A Fractured Peace

by Elia Seely

  “It’s time to get the state police involved, and get some volunteers to start searching farther afield,” Butch said to the assembled men. “Joe, you head back to the office and get that started. Eli, we’re going to need to interview everyone in this side of town, see if they’ve seen anything. We make an appeal on radio—I’ll call down to KRCK and talk to Bob Roberts about getting an announcement on his morning show. Also see if we can get an insert into The Examiner, though I’m sure it may be too late for that as the paper will likely be out for delivery now. Andy—we’ve got to have someone manning a tip line for after radio airs. Fran can help, she’ll have to come in early, and she’ll have regular dispatch duty too.”

  Andy and Joe left, determined, focused; Butch looked ten years older and Eli’s skin was grey under his tan as they looked at a county map under the dome light of Eli’s truck. Under normal circumstances I would be furious to be excluded, but my whole brain and body were numb. My mind skittered over everything I’d ever told Margo about going with strangers, the case, what we—I—should be doing next but now would never do, and back to Margo. I thought, inevitably, about my mother after Danny had died, about the empty space that he left, his un-lived life shimmering like a mirage everywhere we looked. Now it would be like that for me, for Dan, if we couldn’t find her. And even if we did—the damage … my vision tilted and I stopped pacing and sat. Eleanor dozed on the couch and Dan, mercifully, still slept downstairs. I tiptoed down to check on him, love pouring out like a wave mixed with enormous guilt. I had to stop expecting him to do Chenno’s job, to be an adult, the man of the house. It wasn’t fair; my parents had left me to my own devices when Danny died and it had damaged me, I knew that. It had made me angry and empty and I couldn’t keep doing it to him.

  I was exhausted, we all were, but some inner well of strength and refusal pushed me back upstairs and outside. My foot ached where I’d cut it, running barefoot toward the school. Without thought I started walking back that way. The street was empty, and I saw our small neighborhood with a grotesque clarity; how beautiful each tree, the early flowers in beds kept neat, the sun bringing fresh golden light, diffused through leaves of poplar, cottonwood, and boughs of pines. There was a sidewalk on one side, but I walked down the middle of the road toward the innocence of the school yard.

  The school was two story, small, built in an L-shape and surrounded by a playground: swings, slide, painted grids for 4-square and hopscotch. A red fence embraced a grassy area in the crook of the ‘L’ of the building. There were two trees—late dogwoods in flower—glowing with blossoms; I remembered Margo telling me about a ‘wedding’ that one of her friends had staged, with some hijacked little boy in her class, just before school had let out. I had never figured out why the school fenced off the grass; the kids played there and the gate was never locked. I was drawn to the gate by a force; the presence of Margo still flavored the air; playing maid-of-honor under the sweet pink flowers, braiding chains out of dandelions, practicing handstands and cartwheels on the fresh cool lawn. I opened the gate and stepped inside.

  I didn’t see her at first, not expecting to; only the grass, growing tall, waving and dewy. The sun hadn’t risen high enough to shine over the second floor of the building, and I shivered. Then I saw her; prone under the dogwood, still as her favorite Sleeping Beauty on her side under the tree.

  A thousand thoughts shot through my mind at once: was she alive, why was she here, had she been here all night, how did she get here? How did Butch and Andy miss her? The hesitation before I ran to her felt like an hour; slow motion, time frozen. I glanced around me, aware as a mother bear, seeking predators and danger. And then I leapt toward her.

  “Margo, Margo, baby.” I cried, my hands guided by all the knowledge of handling bodies left to nature, hypothermic, unconscious, wounded. My heart pounded, sweat poured down under my breasts. Pulse, yes, no sign of broken bones or significant wounds. Her hair was tangled and full of grass. She wore her Barbie pajamas and no shoes. Her feet were dirty but unharmed. As I ran my hands over her, she woke, sleepy, confused, shivering.

  “Mama?”

  “Bear, baby Bear,” I crooned and finally allowed myself to pull her, gather her, into my arms. She climbed onto me, arms and legs wrapped around my torso. Her weight, smell of sleep and grass and baby shampoo, the most delicious things I would ever feel and smell. I rocked with her, keening softly, as she nuzzled into my neck.

  When she pulled back to look at me, her look was puzzled and a little afraid. “Mama, why—what are we doing here?”

  “Baby—sweetheart—I’ve been looking for you. Everyone’s been looking for you. When I came home tonight you were gone, and I was—I called Butch and everybody to help find you. Why—how did you get here? With someone? Did you wake up and go looking for me? Tell me baby, tell me what happened.” I struggled for calm; if I was freaked out, she would be too.

  Margo smoothed her hair out of her face and disentangled herself from my lap. She looked around, genuinely confused. “We’re at school. Why—?”

  Again, I asked her when she had left in the night. With whom. Why. But she had no memory, just a confused idea about a dream.

  “I had a dream about the ghost and he asked me to come with him to see his home, where he lived with his mama and we went flying over a long way and went to a place with little streets and a house …” she trailed off. “But I got scared because then this other man came and the ghost was so angry I thought maybe the new man had done the cutting up and it was like he could see me thinking that and he tried to grab me but not like grabbing ‘cause we weren’t in our bodies but it was like grabbing with no hands.” She shivered. “So I ran away, out of that house. Then I don’t remember but I didn’t have shoes and the ground was poky and I stepped on pine cones …” she looked at me hopefully, her teeth beginning to chatter.

  “Okay, we can figure it out later. It’s just a dream, Bear. Let’s get home; everyone will be so glad to see you.” I was horrified at what she’d said, but I had to stop the machinery in motion before the entire town was looking for her. I felt another surge of shame and anger toward myself. I shuddered and stood, lifting her onto my hip, warming her with my body, holding one small freezing foot in my hand. The two-block walk stretched long, like an illusion, but finally we reached the drive. Andy and Joe’s vehicles were gone, but Butch and Eli were still in the yard.

  “Hey,” she said, straining to be let down. “Everybody’s here!” She slipped down my body and went running up to the men. She loves them both: Butch like a grandpa and Eli like the father she wished she had. They turned at once, Butch squatting down to grab her up and Eli looking to me, a huge smile breaking over his face. I allowed myself to feel the pure relief of finding her, let my self-judgment and blame slip off for a moment, not worried about resources wasted, mistakes made, ghosts and spirits trying to take my baby.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The day unfolded with grinding slowness, exhaustion slamming me as adrenaline drained out of my system. Butch demanded that I take a day or two off; they could cover things until I came back. I think all of us at that point had assumed that we’d be handing the case over to the CBI agent who would, God willing, arrive on Monday. It would be a hard day for everyone, but the guys would pull their regular shifts, everyone off at 5 p.m., though someone would have to be on call to back up the reserve officer—it was supposed to be me. Eli would be in the office, manning a phone for the calls that might come in after the story about Choden in The Examiner. Joe and Butch would follow up the regular patrol calls and check any leads that came in. My time with Jerome seemed like a dream, light years away, and I couldn’t seem to remember anything we’d talked about. I knew I never, ever, wanted to lay eyes on him again.

  I took Margo back down to the hospital to get checked out. Though she didn’t appear hypothermic to me—the night had been warm, no rain, but windy—I wanted Dr. Ellis’ opinion, and I wanted to ask him what he thought had happened. I
had resisted the urge to give Margo a bath, in case of the unspeakable, though I had checked her over and there was no sign of any assault. I had her stay in her jammies and we went to the ER. The third time in a week; it was as if all the bad things that we’d been spared from so far were starting to rain down, overdue.

  I stayed in the room with Ellis and his nurse as they gently checked Margo’s vitals and examined her. She was lost and shivering in the hospital gown, and her eyes were ringed black with fatigue. She kept insisting that she was all right, she was furious with me and also freaked out: we were all sure something bad had happened, so that must be true, even though she remembered nothing but her dream. But they found nothing wrong with her, no bruises, nothing remotely sexual; just a few cuts on her feet and a little scrape on her ear which could have come from anywhere. I was concerned about some kind of left over impact from the pot episode, but Dr. Ellis shrugged that away as impossible to confirm. He suggested sleep walking, though she had never before—to my knowledge—done such a thing. Margo was unharmed, at least physically, and I didn’t have the energy yet to try and figure out what had happened in whatever ghostly realms she traveled to. I pushed her dream away, tamped it down with all the other strange things that Margo saw, even though I knew it would overflow at some point, boiling up and demanding attention.

  Back home we all crashed; Margo in bed with me and Dan back out on the couch. We were going up to Naomi’s as planned for the afternoon and dinner. But I knew I couldn’t leave Margo up there now; it didn’t feel right to farm her out to my friend after this. And I wasn’t going to make Dan be in charge, not anymore. I wasn’t sure, at all, what I was going to do.

  The phone rang a few times: Eli and Butch checking in, Eleanor, Norma. Butch relayed that Jim had found no trace of blood on any of the monastery’s knives and would go over their Subaru on Saturday. Norma offered to bring over a casserole and dropped the name of her pastor and his number, in case anyone wanted to talk. Finally, I turned off the ringer so that I could sleep.

  I woke mid-afternoon. Margo was gone, the sheets tangled and still warm where she’d lay. I jumped up, heart jackhammering, but she was outside with the hose, watering her little garden. Dan sat on the picnic table nearby, watching her and offering criticism of her technique. I took a deep breath.

  “Hey guys, what’s up?” I forced normal. I couldn’t let Margo see me throwing a freaker every time she was out of my sight. “Yeah, baby, don’t drown them, hold your finger over the end of the hose, like I showed you. Remember?”

  Margo rolled her eyes elaborately and put her fingers over the end of the hose to make it spray. It didn’t really work; her fingers were too small. I needed to follow through on my promise to get a sprinkler.

  “Dan, how’s your collarbone feel?”

  He shrugged. “Hurts.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, bud. Do you want another pain pill?”

  “Nah. They make me feel like shit.”

  “Mom—” Margo started. She liked to get Dan in trouble for swearing.

  “Guys, let’s get ready to go up to Naomi’s. Dan, you still want to come?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Margo, finish up and go put whatever you want in your backpack. You too, Dan. Books or Walkman or whatever.”

  We slowly got organized and headed out. I turned the police radio off, something I never do in normal circumstances. The weight of the case, all the work I had to do, hovered at the edge of my vision. My night with Jerome pressed and burned under my breastbone, but with a mind-control I didn’t know I had, I pushed everything away but the mechanics of driving. Town, the highway, then the dirt road that led to Naomi’s ranch.

  Her place is nestled in the lee of hills that rise up in back of her house, while the pasture is flung all around to the sides and front. She’s got a creek running behind the big stone-flagged patio, with a natural waterfall and swimming hole not twenty yards from the house. The kids love her place, and I do too. Big cottonwoods shade the house in the back, and poplars wave tall and welcoming in the front. The house is old, 1800s, and has been in her family for three generations. She has a big horse barn and paddock, a barn full of equipment, chickens running around, and a couple of heelers. The kids were out of the car in a flash, Dan running to greet the dogs and Margo off to find her favorite hens. Naomi stepped off the front porch and gave me a hug; we stood in the shade just holding each other until she felt me relax.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let me get you a beer and let’s go out back.”

  We walked through the house, smell of horses, hay, and old wood, the sunlight filtering through in dim rays, dust motes dancing. Her old calico cat Tigger twitched his tail, one eye open from his spot on the back of an ancient recliner. I gave him a pat on the way by. A sweet-soft rush of everything normal and known flooded over me. Through the kitchen, Naomi grabbing two beers out of the fridge—Coors Light, always—and we banged through the screen onto the back porch. The kids were already back there, Margo squealing and scattering feed to the chickens, Dan cross-legged on the grass wrestling a dog with one hand. The patio was cool; I could hear the murmur of the small waterfall; the whinnies and snuffles of the horses in the pasture off to the side of the house. Bright petunias sprawled from pots that lined the flagstones.

  “God, you don’t know how good it feels to be here,” I said taking a long pull of my beer. It seemed an age since I’d had lunch with Naomi rather than just yesterday. Time had completely lost meaning.

  “Jesus, what a scare,” Naomi agreed. “Is she all right? What the hell happened?”

  “Dr. Ellis thinks maybe sleep walking. Although she’s never done that, and I can’t imagine—all the way to the school without waking up? She said she had a dream, about ‘the ghost,’ meaning the young man that got killed, Choden, and flying away with him to see where he lived, and some other being scared her, then just walking. So maybe,” I shrugged, exhausted just thinking about it, “maybe she did sleepwalk. He thinks she should see a counselor, of course. I don’t know.”

  “Might be a good idea,” she said, gauging my reaction. Naomi knows I hate psychology stuff.

  “Yeah. Well—I don’t want anyone saying that I’m a terrible mother and messing her up. I know that already.” Tried a laugh, ended up a choke, tears welling behind my eyes.

  “Hey, hey, hey. No one is going to blame you for this; you were working, doing what you have to do to support her. She wasn’t home alone. It could have happened with you there, even. I mean, there’s no real question now that she was abducted or anything, right?”

  “The thing is—” I gulped and looked away. “I wasn’t working. Not strictly. Oh, God, Naomi, I screwed up so badly this time … it’s like this thing with Margo is a punishment. Like this whole week is. I don’t even want to tell you.”

  Naomi rubbed the frayed edges of a hole in her old Wranglers. “Well, don’t tell me. Whatever it is—”

  “I was with a guy. I was with a total stranger, a guy connected with the case, half drunk and crashed out in his motel room until three in the morning.” It came out in a hissed whisper; a don’t-you-dare-judge-me-don’t-you-dare-not plea.

  Naomi’s eyes widened a moment. Then she gave me a cynical half-grin. “Okay, not the smartest thing you’ve done, but Jesus, Shan, you’re not the center of the bad universe, you know? Don’t make this about you. I swear, I love you, you’re my best friend. But—the world doesn’t turn on you and every move you make, okay? You’re human, you’re allowed to mess up. They’re fine—look at them. She’s fine.”

  Margo stood, hands on little hips, talking to chickens. Dan lay on the grass on his back, getting covered in dog kisses and laughing. They were fine; but what damage would this incident leave behind?

  Naomi rose, called out to the kids. “Guys—want some lemonade, a Coke?”

  She went into the house to grab drinks for them and a couple bags of chips that she set out on a picnic table in the grass. She went with Margo to the hen hou
se to check for eggs. Giving me time to recover or get royally pissed at her, I wasn’t sure. But her gentle smackdown sobered me. She was right. Instead of wallowing in what a bad mother I was, I should be thinking about how to help Margo. Figuring out childcare, setting up something else for Dan to do with his summer.

  The thing is, when they were little and Chenno and I had first split up, I just managed. Scared to death about all of us starving, I juggled my dispatch job and Margo’s day care—a wonderful sister duo that had a daycare in town until one of them died from breast cancer—and Dan’s school schedule. He went to an after-school program for an hour and I picked them both up when my shift ended at three. Chenno took a weekend here and there in the beginning. But when I became a deputy, my hours were more erratic, I had to be on-call a few nights and pull some night shifts. We’d never had a case like this or been as short-staffed, but somewhere along the way I’d also lost my edge, my fear maybe, and stopped being able to manage. I’d gotten angry, sad about being alone, furious all the time with Chenno for being absent and rarely paying his child support. I’d turned into a victim, full of excuses, choosing to be helpless. The situation was clear as day to me that afternoon, as peace murmured all around: it was time to get myself back. Much as I wanted someone to come in and save the day, no one was going to. They hadn’t when I was nine, and it wasn’t going to happen now. Getting my life under control was all me.

  By the time Naomi came back to the table with two more beers and a bag of Ruffles and a tub of onion dip, I had myself sitting up straight and thinking of options.

  “She seems fine to me,” Naomi said. “Like, really. I asked her about the ghosts she’s been seeing. She told me about the one getting cut up and not able to die properly, and that he’s waiting for you to send him home. The dream … I don’t know who or what these other beings are she’s seeing. It’s pretty interesting, if unsettling for you, I know. But she doesn’t seem bothered by it. I asked her if she thought she went sleep walking last night. She didn’t even really know what that meant, but she didn’t say no, when I explained it.”