On the first Thursday of each month Mama Dixon kept watch over the twins while Rachel volunteered to teach the children’s reading program.
That was the year Emily would have turned seven. On the day of her first class, a young girl darted by as Rachel was entering the library. She’d caught little more than a fleeting glance, but seeing the child’s golden hair flying loose had been enough to make her stop and turn for a better look. For one brief instant she’d allowed herself to think it was Emmy, then she saw the girl was older, eleven or perhaps twelve but small for her age.
For the remainder of that year, Rachel studied each girl’s face as she looked at the class. She watched for a smile that resembled Henry’s, blue eyes, blonde curls, but there was never a child she could point to and say, This is my Emmy. A piece was always missing. The blue-eyed girl had dark hair and the wrong nose; the blonde child had eyes the color of chocolate and a spread of freckles across her nose.
Emmy didn’t have freckles back then, but did she now?
The passing of years made a tremendous difference in a child. Did Emmy still look like Henry? Had her hair darkened? She’d most certainly changed, but what were those changes? The thought of knowing nothing about her own daughter was an ache that never left Rachel’s heart. As each grain of hope crumbled, it was replaced by a larger one of uncertainty and doubt; that was when she began to fear she might not recognize her own child.
“I’d like to believe I could look into Emmy’s face and know right away that it’s her,” she told George, “but I can’t be certain.”
“Trust your heart,” he replied. “You’ve got a mother’s heart; that bond goes far deeper than just facial recognition. When you see Emmy you’ll know it’s her. I’m certain of it.”
Rachel tried to hold on to the fact that he’d said When you see Emmy, not If.
But as her hope dwindled and the uncertainty grew heavy as a stone in her chest, she began to wonder about the wisdom of allowing the twins to share such a burden.
The knowledge of what happened the night Emily was kidnapped brought fear along with it. Rachel had lived with that fear since the day the babies were born, but it was hers to bear. She worried that it did not belong in the heart of a child.
One afternoon when she and Mama Dixon were sitting on the front porch and the twins were napping, Rachel asked, “Do you think we should tell Hope and Henry about Emily?”
Helen’s crochet needle stopped moving, and she looked up. “I believe that’s something you and George need to decide together.”
“Oh, we will. But I thought, since you’d been through it, with telling George about Tommy, you’d have some advice on how best to handle it. I’m concerned that if the kids learn Emily was kidnapped, they’ll become fearful the same thing could happen to them.”
Helen gave an understanding nod. “I can see why you’d worry, but I doubt my advice will be of any help. George was going into his last year of high school when I finally told him about Tommy.”
“Really?” Rachel leaned in and asked why Mama Dixon had waited so long.
Several moments ticked by before Helen answered. “At first I believed he was too young to understand, then as he got older, I saw little reason for bringing up such a sorrowful topic. I always figured I’d know when the time was right for talking about Tommy.”
“And did you?”
As the memory of that year passed through Helen’s thoughts she gave a wistful smile and nodded. “The summer before George’s last year of high school, the Bracken family lost their three-year-old daughter. I’d known Phyllis for years, and George played ball with their oldest boy, so he and I went to the wake together. Seeing Phyllis so devastated made me remember how I’d felt the same after we lost Tommy.”
She hesitated a moment, blinked back the tear welling in her eye, then continued. “On the walk home, I told George that I could understand exactly how Phyllis was feeling because his daddy and I had lost a young child. Then I told him about Tommy.”
Rachel scooted forward until she was almost on the edge of her seat. “How did he take it when he found out?”
Mama Dixon gave a bittersweet smile. “George was just as you’d expect him to be, concerned and sympathetic. He asked a number of questions about what Tommy had been like and how he’d died; then we walked the rest of the way arm in arm, with me leaning on him. I remember at the time I’d thought how unusual it was for a lad his age to have such an understanding heart.”
Rachel reached across and took Helen’s hand in hers. “I think George gets his goodness from you.”
Helen chuckled. “Much as I’d like to take credit for it, the truth is he gets it from his daddy. Henry was the kindhearted one, and George is exactly like him . . .” She continued on detailing the many similarities in father and son.
Later that night, when Rachel and George were alone in their bedroom, she said, “There’s something we need to talk about.”
George was bent over untying his shoes, but with the sound of her voice so serious, he stopped and looked up. “Is something wrong?”
Rachel shook her head. “Not wrong, but we need to decide when or if we are going to tell the twins about Emily.”
George slid his foot from his shoe and stood. “Why is that a consideration right now?”
“They’re three years old, and they understand more than you might think. I’m concerned that if we tell them about Emily, we’ll have to admit that she was kidnapped, and they might become fearful the same thing could happen to them.”
“But there’s no reason for them to be afraid. Living here is a lot different than living on Yellowwood Road. There’s a streetlight right outside the house. We’ve got a fence and a dog. The bedrooms are upstairs. Why, this house is as safe as—”
“What you say makes sense, and it’s perfectly logical, but fear isn’t logical. I’m a grown woman, and there are still times when I hear an unfamiliar sound or catch the moving shadow of a tree and feel fearful. I know that before an intruder stepped foot on the upstairs landing Bruno would have their throat torn open. Still, knowing that doesn’t stop my heart from seizing when I hear the sound.”
A look of concern crossed George’s brow. “I’m sorry. I thought after we moved here . . .”
“It’s better now. Much better. In the early years thinking of Emily meant feeling afraid, feeling angry, feeling sorry for myself. I prayed for her safety, but I couldn’t stop crying over how much I’d lost. My tears should have been for Emily, just Emily, but I was crying for me also. I kept thinking, Why me? I almost lost sight of the fact that it didn’t just happen to me, George; it happened to you as well.”
“I can understand why you felt that way. It was a terrible time, and you had the worst of it. I was at the store most of the week, but you were there all day, every day.”
“It’s better that you weren’t there, but thank God your mama was. I felt like she was the only one who could understand what I was going through. During those darkest days she told me she’d experienced the same kind of anger after losing Tommy.”
“I never realized Mama went through—”
Rachel cut in. “That’s because she didn’t burden you with the knowledge when you were still a kid. You were sixteen years old before she told you about your brother.”
For a while George stood there with his hand cradling his chin and a pensive look pinned to his face, then he said, “But if we wait too long, they might hear it from somebody else before we get around to telling them.”
“I doubt that will happen. It’s been almost seven years; whatever talk there once was has long since been forgotten. People seldom bother with remembering a tragedy that doesn’t affect them. Everybody has their own problems.”
After nearly an hour of considering how knowledge of the kidnapping could impact the way a child sees the world, they finally agreed to wait until the twins were older before telling them about Emily.
Later on, as they lay side by side in the moo
n-speckled darkness, George said, “I’d understand if you blamed me for what happened, Rachel; I also blamed myself. I thought having a house outside of town would give us room to grow; I never dreamed—”
She turned on her side and touched her hand to his lips, shushing him before he could finish. “Yes, I blamed you, but I blamed myself just as much.”
“I never saw it as your fault. You were exhausted; why, either of us could have—”
She shushed him again. “That was a long time ago, and I’ve since stopped believing either of us is to blame.” She hesitated a moment and moved closer. “All that anger was like a sickness inside me. I knew I had to either let go of it or walk away from our marriage, and I loved you too much to do that.”
There was a long moment of silence, then he asked, “Have you ever regretted staying?”
She gave a soft chuckle. “Lord, no. If I’d have walked away, we wouldn’t have this beautiful family we’ve got. We’ve gone through the worst life has to offer, but now we’re at a place where we have a lot to be thankful for.”
“Do you still think of Emily?”
“Well, of course I do! Don’t you?”
“Yes. Sometimes on a slow day I’ll walk down to Sheriff Wilson’s office and ask if he’s heard anything new, if anybody’s called or inquired about the reward.”
“And . . . ?”
“He says if he hears anything, we’ll be the first to know.” George hesitated a moment, as if weighing the worth of what he was about to say, then continued. “A year or so after her disappearance, I asked if he thought Emily was still alive, and he said yes. He told me when there’s a kidnapping with no identifiable fingerprints and no obvious motive, the likelihood is that the kidnapper is someone desperate to have a baby and for whatever reason can’t.”
“I’m surprised you questioned whether or not she’s still alive,” Rachel said. “I’ve not for one minute doubted she is. I believe if anything happened to Emily, I’d know it. I think I’d feel it in my heart.”
For a while there was only the sounds of the night, a soft wind rustling the oaks and the chirping song of katydids, then George asked, “Do you think of her often?”
“Not as much as I used to, but often enough. Mostly I try to imagine what she looks like now, what kind of a personality she has . . .” Rachel gave a lingering sigh. “Sometimes I look at Hope and Henry and imagine Emily being a cross between them—Henry’s coloring and Hope’s personality. I figure she’s got to look a lot like Henry; at six months they looked exactly the same, even that butterfly birthmark. I mean, how uncanny is that?”
That night they talked into the wee hours of morning, and when they finally fell asleep, it was with her head on his shoulder and his arm flung across her chest.
SEARCHING FOR THE PAST
Fairlawn, 1978
For weeks on end Angela thought of how she could go about finding Russ Murphy. She had a name and an address where he once lived, but that was it. She had no idea what he looked like, what kind of job he’d have, or where he was from. The only thing she knew was that he’d lived in Wynne Bluffs. With nothing more to go on, she could only hope he had relatives in the area or was now living somewhere nearby.
She contacted the telephone company and requested a directory for Marshall County, which covered not only Wynne Bluffs but also nine surrounding towns. If necessary she’d call every Murphy in the county. Hopefully she’d find Russ Murphy or someone who knew him.
When she told Kenny of her plan, he looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Are you really certain you want to pursue this?”
“I don’t see that I have a choice,” she said. “We were lucky that Kimberly was able to get Lara registered for school, but sooner or later she’s going to need a birth certificate. Russ Murphy is the only one who can give us the information we need.”
“So say you do find him; what will you do if he asks to have Lara back?” Kenny reminded her of how Vicki had taken off with the baby, not telling Murphy where they were or allowing him to see his daughter. “A father can get pretty vindictive over a thing like that,” he warned.
It was something Angela herself had considered. “If I find him, I won’t mention Lara,” she replied. “Obviously, he doesn’t know what happened to Vicki, so I’ll just say I’m looking for my sister. Once I get him talking, he’ll most likely tell me about the baby, then I’ll casually ask where she was born.”
A look of apprehension settled on Kenny’s face as he stood there shaking his head; still, that didn’t stop Angela. She had made up her mind and was confident she could pull it off without Murphy knowing they had Lara.
“What if he knows that when Vicki left, she came to stay with you?”
“He doesn’t,” Angela replied with an air of certainty. “She told me she didn’t want him to know where she and the baby were.”
“I don’t know about this . . .” The look of doubt was still stretched across Kenny’s face, only now his eyebrows were pinched together and his mouth jacked up on the right-hand side.
Three weeks passed before the Marshall County directory arrived on her doorstep, but the day it did Angela flipped open the book and started browsing through the Murphys. There were five pages but not one Russ or Russell. Undaunted, she plunged in and, thinking he may have used only a first initial, began with the Rs. There were seventeen of them. On the five where an answering machine informed her that Richard, Roger, or Rosemary was not available, she left a message.
“This is a matter of the utmost importance,” she said. “If you know or are related to the Russell Murphy who lived in Wynne Bluffs, please give me a call.” Angela made no mention of Lara but left her telephone number, then moved on to the next name.
When she finished with the Rs, she turned back to the first page and began with the As. She skipped over the listings for Murphy’s Beauty Salon and Murphy’s Merry Maids but did call Murphy’s Bar and Murphy’s Garage, because they sounded a bit more promising.
For the next three weeks, Angela picked up the telephone and began dialing as soon as Lara was off to school. After the first week her index finger was blistered and her fingernail worn down to a nub, but she kept at it. Some days she could race through well over a hundred names; other days she encountered people like Henrietta Murphy, who wanted to chat.
“Russell,” Henrietta mused. “Is he related to the Tennessee Murphys? Tall man, heavily bearded?”
When that happened, Angela would be forced to admit she knew nothing more than that Russell Murphy had lived in Wynne Bluffs some seven or eight years ago.
Three times the person she’d called asked why she was looking for Russ Murphy, and all three times she’d felt her heart drop into her stomach as she blundered her way through a feeble-sounding explanation of searching for her sister. When Michael Murphy told her he was a retired detective and felt certain this was a matter better handled by the police department, she hung up before he finished talking.
The one thing she didn’t need was to get the police involved. Yes, it was more than likely they could do what she had been unable to do—find Russ Murphy—but what then? Lara was Murphy’s daughter, that much Vicki had told them, so there would be no question. He was her father, and if he wanted to, he could take her away from them. The very thought of such a thing made Angela’s heart stop beating. Lara was their child. Their only child.
After she’d hung up the telephone, Angela sat there with her stomach churning and her hands shaking. Enough was enough, she told herself. Kenny had been right. It was foolish to risk losing the daughter they loved in the pursuit of a birth certificate.
Yes, Lara would need one in time, but not right now. Not when she was only seven years old.
Angela closed the Marshall County telephone directory, then carried it out to the garage and placed it in the bottom of the trash bin. Even as the book left her hand, she knew that not having a birth certificate would someday present a problem, but hopefully it was in the far distant future.
Although she’d abandoned the project, the thought of learning more about Lara’s birth never really left Angela’s head. That winter she pulled Vicki’s letter from the drawer time and time again. With each rereading she looked for a hidden clue, some small detail she’d overlooked earlier, but she never found one. The bold red stamp stating MOVED, NO FORWARDING ADDRESS made it seem as though the secrets of Vicki’s life were buried along with her. With nothing more to go on, Angela shoved the letter to the very bottom of the drawer and left it there.
Two years later her hopes were suddenly reawakened. It began one spring morning when she answered the doorbell and found a stranger standing on her porch.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he said, “but if I could trouble you for a few minutes of your time, I’ve got a couple of questions—”
“About what?” Angela cut in.
“Tyler Cushing, your next-door neighbor, is being considered for a position that requires security clearance, and I’m conducting a background check.”
“I don’t see how I could possibly—”
“It’s just a few simple questions, ma’am.” Without allowing time for any further objections, he continued on. “Have you known the Cushing family for long?”
“Only about five years—they moved in a year or so after we did.”
“Mrs. Cushing ever say where they lived before this?”
“Actually, she did. Manhattan. Brenda hated the city, claimed it was way too crowded, and she thought the teachers at Josh’s school were deplorable.”
“What about now? Is she happy with the schools here?”
“Oh yes. Brenda’s very involved in the PTA. Why, she practically ran the third-grade science fair . . .”
Each question led to another two or three, and before Angela knew it she’d spent twenty minutes talking to the stranger.
It wasn’t until after she’d closed the door and returned to the kitchen that the thought hit her. Yes, Russ Murphy had moved away, but perhaps one of his old neighbors knew as much about his life as she did the Cushing family’s. It was possible, maybe even probable, that a neighbor would remember where Lara was born. If so, they could easily enough get a copy of Lara’s birth certificate without Murphy.
Emily, Gone Page 22
