by Tish Cohen
Victor had stolen a dog. A dog.
A tall, ponytailed man of about thirty, with a gold hoop earring and the tattoo of a winged horse on one arm, emerged from the back of the store, wiping his hands as if he’d been eating lunch. He smiled. “Turned out to be a nice day after all.”
“I’m ready to hide now, Lila,” Kieran sang, setting Sammi on the tile floor, then pushing up her sleeves. “You have to count to two hundred like you promised.”
“What’s your pup’s name?” said the man.
They had to exit fast, before the clerk made the connection and called the police. Kieran had dropped to the floor to inspect a stack of cartons for crevices. “Kieran, we’re going.”
“But you said—”
“Now.” She grabbed the child’s arm, scooped up the dog, and ran back to the car.
SEPTEMBER 20, 1996
Victor peered through the flaps of the nylon pup tent pitched on his living-room rug and listened to his daughter’s breathing, soft and relaxed, as she lay strewn across the pillows and duvets she’d dragged inside. God, he loved when she was with him. Since she’d arrived, he’d washed the smoke out of her clothes, had her shower and change into fresh pajamas, and fed her ready-made beef stew he’d picked up from his local market and heated up until steaming. Fortification, perhaps. As if any effort he made on this overnight, these fifteen hours he had with his girl, could steel her for what she might face later.
He hadn’t heard from Graham all day. The judge had been assigned, that much was certain, but Graham had been curiously silent. Victor had tried to convince himself it was a good sign. That Graham was so relaxed, so confident of their chances, he didn’t feel the need to call.
He padded into the dining room and stood in front of the sideboard his parents left him, along with the antique table and eight battered leather chairs, before they died—his mother after what seemed like a lifelong battle with Alzheimer’s, his father of a broken heart. He wrapped his fingers around the wooden knobs of the center drawer and paused.
Drastic. Crazed. Unheard of. It was what his mother, in her better days, would say of Victor’s preparations. Illegal, his military father would say. But neither of them had ever met with what Victor faced four days before his hearing. They’d never had to contemplate, even for a moment, losing the right to watch the way their child’s eyelashes flutter in her sleep. Or to hear the sweet, unselfconscious whisperings between her Barbie dolls as she lay on his living-room floor, unaware anyone was listening.
Before he could pull open the drawer, the phone rang, and Victor hurried into the kitchen to pick up before it woke Delilah.
“Yes?” he whispered.
“It’s me,” said Graham. “Sorry I didn’t call earlier. Kelly dragged me all over town to look at new office space. Apparently, we don’t have enough square footage to accommodate—”
“Who’d we get?”
“What?”
“The judge. That’s why you’re calling, right? Did we get the right judge? That older woman?”
Graham was silent for a moment. Then he exhaled slowly. “We didn’t. We got Henry Schiff. Midforties and recently divorced and, even more recently, dropped twenty pounds and started training for Ironman competitions. But that’s not the reason I’m calling.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Before I left the office, I heard from Elisabeth’s lawyer. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about Delilah drinking alcohol at some bar?”
“It was nothing. I swear to God. She picked up someone’s dirty glass—a nearly empty glass—and downed it on a bet with another kid. Why do I have to explain this to you? She saw a pool of disgusting backwash and figured she could shock a few people. How was she to know there was rum in it? Looked like Coke to her.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Oh come on, Graham. You can explain away this one. It could have happened to anyone.”
“It’s the kind of thing you mention to your lawyer when you’re about to go before a judge to ask for more access.”
“I figured…I don’t know what I figured. I was hoping it would go away.”
“Well, it didn’t and it won’t. Anyway, I know Elisabeth’s lawyer. We articled together at Torys. He didn’t have to, but he gave me the heads up.”
Victor felt his heart hammer against his chest. “The heads up about what?”
“It’s the law, Victor. He had no choice.”
“No choice about what?”
“Once Elisabeth told him it was Delilah’s second episode of drinking, he was bound by the law to report it.”
“To whom?”
“Children’s Aid.”
Victor was silent. He could hear the sound of Delilah snoring softly in the next room. “You there, Vic?”
“I’m here.”
“Buddy, I hate to be the one to tell you. You’re going to be investigated.”
Back in the dining room, Victor fought to control his breathing.
Children’s Aid. Investigating him.
This hearing was always going to be a he said/she said affair. It would be Elisabeth’s word against his. And all he had was his reputation as a father. Now—with an investigation under way—his reputation looked dubious, if not fully sullied. And then there was the larger issue. The issue that drove Victor to fight for custody of Delilah in the first place.
The accident that damned near killed her.
When Elisabeth laid her fingers across her bare throat and let them trail down her open-necked shirt, exuding sensuality, professing her absolute innocence, which parent would this newly single judge believe? Sure as hell not the one being investigated by Children’s Aid.
Sweat dribbled down Victor’s collar; his hands shook. His old Boy Scout motto rang in his head, Always Be Prepared. He and Graham used to laugh about it. About preparing themselves for alien invasions, for alligators in sewers, for when sparrows attack. They envisioned themselves after the apocalypse, sitting in the middle of the ice rink at city hall in their Boy Scout uniforms—sashes decorated with badges for every possible accomplishment—surrounded by the lifeless bodies of the unprepared.
No smiling today. He opened the drawer and felt around beneath the stack of folded, pressed linen napkins. Pulled out a fat manila envelope and dumped its contents.
Laid out on the sideboard was a well-padded bankbook, as well as new passports, new birth certificates, one-way airline tickets—two of each—along with one vital sheet of paper: a permission letter from his ex-wife. Forged.
Victor’s only shot at a life worth living.
Thirty-Three
The girl’s name was Hilary Cooper, and her shorts were so short that Lila could see the pale half-moon of the underside of her buttocks. She looked away as she followed Hilary and Mr. Cooper up the steps from the cabin to the road. It hadn’t gone well. The only thing that had prevented Mr. Cooper from calling in the police, animal control, and the Department of Fish and Game, he’d said, was that he had to catch a flight to London that night and didn’t have time for all the follow-up. But Lila should consider herself warned: Her father was a dangerous man.
Mr. Cooper said, “Thinks he’s above the law, stealing a dog. Man’s capable of just about anything.”
She couldn’t help herself. “Tell me about it.”
In spite of the afternoon’s warmth, Hilary had the pug swaddled in a fleecy white blanket with silky fringe. Sammi stared at Lila and grinned, tiny tongue darting in and out contentedly.
“Missed my golf game. Missed a breakfast meeting,” Mr. Cooper ranted. “Idiot dog’s been more trouble than it’s worth.” When Hilary shot her father an aggrieved look, he added, “Daddy’s just tense, sweetheart.”
“I’m really sorry,” Lila repeated for the hundredth time.
Mr. Cooper circled the hood of the convertible BMW and paused at the wheel well, inspecting the paint. “What’s this?”
No. Please, no.
“Where did this scratch come from?”
>
Lila looked back to see Victor’s face dart behind the kitchen curtains. He did it—he actually scratched up a car this time. Followed through with his written threats and moved right into vandalism.
“It goes all the way…” Mr. Cooper followed the gauge to the taillights, around the rear end, and back up the right side of the car. “All the way around the car!” He looked up and down the street, then at the 240Z as if he might be able to wrestle up a class-action suit. But the 240Z was, of course, pristine.
Lila started to apologize. “I’m really sorry. If you get an estimate, we’ll pay for any—”
“Hilary?” Mr. Cooper boomed. “Have you been driving my car?”
Lila was about to explain, but thought better of it. The man was already livid. Learning Victor trashed his paint job might send him raging down to the house again.
“Shut up and drive, Dad,” Hilary said, climbing into the passenger seat and arranging the dog in a patent leather carrier. “I have my bikini wax in twenty.”
Mr. Cooper shook his head and trotted around the car, slapping his keys against his palm. “Nightmare of a day.”
“I’m so sorry for your trouble. Please know we took good care of your dog. Of Sammi.”
Hilary peered over the tops of her sunglasses, reached a slender arm over the car door, and gave Lila the finger. Then the car sped away, washing Lila’s feet in dust.
Slowly, Lila turned around to see Keith Angel leaning on a tree at the road’s edge, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.
Or, quite possibly, satisfaction.
She marched past him and down to the house. Shoved open the screen door, stomped into the kitchen, and pulled out a phone book, flipping through it so fast the pages tore. Victor peered over her shoulder. “Who are you calling, Mouse?”
She reached for a pen and scrawled a number on the back of an envelope. “A doctor.”
“For whom?”
“For you.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She laughed angrily. “Oh, yes it will.”
“I have an appointment booked already.”
She stood up straight, shocked. “You booked an appointment?”
“I did.”
“With an actual doctor?”
“That’s right.” Victor pulled his shirt away from his wrist and looked at his watch. “I’m due there in twenty-five minutes—that pale pink building away over by the pharmacy.” Lila reached for her keys and started for the door. “Get in the car. I’ll drive you.”
IF HIS DAUGHTER was surprised he didn’t fight for the privilege of driving, she didn’t show it. The poor girl probably hadn’t recovered from the shock of his canine caper. It was okay. She’d soon know all she needed to know. With any luck it would soothe her. Not fully. Never fully.
After leaning over the center console, he patted her knee, said, “I’m doing this for you, my dear,” then hauled his guilty bones up and out of the car, across the empty sidewalk, and through the revolving doors of the Goodhew Medical Arts Building.
It was true. Nearly 100 percent true.
SEPTEMBER 21, 1996
Victor hunched in the little plastic tub chair at Pearson International Airport, certain his pounding heart was casting reverberations down the adjoining seats in his row. He pressed a hand to his knee to stop the nervous bouncing, then set his Styrofoam cup on the floor behind his feet, unable to tolerate airport coffee on top of the guilt and fear already churning in his gut.
It wasn’t that he had imagined abducting his own child and smuggling her out of the country would be emotionally uncomplicated, but, deep in his heart, he never really believed following through with his just-in-case plan would be necessary. Preparation had been intense—six full weeks of planning. There were no how-to guides on paternal abduction. He’d had to consider every possible glitch that could arise—and what did a former Boy Scout know about skipping town with his daughter?
If there were a merit badge awarded for the act, surely he’d earned it. He’d emptied bank accounts, dropped hints around the office as to whom would be a good replacement should he suddenly get hit by a train, risked his life picking up fake IDs from a nail salon with a hidden back room that locked from the inside, and studied different states to determine where a single father and his shell-shocked daughter might best remain anonymous. The activity, the busyness, had kept him astonishingly calm.
Until now.
Every flight attendant and sanitation worker who cast a glance in his direction while going about their business caused him a gush of stomach acid. Every time Delilah looked up from her sketchpad, he thought he might drop dead from guilt for what he was about to do to her. To her mother.
He couldn’t go through with it.
It wasn’t too late. He hadn’t yet done anything wrong.
He would gather her up, explain that the trip had to be canceled, quell the girl’s tears with ice-cream sundaes and one last trip to Toys “R” Us before Children’s Aid knocked on his front door. It was barely seven A.M., and there wasn’t a chance in hell Elisabeth was even awake yet, let alone wondering where her daughter was.
It would be so easy to undo everything.
Delilah’s head sunk down onto Victor’s arm. Soft. Heavy. Sweet. He looked at her, curled up in the seat beside him, her face puffy with lack of sleep, sparkly fairy wings strapped to her back. “Can we go back and get my new bike?”
Victor stiffened, a prickly feeling spreading through his chest. No. Elisabeth wouldn’t have. The doctors had been clear after the accident. No jumping, no running. No skipping, no skateboards. No bikes. Not for a full six months. Another hit to the head could be devastating.
He tried to sound casual when he spoke. Tried to sound as if the lives of all three of them didn’t depend on the child’s answer. “Your mother got you a bike?”
Delilah yawned into her hand and closed her eyes. “Mm-hmm.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
It was all he needed to know.
A garbled voice announced over the loudspeakers that flight 764 was ready to board. Passengers in business class were to move toward the gate, as well as anyone with small children or limited mobility. People in the seats around them began to rise, gather their bags, move toward the gate where a flight attendant checked their tickets.
Victor stood up and pulled his daughter to her feet. “Time to go, Mouse.”
“Wait. I forgot about my secret code.” People picked their way past them and their toppled carry-on bags, until no one remained in the row. “It’s the rule,” said Delilah, refusing to budge. She looked up at Victor. “We have to call Mum. She told me not to go anywhere with anyone unless they say my secret code. It’s from Stranger Danger Day.”
“Delilah, I’m your father. Secret codes are for strangers, not people who love you.”
Delilah folded her arms across her chest, chin tilted upward. “I can’t get on the plane unless Mum says I can give you my code. We have to call her.”
“We’re not—”
“I WANT TO CALL MY MOTHER AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME!”
All around them, heads snapped around. Couples mumbled to each other. An airline employee frowned. Victor had no choice. He couldn’t afford to make a scene.
Red-faced and fumbling, Victor pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and dialed. As Delilah snatched it, holding it to her ear for all to see, he slung their bags over his shoulder and got ready to dart onto the plane once Elisabeth caught wind of what was going on.
“Hello?” Victor could hear Elisabeth’s sleepy voice.
“Mummy! I’m on Dad’s cell phone.”
“I can barely hear you, Delilah. Speak louder.”
“Daddy’s taking me to Disneyworld. That’s in Florida.”
The line filled with static. Elisabeth said something, but Victor couldn’t make out what, exactly. “I get to miss school on Monday.”
More static. Then, “No! Delilah, you wait there. I�
��m coming right now…”
Delilah covered the receiver and looked at Victor, crinkling up her nose. “I think she wants to come.”
Victor, sweating, pacing, rubbing his temples, shook his head and pointed to the shrinking lineup of passengers, most of whom had disappeared onto the boarding ramp. “We have to go, Delilah. Now. The plane is boarding.”
“He says you can’t come. But we’ll be home soon. Can I tell him my code?”
“Delilah?” More crackling, then, “Delilah? Daddy does not have your code—” and the line went dead.
Victor stuffed his phone back into his bag. It was now or never. Final boarding calls were being announced. And Elisabeth would be on the phone with 911 at this very moment. Police would storm the airport, armed with descriptions. And from the looks of things, he and Delilah were the only bearded father and fairy-winged daughter in the vicinity. Victor forced a relaxed smile. “Well, young lady? Shall we go?”
“She said you don’t have the code…”
It wasn’t the time to argue with Delilah. She was antagonistic and would fight for the sake of the fight. He decided upon a different tactic.
“Well, then. I forbid you to tell me the code. It is top secret and I am never allowed to know. It would be terribly wrong for you to tell me. Much worse than drinking backwash for money.”
The corner of her mouth twitched.
“I assure you, I do not want to know that code.”
Her little chest heaved up and down with all the possibilities.
Such power lay at her feet. The disobedience. The lawlessness.
It was too much for her. A smile spread across her face, nearly reaching all the way to her bent wings. She shouted, “Monie and Cézanne!”
Looking through the tiny oval window at the mouth of the runway, as the engines rumbled with the might necessary to heave the great aircraft into the sky, he could feel the city waking up and stretching. The millions of people going about their lazy morning rituals, showering, shaving, maybe scanning the Globe and Mail over their first cup of coffee.
