Don't Breathe a Word (13 page)
Phoebe
June 8, Present Day
I
t had been a Monday like any other, putting aside the fact that Phoebe had spent every free moment telling her boss, Dr. Ostrum, and Franny, the clinic’s head tech, about her strange weekend, hoping to make some sense of it all. And telling the story kept her from thinking about the unopened pregnancy test in her purse. She’d promised herself that she’d do it before she went home. She had to.
She’d stopped at O’Brien’s Pharmacy on her way to work. Not wanting to dawdle and draw attention to herself, she’d snatched up the most expensive test, figuring quality mattered in a case like this. The woman behind the counter was heavyset, with dyed orange hair sticky with hairspray. Her eyebrows seemed to be missing, but she’d drawn some on with a matching orange pencil. She’d worked at O’Brien’s for forever, but her gardenia-scented perfume seemed particularly cloying today.
“All set, hon?”
Phoebe nodded and plunked the test down on the counter. The woman scanned it.
“Eighteen eighty-nine,” she announced. Her nails were coral pink with little rhinestones stuck on.
Phoebe reached into her purse for a twenty.
“Aren’t you Sammy Nazzaro’s girl?” the woman asked, scrunching up her face.
Phoebe froze, unsure how to answer. If she said yes, then word of her having bought a pregnancy test might filter down through the grapevine so that Sam would know by suppertime.
Phoebe shook her head, smiled lamely, and looked down, handing over the money she owed. She flashed onto the dozens of times she’d stopped in here with Sam in the last three years, picking up toilet paper or Tylenol or shampoo. How many times had this very woman waited on them, mentally cataloging their purchases, assessing, judging? She cursed herself for not driving to an anonymous big box store in another town.
The cashier squinted at Phoebe and made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Just as well,” she said, turning to the cash register, then back again to give Phoebe her change. “Cursed, that family is. Stillborn babies, missing girls, suicides. And that old man, Dr. O’Toole”—she gave a dramatic shiver—“he was like the grim reaper himself. There used to be a little song all us kids sang about him.”
Phoebe said, “Oh?” in what she hoped was a politely uninterested way, as she stuffed her change into a pocket and grabbed the bag, already half-turning to leave.
But she continued, her singsongy voice high-pitched and harsh at the same time:
Don’t get sick, don’t miss school,
’Cause your papa will call for Doctor O’Toole;
He’ll eat your heart, he’ll tie you to the bed,
He’ll put bad dreams inside your head.
She paused to giggle and shrug. Phoebe shrugged back, heading for the door as quickly as she could without actually running.
“Have a good one!” the woman called.
P
hoebe, Franny, and Dr. O. were gathered around the reception desk just before closing. Phoebe was shutting down the computer and getting ready to turn the phones over to the answering service. The floors were swept and mopped, giving the office its familiar pine-scented disinfectant smell. The seats in the waiting area had been wiped down; the brochures on heartworm, obesity, flea control, dental care, and pet health insurance straightened.
“But why would they go to the trouble of faking a stabbing? That seems a bit much, doesn’t it?” Dr. Ostrum asked.
“It was a sure way to get them to chase her,” Franny said, taking off her lab coat and yanking her unruly brown hair loose from its ponytail. “If the goal was to get them out of the cabin for a while. You should never underestimate what people are willing to do to get what they want. For whatever reason, they wanted something you guys had packed in your stuff.”
Franny was a local. She’d gone to school with Lisa and Sam, was in Sam’s grade. When they all got together for drinks, Franny and Sam talked about what became of old classmates, of the gym teacher with the harelip, of the time the football team lost a bet and they all came to school in drag.
Phoebe nodded. “There was an old book. The one Lisa claimed to have found in the cellar hole that summer.
The Book of Fairies.
They took that along with everything else.”
Dr. Ostrum pursed her lips, shook her head. She was in her late fifties, a petite woman with short silver-white hair. She reminded Phoebe of a bald eagle, though she would never say that out loud. It was more than the gray hair—there was something dignified about her sharp features and perfect posture. She never lost her cool and was completely poised in every situation. And perhaps the best thing about her, the thing that made Phoebe absolutely devoted to Dr. O., was that she thought Phoebe was smart. She never once looked down on her for not having a college degree, never suggested that Phoebe improve herself by taking adult education courses. She listened to Phoebe’s thoughts and opinions, let her run the office the way she thought best. And when Phoebe had a good idea, Dr. O. praised her for it, made her feel appreciated. It was different from any job she’d ever had.
“Do you think the government might be involved in this somehow, Bee?” Franny asked. “I always wondered if they had something to do with Lisa’s disappearance. Like maybe she and Sammy stumbled across some military secret in the woods or something.”
Phoebe admired Franny’s powers of deduction but not her paranoia. In Franny’s world it was us against them, and the best way to survive was to live under the radar. She believed the government had spy cameras in people’s homes and workplaces, was monitoring every phone conversation and keeping track of every citizen’s credit card purchases. Franny had no credit cards or bank account. “They can’t trace you with cash,” she said. She used disposable cell phones and tossed them every few months, and she rented a post office box at a Mailboxes & More store three towns away. Franny and her husband, Jim, lived in an off-the-grid house they’d built themselves that was powered by solar panels, a windmill, and a generator. They had an underground gas tank, a cellar with enough canned and dry rations to last two years, a hidden fallout-proof bunker with walls made of two feet of reinforced concrete, and guns and ammo enough to supply a small guerrilla group. Franny and Jim said they were only preparing “just in case,” but on the few occasions Phoebe had visited what they referred to as “their compound,” Phoebe got the sense that it was something they were eagerly awaiting.
“It just all seems a little over the top. A little theatrical,” Dr. O. said about Phoebe’s weekend adventures.
“I agree,” Phoebe said. “Whoever these people are, they have a flair for the dramatic.”
“This is like one of those crazy Missing Persons stories from TV,” Franny said. “A woman disappears for fifteen years, only to return and send everyone’s lives spinning out of control.”
“But not many missing people claim they were living in the land of the fairies,” Phoebe said.
“I don’t know about fairies,” Franny said, “but something weird is going on in those woods. A whole town disappearing like that all those years ago. Plates of food on the tables. Cows unmilked in the barns.”
Dr. Ostrum shook her head. “That’s not what happened,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Phoebe asked.
“I’m afraid it’s not the story of intrigue people like to believe. If you really do the research, you’ll see that the truth is the town dried up slowly, like any other. People packed up and left to go where the work was. They moved closer to the railroad, the quarries, better pasture land for the animals. But that’s dull and doesn’t make for a good story. So over the years, people embellished it, turned it into this eerie legend. The mysterious disappearance of the town called Reliance.”
“But Sam’s mother said that’s what happened. Her grandfather was found out there,” Phoebe said.
Dr. O. shook her head. “Come on, Phoebe. What’s more likely, that he was left by fairies—
fairies!
—or that he was a child someone had out of wedlock, maybe an orphan, a regular old abandoned infant in the days before access to birth control, much less safe, legal abortion? Stories passed down in families aren’t always the truth. You know that.”
“I still say there’s something creepy about those woods,” Franny said. “And what about the Lord’s Prayer carved into the rock on the way into town? I heard the guy who did it was trying to protect Harmony from what was out in those woods.”
Dr. O. shook her head, laughing. “Just another story,” she said. “And even if it’s not, the man who did it was obviously too caught up in the stories himself.”
“What about all the fairy stuff?” asked Franny. “And what about Lisa? A little girl doesn’t just vanish like that.”
“No,” Dr. Ostrum agreed. “Of course not. Someone—some real, tangible person—took her. No doubt someone who took advantage of her gullibility and superstition. There are evil forces at work here, but I’d say they’re definitely the human kind—as much as that lacks romance. I think the best thing you can do, Phoebe, is leave all of this alone. Tell the police about the note, the phone call, the impostors at the cabin, your stolen things, all of it. Let them sort it out—that’s their job. Someone’s playing games with poor Sam, and it’s not right. But the longer you play along, the harder it’s going to be to extricate yourselves.”
Phoebe nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
“Oh, almost forgot, here,” Dr. Ostrum said, handing the little velvet bag of teeth to Phoebe. “I took another look. Horse. Definitely horse.” She put on her coat and headed for the door.
“Thanks,” Phoebe said, tucking the little bag into her purse next to the unopened pregnancy test.
They called their good nights to each other, and Dr. O. made her way across the parking lot and started her Saab. As Franny was about to go out the door, Phoebe called out, “Wait a sec, would you?”
“What is it?” Franny said, turning back.
“Have you ever done one of these before?” Phoebe asked, holding up the pink and white cardboard box that held the pregnancy test.
Franny’s eyes grew wide and her mouth made a little
O
shape, but no sound came. Just her breath, which seemed strangely loud.
“It’s just that I never have and I’m a little freaked out,” Phoebe said. “I was hoping you would stay.”
Franny dropped her jacket and purse, bolted the door, and flipped the
CLOSED
sign. She came behind the desk and enveloped Phoebe in a big hug. “Let me see that thing,” she said, reaching for the box and reading the instructions. “Can’t get much more simple. Pee on the stick, wait three minutes. If a plus sign shows up, it’s positive.”
Phoebe nodded, taking the box back. “I guess I’ll go take care of step one, then.”
Franny held on to her arm. “Are you sure, Phoebe? Wouldn’t you rather do this at home with Sam? Does he even have any idea?”
Phoebe shook her head. “No. I need to know for sure before I say anything.”
Franny nodded. “Go pee, then come back out here. We’ll wait together.”
It was the longest three minutes of Phoebe’s life. “Is it time?” she kept asking.
Franny stared down at her watch, refusing to let Phoebe peek until the time was up. “Now,” she said at last, and they hurried, jostling against each other, into the bathroom where the plastic stick rested on the back of the toilet. And there, like crosshairs in the little window, was a bright blue plus sign.
P
hoebe got home at six after stopping at the grocery store, where she discovered she’d somehow lost the list. She had to muddle her way through, relying on her Swiss cheese memory. (Was it eggs they needed or milk? She bought both. And ice cream. Three different kinds. She thought about adding a quart of pickles to the cart, bringing it home and making her own special sundae in front of Sam, telling him that way.) While in the store, she wandered down the baby aisle, studying the diapers, creams, wipes, spoons, bottles, formulas, and little jars of food. As she looked at the stocked shelves, she realized how totally unprepared and clueless she was. Who even knew there were special brushes for cleaning bottles? Or at least seven different kinds of formula to choose from? Was soy-free better? And who gave their baby goat’s milk formula?
ORGANIC
, it said. That would definitely be Sam’s choice. But wasn’t breast-feeding better than all of that? She was suddenly aware of her own breasts aching, feeling huge and swollen. A mother. She was going to be a mother.
She’d sobbed when she first saw the plus sign, then denial hit hard and fast. “Tests can be wrong,” she’d said to Franny.
“No,” Franny told her. “False negatives, yes. But it’s impossible to get a false positive with these things. Trust me.”
They’d sat down and talked it through. Phoebe was going to go home, cook Sam a wonderful dinner, and tell him.
“But he doesn’t want a baby!” she’d howled. “What if he thinks I’m trying to trap him?”
Franny reached over and stroked her hair. “Bee,” she’d said, “this is Sam you’re talking about. He’s one of the kindest, smartest, most understanding people I know. And he loves you like crazy. It’s going to be okay. Just go home and tell him. You’ll work it out together.”