There weren’t many people on this tour, only one school group. Younger kids, no more than ten or eleven, and loud, loving the way their voices boomed and echoed. Elizabeth looked at them curiously, as if she couldn’t remember being that young. Then he realized-it wasn’t age that made her distant. It was him, the life he had created for her. She wasn’t part of their world anymore, a world with parents and television and dinner and school. She had accepted this so readily that he found himself losing a little respect for her. True, he had made sure to scare the shit out of her at first, and showed her that he could hurt her-swiftly, searingly, with not much effort. But he had not raised a hand to her since those first few days, and still she stayed. He didn’t count today, that was just a tap, a warning. He was stuck with her, in a way. Why this one, the one who had just stumbled on him? Why couldn’t he have a girl he chose? Nothing was ever fair.
He could free her, right now. He could tap her shoulder, tell her he was going to use the restroom and she wasn’t to move, and she would do just that. Or, he could wait until she asked to use the restroom, go through his usual rules and admonitions, about how much time she could have and how she must not speak to anyone, even if spoken to, how she would come to regret it, and don’t think she wouldn’t. Then, when she came out, he would be gone. How long would she wait? He’d almost want to hide himself somewhere to watch, to see how much time elapsed before she thought to speak to anyone. She would probably sit there all day until a security guard told her it was closing time.
Or, he could slowly back away, right now, eyes fixed on those narrow shoulders in the sweatshirt she claimed to detest, quietly retreating until he was out in the sunlight, then breaking into a run, getting into his truck, and driving away, seizing a head start.
What did she know, what could she tell the police? They had already found the one body, Maude’s, but she didn’t know where the other girls were, didn’t even know there were other girls, although he had dropped hints about how far he would go when angered or challenged. Elizabeth could tell them about his truck, however. She could tell them his name, that he was from West Virginia. He had told her other things, too, the kind of things you tell people when you spend hours with them, although they weren’t the kind of details that made a man findable. Favorite foods, television shows, his one and only trip to the ocean and how disappointing it had been, particularly saltwater taffy, which wasn’t anywhere near as special as people had made it out to be.
He could let her go, let the screaming, singing ten-year-olds slowly close around her, gather her up, carry her forward before she noticed. She wasn’t that far away from being their age, no matter what she thought. She was still a pretty innocent girl, with her stories about that dog. And her tears, the ones late at night in the bathroom, when she thought he couldn’t hear her, or the ones right before sleep, which she tried to muffle with her pillow or her fist. You’re just a kid, he wanted to tell her. Go back, be like them. It’s not too late. He could-
She turned around, caught his eye, and the moment, the impulse, was gone. Who was he kidding? They were stuck with each other.
17
IT WAS TWO DAYS BEFORE Eliza found the piece of paper, tucked into the recycling bin, a drawing by Albie on the blank side. It was a sketch of Albie and Reba riding a bicycle built for two.
“Albie, why did you draw on”-she paused to think about what she wanted to call it-“Mommy’s letter?”
“I was in the TV room and I just had an idea and I didn’t want to go upstairs to get my paper and Daddy always says not to pull paper out of the tray in the computer that we should use scrap paper and I found this in his trash can-where it shouldn’t have been, anyway-and I thought it would be okay to draw on the back and then I put it in the recycling because I didn’t like it very much, the bicycle didn’t look right.”
The words came out in a rush, as if he might be punished. But, unlike Iso, there was no guile in Albie. Not yet.
“No, no, that’s okay.” She tried to think of a way to ask if he had read it, without suggesting he might have wanted to read it. “It must have seemed pretty unimportant, anyway. Just a lot of dull stuff.”
“It was in the trash,” Albie reminded her. “I thought it was a format letter.”
“A format-oh, a form letter. Yes, it is. Do you have any homework?”
“No,” Albie said with a sigh, genuinely disappointed. He wanted to be like Iso, loaded down with work in middle school, but he came home with only a few, easy assignments. “We’re working on multiplication tables and I already know my twelve times.”
“You can put a video in, then. If you like.”
Albie considered his mother’s offer, which was slightly out of the ordinary. Though Eliza didn’t limit the children’s television, she also didn’t propose it as a way to spend time. “I think I’ll play a game with Reba,” he said. He went into the long, rambling backyard. Almost too long, Eliza decided now, although the yard had been her favorite feature of the house. There were places along the back fence where Albie disappeared from her sight line. But he was with Reba, she reminded herself, and Reba was growing more confident every day, first growling at Barbara LaFortuny, now barking at the postman on his daily rounds. She had mentioned this to Peter, wondered at this clichéd verity. Why do dogs bark at postmen? “Because it works,” Peter said. “Every day, they bark, and every day, the postman retreats.”
She sat at the desk in the television room, positioning herself so she could see the yard. This letter was typed in a small, fussy font that had allowed Barbara LaFortuny to squeeze a lot of text onto the page. A form letter, Albie had thought, and he was right in a way. The writing was stilted, almost as if it had been translated from another language. Maybe Barbara LaFortuny was doing this without Walter’s knowledge. At any rate, Walter’s second letter seemed dry, airless, reminiscent of his droning recitations of what he would do to-for-certain women if they would just let him. Not sexual things, but nice things-holding open doors, sending flowers on ordinary days, remembering key anniversaries.
It would be nice to see you. Nice for me, of course, but also, I think, nice for you. I always liked you. I never hurt you, not on purpose.
Hurt, in Walter’s world, must be a euphemism for killed. He couldn’t honestly believe he hadn’t harmed her. He had said in his first letter that he wanted to make amends to her.
I think I am a different man from the one you knew. More educated. I have read quite a bit. I have thought about the person I was and I am no longer that person. I am genuinely remorseful for the pain I inflicted-on the girls, on their families. I have been here longer than anyone, by quite a bit. In fact, I am considered quite exceptional in that way. I don’t know if you kept up with me.