The Lost Girls (6 page)

When she woke up, Justine checked her watch to see how many minutes she had before the alarm. Then she remembered: she was in Minnesota, in a double bed in the room next to her daughters'.

She ran her hand across the cool, empty space beside her. She'd slept in her sweatshirt and jeans, missing, against her will, the warmth of Patrick's body pressing against hers. She wondered how Lucy had stood it, sleeping alone in this room where the radiator fought a loud but losing battle against the cold.

The night before, she'd been so tired she hadn't cared that this was probably the bed Lucy had slept—and died—in. She'd only cared that, like the girls' beds, it had fresh sheets. Now she slid from beneath the covers and stood on the small rag rug, rubbing her arms in her sweatshirt. This was definitely Lucy's room. Though it was as immaculate as the girls', it bore the unmistakable tracings of a life. Cotton balls and hairpins filled porcelain pots painted with yellow daisies on the dresser. On the bedside table sat a pair of reading glasses, a small photograph in a gilt frame, and a library copy of
The God of Small Things
.

Justine picked up the novel and fingered the leather bookmark lodged two-thirds of the way through. How terrible to die without finishing a book, she thought. Never to know the end of the story. She read the inside flap. The story sounded exotic and sad. She wouldn't have chosen it. She loved to read, but she liked cozy mysteries, romance novels, the occasional thriller. Trashy stuff, Lucy probably would have thought. But it was distraction she was after, not intellectual stimulation or emotional engagement.

As she set down the book the photograph caught her eye. She picked it up with astonishment. It was a snapshot, the square sort taken by cameras in the late 1970s, and it was of a dark-haired woman and a blond girl. Maurie never kept photographs, claiming she didn't want to look over her shoulder at anything, or at any time, but Justine recognized the woman as a younger version of her mother, and the girl as herself. They were sitting side by side on the porch steps of this very house. The summer sun was bright on their faces, and Maurie looked so young they could have been sisters. Her arm was around Justine, her hand hanging loosely over her shoulder, and they were both laughing at the person taking the picture. Justine looked closer at the image of her younger self. Unkempt hair, bare feet. Too thin. But happy, in that moment, with her mother's arm around her.

It was so quiet here. A thick quiet that pressed on her eardrums. She looked out the tall window that was the twin of the one in the girls' room. The bare branches of the trees were bowed with snow, and the lake looked as if it was covered with white felt. It wasn't snowing now, but the sky was a pearlescent white, and for a moment the monochrome of the world made her dizzy. She set the photograph down.

Her daughters were still asleep, so she went downstairs. The entryway was only slightly less gloomy by the light of day, but at least she could see the pictures that had been shadowy, watchful squares in the dark the evening before. They were black-and-white photographs, the black faded to gray by years behind glass. Two were portraits of a man and a woman in Victorian clothes, the woman's face severe, the man's angular behind a wiry black beard. The third was of a couple posed stiffly in a photographer's studio. The man had striking dark eyes below wavy dark hair. The woman was small and fair, her hair in a chignon that couldn't quite tame her curls. She looked bewildered, as though she couldn't think how she'd come to be there.

The photographs must have been here twenty years before, but Justine didn't remember noticing them then. Now she studied them. These people had to be her ancestors—her great-grandparents and her great-great-grandparents, judging from the clothes. The blond, bewildered woman might even be her great-grandmother, the woman who, the summer Justine had come, lay wasted and dying in the bed she'd just woken up in. Justine had been afraid of her then, but in the photograph she was younger than Justine was now, and in the wan vulnerability of her face Justine saw something she recognized. They were the first pictures she'd seen of anyone in her family besides her mother, and she looked at them for a long time, her fingers working at the collar of her sweatshirt.

Then she went to the living room. It had the pine floors she remembered, but they were the color of dust in the thin light. Maroon velvet curtains framed the wide front window. A sofa and two armchairs upholstered in faded rose-colored fabric faced an ancient television on a metal stand, and on the far wall were a curio cabinet filled with figurines and an oak rolltop desk. Through a set of pocket doors was a small dining room with a table and six chairs. Both rooms swam with silent, chilly eddies of air.

Justine wrapped her arms around her chest and eyed the old metal radiator under the window. It must cost a fortune to heat this place. She should probably close both of these rooms off until spring. Except the living room had the only television in the house. She chewed her lip. They would just have to be careful. She shut the pocket doors to the dining room and made a mental note to turn off the radiators in the bedrooms once the girls were awake.

As she started back to the entryway, she saw an oil painting to the left of the door. It was of a little girl in a blue dress, her dark hair coiled in gleaming ringlets, a calico kitten in her arms. It wasn't very good; even Justine, who knew nothing about art, could see that; but the painter had captured a watchfulness in the child's eyes and a somberness in the turn of her mouth that made
Justine feel almost as if she knew her. Below the painting, two candles sat on a walnut stand with an old Bible between them. Twin smoke stains darkened the gilt frame.

Unlike the photos in the hallway, Justine remembered this painting. One day, as she and Lucy sat on the porch, Justine had asked Lucy who the girl was, and Lucy said she was her little sister, who had disappeared in the woods on the last day of summer a long time ago. Her voice was light, as though it were nothing, just an old story, but her eyes went far away, beyond the lake, and Justine felt uneasy. Later, when she played in the forest, she imagined she was the lost girl living there in secret. She imagined she could go home if she wanted to. But she didn't want to.

Then, not long before she and her mother left, the older women held an observance of sorts. Lucy turned to Lilith and said, she's been asking all day, and Lilith said, we might as well get it done. Together they carried their mother down the stairs and sat her in one of the armchairs, which they'd turned to face the painting. Lucy drew the curtains and lit the candles in the day-dark, and she and Lilith stood on either side of their mother, their hands on the back of her chair. Justine and Maurie stood behind them, Maurie's arms crossed in silent, long-suffering irritation. The scene felt heavy with remembrance and mourning, and Justine waited for something else to happen, for Lilith or Lucy to say something, or to read from the big Bible, but other than lighting the candles, they did nothing. The old woman's dry, fluttering sobs were the only sound, and they were so quiet they sounded like mice chirruping under the floorboards. When she was done, her daughters carried her upstairs again, their hands dutiful.

Now Justine walked over to the Bible and opened it. It was a beautiful book, with gilt-edged pages and an embossed leather cover that was cracked with disuse. On the title page was written “To Thomas—An Enquiring Mind,” signed “Father,” with the date August 12, 1915. Gently, she turned the pages, which were
riddled with underlinings and margin notes in a neat but crabbed hand. A red satin bookmark marked a page with a rectangle drawn around Psalm 51.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness
, it began.

Who was Thomas? Was he Maurie's grandfather, the father of the three Evans sisters? Perhaps the severe, dark-haired man in the photograph in the hallway? Justine thought he must be. She looked up at the painting. The girl's black, pupilless eyes looked back at her as though they were actually seeing her. Unnerved, Justine took a step back.

She heard footsteps on the stairs: Melanie. Justine closed the Bible and went out to the entryway. Even as a baby Melanie hadn't been a morning person, so from long habit Justine didn't try to talk to her; she just led her to the kitchen and made them both toast. As they ate in their usual silence, Justine gave the room a closer look. It wasn't any less shabby in the light of day, but now she noticed more of its homey touches: a set of rooster canisters on the counter, a clock made from a barn door on the wall, and on the table a set of salt and pepper shakers shaped like fat bakers. With the radiator on, it was practically cozy.

One day that summer, she'd come inside, sand on her bare feet, and heard her mother, Lucy, and Lilith talking in here. Her mother's voice was higher than usual. “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.” And, “You have no idea what you're asking.” A softer voice in reply: Lucy. “Think of her, Maurie. Think how it is for her.” Justine must have made a noise, for they called out—“Justine, is that you?”—so she had to come in. Her mother, leaning against the counter, caught her as she passed and pulled her close. “We Evans girls stick together, don't we?” she asked, her voice too bright. Justine nodded because her mother wanted her to nod, and the old women looked back at her with something sad in their faces.

Now Justine turned to Melanie, whose hair hung in limp black curtains above her plate. She found herself smiling. Lucy had
found a way to ask again, hadn't she? A way to ask Justine directly, without Maurie's interference. Now they were here, Justine and her own daughter, in that very same kitchen. “I think this house could be nice if we fixed it up a bit,” she said.

Melanie raised her head. The colorless light of morning fell on the sharp angles of her face. For a moment she looked like someone different, someone older. “I hate it,” she said. “It's freezing, and nobody lives here.”

Stung, Justine looked away, at the teacups in their rack. When Melanie bent over her toast again she went to the sink and washed her plate.

After breakfast they went to see Arthur Williams. The dirt road was even more treacherous with four inches of fresh snow—the low stone walls of the bridge they'd crossed the day before were nearly covered—and Justine wondered uneasily who would plow it. Fortunately, the county road was clear. They followed it through winter forests and small hamlets barely large enough to justify signage: Kishawnee, population 120; West Liberty, population 179; Six Arrows, population 86. Each one a scattering of dirty white houses and a small, understocked-looking general store. Justine turned on the radio. The rock station from Fargo was fuzzy, but she didn't care.

After twenty miles they passed a sign that said
WELCOME TO WILLIAMSBURG, POPULATION
2,425, and the small houses gave way to larger ones, some sturdy and plain, others with wraparound porches and fussy Victorian woodwork. Large oaks lined the street, their roots rippling the shoveled sidewalks. After a few blocks, the street ran into a small central square framed by quaint nineteenth-century storefronts. The Jones General Store anchored one corner. On the opposite corner sat Lloyd's Pharmacy, twin wrought iron benches framing its door, and there was a gazebo
in the center of the square. The little town looked like a Rockwell painting, even with the dirtying snow and the metal-gray sky.

“It's cute, don't you think?” Justine asked the backseat as she slid the Tercel into an angled parking space. Neither girl answered, and as they picked their way down the sidewalk, cold air biting their faces, Justine saw that up close the stores' signs were worn and paint was peeling on many buildings. Several shops were closed, with faded
FOR LEASE
signs in the windows. She walked quickly, hoping the girls wouldn't notice, but a glance at Melanie told her that she, with those sharp eyes that found fault in everything, had.

The law office was on the first floor of a plain two-story building facing the square. On its plate glass window the firm's name was stenciled in chipped gold and black:
WILLIAMS & WILLIAMS, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW, EST.
1885. Its waiting area was furnished with four straight-backed chairs and a coffee table on well-worn parquet floors. At a small desk a woman with neat gray hair looked up when they came in.

“I'm Justine Evans. I'm here to see Mr. Williams.” Justine glanced at the lettering on the window. “Arthur Williams.”

“There's just the one. Mr. Williams's uncle passed ten years ago.” The secretary picked up her phone and motioned them to the chairs. “I'll let him know you're here.”

Justine and her daughters sat. Angela swung her feet until Justine stopped her with a hand on her knee. Melanie picked at her fingers. It was quiet except for the clacking of the receptionist's fingernails on her keyboard until the door beside her desk opened on a slight man of about sixty, stooped in tweed pants and a light blue dress shirt. His gray eyes behind wire-framed glasses followed Justine with keen but friendly interest as she and the girls entered his office, which was surprisingly opulent after the austerity of the waiting room. Its shelves were heavy with law books, an Oriental rug lay on the floor, and the mahogany desk was the size of a small boat. Justine took one of the two leather chairs and lifted Angela
onto her lap while Melanie took the other. Arthur sat in the enormous desk chair. It made him look even smaller.

“This office was my great-uncle's,” he said with a smile, as though he'd read her thoughts. “Apparently it was important to him to have the biggest desk in town. How are you faring at Lucy's?”

Justine smiled back, liking him. “It's cold.” She cleared her throat. “But the house is clean. The beds were made up for us.”

“I told Matthew you would be coming. I trust he's been helpful.”