Cemetery Girl

by David Bell

  I hadn’t been back to the cemetery since the first day I saw the girl, a few weeks earlier. I didn’t know if Abby was visiting the plot. I imagined she would-Abby on her knees at the headstone, her hand reaching out to brush away a stray leaf or spiderweb, then bowing her head in prayer or reflection. She might even bring Pastor Chris with her, a spiritual companion to share her journey of grief. I shook my head, allowed myself a little moment of I-told-you-so triumph. I’d been right. Caitlin was still alive. She’d come back. No need to turn the page or move on.

  There was a piece of scrap paper affixed to the cellophane with a paper clip, a note written in pen, a scrawled, scratchy handwriting. Not a child’s writing, and not a woman’s either. I could read the note without bending over.

  Good-bye, it said. Don’t come back.

  My knees felt jittery, like they were full of sand.

  I grabbed the bouquet and brought it with me to the car.

  I returned home just before nine o’clock. Ryan and Abby were in the kitchen. They sat at the table, sipping coffee. I carried the bouquet.

  “I found these,” I said. “At the cemetery.”

  They didn’t say anything, but I could tell they didn’t get it.

  “At Caitlin’s headstone,” I said. “There’s a note. Somebody left a note for her.”

  Ryan came out of his chair.

  “Put it down,” he said. “Put it down.”

  I laid it on the counter.

  “Did you touch the note?” he asked.

  “No. It’s still there.”

  He put his glasses on and read the note. “Do you know the handwriting?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Abby,” Ryan said, “will you get me a ziplock bag, one of the large ones for the freezer?”

  Ryan carefully picked the note up by its corners, his fat, sau-sagey fingers looking almost delicate, and dropped it into the bag Abby was holding open. He sealed it with a quick motion of his thumb. “It’s unlikely there will be any prints, but we can try.”

  “Who is that note for?” Abby asked “Is it for her? Or us?”

  “It might be a joke,” Ryan said. “Some sort of hoax.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Earlier, when Caitlin was asleep, I looked in on her. She was saying something in her sleep. She said, ‘Don’t send me back. Don’t send me back.’ At first I thought she was talking about us, that she thought we were going to send her back to wherever she came from. But the way she said it. . I don’t know.”

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Ryan said. “I’m going to take this with me. And I’ll call as soon as I hear anything. Just hang in there.”

  “I guess we know all about that,” Abby said.

  “Ryan,” I said. “My brother, Buster.”

  “Abby mentioned-”

  “He was here, right before. I think. .”

  I didn’t know what I thought. Not really.

  “We’re looking into everything,” he said. “But no promises, no guarantees.”

  And that’s the way he left us, waiting for our daughter again.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I fell asleep in a living room chair. Someone knocked on the front door and it took a moment for the cobwebs to clear, for the events of the day to reappear in my mind. Caitlin at the police station, the hospital, back home. Then Caitlin out the window, into the night, the cemetery, the note. .

  They knocked again.

  “Tom?”

  Abby’s voice reached me from upstairs.

  “Tom, it’s the police. I’m getting dressed.”

  I went to the door and opened it. Ryan stood there in the porch light. He looked haggard, unshaven. I feared the worst. They found her, but she was dead, and Ryan was here to bring me the bad news.

  “Is she. .?”

  “She’s in the car,” he said. “We got her.”

  Abby appeared beside me, and then we both moved out of the way, letting Ryan in. I gestured toward a chair, but he shook his head.

  “I have to get home,” he said. “This won’t take long.”

  “Is she in trouble?” Abby asked. “Did she do something?”

  “No, we found her north of downtown, not far from the police station actually. She was walking, but we’re not sure where. There isn’t much out there really.”

  “Thank you for bringing her back,” Abby said.

  “Is there something we need to sign?” I asked. “A report or something?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No need.” He didn’t make a move to leave or sit down. “I know how difficult this is, and that the two of you have been kind of thrown into the deep end here,” he finally said. “This is a huge adjustment for both of you. I’ll help in any way I can, but. .”

  “What are you saying?” Abby asked.

  “It can start to get dicey when man power is being diverted in this way. If the media finds out, it becomes a spectacle. And you and Caitlin don’t need that right now. Let’s just utilize the resources we have at our disposal. We’re in a critical stage with Caitlin, and we all have to be on alert. Especially the two of you. You’re on the front line here.”

  “Of course,” Abby said.

  “Who was she with?” I asked.

  “No one,” Ryan said. “She was alone.” He looked me in the eye. “We never got ahold of your brother.”

  Someone knocked lightly on the screen door, so we turned. In the faint porch light, Caitlin looked calm, unaffected. Two uniformed cops walked behind her, but they didn’t appear to be forcing her to move along or into the house. She came in on her own, as though it were perfectly natural to be brought to our door by the police at sunrise.

  I took a quick look up and down the street. The neighbors had received quite a show. News vans and cops and now this.

  Neither one of us touched Caitlin when she came in. She stopped in the living room and stood with her hands jammed into the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt. She looked like any slightly grubby teenager waiting for a bus.

  Ryan nodded at us. “I’d like to see you keep that appointment in the morning” he said.

  Rosenbaum. I understood what he was saying.

  “We’ll be there,” I said.

  “You could even call him now,” Ryan said. “He might have some ideas-”

  “We’re okay,” I said. “We’ve got it.”

  When Ryan was gone, Abby broke the silence.

  “Do you want something to eat, honey?”

  Before Caitlin could form a response, I cut her off.

  “No,” I said. “She needs to sit down. We have some things to talk about.”

  “Tom-”

  “Sit down,” I said. “All of us.”

  Caitlin didn’t move. She stayed rooted in place, her eyes a little vacant, her mouth a narrow line.

  “Caitlin?” I said.

  “I don’t want to sit,” she said.

  My voice rose and I pointed at a chair. “I’m telling you to.” “I want to go to bed.”

  “And run off again?” I said.

  She didn’t say anything else. She stared past me toward a point somewhere in the air.

  “Where were you going tonight?” I asked.

  When she didn’t move or respond or even change the expression on her face, I felt anger welling up within me. I wanted to reach out and take her by the shoulders and shake.

  “Tom, why don’t we just get her something to eat?” Abby said.

  I stormed off toward the kitchen. I wasn’t going to eat. I took a piece of paper from the counter and returned to the living room. Caitlin and Abby started to follow me, but when they saw me coming back, they stopped in the dining room. My dirty dish was still there, the tomato sauce hardening like dried blood.

  I held up the sketch.

  “Who is this man?” I asked Caitlin. “Is this the man you were going to see tonight? Is it?”

  She blinked a few times and leaned closer. She studied the sketch like it was a rare bird that fa
scinated her.

  “Is this the man who took you?” I asked.

  “Tom.”

  I moved the paper closer. “Is this the man who took you to strip clubs and made you watch him?”

  She blinked again, surprise showing on her face.

  “Did he give you flowers in the park? For Valentine’s Day? What’s his name, Caitlin?” I asked.

  Her chin puckered. “You. . said. . you weren’t going to ask me those things.”

  And then she crumpled. She fell into Abby’s arms, sobbing, her face pressed against Abby’s neck, her body shuddering so much that Abby had to hold her up. Abby rubbed her back and held her tight and looked over Caitlin’s shoulder at me, her face sending me a clear message.

  I hope you’re happy now. I hope you got what you wanted.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Abby woke me by knocking lightly, then coming in the guest room before I could say anything. Light spilled in from the hall.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “She’s in the shower. She needed to take one.”

  I sat up quickly. “You left her-”

  “It’s fine. The door’s open, and the water’s running. I helped her get undressed. She doesn’t have anything else to wear.”

  “Where did she sleep?”

  “In the bed. She slept a couple of hours at least.”

  “Did she say anything?” I asked.

  “She apologized for leaving and for scaring us.”

  “Did she say where she went?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Did she say anything in her sleep?”

  “I want to tell you something else. Something important.”

  I was more insistent. “So she didn’t?”

  “I was asleep, too, Tom.” Abby looked behind her, checking on the bathroom. When she turned back around, I took note of the fact that she looked calmer, more relaxed than the day before. Even with a lack of sleep, she looked refreshed. “I want to tell you that I feel good about the way things are going.”

  “You do? Our daughter goes out the window, and you feel good?”

  “I had a dream last night, while I was sleeping next to Caitlin. In my dream, there was this woman, and she came to our door here, the front door of this house. She was maybe twenty-five years old, and she was pregnant. She didn’t look like Caitlin, not at all. She didn’t even resemble her. But when I opened the door and saw her, I knew it was Caitlin. She was coming here to tell us she was pregnant. You see?”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “It means she’s going to be okay,” Abby said. “She has a future, one that’s going to turn out fine. We just have to accept that this is the path we’ve been set on, and know that eventually we’ll get to the place we want to be. Like Dr. Rosenbaum said last night, this is a long road.”

  Abby smiled down at me, with a forced smile I recognized. As Abby became increasingly involved with the church, I saw that smile more and more. The church believed in the power of positive thinking, and its members were encouraged to present a happy face to the world. I wasn’t sure if Pastor Chris actually taught his followers that they could change the world through smiling, but I wouldn’t have doubted it.

  “And this dream made you feel better?” I asked.

  “The dream and the way things worked out last night. Caitlin came back.”

  “You know they told us the pregnancy test was negative? I don’t think I want a grandchild out of this deal.”

  Abby’s facade melted. “Why would you say a thing like that, Tom?”

  “I’m helping you interpret your dream.”

  “Why do you always have to see the negative side of things?” She looked behind her again. “I was thinking of it metaphorically, that it was saying Caitlin could be happy again.”

  “It just seems silly to place that much stock in a dream, doesn’t it?” I settled back against the pillows. “It’s wish fulfillment. Did you used to have dreams about Caitlin coming back?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I did, too. And in those dreams, she would come home and she’d be happy to see us and we’d be happy to see her. And when she came in the door, we’d know where she’d been and how she’d been taken, and it always, always made sense, just like your dream made sense to you.”

  Abby looked at the floor. I could tell she wasn’t showered yet, and I was reminded of the first nights we’d spent together, the mornings when Abby wouldn’t believe me that I thought she looked beautiful even then, just after waking up.

  “We almost had another baby together,” I said.

  “Oh, Tom.”

  “Where was I when it happened? How did you hide it from me?”

  She shook her head. “Tom. .”

  “I want to know. I have a right to know.”

  “You were at school. It was early in the day. The cramps were terrible, then bleeding. I knew what was happening.” She looked up. “I almost called you. I did.”

  “But?”

  “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell you.”

  The water shut off in the bathroom. Abby turned away and said, “Are you okay, honey? I’m right here.”

  Caitlin said something I couldn’t make out. Abby started to leave, but I said her name, stopping her.

  “You called Pastor Chris, right?” I said. “He took you to the doctor.”

  Abby nodded slowly. “When you came home that day, I was in bed. I said I had a stomach thing. You slept in here so you wouldn’t catch it.”

  Before Abby could go again, I spoke up. “I just wanted to ask you one other thing, about this dream of yours. Something about it doesn’t make sense.”

  “What, Tom?”

  “Why-if Caitlin is coming to this house in the dream and in the future-why are you the one who’s here and opening the door for her? I thought you wanted to go.”

  “It’s a dream, Tom. .”

  “So it doesn’t mean anything? Or does it?”

  Abby turned away.

  “I’m going to help her get ready,” she said.

  We went to a bland brick and glass office building downtown where Dr. Rosenbaum kept an office for his private practice. He met us in the reception area, and I expected him to have something to say about the night before and Caitlin’s attempted escape. But he didn’t. Maybe it was because she was there, or maybe he was simply in a hurry, but he told us he wanted to talk to Caitlin alone first. We let him lead her behind a closed door into his office, while we sat in uncomfortable chairs filling out the insurance forms the receptionist gave us.

  No other patients came or went. There was no TV, no piped-in Muzak, and few magazines. I wished I’d brought a book, anything to distract me. Abby picked up a women’s magazine, something with the promise of diet tips plastered across the front, and started paging through. She turned the pages quickly, snapping them from the right to the left. Things hung in the air between us, heavy as lead. Her dream. The miscarriage. Pastor Chris.

  We didn’t talk about them.

  My phone rang. Liann.

  I took the call out in the hallway.

  “I was going to call you last night, as soon as I heard the news,” Liann said. “I wanted to scream when I saw it and come right over. But I figured you were occupied. How does it feel? How is she? Tell me.”

  “We’re at the shrink’s office right now.”

  “What’s wrong? You sound awful.”

  I told her about the night before, about Caitlin coming home and almost immediately running away again.

  “Now don’t even worry about that. That’s just a bump in the road. And there are going to be bumps along the way, I promise. That girl’s been through a lot. She’s confused. Very confused. You just have to hang in there.”

  “Right.”

  “I just wish. .”

  “What?” I waited for an important insight.

  “Shit. I wish we could have followed her,” Liann said. “She would have led us right back to that snake
who took her. It would have been so easy, like a trail of bread crumbs. The cops are so dumb. They just want to run right out and grab her and bring her back. They don’t even want to stop and think.”

  My face flushed a little. “I think they were concerned with her safety and getting her home again.”

  “Did she say anything about the guy? Has she offered anything?”

  “Pretty much the silent treatment,” I said. “She made me promise not to ask her any questions about where she’d been.”

  “You didn’t agree to that, did you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Oh, Tom. You can’t make deals with her. She’s a child, and she has to tell us things.”

  Us?

  “Who’s the therapist you’re seeing?” Liann asked.

  “Rosenbaum.”

  Liann made a little humming noise.

  “What?” The hallway was empty, and my voice echoed.

  “He’s okay. He’s fine, really. He works with the police a lot. He’s very experienced.”

  “Isn’t that good?”

  “Can I come over and see her later?”

  Before I could answer, Abby opened the office door and made an impatient, hurry-the-hell-up gesture at me. I held up my index finger, and she pulled her head back inside.

  “I have to go, Liann. Look, I’ll call you. Things with Abby. . and Caitlin-it’s weird.”

  “Of course, of course. Just call me tonight. We have a lot to talk about now.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  “Tom, this is a major break. We’ll find this guy. This is good.”

  “And Caitlin-”

  But she was already off the phone.

  Rosenbaum came out with Caitlin. He asked us to come into his office and directed Caitlin to a waiting room chair. I hesitated.

  “Caitlin will be fine right here. Won’t she?” Rosenbaum said. Caitlin sat down in the chair without looking up at us. “Mary?” He nodded at his receptionist, who nodded back, as though she understood the drill without anything being said. “Shall we?” Rosenbaum said to us.

  Abby took a hesitant step forward but kept her eyes on Caitlin.

  I felt torn.