by Holly Brown
“Rachel,” he says in that resonant baritone of his. “Oh, honey. What’s happened?”
“There was a message from Paul. Before he flew out of San Francisco today, he had a police escort through all the neighborhoods where Marley was most likely to be. Where all the”—I don’t want to say it—“the junkies, the street people, the runaways, where they all go. The Haight, and the Tenderloin, and wherever else. Paul went around looking into all their faces, the faces of these sleeping kids—he said a lot of them look angry even when they sleep, and they’ve got bruises that aren’t fully healed, and cuts—and he’s peering down at them and none of them are Marley. And I think, Thank God none of them are Marley. And then I think, Why can’t one of them be Marley?”
It’s all in a burst, and I assume Michael is trying to decide which part to respond to, how he can apply comfort like a balm, and finally he says, “Paul flew out today?”
“That’s all you care about?!” It feels good, this particular explosion. I never used to let myself get this angry at anyone.
“I care about you. And about Marley.” I’m sure he wants to ask how long Paul will be gone and if he can see me. I can feel him recalibrating. My anger’s a variable he’s never had to consider before. Usually, when I end things, I’m penitent. I’m sorry that I can’t give him what he wants, that I can’t accept his love. It’s me, I tell him. It’s my problem and my fault. He has the misfortune of loving me.
No, he chooses to keep loving me. That’s why I had to be so cruel that time, a week before Marley took off.
And then he didn’t call. I kept checking my phone for a dial tone, like it might have gone dead. Was it possible? He’d finally heard me and gone away for good? I thought I’d feel calmer, but my anxiety blew sky-high. I second-guessed myself. I was per petually bereft, feeling like I’d forgotten something. I was always checking for my keys. Then that fateful morning, he texted me. He was at the downtown Starbucks, as in my downtown. There was no turning him away, even if I’d wanted to.
I dropped Marley off and I was trembling as I walked inside the café. I almost cried at the sight of him. He loves me, I thought, and maybe I love him. I don’t know. I can’t bear to know.
I didn’t let him hug me. There would be no touching of any kind. We sat across from each other, and I flattened my palms against the cup, even though it burned. I deserved that. Through tears, I told him, “You shouldn’t have come here. You need to respect what I say. I need to find peace.”
But I hadn’t found peace without him. It had been an awful week. I’d been jumping out of my skin.
“You miss me,” he said. “I can see it.”
“That’s not the point. You have to leave me alone. Look into my eyes,” I commanded. “If I need to move even farther, I will. If that’s what it takes, my family and I will keep going.”
“No,” he said loudly. People stared. He lowered his voice. He went on about how I couldn’t do that, he wouldn’t let me—wouldn’t let me?—no, that’s not what he meant, he meant he’d do anything, absolutely anything, it was about my happiness, not his, about Marley’s happiness, why couldn’t I see that? . . .
I was an hour late to work, a confused and weepy mess, with nothing resolved, as usual.
But it wasn’t usual. It was the day Marley went missing.
It’s pretty coincidental, Michael’s being in town. I don’t know where he went next. Marley would have gotten into his car. She would never say no to Dr. Michael.
He’d do anything, he said. Did that mean he was capable of anything?
“What did you do after our talk in Starbucks?” I ask him now. “Did you go to Marley’s school?”
“Are you serious?” He sounds genuinely flabbergasted.
“I rejected you again, after you drove all that way. You threatened to do anything.”
“Oh, Rachel.” Now he’s sorrowful. “I know how hard this has been on you, that you’re not yourself.”
I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me sooner. Someone’s helping her. Paul is her father; he would never hurt her. So it has to be someone else. “I’m not saying that you killed her.”
“I should hope not!” It’s such an old-fashioned exclamation. He’s so old. It’s absurd, this crush he has on me. I could be his daughter.
“Maybe she wanted a break from our family, or she wanted to make us worry for a while. She confided in you. Maybe you thought that if she was gone, if I went through something horrible, it would bring us back together. I’d realize that I need you.” I’m making it up as I go along, and I desperately want it to be true. Marley’s holed up in a hotel, with Michael footing the bill. She’s safe, and he can tell me where she is.
He’s quiet. That means I could be onto something. He’s thinking of telling me where she is.
“Or,” I continue, “you were really mad at me. You wanted to get back at me for hurting you, so you and Marley came up with a plan together. I can understand that. I said some awful things to you. I was trying to make you hate me. You get that, right? If I was cruel enough, it would set you free.” Still nothing from him. “I think I’ve been punished enough. Could you please tell me where she is now? Please?”
“I love you, Rachel,” he says carefully. “You’ve hurt me more than I can express. And I do want to be with you. I’ve said that many times, and I still mean it. But I’m not insane. And that, what you’ve just described, is insanity.”
He’s right. It is insane. He’s a psychiatrist, and a parent himself. That would violate the ethical sense of every person in every profession, but especially his.
“You do believe me,” he says, half statement and half question.
“Yes,” I say sorrowfully.
“I’m not upset with you for wanting to think that.”
I don’t care whether he’s upset with me or not. For months I’ve been trying to close the door and he’s been jamming his foot in it.
“I’m following the websites,” he says. “It sounds like they’re getting a lot of attention. You must be getting tips.”
“The tips are things like ‘Saw a girl who looked like your daughter at the mall in Walla Walla, Washington.’ Or at the car dealership in Detroit. Or eating a Subway sandwich in New Orleans. What are we supposed to do with that?”
“Get her pictures out to the police in those areas and wait for more tips.”
“We’re doing that. Of course we do that. Do you think they’re going to do anything? She’s a runaway. Unless Paul can make some personal connection with someone in those police departments, nothing is going to happen. And believe me, he does his best to make that connection.” I shouldn’t even be talking to Michael, when Paul is working his ass off. Yes, that’s what Paul does for Marley, because he loves her. He would never, ever hurt her. Not then, not now.
“I’m sure Paul does his best,” Michael says, but there’s an undercurrent of snideness.
“Why did you say it like that?” I want to add: What do you know, really? What did Marley tell you years ago?
“Paul needs to validate himself through other people’s good opinions. It’s his narcissism. You know that.” When I don’t respond, he says, “Your letter to her was beautiful.”
It was sanitized for Marley’s protection, PR approved. “She didn’t read it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Then she read it and she didn’t care, or I would have heard from her.” I don’t know which is worse at this point. There is no better. There’s only worse. “Tell me something from your treatment. Something that will help.”
“It’s not my treatment. It was hers. You know I can’t do that.”
“But there are things you could tell me that would help. That would give me hope.”
“She loved you, Rachel. She loves you.”
“Did she love Paul?”
He hesitates. “I can’t answer that.”
Is that a no? If Marley didn’t love her own father, then . . . ? “I should go.”
/>
“Where are you going?”
My answer surprises me. “To synagogue.” I need to pray for my family, as I never have before.
“I suppose,” he says, “religion can help in times like this. But what can I do—”
“It’s not a good idea, Michael. But thank you.” I hang up.
I’m not stringing him along. He’s pushing his way in. It’s become our dynamic and is part of why I’m five hours away now. I thought geography could speak more emphatically than I can.
Still, it’s good that he called. It stirs me enough to get into the shower and afterward, I Google the nearest synagogue. On the way, I stop for a bagel and cream cheese to get into the spirit but then I find that I can’t choke it down.
A one-story, no-frills building on a quiet residential street has a small sign announcing it as Temple Beth Shalom. Blink, and you’d miss it. There aren’t a lot of Jews in this area, so I imagine they’re not trying to stand out. But it is a fairly liberal college town so there aren’t any death threats or carpet bombings or anything. In this area, it’s live-and-let-live. The college kids will get drunk on Manischewitz if it’s all that’s available.
I walk into a tiled foyer. On the wall, there’s one arrow pointing toward the office and another toward the sanctuary. It would be more convenient to be Catholic and head straight for the confession booth. The ritual of cleansing and forgiveness, the illusion of it, would be reassuring right now.
I shouldn’t call it illusion, but that’s how I tend to think of religion. I never fought Paul when he wanted to raise Marley as Christian because I thought, Well, he believes the illusion in which he was raised a lot more than I believe the one in which I was raised. Besides, we haven’t raised her that Christian. We went to a very liberal Episcopalian church on occasion, but she didn’t go to Sunday school. If Paul had really pushed for that, I wouldn’t have liked it, but if I’m honest with myself, I would have relented. I would have anticipated just how persuasive he could be and decided to save us both the time and trouble. Fortunately, he didn’t care about Sunday school. He wanted Marley to believe in Jesus, who he thinks of as a very good guy. I can’t argue with that. I happen to disagree about the son-of-God stuff, but not in front of Marley. I don’t think she cares much about Jesus or God, though. I’ve never heard her talk about either of them.
Could Paul believe in God and then turn around and hurt his own child? It seems preposterous. But not impossible. People can justify and rationalize all sorts of behaviors. Michael’s told me stories about what he’s seen in his practice, the ways parents (often unwittingly) use their children to further their own ends. All the names and identifying information were changed, so he wasn’t breaking confidentiality.
Wait, were the characters in one of those stories actually Paul and Marley? That would mean Michael was trying to find a way to tell me what had been going on under my nose, without violating Marley’s trust.
I’m shaking a little as I push open the door to the sanctuary. There’s no one here, which makes sense since it’s Saturday. Shabbat services were held last night.
I perch on a bench and focus on my breathing. I try to feel God’s presence. I want Him to tell me what to believe, what to do. But I feel nothing. With no rabbi or other worshippers, it’s just a big room with wooden benches and a few stained glass windows. There’s no actual pulpit, just two lecterns facing out. I assume one is for the rabbi and the other for the cantor. There’s no ark to hold the Torah.
When I was a child, we went to synagogue once a year on the anniversary of my father’s death so my mother could say the Mourner’s Kaddish. My father died when I was three so I have only a few gauzy memories. He was an alcoholic who electrocuted himself while drunk on the job. My mother was a martyr, and she liked to make her grief public. If it had been culturally permissible, she’d have thrown herself on his funeral pyre, not because she loved him so much (she never said anything particularly good about him) but for the spectacle. She never remarried, never had another relationship. Her greatest pleasure in life seemed to be decrying her misfortunes. I don’t think she minded dying painfully of ovarian cancer, but it was so quick that she barely had time to let everyone hear her suffering. In any given room, she liked to be the worst off, loudly. That didn’t leave much use for faith.
Until now, I suppose I haven’t had much use either. I shouldn’t be here, searching for God as a way to find Marley. He’s not a GPS system. I shouldn’t be here praying that my husband is on the up-and-up. I could say I’m searching for meaning, for the lesson in all of this, but mostly, I’m here to curry favor with the God I’ve neglected. If I want to split hairs, I could argue that He neglected me first, given what happened to my father.
All I know is, whatever I’m supposed to feel in His house, I don’t.
As I bow my head and silently ask that He return Marley to me safe and sound, I know that I have no right to ask. I can only hope that He appreciates chutzpah.
“Hello,” says a pleasant female voice. My head snaps up, and my eyes fly open. The woman coming toward me is in her midtwenties, in jeans and a fitted long-sleeved T-shirt, willowy and pretty. She has dark blond hair and an aquiline nose. I can’t help thinking that she doesn’t look very Jewish.
“Hi,” I say.
“You’re Marley’s mother.”
It startles me to be recognized, though I shouldn’t be surprised. This is what Paul’s been working 24/7 to achieve. “Yes.”
“I totally admire what your husband is doing to find her.”
So people do think it’s all him. That’s not in my head. I try to think of how to respond, whether to thank her on Paul’s behalf. Nothing comes out. I’ve barely left the house since this began, and my social skills are rusty. “And you are?”
“Hannah. I’m the cantor. Is there anything I can help you with?”
I realize that I’m playing with my wedding band, twisting it back and forth. I want to get the hell out of here.
I shouldn’t have thought the word “hell” in synagogue. Not that Jews believe in hell, but still, I shouldn’t be cussing.
“No, thank you,” I say, because no one can help. Really, Hannah seems very nice. She’s the kind of hip theologian that probably attracts college students and maybe can relate to teenagers, too. If Marley ever comes home, I could bring her by to talk to Hannah.
When I think “if,” my eyes fill with tears.
Hannah comes closer, her expression concerned. “You can hang out here as long as you want. Sometimes it helps people feel more connected to God.”
“I don’t think it’s having that effect on me. I should go.”
“Prayer is a very individual activity. There’s no right or wrong.” That sweet smile again.
My head aches, and I feel woozy. My daughter is missing. I may have chosen the wrong man to be her father. If He doesn’t already know I need help, then there’s nothing left to say.
“You know, God is more forgiving than people assume. All that wrath in the Old Testament, it can fool you.” She’s still smiling as she takes another step toward me, and I feel like she could actually be the devil, if Jews believed in him. Why else is she telling me I have to be forgiven when she doesn’t even know me?
I stand up, desperately wanting to get away from her, and feel my knees buckle. I’m back on the hard bench, fighting to catch my breath. Hannah is next to me in an instant, sitting beside me. She smells like rosemary and mint, the kind of shampoo you buy at Whole Foods.
“You’re under so much strain,” she says, “but you can’t forget to take care of yourself. You’re no good to Marley if you don’t.” She seems kind, but is she really? She assumed I need forgiveness. She’ll probably tweet about me the minute I leave.
My hands are shaking again. “Do you have anything to eat? I think that’s all I really need right now. I missed breakfast.”
“And lunch, too?” She smiles sympathetically. “I’ll be right back.”
It migh
t be low blood sugar, or the realization that my daughter may never get to be Hannah’s age, possibly because I failed to protect her. Or she may reach Hannah’s age and I may never know it. I’ll never find out who she becomes.
I remember there’s gum in my purse. I put three sticks in my mouth at once, figuring that should be enough sugar to get me to the car, and rising on wobbly legs, I make my getaway.
Day 11
ONE THING ABOUT OLD farmhouses is the lack of closet space. Which means there’s not a lot of area to search. As I grope around in our overstuffed shared closet, I’m not looking for anything specific, only answers.
I lift the wooden shoe rack where Paul’s oxfords and wing tips and loafers and hiking boots are neatly lined up. Nothing. I check under the rows of T-shirts and other summer clothing on his half of the upper shelf. Nothing. I even push aside all the hanging fabrics and feel around the back wall, the plaster cool under my hand, in case there’s some hidden compartment, a safe maybe, some treasure trove that contains the evidence of all his nefarious acts. Nada. Every drawer of his dresser—ditto.
He took his laptop with him, but I wouldn’t be able to get in anyway. It’s password protected and always has been, something that never struck me as strange before. And being Paul, his password is a sequence of letters and numbers, most likely random, unguessable.
I can’t imagine Paul keeping a journal. So what am I looking for, really? Suspicious receipts, unusual correspondence, incriminating pictures. All things suspicious, unusual, and incriminating—that about covers it.
The drawer of his nightstand contains a surprise: the Holy Bible. I never knew he owned one. It’s got a cracked leather spine, like it’s been paged through often. But I never saw it, or saw him reading it. I wonder how long it’s been in his possession, if it moved with us from our old neighborhood or even cross-country from DC. Is it possible he’s had it his whole life, since he was a boy? That would be so sentimental of him. But then, once you have a Bible, you’re stuck. It would feel sacrilegious to throw it out.
