by Karen Brown
“Any reason your husband would take off?” the officer asks. “Was there an argument? Did you check to see if any clothing or other personal items are missing? A suitcase or bag? Any jitters about the impending event?”
Sadie imagines Craig answering these questions—his emphatic no, his objection to this line of questioning. Emma answers calmly, truthfully, and manages to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “He is excited about the baby,” she says. “He would never just leave.”
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask,” the officer says. “And you’d be surprised how many spouses say the very same thing—not to upset you, or imply that your husband has run off, of course. Few expect it, is what I’m saying.”
Sadie imagines he will confess to them that just tonight he got another call from a man whose wife was missing. “Just up and left him with two little kids.” Her heart races as she waits, and her cheeks burn. But he does not say anything. He is an Old Lyme town cop. He wouldn’t know anything about her or Craig. The officer takes a step toward the door. His weight shifts a nail in the pine floor, a sound like a rusty spring.
“My guess is that he’ll be here soon,” he says. “Probably got held up in the jam.”
Sadie hears the man leave, Ray and Emma talking on the porch. She doesn’t move from her spot on the couch, feigning sleep. Where is Pietro? she wonders. Has he decided to flee his wife, his unborn daughter? Is he now at a gas station in Rhode Island buying a Coke and a map, trying to figure out how many bills to give the cashier, making a face and bewitching her with his broken English? Has he run off with a girl he met on the beach during the hours when his pregnant wife was working? Will he see that the life he left behind had its own delicate perfection, its moments of happiness? Will he turn the car around? Will he pull into the sandy drive and pretend he never left? And then the refrigerator sputters to life, and the room is suddenly illuminated—thousands of white twinkling lights are strung around its perimeter, draped over the swinging light fixture, looped along the beams of the ceiling, outlining the screens on the porch. Sadie sits up. Ray and Emma step into the room. Emma spins around in astonishment.
“It’s my birthday,” she says softly in explanation. She moves around the room to each lit candle, blowing it out. Sadie remembers the sad little party she gave Craig, the way he acted surprised for the children as he opened the gifts. In each strand of lights strung about the cottage is the joy she could not offer her own husband.
July 5, 1979
THE PHONE BEGAN RINGING SOON after Mrs. Schuster left with her news about Francie’s disappearance. Sadie’s mother took up her station at the kitchen table, her orange ashtray filling with butts. Sadie’s father dressed and met the other fathers outside where they’d gathered in the street, a small, ragtag group of men in Bermuda shorts and Top-Siders, their faces bloated from drink, their appendages, usually white from days under the fluorescent lights of the workplace, burnt red. They talked in hushed tones and looked about with their hands on their waists, waiting for someone to take charge, to direct them where to go. The debris of the lobster bake still blew about the neighborhood. The tables remained with their flapping cloths, the empty chairs still stationed around the pit. The police parked in front of Francie’s house. Sadie and Betty stood with everyone at the end of Francie’s driveway, waiting for word. Francie’s mother was there, roused from her couch, her eyes red rimmed, her hands large and veined and clutching something they learned was the baby blanket Francie still slept with. Her father was there, an older-looking man, hunched over in a sports shirt.
“Geppetto,” Sadie whispered. She and Betty laughed, nervous laughter they believed Francie might have forgiven them for.
Francie’s bike was found at the dead end. No one had forgotten Laura Loomis, the photos of her on flyers—blond hair and blue eyes, a slightly crooked smile—that still flapped in store windows five years later. Sadie had begun to grow out of her resemblance to Laura, but she’d always been plagued by Laura’s eyes staring out from her fourth-grade school portrait, haunted by the way life shone in them, alert and potent, waiting to be lived.
She and Betty stuck together and waited for the letters they’d written to be discovered. They imagined Francie had hidden them in some old book—Grimm’s Fairy Tales—the pages carved out beneath the mildewed cover. They thought they knew her then, as well as they knew themselves. Still, they said nothing, their hearts soft and quick like the robins the boys would leave near death, that they’d find and cup in their hands, trying to save them. Search parties were organized—the neighborhood fathers, volunteer firemen from a town over, state police organizing searchers to fan out through the swamp and the surrounding woods, forming a long line of people an arm’s width apart, taking careful steps, separating only to avoid the wide trunks of trees. Local women made sandwiches from meat and bread donated by Shaw’s. The searchers combed the woods along the little brook, climbed over barbed wire, and waded into the maze of cornfields. Francie! Francie! The sound of her name became a refrain. All morning Sadie listened to the way it passed, back and forth, from all sides surrounding the neighborhood, echoing off the rows of houses, the shake shingles and the aluminum siding.
Sadie and Betty slipped away on their own. They knew where Francie had gone—the place Hezekiah had arranged to meet her—and their plan was to find her first. They would become her friend, no longer the stuck-up girls. They’d give her a sip of their canteen water, and smooth out her hair, and tell her the shirt she was wearing was cool. They would tell her they were sorry without ever saying the words, without explaining what they were sorry for. They wandered along the cow paths, past the marsh with its tall hummocks, and up along the ridge of the cornfield where the blackberries grew in thick tangles. They could hear the other searchers, and occasionally they’d see them in pairs, a flash of their bright summer clothes across a fallow field. It was late afternoon when they reached the pond.
“We should have picked a place that was closer,” Betty said. Her bangs were damp on her forehead. Her freckled nose was pink.
They had never before been past the last line of woods, the pond like a mirage seen from a distance. They stood on the edge in the grass and watched the insects flit across the still surface. They were hot, and they took off their shoes and waded in. Years later when Sadie found the pond again she would remember this moment—the cool water, the cicadas’ whirring, the heat of the day dissipating, the sound of the brook, the shadows of the trees that rimmed the clearing. She was tired, ready to give up. They could hear the calls of the searchers, and Sadie was becoming less convinced that Francie was just hiding, refusing to come forward. She’d already missed two meals. Mrs. Schuster had said her bed hadn’t been slept in. For the first time Sadie considered that something might have actually happened to Francie to prevent her from returning, and she remembered Laura Loomis’s mother on the news, her glassy eyes, her strained voice pleading for information about Laura’s whereabouts weeks after her daughter never came home.
Sadie scanned the pond’s surface. “What’s that over there?” she said.
There was something bobbing, a log, or a clump of weeds.
“It’s part of a beaver’s dam,” Betty said. “Isn’t it?”
“Looks more like clothes, some sort of material.”
She was wading in, deeper now. Her feet sucked at the sandy bottom. Her shorts were wet, and then she was up to her waist, shading her eyes, looking. Betty stayed by the shore, calling to her. “Don’t go any farther,” she said. “Please, please don’t go any farther.”
Sadie stopped when the water reached her chest. She felt it cold on her breasts, and lower, near the bottom, a little rushing of current, the small fish slipping between her legs. She closed her eyes and slid under the surface. From far away she heard Betty’s voice crying out. If she swam out she might get closer to the thing in the water, she might see what it was. But then she remembered the story of Emely Filley and felt the tug of the water on her sho
rts, her shirt, imagined the way it might have pulled on the girl’s long skirt. She imagined the water turned to ice, the trees overhead bare save for a few clinging brown leaves. She began to fear what might be in the pond and tried to stand but found she had floated out beyond the place where she could touch. In her panic she flailed, and suddenly Betty was there, tugging on her hand, pulling her up.
“What?” she said. “It isn’t her, is it?”
Sadie said she couldn’t tell what it was. A pile of pond grass—or hair. A snagged piece of trash, blown miles from the nearest road—or a pink shirt. She felt suddenly sick. Her head ached. It was the sun, she thought. But then Betty said, “What if it’s her? What if she threw herself in when Hezekiah didn’t show up? What if it’s our fault?”
“You mean Hezekiah’s?” Sadie said.
Betty glared at her. “Oh my God,” she said.
“She wouldn’t do it,” Sadie said. “That’s not sane.”
They both stared at the thing in the water, stirred about by the current. In the glare of the setting sun they couldn’t be sure about anything, but Sadie felt the first jolt of fear, and astonishment. What if Francie had done it? What if she had shown them all?
“Let’s go,” Sadie said. They got lost on the cow paths that wound toward home, and the woods grew dim, and they didn’t emerge until dinnertime. Their mothers’ fury was unmatched. Betty and Sadie were consigned to the front yard like the younger children. Francie still hadn’t been found, but the searchers had come upon the site of the Haunted Woods, and the Hanged Girl, a dummy so lifelike that Mr. Frobel had fallen to his knees and cried out, “Oh Lord!” Sadie and Betty learned that Francie’s underwear, tossed over the fence into the pasture, trampled into the grass by the farmer’s cows, had also been discovered and cataloged as grim evidence. They might have explained the underwear, but not without revealing the entire story—their own complicity. The general fear of the unknown took over, and everyone gathered in hushed groups to speculate what might have happened. Betty was called home earlier than usual, and she and Sadie separated, each worrying what the other might, in a moment of weakness, confess.
The contentment of the day before—the festivity of the lobster bake, Sadie and Betty’s reprieve from the letter writing—now seemed distant, forever lost. That night every dead bolt turned. Sadie lay in bed listening to the crickets, the frogs in the brook, the pinging of beetles against the metal window screen, sounds that she can still imagine, that make her think of the child she was, and the woman she is now, and how little she understood of her life, and how little she still understands.
August 30, 2003
PIETRO RETURNS NEAR ONE A.M. They hear his car in the sandy road, the engine ticking when it’s cut off. He enters the house with an expression of solemn regret that he casts around the room to each of them in turn, even Sadie and Ray, strangers to him.
“I got lost,” he says. He throws his arms up in the air. “I knock at doors and no one comes to answer me.”
He is holding a brown bag of wine purchased at the liquor store in Old Lyme five hours before. From his garbled English Sadie understands that Pietro remembered a book Emma had seen at the antiquarian bookshop, and he tried to make his way there, and got on the highway instead. By the end of his story he is near tears, relaying his frustration, his sorrow in attempting to navigate the road in the dark and missing Emma’s birthday. Sadie imagines this slight, handsome man in his somewhat short trousers and fine knit vest, crossing front lawns to knock on the doors of suburban housewives. She notices that Emma is crying now as well, and then they are in each other’s arms, and she feels Ray take her hand, pull her toward the door so that they might make their awkward escape. But Emma turns to them and grabs his arm to stop him.
“Oh, no, please don’t go.”
And Pietro is insisting they stay and share the wine, and Emma is getting glasses, and Pietro is beside her opening the bottle, getting out a cake that looks tall and white like it belongs at a wedding. Sadie can sense that Ray is conflicted, unsure, looking to her to see what she wants. Return to the motel and his tentative plan, or stay here in this lit-up cottage with these happy people.
“No drive so late,” Pietro says. “We have room.”
Ray looks at her. “They have room. We could stay.”
They step out onto the front porch together. The lights inside the house twinkle on the sand. Ray stuffs his hands in his jean pockets. Sadie can tell he wants to light a cigarette.
“We don’t even know these people,” Sadie says.
Ray glances back into the kitchen through the screen door, as if he is worried Emma and Pietro might hear. “They don’t even know us.”
Sadie looks at him carefully. She wants to say, We don’t even know us, but says nothing.
“You’re going to leave me in suspense here,” he says. He looks down at the toes of his shoes, then glances up at her, his face stony. “It’s too late to go back, anyway.”
He pulls his hands from his pockets and places them on her shoulders. Sadie can hear Emma’s soft laughter. She feels her own brittle resolve, and she shrugs Ray’s hands away, as if with his touch she will break into pieces. He nods and they step back into the cottage.
Inside Sadie smiles at Pietro and Emma, and thanks them. She takes a glass of wine and sits down at the wooden table, where the cake is placed in the center and four mismatched china plates are laid out. She is perfectly amenable, has stepped into her cordial mode, a role she is familiar with that makes her feel at ease, that of “perfect guest.” The cake is dense and sweet, and Pietro launches into another story, parts of which are translated by Emma, who seems to understand his charadeslike movements and signals more than the words he uses. Sadie feels Ray watching her. Another bottle of wine is opened, and Ray drinks as if he is celebrating his own special occasion. In the kitchen, clearing plates, Emma admits how relieved she is that Pietro made it home safely. She tells her she can see how much Ray loves her.
“He doesn’t take his eyes off of you,” she says. She almost smirks, so satisfied is she with her interpretation.
Sadie doesn’t tell her the truth—that he is afraid if he takes his eyes off of her for a moment she might flee. His love is nothing, she wants to say, in the face of their history. Ray and Pietro are sitting on the porch with glasses of sambuca, and Emma and Sadie join them. The waves are whitecapped; the wind buffets the porch screens.
“We should have a bonfire,” Emma says.
“Too much wind,” Pietro tells her. He takes her hand and brings it to his mouth, then leans in and kisses the place where their child lies beneath her skin. Emma puts her hand in his hair. Sadie feels a kind of protracted longing. Whether Pietro was truly lost or waylaid at a motel with a woman, if he took a wrong turn or planned an evening tryst—none of these things matter. There is a truth that may never be revealed, and the two of them have chosen one version of it to believe. The waves rush in and out, creating a palpable mist. Emma and Pietro both say they are going to bed. Emma points to a door under the stairs and tells them they must be tired. After they have gone Sadie sighs. She turns to Ray and takes his hand. She is resigned to what can happen in this moment, determined to take full advantage of it.
“Let’s go to bed,” she says.
Ray smiles, slow and sloppy. Sadie sees that now it is his turn to be drunk. She stares at him. The tiny lights inside the cottage seem, in their dazzling way, to send out heat.
“Of course, of course,” he says in a rush to reassure her, to lead her, stumbling a little, into the room under the stairs. The doorknob is old, rusted metal. Inside the room Sadie can make out a double bed covered with a chenille spread. They shut the door. She hears the soft murmuring of Emma and Pietro through the floorboards. She unzips her skirt and steps out of it, unbuttons her blouse and lets it slide down her arms. She turns to Ray and undoes the clasp to his jeans while he yanks at the buttons of his shirt. They slip into the bed, into each other’s arms. Ray buries h
is face against Sadie’s breasts. She finds that the murmuring from above urges her on. She moves her mouth to his lips, biting them, tasting the anise from the drink, then down across his chest, over his body, his body in its entirety something she needs to taste. He is aroused, begging her, and still she holds him off until he pries her legs open by force and pushes inside her. He moves slowly, inexorably, and then more rhythmically, and when the bed’s springs give out their small twinges, he says, “Clare,” into her ear, breathing the name out, soft, panting breaths.
She loosens her grip on him, becomes very still, but Ray doesn’t seem to notice as he finishes, rolls off of her with a large exhale. She sees that each time it has been Clare he’s summoned. Their differences fade away when he’s inside her, and then after, she is just Sadie.
In the dark of the little room he touches her face, smooths her hair, kisses her mouth, her ear, her neck. “Go to sleep,” he says. Their bodies press together under the sheet, damp and sticky. She hears his breathing, in and out like the sound of the waves on the beach. High tide, she thinks. Upstairs, Emma and Pietro are still. Ray murmurs that he likes the idea that they have all had sex at the same time. She is quiet, her silence seeming like agreement. She knows he has let himself picture Emma’s body, her swollen stomach, her full breasts, the tattoo snaking up her arm.
He is not a very nice man. He is not to be trusted, a bad influence, selfish, all things she imagines he has been called throughout the years, all things she has been called as well—by her father after she drove his car off the road, took his money for apartments, for clothes, and then refused to keep in touch with him. Even now, in the nursing home, he asks the aides to call her, to ask when she will come. She has lied to friends, to lovers, betraying them in small ways, over and over, always sorry after. She has tried, with Craig, to be a good wife. She guesses that soon enough he will join the others in classifying her. They all decide, eventually, there is something wrong with her, something missing.
