The Darkest Time of Night

by Jeremy Finley

  More silence until he cleared his throat. “Yes, Mrs. Roseworth, we did find that, but it was of no consequence—”

  “Then why was it taken into evidence?” I asked.

  “Ma’am, I would have certainly shared it with you if it had pertained at all to your grandson’s disappearance—”

  “A child’s gravestone was found in the same location where my grandson went missing and you don’t find that strange?”

  “That girl disappeared almost eighty years ago, Mrs. Roseworth. There is no connection—”

  “Thank you, Detective, that’s all I needed to know,” I managed to say before sinking down into a chair at the table as I disconnected the call. I could picture them, the detectives or police or even the FBI, finding the grave marker, wrapping it in protective plastic, and thinking they had been to first to find some bizarre remnant of history, like an ancient piece of crockery. They’d done the research into Amelia, of course, and dismissed it. A weird coincidence, nothing more.

  They didn’t know a grown man had vanished there as well.

  * * *

  The headlights from my Volvo flashed over the Honda Accord parked in the corner of the Chevron. Barbara’s hair was momentarily illuminated, and she squinted. I pulled up next to her and lowered my passenger-side window.

  “You’re welcome to ride with me,” Barbara offered.

  “My friends and family use this gas station all the time, and if my car was left here unattended, it would raise some eyebrows.”

  Barbara nodded. “I’m not a fast driver, and I’m unfamiliar with these roads, so stay with me. We’re going to the Holiday Inn in a town named Murfreesboro. Sound familiar?”

  “It’s right off the interstate not far from the square. I know where it is.”

  “If we get separated, I’ll wait for you in the parking lot, and we can go in together.”

  “I won’t lose you. In fact, why don’t you follow me? The interstate’s the quickest way, and we can pick it up a few miles down Harding.”

  Barbara appeared grateful. I took a deep breath and turned the wheel.

  Anne seemed fine to watch the boys tonight, even if it meant she slouched with Greg on the couch while Brian sat in his room alone and Chris was in his study. No one would think it was strange I’d chosen to stay home alone on Saturday night. Tom would be in on the eleven o’clock flight, and a car would bring him home. As long as I was home by then, no questions would be asked.

  It would take thirty minutes to get to the hotel, and thirty minutes to get back. I wouldn’t have long to spend with Steven.

  This is stupid to do alone. Roxy would throw a fit if she found out. But I’d already dragged her six hours away on a fruitless endeavor and then refused to even discuss what happened.

  My cell rang as I got onto the interstate. I briefly looked to see that it was Tom calling, and I silenced the phone. I looked in the rearview mirror to make sure Barbara was still behind. The Accord was keeping up.

  I thought of picking up the phone to call him back. What would you say if you knew? I pictured his jawline jutting out when he paced while on the phone with his staff, dealing with either a domestic or foreign crisis. Or would you walk around for hours with your hands behind your head, as you did when Stella left for college or when Anne nearly married that set designer? Or, worse, would you stare off out the window with tears in your eyes that you could somehow keep from running down your cheeks, as you did all those nights when William first disappeared? What version of your heartbreak, your anger, would surface if you knew what I did then?

  The first time Steven kissed me, after I’d returned from the cornfield and the encounter with the men in the black suits, I was surprised at his intensity. Given that he often seemed nervous when we came in close physical contact, I expected soft brushes of lips. Instead, he was unbuttoning my shirt within seconds of our lips touching for the first time. Our clothes were soon tossed onto the floor of his office.

  I should have felt incredible guilt afterwards. Instead, I lay in his arms on the couch and smiled as he pointed out the star on the map above us that he had secretly named after me.

  From then on, he didn’t give me assignments. The calls that came in often asked for me first, because I’d become the point person. Lynn Roseworth, please, they said.

  Steven began to introduce me to the other Researchers who visited from universities in Illinois and other states such as Indiana and Missouri. The Researchers had potlucks, and some expected me to stay in the kitchen. Instead, I would sit next to them on the couch and point out there was no common shape of the ships as described, and that even though the descriptions of the beings were similar, that could just be the brain’s reaction to such a traumatic experience.

  I remembered how they cocked their heads at me, cleaning off their glasses, wondering how the young woman in the floral swing dress knew so much about the reported height differences in the aliens known as the Greys.

  When Steven led their meetings, I didn’t sit at his side and certainly didn’t serve appetizers. Instead, I often leaned on the doorframe, clarifying the data. He would gesture to me in those rare moments of emotional expression. “That’s right! Listen to her, fellas. Listen to her,” he would say.

  Sometimes I found them staring at me, and I chalked that up to the lack of exposure to the opposite sex. In time, they didn’t just ask for my input—they bombarded me with questions. Did I think the aliens could communicate telepathically? What about inbreeding with humans? Did the creatures even have genders?

  “OK, boys, that’s enough,” Steven would say, placing his hand on the small of my back. He was always touching me. At the end of the day, he rubbed my shoulders. As we sat at his desk in the office, with the door firmly locked, one hand would be writing and the other would rest on my knee. When we went to his apartment to make love on our lunch break, he wrapped his arms around me until the very last moment before we had to get dressed. I could see the pride in his eyes when he introduced me. My wedding ring felt heavy on my finger.

  I awoke one fall afternoon in his bed and found Steven looking at me from where he lay on his pillow. I scrambled to get dressed, fumbling with the clock to see the time.

  “It’s only two-thirty,” he said. “You fell asleep at one. It’s OK. I have no classes, and it’s Friday, so no one’s in the office. Come back to bed.”

  I snuggled up to him, and he brushed a curl from my forehead.

  “I’ve been thinking about something. Do you remember that once you told me that the missing come back?” I said. “I have yet to find a single case of that happening.”

  He brushed my cheek with his fingers. “I’d rather talk about you. I wonder, who do you more look like—your father or your mother?”

  “I don’t remember my mother, but from the pictures Daddy kept of her, she had curly blond hair like mine. Otherwise, I’m all Stanson.”

  “How old were you when she died?”

  “Daddy says it was right before the discovery of my tumor that I’ve told you about. I can’t imagine how my Dad handled it: the death of his wife and then a terrible diagnosis for his only child. He couldn’t talk about her without tearing up.”

  “If you are anything like her, I can see why he was so devastated. It’s awful to lose someone you love. But … to have someone you love vanish, without an explanation, never knowing what happened to them … that’s a different kind of torture.”

  I kissed him again. He never discussed his sister. It was clearly too painful.

  “Have you ever actually met one of the missing who returned? What did they remember? All those horrible stories about being probed and violated…”

  His response was to pull me closer. It was the last time we made love.

  It rained heavily the next day, and my passenger seat was stacked with files. I didn’t know why Steven had insisted I bring them out of the office and to the motel on the outskirts of campus.

  A fierce humidity forced me to consta
ntly wipe the windshield with my hand. I saw Steven’s car as I pulled into the parking lot. The red sheen of his hair stood out in the haze. A man with a beard stood near him, smoking. I pulled in quickly, behind a bread van.

  I peered over the steering wheel, trying to identify the stranger. It wasn’t Dr. Roberts, as I had hoped. I hadn’t seen him, or Marcus, again, after that day in the cornfield. Steven explained that Marcus didn’t play well with others, and Dr. Roberts’s wife’s cancer had advanced so he wasn’t able to travel. I suspected it was actually something more, remembering that look of fear in both Marcus and Dr. Roberts’s eyes. Maybe they’d had enough.

  The man talking to Steven hadn’t attended any of the Researchers meetings, and his face didn’t look familiar from any of the scientific journals I’d reviewed at the bequest of the astronomy professors. I unconsciously reached over and put my hand on the files protectively. All Steven had said was to bring the files on the Allen, Bristoff, and Carson cases. I assumed we were meeting another out-of-town Researcher, and it wasn’t strange he was staying at a discount motel. None of them was in it for the money.

  I watched the man toss the butt of the cigarette aside as he and Steven stepped into the room, leaving the door ajar. Not wanting to risk the files getting wet, and frankly feeling that I needed to know more about this man with whom we were sharing data, I opened my umbrella and dashed to the end of the overhang.

  I didn’t know if the water on my forehead was sweat or rain. Why was I acting so possessive? Why did I feel so off kilter? Yes, I worked hard on these cases, but it certainly wasn’t only my work. It was Steven who helped me become a Researcher. He could show the files to anyone he pleased.

  I thought for a moment of how it would look if, by some terrible coincidence, Tom drove by and saw his wife enter a motel room with two men. Usually, my resentment towards him helped justify my indiscretions, but at this moment, I felt ashamed. I tried to brush it off, hurrying past the other motel doors. The curtains were drawn in the room that Steven and the other Researcher had entered. Smoke was drifting from the room, explaining why the door remained open.

  “These wingtips are killing me,” I heard the stranger say.

  “Pretty high end for someone in our circle,” Steven said.

  Just another professor. I reached to open the door. Probably from Chicago—

  “What does she know?” the man asked. I withdrew my hand.

  “More than I do, at times. She’s whip smart.”

  They must be sitting just inside the door, maybe on the edge of the bed.

  “I mean, how much does she know? About the weather? About the other theories? Even Argentum?”

  I bit my lip, remembering Barbara asking for an explanation of Argentum, and how Steven refused to even discuss it with me.

  “Why would I waste her time with that?” Steven replied. “We don’t even know what it is. It’s a glorified urban legend about aliens, without any details. We’ve all been told to dismiss it anyway. Why do we keep asking what it is if we don’t even have a shred of information?”

  “Is this smart, Steven? She’s not even a scientist, or a professor.”

  “Not all of us are in academia. It does us good to have others.”

  “If we go underground, will she do it?”

  “I think she would, especially if I decide to as well. She’s seen a lot, enough to understand why this is so important.”

  “It’s necessary, Steven. Not everyone agrees, but we have to become more militant about things.”

  “Militant isn’t the word I would use. I think it’s important for those of us in academia to continue gathering information from the families of the missing. I know you say that you’ve been contacted by some … parent organization over the Researchers. But come on. I’ve been doing this for nearly ten years, and I haven’t heard of such a group.”

  “The Researchers aren’t calling the shots. Don’t you realize someone … something.… is driving all our work? Sure, we Researchers share information, but something is connecting us, beyond a shared passion. All I know is that the call I received came from someone with the Corcillium, which, if you remember from Latin class, derives from corcillum, meaning ‘heart,’ as in ‘heart of the organization.’ This is a chance, Steven, to join the true mission. To go so far under the radar that no one can find us, especially not the Suits. They say it’s the only way we can move around the country without being recognized. And they said if you were interested, that you should come meet with them. I didn’t anticipate you insisting that your girlfriend come too.”

  I shook off a surge of nausea, leaning into the door.

  “You really think they’re monitoring us? The Suits?”

  “Of course they are.” The man sounded weary. “They’re not stupid. They know we’re asking questions. They can dismiss us for only so long. This remote research is important, but it’s only scratching the surface. We would live among these people, spend time in their communities. Understand the commonalities that we have theories about. Live in all these places for a while, spending weeks, maybe months, in the locations of the disappearances. You said she can cook? That might be helpful.”

  I was really fighting the urge to vomit. What is wrong with me? Is today the thirtieth? It is. I should have started last week.

  I stepped back, my hand on my stomach. It’s been more than that. It’s been two weeks. I’m two weeks late.

  “I’ll have to think hard about it. How do we know this isn’t a setup by the Suits? You think they may even have information … about what happened to my sister?”

  “I think they’ve got information beyond anything we’ve ever known. Steven, they say there is more to the Argentum theory than what we know. But they made it clear over the phone: Once you’re in, you don’t get out. I’m ready for it.”

  “I’m not sure. I know I want to be with her, and I think she’s more than ready to move on with her life.”

  Navigating what I would later realize was my first bout of morning sickness, I teetered back to my car in the rain, not bothering to even pick up the umbrella. Steven was carrying it when he returned to his apartment, where I had gathered the few belongings I had recklessly left there.

  “I found your umbrella outside the hotel door,” he said. “How much did you hear?”

  Having already thrown up twice before his arrival, my tone was as cold as a January morning. I explained that no one would be taking me underground or anywhere away from my family and friends. I wasn’t going to live my life skulking from one remote location to the next. And how dare he talk about me like some kind of trophy girlfriend? And I certainly wasn’t going to cook for him or anyone in that underground world. This was goodbye.

  He practically got down on his knees, begging for forgiveness; he said all he wanted to do was to protect me. That without me, he wouldn’t join whatever this secret organization within the Researchers was.

  I leaned in close and said I never needed anyone’s protection in my life. From this moment on, he was no longer part of it. He’d helped me realize whom I needed to be with, and that was my husband.

  He chased me down to my car, grabbing my arm and imploring me to listen. I snatched my arm away and slammed the door.

  I drove away, and only allowed the tears to come when the sight of him standing in the rain and holding my unopened umbrella had vanished from my rearview mirror. I just can’t, Steven, I remember thinking. I just can’t raise a child in that world.

  More than forty years later, I was coming back to him.

  * * *

  I flicked on my blinker in a startled realization that we had reached the exit. I swerved to make it, and saw with relief that Barbara was far enough behind that the sudden jerking of my car didn’t throw her.

  I followed the ramp and crossed over the interstate, looking for the glowing Holiday Inn logo.

  The green-and-white sign with the cursive capital H beamed in the dark, and I pulled into the circle drive. My heart
was beating faster than I would have liked.

  Barbara parked and stepped out of her car, looking tired. “He already has a room. 404. He’s waiting inside.”

  Glass doors opened at our approach. The smell of steam-cleaned carpet and soap wafted through the lobby and stayed with us in the elevator, up to the fourth floor, and down the hallway. I didn’t have to ask if Barbara had a key.

  A quick swipe, a beep, and Barbara motioned me in. “I’ll be down in the lobby,” she said, shutting the door. “I’ll give the two of you some privacy.”

  I slowly walked in, past the bathroom and into the bedroom. The man sitting on the edge of the bed stood.

  He wore a tan jacket of a style popular in the late 1990s, with a button-over collar and slightly too short sleeves. His jeans were from the same era as well, though his Reeboks were of this decade. His hair had gone completely gray, and he was shorter than I remembered. But he had become more handsome as he aged.

  He pushed up his glasses from the side, not in the middle as he had done throughout our time together.

  “Hello, Lynn.”

  I breathed through the slight purse of my lips. “Hello, Steven.”

  “You look good. Great, actually.”

  “What do you know about the disappearance of my grandson?” I clutched my purse in both hands.

  Steven blinked. “He … has my hair, or the color, at least, which didn’t last long after you left. And your oldest daughter looks just like my mother, from what I’ve seen in the papers and on TV—”

  “My husband, Tom, is the father of my children and grandfather to our grandchildren.”

  “I never had a chance to be Anne’s father.”

  “Is that what this is about? Because if I need to beg for forgiveness, I’ll beg—if it means getting information about what happened to William.” I hated that my voice was cracking. “I want him back.”

  “I wish I had him to give to you, Lynn. But I don’t.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “Because I failed to keep a promise to your father, and now our grandson is gone because of it.”