Emily, Gone

by Bette Lee Crosby

  She’d said she wanted to forget, but the truth was she couldn’t. The memory of being left behind was still there, just beneath her skin, ready to pop open like a ripe pimple. It wasn’t as if Angela didn’t know how it was living in that house. She knew. It was her reason for leaving home.

  “Family is family,” Murphy said. “Maybe if you give her a call—”

  Before he could finish the thought, Vicki started shaking her head. “Forget it.”

  At first he’d heard only the snap of anger in her answer, but when he glanced across and saw the downturn of her mouth, he realized that beneath her anger was an even deeper layer of sorrow.

  “Maybe your sister didn’t forget you,” he said. “Isn’t it possible that she’s tried to get in touch but doesn’t know where you’re living?”

  Vicki gave a cynical snort. “Madisonville’s two hours from Bardstown; if Angela looked hard enough she would’ve found me.”

  Murphy was hard-pressed to come up with an answer for that. Vicki obviously had a lot of secrets buried too deep, or perhaps just too painful, to share. He wondered how it was that two people so in love knew so little about each other.

  Give it time.

  After they were married they could spend the rest of their lives getting to know each other. Once Vicki came to understand how much she was loved, she’d feel secure, then she’d open up. She’d reach out to him, knowing he’d always be there.

  “I’m looking forward to us being a real family,” he said; then with the stub of his arm steadying the wheel, he stretched his right hand out and affectionately traced a finger along the curve of her cheek.

  “Me too,” she replied, looking down at the baby as she spoke.

  MARSHALL COUNTY, KENTUCKY

  They stopped for lunch in a little out-of-the-way place close to the lakefront, and Murphy steered Vicki to a secluded table in the back. He’d cautioned her to be discreet, but as they made their way through the maze of tables she craned her neck, looking first one way and then the other. He’d also told her to keep the cap on the baby’s head so the blonde curls wouldn’t be quite so obvious. She didn’t. Instead she sat the child on the edge of the table and made a big to-do over playing a game of patty-cake, almost as if she were looking for attention.

  Murph sat on the opposite side of the table, his eyes narrowed and mouth stretched into a thin, stiff line. After a few minutes of impatiently drumming his fingers on the table and hoping she’d get the message, he glared across at her and said, “Do you have to do that?”

  She looked up, wide-eyed. “Do what?”

  He gave a nod toward the baby, shook his head, and said nothing. He knew a thing like this could lead to an argument, the kind that would most certainly cause people to turn and look.

  As soon as the food was on the table, he wolfed down his burger. Vicki picked at hers and tried feeding the baby a french fry.

  Still eyeing Vicki with a look of annoyance, Murphy said, “Cut it out, will you? Leave the kid alone and eat so we can get out of here.”

  “Are you in some kind of hurry? I was thinking of having a piece of cake.”

  “Think again,” Murphy replied, then signaled the waitress for the check.

  Once back in the car, Murphy pulled onto the winding road that circled the city.

  “Let’s look for a place on the northwest side of town,” Vicki said. “Maybe Madison Street. I love that area.”

  Murphy gave a half-hearted nod and continued on, but once they got to I-24, he turned southeast rather than northwest.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed. “You’re supposed to be going the other way.”

  “Yeah, well, I figure it’d be better if we move on. I’ve got a bad feeling about Paducah.”

  She turned and longingly looked back at the city as it disappeared behind them.

  “Too bad,” she said with a sigh, “’cause I had a good feeling about Paducah.”

  He stretched his arm across the seat and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll come back again real soon. Maybe someday buy one of those houses over on Madison Street. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  She sat there saying nothing, the baby held tight in her arms and a look of disappointment plastered to her face.

  A short while after they crossed over into Marshall County, Murphy saw a billboard advertising Lakeside Apartments. NOW AVAILABLE, the board said. FURNISHED OR UNFURNISHED. He took a left and followed the signs for Wynne Bluffs.

  Lakeside Apartments turned out to be nowhere near a lake, nor was it an apartment building. The slate-gray duplexes were lined up along the walkway with two doors in the front of each building, both doors painted a blue that in the late-afternoon shadows looked the same as the house.

  APARTMENTS AVAILABLE, the sign read. INQUIRE WITHIN.

  Vicki watched as Murph walked up to the door, rang the bell, then stepped inside. Even though her knees were stiff and her back ached from the long hours of sitting in the car, she was hoping he’d come back with the corners of his mouth turned down and say nothing was available. The possibility of turning around and heading back to Paducah settled in her head, and she smiled. It would be too late to start house hunting tonight, but they could stay in one of those nice roadside motels with fresh sheets and fluffy towels.

  She tickled the baby’s chin and sighed. Wistfully looking at the drab doorway she said, “Your mama wants to go back to Paducah. Does Lara want to go back too?”

  Happy for the attention, the baby wriggled and waved her arms in the air.

  Vicki laughed. “You’re just like your mama. We’re city girls, aren’t we?”

  Lost in her reverie, she was startled at the sound of her name.

  “Hey, Vicki,” Murphy called a second time.

  When she glanced up, he was waving his arm and motioning for her and the baby to come in.

  “We’re in luck,” he said cheerfully. “They’ve got a furnished one-bedroom available right now.”

  With the baby in her arms, Vicki climbed from the car and started up the walkway. Standing alongside Murph was a woman with carrot-colored hair that poked out in a dozen different directions. She was twice as big around as he and a head shorter.

  “Lou Palmeyer,” she said and stuck out a beefy hand.

  Vicki shifted the baby to one side, returned the handshake, then followed along as they went three buildings down. Lou unlocked the door, pushed it open, then stepped back.

  “You young folks go on up and have a look-see,” she said. “Climbing steps is hard on these old knees.”

  Vicki went first, and Murphy followed behind. The upstairs apartment opened into a living room with yellow walls, a comfy-looking sofa, and a scattering of other furniture.

  Mrs. Palmeyer’s voice called up from below. “This one goes weekly or monthly; electricity’s included.”

  Vicki wandered through the rooms; the bedroom was painted the same yellow as the living room. The kitchen was small with a tiny table, two chairs, and a dish drainer atop the counter. She opened a cabinet and found it filled with an assortment of dishes, bowls, and glasses. Back at the Hideaway she’d had to make do with one small saucepan, paper plates, and cardboard cups. This wasn’t Paducah, but it was far nicer than she’d expected.

  She turned to Murphy and nodded. As he started down the stairs to tell Mrs. Palmeyer, Vicki called after him, “Ask if there’re any stores or restaurants around here.”

  Mrs. Palmeyer, who at that point insisted they call her Lou, had bad knees, but her hearing was just fine. She called back up, answering Vicki.

  “Eight blocks down on the right there’s a shopping plaza with some little stores, and farther on there’s a real nice Kaufman-Straus department store.”

  Later that evening, after Murphy unloaded the car, he went to the market and strolled through the aisles, picking up jars of baby food, spaghetti, bright-red tomatoes, and lettuce crispy to the touch. He took his time, selecting this brand over that brand and waiting while the butcher weigh
ed a pound of fresh chop meat.

  For the first time in more than a week, he wasn’t looking over his shoulder or checking to see if someone was dogging his footsteps. Wynne Bluffs was a town where he felt unthreatened. It was big enough and small enough, off the beaten path, and slow moving. Chances were these people had not even heard of the kidnapping, never mind being on the lookout for the missing baby.

  That evening after the baby was fed and placed in the center of the big bed with pillows safeguarding her on both sides, Vicki and Murphy sat at the kitchen table eating dinner from china plates and sharing a bottle of wine. For hours he’d been thinking about when and how to best approach the conversation, and this moment somehow seemed right. He stretched his arm across the table and took her hand in his.

  “It’s nice us being here like a family, isn’t it?”

  She smiled, and although her face was thin and colorless, he saw a flicker of happiness.

  “It’s nice here, but I would have liked to stay in Paducah. Those houses over on Madison—”

  “We can still do that,” he said, interrupting her. “We could get married, buy a house, adopt a child of our own . . .”

  A smile settled on Vicki’s face as she thought back to the summers of her own childhood and the happy days before their mother died, days of playing hopscotch and running through backyards with Angela.

  “Having a sister is wonderful,” she said softly. “Lara would like that.”

  Murphy loosened his grip on her hand, and his smile faded.

  “Stop it, Vicki! None of this will happen if you keep that baby. As long as we’ve got her, the only thing we can do is keep running and hiding. We’ll always be on the go, moving from place to place, looking over our shoulders, and wondering when somebody will recognize the kid. It’s inevitable that sooner or later somebody will, and then—”

  Before he was halfway through what he’d planned to say, the anger in Vicki’s eyes flared, and her expression turned hateful.

  “This isn’t about us being a family, is it? It’s about you wanting to take Lara away!”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “No!” she shouted, then stood so quickly the chair toppled backward and landed with a thud. “You think I don’t notice how you keep calling her the baby, like she’s a thing you can take or leave the way you would a worn-out pair of shoes? Well, Lara’s not a thing; she’s my child! She’s the only lucky break I’ve gotten in this crap-ass world, and nobody is taking her from me! Not you, not anybody!”

  Before he had time to say a word, she turned away and stormed into the bedroom, sobbing.

  That night she slept with the baby in her arms and her back turned to Murphy. Twice he reached across and touched her shoulder, but both times she shrugged him off, saying, “Don’t touch me.”

  Long after Murphy was sound asleep and she could hear the steady wheeze of his snores, she lay there thinking of what to do if he tried to take Lara from her. In the back of her mind a plan began to take shape, but it was too early to do anything. Murphy loved her. She was certain of that. Okay, he could be unreasonable at times, but he’d never leave her, and he’d certainly never tell the police.

  Or would he?

  THE SEARCH CONTINUES

  In the first week after the incident, as Sheriff Wilson had begun to call it, he stopped by the house every day, sometimes as often as three or four times. As the days wore on, his visits became fewer and fewer.

  “It’s because he can’t face us,” Rachel said accusingly.

  “That’s not true,” George argued. “It’s just that there’s nothing new to report.”

  “It’s been more than two weeks! Surely somebody has seen something! For God’s sake, Emmy is a six-month-old baby, not a stolen piece of jewelry a thief can hide away in a dresser drawer!”

  “Don’t you think Sheriff Wilson is aware of that? He’s driven clear across Primrose County to track down reports of some stranger with a baby. The man is doing everything he can possibly—”

  “It’s not enough!” she shrieked. “What if some madman has Emmy hidden away in his basement? What if she’s wet or hungry? What if—”

  “Stop it, Rachel!” George pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against his chest. He waited until her breathing slowed and she stopped flailing to get free. “You can’t be thinking things like that. It won’t help Emmy, and it certainly won’t help you. You need to try to hold it together so when we do get Emmy back, you can be a mother to her.”

  “What if that time never comes, George? What then? You can’t possibly understand how it is for me. You leave here every day. You get up in the morning and go open the store; you talk to customers, order supplies, do all the things you did before. But it’s not that way for me.”

  “I understand. You may not realize it, but—”

  “No, George, you think you understand, but you don’t.” Rachel’s words had bits of bitterness stuck to them. “While you’re off tending to business, I get down on my knees and pray. First I pray that Emmy will be returned to us, then I try to strike a bargain with God. I say if you won’t give her back to us, then let the person who took Emmy be someone who loves her, who will be good to her and watch over her as I would.”

  Rachel lifted her face and looked up, her eyes reddened and tears rolling down her cheeks. “How terribly sorrowful is it that I should pray for another woman to love my child?”

  George put his hand on the back of her head and held her close, so she wouldn’t see the way his eyes had begun to water. He tried but couldn’t quite hide the tremor in his voice. “It is sorrowful,” he said, “but it’s also the most loving thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Two days later, Sheriff Wilson stopped by early in the morning to say he’d be driving over to Billingsley, Alabama. “Caller claims to have heard a baby crying in some old man’s trailer. The caller wouldn’t identify herself and was kind of sketchy on details, but we’ll see.”

  George stood with his arm wrapped around Rachel’s shoulders and felt the tension as her back stiffened. “You think the baby could be Emmy?”

  The sheriff rubbed his hand across the scruff on his chin and shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. But it’s worth looking into.”

  That day George didn’t open the store until almost noon, and he closed an hour early.

  Rachel had wanted him to stay with her, and he did as she asked for a while, but after two hours of pacing back and forth while she stood at the window watching for a man who wouldn’t return until late evening, he gave up.

  “It’s a five-hour drive each way,” he said. “The sheriff’s not gonna make it back before six or seven.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Mama called and said she’d be here shortly, so I was thinking maybe I’d check things out at the store. Just to make sure everything’s okay.”

  For a moment Rachel thought about telling him not to go, that there was no need. The store was closed and the door locked, so what was there to check on? She turned with those words on the tip of her tongue, then said, “Okay, go ahead.”

  The sad truth was that he wasn’t like her. He was willing to do anything to bring Emily home, but the one thing he couldn’t do was endure the endless agony of waiting.

  That evening Mama Dixon fixed supper, but no one ate. Not even Helen herself. She picked at the pot roast half-heartedly, then left it to grow cold.

  It was almost nine when Sheriff Wilson returned. He stood with his hat in his hand, making apologies for the time, then gave them the disappointing news.

  As he spoke of how the baby turned out to be the man’s great-grandson, Rachel could feel her heart sink.

  That night George held her in his arms. “I’m as disappointed as you are,” he said, “but let’s not forget the sheriff has some other leads to follow up on, so there’s still hope.”

  She nodded and said nothing.

  It seemed that hope came and went like the ripples in a pond—there one moment, gone the next
. It was never something Rachel could hold in her hand or carry with her from one day to another.

  In time, the flow of neighbors stopping by to deliver a casserole or cake also slowed. George continued to open the store every day, and the townspeople resumed their lives. People at the lunch counter no longer spoke of the kidnapping. They’d grown weary of the tragedy and went back to more pleasant thoughts, such as the Labor Day parade and the way they’d laughed at Harvey Korman’s antics on The Carol Burnett Show. On rare occasions there was a mention of how it was now necessary to lock your doors at night, but after a while even that disappeared.

  In the third week of September, the mailman dropped an envelope in the Dixons’ mailbox. It was midmorning; George was at work and Rachel was napping. Helen, who by then spent every day tending to her daughter-in-law, carried the mail in and laid it on the hall table.

  The envelope was a light pink so pale it could easily be mistaken for white. The small, tight handwriting looked like that of a child attempting to learn cursive, the Ls crowded together and the small H no taller than the A.

  The envelope remained on the table most of the day. Late in the afternoon Rachel spied it peeking from beneath the phone bill. She’d grown used to well-meaning friends sending sympathy cards with long-winded verses about love and loss, but this wasn’t a card. It was a letter postmarked Culvert Creek, Kentucky.

  She tore the envelope open, and as she stood there reading, her hands began to tremble.

  “Mama Dixon,” she called, “come quick!”

  The letter was a single page that began with a scattering of thoughts referencing a golden-haired child with eyes as blue as the sky, guardian angels, and time without measurement. It went on to say a guardian angel watched over each child, and only that angel could take the child from her mother. In the last sentence, the handwriting became shakier and more difficult to read. Two of the words were blurred by what appeared to be tearstains. Rachel narrowed her eyes and followed the odd slant of the words.