The Lost Girls (27 page)

“You'll need a ride back to town tomorrow,” he said. “I should stay.”

She'd known he would say this, and she had her answer ready. “My mom has her car.”

He didn't press. But then, he didn't have to. He knew where she was. He could come back any time. “Why are you living way out here anyway?”

“My great-aunt left me the house.”

“But it's in the middle of nowhere. And it's a wreck. Even in the dark I can see that.”

Justine couldn't help bristling a little. “It's not as bad as it looks. I came here once when I was a kid, and it was beautiful then. It could be nice if someone fixed it up.”

“And that's going to be you?”

“Why not? It's a house. I never thought I'd have a house of my own.”

Patrick shifted in his seat. Something small skittered across the beams of the headlights and was gone. “We could have a house, you know. I've been thinking about selling cars. There's good money in that.”

She hadn't meant to criticize him, but it was plain he'd taken it that way. She felt terrible all over again. He'd worked so hard at the Office Pro, trying to get his boss to let him sell the copiers, and it had all been for nothing. Because of her. The truck smelled like road food and the mothbally odor of his coat, probably bought at a secondhand store along the way, as hers had been. She thought of him driving across the high desert, alone in his truck, to a place he'd never been and where he had no real assurance she would be, and guilt overcame her. “Patrick, I'm sorry for the way I left.”

In the dim light from the dashboard she could see the muscles of his face tighten. “It was the worst day of my life. I came home, and you weren't there, and then I found that note, and it didn't even say good-bye.”

“I know. It was the worst thing I've ever done to anyone.”

“But why did you go? That's what I don't get. We've got such a great thing. I saved your life, then you saved mine, that's what I always said.”

This was it: the conversation. It wouldn't be tomorrow, it would be now. We aren't right for each other. It's better this way. I'll
always remember you. Good luck with your life. But when Justine tried to say the words, nothing came.

He leaned closer and took one of her hands. “Jus, I need you. I came all this way because I want to make you see that.”

Her breath snagged in her chest. Because she did see it. It was the one thing she knew for certain. She looked at their hands, linked on the vinyl seat. Beneath the smell of McDonald's burgers and mothballs she could smell his fresh-bitter scent. She remembered what it felt like to sit beside him on the sofa, their hands clasped just like this, and to wake up next to him, his arm across her stomach, his nose against her neck. What it felt like to be so loved, so needed. For just a moment, she let him in again. What if he stayed? What if they all stayed? He could fix up the house. He could paint it the sunny yellow it used to be; he could fix the plumbing and the drafts and the oven and put in that wood-burning stove. Maybe this could be a starting-over place for all of them. Maybe he would be less anxious, less controlling, if they lived here, where he'd have her all to himself. Maybe—just maybe—they could be like other families. Happy.

She looked up at the house. The girls' bedroom light was on, and through the tall window Melanie watched them with her arms hugging her ribs. In silhouette she looked fragile, and very alone. The house watched, too, bowed beneath its nameless, solitary burden.

“I'm not very good at being alone,” Justine said. She hadn't considered this before, but it was true. She'd always been lonely, but there had also always been that one companion, that one pillar around whom her life had been centered for better or for worse. First it was her mother, then Francis, then Patrick. Those weeks between Francis and Patrick, she'd failed at being by herself. She was failing at being by herself now, too, and that was why she was thinking about letting Patrick stay. It was also why she'd needed
to leave him the way she had, she realized. Not because she'd been worried about what he'd do—though she had been—but because if she hadn't run somewhere far away, without telling him good-bye, she'd never have had the strength to leave him at all.

“You don't have to be by yourself,” he said. “That's what I'm trying to tell you.”

Justine turned back to him. Her chest loosened, and her words came more easily. “But I think I need to be. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you that before.”

He shook his head, getting agitated. “Why would you want that? Why would you want to live here, in this shitty house? When you could have our life together, back home?” His face was turning the blotchy red it got when he was very upset. Justine wanted to take her hand back, but she didn't want to upset him more, so she didn't, even though he was holding it very tightly, and as his face reddened he squeezed harder. “Look, Jus, I'm not giving up. I saw your face back at the gym. You were glad to see me, you can't deny it. I don't get why you left, but I'm going to make it right. I'm going to show you that you need me as much as I need you.” He gestured to the truck and the house. “See? You've needed me already.”

That was when she knew he'd messed with the starter. Somehow, in the frigid Minnesota night, while she'd been in the gym taking pictures of Angela, he'd slipped his gloveless fingers under the hood and broken it. Not to find out where she was staying, but to be her savior again, as he had with the bus. She felt instantly claustrophobic, as if the truck's cab had shrunk around her in the space of a second. She yanked the door open. “I have to go.”

He didn't try to stop her. “I'll see you soon,” he said, from the shadows that filled the cab.

As he drove away Justine's claustrophobia melted into the wide, empty night, and she berated herself. She hadn't ended it; he still thought he had a chance. Now she'd have to see him again to do it
right. She walked to the house, trying to calm down. It was okay. Christmas was still four days away; she had plenty of time. And if she couldn't do it, or if he wouldn't take no for an answer, they were leaving anyway, and she wouldn't let herself feel guilty about disappearing on him again. Leaving no trace this time.

Maurie was waiting in the entryway, and Justine braced for her inquisition about what had happened in the truck. But Maurie didn't ask. Instead she crossed her arms and said, “That man came out here to find you.”

“Yes.”

“How did he know you were here? Did you call him?”

“No. He came looking for us.”

Maurie digested this. “Why did you leave him?”

Justine took off her coat. “It's hard to explain.”

“Oh, honey, I'm sure you had your reasons. I'm just wondering, what special brand of crazy is he?”

Justine thought about the men who'd sat at the breakfast table in apartment after apartment when she was young. They'd been nothing but man-shaped cutouts to her smaller self, changing from short to tall, loud to quiet, Firefighter Paul to Songwriter Steven to Crazy Jerry. “Have you ever had someone who loved you too much?”

Maurie gave a bitter laugh. “No one I've left has ever come looking for me, if that's what you mean.”

“That is what I mean. At least I think so.”

“You think if someone cares enough about you to check your phone records, figure out where you are, and drive halfway across the country to get you back, then he loves you too much?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“Let me tell you something. If even one of my men had done that for me, I'd still be with him.”

Justine stared at her. All her talk about shaking the dust off her
feet, and now this? Maurie's index finger tapped a rapid staccato on her arm. She needed a cigarette, or a drink. Probably both. Justine made herself smile. “Even Crazy Jerry?”

“Okay, not Crazy Jerry.” Maurie's own smile faded, leaving her looking tired. “But just about anybody else.”

I sat in the dark under the lodge with my arms wrapped around my knees. Despite the afternoon heat, I was shivering. Lilith's face as Abe hunched over her hung before my eyes. The cry she'd made echoed in my ears.

Father would be here by suppertime. Would he know, from looking at her? Was it written on her skin somehow? I didn't know how I could look at her again, or talk to her, or share a bedroom with her. Everything was different now. I rested my face on my knees and sobbed into the filthy dress I'd worn for Matthew's birthday party, which seemed so long ago it felt as if it had happened to someone else.

I cried for a long time, and when I stopped I was tired straight down through my bones. The sweat on my arms had dried to a fine salt. My eyelashes felt cool and wet. To my left, the kittens rustled, undisturbed by my blundering entrance or my tears. In their nest were bits of cloth, some yarn, and a dish that had held milk. Beyond them I could see the lakeshore. It was crowded; everyone was getting the most out of summer's last day. Mother was playing cards with Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Jones at a picnic table. Emily, in a blue swimming suit, sat on the beach alone. From my cave the scene was flat and bright, as though I were watching a movie in a dark theater.

After a few minutes Emily stood, went to Mother, and asked a question. Mother nodded, and Emily walked toward the lodge. She could have been coming to get a pop or an ice cream, but I knew she was coming to play with the kittens. She'd told Mother
about them, giving up the one secret she had in exchange for a bit of freedom. I thought about leaving before she got there, but I couldn't face the sunshine, so I sat with my chin on my arms and waited.

When she crawled under the lodge, she checked each of the kittens, stroking their heads, then picked up the sleeping Mimsy and sat cross-legged in the dust-covered sand beside me. In the slight bouncing of her knees I could tell she was glad I was there, and I was glad she was there, too. Her innocence soothed me.

I wiped my tear-streaked face with my hands. “Has the mother gone for good?”

Emily looked around, but the mother cat was nowhere to be seen. “She still brings them things to eat sometimes.” She gave a worried sigh. “But I found Mimsy outside yesterday, almost in the forest.”

I didn't tell her that soon all the kittens would be prowling the forest, where they would be both predators and prey. She must have heard something in my silence, though, because she said, “Who will protect them when we go back home?”

I looked out at the beach, where Mother played cards with the other women, glancing frequently over at the space beneath the lodge. “Their mother will teach them what they need to know,” I told her. “And the rest will be instincts they were born with. It'll be enough.”

Emily touched the calico's paw, feeling the tiny claws. “Do you think Mother would let me keep one?”

Mimsy lay on her back. Still asleep, she stretched her paw toward Emily's chin. Suddenly I wanted her to have that kitten so badly that my throat ached. “I bet she would.”

We sat for a while. Emily talked to the kittens, calling them by name, scolding the one who would never share, praising the clever one. Her voice was high and young and pure, and as I listened my mind pushed the thing I'd seen in the woods into a corner where it
paced but did not approach until Father's car drove up the road and Mother called for Emily. Then, as we walked to the house, it came slithering back—Lilith in the leaves, Abe on top of her—and my skin felt hot again.

Emily put her hand in mine. It was cool, and much smaller and softer than Matthew's. She smiled at me. She was a serious child, but she had dimples when she smiled, and perfect baby teeth.

Lilith was on the porch reading a magazine. She'd changed into a flowered dress, and her hair was smoothed back in a pink headband. My stomach felt shaky when I saw her. She looked at Emily's and my hands, joined as hers and mine had been for so long, and though she tried to hide her surprise, I knew her too well. I felt her watching me as I went upstairs with Emily to change for supper. She was wondering if I would tell Father what I had seen. She should have known I would not, no matter whose hand I held.

Mother had made a pot roast, which was the best thing she cooked. It was tender and full of flavor, the potatoes and carrots dissolving in your mouth. The smell filled the house, and it made me hungry even though I hadn't thought I could eat. After Emily and I changed we went to the kitchen and sat at the table as Mother pulled the roast from the oven. Her cheeks were rosy from the sun, and she smiled at us. I felt a rare flash of pity for her. In Williamsburg she'd serve supper to three silent children and a husband who never told her how good the pot roast was. In the dark house that her husband's grandfather had built, behind curtains her mother-in-law had hung forty years before, the sun-glow would fade from her skin in less than a month.

Supper was quiet even for us. Father ate in his slow way and didn't give any sign that he saw the stain Lilith bore. Though he must, I thought. Those eyes that saw everything, they had to see it.

After supper, we gathered in the parlor and waited for Father to read. I hadn't looked directly at Lilith since I'd come inside the house, and I couldn't look at her now, knowing that Father's voice
would soon shake the air, lacerating her with righteousness. She sat with her ankles crossed and her hands folded, and I could feel the tension in her. Surely Father could sense it, too.

But for the first time in my memory, he did not read. He pulled Emily onto his lap as usual, but his eyes were unfocused, rimmed with red, and his face was drawn, with lines at the corner of his mouth I'd never seen before. Mother watched him with worry that she tried to hide. My heart beat faster. Lilith didn't move, and I followed her lead, though my hands and feet ached to fidget.

Father wrapped his arms around Emily's waist, drawing her closer. He bent his face to her neck and pressed his lips to her skin beneath her hair, his eyes closed. Emily, startled, squirmed away, and Mother reached for her. But Emily slid from Father's lap and sat beside me on the davenport. Mother's lips parted, then closed again. Father just sat, his brilliant eyes dull. Emily shifted closer to me, her arm almost touching mine. I could feel the slight tremble in it.

Father sighed. He said, “I'm glad you're all coming home soon.”

I felt as though I'd swallowed a stone. I hadn't known until that moment how much hope I'd placed in him. He was the only one who could bring Lilith back, the only one she might listen to, but he wasn't even going to try. After another minute, Lilith dared to pull a magazine from the rack. She opened it and began to turn the pages. Mother picked up her needle and sampler. I, like Father and Emily, sat unmoving in the deepening light that seeped through the curtains. I listened to the laughter of the children outside, and I found myself wondering what the other families were doing. They were probably on their porches, watching their children run about. They weren't sitting silently behind curtains that shut out the sun. For the first time I wanted to be out in the warm evening eating a chocolate ice cream from the lodge, like all the other children.

When Mother and Emily went upstairs, Lilith rose to go to bed, and I followed. I dreaded being alone with her, but I wanted
even more to get out of the parlor where this strange version of my father sat without reading or speaking. In our room I changed with my back to her. I climbed into bed, turned my face away, and closed my ears against the familiar sounds of her undressing. When she turned out the light I forced myself to lie still, as though I were already asleep.

Then she got into my bed. My skin erupted in gooseflesh. She put her arm around my waist and pulled me close, my back against her stomach, as she'd done on Independence Day, but this time her embrace held no comfort. “What were you doing in the woods with Matthew?” she whispered in my ear.

I screwed my eyes shut, still feigning sleep even though my entire body was rigid. She pressed her knee against the back of my leg. “Did you kiss him?”

My jaw was stiff. “No.”

“You should kiss him.” Her breath was warm on my neck, and I could feel her breasts against my back. “I bet he tastes good. His brother does.”

I thrashed against her, kicking her legs. “Stop it!”

She let me go. I pushed myself against the iron poles of the headboard. My voice echoed in the room, and for a wild moment I worried that Mother—or Father!—might come to see why I had shouted. But they didn't.

Lilith was on her knees in front of me. She looked at my face, at my nightgown hitched up around my thighs, at my shaking body. Then she brought her hand to her mouth and made a harsh sound, as though she were retching. “Oh, God, Lucy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” She rocked back and forth, cupping her face in her hands. It took me a moment to realize that she was sobbing, soundlessly, as though her throat was squeezed shut. I touched her arm, light and tentative, and then flinched as she grabbed my hand and held it as fiercely as she had when she pulled me from the lake. Lucy, she
was saying, over and over, I'm sorry, and I was crying, too, and I didn't know when I'd started.

At last she fell silent, and her grip on my hand eased, though she didn't let go. “It's all going to be different now,” she said. Her voice was so bleak it chilled the air.

I nodded. I knew she was right. We knelt there like that, facing one another and holding hands, for a long time. Finally we lay on our backs, side by side in my small bed. I kept my eyes open on the ceiling. I rubbed my thumb along her fingers, back and forth, feeling her breathing ease until her hand lay limp in mine. Only then did I sleep.

When I woke the next morning, I was alone. I heard birds, and the faint slap of water against the sand. Far away, the motor of a fishing boat—it was very early. I got dressed and went downstairs. Lilith was not in the house. I went out to the porch and looked up and down the road. I didn't see her.

I ate a bowl of cereal. I'd never eaten a meal alone before, and it was a surprisingly powerful thing to do, as if the kitchen were a foreign territory I'd conquered. I saw things I'd never noticed, like the way Mother stacked the graying dishcloths in careful squares on the counter and the way the floor was worn between the sink and the oven by my mother's feet and my grandmother's.

As I finished, Lilith crept in the back door, careful not to let the hinges squeak. When she saw me, she smoothed her hair behind her ears. I asked where she'd been, and she said she'd woken when Father left to go fishing and gone for a walk. She sat at the table. She gave me a small smile that held the ghost of her hand in mine the night before, but an odd charge crackled about her. Our silence was edgy with it.

Soon Mother came downstairs with Emily. When she saw my
empty bowl she pressed her lips together. I'd known she would make a big breakfast for our last day, but I hadn't cared. Now, looking at her narrow back as she made coffee, I felt guilty, and angry with her for making me feel that way. Emily tried to catch my eye, but I didn't look at her. I just wanted this day to be over. For us to be on the road to Williamsburg.

“As long as you're up, you may as well start packing,” Mother said without turning around.

The next hour passed in a somber mirror of our first day, as Lilith and I laid our clothes and shoes in our shared trunk. I watched Lilith from the side of my eye. The way she folded her things, with a care unusual for her, made me uneasy, though I couldn't have said why. Then Father came back with two small walleyes, and Mother called us to the table, where I ate her eggs, bacon, and toast as though I hadn't already eaten a bowl of cereal.

It was a cloudy day, with rain certain, but it held off until Lilith and I were washing the lunch dishes. Then, as the first fat drops began to splat against the windows, Mother told me to get the towels that were hanging on the clothesline. I stepped outside with the wicker basket, glad for the excuse to leave the house. The air was thick and warm, tangy, not yet rain-cooled. I closed my eyes and drew it deep into my lungs. When I was younger, I was terrified of thunderstorms. Lilith tried everything—songs, games, stories about dogs rolling around in the sky—but nothing helped. Then one day she brought me into this very backyard as a storm was coming. Wait, she said as I trembled beside her, and we waited in the heavy stillness. Slowly, the top branches of the trees began to shift and shudder like a great beast shaking its harness. Wait, she said again, as the electricity in the air raised the hairs on our arms and the wind turned the leaves upside down. Then, in a crash of thunder, the rain poured down. I screamed, but Lilith laughed, flung her head back, opened her mouth wide to the rain, and shouted,
See? See?

I didn't see, not the way she saw. But I was no longer afraid, and I'd even learned to enjoy the slow, pent-up gathering of the world before a summer storm. So I took my time taking the towels off the line as great, gloppy raindrops fell slow and rare, not yet enough to make me wet.

When I put the last towel in the basket, the wind had begun to toss the high branches. I saw Matthew walking across the Williamses' backyard. His white shirt was blotted with gray where raindrops had fallen on it. I wanted to go inside, but he was looking at me, so I shifted the basket from one hip to the other and waited.

When he reached me we stood uncertainly. The memory of the day before lay like a stain on the ground between us. Then he said, “I wanted to give you something before you go. For your birthday.” He pulled from his pocket a piece of wood the size of a small plum, carved into a teardrop shape. In the center was an
L,
and in the top was a small hole through which he'd threaded a leather string. It was as smooth as a skipping stone, and it fit my palm exactly.

“The wood's from the Hundred Tree.” He smiled in that shy way he had, and suddenly I wanted to throw the pendant as far as I could. Because I couldn't look at it, this gift from my only friend, without seeing Lilith and Abe grinding their bodies together. I couldn't even look at Matthew without seeing them. Around us the wind gathered force. I shoved the pendant in my pocket and ran inside, the basket bouncing on my hip. I could feel his eyes on my back, hurt and confused, and all I could think was that tomorrow morning we would go, and this would all be over. All of it.