Local Woman Missing Read online

  “What time is it?” I ask, bleary-eyed. I try to shade my eyes from the morning sun that streams in through the break in the curtains.

  “Six,” he says. “There’s coffee on the table beside you. What time did you get home?”

  “Around four.”

  When I got home, it took me a while to fall asleep. I was scared, wondering if the same person who texted me had also followed me home. I thought about waking Josh and telling him what happened. But I didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. Josh already worries. He’s said it before, how he doesn’t like me driving home alone in the middle of the night after a birth. Many, if not all, of the hospitals I visit have sketchy parking garages. Some of the hospitals are in the city, in rougher neighborhoods that I have to walk through to get to my car. There aren’t many people on the street after nightfall. I’ve always been dismissive of his concerns. If anything, I’ve agreed to the pepper spray, to downloading some app on my phone that tracks my whereabouts all of the time. Josh feels better because of it. This way, he said—when he convinced me to download the app and accept his friend invite—if you go missing, I can find you. He said it in jest and we both laughed at the time. But now it’s not funny.

  It works both ways. I can keep tabs on Josh, too, though I never have.

  Josh has suggested before that I shut down my private doula practice and teach yoga full-time. He likes that yoga classes are held during business hours. That the hours are predicable. That the clientele is primarily female. I don’t tell Josh about what happened last night because he’d want to reopen this discussion. That’s not an argument I want to have. I love the practice of yoga. But teaching yoga can be repetitive, mundane. I couldn’t do that for the rest of my life. I love what I do. I love the miracle of birth.

  “What’d they have?” Josh asks, and I tell him a boy.

  “Zeppelin,” I say.

  He pulls a face. “As in the blimp?” he asks.

  I laugh. “As in the band,” I say, not sure it makes it any better.

  “Do you want me to wake the kids?” Josh asks, but there’s no need because I hear them down the hall, their feet hobbling toward our room. They appear in the doorway, all bedhead and out of joint. Delilah clutches her doll, Leo his beloved blue blankie. He never goes anywhere without that thing. He hangs on Delilah’s arm, and already, at six in the morning, she’s whining at him to stop touching her. Leo deifies Delilah. He can’t get enough of her. All he wants is to be with her, in any capacity. He’ll play hours of school, of house. Delilah, on the other hand, wishes he was a girl, a big sister preferably.

  “Come on, guys,” Josh says as he stands before the floor mirror, tying a half-Windsor knot into his houndstooth tie. Josh always wears a tie to work. He’s always well groomed. He wants to look good for his clients because looking good fosters confidence and respect. I get that. I stare at his reflection in the mirror. My husband is incredibly handsome. How did I get so lucky? I often wonder.

  The kids jump into bed with me. Before Josh leaves, he tells them to be good for Mommy. Delilah finds the remote and turns the TV on. Together we sit quietly in bed watching Bubble Guppies. Delilah lays her head on my lap and Leo snuggles in closely beside me. I wrap my arm around him, wishing we could stay like this all day. Ever since Delilah started kindergarten, our days go by exceptionally fast. I miss the long, lazy days we used to have, when they were younger. But before nine o’clock comes, Delilah will be in school, Leo at the sitter’s and me at work.

  I reach for the coffee Josh has left me and take a sip. An hour of sleep is never enough. The exhaustion wears me down, makes me feel physically ill.

  My phone is on the table beside me, volume turned up because it has to be. I never have the luxury of powering it down at night, because a client might need me. I reach for it in the hopes that I somehow misunderstood the text messages from yesterday. I take a look, ever hopeful, yet there they are, just the same as they were last night, instantly evoking fear.

  I hope you rot in hell, Meredith.

  KATE

  11 YEARS BEFORE

  May

  The next morning when I wake up, Bea is already gone. It was nearly one o’clock by the time I went to bed. I only got five hours of sleep, and even that was intermittent at best, because I kept thinking of Meredith and Delilah, hoping that by morning there’d be good news. Hoping that by morning they’d be found.

  Now I take the servant stairs down to the kitchen and find that Bea is in her studio, working again because the back door is open. There are two staircases in our house, one in the front, and this one, which is narrow, curved and tucked away in back, a passageway from the second floor to the kitchen, dating back to times when servants weren’t meant to be seen. It’s one of the reasons I first fell in love with the old home, for its history.

  Bea must have taken her own breakfast out to the studio to eat while she works. She’s left me a plate. The cool, humid morning air comes in through the open door.

  Bea had the detached garage converted into a music studio when she moved in with me. It’s a charming place, though one I rarely go inside because it’s Bea’s workplace, much in the same way that she doesn’t ever show up at my office. Boundaries are important in a relationship.

  Bea writes her own music in the garage. She records it. I know I shouldn’t, but still I try and listen in sometimes because Bea has a sexy voice. It’s husky and rich and thick. You’d think she smoked a pack a day by the sound of her voice, but she doesn’t. But unless she leaves the door open by mistake I can’t hear inside.

  I met Bea six years ago at a bar in the city where she was performing. It was the summer before vet school. I was working as a cocktail waitress to earn extra cash for school. We fell in love. Two months later, I left for school. We kept in touch; Bea came to visit me. After graduation, I came back, got a job, bought a house.

  When Bea moved in with me, she didn’t want to piss the neighbors off with her music. It’s the reason we had the garage converted, making it soundproof. She figured the neighbors would already be pissed off enough with two gay women living on the street. The idea of a house in suburbia made Bea’s skin crawl; she wasn’t that type. But she did it for me. The house was close and convenient to my work. Bea could work anywhere.

  The house is a yellow 1904 Italianate in our town’s historic district. It sits just a stone’s throw away from a college campus, in an area more liberal than conservative. It’s romantic, with brick walkways and hundred-year-old trees. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t the occasional hatred and bigotry. Because no matter where you go, you can’t get away from that.

  Bea no longer performs in bars. These days, the only time I hear her sing is in the shower. For someone who loves to perform for a crowd, she’s strictly against private performances.

  When Bea is writing music, she disconnects from the rest of the world. She tunes it completely out. It’s when she’s gone the longest that I know she’s lost herself in her music and I’m happy for her because of it. Bea is a born musician. She taught voice and guitar lessons for years, performed in bars and nightclubs. But that didn’t satisfy her. It wasn’t what she saw herself doing for the rest of her life. Now she’s working on an album.

  That said, Bea isn’t some freeloader. She carries her weight financially. She’s sold some of the songs that she’s written and has a nice inheritance from a dead grandma who was apparently rich. I never met her. She was dead before I met Bea. Not only did Bea get her money from her; she also got her name, Beatrice, which is one of those vintage names someone else might hate, but not Bea. She adored her grandmother. A picture of them together sits on Bea’s nightstand.

  When my back is turned, Bea steps inside. She closes the door and comes to me, wrapping her arms around me from behind. I turn to her, let her envelop me. Bea is in her pajamas still, the cotton shorts and Kurt Cobain shirt she wore to sleep. Her dark hai
r hangs long and straight because somehow, inexplicably, Bea never gets bedhead.

  “I want to jump in the shower before they get here,” she says, they meaning the subcontractors who are working on our home. The house is old and we’re in the midst of a messy renovation. The house is full of historic elements, which we love: the ceiling medallions; the original, oversize windows; the library with its built-ins; the servant stairs. They tell a story. But the bathrooms and the kitchen are seventies-era, thanks to some previous owner who did a hack job on them. They lack the charm the rest of the house still has. We’re getting those redone, brought back to a modern version of their original state, to restore the history and authenticity of the home.

  There’s a combination lockbox on our front door. The workers come and go whenever they want. Their workday starts as early as seven a.m. If we aren’t quick to shower in the morning, they catch us in our pajamas. These men know their way around our house because they’re here even when Bea and I aren’t. It had never bothered me before, but now, in light of what’s happened over the last twelve hours, it does.

  The contractor came recommended from Josh, who had work done on his own home, a 1890s Queen Anne. Apparently they’re whizzes at keeping the integrity of historic homes. Meredith, though pleased with the final result, hated the invasion of privacy. She couldn’t wait for their renovation to be through, she’d told us, saying how glad she was to have that lockbox removed from her door, to regain sole possession of her home afterward. I’m thinking now that Bea and I should take it a step further than that and have the locks replaced, because who’s to say one of the subcontractors couldn’t have duplicated the key? It makes my stomach hurt to think about someone besides Bea and me having a key to our home.

  “Any news from Josh?” I ask. It’s early. I don’t expect Bea to have heard from him, but as it turns out, she has.

  “I just saw him,” she says, telling me that he was in the backyard, letting his dog out.

  “What did he say?” I ask Bea, measuring out the coffee and pouring it into the filter. I hope for good news, but it’s not.

  “Meredith still isn’t home,” she says.

  “He hasn’t heard from her?”

  “No,” she says. “Not a word. The police came last night.”

  “I know. I saw them. What did they say? What are they doing to find her and Delilah?”

  “Not enough, according to Josh. He’s trying to organize a search party himself,” Bea says. “He was outside, making calls this morning, appealing to family and friends to help. I told him we’d help,” she says.

  I nod and say, “Yes, of course. Anything. Whatever he needs.”

  I have the day off work. But even if I didn’t, I would stay home and help search. Meredith and Delilah need me now. Finding them is all that matters.

  LEO

  NOW

  That first night in our house you hardly speak. You don’t say anything unless Dad says something first. You keep your head hung low. You don’t look at us.

  You call Dad sir. He tells you not to, but you do it, anyway, ’cause you can’t stop. Every time you say it, Dad dies a little inside. I see it in his eyes.

  You cower in the corner of rooms, looking scared as hell. You don’t know what to do with yourself, with your hands, with your eyes. Dad tells you to have a seat because he’s so worried about your feet, which were full of glass and thorns and flint when the cops got to you. Docs had to pick it all out with tweezers. You didn’t flinch, ’cause I’m guessing that’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.

  When Dad tells you to have a seat, you drop to the floor. We’re in the kitchen when it happens, in a room with six chairs. Yet you pick the floor. Dad looks shook but goes on as if it’s no big deal because he doesn’t want you to feel all weirded out by calling you out for it. So instead he makes turkey sandwiches and we all eat on the stupid floor, except you don’t eat much because two sandwiches in one day is like five hundred more calories than you’re used to, and your stomach can’t handle it. You try to eat. You look hell-bent on eating, but you also look like you could puke.

  I tell you, “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to,” because I can see in your eyes that you think you do.

  When Dad goes to take your plate away, you pull back fast. You whimper a little, like you think he’s going to hit you. It gives Dad pause. Sure, we both know you got roughed up while you were gone. That goes without saying. But knowing it and seeing it are two different things. I feel bad for you, thinking all the time that someone’s going to sucker punch you. I’ve been beaten up by kids at school before. I know what it’s like. Except that at school there’s always some teacher there to pull kids off me, though that’s not necessarily a good thing ’cause I still get in trouble for fighting, and then I get crucified by kids for being a sissy. A one-two punch. But at least I don’t get killed.

  I doubt you ever had anyone to stand up for you.

  I can’t help myself. I stare at you. I don’t remember what you used to look like, but I’ve seen videos and the pictures. You look almost the same as you did before, except you’re bigger now, though hardly, and what were baby teeth are big and yellow and crooked. Your hair is bald in spots. I see Dad trying not to look at the bald spots, but they’re hard to miss. Kids aren’t supposed to be bald.

  Later I ask Dad why he thinks you’re going bald. I ask if he thinks you have cancer. He gets mad at me for that. He says of course you don’t have cancer but he never says why he thinks you’re going bald. I take my question to the internet. You might have alopecia. But more likely, you’re compulsively pulling your own hair out or it’s falling out because of stress. When I read that, I feel like a jerk for thinking you have cancer. I tell myself not to stare at the bald spots anymore because I don’t want to give you a complex. I wonder if you even know the bald spots are there.

  You talk like a redneck. Which is weird as fuck since you come from an upper-middle-class neighborhood in the Midwest. But you haven’t been to school since kindergarten. And whoever had you was probably some redneck meth head, and everything you know, you learned from him.

  Though mostly you don’t talk, you just say yes sir and no ma’am.

  That night, the cops keep watch on our house. They sit parked in their police car, same as the news crews do, everyone vying for a piece of you.

  MEREDITH

  11 YEARS BEFORE

  March

  I’ve just stepped outside. The day is expected to be unseasonably warm, nearing sixty degrees. The morning starts off cold. It’s only March. There are robins in the trees, making their way back from their winter homes.

  The kids and I are running late. We’re rushing. I glance at the time on my phone. It’s eight-thirty. I have to get the kids where they need to be, and make it to my yoga class on the other side of town by nine o’clock. I’ll never make it.

  Cassandra is outside with Piper and Arlo. I see them, heading off to school. The school is a couple blocks away, the distance short enough that the school doesn’t provide a bus. We have to walk. Either that or I have to drive Delilah to school. I never like to drive because the drop-off line is a nightmare. Some days I drive just close enough and then let Delilah off, letting her walk the rest of the way alone. I never feel good about it. She’s only six years old. But there are other mothers and other children there, and also a crossing guard. Nothing bad will happen to her with so many people around. Delilah is street smart; she knows the way to go. She knows better than to talk to strangers or to be lured in by things like candy or kittens.

  But today I won’t have to do that. I glance up at Cassandra, Piper and Arlo across the street, heading out of their own home. They look like something out of a magazine. They’re completely put together and holding hands as they trot down their stone walkway and to the sidewalk. They’re a picture-perfect family. Arlo is a toddler, yet he’ll w
alk the distance without complaint. No one makes a fuss of holding hands.

  I look to my own children. Today Delilah wears a dress. I combed her hair and found the elusive part, using a water bottle to tame the flyaway hairs. I managed a shower, and Leo got dressed all by himself, with his pants on the right way for a change. We don’t look half-bad ourselves, considering. On the outside, we’re put together, too.

  But inside I’m all wrought up, my panic and agitation tucked neatly behind a smile. I’m getting by somehow on an hour of sleep.

  “Hey, Cassandra,” I call out, waving across the street. We speed walk to her and the kids. “Hi, Piper. Hi, Arlo,” I say too eagerly. Delilah beams at her friend. She offers a shy wave, one that’s only waist-high. She’s shy because of Cassandra and me. If there were no adults here, Delilah would be uninhibited. She’s the extrovert in our family. I don’t know where she gets it. It must be from Josh, not me.

  “I’m so glad I saw you,” I say. “Perfect timing. Do you mind if Delilah tags along with you to school? We’re running late,” I say, knowing that Cassandra never has any issue with walking Delilah to school.

  “Please,” Piper pleads.

  Cassandra says, “Yes, sure, of course,” which I knew she would. It wasn’t like Cassandra was going to say no. They’re headed in the same direction that we need to go and, really, one more child isn’t a burden.

  Delilah tries to run off without saying goodbye. “Come back here, missy,” I tease.

  She giggles. She rushes back, wrapping her arms around my legs, and I hug back, inhaling the smell of her, a combination of syrup and shampoo. I remind her to be good, to do as Miss Cassandra says. “Okay, Mommy,” she says.

  I watch them walk away, missing Delilah before she’s gone. I remember her first day of day care, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach at leaving my child with a person I didn’t know well. It’s lessened over the years, but has never gone completely away. It was hard for me to go back to work after the kids were born, even though it was something I needed to do for myself.