Tina was back at the house by the lake but she saw that it was different. The dock was the old wooden one that had been there when they bought it. The house still had its old peeling paint and the trim that they had put on by hand was gone. Standing in the grass she saw that her feet were bare. The grass was going brown and prickled her feet. The air was cold and she shivered in her pajamas. It was odd, to be in her yard in the cold, in her pajamas. And why was it so cold anyway? It wasn’t winter yet, it was early August. She realized in a fuzzy sort of way that it was a dream, but the dream had a clarity unlike any dream she had ever had. She could feel the grass, smell the water, hear a boat in the distance on the lake. It was strange and creepy, but she was not afraid. She saw the girl standing down by the water. She was blonde with her hair reaching almost to the middle of her back and she wore a purple dress that reached almost to her ankles. She stood with her back to Tina, staring out at the water.
“Hello,” Tina called but the girl did not move.
Tina walked toward her across the grass. The breeze ruffled the girl’s hair and dress and Tina wondered if she was cold. She must be. The girl turned and Tina saw that she was beautiful, about Hailey’s age. Seeing her brought a stab of pain and Tina’s steps faltered. The girl held out her hand and her lips moved but there was no sound. The air swirled and dead leaves whirled up and danced in the air. Tina reached out a hand to the girl.
Tina woke up covered in goosebumps. She burrowed under the covers by James back and pressed against him. It took a long time for the trembling to stop and for her to go back to sleep.
The next day Tina awoke groggily. Rolling over she was shocked to see that it was a quarter past noon. The dream lingered in her mind, disturbing her. She could still picture the girl as clear as day. She wondered who she was. She didn’t think that she knew her and couldn’t remember ever having seen her before. She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and went downstairs. James, Ellie and Travis were all at the table drinking coffee. They stopped talking when she came in and that disturbed her. She got a cup and splashed creamer in it and sat down at the table.
“Are you all right, Baby?” James asked, studying her.
He thought that she looked pale and tired. ‘Haunted’ was the word that came to his mind.
Tina nodded, “Are you going to call Jamison?” She asked.
“Why?”
She looked at him is disbelief. “Why would we not call him?” She asked angrily.
“He said he would call if he had news, but yeah, I’ll call him.”
She saw the look that passed between him and his parents. She shoved her chair back so hard it hit the wall.
“She’s not dead!” She cried and ran out of the room. James sat silently at the table as the door slammed behind her.
“I don’t know how to help her,” he said softly, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
Ellie stood up and came around the table to wrap her arms around him.
“You’re doin just fine honey,” she said in a voice husky with tears.
They went into town later as Ellie wanted to go to Walmart. Everything that Tina saw reminded her of Hailey. The cute little T-shirts she liked; a stuffed dog that she would have asked to buy and would have carried around the store with her. Her favorite potato chips—sour cream and onion. Tina told them she had to use the bathroom and went to the liquor store. Standing in line with her bottle of whisky she didn’t feel guilty, actually she didn’t feel anything. She retreated into herself where the pain was muffled and everything was quieter. She saw the look on James’ face when he saw the bottle in the paper bag in her hand, he knew by its shape what it was; but he didn’t say anything, there wasn’t really anything to say. Neither did his parents, although they both looked sad and worried. Tina drank the whole bottle that night and there was peace for a brief time. It was a slow sliding downward. Once she found escape in alcohol it was her crutch. The hard burn brought forgetfulness for a time and it seemed a fair trade. Six days are what it took her to lose herself. Some people bury themselves in the drink for years and wake up and find that their whole lives slid silently by without them even realizing it; but Tina only did it for six days. Six days are the blink of an eye really when compared to a life but it seemed like a lifetime in itself looking back at it later. It was the longest, most interminable, short stretch of time in her life and it probably seemed pretty long to her husband as well. Each day she was drunk earlier and talking to people less.
Day 11
It was about eleven thirty at night. James had gone to bed early again, probably not wanting to have to be around her drunk. They had talked to Jamison again that afternoon and the ‘no news’ had smothered the house in gloom. The knowledge that he didn’t want to be around her hurt but the need to drink was greater than the hurt. The need to not think was greatest of all. His parents were in their room, too. Tina had always been close with her in-laws, always counted herself lucky when she heard people refer to their in-laws with dread. Now they looked at her differently, as though they didn’t know what to say to her. The horrible thought that they might think that she had hurt Hailey had occurred to her but she kept it buried. It was more than she could face right now. She wandered around the house with the whisky blurring the lines of reality. The hallway leaned and swayed as it was prone to do these days. She moved quietly, not wanting to bring anyone out with noise. She stood by the big front windows and stared out at the trees and neighboring houses, clutching the half empty bottle in her hand. The big brown house next door shone with light from almost every window. A nice gray suv was out front and there were well tended flower beds. She wondered if they had kids and if they took it for granted that they would always be there. Anger flared up quickly, followed by sadness. She took another drink from the bottle in her hand and turned away from the window. After she was alone she had traded the glass for the bottle, it just seemed to save time. She went to the bathroom, the cute little room decorated like the beach. Pictures of sand and ocean were on the wall, shells on the counter by the sink. Dolphins leaped joyously on the shower curtain, water spraying round them. What with the beach thing, she wondered. Lighthouses and dolphins and shells, for some reason it annoyed her. Didn’t they know they were nowhere near the coast? She set her bottle by the sink and used the toilet, sitting carefully so as not to miss the seat. She turned the shower on hot and went to get undressed. Standing in her underwear in front of the sink she stared at her reflection. The woman looking back at her with the bleary red eyes did not look familiar. She was too thin and the black panties and bra only emphasized it. The bra seemed too big now and she looked older overnight. The alcohol gave an unnatural red to her cheeks, like blush applied too heavily. ‘Hooker paint’, her mom would have called it. The thought of her mom hurt. Her Mom and Dad had died when she was nineteen. They lost their lives in a car accident caused by a truck driver running on too little sleep. They suspected that the driver had actually been sleeping when he hit them by the lack of response from him, no swerving skid marks on the road. No one would ever know for sure though, he had died instantly when he went through his windshield. Overnight she had gone from a carefree, first year college student to a far too serious adult, scarred forever with the knowledge of life’s unpredictability. The money from their life insurance and the sale of their house had paid her way to finish getting her degree but it represented not only the loss of her childhood home but the loss of her childhood itself and the money never felt right to her. She briefly considered keeping the house but felt it would be a constant and painful reminder of what had once been. She finished getting her degree because she knew that’s what they would have wanted and because she simply didn’t know anything else to do but she did not attend any of the parties and social events, she was all business. After her graduation she donated the remainder of the money to a program for homeless children and had immediately felt better about it. She had figured they would understand and James had understood as well, as he always d
id. She still missed them every day. Her mom would have known what to do now. The steam slowly covered the mirror and her image became blurry. The whisky bottle tipped slowly toward the sink. Tina thought she bumped it at first but her hand was several inches away. Her mind was fuzzy and slowed with alcohol and for a second she didn’t understand. The bottle leaned slowly over the sink as though held on an invisible string. Tina took a step backward and realized then that the room had gone cold. Goosebumps popped up all over her body and her knees began to shake. The alcohol suddenly lost its hold over her; and she saw everything with a strange clarity. The whisky poured slowly, slowly into the sink and she saw that the bottom of the bottle had lifted clear off the sink. The bottle hovered sideways in the air for an eternity, probably really a couple of seconds. Tina made a little inarticulate sound and shook her head. Not possible, her mind cried as she watched the whisky go down the drain. Suddenly the bottle came back upright. It slammed back down on the counter hard enough to send a web of cracks spreading across it. Tina leaned frozen against the counter and in the steam on the mirror there appeared a letter, curving slowly and impossibly through the condensation.
S
Her breathing was harsh and ragged and her throat felt tight.
H
She was shaking but somehow she was not really afraid, not like one would expect.
E
She stood helpless and watched the words slowly spell themselves across the mirror with the shower running and filling the bathroom with steam yet somehow she was still freezing. Another S and then a T and then the words were there, wavery and foggy but still irrefutable.
SHES STILL ALIVE
Once the words were written their hold on her was released; and Tina fainted for the first time in her life. She lay still and silent on the floor with the shower running and the bathroom slowly warming up.
Chapter Three
Day 12
He found the note on the table beside the bed when he woke up.
Dear James
I’m sorry that I lost our daughter and I’m sorry that I have not been here for you. You have to believe that I would never do anything to hurt my baby. I am done drinking whether you believe that or not. I am leaving for a little while because there is something that I have to do. Our daughter is still alive. I know it in my heart and I am going to find her somehow. Please don’t follow me, I have to do this alone. And please do not give up on me. I love you and I always will.
Your wife
James sat on the edge of the bed with the note in his hand. He put his face in his hands and sat that way for a long time.
Tina drove with the windows down so the cool air could run its caressing fingers over her. Her head was pounding and her stomach felt a little queasy and her muscles felt as though they had been injected with lead, but she felt remarkably clear headed. She thought a lot about the night before. In spite of how drunk she had been, she never doubted for a second what had happened, never thought that she might have imagined it. It had been too real for that. Even in the car in the light of day, she shivered remembering. She wasn’t really afraid because she had felt no threat; but it was still creepy. She had been given new hope and she would have taken anything for that. She knew that the ‘SHE’ had to be Hailey and that she had been right in believing her daughter is still alive. That left two major questions. Who had told her that Hailey was still alive; and where was she? It couldn’t have been Hailey in the bathroom because that would mean that she was dead and who would refer to themselves as a ‘SHE.’ If she were somehow alive and communicating with her; then she would have said ‘I’m still alive.’ That didn’t make any sense anyway. She believed that it had been the girl from her dream, that strangely real dream; talking to her. She sighed and pushed her hair back, her hand trembling slightly. All of this sounded completely nuts, even to her. That was why she hadn’t tried to explain it to James. It just sounded too crazy. But what other explanation was there? That her daughter was dead; and she was losing her mind? She refused to give that scenario any credit. As crazy as this one sounded it was all she had. What was knotting her stomach and scaring her to death; were the questions of where Hailey was and who had her. Tina knew her daughter and she was sure that she would never have run away, a possibility the police had brought up back at the beginning. No, someone had to have taken her; and all she could do was pray that they hadn’t hurt her. The fact that whoever had been talking to her had to be already dead didn’t escape her either and it sure wasn’t comforting. She was afraid that the little girl in her dream was the one who had died and somehow had reached out to her to tell her not to give up hope. How she had done it was another question entirely. The whisky bottle sat on the seat beside her. She had poured out the little remaining whisky but she knew that she would not drink again, not any time soon anyway. She was ashamed for being so weak, she had just crawled in the bottle and given up on her daughter. The bottle, with its web of cracks on the bottom; rode beside her as a reminder and as proof, too. Proof of what had happened, even though it was only herself that she was proving it, too.
She reached Patterson in the early afternoon. Home again but somehow it didn’t really feel like home anymore, although if she was being honest it never really had. The lake had felt more like home. It was a pretty little town though. The houses and stores along the main streets had well-kept lawns and fresh paint. It was an unspoken rule that if you bought there, you maintained the town standards. A surprising amount of tourists came through there and no one wanted them put off. The town was actually a lot bigger than it seemed at first glance. It was just well spread out. It boasted a population of seventeen thousand and some odd hundred. The houses spread back from the main road for miles and there were quite a few farms. There were six restaurants and quite a few little shops for the tourists as well as the stores that the locals shopped at. Like Walmart. She remembered when Walmart had opened. People had actually stood in line to get in. It had been a real validation of the town. She drove to the police station and parked outside. Her hands were clammy and she wiped them on her jeans. She realized that she had no clean clothes with her. She hadn’t taken anything with her when she snuck out that morning, with the exception of her purse and the bottle. Not that it mattered, she had lots of stuff at the house.
“Well, here goes nothing,” she said to the bottle.
It didn’t have anything to say and she chuckled at herself. Next thing she knew she’d be drawing a face on the thing like Tom Hanks and his stupid ball in Cast Away. Wilson, he had named the thing, and treated it like it was his best friend. She hoped that she wouldn’t be getting to that point.
She quit delaying and got out of the car. Standing up gave her a sudden urge to throw up but it passed quickly. Her head throbbed in sympathy with her stomach but she ignored them both. The plump woman behind the desk smiled at her and waved a hand at one of the three offices when she asked for Detective Jamison. She knocked on the open door and he looked up from his computer and surprise flickered across his face.
“Mrs. Hanson,” he said and stood up. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
He moved a coat off the chair facing the desk and waved her too it.
She sat and nervously folded and unfolded her purse strap.
“No news yet.” He said as he closed down whatever he was doing on the computer. She wanted to peek around to look at the screen; but figured he probably wouldn’t appreciate it. He sat back and looked at her. She was a pretty woman; but she looked like hell. There were dark shadows under her eyes and the eyes themselves were bloodshot. She looked like one of the people who had slept it off in a cell; but he thought that she had the right to look that way. She had been through hell and she wasn’t out of it yet. His scrutiny made her uncomfortable in spite of the sympathy in his eyes. He had a kind face, although she could see a hardness there too. She figured he could be mean when he needed to be, in his line of work. He was probably in his early fifties or so. His hair had gone gray a
nd was slowly receding but he was still handsome in a solid ‘you can depend on me’ sort of way. The eyes were dark blue and lines spread around them, smile lines as well as frown lines.
“I thought you guys were staying up in Edgewood for a bit?”
She shrugged at the implied question. “I needed to be here.”
He nodded. “I would think.”
What does that mean she wondered? Did he think poorly of them for going? He hadn’t acted like it at the time but who knew what he had thought, really.
“You look like crap,” he said and the abruptness made her jump.
“Thanks!” she said sarcastically. She wasn’t really offended but his directness startled her. She knew she looked like crap anyway.
“Are you even eating?” He asked in a tone that was blunt, bordering on harsh.
She just looked at him.
“Come on,” he said and got up and got his jacket off the chair.
She sat and stared at him as though he had lost his mind.
“We can talk while we eat.” He said and he walked out the door, leaving her to follow or sit and wait for him. Of course she followed him; but it annoyed her that he didn’t either ask or wait. She guessed it was nice of him to care though and she actually was hungry. She hoped that he hadn’t noticed that her hands were shaky.
They went to Charley’s. It was the only restaurant in town that had not gone to non-smoking. It was half smoking and half non, as though an invisible line split the room and held the smoke on one side. She didn’t really care anyway. They had good home cooked food. They served giant burgers and breakfast all day. She gathered that he ate there a lot when he ordered without even looking at the menu. She ordered ham and eggs while he opted for the bacon cheeseburger with onion rings. They both ordered coffee. Almost like a normal day except he was a cop and she saw all the looks and whispers that people exchanged when they saw her. Even the people she sort of knew didn’t approach her or ask about Hailey. She wondered if they thought she had hurt her daughter; and the thought made her angry. Jamison looked at her with a cocked eyebrow and she realized that she was scowling.
Down in the Lake Page 2
