What's Done in Darkness

by Laura McHugh

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Nothing ever turns out quite like you think.”

  “Hey,” he said. “This doesn’t have to count. Just forget it happened. You can have a do-over.”

  My phone buzzed. A text from Helen, with a picture of her hand holding Gypsy’s paw. Just checking in, she said. G & I got manicures! Having a good time?

  I snapped a picture of my overloaded plate and sent it to her. Yes, I typed. So good, I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Would you be able to keep Gypsy a while longer?

  She answered right away. Of course! That food looks divine. So glad you’re having fun! Can’t wait to hear all about it! ;)

  Thanks, I replied. I owe you.

  A heart popped up, the one with sparkles, followed by a paw print. Anything for a friend.

  CHAPTER 14

  SARABETH, THEN

  AGE 17

  For once I was grateful when Retta volunteered us to clean up the church basement after Sunday school. Mama had hovered over me all week, crackling with the apprehensive energy of an aura preceding a migraine, busying me with extra chores, like washing the curtains and ironing the boys’ work overalls. I had told her, as soon as I got home from the disastrous ride with Jack, that Mrs. Darling was taking the computer to get fixed, so I wouldn’t be able to finish my class. She hadn’t asked any questions, and she didn’t say anything about Mrs. Darling calling, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t. The dread of not knowing curdled in my gut, giving me a constant stomachache.

  Retta and I dragged the metal folding chairs to the storage closet and stacked them, banging them around more than necessary so the adults upstairs could tell we were hard at work.

  “I have some news,” Retta said, her voice somewhere between a whisper and a squeal.

  It was rare for anything to happen that truly qualified as news, though certainly my standards had declined over time. News, to Retta, usually meant a birth, death, or wedding, and she wouldn’t be so giddy about a funeral.

  “Somebody getting married?”

  “Mm-hm.” Retta bobbed her head, a bright pink flush spreading from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. “Guess who?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Give me a clue.”

  “It’s me!” she said, flinging her arms around my neck and screeching in my ear.

  “Really?” I felt my jaw drop, like in a cartoon, mouth gaping, and was glad she couldn’t see my face. I squeezed her tight. There was no reason to be surprised—Retta was a year older than me, and she’d been talking about getting married forever—but still, none of the talk had felt real, not until now.

  “I wanted to tell you before you heard it from anyone else. It’s Philip Werner,” she said, pulling away and grabbing my hands.

  I tried to think of something to say, but all I could manage was to repeat his name. “Philip Werner?”

  Retta nodded, her eyes bright with tears. Philip was in his twenties, and his first wife and baby had died in childbirth. The most notable thing about him was his pallor—his hair was a colorless blond, his fair skin tinged blue like skim milk. He wasn’t unpleasant, though I couldn’t imagine Retta picking him if given her choice in a lineup.

  She burst into giggles and squeezed my hands. “Can you believe it? It’s finally happening. I’m going to be married!”

  “I’m so happy for you,” I said, knowing that was what she wanted to hear.

  “Don’t worry,” Retta said. “It’ll be your turn soon. Maybe we’ll both have girls and they’ll play dolls together just like we used to.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

  “Okay, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about the wedding later, so now I want to know what’s going on with you.”

  “Me? Nothing.”

  “Sarabeth,” she chided. “I know you better than that. You’re jittery. I thought you were going to wear a hole in the floor, the way you were tapping your foot during the sermon.”

  “I don’t know. Restless, I guess. I’m done with school. I’ll be eighteen soon. Trying to figure out what’s next.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “That was me for the last year, remember? Still lumped in with the children instead of the women, because you’re not yet a wife. Just know there’s a plan. Pray for patience and trust that God will provide. I was actually thinking today when Pastor Rick gave you that blessing, the way he looked at you, he might have you in his heart for Noah.”

  “That’s not quite what I mean, Retta…I don’t want to get married, not now anyway. I’m worried—” There was a lull in the chatter overhead, and Retta plugged in the vacuum and switched it on, lest anyone upstairs start to think we were idle.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m thinking about leaving.”

  She looked wounded, like I’d slapped her.

  “Promise you won’t tell.”

  “Of course not,” she said. I could barely hear her over the vacuum. The excitement of her engagement had drained from her face, and I felt guilty for ruining her happy day.

  “You won’t miss me,” I said. “You’ll have Philip.” She nodded, smiling unconvincingly. Despite her unquestioning embrace of marriage and all it entailed, we both knew her husband wouldn’t replace her best friend. She would honor and obey him, hold her tongue and bow her head, cook his meals and bear his children. If she was lucky, she might grow to love him. But I doubted she would tell him all the things she’d told me. She wouldn’t share the dark confessions she’d buried in the jars. Retta might not want me to leave, but I could trust her not to tell anyone. She knew how to keep a secret.

  CHAPTER 15

  SARAH, NOW

  Melissa frowned when I stepped into her office Monday morning to ask for the week off. I rarely took vacation days, and never more than one at a time.

  “Some kind of emergency?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “Everything’s fine. It’s…a wedding. A family wedding.”

  The frown deepened. “Last-minute wedding?”

  “Well, no. It’s been planned for a while. I’m sorry I didn’t give you more notice. I didn’t think I was going to go, but now I really need to be there.”

  She sighed. “I get it. Family’s family. Where you going? One of those fancy destination deals?”

  “No. Clayton County, Arkansas,” I said.

  Her eyebrows jumped. “You do know they’ve got a dozen of the worst puppy mills on the Humane Society’s Horrible Hundred list, right? And probably more that aren’t even on the radar?”

  I nodded. That was exactly why I’d mentioned it. Melissa was part of an activist group that fought to shut down puppy mills. It was her number-one passion project on a long list of animal-related passion projects—a topic guaranteed to distract her from asking any more questions about my trip.

  “Listen,” she said, digging through her desk drawer and extracting a business card. “You know what to look for, right? You see anything shady, you let me know. Night or day, call me, or call the hotline.” She tapped the card and then handed it to me. It said furry friends in bold letters across the top. “We don’t have anybody in Clayton County—that place is like a black hole, no offense to your family—but we got people on the Missouri side. You come across one of these operations, we’ll get somebody out there, scout it out, get ’em busted.”

  “Okay,” I said, slipping the card into my phone case. “I’ll keep my eye out.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Good. Take pictures if you can, any kind of evidence. And get the coordinates. Some of those roads down there aren’t on any kind of map. And keep a low profile—don’t want to tip ’em off, or piss ’em off. Get yourself shot.”

  “Right. Will do. Thanks, Melissa.”

  “Mm-hm,” she said, her attention shifting back to her computer. Her fingers flitted across the keyboard, already movi
ng on to other concerns—a motherless bunny, an abandoned pig, a diabetic cat. Karim lifted his hand in a friendly wave as I walked past the exam room, but I didn’t stop to talk to him or anyone else on my way out. No different from any other day.

  * * *

  —

  I called the Darlings and left an awkward message, hoping it was still the right number, asking them to tell my parents that I was coming. Driving into the Ozarks wasn’t as overwhelming as I’d thought it would be, having just made the trip with Farrow, though I was still nervous about seeing my family, Sylvie especially. I hoped she had forgiven me for leaving, that she somehow understood. My mother had said in one of her first letters that Sylvie was safer without me there, and I would have done anything to protect my sister, even abandon her. It hadn’t occurred to me that Mama might have meant something else—that Sylvie would be safe not from my abductor, but from my influence. In leaving, I had failed to protect her from our mother, who wouldn’t repeat the mistakes she’d made raising me.

  It probably seemed normal to Sylvie, getting married at sixteen. There were plenty of teenage brides at Holy Rock, and she’d been so young when we switched churches and moved to the farm that she barely remembered how things used to be. I’d tried to give her a window into the outside world, retelling my favorite Disney movies in place of bedtime stories, singing her songs that I had memorized from the radio. I talked about our visits to our grandmother’s house before Mama had cut off all contact, how Grams would sip a gin and tonic while we played with her makeup and tried to walk in her high heels. Once, when Grams drained her drink, she’d fished out the bitter wedge of lime and let me have a taste. I wondered if Sylvie remembered any of it now, after five years with no one to remind her.

  The hills took on a well-worn familiarity as I crossed the state line into Arkansas and drew close to Wisteria. I noticed shadows moving across the road, quickening as I approached, and my skin crawled as I realized what it was. Tarantulas. Dozens of them. I’d managed to arrive in time for mating season, when they emerged from hiding to wander in unsettling hordes. I tried not to take it as an omen, a sign that I should turn back, that I never should have come.

  When I reached the farm, the driveway was blocked by a new cattle gate, and I was forced to park the car and get out. I stepped carefully, watching for spiders, trying to keep my focus on the gate, but as I unwound the chain that held it closed, my eyes were drawn to the farm stand. It was empty, no produce laid out, no one sitting at the table. Behind it stretched the field of withering corn, where I had run that day. Where he’d caught me. I could feel the cornstalks closing in around me, the man’s arms crushing me to his chest, and I gasped like I was suffocating. I clutched the chain, counted the links, measured my breaths. My legs threatened to buckle, my will weakening. I had felt a bit braver after my trip with Farrow, but I wasn’t sure that I could go through with this. It was only the thought of Sylvie, the hope that I could save her, take her away from all of this, that made me get back in the car, drive through the gate, and secure the chain behind me.

  As I came over the ridge, my old home appeared, tucked into the holler, just as I’d left it. Same plain white farmhouse, the door a dull black, the unadorned porch swept clean, nothing in the yard to indicate a family lived inside. It felt sterile and impersonal in comparison to my neighborhood in St. Agnes, where all the houses displayed cheery fall wreaths and early Halloween decorations, the driveways littered with scooters and soccer balls.

  I knocked on the front door and moments later it swung wide and Sylvie let out a gleeful squeal. She grabbed my hands and pulled me inside and we stood face-to-face, staring at each other, breathless. So much changes between the ages of eleven and sixteen, and I’d prepared myself not to recognize her, but it was almost more startling to see that she still looked very much like a child, small and slight, her frame not yet softened with curves. Had she hugged me, I could’ve easily tucked her under my chin. She wore a navy dress with a full skirt falling to her ankles, her long brown hair spilling over her shoulder in shining waves. A simple band on her ring finger signified that she was spoken for. It looked out of place.

  “You came,” she said, beaming.

  “I wouldn’t miss a chance to see you,” I said. “I was…surprised. By the letter. Mama inviting me.”

  “I told her it was the only wedding present I wanted, to have you here.”

  She squeezed my fingers and let go, and I felt dizzy with relief. She was happy to see me. I looked around, but no one else was there. The house was silent.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “The boys are working,” she said. “Mama and Daddy are at the Blackburns’. They’ll be back. Come on. Let me get you something to drink.” She led me to the kitchen, turned on the tap. The same faded yellow curtain hung in the window over the sink, the wooden cross Eli made at Bible camp still centered on the wall above the dining table. A bowl of potatoes sat on the counter, scrubbed and ready to peel. Sylvie handed me a glass of water. “They were already gone when Tom dropped by this morning to say you were coming. They’ll be so excited to see you!”

  I wasn’t sure they’d be excited, but they would be surprised, at least. “I don’t know where to start,” I said. “I want to hear everything. How are you? How are you feeling about the wedding?”

  “I couldn’t be happier,” she said. “I’ve been busy getting things ready. Planning the reception, figuring out the food, working on my dress. And now—everything’s perfect.” She clutched my arm, the way our mother used to do when she had something important to say. “I’d love it if you’d stand up for me at the ceremony, be my maid of honor.”

  “Of course, Sylvie. Whatever you want.” I choked down some water. “Tell me about…your fiancé.” I’d been wondering what kind of man my parents had chosen for her, if they had taken her preference into consideration at all, or if it was someone she barely knew, like it had been for me.

  “Oh, he’s wonderful,” she said. “I think you know him from church—Noah Blackburn? Pastor Rick’s son?”

  I nodded, breathing through the sudden sharp pain in my chest, a cold blade sliding between my ribs.

  “He’s quiet and thoughtful and hardworking. And I couldn’t be blessed with better in-laws than the Blackburns. Minnie’s been helping with everything. She’s a gifted seamstress—I bet she can help whip up a dress for you to wear!”

  She sounded so much like Retta, so earnest, so unrelentingly positive. Exactly how she’d been raised to be.

  “What are your plans for after you’re married? Where will you live?”

  “On his family’s land, out past the old Drury Mill. They’ve got more than a thousand acres now, and there’s a darling little cabin for Noah and me. The front window looks out over the creek, and there’s an apple tree. I’m going to put up applesauce and apple butter, make our own cider. We’ll probably have to build a proper house before too long, but the cabin’s perfect until we start to outgrow it.”

  “So you’re…planning for a family, then?”

  “It’s in God’s hands, of course, but I pray for fruitfulness.”

  Fruitfulness. What sixteen-year-old girl prayed for such a thing? At Sylvie’s age, I had struggled not to roll my eyes every time Minnie Blackburn opened her pursed mouth and started preaching about the virtue of fertility to the youth group girls.

  “You seem so happy, Sylvie,” I said. “But you can be completely honest with me. Is this really what you want?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be a wife, a mother. Ever since I was little. You know that. I used to pretend the kittens were my babies, remember?”

  I remembered her playing at being a mommy, but I had done the same thing at her age. I hadn’t thought it meant anything. “What’s the rush? You’re so young still. You can take your time. How well do you even know your husband-to-be?”


  “I have faith, Sarabeth. I’m ready.”

  She said it as though it were a matter of practicality, her certainty clear in her eyes and her childlike voice. It was unsettling. I remembered how it felt to be sixteen and have a crush on a boy—on Noah. It was thrilling, consuming. I’d lie in bed at night feverish with fantasies. Sylvie was talking about apple butter and babies.

  “Mama thought you might do this.” She patted my arm, her touch soft with sympathy. “If you came here to talk me out of it, it’s not going to work. I hope you can understand.”

  I tried to smile, nod. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. She hugged me, her body curled against mine, allowing me, for a moment, to feel close to her again, to pretend she was still the little girl who’d crawl into my bed at night when a storm rolled in and rain hammered the tin roof.

  The front door creaked open, and the house filled with the sounds of shuffling boots and hollered greetings before my brothers burst into the kitchen. Eli swept me up in a bear hug while Luke and Paul waited awkwardly and then politely shook my hand. I’d never been close with my little brothers like I was with Eli, maybe because they were younger when things had changed, when the divide between the boys and girls in our house grew more rigid.

  “I knew it was you soon as I saw the car outside,” Eli said. “I knew you’d come. It’s good to see you.”

  “You, too,” I said. “I see you were finally able to grow a beard.”

  He laughed, stroking his chin. Luke and Paul had beards, too, dark and thick as Eli’s. I wouldn’t have recognized my younger brothers on the street, and they seemed uncomfortable to be in the same room with me.

  My parents walked in then, my father nodding hello, my mother taking in my short hair, the bare skin exposed by my summer dress. She stepped forward and gave me a stiff, perfunctory embrace.

  “What a lovely surprise,” she said. “I know we all want to catch up, but for now, let’s scoot everyone out of the kitchen so I can fix dinner. You too, Sylvie. Sarabeth can help me, and we can have a bit of mother-daughter time.”