The Missing Place

by Sophie Littlefield

  They’ll be out of your house in a year one way or another, Shay had said, trying to hurt her, and succeeding more than she could know.

  She had tried so hard to keep them close. But what she had lost. Oh, what she had lost.

  Colleen felt a tiny loosening inside, a relaxing of a pain she had been holding on to so hard it was practically pulling her apart from within.

  “Paul,” she started, and then had to stop and collect herself. Elizabeth was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, and she reached for one herself and cleared her throat. “Paul is good. On the inside. He always has been. He’s made mistakes . . .”

  Darren Terry, in the locker room. So many ruined playdates, the incidents at school. The middle school suspension, the screaming matches between Paul and Andy after every semester’s report card. The hurled words and curses.

  The broken dishes on the floor. Paul on his knees, looking up at her like it would never, ever be all right again between them, and then returning to the task, his fingers cut and bleeding as he swept up the shards.

  “We all make mistakes,” Elizabeth said. “I did something so bad . . .” She squeezed her eyes together as if trying to shut out the thought itself.

  Tentatively, Colleen reached for her hand. It was small and cool, the fingernails cut short and bare. She folded it in both of hers. “I know this is hard to believe now,” she said, “but after a while, that’s not going to hurt quite so bad. You’ll get more experience and you’ll learn that everyone does stupid things when they’ve run out of ideas. You’ll start to forgive yourself. I promise.”

  Was it a lie? Colleen wasn’t sure she would ever be able to forgive herself for all her wrong turns with Paul, for every time she looked at her little boy and found him wanting, every day that she spent trying to bend and shape him into something he wasn’t.

  But this wasn’t about her right now. Couldn’t be.

  She squeezed Elizabeth’s hand a little harder. “You love my son. Don’t you?”

  Elizabeth blinked, her watery blue eyes finding Colleen’s, her lips parted in surprise. “Of course I do, Mrs. Mitchell.”

  “Well, then.” How could she make Elizabeth see that that was enough, that for that gift Colleen would never, ever betray her? So far, she hadn’t found the right way to show the girl. Hadn’t even begun to understand her, much less befriend her. All those hours, up here, she must have been so lonely.

  An idea came to her.

  “Honey, would you like to invite your mom out for a visit? Or a few of your friends? Get some time with them before the baby comes?”

  “Oh, I . . . I’m not even sure my mom would come.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “She’s not exactly . . . she’s kind of mad at me.” Elizabeth’s voice had gotten very small. “I made her one of . . . the thing I’m making you. Hers is pink. I had Paul mail it last week but I haven’t heard anything.”

  “But you’ve been talking to her, haven’t you? On the phone?”

  “No, not really. She’ll get on the phone for a few minutes after I talk to Daddy, sometimes. And sometimes I’m pretty sure she’s there but she makes Daddy tell me she isn’t. She’s—I don’t know. Because I did the same thing she did, you know, getting pregnant by accident, when I was too young. And she feels like Grace and Brookie will see me and, I don’t know, like somehow that will corrupt them or something. It’s . . .”

  She couldn’t seem to find the word she wanted. “Well.” Colleen sighed. “That will change too, I’m pretty sure. Once she sees her grandson.”

  Elizabeth hung her head. “I hope so.”

  Colleen picked up the plate. She had chosen the pattern with her own mother, ivory bone china with a delicate tracing of white and gold around the edge. Timeless, her mother had said. You’ll never get tired of it.

  It was so funny, the things women pretend are important, generation after generation, standing among the glittering displays of tableware, outside jewelry stores looking at the diamond rings, stroking the lace of a dress suspended from a silk hanger. If Colleen had had a daughter, would she have done the same? Probably. She would have stood by, feverishly spinning a web of sterling iced tea spoons and eternity bands and satin pumps and organza veils, praying it would be enough. And having so little to offer when it wasn’t.

  “This is my wedding china,” she said, showing the plate to Elizabeth. “It’s yours, if you and Paul want it. But more important, I was wondering if you might be willing to come downstairs and keep me company while I set the table? I’m frankly bored out of my mind down there. And I’m sick of all this sad stuff. Let’s just pretend for one afternoon that none of it happened, okay? I’ll fix you a virgin daiquiri.” She smiled. “With an umbrella. I think I still have a few of those left over from last summer. How does that sound?”

  The girl gave her a tentative smile, wiping her eyes. “I’d love to.”

  forty-one

  THIS WEEK WAS for the poor kids, the ones recruited to boost the university’s diversity statistics. They didn’t call them “poor” or “disadvantaged”—in fact they didn’t call them anything at all, something T.L. had noticed during orientation. Everything was left vague. Even the program’s name didn’t really mean anything—Special Transitional Enrichment Track, so when a term was needed they were just the “STET kids.”

  The faculty in charge of the program kept emphasizing that the friendships T.L. and the others made this week, before returning to their shitty lives for the rest of the summer until they came back for real in August, would last them throughout their years at college, and beyond. Beyond, into the futures the adults kept describing as limitless, spectacular, larger than not only the lives they’d led so far but also larger than their own imaginations.

  But look at them, T.L. thought, from his seat at the back of the classroom. Balding and paunchy men, women with loose flesh in their upper arms and ugly shoes. Had this been their dream, to usher the underperforming and unremarkable into the hallowed halls of UCLA? Was this the limitless future they’d imagined for themselves, a degree from a respectable school and a cinder-block office with a mini-fridge and a view of the quad? Half the STET kids wouldn’t graduate, and the university didn’t care, as long as they stuck around long enough to make their numbers.

  T.L. had arrived at LAX on his first plane trip and a wave of uncertainty, unsure how deep his debt to Myron went. He supposed he owed his uncle the whole four years, the degree, a job with a 401k. In the suitcase borrowed from Wally Stommar, he’d packed one pair of shorts from Abercrombie & Fitch, bought in Minot last week, and a half dozen T-shirts culled with care from the stack in his dresser. Boxer shorts from the Gap and a new bottle of Axe. New flip-flops, the very same ones he’d seen the kids in Lawton wear, that summer he’d spent with Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth. Andy Mitchell had promised that if T.L. ever needed anything, all he had to do was ask. But what T.L. needed from the Mitchells was only for them to keep her, to enfold her into their remote and unknowable world, with his failed first love sloughing from her like a snakeskin. The baby would take her the rest of the way, and then finally his home would be his again, all of western North Dakota and its brilliant stars and rustling grasses and birds and sky and mice and foxes. The reservation and the lake, the highways and summer storms and snowdrifts, the mud in his boot soles and the grit in his eyes on windy days.

  In L.A. everything was shining and temperate. There was no humidity, no mosquitos. T.L. was offered weed, a place to stay if he was ever in East St. Louis, a harmonica, dried mangoes, a hand-knotted bracelet made of colorful threads, a blow job, an invitation to prayer. He went to one study skills refresher class and skipped the rest. He went to a subtitled Turkish film and, before he could figure out the plot, a girl from the Sierra foothills—T.L. had not known California had inland mountains—put her hand in his pocket.

  The night before he was to fly home, he and that same girl went up on the roof of the dorm. She brought a huge plastic t
umbler of homemade sangria. Bits of orange rind floated among the ice cubes. The girl’s lips were spicy and cold, but they quickly warmed. She had a tiny silver stud in her cheek, and T.L.’s fingertips brushed against it as they kissed.

  The sky in L.A. was chalky and diluted at night. But not far away, past the buildings and the hills and the highway, was the ocean, which T.L. had seen for the first time three days ago. He licked the salt from his fingers and watched the Ferris wheel spin above the Santa Monica pier. The sand under his feet didn’t belong to anyone. The kelp and broken shells, the shrieking of children and the smell of fried food, these were all his if he wanted them. He could stay here. He could stay.

  forty-two

  SHAY WAS ALONE in the bride’s room of the church.

  A thousand years ago, she had waited in here with her mother and three of her friends all fussing over her dress. It had had puff sleeves you could hide a loaf of bread in and sequins embroidered over every inch of the bodice. Her aunt was outside in the church trying to console Brittany, who was supposed to be a flower girl but had thrown such a huge fit over the basket of petals that they decided to skip her part.

  Shay had married Frank. She had found a father for her daughter and then she’d had a son. She’d tried hard to hang on to her marriage, and when they split, she worked to keep it friendly. When he died she tried to be both mom and dad to her kids.

  All her damn life, she had just tried so hard. She’d shown up at school for mothers’ teas and choir concerts and See’s Candies fund-raiser meetings. She’d worked extra shifts to pay for softball team fees and prom dresses and orthodontia. She made sure her children knew how to clean a bathroom and write a thank-you note and pay for what they broke or, in one memorable case, shoplifted. She’d confined her rogue needs to late at night or weekends stolen for trips to Reno, dates at the Red Lobster in the next town, hurried couplings in backseats and cheap motel rooms and guest rooms in the middle of the day. She’d never brought a man home and she’d convinced herself she was only borrowing them for a while, the ones whose wives wouldn’t really miss them.

  She looked at herself in the full-length mirror, the one for brides to do a final primping before they headed down the aisle. She was wearing a simple black scoop-neck top with butterfly sleeves and her favorite jeans and black sandals with leather flowers stitched to them. No one knew, not even Brittany, that she had cut the small “26” from the sleeve of Taylor’s game-day jersey and had been carrying it in her pocket for weeks. She touched it now, the soft cotton fabric a comfort.

  Father Greg had retired, but he came back for this. He’d done Frank’s service too. The church had been full when she took refuge here fifteen minutes ago. Brittany had come with her, and she’d only stepped out now to confer with Father Greg about where they would stand to receive the overflow crowd afterward.

  Shay had asked Father Greg to keep it short. She didn’t want to spend this day falling apart. She figured she could keep her shit together for fifteen minutes. There weren’t going to be any eulogies, hell no. Later, maybe, at the barbecue, after everyone had eaten and had a few drinks, people could get up and say whatever they wanted. By then Shay would be all right with it. And she could take Leila down to see the goats if she needed a break.

  But here . . . she’d always had a special reverence for churches, even though she hadn’t been a believer since she was in grade school. She liked their cool, chemical floor polish smell. She liked the leatherette covers of the hymnals. She couldn’t have chosen a better place for all of the flowers than the marble altar. But Taylor was up there, in the shiny dark casket that Brittany and Robert had chosen. And Shay just didn’t know how she was going to survive having to look at it, even if it was just for a few moments.

  There was a sound at the door. “Britt?” Shay said, turning from the mirror.

  The door and a woman slipped through, closing it behind her.

  “The flight was late,” she said quickly, breathlessly. “I got here as fast as I could.”

  Only then did Shay see that it was Colleen, transformed again. This time she was wearing one of the shirts some of Taylor’s old friends had printed up—his beautiful grin, in his football team photo, posed on one knee. Shay knew that on the back the shirt read TAYLOR C. ALWAYS AND EVER IN OUR HEARTS, because the boys had one made for her. The shirt was much too large for Colleen, and she’d knotted it at the waistband of her black slacks. The rest—the low patent pumps, the pearl earrings, the shiny stiff hair—was all Colleen. But the expression on her face was new.

  She stood there looking completely peaceful, like she was ready for whatever Shay might dish out. Her brown eyes were solemn, but the deep hollows under her eyes were gone, and the creases in her forehead seemed to have smoothed out.

  “You don’t have to go,” Shay said. “I’m just . . . all those people.”

  “I know,” Colleen said. She didn’t say she was sorry and ask was there anything she could do. Which was good, because Shay didn’t want to hear that one more fucking time. They were all sorry, and no one could do a damn thing.

  “You saw Paul?” she asked.

  “Yes . . . he introduced me to Brittany and Robert. And Leila. She’s beautiful.”

  Shay didn’t miss the pain that passed over Colleen’s face. Well, she wouldn’t have been able to miss Brittany’s condition, not in that black jumper.

  “So I guess we’re both going to be grandmothers the same month,” Shay said. “Paul says Elizabeth’s due the fifth. Brittany’s not due until the eighteenth, but Leila was almost two weeks early, so . . .”

  “You’re so lucky,” Colleen said softly, almost wistfully. Then she looked stricken and slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” Shay said. “Come on. Today, let’s just cut all the shit. Me and you—we earned that, right?”

  After a moment Colleen nodded. “All I meant was . . . Brittany and Robert, it’s just so clear how much they love you. They told me you’re going to cut back to half time so you can watch the new baby. I . . . I would give anything for Paul and Elizabeth to . . . well, to want to be with us, like that.”

  Shay bit her lip, wondering when Colleen was going to figure it out. “There’s no magic,” she said. “We don’t get along any better than anyone else. Robert came home drunk Tuesday from poker and Brittany came over and stayed with me. Then they patched that up and suddenly Britt’s mad at me for letting Leila watch Real Housewives and neither of them are speaking to me.” She smiled at the memory. Brittany had hung up on her last Thursday morning, but then that night she’d brought Leila over, since Robert had the evening shift, and they’d all done their nails after dinner. Shay had done Leila’s, holding those tiny hands and dabbing at the little perfect fingernails and then doing the wave-your-hands dance with her until they were dry.

  “We never fight,” Colleen said miserably. Then she took a breath. “I’ve decided something. When we get home I’m going to kick them out. I mean, as soon as they can find an apartment. And if Paul wants to take a break from school . . . well, I’m not going to stop him.”

  “Damn, girl,” Shay said, holding up her hand. “You rich people are so fucked-up.” Colleen gave her a high five. And then Shay gave Colleen a quick, hard hug, pulling away before Colleen could hug her back.

  Colleen stood there with her mouth open for a moment, then smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was a start.

  “We should probably go,” Shay said, checking her hair one last time in the mirror. She’d managed not to mess up her eye makeup yet, and she had a pocket mirror and a tube of concealer in her purse just in case. “Is Andy saving you a seat?”

  “I, uh . . . well, I told him not to come, actually,” Colleen said. “He stayed in Boston with Elizabeth.”

  Shay raised her eyebrows. There was a story there for sure, one they could get to later, when the day wound down and everyone went home. They’d take
a bottle and a couple of glasses and sit out on the back porch, where Frank’s dad had rigged a swing so you could watch the sunset.

  “Well, all right, then,” she said, putting her hand on the door. “Turns out I don’t have a date for this thing. Want to walk me to my seat?”

  “It would be an honor,” Colleen said, and the two of them went out into the waiting crowd together.

  the missing place

  Sophie Littlefield

  gallery books reading group guide

  introduction

  IN THE BOOMING oil town of Lawton, North Dakota, two men hired to work on the rigs go missing without a trace, and only their mothers hold out hope of finding them. Shay, a hardened woman from the wrong side of the California tracks, and Colleen, a woman from the wealthy suburbs of Boston, discover the doors in Lawton are closed to them and form an unlikely partnership. In this barren landscape, against all odds, these two women have no choice but to join forces to find their lost sons, and in doing so must learn that each has much to teach the other.

  topics and questions for discussion

  1. Describe and discuss how the setting of Lawton, North Dakota, evokes the major themes in Littlefield’s The Missing Place.

  2. Compare and contrast the two main characters, Colleen and Shay. Why might the author have created characters who differ from each other in so many ways?

  3. Which mother handles the news of her son’s disappearance better at the beginning of the book? What about as events progress? How do their backgrounds help or hinder them in their efforts?

  4. Shay criticizes Colleen’s parenting throughout the book, challenging her on her “helicopter parenting.” Do you think these criticisms are valid? How could Colleen have been a more effective parent given the challenges her family faced?