by Amy Stuart
“What do you think changed?”
“She went off to school. I think the world opened up to her and now she thinks this place is small. Hopeless. And Markus moved back and took up with Rebecca. Ginny hates them both.”
“That’s pretty clear. Why?” Clare asks.
“I don’t know,” Helen says. “Markus isn’t a perfect man. He’s got big ideas but can’t seem to follow anything through. He likes the thrill of the plan and the prospects, but doesn’t love the actual work, you know? Ginny’s never had any time for him. I think she’s mad at me for letting him move back here, build that house. Even when she was a little girl he made her edgy.” With a start Helen sits erect in the chair, tracking the fly. When it lands on the table she slams her palm down hard on it, lifting her hand to reveal its twitching corpse. “You know, I can give you options too. Next steps.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you confided to me at the river. About your background. There are options we can provide.”
“Okay.”
Clare takes a napkin from the dispenser on the table and rips tiny pieces from its corners. She pictures Ginny at the center of the eddy, holding the small shoe aloft, a look of horror on her face. The confusion that followed as they returned to the house with it and woke Helen, the look on Helen’s face when Ginny handed her the dripping running shoe. It hadn’t been a look of fear or distress, but instead of something quieter. Disappointment. From there Helen had insisted they go to their rooms while she dealt with the police. And now, Clare thinks, Helen seems almost hell-bent on speaking of anything else but what transpired last night.
Helen refills their juice glasses. “I don’t believe in coincidence,” she says. “People like to talk about good luck and good timing, or bad luck and bad timing, about things working out or going awry because of fate. Pardon me, but I think that’s all bullshit. Just an excuse not to take the reins. Take control of your life.”
“I agree,” Clare says. For years she’d excused away the specifics of her existence to these very things, the poor luck of her mother’s cancer, the fated pills in the cupboard, meeting Jason at that bonfire party she’d tagged along to last minute. It was always easier to blame chance and fate. No matter what your circumstance, Clare’s mother used to say, you always have a choice. It’s always your choice.
“There are more ways out than you realize,” Helen says. “We try to make plans for women here. It’s not just a place to sleep and hide out for a while. I want to provide real options.”
“Okay,” Clare says again, puzzled by the turn in conversation, by Helen’s shift in demeanor, so businesslike.
“You said the other day that you left in December.”
“I did,” Clare says. “About eight months ago, give or take. Right before Christmas.”
“What was your plan?”
“My plan was . . . to leave. I saved money. My mother left me a bit of money too. When she died. Enough to survive for a while. To be honest, I didn’t plan very far beyond the escape.”
“What have you been doing for the past eight months?”
“I’ve been on the move. Place to place.” Clare recalls her confession last night, her wound revealed to the other women, her true story and this invented one mingling in unruly ways. She must keep track. “I got into some trouble where I stayed last. I stopped for too long in the wrong place. Then I heard from Sally. It took me a while to gather myself up and get here.”
“Do you keep in touch with anyone at home?”
“No,” Clare says. “I figured they thought I was dead. But I now know they don’t think that. I heard from my husband. He said everyone knows I’m alive and I ran away. He said they’re all mad at me.”
“But you don’t know for sure that he’s telling the truth,” Helen says.
“No. I guess I don’t.”
“He might say anything to lure you back.”
“Yes,” Clare says, her eyes instantly brimming. “He might.”
“We used to try to help women prosecute. My father’s old law partner was big into the justice route. He would help. He’ll work pro bono.”
“Philip,” Clare says. “I met him yesterday.”
Helen’s chin lifts at the sound of his name. “He doesn’t do much anymore.”
“Jordan said the same,” Clare says. “He said he’s semiretired.”
“Right. Jordan’s mostly taken over since he finished law school. Do you know what the conviction rate is for domestic assault?”
Clare shakes her head.
“Let’s just say it’s grim. Most cases don’t even make it to court. We stopped even trying. We started looking for a more permanent solution.”
“What do you mean by permanent?” Clare asks.
Helen’s fingers rap the table. “Jordan works with connections in the city to get the paperwork in order. You cut your hair, dye it, like you see in the movies. We give you a new name, a new passport. Clothes, everything. We can even provide some employment references, based on skills you might have.”
“How do you do that?”
“You need to know the right people. Once everything is in place, you go wherever you want and start over.”
“I tried that,” Clare says.
“Right, but we can provide a death certificate too,” Helen says. “On paper you’re dead. Your next of kin is contacted. We kill you off first, then we turn you into someone else.”
Clare straightens in her chair. How could it be so simple? “What did Sally choose?”
Helen’s face clouds over. “Are you implying we’d put a child in a raging river?”
“God, no. Of course not. But you could say that’s what happened. They can’t find the bodies. Give Sally a way out.”
The other day at the river Helen had cried. Clare hadn’t realized then that those tears might have been a rarity, because Helen’s poise hasn’t faltered since. Even now, the only sign of her effort to stay composed is the beat of her breaths in and out.
“I understand why you might assume this based on what I’ve just told you,” Helen says.
“Assume what?” Clare prods.
“That Sally’s disappearance was part of a plan. But, no. It wasn’t. I don’t know what happened. She could have just left on her own. She might have just left on her own.”
“We all know Raylene saw the whole thing,” says a voice from the hall. Ginny stands in the doorway in a short and loose nightgown. She joins them at the table, setting down the phone in her hand with its screen facing up. “She woke everyone up to search, right? Someone obviously called the cops. It was an accident. That’s what you said, Helen. I hope you’re not lying.”
“Of course I’m not lying,” Helen says.
“Were you here that night?” Clare asks.
“No,” Ginny says, studying her fingernails. “But I was here last night. With that fucking show.”
“Ginny,” Helen chides.
Side by side the resemblance between Ginny and Helen is striking, their expressions perfectly matched. Ginny angles herself daintily towards Clare.
“Does Helen want to kill you off too?” Ginny asks.
“Ginny, please,” Helen says. “You don’t know how this works.”
“Oh, yes I do,” Ginny says. “Jordan and Philip break the law is how it works. I know you think I’m in the dark about your antics, but I’m not. Pay off a shady coroner and get your hands on a nice little death certificate. Then another woman shows up and you do it all over again. Eventually some starlet makes a movie about you.” Ginny slides Helen’s glass of orange juice over and drains it. “If I was going to start over I’d move to the East Coast. Change my name to Claudia.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Helen says.
Ginny slaps her hand hard to the table, the juice glasses dancing at the impact. “You basically locked me in my room last night!” she screams.
“The police had work to do here,” Helen says, ever ste
ady. “We needed to stay out of their way.”
“I found the fucking shoe! You don’t think they’d want to talk to me?”
“It’s up to them who they talk to,” Helen says. “They spoke to Raylene. They have a search warrant now. They’ll be here soon.”
“I’m not leaving,” Ginny says, slouched, her arms crossed.
“You won’t be allowed to stay,” Helen says. “They’ve offered to put us up in a hotel for a few days. You can go to your dorm. It’s open. Your roommate won’t be there, but you can still—”
“I don’t want to go!” Ginny yells.
The flush of Ginny’s cheeks, the fear on her face, tells Clare that maybe she knows more than she’s let on.
“What if I come with you?” Clare asks. “If your roommate’s not there?”
But Ginny isn’t listening. She has fixed her hearing on a sound in the distance. A whining.
“What is that?” Clare asks.
“Probably just an animal,” Helen says, frowning.
When Clare goes to speak again, Helen lifts a finger to silence her. The wail comes again, this time louder. Clare runs to the door and outside, Ginny and Helen following close behind her. Across the river Markus and Rebecca appear on their porch, Willow on Rebecca’s hip with her thumb in her mouth, the three of them focused on the sound too. It is louder now and Clare can tell it’s coming from the trees downriver. Not a wail but a distinct word. Help!
Clare’s feet feel cemented to the ground, her body searing hot. Everyone around her, frantic. Though she sees their lips moving, she can’t make sense of their words with the ringing in her ears. A scream. Help! She watches Raylene, emerged from the woods, her face twisted, her gait labored under the weight of a small body. Then they are all on the grass by the river. Markus. Helen. Ginny. Raylene. Markus takes the boy from Raylene’s arms and sets him gently down. Ginny collapses next to him. No! she is wailing. No!
“He was so heavy,” Raylene says. “Too heavy.”
The boy wears cars-and-trucks pajamas and one shoe to match the other they’d found last night. The skin is blue-gray. Clare can’t bear to look at his face.
“Where did you find him?” Helen asks. “Raylene! Where did you find him?”
“Across the river. There was a catch of dead branches. I saw from this side, but he was over there . . .”
Raylene’s clothes are caked with mud. Clare cranes to see Rebecca seated on her porch, her hand pressing Willow’s face into the crook of her neck. Her lips are puckered, shushing her, but her face is otherwise devoid of expression. Take that child inside, Clare wants to scream at her.
“Raylene,” Helen repeats. “Where? How far down?”
“Past the bridge. I don’t know. Half a mile?”
“Was he underwater?”
Ginny screams again, this time so piercing that Clare feels it stab in her ears. William, she is saying. She is screaming his name.
“Take her back to the house,” Markus says to Helen. “I can’t listen to her!”
Helen works to bring Ginny to her feet, angling her so that she cannot twist to look down at the boy again. Ginny pries herself free and links arms with Clare, shaking Helen off when she tries to take hold of her again. They watch as Raylene adjusts the body in precise ways. She presses the flat of her hand to the chest, then bends the neck back to open the mouth.
“We should leave him,” Markus says. “You shouldn’t touch him.”
But Raylene doesn’t listen, reaching for the boy’s arms and placing them gently at his sides. Markus cups Raylene by the armpit and attempts to pull her to standing.
“Stop it,” he insists. “Don’t touch him.”
Raylene wrenches free and closes to within a few inches of Markus’s face.
“Don’t you touch me!” she says, a violent hiss.
“Raylene,” Helen says. “Let’s go. We’ll go back to the house and wait. You, me, and Ginny.”
“I’m not leaving him here,” Raylene says.
“You can’t move him,” Markus says.
“He’s already been moved.”
“Well, we’re not moving him again,” Helen says.
“Then get a sheet to cover him!” Raylene screams, her body jolting with rage.
“I’ll go,” Helen says. “I’ll call the police. I’ll call Somers directly.”
Clare feels Ginny’s weight lean into her as they watch Helen jog back to the house.
“There was no water in his mouth,” Raylene says.
“What do you mean?” Clare asks.
“His chest felt—”
“No,” Markus interrupts, waving his hand to shush her. “No. Please. Let’s not speculate.”
“She’s an emergency room doctor,” Ginny says. “It’s not speculation when you’re a fucking doctor.”
“She has no authority—”
“Shut up,” Ginny screams. “Shut up right now. You think I don’t know about you? You’re a fucking pig!”
Clare tugs on Ginny’s arm to retract her. She keeps her chin held high to avoid looking down at the boy, his lifelessness too eerie. When Helen returns she and Clare flap the sheet open and drape it over the body. They stand in a line looking down at the small features that take shape as the sheet settles over him.
“Jesus Christ,” Helen says. “When will it end?”
“When will what end?” Clare asks.
“This.” She gestures to the boy. “This.”
The corners of the sheet flap in the breeze. A heave of bile comes to Clare’s throat. How could no one have spotted the body until now? The police have been searching for days, Somers told her. Divers trained to find a penny on the ocean floor. Clare thinks of Sally on the dock, screaming, jumping in after this boy, a scene she’s pictured dozens of times since arriving at High River. Of course a mother would jump in after her child. But Clare knows the story doesn’t begin or end there. Everyone else here knows it too. Clare stumbles to the riverbank and vomits into the churning water. She sits, light-headed. In the distance she hears the whirl of overlapping sirens. She drops her head between her legs and reaches under her shirt to rest her hand on her shoulder wound, sticky with new flesh. The others form a semicircle around the body, each staring ahead, no one speaking.
On paper you’re dead, Helen said to Clare earlier. There is one version of Sally’s story where she took that option, killed herself and her son off on paper, and began a new life elsewhere. But here is the boy, dead, to tell Clare that can’t be what happened. She could have just left on her own, Helen said. On her own. Without her son, who ended up in the river one way or another.
The bathroom door is open. Clare stands out of view in the hallway, the air so warm that it burns on the inhale. The only sound is the lilt of Helen’s voice shushing Ginny as she cries. Clare strains to hear the whispers.
“She said he was too heavy,” Clare hears Ginny say. “What does that mean? He’s so small. Why was he so heavy?”
“I’m going to get you a towel,” Helen says.
Before Clare can duck into the bedroom she is face-to-face with Helen in the hallway.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Clare says. “Is she okay?”
“No. She’s not. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Clare says, flustered. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. It’s horrible.”
Helen blinks at her, expressionless. The unwavering composure.
“Can I do anything?” Clare asks.
“Clare?” Ginny calls from the bathroom.
“Sit with her,” Helen says. “I need to go speak with the police. With Markus.”
Clare nods. Her chest and neck tingle with heat, her shoulder pulses with pain. Helen descends the stairs.
“Clare?” Ginny says again, her voice broken. Clare peeks into the bathroom. Ginny sits in the bathtub, her knees to her bare breasts, hair in dark spikes. She picks at the faucet with her long fingers. Her skin is pinked by the warmth of the water.
“
I’m so sorry,” Clare says in the doorway.
“You saw him?” Ginny asks.
“I did. Remember? I was with you.”
“He wasn’t breathing, right?”
Surely this isn’t a question. The gray of the boy’s skin won’t leave Clare’s mind. She swallows to catch the lump working up her throat.
“He wasn’t,” Clare says.
“They’ll check for a pulse, though. Right?”
“They will. The ambulance is here. The detectives will be here any minute. They’ll take care of it.”
“He was heavy. That’s what Raylene said.”
Clare edges herself fully into the bathroom and lowers the lid on the toilet to sit. “I’m so sorry,” she says again. Ginny turns and takes hold of Clare’s hand, pulling at her until Clare must drop to her knees on the floor, their faces close.
“William was Sally’s baby.”
“I know. He was. I know.”
“You know Rourke?”
“Yes,” Clare says. “Of course. He’s on his way.”
“He likes you.”
“No. I just met him.”
“I can tell he likes you. You need to talk to him. He needs to ask the right questions. He needs to talk to the right people.”
“I’m sure he’s talking to everyone. That’s his job. Somers too. They seem very diligent.” Clare pauses and squeezes Ginny’s damp hand. “But Ginny? You need to tell them everything you know. If there’s something you know. About Markus, or even about your mom . . .”
Ginny leans until her mouth grazes into Clare’s hair, whispering. “Sally was pregnant. She is pregnant.”
