The Good Neighbor

by Cathryn Grant

  The knock came on my bedroom door at five. Earlier than usual, especially for summer. I’d heard her car pull into the garage at four. I hadn’t even realized she’d gone to work that day after spending the night combing the open preserve with the rest of the neighbors, being ever so helpful to the police.

  “Dinner’s ready, Luke.”

  “Not hungry. I just ate lunch.”

  “You shouldn’t have slept so late. It throws your whole day off course.”

  “Too late now.”

  “You can come eat dinner with me. It’s Friday evening.”

  As if I didn’t know the day of the week. I didn’t get that wasted. “Mom, I honestly am not hungry.”

  “I don’t care. I made a nice dinner and I’d appreciate your company. We have a small family and I’m not letting what’s left of it get totally annihilated.”

  I rolled off my bed, buckling my belt one hole tighter than usual so she didn’t bug me about that too. I looked in the mirror. While the hair on my head and face said I’d just woken up, I actually had taken a shower around noon. Then I fell asleep and my hair showed it. I hadn’t shaved for two days. She wouldn’t like it, but she was going to have something to say about how I was conducting my life, so it might as well be my appearance instead of my failure to find a job or a girlfriend.

  If she would just give it a rest, there was a girl I wanted. More than wanted. That sounds crude. Ashling was better than that. So far, though, it didn’t seem like the right timing for me to make my move.

  The ceiling fan in the dining room was turned on, moving hot air in through the screen door and pushing it through to the kitchen at a snappy pace. “Can we turn this down?”

  “It’s hot.”

  “Yeah, but this is just blowing hot air.”

  She laughed like I’d said something witty and turned it down from high to medium. Still too much.

  Dinner was a one-dish thing from the slow cooker, chicken and root vegetables. It didn’t look impressive. It was dull and kind of pathetic, one vat of food sitting on a rack, two dinner plates, two forks, two knives, one wineglass, and one glass filled with Coke. If she wasn’t going to let me drink alcohol, she at least had to allow Coke. I wasn’t going to be a kid drinking milk like she’d tried to do until I put my foot down.

  Mom didn’t like that phrase at all. Put my foot down. It sounded like my father, apparently.

  She tapped her phone to bring up her favorite playlist. Eighties tunes. I didn’t mind it. The only thing that got on my nerves was hearing the same fucking songs every week.

  Before she picked up her fork, she was talking. “Any forward momentum on the job search?”

  “I don’t know my class schedule for the fall quarter, so it’s hard to commit to anything.” She liked that word. Commit.

  She nodded. “What have you been up to?”

  “The usual.”

  Mom sighed. “It’s frustrating, you know. Working all week while you sleep in and play games.”

  “It’s summer vacation.”

  “That’s for kids, Luke. At your age, you don’t really get summer vacation anymore.”

  “People who go away to college get to come home and chill for the summer.”

  “They’re taking a full load.”

  It was the same thing. The same words. Every. Single. Week. I wondered if she realized that, or if it all sounded new to her. Maybe she was getting Alzheimer’s or something. Fifty seemed young for that, but it can happen. Still, I guess she wouldn’t be a family law attorney if her brain was slipping loose.

  I should have been proud of my mom, and I was. When my dad left, the law firm where she was a paralegal got all on board with supporting her while she went to law school and studied for the bar. And that test is hard. She passed the first time.

  “We searched the open space for that missing girl last night.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “I wish you would have come.”

  “Dad arranged breakfast weeks ago.”

  “You can meet for breakfast any day.”

  I needed to deflect her. It wasn’t difficult, I just hadn’t tried very hard. “Did they find anything?”

  She shook her head and stabbed her fork into a carrot. “Nothing. It’s scary. To think someone could come right into your backyard and in through your bedroom window. It’s so bold. Like he wasn’t even worried about being caught.”

  “How do you know it’s a he?”

  She stared at me.

  I ate a few sweet potatoes and drank some Coke.

  “It’s most likely a man,” she said finally. “Don’t you think?”

  I shrugged. “I think it’s more likely she ran off with some guy she met online.” My deflection had been a bad choice. I should have deflected further. I didn’t want to think about her. I didn’t want to talk about the missing kid at all. She had nothing to do with me. If anyone had helicopter parents, that kid did. She hardly even came out of the house.

  My mother looked like she might cry. “That would be awful.”

  “Maybe she took off on her own, then.”

  She blinked. She seemed to like that idea better. “Where would she go?”

  “I dunno. A million places.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Kids have resources.” I’d seen that kid around. She was smart, in a weird, miniature adult way. She knew shit I didn’t know. I did not want to be talking about her. There was something off about that family, and I preferred not to think about them. Who moves onto a street like this one and never fucking comes out of their house? Especially in the summer.

  I’d literally never seen the parents. Only their cars. Until that night the mother was running around in her jammies, ringing doorbells with Taylor. Or Ms. Stanwick, as I’m supposed to call her, to show respect. My dad thinks it’s funny that I have to adhere to last-century rules like that. He says my mom doesn’t get that the world’s changed. I don’t think he gets it as much as he thinks he does. Just because he uses Twitter doesn’t make him bleeding edge.

  “Why do you think she ran away?”

  “I don’t think anything. I’m just saying everyone is assuming she was snatched. Everyone is freaking out that some monster invaded the burbs. But don’t most kids run away?”

  “Do they?”

  “Who knows? Maybe she needed some space. They shouldn’t freak out.” I knew that was a dumb-ass thing to say. Of course they were going to freak out. My mom freaked out when I was one hour later coming home than I said. And the kid was young. I just didn’t like jumping to conclusions, thinking there was some bad dude out there lurking in the shrubs, waiting to attack.

  My mom’s voice was so low she was almost whispering. “That’s a terrible thing to say.” She ate without talking. When Mike and the Mechanics ended their song, she turned off the music; then she asked in a fake, super-cheery voice if I wanted to go out for ice cream.

  What I really wanted to do was get high and think about Ashling. I wanted to sit by myself and imagine her beside me in the gazebo. We could watch the neighbors come home from their Friday night trips to restaurants, where they mostly drank their dinners, judging by how well they maneuvered their cars into their garages, backing out several times because they’d misjudged the space. Despite the courtyards hiding so many things, there was a lot to notice in our neighborhood. Most people didn’t pay any attention.

  12

  Taylor

  That sweet little girl had been gone for two entire nights. I found myself calling her little even though she wasn’t little at all. I saw how tall she was the day they moved in, almost as tall as her mother. She was slender and graceful, clearly blossoming into her teenaged self. I wondered how she was coping with whatever torment she was experiencing. I feared she was already dead. Everyone feared that, but no one said it.

  I hadn’t seen Moira since the previous morning after the search party. I hadn’t seen the cops or any of our neighbors except Nicole. The tw
o good things were that every single neighbor had clicked to like the Find Brittany Facebook page, and they’d shared it to their own pages.

  It was amazing how fast the number of likes had grown. I’d become addicted to it. Every time I checked, there were twenty or thirty more.

  When I went into our room to get ready for bed, Duncan was already asleep. I wanted to tell him how well the page was doing. I wanted to look through the comments together, but he was clearly not interested. I remained upset at his belief that we should leave the Cushings alone, with no one to support them but official strangers. I grabbed a quilt and returned to my office, curled up on the couch, and closed my eyes. Not that he noticed I wasn’t beside him in bed.

  Overnight, the page “blew up,” as they say. There were two thousand three hundred twenty-four likes when I checked at five a.m. The page was overflowing with hundreds of comments. People posted that they were praying for Moira and Alan, and most of all for Brittany. There were all kinds of emojis—hearts, crying faces, hugs, flowers, and animals. Suddenly I saw the charm in those things I’d looked at with derision. It warmed my entire body. My heart felt ridiculously full.

  Around seven, I texted Moira that she should look. I didn’t hear back. I hoped that meant she was getting some sleep.

  As much as I wanted to dig into reading all the comments, I needed to get myself ready for work. Since I’d accomplished nothing for my clients on Friday, I planned to devote the morning to catching up on email. I let the Facebook page sit while I made coffee and showered.

  Duncan thanked me for the coffee, as well as the bowl of oatmeal I put together for him, adding the exact amount of two percent milk he preferred. He didn’t say a word about not finding me beside him when he woke. He silently spooned oatmeal into his mouth and read the news on his tablet while I made a smoothie for myself.

  I wasn’t sure whether I was angry with him or hurt. Usually we made love on Friday nights. It wasn’t a scheduled thing, it just happened. It wasn’t the only night of the week we made love, but it was a bit of a habit. A date…that was a better way to think of it. I’d missed it, missed his body, even in my irritation. It appeared he hadn’t missed me at all.

  I kissed his forehead and wished him a good morning. He was heading over to the high school to meet with the other history teachers to plan enrichment activities for the coming year. I took a second cup of coffee and my smoothie into the office. To be sure I didn’t get too far off track, the first thing I did was check email and respond to a few requests. My clients would be impressed I was giving attention to their projects on the weekend. Working from home made it easy for weekdays to blur into weekends. Sometimes I felt I was always working.

  An hour later, I opened the Facebook page and started reading.

  It amazed me how much I relished the comments despite the repetition. Some people offered helpful suggestions:

  Keep your page updated all the time so people keep seeing it at the top of their feed.

  Don’t forget self-care.

  Make sure you manage the police. You need to keep your case at the front of their minds.

  It wasn’t a slam on the police, just a reminder they were often short-staffed. There were suggestions about prayer and how much it helped and, of course, worked. It brought answers. It drew missing children back to the loving arms of their families. I hadn’t had the impression Moira and Alan were religious, so I responded to those with a thumbs-up and a simple thank you.

  People had posted pictures of their own kids, which seemed a little inappropriate, but I was trying to look at it all with an open mind. I wanted to be generous and kind. I wanted most of all to foster a good feeling of community.

  There were replies to some of the comments. It was a genuine discussion taking on a life of its own, although some of the comments veered off course, giving updates on other missing children. I commented where I could, and clicked like and love and wow faces where I had nothing to say.

  Then, about forty comments into the thread, I saw it.

  Sheryl Robinson Foster: I saw Brittany Cushing.

  That was all she’d posted. What did she mean? Why hadn’t she given details? I put down my coffee and pushed the mug and my barely touched smoothie out of the way.

  Taylor Stanwick: Where did you see her? When? The police will want details. Not just the day. They’ll want the time and the exact location. Was anyone with her?

  I sat back and waited. I wanted to call Officer Carter, but she would demand details. She’d said they would monitor the page, but I hadn’t seen her name in the list of followers. I had to be patient. I had to trust that it wasn’t too late. The message had been posted at four fifteen a.m. I wanted to text Moira. I wanted to cry with happiness, and with fear that wherever this woman had seen Brittany, she was now long gone.

  It was two hours before Sheryl Robinson Foster responded. She wrote that she’d seen Brittany in Phoenix. She’d been standing in line at a Taco Bell with a man who looked about thirty-five. The man was good-looking, but there was something not quite right about him. There was a lifeless look in his eyes. He had his arm around Brittany almost as if she were his girlfriend.

  My hands shook as I typed. I asked her to message me privately. I wanted to get her in touch with Officer Carter, but I didn’t think I should talk any more about it in a public forum where anyone, even that man, would be able to read it.

  I called Officer Carter. While I waited for the call to connect, I took a sip of my smoothie. No more coffee until my hands stopped trembling. I texted Duncan with the good news. He replied as I should have predicted, and I regretted even telling him.

  Duncan: I thought you were working.

  I didn’t respond.

  Duncan: You need to focus on your job, not some missing kid you can’t do a damn thing about.

  The phone call connected.

  “Officer Carter.”

  I took another sip of smoothie. “Hi. Someone saw Brittany Cushing!”

  “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Taylor Stanwick. Moira’s—”

  “Yes. Okay. So who saw her? And where?”

  “You were right about Facebook. It’s incredible. There are thousands of people paying attention, and someone saw her last night. In Phoenix.”

  “I’m logging on now,” Morgan said, “but I need to caution you to calm down.”

  “I’m trying, but I’m so…I’m so relieved.” My voice broke.

  “Are the Cushings following the page?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Have you spoken to them about this?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Then I need to provide some context here. There will be sightings. There will be a lot of sightings. More than you can imagine. However, ninety-nine percent of them will be fantasies or people trying to stir up drama.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  “Then why did you tell me to get on social media? If you aren’t going to believe anyone who says they saw her, what’s the point?” Although I could hear the note of hysteria in my voice, I couldn’t get my vocal cords to relax. This was absurd. She’d almost pressured me into doing this. She was the expert here. She got my hopes up, and now she was acting like I was a moron for believing a specific, detailed report of someone seeing Brittany. Sheryl had a photograph of herself and her dog as her profile picture. She looked perfectly sane and normal.

  “Because,” Morgan said, “we use every tool we can. A page is helpful in getting the word spread much more widely, and ensuring outreach to the civilian population, not just among law enforcement.”

  “But the point is to—”

  “Yes, it would be wonderful if someone saw her and we located her that way. But you need to be aware of how many unreliable, and frankly unstable, people will make reports. That’s all.”

  “So you don’t believe this?”

  “We’ll check it out.”

  “How will you do
that?”

  “Contact the Phoenix police. They’ll interview the clerks at the Taco Bell.”

  “She’s probably in Texas by now.” My breath caught in my throat.

  “She might be in California. She could be in Canada or Mexico. She might be three blocks away. We don’t know where she is. So we’ll check it out. Try not to leap to conclusions or panic.”

  “I think panic is a perfectly legitimate reaction when a child is grabbed right out of her bed.”

  “Yes. Everyone is frightened. But a calm approach is important. It helps everyone stay focused.”

  She assured me again she would check it out. She said it was best not to tell Moira and Alan. If they saw it themselves, so be it, but no need to bring it to their attention.

  Like hell I was going to take that advice. Moira and Alan had a right to know. They needed to know.

  When Moira answered my call, her voice was thin and sounded far away.

  “Have you been checking the Facebook page?” I asked.

  “No. It’s too hard…”

  I waited several seconds before she finished.

  “I can’t read what people might write,” she said. “I can’t deal with all these strangers talking about Brittany as if they know her. I feel so exposed. She’s out there, and all these people know she’s gone.” Moira let out a quiet sob. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “I know. I don’t like social media, but this might be worth it.”

  “What does it say?”

  “A woman posted that she saw Brittany!”

  “Where? When was this?”

  “In Phoenix. Last night at a Taco Bell.”

  Her words were fast and eager. “Did she…what happened? Did she talk to her? Did she…”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Why hasn’t Officer Carter called us?”

  I heard the unspoken question: Why isn’t Brittany already on her way home to us?