by Sarah Healy
“No,” said Mary. “The B & M Diner.”
“The B & M?” he asked, questioning.
“Yeah,” replied Mary. “The one by the Herald building.”
The streets were quiet as the cab glided through them; talk radio playing low enough for the words to be indiscernible. As the sisters made their way out of affluence, the buildings tightened and rose, and the sun burned through the early-morning haze. “This is right here,” said Terrance, finally, pulling up to a silver diner on the corner. He watched Mary look at the sign. “They got good steak and eggs.”
Mary paid the fare, and Terrance lifted the Chase girls’ bags out of the trunk, resting them on the sidewalk. “You want some help with those?” he asked, as Mary slung one over each shoulder, lifting the third to her chest.
“I got it. Thanks.”
The Chase girls went inside, taking a booth near the window. Two bags were stuck next to Hannah, the third next to Mary. When the waitress came, Mary ordered Hannah a stack of silver-dollar pancakes and a glass of orange juice.
“Anything else?” asked with waitress, without looking up from her order pad.
“Yeah, I’ll take a coffee,” replied Mary, closing the menu and extending it toward the waitress. “And the steak and eggs.”
“They’re famous here.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“That’ll be right out.”
“It’s okay,” Mary said. “We’re not in a rush.”
After the waitress left, Mary went to the pay phone outside and stared across the street at the large sand-yellow building with enormous words affixed to its exterior. THE MIAMI HERALD. Then she dialed the number that she had committed to memory.
The phone rang several times until the machine picked up. Gail’s smooth, practiced voice came over the tape. You’ve reached the Dackards, please leave a message and we’ll return your call just as soon as possible.
“Hello. This is—”
Mary heard the line being picked up.
“Mary,” he said, his voice steel smooth. And she couldn’t help but smile.
“Good morning, Ron.”
She heard him exhale loudly. “Where are you?”
At that, Gail’s voice burst into the background, her words running together in an indiscernible shriek. Ron put his hand over the receiver. “Shut the fuck up, Gail!”
Only when Gail was quiet did Mary speak again. “Did you have fun last night, Ron?”
She heard Ron try to steady his voice. He was opportunistic enough himself to recognize the trait in others. “I had a lot to drink, Mary.”
“That you did, Ron.” A couple passed, the man was following the woman, shouting at her in Spanish. “Crees que puedes hacerlo mejor que yo?”
“Why don’t you tell me where you are?” he said, with the forced calm of a hostage negotiator. “I can come pick you up and we can work this out.”
Mary’s smile grew broader. “I’m at the B & M Diner,” she said, relishing the pause. “Right by the Miami Herald.” And she would have given anything to see Ron’s face as he finally and fully put the pieces together. “You’re going to meet me here in three hours with ten thousand dollars in cash.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind.” His words were said through locked teeth.
“And if you don’t,” continued Mary, as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’m going to walk across the street and tell the reporters an interesting story about a freshman state senator and his wife’s cousin.” She paused, knowing that Ron was recalling the pictures and the look on his face as he smiled for the camera, cupping the breasts of a very pretty, very young girl.
Seven
1981
Mary stood at the desk of the dealership watching the damp man with strings of hair running across his bare scalp count the stack of money she had handed him. Stopping suddenly, he looked up at her, his face inquisitive and hopeful. “Are you that famous fashion model?” he asked, his accent more rural than she had heard elsewhere in Miami.
Mary looked at him for a moment as he waited for her reply. “No,” she said plainly, before slipping her sunglasses back down on her face and looking away. The man returned to the stack of bills, but his question had made him lose count, and she heard him swear under his breath as he started over again. Perhaps he was wondering how else a girl would be able to pay cash for a car—albeit a used one—if she wasn’t a famous fashion model.
Mary stayed silent as the man finished, feeling the remainder of Ron Dackard’s money against her leg, to which it was strapped with an ACE bandage. Once he had totaled the $3,200, he slid the title toward her. “Alright. You’ve got yourself a car.” Mary picked up the paper, her eyes running over its seals and signatures. “Lemme go get the boys to bring it around,” he said, straining slightly with the effort of standing. Then he carried himself to the backroom with his wide chugging gate.
Once he was out of the room, Mary bent down toward Hannah, who was staring into a dismal-looking little fish tank that contained only three common goldfish circling their scum-walled environs. “We’re going to have such a fun trip, Bunny,” she said. Hannah looked up at her. The past few months had been hard on Hannah, Mary knew that.
“Are we going home now?”
Mary squatted down so that their eyes were level, and she shook her head. “We’re going to do something so much better.”
“What?”
Mary turned to see the black Chevy Blazer round the front of the building and idle, like a loyal steed. Then her eyes returned to Hannah. “We’re going to have an adventure,” she said, the words feeling round and perfect on her tongue.
The Chase girls drove north, hugging the coast before drifting toward the center and taking the great artery that cut through the peninsula of Florida to the heart of the south. The elevation seemed to slope downward until Mary felt their destination grow nearer. It was something she was drawn to without knowing why, like her own magnetic north. And when the swamp finally did come into view, its still waters reflected the steadily falling sun like an inverse earth.
Years earlier, Mary had read about Tammahuskee Swamp in a magazine, and the images from the article had settled in her mind, found shelter there. The heavy-footed cypress trees, their branches swathed with veils of gray moss; the carnivorous pitcher plants, hooded and red veined; the black cottonmouths, slipping between land and water—they all seemed to be the inhabitants of the fairy-tale world Mary so often created for Hannah. Mary recalled that the swamp used to be home to panthers, but they had been eradicated. And as she glanced out her window at the orange sky, she wished that they were still there, lurking in the bush, their bodies pressed low.
Up ahead, a sign came into view and Mary read the white letters, then made a smooth turn onto the dry pine-flanked dirt road at the entrance to the park. “This is it, Bunny,” she said, finally letting herself feel the weariness from the past days and weeks and months. It was a relief to be with just Hannah, in a place both water and land, where the past and the future seemed to meet, where Mary could prepare for what came next. “We’re here.”
Mary pulled up to the campground offices and put the car in park. They had stopped only twice, exiting the highway and finding themselves on wide roads lined with unfamiliar fast-food chains. When Mary saw a Kmart, she pulled in, and with the Dackards’ money, Mary bought a tent and two sleeping bags.
“Do you want to stay in the car while I run inside?” Mary asked. The sun had sunk out of sight, and under the pines, the air outside was cool and getting colder.
Hannah opened her car door. “No,” she said. “I wanna come.”
She followed Mary up the wood ramp to the drab gray building. Mary pulled open the clattering screen door, then propped it open with her hip as she pushed in the larger wooden one and scooted Hannah in ahead of her. A small gray-haired woman looked up. She wore a handknit-looking sweater over an ill-fitting uniform.
“Evening,” she said, with a nod. “May I help you?
”
“We’re here for a campsite,” she said.
The woman glanced up again at Mary, then back down at her ledger. “Do you have a driver’s license?”
Mary took her wallet from her bag and pulled out her license, handing it to the woman, who slid her glasses up her nose before tilting her head back to examine the small card. Then she set it down beside the ledger and began to transcribe Mary’s name. “You girls have come a long way,” she said.
“We were visiting family,” Mary replied. “Down in Florida.”
The woman then pulled a photocopied map from a stack. “You’ll be in campsite 21. You’ll want to park just in front of it.” Then she looked at Mary as if Mary were a young scout under her command. “You have equipment, I assume. It’s going to get down into the forties tonight and you’ll need proper sleeping bags. Most people don’t come this time of year.”
“We have bags,” answered Mary, as she took the map and stuck it in her back pocket. She rested her hand on Hannah’s back as they turned to leave.
“The closest grocery store is Harvey’s,” the woman called after them. Mary stopped and looked back. “Just a couple of miles down the road. They’ll be closed by now, but they open at eight in the morning.”
Mary nodded. “Okay,” she said, with a single nod. “Thanks.”
Then the girls walked back out, hearing the screen door bang shut behind them. “How hungry are you, Bunny?” Mary asked, as she opened her car door, stepping aside to make room for Hannah.
Hannah looked up, then shrugged. “Only a little,” she said.
“Do you think another PB&J would be enough for tonight?” she asked. “We could get something warm in the morning.”
“I guess,” replied Hannah, before scrambling up into the car and across to the passenger’s seat.
Mary got in beside her and navigated by headlight the short distance to campsite 21, which was a small alcove with a picnic table sitting on patchy balding grass. Mary noticed a shiver run through Hannah as they got back out of the car. She popped the tailgate and pulled out one of the three big suitcases they had brought with them to Miami, then she opened it and took out Hannah’s purple down jacket and tossed it to her sister. “Here, Bunny,” she said. “Put that on.”
Hannah caught its sleeve as the rest of the jacket landed by her feet. She wasn’t old enough to wonder why Mary had brought her winter coat with them to Miami. “Do the alligators stay in the water?” she asked, slowly sliding the jacket on.
“Oh, yeah,” said Mary, as she pulled a hat down over Hannah’s head. “Don’t worry about them. They can hardly move on land.”
Hannah gave her a solemn look, and Mary cupped the back of her head.
“You’ll like it here, Bunny,” she said. “It’ll be a good place to stay for a couple of days.”
Hannah nodded, the way an adult does when processing information that doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. “Why did we leave Gail’s house?”
“It was just time to go,” said Mary.
“Ron was mad when he came to the restaurant.”
Mary recalled how he had walked silently in, his jaw like a jutting crag of rock, and sat down. Without a word, his eyes boring into Mary’s, he had slid her a gloriously fat envelope. She held his gaze while she fingered each bill under the table, counting them out. Then she slid him her own envelope, the one with the Polaroids.
“The Dackards were nice, but we couldn’t stay there forever,” Mary said, as she pulled the tent, still in its package, from the back of the Blazer. “Now come on. Help me get this thing set up.”
Mary spread the components of the tent on the ground in front of her and set to work. Her long lean arms secured stakes and threaded poles through fabric channels as Hannah held the flashlight. The night was a dense black, hung with the moon and its companion stars.
As Mary worked, she drew the attention of two men in the nearest occupied campsite, who had positioned themselves to watch her. With gray beards and black leather jackets, they reclined against their picnic table, their hands curled around cans of beer and their faces illuminated by the undulating flames of their fire. Beside their tent were two large luggage-strapped motorcycles parked on a blanket of dead pine needles. “Let us know if you need any help,” they called, their gravelly voices playful.
Mary heard the pop of wood as their fire consumed it. Her head jerked up. She looked at the men, her hazel eyes more yellow than brown.
But she said nothing.
Once the tent was up, Mary unrolled the sleeping bags and set them inside, then hung her flashlight from a small hook at its peak. Scooting back out, she stood at the entrance and looked at Hannah. “Check it out,” she said, tilting her head toward the tent.
Hannah stuck her head in and was taken with it at once, scrambling in and lying on her back atop one of the sleeping bags. Her hands were beneath her head and her teeth were visible through her smile.
“You like it?” asked Mary, bending down toward the entrance. The tent with Bunny in it reminded Mary of the Easter eggs Diane used to buy her, the ones made of sugar with a window into an intricate scene inside.
Hannah nodded. “It’s like where rabbits live,” she said.
Mary chuckled. “Yeah,” she said. “Perfect for a bunny.”
On her back, Hannah gazed up at the tent’s ceiling, and Mary knew that it was turning to vines and roots and moist brown earth in her sister’s mind.
Mary gathered sandwich makings and then followed Hannah into the tent. “We can pretend that we’re Princess Mary and Princess Hannah, and that this is an enchanted forest,” she said, assembling a sandwich, using her knees like a countertop.
“And that we just got out of the Black Woods,” said Hannah, curling her arms around her small body.
“And that there’s a magical creature here that looks like a huge cat, and if we can find him, we can ride on his back and defeat the evil queen.”
Hannah’s head fell back onto the tent floor. “How many nights do we get to sleep in here?” asked Hannah, giddy.
“A bunch,” answered Mary, as she handed Hannah a PB&J. “We can stay until we don’t want to stay anymore.”
Hannah took a bite of the sandwich and smiled contentedly, her gaze softening as her mind drifted to lands faraway. “Do you think that scroll might be in here? The one that could help Mom?”
Mary stroked Hannah’s head. “I don’t know, Bunny” was all she said.
The girls each ate three sandwiches, and then Mary helped Hannah zip up in her sleeping bag.
“Night, Bunny,” she said, kissing her nose.
“Can we look for the magical cat tomorrow?”
“First thing,” replied Mary, then she picked up the sandwich makings. “I’m going to go stick these in the truck.”
She had just shut the car door when the men called to her from their campsite across the way. “Want to come sit with us?” the younger one said, his voice just starting to slur. “We got some beers.”
Mary looked from side to side, then walked briskly to the men, somehow seeing everything around her, sensing it as coolness and heat, light and dark. The men elbowed each other excitedly at the approach of the girl with the black hair. When she stopped, she stared at them for a moment before speaking. “Did you hear?” she asked. The men looked at each other, trying to determine if they were equally confused. “About the attack?”
Finally, the young one, the braver one, spoke. “What attack?” he asked, his free hand finding its way under his arm. Beside them, the fire snapped and danced.
“The panther. One dragged a man into the swamp by his throat. He was kicking the whole time, but his throat was filled with blood so he couldn’t scream.”
The men looked at each other nervously. “We didn’t hear anything about that,” the older one said, trying to sound dismissive.
“You won’t. The state’s trying to keep it hush-hush. They don’t want people to know that the panthers are back
,” she said. And as quickly as she came, she turned and left, stalking back through the dark with quick, quiet steps, leaving only silence in her wake as the men watched her behind the flames.
Back at site 21, Mary unzipped the tent and, finding Hannah still awake, climbed in. Without a word, she lay next to her. And when Hannah’s eyes finally slipped shut, Mary reached for a novel that she had taken from Gail. Its unread pages were cool and virgin, and Mary slid her fingers inside to flex the spine. She balanced a flashlight against her shoulder and held the book above her face. They wouldn’t be going back to the Water’s Edge, Mary knew that. And as she read, with a strand of her dark hair tucked into the corner of her mouth, she felt a pulling in her chest. She remembered the day several years ago when her heart opened up, then closed back around the object it so desired.
Eight
1982
It was their motorcycles that woke her, the burn of them as they roared out of the park. Mary lifted her head, her gaze turned toward the sound. Next to her, she heard Hannah breathe sharply, then saw her eyes struggle to open. Mary rested her head back down and let it roll toward her sister. “Morning, Bunny,” she said, as Hannah propped herself up and glanced around the tent, looking disoriented. “How’d you sleep?”
With her eyes still swollen from sleep, Hannah thought for a moment. “Good,” she said.
“We need to go into town,” said Mary. “We need to buy some food.”
Hannah made a grunting noise, and she squirmed her way onto her belly, burying her face into the bag’s plaid flannel lining.
“Come on, Bunny,” said Mary, nudging her sister with her foot. “We’ll find a diner or something.”
Once in the Blazer, Mary turned the heat up to high. Next to her, Hannah had her coat pulled tightly and her chin sunk into her chest. Mary laid her fingers over the vent until she felt the air turn warm.
“Here,” Mary said, taking Hannah’s hand and placing it where hers had been. “Put your hands here.”
