by Jean Stone
After rinsing off her head, she lathered both her breasts. When she massaged the tips, both nipples tingled in response, the right one unaware it had been invaded by disease.
How was that possible, she wondered? She held each breast in one hand; she kneaded the soft soap bubbles under, around, on top, fully, firmly. Again. Again.
It felt so good, Hannah paid no attention to where her lump lay in dreaded wait. Instead, she moved her sudsy hand between her legs, her parted thighs. She thought about John Arthur and his muscled, sweaty body, his soft, sweet smile, the way he held the Gatorade. She gently rubbed herself, moving back and forth against her hand. She felt her warmth rise slowly, a familiar, heated glow. She rubbed a little harder …
… and then she remembered Riley.
“Damn!” she shouted. What the hell was she doing? Masturbating in the shower while her daughter was missing? What was wrong with her? What was wrong with her?
Hannah burst into angry, shameful tears. She covered her breasts and then her eyes with her wet, wandering hands, and then she shivered and she shook while the hot needles of the shower pelted down on her.
When Faye finally reached Phoenix it was late at night—later, even, according to her internal clock that was two hours ahead, and could have been three, but Arizona was a holdout and did not do Daylight Saving Time.
She rented a car at the airport and asked the clerk to recommend a decent hotel that was not hard to find. He checked availabilities and directed her to The Buttes, a magnificent creation carved into a rock mountain that Faye knew she’d appreciate more in the morning when she wasn’t overtaken by exhaustion.
In the morning, however, as the sun rose over the jagged rock and sparkled off a waterfall outside her window, Faye’s tiredness had been replaced by grim anxiety.
Standing at the window, the sash of her silk robe pulled tight, she followed the cascade with her eyes, as it trundled to the lagoonlike pool that twinkled aqua in the sun.
How had it happened that a boy who’d been raised so close to the ocean had chosen to escape into the desert?
Perhaps because of Dana and the accident. Or perhaps he’d needed to shut out everything related to his family and his past.
Closing her eyes, she let herself think about what she and he would say and do. What did a mother say to a son after a decade of silence?
What if he wouldn’t see her; what if he wouldn’t talk to her?
Rejection. No. She would not, could not think of that.
Turning to the small desk, she picked up the phone book. Crawdaddies was the name of Greg’s restaurant—Greg and a man named Mike Tanner, who might be his partner in the business and in life, too, for all Faye knew. She ran her finger quickly through the section. There it was. A big display ad that boasted THE NEW ORLEANS OF THE SOUTHWEST.
She stared at the ad and kept the book flat open. Then she sat and began her vigil until lunchtime, which she supposed would be the best time to place the call.
“We’ve checked down at the docks.” Hugh Talbott’s voice drifted up the stairs.
He was there. Hugh had come back. Dear God, Hannah prayed as she stood in the hallway outside her bedroom, clutching the robe she’d just put on, please let the news be good.
“And?” Evan asked.
It seemed that it took an eternity before Hugh replied. Why was everything so slow? Why did Hannah feel as if the whole world had slowed down like the carousel in Oak Bluffs at the end of a long ride?
And if everything was so slow, why was her heart beating so fast?
“And a girl matching Riley’s description boarded the six-fifteen morning boat yesterday.”
“To Woods Hole?”
“Yes. The good news is that she was alone. Which rules out kidnapping,” he paused, then added, “or other things.”
Other things. Hannah supposed that meant things like drug dealers or pimps. She quickly tied her robe and hurried down the stairs. Thank God she’d put her wig back on when she’d come out of the shower.
“She has no money,” Evan said.
“She had some. She paid for her ticket in cash. One way.”
One way. Proof that she had no intention of returning. Hannah sucked in a breath. “Where did she go once she got across?”
Hugh shrugged. “That’s what we’d like to know. I sent Harrington and Solitario to check things out. But I need to know if Riley knows anyone over there. Did she ever mention meeting anyone from the mainland? Maybe on-line?”
“We don’t have a computer for the kids. When they need to use one, they do it at school or at the library.”
“What about friends? Any on the mainland? Any family over there?”
Hannah shook her head. “No. No friends. No family.”
Maybe it was the long way Evan looked at her that made her start to feel the nausea. Maybe it was the way he turned his head away, as if knowing, knowing this was all her fault.
“Not that we know of,” Evan added, and he was right, because they didn’t really know.
And that’s when Hannah got the sickest feeling in her stomach, a feeling so upsetting it made chemo look like a day at South Beach in Katama. Her thoughts floated back to the morning—had it been only yesterday?—when Riley was not there when Hannah had gone to wake her. Then, in a dreamlike, swirling motion, Hannah thought about the night before, when she’d confessed her past to Evan as they lay safely in their bed.
Safely, she’d thought.
Safely in their room.
But had Riley been listening against the wall or at their door? Had Riley heard Hannah’s confession about San Antonio?
Oh, God, she thought, was that why Riley was gone?
She heard herself cry out; she grasped the banister too late as the blood drained from her face and her still-damp, showered body slid down to the hardwood floor.
• • •
He lived halfway down a canyon in a house of cedar and tall glass through which Faye supposed Greg could see the sun rise and set against the red, red rocks and feel the healing peace of the Indian legends as they wove whispers through the pines.
It was late afternoon before Faye found her way up north from Phoenix, before she drove into the town known for its magic and its aura and its bell rock that rose up high above the land and its cathedral carved into the mountain where soft chants of monks could now be heard.
She did not stop to witness these things, of course. She had read about them in the tourist guide while awaiting time to pass until she could call Crawdaddies and ask if Greg Geissel was there or what time he could be expected.
“Greg’s up north this week,” a disconnected female voice replied.
“Sedona?”
“Yes. He’s in Phoenix every other week.”
She asked and was given the address of Crawdaddies up north.
“But you won’t find him there tonight,” the female added. “They’re closed up north on Tuesdays.”
Faye tapped her pen on the desk. She quickly said she was a friend from back East, and was only in town for a day. Did Greg have a home up north as well?
In Boston, no one in their right mind or even in their wrong mind would give an unknown caller the home address of their boss. But Phoenix was not Boston, Faye reminded herself as she parked the rental car a distance from the house, far enough away so he might not see her first, despite the bank of windows that greeted everything and everyone outside. As she stepped out of the car, Faye noticed that the air was cooler here than in Phoenix; dry and dusty, but cooler, more peaceful.
She traversed the red clay road in her Bali pumps and wished she’d brought her sneakers from the Vineyard, perhaps even her jeans. Then she suppressed a smile: Had she become a true islander after all?
When she reached the front walk, Faye stopped and took a breath: It was laced with flecks of throat-closing anxiety, despite the clean, clear air, despite the calm serenity that loomed around her.
She looked into the driveway, where two cars we
re parked—a BMW and a Mercedes. If one could tell by homes and cars, it appeared that, indeed, her son was doing well—financially, at least—with all the trappings she could snobbishly admit she would have hoped for him.
How had he done so well when he’d left home with less than five hundred dollars?
She pushed away the thought. She took another breath. The time had come to walk up to the door. Tucking her silver hair—hair that was still brown when he had left—she slowly walked up to the door and rang a large brass bell.
Her heart stopped beating—of course it did—and did not start again, even when she heard footsteps approach from the other side.
And then the door opened.
Faye blinked against the sunlight that framed the figure at the door.
She visored her forehead with her hand. “Greg?” she asked, but even as she asked, she knew that she was wrong. The man before her was not her son. It was Joe, her former husband, the father of her children, part of the reason Greg had left so long ago.
TWENTY-TWO
“I always thought gray hair would make you look older.”
It was good that Joe spoke first, because Faye was caught too unawares to know what to say, her jumbled thoughts uploading question after question, all a variation of “What the hell are you doing at our son’s house?” But Joe might misconstrue that into thinking he had the upper hand, so instead Faye simply said, “My hairdresser says it isn’t gray but silver.”
Joe reassessed her head as if he’d last seen her yesterday and not four years ago, when they’d faced each other in the courtroom and the judge had granted the divorce. Faye knew that once the shock had passed, she’d be angry that he was acting so nonplussed.
“I have not, however, traveled across the country to talk about my hair.” She wondered if his blasé reaction was merely a defense tactic to cover up his shock. She could not remember if that was something Joe would do. Over time she had worked hard to erase all sentiment of her husband from her mind.
He blinked. “How are you, Faye?” he asked with the kind of interest that seemed genuine.
“I’ll be better when I’m out of the heat,” she replied. “And when I’ve seen our son.”
“Yes,” he said, “of course.” He stepped aside and Faye walked past him. He smelled of sandalwood, a scent that she’d once bought him. She wondered if he’d worn it when he’d been with Rita Blair.
“I’m sure you know I’m surprised to see you here,” she said.
“And you,” he said.
She walked to the wall of windows and stared out at the rusty canyon, wishing she were somewhere else, anywhere but there.
“He’s not here right now,” Joe added. “Greg.”
She nodded, because what did she expect? It was the way life went for Faye: never easy, never smooth.
“He went to town, but he’ll be back soon. You can wait here if you’d like.”
She did not know if she could do that, if she could stand in the same space as her former husband and not kick and scream and claw at his face because he’d never told her that he knew where Greg was—unless … Had he known all along?
Chances were Riley was safe. She’d not been bound and gagged and raped and had her throat slit until she’d bled to death. She’d not been a victim of any of the other million scenarios Hannah could have conjured up if she’d not known all along that Riley had run away—that Riley was simply making a statement to her mother that she hated her.
Hate, Hannah could deal with.
Rape or murder, she could not.
But if Riley had overheard Hannah’s confession, could that have made her angry enough to run away … to San Antonio?
Don’t be ridiculous, Hannah scolded herself. Riley could not have gone to Texas. She did not know Betty Barnes’ name. She did not know where the woman was locked up.
Besides, Evan had said, She has no money. Yet Hugh said she paid cash for her ferry ticket.
She had no money.
Unless …
There was one possibility.
Which was why, after the sheriff left again, Hannah climbed into the attic, to Mother Jackson’s trunk.
The beaded purse was gone.
The Silver Certificates, gone.
Certainly the cash was enough to afford passage to the Cape, and for a time thereafter, until … until what? How far ahead was a fourteen-year-old capable of thinking and of planning? Did she expect she could find work without a permit or did she think the cash would last forever?
Hannah noticed that Scout’s overalls from To Kill a Mockingbird were rumpled in disarray, not the way Hannah would have left them when she was there … when? Just the other day …
Oh, God, she thought.
Oh.
No.
And all Hannah could remember was when she’d gone up to the attic and she’d read the old news clipping and how she’d thought she’d heard a bat.
Oh.
God.
Wishing she did not have to do what she had to do, Hannah slowly began to remove the trunk’s contents and set them carefully on the wide floorboards around her.
Please, please, she whispered into the air as she took out one playbill after another, one folded poster, one covered, leather box.
At last she reached the false bottom. She stopped; she said one last prayer. Then Hannah lifted the lid of the compartment.
She groped around the small space. Nothing; nothing was there. Not her yearbook or her birth certificate. Not the old biology book. Not the news clippings from the trial. Everything was gone. Riley knew it all.
Did God have some sort of checklist that He used for everyone, a certain preset number of problems that each person must endure?
Before the breast cancer, Hannah might have felt she’d been through enough, that no benevolent God would make her go through any more pain for one lifetime. She remembered walking home one night after a play. She was holding Riley’s right hand and Evan was holding Riley’s left, and she felt filled with so much gratitude and love that she figured her quota of hard times must finally have been met. She thought God must be pleased; her suffering was done.
She might have even felt that way until her diagnosis, despite losing Mother Jackson, despite her growing difficulties with Riley. Those were ordinary, everyday problems. They did not compare to Hannah’s early life that she’d hidden in the trunk.
She thought of that now, as she went out to the greenhouse where there was a telephone, an extension Evan had put in to take his calls for work. He was not working now.
On her way downstairs from the attic, Hannah had seen Evan sitting in the living room, staring at the television though the set was not turned on. Riley’s disappearance had made her husband motionless.
Hannah had stopped in the kitchen and taken her pocketbook from the broom closet. She’d opened up her wallet, and removed the torn section of yellowed paper with a number written on it. Even in the darkness of the obscure corner of her wallet, even though the ink had faded over time and the creases of the paper had nearly broken through, Hannah could still make out the phone number that had been written so long ago.
She’d hoped she’d never have to call it.
At Evan’s small desk in the greenhouse, she shoved aside a stack of order forms that needed tending to. Then she picked up the receiver and drew in a long breath.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Was that the smell of pot?
For a moment, Hannah did not breathe. And then, in that moment, she decided some things no longer mattered. Not what the neighbors thought or didn’t think, not breast cancer, not whether or not her husband was smoking pot. The only thing that mattered was finding Riley.
Hannah picked up the receiver and firmly dialed the numbers.
Texas Department of Women’s Corrections.
On one hand, it had been so long since Hannah had heard a Texas accent that she nearly did not understand the operator’s drawn-out words. On the oth
er hand, or with some other, innate sense, Hannah sadly knew exactly what the woman said.
“I’m calling about one of your prisoners.” She closed her eyes so this wouldn’t seem so real.
“Call her lawyer,” the Texan drawled. “This isn’t a hotel.”
“Wait!” Hannah cried, afraid the woman would hang up. “I don’t want to talk to her. I only want to know if she’s still there. If she’s been released.”
“I can’t give you that information.”
“Who can?”
“Like I said. Call her lawyer.”
“I don’t know who he is.” She might have recognized the name if she could check the news clippings, but Riley had those now.
The woman sighed. “I’m sorry, lady. I can’t help you.”
“Please,” Hannah implored, “the inmate is my mother. My fourteen-year-old daughter has run away, and I’m afraid she’s going there. Please. I live in Massachusetts and I can’t come down there. I have breast cancer. Please.”
During the pause that followed, Hannah feared she’d been disconnected. Then the woman asked, “What stage?”
“Excuse me?”
“Breast cancer. What stage?”
She felt her body sigh. “Three,” she said. “I’m almost finished with my chemo, then it’s surgery.”
“My sister had Stage Three eighteen years ago. She’s doing great.”
Hannah did not know what to say. She should have felt reassurance. Instead, she wanted only to cry.
“You do everything they tell you, honey, and you’ll be fine.”
Hannah nodded as if they were in the same room now, sisters in awareness.
“Now,” the woman added, “what was the inmate’s name?”
Hannah blinked. A tear leaked from the outside corner of each eye. “Barnes,” she said, wiping the tears. “Betty—Elizabeth—Barnes.”
“Hang on. This might take a few seconds.”
So Hannah hung on, her thoughts drifting to the Texas heat and a nameless, faceless woman whose sister had Stage Three breast cancer and who was doing great, but might not be so great if she had a fourteen-year-old daughter who’d run two thousand miles away.
