The Lost Girls (13 page)

At last, when the fire huddled down to embers, the last of the revelers stood to leave. I stood, too, my body tight from sitting so long on the dock and my neck sore from turning to watch them. Lilith and her friends said their good nights, and I caught up to her as she reached our steps. She took my hand, and in that gesture I knew she was afraid, and that she was glad to have me there. We walked up the steps together.

Father was sitting in the parlor alone. His legs were crossed and his fingers were templed under his chin. I thought about how long he must have sat there, in the wingback chair, waiting. I wanted to go straight upstairs, but Lilith stopped in the entryway and turned
to him. Her face was composed, but her skin was waxen under the ceiling lamp and her hand clutched mine so tightly it seemed she would break its bones.

“Come here.” Father's eyes were bottomless and without light, his slender fingers a cage beneath his jaw. Lilith let go of my hand and walked into the parlor. She sat on the davenport with her knees pressed together, folded her hands in her lap, and straightened her back.

“Go to bed, Lucy,” Father said. But I didn't. I went halfway up the stairs and sat where he couldn't see me but I could see Lilith. She didn't look at me, but I knew she knew I was there.

“Daughter,” Father said. “You must be careful. There can be sin in the smallest touch.”

Lilith raised her chin almost imperceptibly. “I just held his hand.”

“He is a boy becoming a man. His thoughts are not pure.”

“It's Charlie. We've known him since he was little.”

“Even so. Make no mistake. He wants to corrupt you.”

I could see her neck tighten as she swallowed. Then she said, “What if he does?”

My heart slammed so hard against my ribs I was sure they both could hear it. Lilith's face was impossibly still, as though she'd turned to marble. Father's chair creaked as he got up. When he appeared in front of her I tensed, ready to flee, but he didn't look my way. He knelt down and took her hands in his. I felt a small shock, and my own hands tingled. I couldn't remember him ever touching either of us with such deliberation. I couldn't see his face, but I could see hers, and as if it were my own I felt the power of his gaze press upon her brow.

When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “Perhaps I should bring you back to town with me.”

A small muscle jumped below Lilith's eye. She went even paler.
“You don't have to do that.” When he didn't answer she said, “You can trust me, Father. I won't let him.”

My hands were shaking. I wound them together and tucked them under my chin. Father considered Lilith for a long moment more. As the silence expanded, my stomach roiled to the point of nausea. He couldn't take her. I didn't know what I would do without her.

“Lilith,” he said at last, “you need to understand that there is temptation everywhere. The sins of the flesh will call even in the voices of those you have known all your life. You alone have the power to keep your intentions pure. To remain clean, as a true child of God.”

“I will. I promise.” She lowered her eyelashes. Then, in the quiet church of our parlor, she underwent a strange and arresting alchemy. Without saying another word or moving a single muscle, she grew younger before my eyes, the restless longing of the teenaged girl melting into the unquestioning innocence of the child she had been. I pressed my fingers to my mouth. She was my sister again, the Lilith I'd thought I'd lost.

Father saw it, too. He took a breath that spread his shoulder blades. Then he bowed his head. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your lovingkindness,” he began. Lilith's lips moved with his through the rest of the psalm. But her eyes found mine, and in them I saw such a raw mixture of defiance and misery that I felt faint.

“Go to bed now,” Father said, when the psalm was done. I ran up the stairs as quietly as I could. When I reached the landing I saw Emily's door close, the doorknob releasing its catch with a listening, cowardly stealth: Mother.

Then Lilith was there, and she pushed me into our room. She closed our door and leaned against it. I went to her, and she embraced me, and I cried, and felt awful, because she was the one
whom Father had chastised and threatened to take back to Williamsburg; she was the one who should be crying, and I should be consoling her. But when we went to bed, she came and lay beside me beneath my covers. As we listened to Father's footsteps crunch on the path to the bridge, she wrapped me in her arms again, and this time I knew it was she who was the comforted, and I the comforter.

In the diner on Monday, everyone was talking about a big storm coming. They sounded excited, like a crowd at a bullfight, anticipating the promise of disaster at a safe remove. Maisy, the shoe store owner, said she'd sold three pairs of boots just that week. Mike the barber sighed; he'd lose money with his shop closed, but even he had a thrill in his voice when he talked about the weather forecast. They reminisced about epic blizzards in the past—the 1995 storm that cut them off from the highway for a week, and the one in 1987 that caved in the roof of the Methodist Church. No, that was 1986, said Roberta Jones, a substitute teacher who had strong opinions about everything. A vigorous debate ensued, with arguments pegged to graduation dates, wedding dates, and birth dates.

It was the sort of conversation, rich with shared history, that Justine most enjoyed eavesdropping on. But this one worried her. If these people, who seemed to be inured to blizzards, were impressed by this upcoming storm, it was cause for serious concern. She remembered midwestern blizzards from her childhood. They always caught Maurie by surprise—they didn't say anything about snow! she'd say. Then they'd be stuck in the apartment for days eating peanut butter and saltines. Maurie thought it was fun, like camping. Justine thought about Lucy's isolated house and decided she'd better stop by the Safeway on the way back. She also worried about how the old house would weather the storm. A voice in her head whispered that if Patrick were here, he'd be able to check the
roof, fix what needed fixing, keep them safe. She tried to muffle it.

The doorbell jangled. Quentin, one of the two brothers who had breakfast at the counter every morning, came in. His appearance shocked Justine—he'd aged a decade since she'd last seen him, the day before Thanksgiving. Everyone else stopped talking, their faces falling into expressions of sympathy. Without realizing it, they moved closer to one another. Something terrible had happened to Quentin, and it was clear that everyone but Justine knew what it was.

Quentin walked to the counter and sat on his usual stool. Ray put a hand on his arm, and Justine could see the fifty years they'd known each other in her touch. “I'm so sorry, hon.”

He rubbed his face. He didn't seem to see the others standing in an awkward half circle with their coffee cups. He said to Ray, “You remember how I worried about my boy in Iraq? I always told Nate he was lucky to have Jake close. Even with all the trouble that boy got into, I never thought he'd get himself killed not five miles from home.” He closed his eyes, gave a shaky sigh. “Nate hasn't even answered my calls.”

Quentin's son was a captain in the marines who'd been decorated for valor during Desert Storm. He had a pretty southern wife and two little boys. The oldest was the pride of the Little League. The younger loved peewee football. Justine had heard Quentin tell Nate these things in the voice of a man who knew that, in the ledger of sons that all men keep, he was the richer. His face was gray with grief over his nephew's death, but Justine understood why his brother didn't want to talk to him right now.

The morning crowd broke their silence. They lowed a murmuring chorus of regret, and one by one they approached Quentin. The men put their hands on his shoulders. The women embraced him. And as she watched him lean into the arms and hands of his neighbors, Justine felt an envy almost indistinguishable from
sorrow. No one in the world—not one person—would touch her the way these people were touching Quentin, no matter the tragedy she suffered.

Arthur Williams slid into her booth, surprising her. “I hope you don't mind. I see you here every morning on my way to the office.”

“Not at all,” Justine said. She was glad for a reason to look away from Quentin.

Arthur glanced at the grieving man and shook his head. “A shame,” he said. “Though not entirely a surprise.” With that oblique comment he returned his attention to Justine. “I didn't just stop in to say hello. I had a phone call yesterday from someone looking for you. A Patrick Gallagher.”

Justine put her hands in her lap. She tried to keep her face from betraying the flood of emotions that swamped her—shock, fear, anger, and, though she despised herself for it, a small ripple of pleasure.

“He said he was your boyfriend, and you'd disappeared without telling anyone you were leaving or where you were going. He saw my number on your phone bill and wanted to know if I knew where you were.”

He paused. The air in the diner felt thick with foreboding. Justine licked her lips. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him I couldn't discuss our conversation.”

Justine exhaled. Arthur regarded her keenly. He said, “My client is Lucy Evans's estate, not you. Our conversations aren't privileged. But I didn't feel comfortable answering his questions without checking with you first.”

“Thank you.” Outside, a pickup drove by, a huge brown mastiff pacing restlessly in the back. It was a Chevy, the same model as Patrick's, but it was black and filthy, where Patrick's was white and clean. Though if he drove it two thousand miles to Williamsburg, it wouldn't be clean, would it? Justine wrenched her gaze away.
She needed to get out of the diner. She needed to get someplace quiet, where she could think.

“Well,” Arthur said. “If he calls again, I'll answer him in the same way.”

“Yes, thank you.” Justine slid out of the booth, ignoring the startled look on his face. “I'm sorry, I have to go.”

She went to the library, to her favorite chair, which overlooked the small back garden. A brown bird landed on the empty stone birdbath, then flew away, disappointed. Justine remembered how, the week Patrick moved in, he'd taken down the bird feeder Francis and Melanie had built from a kit and hung on the balcony. It hadn't come together right; the walls were askew and the floor slanted, but Melanie had loved watching the birds fly in and out. Patrick took it apart on the kitchen table and reassembled it so it was square, then held it up for them to admire how good he was at fixing things. Melanie never looked at it again.

She'd been so careful not to leave a trace. No credit cards, no checks. But he had looked at the phone bill. It hadn't occurred to her that Arthur Williams's number would show up there, but she also hadn't expected Patrick to try that hard to find her. Not that he wouldn't try at all. He'd ask Mrs. Mendenhall, he'd ask the girls' teachers, he'd call Dr. Fishbaum and Phoebe. But she'd assumed he'd give up after that. Because in her experience, when you left people, they disappeared in the rearview mirror along with the towns they lived in. You didn't leave an address, you didn't write or call or send Christmas cards, and you never heard from them again.

She knew other people weren't like her and her mother, of course. Other people kept address books with the names of high school classmates and sent cards on their birthdays. They called
when they came to town and got together for drinks. They sent graduation announcements, and holiday cards with pictures of the kids, and—she thought of Quentin—condolences when someone died. Still, they were easy to leave behind, if you really wanted to.

Here was the problem, and she should have seen it from the start: Patrick wasn't like other people either. Even the ordinary leaving that other people did was too much for him. That was why he needed to know where she was all the time. Why he touched her so often and wanted to be with her every possible moment. So she shouldn't be surprised he'd checked the phone records. He'd probably already figured out where the Williams law firm was. The phone was in Lucy's name, but her name was Evans, too; how long before he called to see if she was a relative? Thank God she hadn't changed the recording on the answering machine.

She should call him.

The thought echoed inside her brain. It was absolutely the right thing to do. She needed to do what other people did when they ended a relationship. She should have done it that way in the first place, if not to his face, then at least over the phone from Salt Lake City or Vegas or any of the other towns they'd stayed in on the way here. If she had, he wouldn't be looking for her now.

But what would she say? What were you supposed to say? I'm sorry? We're not right for each other? It didn't work out but I'll always love you? All Maurie had ever taught her was how to sneak out when your lover's back was turned. Plus she wasn't sure she could actually do it. If she opened the door wide enough to talk to him, he might push it open the rest of the way. Already that timid voice in her head was saying he could fix the oven and figure out the propane, and she couldn't let that voice win. She thought about this for the next four hours, in the library. She thought about it as she picked up her daughters. She thought about it so much she forgot to stop at the Safeway. She was still thinking about it when
she walked into the kitchen and saw the light flashing on the answering machine.

Shit
. It was Patrick; she knew it was. She sent the girls into the living room to the television. “It's freezing in there,” Melanie complained. Justine snapped, “Turn up the radiator!” Melanie jerked her head in surprise, then left the kitchen without another word.

Justine leaned over the machine, gripping the edge of the counter. She forced herself to calm down. It was too soon for him to have found this number. Wasn't it? It was probably just her mother, calling with an update on her drive. Or it was for Lucy, and she'd have to call the person back and tell them she was dead.

She pressed the button. It was a woman's voice she'd never heard before, businesslike, the vowels broad and unpleasant. “This is Elizabeth Sorensen, the assistant principal at Williamsburg Elementary,” it said. “We've been having some trouble involving your daughter Melanie. I'd like to meet with you at your earliest convenience so we can discuss it.” She left a number and hung up.

The answering machine beeped once, then sat, silent and impassive, on the white tiles. Justine stared at it without seeing it. Her face was numb. A low buzzing began in her temples.

I had a phone call yesterday from someone looking for you.

We've been having some trouble involving your daughter.

It didn't matter how far away you went. How far away you ran. Or how hard you shook the dust from your feet.

She walked into the living room. The girls were on the sofa fighting over which program to watch. Neither of them looked at her until she hit the power button on the television and the picture snapped into a white line and then a dot. Melanie opened her mouth to protest but stopped when she saw her face.

“You're doing it again,” Justine said. Her voice sounded far away, blurred by the buzzing in her head.

Melanie crossed her arms. “Doing what?”

“The school called. They're having trouble with you. You know what that means.”

“No I don't.”

Justine smashed her hand on the top of the television. Both girls jumped. “Damn it, Melanie! I've seen how you do your homework, how you walk in and out of that school! You're getting a bad reputation already, you're ruining that school for yourself just like you ruined the school back home, and I won't let you! Not after we've come all this way!”

Angela gaped at her in shock. Melanie's back went rigid, and she clenched her fists. “No. I'm not doing any of that stuff.”

“Why am I getting this phone call, then? If you're not doing anything why is the assistant principal calling me?”

“I don't know!”

“I don't believe you!”

Melanie jumped up. Her mouth was twisted, her face red. “I don't care what you think! I hate that school! I hate everyone in it! I hate the way they look at me! I hate the way they talk about me! I hate this house, this lake, and this whole stupid town! I wish we'd never come here!”

“You can't even give it a chance, can you?” Justine was shaking now. “You're the one who wanted to come! Angie didn't, but at least she's trying! But you've already made up your mind, and now you've got to ruin everything for your sister and me with your sulking and your pouting and your determination to be miserable! Because that's what you always do!”

Melanie stood straight and slender as a blade, her eyes bright with angry tears. “I didn't want to come! I didn't even want to leave San Diego! I just wanted to leave Patrick! You're the one who ruined everything, because we never would've had to go if you hadn't let Patrick live with us in the first place. If you hadn't made Daddy leave!”

This hit Justine like a cup of oil on a fire. She flew across the
room and grabbed Melanie by the shoulders, her fingers digging into the flesh beneath her daughter's coat. “I didn't make your daddy leave! I kept him there! I kept him there for years! I never said a word to him about the drinking or the drugs or the nights he never came home! No one could've kept him longer than I kept him!” She threw Melanie backward onto the sofa. The buzzing in her head became a roar, a howl, a wail of fury at Francis, at Patrick, at her mother, at Melanie, at a hundred other nameless things, and it filled up the room and drummed in her blood, the rush of it blocking out all other sound, even the sound of her own voice gouging her throat like nails.

Then, small and far away, she saw Melanie's spidery hands on the sofa cushion, her body cringing in the too-big coat, and in the corner Angela, cowering on the floor with her head buried in her arms. Justine's anger dissolved into horror. She brought her hands to her face. In the long, fractured silence that followed, Melanie looked at her mother, the fear in her eyes giving way to disgust, and Justine looked back, through the prism of her fingers, until Melanie leaped to her feet.

“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! I hate you! I wish you had left! Everything is your fault! Everything!” She pushed past Justine and ran up the stairs. The slam of the bedroom door echoed through the house.