I hadn’t seen Misty for six weeks. We’d exchanged a couple of brief emails and one stilted phone call about her sister Alice’s burial. Misty had been recuperating in Kansas City, at a wonderful place that seeks to heal both the wounds of the body and the mind. When a serial killer’s siege on my house exploded on the Internet, Renata was one of the first people to call my hospital room. She hooked Misty up with the clinic and the renowned psychiatrist who had treated her years ago after her rape and suicide attempt.
Misty and I met halfway across the grass. She held the picture of Alice in her hand, out of the prison of its frame. This time, I saw details: the plastic jewels on both fingers, the grape Kool-Aid around her lips, the crooked middle tooth.
Misty gave me a quick hug, a relief. I wasn’t sure how she really felt about us. A friendship forged out of deception and guilt and redemption. She was still bony, still recovering. A tiny silver cross hung where the encrusted dollar sign used to. No makeup. Her eyes, brown, like the first time.
“Everyone in my group therapy thinks I need to lock this picture away forever,” she told me. For-evah. I could hear the twang now, just the tiniest echo. “They all agreed that it is holding me back. But I decided to give Alice one more outing. We buried her a week ago today. By my mother and father. I wish you could have been there.”
“Me, too.” Mike and Gretchen had laid down the law. No traveling.
She glanced at the photo. “About a year ago, my aunt found this and mailed it to me. Out of the blue. I was sure it was Alice begging me to find her. A fever took over me, although truthfully, I can’t remember ever not being angry. But what’s the saying? ‘While seeking revenge, dig two graves, one for yourself.’ ”
“Douglas Horton,” I replied. “The guy who also famously taught thousands of teenage girls the fallacy that if you love something set it free.” Trying to sound light, not quite succeeding. “I’m really surprised you’re here, Misty. Mourning Caroline.”
“Not mourning exactly. Trying to forgive, maybe. After Dickie wouldn’t help, I tried Caroline. It was almost like she’d been waiting for me. Like it was a relief to see me when I landed at her door. Begged me to stay so that we could work on finding Alice together. Put me up in that fortress of a house, paid for private investigators, said she’d make Dickie tell us where Wyatt was. Said not to say who I was or why I was there, of course, and told me to invent something about my past. Asked me to join her stupid club so people wouldn’t ask questions if they saw us together. All of this, ostensibly to protect me from Wyatt. But Wyatt was nowhere. By the time I realized how off-balance Caroline was, it was too late to back out. Of course, I’m not one to talk about being off-balance.” She laughed softly. “I hated lying to you, Emily.”
I nodded. “Do you think she knew what happened to her son?”
“I like to think she didn’t. That she was sincere about that, at least. I heard her make one of the calls to Dickie, telling him about the private investigator she hired. I do believe Caroline kept horrible secrets about him. Maybe she finally let Dickie know she couldn’t keep them anymore. I try to look back and see all the things I must have missed when I was a kid. Wyatt’s crappy life seemed so much better than my crappy life.” Her mouth twisted. “This town. I stepped into it and went crazier than I already was. If it’s any consolation, I’m on a new path. Renata’s psychiatrist… my psychiatrist… says I have all the tools to become a highly functioning dysfunctional. And your gallery friend called. Wants to set up a show of my photographs. She says people will come because of my ugly past, but that I’ll be successful because I’m good.”
“You are good,” I told her. “And your photographs are stunning.”
“Not good like you. Not good like Wyatt. Emily, you fought that bastard. You came to my house that day, risked your life, to make sure I was OK. You’re still helping me, after I went nuts and very nearly got your baby killed. Then there’s Wyatt-he used his allowance to buy Alice and me food. Still, I didn’t believe him when he told me he fixed Alice’s bike tire, and she rode off. Wyatt looked guilty. Probably because he knew who was.”
I had to ask, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. “Why did Dickie obsess on me?”
“He saw you at the party, that first night. He was making plans to take Caroline.” Misty hesitated. “He told me that you reminded him of her. When she was young. In the beginning.”
I was right. I didn’t want to hear.
“You brought a friend.” I pointed to a tall, lanky figure in conversation with Mike by the car.
“Joe. He’s a Kansas City cop. His wife died two years ago of cancer. We met on the plane on my way to the clinic. A lucky coincidence that they reassigned his seat.”
Fate is a compass.
Mike called him The Candy Man.
He was young and fresh-faced in blue scrubs, still cute and macho even with the medical shower cap, and when he slipped the epidural needle into my back after twelve hours of labor, I wanted to give him everything I had except my newborn child.
Two weeks late, I was ready to pop, although our baby seemed perfectly happy to settle inside me for life. Reasonable really, considering what was out here. Every ultrasound, every test declared that he was still perfect.
My eyes roved over a six-foot-tall giraffe created, entirely by Letty’s hand, out of diapers. Letty herself was camped in the waiting room, explaining some kind of vending-machine diet to a hostage crowd that included Holly and Lucinda. They had packed our refrigerator with food last night. Go figure.
Our baby had a name now. Adam. Middle name Lee, in Letty’s honor. We made this decision with full knowledge that this fixed Letty to our lives forever, no matter how far we eventually traveled from Clairmont, Texas.
“I have something that might take your mind off the pain.” Mike held a plain brown manila envelope. I flinched. I knew the ugliness contained in innocent-looking envelopes.
“What is it?” My heart beeped faster, triggering an annoying sound effect from the heart monitor.
“I tracked down your little girl. I called in a favor from an FBI buddy. He faxed it today. I was going to give it to you tonight. I just didn’t count on you going into labor. Honestly, I didn’t think Adam was ever coming out.” He just said it, flat-out, like it was no big deal. I stared at him in disbelief, thinking he shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have involved the FBI. I fought this emotion with the one that wanted to tear the envelope out of his hand. I watched a contraction start its rise on the monitor, feeling nothing. The Candy Man had done his job.
“Just tell me.” I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. “No, wait. Is this really the right time?”
“I’ve thought about that for the last twelve hours. I think it’s the perfect time. Her name is Natalia.”
It was out. I couldn’t make him put it back in.
Natalia.
“Pretty.” My eyes blurred with tears. “They picked a pretty name.”
“She was adopted at five weeks. Lives in Rome with her parents and two older brothers. Her father is a professor. Her mother, a journalist.”
Safe.
“She appears to have a very happy life,” he said. “Her parents are well respected.”
“I don’t want to mess that up.” I meant it. All these years, fearing she was dead or homeless, hungry or abused. Wanting to fling my arms around her and say sorry, sorry, sorry.
My eyes found the cross at the end of the bed, formed by the railing.
I watched my belly tighten under the soft blue gown, swelling again like a thing apart from me. Adam, working harder. I imagined him swimming, pushing his way through an underwater cave.