Just hearing the word subdued revived every nightmare scenario I had envisioned these past nine months. I was sure that for a moment, my heart stopped beating, and then it began to race. I felt very dizzy. I must have wobbled, because he put his arm around my waist again. I closed my eyes, lowered my head to his shoulder, and took a deep breath.
“I’m okay,” I said.
He still held on to me. “No, you’re not. You’re still very fragile. We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I didn’t think it would get to me like this. I thought I had turned to stone. My skin feels like dry bread crust, totally unfeeling.”
“That’s a description of being fragile,” he said. He shook his head. “Really, I shouldn’t be doing this with you, especially here.”
“Of course you should, and I appreciate it very much,” I said.
He let go of me but held his arm out in case he had to embrace me again.
“I’m okay. Really.”
He nodded and glanced at his watch. “I’m on duty in two hours. There’s an extortion case I’m on and two possible vehicular manslaughters we’re investigating.”
He saw the letdown in my face. I wanted to go on for the remainder of the day and into the night if we had to. I didn’t want to let go of these hopeful moments. Just for a while, I had felt alive again.
“But don’t worry. I promise I’ll find time for this,” he said.
I looked at the escalator. What had we really discovered? The scenario he theorized made no sense to me. Yes, we had separated, but I just couldn’t believe I wouldn’t have noticed her not beside me for so long. But maybe I just refused to believe it.
“Find time for what?” I asked. “What else can you do?”
“Well, people don’t usually have Santa Claus outfits in their closets. I’ll get someone to check the costume rentals around the time of her abduction. That might lead us to someone with a record of these sorts of crimes. Perhaps David Joseph will get his people on it.”
“I just can’t believe she would be that distracted by someone in a Santa Claus outfit.”
He shrugged. “That’s what we have to do, though, look at things that seem impossible.”
“It happened in November. There’ll be lots of rentals, I bet.”
“Yeah, but maybe not that early. It’s a start,” he said.
He was trying, I thought. What good was it for me to be skeptical?
“Maybe I can help,” I offered. “There must be dozens of retail costume places in this part of the city.”
“Might not even be in this city, but this is the sort of nitty-gritty work we do. Don’t you know that detectives used to be known as flatfoots?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, that’s why.”
“But there must be something I can do, even if it’s just on a computer.”
“I’ll let you know. Let me see what I can do first. I want to give that hole in the theory more thought.”
I didn’t believe he would really devote much more time to this. He had met me and felt some obligation for the moment, but after we parted, reality would set back in. John was right. We had to prevent ourselves from grasping at our own wishful thinking. We had to plant our feet on hard, firm ground and not listen to any promises, whether they came from the FBI or anyone else.
“With all you have on your plate? When will you have any time for this?” I asked, my voice dripping with disappointment.
He shrugged. “Who needs to eat and sleep? Those things are for sissies or FBI agents.”
I found another smile that was able to push through my sadness and depression. I was sure that it popped on my face like a bubble on the surface of a dark gray pond. The tension and anger relaxed their grip on me.
“Thank you, Detective Abraham.”
“I think you can call me Sam by now,” he said.
“And you should call me Grace.”
“Right.” He looked at the escalator. “I can take this one down,” he said. “My car isn’t far from this parking-garage approach.”
“Me, too. I have nothing more to do here.”
“Okay.”
He let me go ahead of him. At the bottom, we had to go in opposite directions. He hesitated. I saw the debate raging in his mind.
“What?”
“If you want, we can meet again. I’m off at four tomorrow.”
“Back here?” I grimaced.
“You know Woody’s Tavern on the corner of Santa Monica and Floral?”
“No, but I’ll get to know it,” I said, and he laughed.
“I’ll meet you there, and we’ll noodle this some more. I’ll see about investigating the Santa costume rental tonight. Do you think you should bring your husband along? I mean . . .”
“Not yet,” I said. “John is the sort of man who would not like to devote time to—how did you refer to it?—fantasy police work. He doesn’t deal with theories, just facts . . . and numbers.”
“Just facts and numbers? How come he’s so religious, then? Facts contradict faith more often than not, don’t they? I’m sorry, that’s out of line again.”
I smiled. “No, it’s a good question, but I’m sure if I asked him, John would quote Walt Whitman.”
“Oh.” He tugged his ear like Humphrey Bogart did in so many of his films. “My Walt Whitman is a little rusty, as you know my John Donne is, too.”
“‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.’”
He smiled. “Serves me right for not paying attention in literature classes in high school. Okay, see you tomorrow at four at Woody’s,” he said.
I started away. When I was almost to my car, I turned and looked back. He was still there, watching after me.
Would John worry about me half as much? I wondered, then immediately regretted it. The thought was unfair. John and I fell in love and married, but I knew from the start that we were different people. He had his way of mourning, and I had mine. I shouldn’t be so critical. I told myself that once you suffered what I’d suffered through, your tolerance for others and your generosity shriveled up. I hated that happening. The truth was, I no longer liked myself. Would I ever again?
Mary wasn’t the only one abducted that day, I realized as I got into my car. I was, too. I was trying to find myself almost as much as I was trying to find her. Maybe someday soon, we would come home together.
Driving away from the mall now was almost as painful as it was when I left without Mary nearly nine months ago. I felt the same pain in my heart, the same empty feeling in my stomach, and I was sobbing silently, with my throat aching almost as much. I kept my gaze forward and quickly turned into traffic to head home. As I drove, I thought about Sam Abraham’s question about involving John in this new investigation. Did I give Sam an honest answer? I had to ask myself what the real reason was for me to leave John out.
When he came home from work, I was very tempted to tell him what I had done, whom I had met, and what we had planned, but I didn’t. Before Mary’s disappearance, John would always ask me what I had done during the day. He didn’t ask like a husband checking up on his wife; he asked like someone really interested. Sometimes I had something interesting to tell him about a place I had taken Mary and especially her reaction to things we had seen or some conversation I’d had with a friend. Before he sat down to watch television or read or retreated to his room to work on his ships in bottles, he was still, as I liked to call it, in this world, the world in which Mary’s reactions, the things she had said and done, were just as interesting and exciting to him as they were to me. So many times, he and I had laughed together over something she had done or said. Sharing these delightful things your child does really brings a man and a woman closer.
Thinking this made me realize just how much of the conversation between a
wife and a husband was taken up with their child or children. Everything—their clothes, their health, their observations about people and places, things you liked and did and things they dreamed—filled up hours and hours of dialogue between you. Losing those topics left a gaping hole in that wonderful and magical bond that tied you together as one. Suddenly, at least in our marriage, we were selfish again.
After all, what else did we have now but ourselves? That meant we were tossed into the pool of childless couples, couples who either had chosen not to have children or had been divorced and remarried and had less to do with their own children. There was no longer any mutual sacrifice. Everything a wife and her husband did for each other was counted. Without realizing it, they were competing. They were more like two partners, with each vying to get more out of the business deal between them than the other.
John and I had friends like this. Some of these people kept separate bank accounts and talked about his or her money. Did they have a marriage or a corporation? To me, it seemed as though they were more critical of what each other had done for their union than the couples who had children. Yes, there were mothers who demanded that fathers do more, and there were fathers who did and fathers who didn’t, and that led to some tension, but in the end, they both worried themselves sick when their children were in trouble. They reached for each other to comfort each other and do whatever they had to do, make any sacrifice they had to make, to help their children. The big joke was still out there: Little children, little problems; big children, big problems. But regardless, Mom and Dad were always there to bail them out. They might complain about it, but they would do it.
What would really happen to us if we didn’t get Mary back and I didn’t get pregnant again? After having a child like Mary, could I just put aside all the motherly instincts and needs within me and become one of those wives in a childless marriage? Could I shift into another mode and be more self-centered? Was it too late for someone like me to care only about herself?
I was so lost in these thoughts that I said barely a word at dinner. John was used to my deep silences now, but he also was keen enough to recognize something different. After a few minutes, I suddenly realized that he had said something significant, but it had gone by me too quickly for me to reach out and pull it back.
“What?” was all I could think to say.
“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” he asked.
“I was . . . no, I didn’t,” I admitted.
“Margaret told me you went somewhere today. Where did you go?” he asked.
“When did you see Margaret?”
“She was just pulling into her driveway when I came home. Don’t change the subject. Where did you go?”
I sucked in my breath and thought that maybe I should tell him everything. Maybe it was important to see how he would react.
“I finally went to the mall where Mary was abducted,” I said.
“You mean, you haven’t been since?”
His question floored me for a moment. How could he be so oblivious to that fact? How could he not realize how traumatic it would be for me?
“No.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding very surprised.
“You didn‘t know that?”
“No. I know there were other stores there that you favored,” he said with a nonchalance that was annoying. “I just thought that some of your girlfriends and you went shopping there or had lunch there.”
“No, no one has dared suggest it.”
“Dared? Why wouldn’t they suggest going to a mall? Not everyone in that mall can be blamed for what happened, Grace.” He ate a little and then shrugged. “Matter of fact, I was there two weeks ago for a lunch meeting. We met at Limoncello’s.”
“And it didn’t bother you?”
“It’s just a place. It’s not a murder scene.”
“We hope.”
“Nothing violent happened to her there.”
“Seizing her, wrenching her from our lives, was not violent?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t hound every word I say, Grace. I miss her as much as you do.”
“Okay, John. I’m sorry. What did you say that I didn’t hear?”
“I said I had gone to see a doctor about our failure to conceive another child.”
“Oh?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me, no reason for it not to happen as far as I’m concerned.”
I shrugged. “And there’s nothing wrong with me physically, either. I guess it’s God’s choice,” I said, and began to clean off the table.
“Maybe God wants to be sure we both have love in our hearts, enough love for another child,” he said.
I lost it. I slammed a dish to the floor, and it shattered in a dozen pieces. He barely winced. He wiped his mouth and stood up.
“You had no call to do that, Grace. You want to bring God into the conversation, fine, but then don’t be surprised at what I might say.”
I put my hands on my hips and looked at him. It occurred to me at that moment that John didn’t look all that different from the way he had looked the day before Mary was abducted. There were no new lines in his face, no deeper lines, nothing to show his inner agony. I knew I looked as if I had aged years for every month that had gone by. My look of sweet childhood innocence and joie de vivre was gone, while he looked as cool and as handsome as ever. Was it wrong for me to hate him for that? Why should it surprise me? He was always able to remain stable and calm in the face of trouble or tragedy. Originally, it was one of the reasons I was drawn to him, his inner strength.
“Why, John? Do you believe you hear God? Are you special in His eyes? How can you be so special to Him if something like this has happened to us, to you as well as to me?”
“I’m not saying I’m a prophet or anything like that, Grace. I’m just a religious person, and my religion tells me that God can see into your heart. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he added, and then began to pick up the pieces of the plate very carefully. I started to kneel down to help, but he put his hand on my arm. “No. I’ll do this. Go rest,” he said. “Calm yourself. Go on.”
I went into the living room and sat looking out the window that faced the front of the house and the street. As if she could have heard what went on in our kitchen, Margaret suddenly appeared on our sidewalk, approaching our front door. She was carrying something. I waited until I heard the doorbell.
“Who’s that?” John called from the kitchen.
“Margaret. I’ll get it,” I said, and rose as slowly as someone twice my age.
“Hello, Grace,” Margaret said. “I brought you a freshly baked apple pie.” She uncovered it to show me. “I hope I’m not too late for your dessert.”
I stared at the pie. She knew that John and Mary liked her pies, especially her apple one. I could take it or leave it, but what also occurred to me was how much we lived on a schedule. Our neighbor knew when we ate, when we slept, and when we rose in the morning. There might as well not be any walls between our houses.
“No, you’re not too late,” I said. I took the pie. “Thank you, Margaret.”
“My pleasure. I saw you run off today. You know I hate to ask. I know the pain it brings, but was it anything to do with Mary?”
I stared at her for a moment. I hadn’t said anything about Sam Abraham to John yet, so I wasn’t going to say anything to her. I just shook my head.
“What’s that?” we heard John ask as he came up behind me.
“Just an apple pie made from scratch,” Margaret told him.
“Well, thank you, Margaret. Just in time. Care to join us for some coffee and a piece of your own pie?”
She looked at me first. “No, I’ve got to get back to my oven, John. I made some brownies for the seniors at the center.”
“You’re just an angel bringing joy everywhere,”
John told her.
“Whatever the good Lord wants me to do,” she replied.
“I guess I’m the only one He doesn’t talk to these days,” I said. I handed John the pie and walked back to the living room. I sat again just as John closed the door.
“That was really unnecessary, Grace. The woman is just trying to be helpful and caring,” he said, standing in the living-room doorway and holding Margaret’s pie. I didn’t respond. “You really have to see someone. I insist now.”
“Insist?”
“Yes, Grace, for both our sakes. You need to start new therapy. I’m going to talk to that new therapist Dr. Bloom suggested for you and see about scheduling something.”
“Do what you want,” I said.
“I want,” he replied as he walked back to the kitchen. “At this point, it should be something you want.”
Maybe he’s right, I thought. Maybe I should return to therapy.
I stared out the window. Margaret turned as she left our walkway and looked back at me. She looked so sad and concerned. In fact, she looked as if she was the one who needed someone to bring her pies and compassion, not me.
Maybe John was right.
Maybe I was being selfish with my pain.
It was time to share it and accept that others could appreciate what it meant, too, even if that felt as if I was letting go of Mary a little more. What else could I do now? I was lost at sea.
The only hope I had left was the lifeline Sam Abraham was tossing in my direction.
Whether it would lead to anything or not, I wanted to grasp it as tightly as I could and never let go.
8
In the Dark
Sam Abraham waved from a booth in the rear the moment I entered Woody’s. It looked like a London pub with its brass and wood. There was a long bar across from a mirror the length of it, but there were also round dark walnut tables spread evenly throughout the establishment. A set of faux-leather and dark wood booths were all in the back, where the lighting was a bit more subdued. There was the aroma of something delicious being prepared in the kitchen.
Capturing Angels Page 10
