.M. And it’s humid. I roll over, the sheets sticking to my skin. I could never sleep in this heat. But that’s not what is keeping me awake. I sit up, feeling breathless. I can feel it on my skin as if it just happened—her hand gripping my own, slip from my grasp, and finally pulling the ring from my finger. My ring was lost when Molly disappeared in the car accident. And tonight, impossibly, I saw it again on the neck of my wife from a photograph now thirty years old. A message of some kind? Could the ring still be here in this very house?
Lightning illuminates the bedroom, followed a second later by a crack of thunder. I climb out of bed and close the window. But instead of getting back in, I turn to the door.
Molly’s childhood bedroom. It was practically a mausoleum. As much as Arthur and Ada visited the room to sit and be with the memory of their lost daughter, would they have ever done a thorough search? I doubt it. What would be the reason?
I pad across the small guest room and open the door. The hallway is dark. The house is quiet.
I know even before I step into the hallway what I am going to do. Even if I wake them and they find me, I can simply blame grief.
I cross the living room to the stairs and climb them, skipping the third step from the bottom. I reach the top with only a few small creaks and walk quietly down the hallway, stopping at the last door on the left. The door creaks as I open it. The room is dark, but the curtain is pulled back allowing moonlight to stream in. Under the cover of darkness, with only the light of the moon through the window to illuminate it, the room feels entirely different.
Where to begin?
I start in the obvious places, checking under the mattress and in the backs of the drawers. I slide the top drawer out all the way, checking the sides for a taped envelope. Nothing. I check the other drawers. Nothing there as well. Moving to the dresser, I open its drawers and rifle my hands through the clothes. I feel a momentary sense of shame, as if I’ve become some sort of weird voyeur. Ridiculous, of course. But I pause, anyway, midway through to listen for a creak in the floorboards, just in case.
Next I go through the bookcase. There’s The Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, a Bible. All the standard fare for a preteen girl in the sixties, I suppose. I take each book, rifling through the pages
Still nothing.
<
br /> I pause, staring around the room. I must be missing something. A thirteen-year-old girl couldn’t be so clever at hiding something, could she? That’s my problem. I’m thinking about it like it’s something she wanted to hide. In the picture, she was wearing the necklace in plain view, so would she try and hide it? Did the fact that the Vandermeers had never found it mean that it was hidden, or did it just mean that they had never happened to look in the right place?
I stand up, taking one more sweep around the room.
Some records. A shoebox filled with birthday cards. A stack of old school work.
A jewelry box.
I feel a surge of hope mixed with excitement as I pad over to her dresser. Inside is a tangle of bracelets and necklaces. No earrings, though. She had told me that she didn’t get them pierced until her mid-twenties. I take each item out, laying them on the dresser. Most are simple, gaudy pieces that only an elementary school girl would like. Colorful beads. Fake gemstones. Bracelets. My heart leaps as I see a necklace, but it has a small cross on the end. Realizing I’ve laid out the last piece, I glance over the collection again. The necklace from the photo isn’t there.
Feeling desperate, I turn back to the bookshelf, scanning the books until I find what I am looking for. A journal. I sit on the bed, open the journal, and begin to read. A clock ticks. Rain patters on the windowpane. The house creaks on its foundation. A fan rotates noisily in another room.
Most of the entries are summaries of her day, petty complaints, and wishes for the future. I skim through them, reading only long enough to determine if it’s what I’m looking for. One of the entries is longer than most of the others, taking up a full page.
June 8, 1968
I had the weirdest birthday today. The delivery man knocked on the door with a present for me. I told him I didn’t think he was a real delivery man because he had a British accent, but he said it didn’t matter what I believed and I could take the present or not. I asked him who it was from and he said he didn’t know.
I think it’s from Bill Larsen, but Jacey would kill me if she knew he was sending me gifts. The delivery man told me he’d been given strict instructions that I hold on to it, and never lose it, no matter what.
It’s a necklace with a funny ring on it. If Bill gave it to me, then I’m not sure what he was thinking. I’ve been wearing it around my neck for a little while now, but people keep me asking me about it.
I think I’ll bury it in the backyard by the oak tree, that way I can keep it without having to wear it.
My hands trembling, I close the journal and sit on the bed. A thirteen-year-old Molly had been visited on her birthday by a man with a British accent, posing as a delivery man with a “gift” for her that she was told never to lose. The gift had been that necklace. What were the chances that both the young Molly and I had been given a package under similar circumstances, and with an identical set of instructions?
I stand, clutching the journal, and hurry to the window. I scan the yard for a big tree, but there isn’t one. What am I thinking, anyway? That I’m going to dig up the entire backyard, looking for a necklace that my wife at the age of thirteen may or may not have buried there? And then a conversation from earlier that evening comes suddenly to mind. That old tree started dying a few years after Molly disappeared. I had to cut her down, but I kept the good wood, and I turned it into this gazebo. Built it right around the stump. Through the rain-streaked glass, I can see the gazebo, and the outline of a root in the grass—remnants of the old tree.
The room spins. I set the journal back on the desk and put a hand on the wall to steady myself. Am I really going to do this?
Yes.
I slip out the door, stumbling through the hallway and down the stairs, not even bothering to skip the third step from the bottom. I should probably be more worried about waking up the Vandermeers, with what I’m about to do. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. Even if I don’t wake them, they’ll see the results in the morning.
I slip out the front door and into the rain.
Thunder cracks overhead and a jagged bolt of lightning arcs across the sky, lighting the horizon. I get a glimpse of the tool shed behind the garage and head for it, pushing through the rain.
The shed isn’t locked. Arthur Vandermeer must have been quite the handyman in his younger days because the shed is well stocked. I find a pair of gloves, a shovel, and a pickaxe. I’ll need the pickaxe to first break up the ground. The rain should make the rest of it easy.
I slip on the gloves, throw the pickaxe and shovel over my shoulder, and head back out into the rain. The rain is coming down in heavy sheets. I am already soaked through. I pick a spot near the gazebo, lift the pickaxe, and bring it down into the dirt. It strikes at an angle and bounces off. I stumble in the wet grass, falling to my knees. I must have hit a root. Grunting, a stand back up. Hoisting the pickaxe, I lift it again and then swing it down hard. This time it strikes deep. I push forward on the handle, and a huge chunk of dirt breaks away.
I hear crying and realize that it's me. With the rain streaking down my face I hadn’t even noticed. But with each swing of the pickaxe I cry out, a little louder each time. Swinging again. And then again. And again. And again. And—
Somebody touches my shoulder. I spin around, giving a startled shout. Arthur takes a step backward and holds a hand up, palm out.
“You're going to need this!” He says over the sound of the rain.
In his other hand he’s holding a large sledgehammer.
I’ve dug up the entire area around the gazebo, and I haven’t found it yet. So if there’s anything buried here, it’s under the gazebo itself.
“You break up the lumber, I’ll clear it out,” Arthur shouts.
I take the hammer, and then pause, looking up at the old man as he puts on his gloves. “Why are you helping me?”
Arthur gives a small shrug. “You’re my daughter’s husband.”
“I’m about to tear apart your gazebo. Do you want to know why?”
Arthur shakes his head. “I know hope when I see it. I trust you’ll explain later.”
I nod, then raise the hammer, lifting it over my head. I take in a breath as the rain slaps at my face and arms and then swing it down against the wood of the gazebo with all my strength.
A large chunk of wood splinters and breaks away. I let out a shout and raise the hammer, striking again. Between each strike, Arthur steps in with the shovel, clearing the debris. In minutes, we have the steps to the gazebo clear.
I take the shovel from Arthur and begin to dig. He switches to the pickaxe, helping clear away the roots and rocks beneath the pathway. We work in silence as the rain pours down around us, the crash of the thunder, the strike of the shovel, and our own grunts and ragged breathing keeping time with one another.
I strike deep with the shovel and it hits something solid, sending me to the ground. I struggle to get up, slipping in the mud and the slick grass. Arthur reaches a hand over and I grasp it, rising up to my feet. He points, wordlessly. Something flat and metal is visible in the ground. I drop to my knees, scraping the mud and rocks away with my hands. Arthur takes the pickaxe, finding the edges of the object. He leans backward on the pickaxe until something small and cylindrical pops up and out of the ground with a wet thwack. I lean over and pick it up, wiping the muck off the cylinder.
It’s a thermos, one of the old stainless steel kinds with a screw-on lid.
“I always wondered what happened to this,” Arthur says, uttering the first words spoken since we had started digging.
My hands tremble as I unscrew the lid.
“Careful,” Arthur says.
I nod and finish unscrewing the lid. I take off my glove and slip it in a pocket. Something rattles as I tilt the mug. I hold my hand under the opening and a small silver object drops out onto my palm. I put the mug on the ground and look closely at the object.
My ring.
But two of them. Identical. Fused together.
&nbs
p; “What is it?” Arthur asks.
“My wedding ring,” I say. “Buried by your daughter before she disappeared, over thirty-five years ago.”
“That’s…” Arthur shakes his head.
“Impossible?” I ask.
He nods, a grin forming across his face, and then we are both laughing in the pouring rain.
“Why are there two rings?” Arthur asks, gasping for air between bouts of laughter.
“I don’t know,” I say, though part of me does know. If Molly had met herself in the past, as I knew she had from Ellis’s research, then certainly my ring, which she had taken from my hand during the car crash, could have met itself as well. But the details of how that could have happened, and what could have fused them, is lost to me.
“There’s something else,” Arthur says, taking the rings from me. “An inscription on the inside of the rings.”
I take out my iPhone and turn on the flashlight. Arthur turns the rings in his hand, then looks up at me. “My glasses. I’m useless without them. You read it.”
I take it from him, looking closely at the inscriptions. On the inside of one of the rings is the word yours, and on the inside of the other ring is the word always. I read it again to myself, and then I read it aloud to Arthur. “Yours, always.”
“I don’t understand,” Arthur says.
Ada’s voice is almost inaudible over the sound of the rain. “It means, she never really left.” We both turn to see Ada Vandermeer standing on the porch wearing a nightgown, one hand clutching the top hem near her neck.
“You’ll get a cold!” Arthur cries, rising to his feet.
I follow Arthur through the rain to the front porch. Arthur takes his wife’s hand to guide her back inside. She stops him, looking down at the ring in my hands.
“How did she do this?” Ada asks.
I turn to Ada and Arthur, feeling more free in this moment than I’ve ever felt. “You’d better put some coffee on, because there’s a lot I have to tell you.”
“That I can do,” Ada says. “Forget that Starbucks crap. My coffee will knock your socks off.”
Incursion: Book Three of The Recursion Event Saga Page 15
