True Places

by Sonja Yoerg

  Suzanne focused on driving and monitored her speed, all the while thinking that the girl was behaving exactly as had their family cat, Rusty, the first time they had taken him to the vet, before they’d grasped the necessity of a carrier. Was the poor kid mentally disturbed? She didn’t seem violent, just terrified. Terrified of Suzanne, the car, the world rushing past. Terrified of everything.

  The girl lost consciousness again. At the University of Virginia emergency center, the staff transferred the girl’s listless body to a cart, instructed Suzanne to move her car, and wheeled the cart through the double doors. Suzanne parked in the visitors’ lot, grabbed her phone and the backpack, and entered the hospital. She spoke briefly to the attendant at the desk, then proceeded to the berth where the girl lay sweating on a bed. A nurse was taking her pulse. Under the lights and against the white linens, the girl’s appearance was even more alarming. Her body was lost inside her clothing and her cheekbones seemed about to pierce her skin. But more than that, she did not appear to belong here. The girl was not simply ill or lost; she was otherworldly.

  Suzanne stood to the side, the backpack at her feet. She’d been asked to wait for the police and had no idea how long they would be. She supposed she could wait in the lobby, but it seemed wrong to leave the girl’s side.

  A middle-aged woman came through the curtain—the doctor, Suzanne presumed. She had closely cropped pewter hair and wore scrubs and a look of habitual resignation. The nurse recited the girl’s vitals. Nodding, the doctor snapped on gloves and began to examine the girl. As she palpated the swollen jaw, the girl’s eyes flew open. Her gaze took in the doctor, the nurse, the lights, the equipment. She bolted upright and tried to jump off the bed.

  The doctor caught her arm. “Hey, not so fast.” She turned to bark at the nurse. “Give me a hand. She’s incredibly strong.”

  The nurse placed a firm hand on the girl’s shoulder. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  The girl pulled up her legs, cowering.

  The doctor held up her gloved hands in innocence. “I just need to get a peek in your mouth.”

  Suzanne said, “Can’t you give her something?”

  “Not until I know what’s going on with her, have a look at that jaw. She appears to be malnourished and is probably dehydrated, so I’d really like to get a line in.”

  Suzanne moved to the end of the bed and held the backpack aloft. “This is yours, right?” The girl stilled. “I haven’t opened it.” Suzanne placed it on the bed in front of the girl.

  The doctor frowned. “We don’t know what’s in there—”

  “Her stuff.”

  The girl dragged the pack closer. Suzanne came around the side of the bed and crouched beside it. “I know you’re hurt. That’s why I brought you here. This is where they heal people.” The girl stared at Suzanne, her lips twitching. “Maybe you’ve been sick before. Everyone gets sick. I don’t know where your family is, but maybe when you were sick before, your mother was there.”

  The girl sucked in air, hunched her shoulders, trembling, and peered at Suzanne. The girl’s violet-blue eyes were awash in tears.

  Suzanne reached for her hand.

  “And now I’m here.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Contents of the backpack, as logged by Officer Rodriguez, Charlottesville police. Stored in hospital locker, except as noted.

  – Sleeping bag, synthetic

  – Long-sleeved shirt (men’s large)

  – Knit cap in navy blue wool

  – Gloves, fingertips cut off

  – Down vest

  – Canteen, army issue

  – Comb

  – Turquoise hair clasp

  – Cook pot, fire blackened, no lid

  – Plastic container, two quart, with lid

  – Two empty tin cans

  – Four small cloth pouches, hand sewn, containing:

  – needle and coarse thread

  – fish hooks and filament

  – ground substance (impounded, pending ID)

  – dried plants and roots (impounded, pending ID)

  – Hunting knife, seven-inch blade (impounded)

  – Pocket knife, folding, four-inch blade (impounded)

  – Whetstone

  – Fire starter, flint based

  – Snare wire

  – Nylon cord

  – Nylon tarp, 8’ x 10’

  – Stuffed pink bear

  CHAPTER 4

  As Suzanne exited the hospital, her phone rang, a brassy rendition of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the special tone she’d assigned to her mother, Tinsley Royce. It was simpler to answer Tinsley’s calls and avoid the lengthy messages, escalating in urgency, and the reprisals that would inevitably follow a missed call.

  Tinsley didn’t pause for a greeting. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Where in heaven’s name have you been? I saw Rory in town on my way to my massage and she told me you missed lunch with her.”

  “Something came up. I texted her.”

  “She said you were vague.”

  Suzanne could picture them speculating but never veering into nosiness. Tinsley saved that for her daughter. Suzanne wove through the parking lot, keys in hand. Spotting the Navigator, she clicked it open.

  Tinsley said, “Well, it’s none of my business what you were doing.”

  If only the truth of that statement would be enough to hold Tinsley back from pursuing her questioning. “I found a girl on the parkway. She was all by herself and in pain, so I took her to the hospital.”

  “What were you doing on the parkway?”

  Suzanne almost laughed. An abandoned, injured child was not nearly as intriguing as a woman with a full schedule taking a joyride on America’s favorite highway. “Driving. I was driving.”

  “Well, I assumed—”

  Suzanne opened the door and tossed her handbag onto the passenger seat. God, the hyacinths. She gagged at the smell. A quick calculation told her she had enough time to drop them off before picking up Brynn. “Mother, was there something you needed?”

  “I know you’re busy, dear.”

  “It’s okay. What do you need?”

  “The fund-raiser at the club is next month, and I’m supposed to be in charge of sponsors. Only I haven’t a clue.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why did you volunteer for it?”

  “Your father insisted. He thinks that if everyone sees I’m being a good sport and playing the part, then everything is fine. Which from his perspective it is.”

  “You don’t have to agree.”

  “You know your father.”

  Something in the way she said “your father” carried a whiff of disapproval, as if somehow Suzanne were responsible for Anson Royce because her existence had made him a father, and a poor one, thereby contributing to her mother’s unhappiness, that massive, looming shadow. It was not logical but, then again, her mother’s motivations never were. If Suzanne were to confront Tinsley, she would be devastated to hear that her daughter could think such things of her. And in the next breath Tinsley would bemoan another affair of Anson’s, sprinkling the story of her humiliation (that was the very worst of it) with as many iterations of “your father” as syntax would allow.

  “Whatever you need me to do, Mother. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

  “If you have time. I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “It’s fine. I just need to catch up from today.”

  “You know, Suzanne, the police will take care of abandoned children.”

  “It was easier to take her myself.” She thought of the girl’s frantic behavior in the car. Perhaps she should have called for help. “You should’ve seen her, Mother. She was so thin and frail.”

  “Was she a meth head? I heard a report the other day on the news.”

  “No. Just a girl.”

  Tinsley paused. “Did you say why you were on the parkway?”

  “
Driving, Mother. Just driving.”

  Brynn stood among a flock of girls gathered in the Barrington School’s front quad. All wore racing swimsuits under sweatpants that were rolled at the top and positioned below jutting hipbones. At five foot eleven, Brynn was the tallest, but not by much. Suzanne studied them. They were extraordinary creatures, like flamingos or giraffes, hybrid humans, or even further removed, a self-invented species. They behaved as a unit; when one reacted to a stimulus, or failed to react, the others did the same, like shorebirds switching direction along the tide line. Whatever it was—a boy passing by, a hilarious Snapchat, a comment from a despised teacher—a pointedly raised eyebrow was sufficient to secure instantaneous solidarity, especially if the eyebrow belonged to Brynn.

  Suzanne came to a stop alongside the row of parked cars. Brynn ducked her head, the wet curtain of her hair closing the scene of her mother’s arrival like the end of a dull play. The other girls refused to look at the car without seeming to do so. They continued chatting, tossing their hair, and running their thumbs over their devices until more than five minutes had passed. Finally Brynn shrugged, said, “See you guys,” and left them, coincidentally in the direction of the car, thumbs flying across the glass surface of her phone with the grace of a skater executing her figures, until one hand reluctantly bowed out to open the car door.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He had a meeting.”

  Brynn stuffed her bag under her feet and rested her hands, still manipulating the phone, on her knees.

  Suzanne checked the side mirror and pulled out. “How was practice?”

  “Long. Wet.”

  “And school?”

  “Oh well, could’ve been better. For example, if I hadn’t bombed on the English paper I spent the whole week writing.”

  Suzanne had forgotten about her daughter’s text and felt a jab of guilt. Then again, Brynn had to suffer the consequences of her actions. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to go? Don’t bail out your kids. Let them understand firsthand the way behavior and results were linked. Learn the lesson. Do better next time. Suzanne knew Brynn would not listen to parental homilies. She also knew she couldn’t stop herself from delivering one. Was she supposed to give up on being a parent?

  “It’s disappointing to get a poor grade, but the important thing is to try not to let it happen again.”

  Brynn’s thumbs stopped. “Wait. That is so deep. Let me write that down.”

  “I know you want to blame me.”

  “Yup. Wasn’t it only a couple days ago that you were late to my meet because Dad forgot his tennis bag and you had to run it up to the club for him?”

  “That’s different. Your father has a demanding job and I help him however I can.”

  “Right. And I’m just a lazy kid taking advanced classes and swimming varsity.” She shifted her feet onto the dashboard, setting Suzanne’s teeth on edge, and went back to her phone.

  As Suzanne drove home, she considered where she had gone wrong with Brynn, not just today, but across a longer window of time. When had Brynn become so adversarial? When had Suzanne begun to fail to find a way to bridge the gap between them? She could not pinpoint the shift. She could remember when a lollipop or a balloon was all it would take; it was that easy. The space between then and now was impossible for her to examine objectively. It pained her as much to recall the tender moments as the hostile ones, and the transition from mostly positive interactions to mostly awful ones had been insidious, like a spreading mold.

  Suzanne pulled into the drive. Brynn got out and slammed the door shut without a word. Suzanne remained in her seat, in the quiet, searching her memory for how she had so monstrously failed Brynn and coming up with nothing more than a laundry list of shortcomings and oversights she doubted could account for the scope of Brynn’s rage.

  As Suzanne gathered her phone and her bag and left the car, her thoughts turned to her own adolescence. She was certain she had never been as openly hostile to Tinsley as Brynn was to her. She had not been an angelic teenager, but she was more circumspect in expressing her feelings toward Tinsley, to the extent that she expressed them at all.

  Along the path to the front porch, snowdrops and crocuses bloomed at the base of a trio of Hana Jinam camellias that soon would be covered in huge white flowers edged with hot pink. When she and Whit had bought the house twelve years ago, Suzanne had replaced the tired foundation plantings with varieties guaranteed to celebrate spring. Now she bent to pull a few weeds from between the snowdrops and was reminded of her fourth-grade science poster, “Uses for Useless Weeds,” and the reason she did not depend on her mother—or her father—to tend to her feelings.

  Suzanne’s excitement about her project—as she gathered plants from the backyard and roadsides, read library books about botany, and drew the poster itself, her lettering painstakingly even—had been quelled only by her mother’s announcement that her father would attend in her stead. Tinsley played bunko the third Thursday of every month and wouldn’t dream of missing it.

  Suzanne remembered being anxious about this role switch but still eager to share her new knowledge with her father. He was a banker, and Suzanne was determined to show him that weeds were as interesting as money and had many surprising uses. For instance, plantain, which grew in their yard, had medicine in its leaves that could heal cuts and stop bites from itching. Suzanne had tried it on her mosquito bites and reported her findings on the poster.

  At the fair, her assigned spot was right across from the door of the gymnasium. Each time someone came in and it wasn’t her father, she felt a pinch of worry. The evening dragged on, and kids started taking down their exhibits. Suzanne’s father never appeared. Her teacher, Ms. Highcraft, offered Suzanne a ride home; in her disappointment, she’d forgotten she was stranded.

  As Ms. Highcraft pulled up the long drive, Suzanne was surprised to see two cars parked in front of the house, including her father’s black BMW. As Ms. Highcraft’s headlights swung across it, a woman jumped out of the passenger side, scurried to the other car, and drove away, casting a red glow on her father as he got out of the car.

  Her father thanked Ms. Highcraft, walked inside, and went straight to his study. Suzanne ate the dinner Marcia had left her, retreated to her room, and eventually fell asleep. Sometime later she woke to raised voices coming from her parents’ bedroom down the hall. She went to her door, forcing herself awake.

  Her mother’s voice was high, like someone was grinding their heel into her foot. “Sarah saw you, Anson. She saw you leaving the Grille with that woman.”

  “Okay, so it was dinner.”

  “If I wake up Suzanne now, will she tell me you were at the science fair?”

  “I lost track of time.”

  A loud crash made Suzanne jump.

  Her father whisper-shouted, “For God’s sake, Tinsley, get a hold of yourself.”

  Suzanne’s stomach felt sour, and she could taste her dinner. The shouting went on, softer, louder. Her mother cried. Her father was silent. Then they began again. The stream washed over her, individual words catching at the edges of her consciousness now and again: shame, whore, frigid, money . Suzanne struggled to make sense of what the argument had to do with the woman who had driven away and with her father missing the science fair. Her mother was accusing him of doing something bad, that was obvious. He had caused “a disgrace,” which Suzanne knew, even at ten years old, was the worst thing someone could do.

  Suzanne returned to bed. Her gaze fell on her science poster leaning against the closet door. She read the definition she’d carefully written in Magic Marker: WEED: A PLANT THAT GROWS WHERE IT ISN ’T WANTED .

  She never forgot the lesson she had learned that night: she was not the most important person in her parents’ lives. She was, in fact, less important than the woman who had driven away from the house, a woman Suzanne would never know. It was, without argument, a cruel lesson, but as Suzanne made a pile of the weeds she had pulled from the damp earth, sh
e did not fall into the arms of self-pity. Instead she considered Brynn, who had always been at the center of her parents’ universe, yet whose resentment of Suzanne was perhaps greater than any Suzanne had felt—or did feel—toward Tinsley. It was a conundrum, and one that mattered. Giving too little, giving too much. Subtracting from here, adding there. Caring for your marriage, your children, your parents, your reputation, your future, and, if you could manage it, your younger, more idealistic self. This complex calculus was based on theories of love and motherhood, and equations of duty and self-worth. But Suzanne could not work out the solution because the calculus was not predicated on her experience, on vows she had made or beliefs she had ascribed to, not anything she could rest her feet on or hold to her cheek. She wanted a balanced life but had only guesses, wishes, and fears when what she needed was answers.

  CHAPTER 5

  Night had fallen by the time Whit climbed the bluestone steps to the front patio. The sight of the white columns—eight of them—and the imposing door with the fox-head knocker never failed to give him a boost. The classic touches and impressive entrance were what had sold him on the place, that and the location, adjacent to the university. Demand would always be ferocious in this neighborhood. Whit found that reassuring because it meant he had chosen well. The equity in the house didn’t hurt their financial standing either. He’d married a Royce, which meant they weren’t likely to ever hurt for money, but he was proud of what he had contributed, in what he and Suzanne had achieved together.

  He wiped his feet on the mat, stepped into the entry, and dropped his keys and briefcase on the side table next to the piano. His son, Reid, was descending the double staircase from the left, wearing, as usual, jeans and an Indian-style gauze shirt with a tab collar and flowing hem. The shirt was a solid, businessman blue, leaving an impression that was both too formal and too bohemian. As Whit had told his son too many times, fashion speaks volumes, and this fashion choice would prevent Reid from being taken seriously. At seventeen, it was something he needed to consider, pronto.

  “Hey, Dad.” Reid glanced from Whit’s empty hands to the table behind him. “Did you get the pinkies?”