Birthday Girl

by Matthew Iden

  “Is that so?” Please go away.

  “And then he dives under the bed for cover until I coax him back out.”

  “What a terrible thing to go through.”

  “What I’m saying is, you look like you’ve got something terrible going on. Not just something physical; something inside of you. My husband was diagnosed with PTSD, but combat isn’t the only way you get it.”

  “I’m fine, really,” she said. Tottering in place, she patted her hair and smoothed her skirt with her hands. She smiled at Denise, who had an expression of worry bordering on action. She knows you’re lying. Say something!

  She sighed, then looked the woman in the eye. “You’re right, Denise, I don’t have a slipped disc. I’m terribly claustrophobic. It’s not something I like to tell people, but I’ve been afraid of small spaces since I was a child. Before you came down the hall, Noah and all the other interns wanted me to get a drink with them—me! Going to a bar, can you imagine?”

  “What happened?”

  “They tried to pull me into the elevator. It was all I could do to keep from screaming. The doors shut, and that’s all I remembered until you came to my rescue.”

  A light bulb went on for Denise, and her mouth made an “O” of discovery. “Is that why you take the stairs?”

  She nodded. “It’s all I can do to stay in the office, it seems so small to me sometimes. And an elevator?” She shuddered. “I’d rather die.”

  “I think I’ll be having a talk with Mr. Noah,” Denise said grimly. “He and those other monkeys probably didn’t give it a second thought.”

  “That really is so kind of you, but I’m afraid if you said something to them, they’d either torture me with it or think I’m crazy. They’re so much younger than I am, I feel like they barely listen to me as it is. Please, let’s just keep it our secret.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you don’t need to see a doctor or anything?”

  “I’m fine now. Truly.”

  “You better not be kidding. You know this place would shut down without you.” Denise reached out and patted her hand. “It’s Friday. Why don’t you knock off early, try to forget about it? Make it an early weekend. Go home and spend some time with your family.”

  The bland words had been meant as a kind of generic sympathy, but she could feel her heart grow lighter at the thought. She gave Denise a wide, genuine smile. “Yes, I think I’ll do that. I’ll go home and see my family. You know, I have so much to do when I get home, but that’s just what the doctor ordered.”

  4

  Amy

  The wind-whipped day that had started cheerful and bright had given way to a bruise-blue veil as the sun dipped over the horizon. Streetlamps flickered to life, and anyone left on the street now had their heads down and shoulders hunched, with a firm destination in mind and people to go home to. Amy cruised Old Town slowly in the failing light, looking for the landmarks Sister Madeline had given her.

  “From the end of Union Street,” the nun had said, “with the river on your left, look for a ragged dirt path. Follow it far enough and it should lead you to a homeless camp. There’s a good chance Elliott will be there. He tries to help some of the other homeless folks. Talking to them, listening to their problems. During the winter, he does it at the shelters, but in the fall months, the best place to find the most homeless souls is that little shanty village.”

  “He talks to them?”

  “Yes. He was a psychiatrist or psychologist before . . .” She cleared her throat. “Well, before whatever happened, happened.”

  “That’s kind of him.”

  “It is, although I think it helps him, as well. To be needed, I mean.” She sighed. “At least, it did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The nun wrung her hands. “For the past couple of months . . . well, I don’t wish to violate his privacy. We try to look out for him, but . . . we can’t always be there.”

  “We?”

  A rosy blush touched the edges of her face. “Detective Cargill calls from time to time, asking about Elliott. I think he asks the local police officers to keep an eye out, as well. Elliott has people who care for him; if only he’d do the same for himself.”

  Now Amy stood at the head of that path, a patch of woods dead in front of her. To the left was a new townhome community. HOUNDSTOOTH PIER, gilt letters, begonias surrounding a faux gatehouse, a colonial motif. Wedges of warm lamplight spilled out of windows. Beyond, visible through a gap in the rows, the river slopped against an elaborately bricked quay. It seemed strange to think there was a homeless community five minutes’ walk from these million-dollar homes, or that the people in them were oblivious to the fact.

  Amy pulled her sweatshirt tighter around her body, then crossed the street. The path was muddy and narrow, but well used. In the twilight, the contrast of gray and green—trees and shrubs—was the only guide she had. She hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight, naturally, and her little flip phone was so ancient it didn’t have a light. Soon, however, she saw the sharp, industrial glint of the Wilson Bridge towering above and ahead.

  She stood for a minute, listening. The constant hum of traffic was a lonely sound. A horde of people, rushing home, unaware that she looked up at them from a hundred feet below.

  On the far side of the bridge it was more of the same, but she was much closer to the edge of the Potomac and could see the sluggish movement of the water through the trees, illuminated by the distant lights of the malls and parks across the river.

  A low murmur reached her ears and she tracked the noise to her right, pushing forward until she saw a subdued glow, like polished brass. The glow turned into one, then three, then five small fires, each with a handful of forms huddled around it, alternately holding their hands or feet toward the flames. Behind or beside each person were mounds, some rectangular and towering chest-high—shopping carts, she realized—others a single backpack or piece of luggage kept close.

  The closest gathering looked her way as she came close. A form, rotund in layers of swaddled clothes, struggled to its feet and waddled close. The smell of moldy sneakers and body odor was overwhelming. “Gemmy? Is that you?”

  “No,” Amy said, taking a step back. “I’m sorry, I’m not Gemmy.”

  “Then who the hell are you?”

  “I’m looking for someone named Elliott,” she said. “Elliott Nash.”

  “The shrink?”

  “I . . . yes, guess so.”

  “Didn’t see him come in, but you can try over there.” The figure raised an arm.

  Amy shuffled toward the row of fires. Heads turned in her direction as she passed, and she suddenly lost confidence as she looked back at the faceless black forms. Her voice caught in her throat as she spoke, and she coughed twice before she could speak again. “I’m looking for Elliott Nash.”

  Murmurs rose as they discussed among themselves. A knot of figures shouted at her to speak up.

  She raised her voice and tried again. “I said, I’m looking for Elliott Nash. He’s a . . . he was a doctor. A psychologist.”

  A deep pause followed and she realized her mistake. Many homeless people had been diagnosed with mental illnesses, might’ve been made homeless by that diagnosis. Psychologists might’ve been who institutionalized or medicated them, separated them from family or friends, from parents or children. Declared them mentally unfit to act as husbands or wives or children. She could sympathize.

  A lanky form stood up at the farthest edge of the makeshift village, where several people circled a fire. The voice, low but powerful, carried across the huddled homeless. “I’m Elliott Nash.”

  Amy moved forward awkwardly, unsure whether to shake his hand or what, so she went with the simplest approach. “Dr. Nash—”

  “Elliott.” Nash’s face, long and gaunt, was pulled even longer by a beard that hung almost to his chest. Dark eyes and a slightly hooked nose gave him the look of a hermit or a
medieval crusader.

  “Elliott.” She paused, pulling her thoughts together. “My name is Amy Scowcroft, and I’ve come to ask you to help me find my daughter.”

  He opened his mouth to answer, but a crash of thunder obliterated whatever he was going to say. A second later, rain swept through the trees with a sound like a breaking wave. Amy hunched her shoulders instinctively as the drops fell like pebbles.

  “What did you say?” she yelled.

  “I said, I can’t help you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t help people anymore.”

  “But you haven’t even heard what I have to say!”

  “I don’t need to.”

  She fought to keep her voice even, logical, but the panic rose in her chest. If he won’t even listen to me . . . “Dr. Nash, Elliott, whatever. Please. My daughter’s been missing for almost a year. The police have given up. I am out of options. I was told you were the only person in the world who might still care enough to help me.” Her eyes flicked back and forth, trying to read his mind. “Please. I don’t have anyone else.”

  He stared at her. Rain collected on his brow, dripped off his nose. “Who sent you?”

  “Detective Dave Cargill.”

  His face flickered for a moment. Or it might’ve been the distant flash of lightning. He looked to the side, as if considering, then grabbed a grubby knapsack off the ground. “Follow me.”

  They slipped away unnoticed, leaving the other homeless men and women huddled in miserable bunches under the leafless sweetgums and sycamores. Elliott led them along a barely discernible path through the woods, away from the river and the camp.

  In time, they came to a line of ragged fencing marking a rectangular plot of land cleared on the edge of the woods. In the corner of the plot was a shed made of weather-beaten boards and a corrugated roof tilted at a rakish slant. Mopping the rain from his face, he grubbed around in his knapsack, then pulled out a flathead screwdriver with half the handle missing. Ignoring the lock on the door, he popped the hasp instead.

  The door swung open like the cover of a book, and Amy had to turn her head sharply at the fecund scent of fertilizer. Elliott ventured inside with his hands outstretched, disappearing into the shed’s gloomy interior. She heard a bump, the sound of falling rakes and shovels; then the tiny space was filled with a low-wattage glow from a utility lamp. It swung in a small arc, sending shadows around the walls. He gestured impatiently for her to come in and she did, closing the door just as the rain doubled in strength, drumming a loud tattoo on the roof.

  She looked around at the tools leaning in a corner, the neatly stacked plastic bags of mulch and soil. A rough potter’s bench had been knocked together with a few pieces of scrap wood. On it was a shoe box with paper seed packets, their corners peeking out.

  She slicked her hair back with one hand. “Community garden?”

  He nodded. “The last squash came up two weeks ago, and no one’s thought about coming around since. It’s not the Taj Mahal, but it’s dry and out of the wind.”

  “Sleeping on mulch can’t be too comfortable,” she said with a small smile, looking for something to say.

  “If you think so, you’ve never slept on a sidewalk.” Her face must’ve looked pained, and he grimaced. “I meant that it’s not so bad. Mulch isn’t a feather bed, but it’s actually better than the cots at the shelter . . .”

  His voice trailed off awkwardly. Looking nonplussed, he turned and punched a comfortable depression in one of the bags and sat. After a moment, she matched him, sitting between two stacks of potting soil like it was a throne. They looked at each other for a moment. The shadows on his face curved down from his cheeks like bird’s wings, becoming indistinct when they reached the jungle of his beard.

  She was poor, he would think, and undernourished. Maybe the ragged sweatshirt and ripped jeans were masquerading as shabby chic and the thin face with the sharp cheekbones just the results of the latest fad diet, but surely he’d seen enough poor people to know the difference between fashion and circumstance. Her long blonde hair was chopped unevenly—anybody could see it had been a quick job with a rubber band and a pair of scissors—and she knew she lacked a certain polish, which told others she either didn’t have a job or couldn’t hold one. Hollowed-out eyes and a perpetual frown told him more, she was sure. So many people had stopped her in checkout lines and in the stores to ask her what was wrong that she’d taken to lying, telling them she was sick, letting them think she had cancer, just to get them to stop asking.

  He gave a cough, as though to knock the rust from his voice. “Your name is Amy Scowcroft. Your daughter is missing. Dave Cargill sent you to me. You think I can help you. Do I have it right so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me the rest.” His voice was gruff. “Keep it short.”

  She composed herself. “We live in DC, in Southeast, in a tiny studio, just the two of us. Lacey looks like a miniature me, even down to the gray sweatshirt.” She raised a sodden sleeve. “But from there the comparison stops. She’s cute. Smart. Headstrong. A little too headstrong, sometimes, maybe. Focused. She never made friends easily, but once she did, it stuck.”

  “How old?”

  “Ten.”

  He nodded, then gestured for her to keep going.

  “Just under a year ago, Lacey was walking home from a friend’s house when she didn’t come home, that night or . . . after. She simply disappeared, right off the street. She hasn’t been seen since.”

  “No witnesses?”

  Amy shook her head. “She vanished. I canvassed the streets passing out fliers, going door to door, calling radio and TV stations with her description. No one ever came forward to say they’d seen her abducted.”

  “So, no AMBER Alert?”

  “No.”

  “And a . . . body was never found?”

  “No.”

  “What about the police? You said they’d given up.”

  She folded her hands and looked into a dark corner of the shed. “They tried for a while, but one of them finally told me they’d been ordered to move on, that the case had been officially closed for months, but a few of them were logging extra hours anyway, hoping for a break.”

  Elliott said nothing.

  “I begged them to stay on the case. I didn’t understand how they could let my child, any child, just disappear. Then they told me that Lacey was one of hundreds of children who go missing, and she was, at the end of the day, just a number.”

  “And you wouldn’t take no for an answer?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” She gave him a weak smile. “I broke down, then, I guess. Really lost my squash, as my dad used to say. I cried, I beat my chest, I think I even threatened to go to the media and expose them as lazy good-for-nothings. I was . . . escorted from police headquarters more than once.”

  “But not before they told you to come find me?”

  “One of them, the kindest one of the bunch, the one who tried longer than the rest, told me about you. Someone who might be able to help me, who would understand what I was going through.”

  “Dave Cargill.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “He said you were a psychologist. That you had worked for the police as a consultant profiling criminals, testifying, helping the cops see past the crime to the criminal, I think is the way he put it. Really talented.” She hesitated. “He wanted to say more, but something stopped him.”

  She watched as he closed his eyes, let the air leak out through his nose. He stayed that way for a minute, then opened them and looked at her across the shadowy distance. “It’s been eleven months, nearly a year since your daughter went missing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think she’s alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “The statistics alone should tell you that your daughter is beyond help.”

  She leaned forward. “I know the statistics. Believe me, I know. Ever
y cop and social worker I met made sure I knew. But I’ll tell you what I told them: an infinite space still exists between Lacey being just another number and still breathing.”

  “Not infinite,” he said, a cruel thing to say. To test her? she wondered. To test himself? “What if they’re right? What if she’s gone?”

  “I choose to believe they’re wrong.”

  “Choosing to believe a reality and living it are two different things,” he pressed. “You might not have the luxury of simply ignoring the truth.”

  She took a moment before answering. “When I was very young, we had a pet toad. I named it Hoppy and doted on it. After a year or so, it died a natural death. Absolutely normal, but its short life span came as a total surprise to me. I had made goofy, elaborate plans for our life together.”

  Elliott said nothing.

  “So, there I was,” Amy continued, “looking down at his little, deflated green body, and I asked my mother, ‘Where’d Hoppy go?’ I should say that my mother was an adjunct professor of philosophy at a local community college and liked using her education to instruct outside the classroom. She called it ‘applied philosophy.’”

  “As though belief and thought are distinct from life.”

  “Exactly. So when I asked her about Hoppy, she pursed her lips and asked, ‘What is the nature of your question, dear?’”

  He snorted. “How old were you?”

  “Five. A bit too young for existential questions like ‘What is death?’ or ‘What is the meaning of our existence?’” She was silent for a moment. “Ten years later, my dad was killed in a car accident, and I wanted to ask some of those questions again. Where is Dad? When will I see him again? If he’s gone, why can I still sense his presence? I felt my mother’s eyes on me, wanting me to ask her.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. Because by then I knew her philosophies couldn’t encompass the response I needed or wanted. I required a better answer than she could provide.” Amy thought about it. “So, now, when people seem to be saying your daughter is gone, give up, I want to say, if Lacey is dead, why can I still feel her? Still sense her? Feel the impression of her head on my breast and her breath on my face?”