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  “She suffered irreparable brain damage during the delivery. The Tebows are suing Dr. Feingold for malpractice. Dr. Feingold should have opted for a C-section, which Meredith suggested. The mother was exhausted. But Dr. Feingold wouldn’t listen; he wouldn’t be told what to do. He cut an episiotomy and used forceps instead, applying too much pressure to the infant’s fragile skull.”

  “But she will be all right?” I ask, worried for baby Grace. The fact that Shelby is suing for malpractice concerns me. Lots of doctors get sued. As a doctor myself, it’s one of my biggest fears. Many malpractice suits are settled or dismissed before they ever get to court. But still, it has lasting effects on a doctor’s finances and reputation. If Dr. Feingold is the type of man Jeanette paints him to be, I wonder what kind of reaction he’d have to being sued.

  Jeanette shrugs. “We may not know for some time. Some of these children are diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Some seizure disorders. Still others have developmental delays. Meredith planned to testify against Dr. Feingold. She was to give a deposition this week,” she says, and for a second I don’t breathe. I think that this doctor did something to silence Meredith so she couldn’t speak out against him. The timing is significant. First Shelby went missing and then Meredith, the two women who were witness to his negligence.

  We go quiet, each lost in our own thoughts. In time, Jeanette drifts away, standing under a tree in the distance, staring upward at the clouds. I watch her for a moment.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Bea says, stealing my attention away from Jeanette.

  The rain picks up and then slows down. Dusk seems to come sooner than usual because of the rain. By late afternoon it’s turning dark, the clouds heavy and gray. Tonight there will be thunderstorms, some violent, newscasters predict.

  Later, early in the evening, we watch as Josh’s car pulls down the street. He parks in front of the house. He stays there, not getting out, while the rest of us watch on, expectantly. We hold our collective breath, wondering what Josh knows that we don’t. Is Meredith dead?

  I see him through the windshield. He sits in the car awhile, bent over the steering wheel. Is he crying? Or is he just collecting his breath? I think about approaching, of going to the car, knocking on the window and getting his attention. But Josh deserves this second of peace. He’s been gone for hours. It’s nearing five o’clock. For the last few hours, the rest of us have been gathered on his lawn, holding a near-silent vigil. Everyone stayed. Even with the weather as it is, no one left. No one would leave until they knew what was happening down there by the river.

  When he steps from the car, Josh’s body sags. He trips over the curb, stumbling like he’s been drinking. But Josh isn’t drunk. His shoulders round forward, his head dropped so far his chin practically touches his chest. He has been crying. Though his tears are dry now, the evidence is written all over his face: the redness and the swollen eyes. He looks a decade older than he did this morning, and entirely spent. There’s dirt on his hands and on the knees of his pants.

  He makes his way to us. But partway across the lawn he stops. He leans heavily against a tree, burying his face into his hands as if he can’t go on. There he sobs, his whole body convulsing, and, twenty feet away, Bea wraps her arms around me, steadying me so I, too, don’t collapse.

  The worst has happened. Meredith is dead.

  No one goes to him. We all stand by and let him have this cry. Many among us begin to cry, too. My hand goes to my mouth, expecting all the emotion that’s welled up inside me to come flooding out. But it doesn’t. I hold it inside, focusing instead on what needs to be done. We need to find Delilah. The search for her needs to be amped up. We can’t stand around and mourn Meredith’s loss when we have Delilah to find.

  Behind me, Bea quietly cries. We’ve switched roles. Usually I’m the more emotional, Bea the logical, the one orchestrating plans. But Bea and Meredith were close. Bea and Delilah were close.

  There will be a funeral. Arrangements will have to be made. Bea and I will help Josh with the arrangements. He shouldn’t have to do that alone. He’ll be completely beside himself now that Meredith is dead.

  Those words get trapped in my head. They’re incomprehensible to me. Meredith is dead. They don’t belong together.

  But when Josh finally manages to collect himself, he tells us.

  “It’s not her,” he chokes out.

  “What do you mean it’s not her?” someone asks.

  “The body,” he says. “It wasn’t Meredith. It was that Tebow woman,” he cries out, and, God help me, I feel the greatest sense of relief. My knees buckle, and only then do the tears come. Tears of relief that it’s Shelby and not Meredith.

  He tells us how Mr. Tebow came down to the station and identified her body. “What happened to her?” someone asks. “How did she die?”

  It’s a question we all want to know. But only one of us has the nerve to ask.

  “We won’t know until after the autopsy,” Josh says. But he tells us that Shelby’s death is being investigated as a homicide. It was clear that foul play was to blame. Everyone gasps, then falls silent.

  Just then a plainclothes officer steps out of Josh and Meredith’s house, a woman, a brunette with strong features: an angular jawline, straight nose, jutting cheekbones. Her lips are thin, her eyes narrow, cheeks taut. She could be pretty if she smiled. She wears a pantsuit, a holster with a handgun tucked beneath the jacket of it. The wind blows, pulling the plackets of her jacket apart and I see it: the gun. She crosses the lawn for Josh, some male detective with a lesser paygrade following behind. Stupidly I think that she is going to comfort Josh, to give him some statistic, to say something reassuring about investigations like this.

  But instead, when she speaks, her voice is flat and comfortless. “Mr. Dickey,” she says. “Detective Rowlings.” She flashes a badge. “If you wouldn’t mind stepping inside with us for a minute?” while making a motion toward Josh’s home behind him. I look. It’s a beautiful home, a blue Queen Anne, over a century old. It’s large and ornate, with round towers and cone-shaped roofs that give the impression of a small castle. As long as we’ve lived here, Josh and Meredith have lived here.

  Josh stands upright. He wipes at his eyes, dries the remaining tears. Everyone else stands at attention and leans in to listen.

  Josh looks around. He sees the mass of people waiting there for news. Every man, woman and child here has set aside their own day for Meredith and Delilah.

  “If you have something to say about my wife,” Josh says, fighting for composure, “you can just say it. Everyone is here for the same reason. To find my family.”

  “There’s no news, sir,” Detective Rowlings says grimly, shaking her head. “We have some questions for you.”

  “What kind of questions?” Josh asks.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” she says, “we’d prefer to discuss this inside.”

  A van pulls down the street. It comes to a stop behind Josh’s car. We watch as a man and a woman in Tyvek get out of the van and head for the house. I swallow against a lump in my throat. They’ve found something.

  “I have to pick up my son,” Josh says. He looks at his watch. “I have to pick him up from the babysitter. I told her I’d be there by five. I’m already late. Can this wait?” he asks.

  “Couldn’t you make other arrangements for your son?” Detective Rowlings asks, promising this won’t take long. She’s unsympathetic. I doubt she has children.

  Bea steps forward. “We’ll get him,” she says to Josh. “Kate and I will get him and keep him until you’re done.” She touches Josh’s arm.

  “That’d be a big help,” Josh says over his shoulder. “Thank you, Bea.”

  While dozens watch, Josh, with his head hung low, follows the detective to his house and closes the door.

  LEO

  NOW

  Dad tells you you
’ll sleep in your old room, ’cause where else would you sleep? Still, it’s weird having someone in that room. No one’s been in that room for as long as I can remember.

  Dad has to show you where your room is because you don’t know.

  You also don’t know my name. After half a day of assuming, it becomes evident you don’t know. Dad tells you I’m Leo. “You remember Leo, don’t you?” he asks, and you shake your head, which doesn’t surprise me, because I’m not so memorable.

  “He was smaller the last time you saw him,” Dad says.

  You don’t have any clothes other than the ones you’re wearing, which came from the hospital’s clothes closet. They were donated. I can tell by looking at them that they’re not new. You’re wearing someone else’s old clothes. But the only clothes in your closet are a kids’ size six, because that’s the size you wore when you were taken. They’re not going to fit. Dad is tall, so he says to me, “Leo. Find something in your closet for your sister to wear.”

  I still can’t wrap my head around it, how when Dad says your sister, he’s talking about you. You’re here in the same room as me. You’re home. Or at least some version of you is home.

  I go to my room. I find a shirt I don’t wear anymore. I find a pair of sweatpants. I bring them to you. “Here,” I say, holding them out.

  You take them. You say back, “Thank you, sir.” I can’t even bring myself to laugh because it’s pitiful that you think you need to call me, your kid brother, sir. Talk about fucked up.

  “Just call me Leo already. Old people are sirs.”

  You stand in your doorway holding my shirt and pants in your hands. There are things I want to know. Questions I want to ask you, but can’t. Questions about Mom. I know the story the police came up with. What I want to know is if that’s really the way it went down.

  Dad asks if you want him to tuck you in, after you get dressed. His eyes get wet when he does. They’re hopeful, desperate. I can hear it in his voice. He’s begging you to let him tuck you in. It’s been eleven years.

  You stare back. You say nothing.

  Dad stands down because of your silence. “If there’s anything you need,” he says, “just ask.” Dad is as good as a stranger to you. It would be pretty messed up for him to tuck you into bed. You’re also too old for snug as a bug in a rug. Dad stopped tucking me in when you disappeared. He was too busy crying himself to sleep to notice me.

  I lock my door when I go to sleep. I don’t know what kind of person you are.

  The lady cop said you escaped because you made your own shank. Except she didn’t say shank. She said an improvised weapon. You stabbed somebody with it. There was blood on your clothes when they found you. It was his.

  How do I know you won’t stab me, too?

  I try to sleep. I can’t get comfortable. I think I won’t sleep. But then, before I know it, I hear Dad calling for you, screaming out your name. I look at the clock. It’s two a.m. Somehow or other, I slept.

  I scramble from bed. I unlock the door and stumble from the room. When I find him, he’s in the hall. He’s out of his mind. His breathing is heavy. He spins in circles in the dark hall as if you’re right there, two feet behind, but he can’t get there fast enough to see you.

  I go for the light switch, turn it on. The bright lights hurt my eyes. I use a hand to shield them. Dad’s sweating. He’s got a hand pressed to his chest like it hurts. I’m not so sure he isn’t having a heart attack.

  “She’s gone,” Dad says, coming to a stop in front of me. He’s wearing pajamas. Dad doesn’t usually wear pajamas. Usually he wears boxer shorts. But tonight he had the wherewithal to put something more appropriate on, because of you. Except that the pajamas are long-sleeved. He sweats because of them.

  I ask, “What do you mean she’s gone?”

  Dad grabs me by the shoulders. He gives me a shake and says, “She just is, Leo. She’s not here. She’s gone. Delilah is gone.”

  I think he’s had a bad dream, something about you disappearing. It would be understandable. I go to your room to see for myself, but he’s right. You are gone. The blankets and sheets are pulled all the way up like no one’s ever slept in the bed. My clothes are on the floor. You didn’t put them on.

  I check the window first. It’s closed and locked. Wherever you went, you didn’t go out that way. I think you ran away, but maybe your kidnapper came and got you. “The fucking reporters.” That’s what Dad’s muttering, ’cause anyone watching the news now knows what town we live in, what our house looks like, and they know that you’re here. A ten-year-old with internet access and a bike could find you.

  I leave your room. I check the bathroom, and then Dad and I race downstairs to scout out places you might be. We come up empty. There’s no sign of you on the first floor. The front door and the back door are shut and locked.

  Dad’s on the phone, calling the lady cop because he has her number programmed into his phone. It’s the middle of the night, but that doesn’t stop him. There are cops sitting right outside, but Dad doesn’t bother with them or with 911.

  The lady cop answers immediately. “Carmen. It’s me. Josh,” he says, breathlessly. His informality makes me want to gag.

  I leave. I go from window to window, trying to figure out which way you went. You have no shoes. So whichever way you went, you went barefoot. But that’s nothing new to you.

  I make the rounds. The windows are shut. They’re all locked. You didn’t go out any of them. I head back toward the kitchen. I pass by the basement door on the way there. I don’t know why I look, except that I’m running out of options. I open the door. It’s black down the steps. The basement is unfinished because even though Mom hoped to finish it one day, it didn’t happen before she tried to slash her wrists. Tried being the operative word, because she failed. The cuts were shallow, not enough to bleed out. There were a whole bunch of them, but they only got the surface veins. Mom didn’t get down to either of the main arteries, the ones that would have killed her. According to statistics, most people who try to slash their wrists fail. Because it hurts.

  That’s when Mom turned the knife around and stabbed herself in the abdomen. Easy and quick. According to coroner reports, she managed to get her own liver and bleed out. She had a nasty lump on the back of her head, too, from whacking something on the way down.

  I turn on a light. The basement becomes yellow. I go down the steps and there you are, sprawled on the concrete floor.

  At first glance, I think you’re dead.

  But then I see that your chest is moving. You’re breathing. You’re not dead; you’re asleep.

  You passed on a soft, warm bed to come sleep on the cold, hard basement floor in the dark. Because for eleven years, it’s all you’ve known. In some effed up way, you find comfort in it, being down here in our dark, dingy basement.

  It doesn’t get much more fucked up than that.

  MEREDITH

  11 YEARS BEFORE

  March

  In the middle of the night, my cell phone pings. It’s been four days since I’ve received a threatening text. Somehow, I’ve put them out of my mind. Since nothing bad has happened to me, I’ve convinced myself they’re some stupid teenage prank. Some kids must’ve gotten ahold of my name and number and are having a field day messing with me.

  When the text comes, my first thought isn’t that it’s a threat. My first thought is that it’s a client in labor. I have two women due soon. I never go to bed with the guarantee that I’ll be able to sleep the night through without having to go to a birth. It’s a hazard of the job.

  Beside me, Josh stirs at the sound of the phone. It’s a preprogrammed response; he’s gotten used to this. He rolls away from me. He pulls the covers over his head.

  I reach for the phone. I glance down at it, the light from the screen burning my eyes.

  I’m scared, it reads.

&nb
sp; The text comes from Shelby Tebow. I sigh. I prop myself on my elbows to reply. Shelby is scared of giving birth. Many women are. I was, too, for both Delilah and Leo. It’s a fear that doesn’t necessarily go away, even after your first. With Delilah everything went right. With Leo it all went wrong. If I was to have a third, I’d still be scared.

  But the middle of the night is not the ideal time for a pep talk. Some clients don’t toe the line. They think that because they’re paying for my services, they have access to me around the clock. Such is not the case. My rules are laid out in the contract. If they’re in labor, then I’m at their beck and call. But if they have cold feet, they’ll still have cold feet during normal business hours. This is something I’d be glad to talk about tomorrow.

  I write back, All first-time mothers get scared. It’s normal. Try to sleep. You need your rest. Let’s talk tomorrow. xo.

  It’s an empathetic response, but one that hopefully puts the kibosh on a lengthy discussion. I’ll call her tomorrow, ask if she wants to meet for coffee and discuss. We’ll make a list of her fears and tackle them one by one.

  Shelby doesn’t write back at first. It’s three in the morning. She took the hint and went to bed.

  But just as I’m about to return my phone to the nightstand, it pings.

  I’m scared of my husband, it says this time.

  I stare at those words. I read them through twice. I haven’t met Shelby’s husband. I don’t know who he is. I do know that his name is Jason, and the few things Shelby told me about him.

  I don’t wake Josh. Josh would tell me to drop this client. He’d say that I don’t need to be getting myself involved in some sort of domestic dispute.

  But I’m already involved, aren’t I? Shelby paid her deposit. She and I both signed the contract. I put a copy in the mail for her yesterday.

  That said, the check still sits on the kitchen counter. It’s waiting to be deposited. I suppose I could just give it back. I could say I’ve bitten off more than I can chew and can’t take on another client. I have another eight women due next month, same month that Shelby is due. The odds of two of them going into labor at the same time is good. I could apologize, recommend another doula. Shelby might leave me a bad Yelp review. But that would likely be the end of it. That’s the worst she could do. I don’t think she could sue.