“Honey,” Mum said softly, “do you, by any chance, know where Jenny-May is?”
I frowned, confused by the question even though it was perfectly straightforward. I looked back and forth to all their faces. Dad was looking at me with concern, Mum was nodding at me encouragingly, and Mrs. Butler looked like she was going to cry. She looked like her entire life depended on my answer. I suppose it did, in a way.
When I didn’t answer immediately, Mrs. Butler spoke quickly. “The kids outside haven’t seen her all day. I thought maybe she would be with you.”
I knew it was wrong but I felt the sudden urge to laugh at the idea that Jenny-May would have spent the day with me. I just shook my head. Mrs. Butler called around to all the neighbors to see if they’d seen her daughter. The more doors she knocked on, the more I could see how her face changed from embarrassment to steely determination and then to fear.
I’ve seen mothers’ faces in shopping centers when they turn around and notice their child isn’t with them. I studied their faces so intently, completely fascinated by it, because I don’t recall ever seeing that look on my mum’s face. Not because she didn’t love me, of course, but because I was always so tall and out of place there was no way she could lose me. I used to try to get lost sometimes, just to see her face. I would close my eyes, spin around, and choose a direction to head in. Other times I deliberately waited for her to turn the corner into the next aisle in the supermarket. I would shiver by the frozen food and count to twenty until I felt she was far enough away, but most of the time I would turn the corner and there she would be, studying the calorie content on the back of food packages, not having even noticed my absence. If she ever did notice the lack of my shuffling lanky body trailing behind her, no more than five minutes would pass before she found me. She needed only to look up and she’d see my head above the clothes racks or look down to spy my awkward oversized feet poking out from behind a shelf.
From viewing other mothers, I see how the first casual glance over their shoulder changes to panic, how their movements become quicker, head, eyes, limbs darting around, then their abandoning shopping carts in search of the only thing that truly feeds their soul. The fear, the panic, the dread, the drive. They say a mother has the strength to lift a car if it means saving her child. I think that week Mrs. Butler could have lifted a bus just to find Jenny-May. As it got into the second month she looked as though she could barely lift her own eyes above ground level. Jenny-May had taken a big chunk of her with her, too.
It turned out that I was one of the last to see her. When Grandma and Granddad arrived at noon that day, I opened the door to welcome them in and Jenny-May cycled past. She turned to look at me and gave me a look. One of her looks that I hated so much. A look that could wither you instantly. A look that said “I’m better than you and you are going to lose today at King/Queen and then Stephen Spencer will know what an incompetent lanky idiot you are.” I looked over my grandmother’s shoulder as I hugged her and watched Jenny-May cycling down the road with her head held high, her chin back and nose in the air, and her blond hair falling to the small of her back. I did what anyone in my situation would have done. I wished she would disappear.
That day my dad won £500 in the lotto scratch cards. He was so delighted, I could tell. He sat down in the kitchen with me and tried not to smile, but I could see the corners of his lips curling. We could hear Mrs. Butler crying in the next room with my mother. He placed his hand over mine and I knew he was thinking right then that he was so lucky, what a lucky father to win money in the lotto and still have his daughter when people like Mr. and Mrs. Butler were suffering so much. I, in turn, was glad that I hadn’t gone missing and due to Jenny-May’s no-show I was now the undisputed champion of King/Queen. I’d also made some new friends now that Jenny-May wasn’t around to tell them not to. Things were going great for my family and life couldn’t possibly be any worse for Mr. and Mrs. Butler. My parents stayed up late those nights talking and thanking God how they had been blessed.
But something inside me felt different. Jenny-May’s last stolen glance had taken a part of me with it. That day, Mr. and Mrs. Butler weren’t the only parents to lose a child.
Like I said, there’s always balance.
41
Despite Dr. Burton’s threats and protestations, Jack had decided to continue with his mission and make the journey to Leitrim after all. Another night spent in young Bobby’s room had awoken the drive within him to find Donal, not that it had needed much of an awakening. It was the part of him that was constantly wide-eyed and alert, searching around for answers, clues, and meaning with every beat of his heart. He was still clinging to the idea that finding Sandy was his way out. She was the medicine his overworked mind needed in order to rest. Why exactly, he didn’t know, but he had rarely felt such instincts for something in his life. It was as though the part of him that had been lost along with Donal had been replaced by a strengthened sense. He was like a blind man being led by his heightened sense of smell; by touch he could orient himself; by sound he could listen to his heart. When Jack had lost Donal, he had lost his vision but he’d gained a new sense of direction in his life.
He didn’t know what he was going to say to Sandy’s parents when he saw them, if indeed they were home or if they would even give him the time of day. He just kept on following the invisible internal compass that had replaced Donal. At noon he found himself sitting in his car around the corner from the housing estate where they lived, taking deep breaths. It was a Saturday but the small cul-de-sac was quiet. He got out of the car and strolled down the small street, trying to look inconspicuous but feeling and knowing he was completely out of place on the tranquil road, the only moving piece on a chessboard.
He stopped outside number four, where there was a small two-door silver car in the drive that glistened to within an inch of its life. The front garden was immaculate and was a hive of activity for bees and birds. All the summer flowers were out in their glory, colors of every shade, sweet honey scents, jasmines and lavenders. The grass was an even inch in height all around, the border where it met the soil a razor-sharp line that looked like it could cut any petal that dared to fall. A hanging basket overflowing with petunias and geraniums hung from outside the porch door. An umbrella stand sat inside, Wellington boots and fishing gear beside that. By the entrance a gnome hid under a willow tree holding a sign saying WELCOME. Jack relaxed slightly. Here were the boarded-up windows, barking dogs, and burned-out car from his worst-case scenario fears.
He opened the lemon-colored gate, which matched the front door and window frames, like a perfectly edible candy house. There was no creak; just as he suspected. He walked up the even flagstones, not a weed peeking up between the stones. He cleared his throat and pressed the doorbell, its tinkling sound also nonthreatening. He heard footsteps, saw a shadow through the obscured glass get closer to the door. Despite the friendly appearance of the woman he assumed to be Sandy’s mother, the arrival of a strange man on her doorway demanded the porch’s sliding door remain closed.
“Mrs. Shortt?” He smiled and gave her the least threatening face he could.
She seemed to relax a bit more and stepped into the porch area, the sliding door still a barrier. “Yes?”
“My name is Jack Ruttle. I’m very sorry to disturb you at home but I was wondering if Sandy was here?”
Her eyes moved fleetingly over him, quickly surveying the man who looked for her daughter and then she slid the porch door open. “You’re a friend of Sandy’s?”