Читать книгу The Good Daughter: A gripping, suspenseful, page-turning thriller - Alexandra Burt - Страница 15

Dahlia

After leaving the Barrington for the last time, I rack my mind, wondering what the next step down from hotel housekeeper is going to be. On my mother’s street, I find her house sitting quietly without a sign of life. The glaring and lonely porch light illuminates the impeccably clean front porch. I can’t make out a single cricket in the harsh light of the bare bulb.

When I cross the threshold, beneath my feet something crackles as if I am stepping on a cracker or a piece of popcorn. I take another step and again I hear a crunching sound. Another step, another crunch. I swipe the light switch upward. Arranged two inches apart like cookie dough on a sheet pan is a carpet of cricket carcasses.

“Mom?” I call out, but there’s no answer.

The back door gapes open, leaving a hole big enough to swallow a body. After I check the house and search for a note haphazardly left atop newspapers and magazines, I step out into the backyard. The fence gate is wide open.

My mother’s neighborhood sits in rows of identical houses, all bungalows, no basements, small upper windows above narrow porches and square bays. The only differences are the conditions of the lawns and an occasional hanging basket, but mostly the houses are uniform. I call out her name every so often and I tell myself that she went for a walk and forgot to shut the back door. And the gate. And forgot to leave a note.

When I arrive at the nearby park, less than half a mile from the house, I find the parking lot deserted. The entrance sign states that entering after dark is prohibited but around here no one really cares. The walkways are concrete and the silver maples, planted many years ago, now reach all the way up to the streetlights. No faint trickle of a nearby creek, not in the summer, not in Texas.

I stride down the walkway, past park benches and a small pond. I catch a whiff of garbage cans from the dog park to my right and I smile, for once certain this is not a figment of my imagination or my nose betraying me. About half a mile later, I hear a whining sound coming from the playground. Then I hear a whimper; this time it seems almost childlike.

“Mom?” I walk toward the general location of the whine, stop, and wait for it to resume.

“Mom?” This time louder, more urgent. I hear hissing that sounds like a snake, but then a cat scurries past me and disappears into the bushes.

I return home and dial the Aurora precinct number. I ask for Officer Roberto de la Vega and leave a voicemail. I tell him, “My mother has walked off into the darkness.” I realize how melodramatic that sounds. “Call me back,” I add. “I don’t know if I should wait at home or look for her. Or where to look. I don’t know if I should worry even. The back door is open and she’s gone.” I’m trying not to sound too alarmed, it’s not an emergency, but it is in the middle of the night. “She didn’t leave a note or anything.”

I am exhausted and I prop my legs up on the coffee table and fall asleep.

I awake to harsh lights shining through the kitchen window. Parting the curtain, I see a police cruiser parked in the street with its nose poking into the driveway. A face stares at me through the window and Bobby points toward the front door. After I open the door, Bobby fumbles with the radio attached to his shoulder.

“Hey, troublemaker,” he says and smiles. Then, more seriously, “I got your message. A couple of patrol cars are out looking for her. Do you have any idea where she could be?”

“She goes out without telling me, but never in the middle of the night. I told her to always leave a note so I know where she is. I checked the park earlier. That’s where she goes often.”

“Was she upset or acting strange at all?” Bobby asks.

My body blocks the view into the house and the crickets on the floor. I step outside and pull the door shut behind me. No one needs to know about the crickets just yet.

“Not that I know of,” I say. “I got home and the back door was wide open. I wouldn’t have known she was gone if it hadn’t been for that door. I thought she was upstairs, in bed. She’s usually asleep by the time I get home.”

“Well, sit tight, we’ll find her. Call me if she shows up?”

“Sure,” I say.

I follow Bobby down the driveway to his cruiser and watch it crawl down the road. He never really speeds up, and then he stops and puts it in reverse. He rolls down the passenger’s seat window and leans forward.

“Just got word. They found her.”

“Where?”

“Down country road 2410, toward Elroy.”

“2410 and Elroy? That’s miles from here.”

Bobby doesn’t answer. He fumbles with the mobile computer and, without looking at me, he says, “They’re taking her in.”

“Taking her in for what? Did she rob a gas station or something?” I say, trying to sound lighthearted.

“She’s okay, but she has a few scratches. And she refused to tell the officers her name. They asked her repeatedly but she wouldn’t tell them. Told them she was out for a walk.”

FM 2410 is nothing but a deserted country road and I don’t know of any houses out there at all. There’s an occasional mailbox, and driveways leading to properties, most of them just plots of deserted land. Walking down 2410 is a peculiar thing to do. Not telling the police her name is a new one, even for my mother. And then there are the neatly arranged crickets in the house. A voice in my head is whispering, telling me that none of this is remotely in the realm of normal, reminding me that lately she has been talking without punctuation or taking a breath, but all I can think is that I’m glad she’s okay.

“They’re taking her to Metroplex,” Bobby finally confirms. “They will call you.”

He goes on, but I stop listening. I don’t mean to tune him out but I can’t erase the picture of my mother walking down a dark country road. I imagine her defiant, ignoring the officers, stomping off: I don’t need to tell you my name, walking down the street isn’t illegal.

I spend the rest of the day sweeping the crickets out of the house, and I do the long-neglected laundry. As I finish folding the towels, a Dr. Wagner calls me from the hospital. He’s calm but curt. Emotionless. After scribbling down his number and asking him to repeat it back to me three times, I ask him about my mother.

“Your mother is a bit confused,” he says, and I wonder if that’s a word a doctor ought to use regarding the mental state of a patient. “I have her on a mild sedative and we’ll keep her for a few days. She has asked to stay and seems content for the moment.”

“When can I see her?”

“No visitors for the time being.”

“But she’s okay, isn’t she?”

“She’s requested a few days of peace. That’s what she called it. No reason to be alarmed.” I hear him take in a deep breath. “Something seems to have happened?”

A few days of peace seems like something she would say. In the back of my mind I hear my mother’s voice during our last conversation, sharp as a knife, the day after I found Jane.

“Why did you bring the cops to my house?”

“I told you last night, I found a woman in the woods.”

“You lied when you were a child,” my mother said. “You’d tell stories, get people in trouble.”

“You mean when I broke my arm?” There were many incidents but the one with the broken arm was big.

“There were others,” she said and kept wiping the sink that was already clean.

“Give me an example. I don’t remember any of them.”

“Reliving your glory days? I’m not repeating any of your stories if that’s what you’re trying to get me to do.”

“Why don’t you tell me something else then?” I asked her, feeling myself getting upset. That sharpness in her voice, the cold eyes. “Tell me why we moved so much, why I never went to school. I don’t even recall going to school until we moved to Texas.”

“No one remembers their childhood. It’s not unusual.”

“Why didn’t I go to school like everybody else?”

“I homeschooled you.”

“You were never home.”

“I worked, more than one job at a time. You’re going to blame me for not being home?”

“If you worked so much, why did we live in squalor?”

“You want me to hand you a résumé? What’s with all the questions?”

Her spotted, blue-veined hands held the dirty rag, shaking ever so slightly, hardly noticeable, but I knew there was a storm brewing underneath her cool and calm demeanor.

“Who is my father?” The question hung between us like a heavy gray rain cloud about to unleash its fury. “I don’t remember him at all.”

“He ran off when you were a baby, I told you that. He was—”

“I remember Bobby’s father taking us to the police station. I remember when they filled out the paperwork and you told them my name was Dahlia.”

There was a long moment of silence. It stretched beyond the kitchen, beyond the house, beyond both of us, her need to keep secrets a gaping divide no bridge would ever overcome.

“Dahlia was not my name,” I add. “You called me Pet before that.”

Finally she broke her silence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. He stopped us because we had a broken headlight. You know that.”

I know better. I knew better then and I know better now. There was no broken headlight. There are, however, questions that I must ask before she drifts off deeper into this murky world of hers, infested with crickets and her fear of police. Our love for each other is fierce, we are all we’ve ever had to hold on to, and it was enough when I was younger, it was even enough when we just talked on the phone the past fifteen years, but it’s not enough now.

Later that night, I wake up. When I open my eyes, I can feel something is wrong. Off somehow. It’s dark outside—not even six judging by the lack of light—but something is glowing up ahead of me, almost like a pinprick-sized dot of light at the end of a tunnel. I blink and blink again. Is it possible to observe light and it remain obscure at the same time? It takes me a while until I realize that it’s not an actual glow but more a feeling of being lit up from the inside out that is reflected off my eyelids. It remains within me, never leaves my body. My hand tingles, then twitches. My skin feels snug and hot and I remain completely still, hoping it will just go away. My hand twitches again, stronger this time, no longer just a feeling but a visible spasm now. As quickly as the feeling materialized, it vanishes.

I don’t hear the AC humming and that’s all the explanation I need. Nothing wrong here, just the heat. The air is thick and heavy, making it hard to draw a breath. Stagnant and idle, capable of melting candles. Texas heat has a fierceness to it, everyone knows that. It makes people lose their minds, my mother always says.

I lie in the dark, unable to shut off my thoughts. Like a bundle of yarn, my mind loops around itself, repeating things to me, no matter how hard I try not to think at all. It’s been ten days since I found Jane and still there’s no update. I have no job, no money. My mother is in the hospital after wandering down a country road in the middle of the night. I want to call her, talk to her, and convince myself she is okay, but then there are these fears I have. That I’ll call and she’ll be confused and dismissive. That I’ll never get to the truth if her mental decline continues—I am halfway there myself, it feels like at times, with my headaches and smells and twitching limbs. I am as afraid for her sanity as I am afraid I’ll lose my own before I ever get any of the answers I need.

When the sun comes up, I check the news on my phone, call the hospital for a report on my Jane (I call every day even though they are not allowed to give me any information, but they have taken to No change now instead of Only relatives may inquire). Just as I hang up, I get a call. It’s Dr. Wagner.

“Your mother is well,” he says and after a short pause he adds, “Relatively speaking. She agreed with me that it would be best if she stayed with us for a few more days. Her exact words were Going for a walk is not a crime.” Dr. Wagner goes on and on about how she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her, although he believes there’s a personality disorder or two but “without proper counseling and an official diagnosis I’m unable to categorize her just yet.”

He calls her actions a behavioral pattern of impairment in personal and social situations. I don’t care about what he’s saying—his medical gibberish is redundant; after thirty years I know my mother is teetering on the edge of crazy. She hasn’t quite fallen in, yet she’s staring into the abyss. That’s what I know during this moment of clarity: the crickets, her secretive nature, the suspicion she feels toward just about everybody aren’t normal. When we go shopping and the cashier asks for ID, she holds up her wallet, and when the cashier reaches for it, she gets irritated; Don’t touch it, I don’t like germs. See with your eyes, not your hands.

“Has anything stressful happened in your mother’s life lately?” he asks. “Any specific event you can tell me about may be important and could help me gain a better insight into what triggered this.”

I can’t help wondering if the police showing up at her house is what did her in. I tell him about the woman in the woods, how I was in the hospital and the police came to the house and how she’s an overall suspicious person. He listens intently, does not interrupt me. I drift into talking about myself, the strange odors coming out of nowhere, passing out or whatever those episodes are, the forgetfulness, at the same time remembering things I’m not sure about. I want to talk about everything, I even use the appropriate terms, cognitive problems and dizziness, just so he doesn’t think I’m like her, because I’m nothing like my mother.

“All in all I’m still pretty shaken up about this woman in the woods,” I concede. “Please forgive me if I’m not making much sense. I don’t really understand what’s going on with my mother. Is there anything you can prescribe for her? Someone she should see?”

“Your mother’s diagnosis isn’t just a matter of a blood test or therapy. It’s hard to pinpoint any diagnosis at this point. I need to know more about her, but she seems tightlipped, which makes it difficult for me. There should be some extensive counseling and I have offered to set up an appointment with a colleague of mine, but”—I can hear him switching the phone to the other ear—“she just flat out declined.”

I punch down the urge to ask him the question that is rising like mutant dough over the rim of a bowl: the possibility of heredity.

“I prescribed her anxiety medication that should mellow her out some for now. Your mother isn’t bothered too much about anything but her purse. She is quite upset about it. She told me she lost it where the police picked her up. I assume she had her wallet and credit cards in there. She didn’t elaborate, but if you could make an attempt to locate her purse that would make life a lot easier. Not just on her.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“We are testing her for Alzheimer’s but I don’t think that is the case. We just want to make sure. She is scheduled for release in forty-eight hours. I really want to talk to you in person so I can get a better picture of what set her off. Do you think you can pick her up Wednesday afternoon? We can talk then?”

“Sure,” I say. “Anything else I can do?”

“Keep all stress away from her when she comes home, make sure she takes her medication, and just basically do what you can to keep her even-keeled.”

After I hang up the phone, I check under the sink for cleaning supplies. I rummage past the balled-up plastic bags and dirty sink towels, deformed and dried up. Empty spray bottles tumble out. There is Borax and some foam promising to do the work for you. Not a single sponge or glove. There is a jar. It seems to be an empty jelly or pickle jar, with the label pulled off partially but not quite; lots of white residue and glue sticks to the glass.

I lift it out of the dark below the sink and into the light, hold it up. It is a jar full of crickets, their antennae and legs tangled beyond recognition. There are about twenty of them, if not more. I shudder, wondering what that’s all about. Do people freeze and eventually cook them? I don’t know and I don’t plan on dwelling on it.

Later, at the market, I’m greeted by the scent of rotisserie chicken and a smile from a seventy-something age-spotted man with orthopedic shoes and a heavy limp. He offers me a cart and I decline, making my way straight to the cleaning supply section and grabbing one bottle of multipurpose cleaner, a box of wet mopping cloths, and yellow latex gloves. The lines are long; children are fussing and leaning out of carts, reaching for candy planted enticingly nearby. I don’t care to interact with anyone and use the self-checkout at the far end of the store.

The image of the crickets in the jar remains with me, even though I no longer ponder the logical reason as to its existence. I am realizing that most of my mother’s peculiarities cannot be explained by a sane mind. As I make my way back to the entrance, I pass a bank, a customer service counter, and a Western Union. On the wall that separates the restrooms, I see a poster dotted with pictures of children of all ages, declaring that Every Second Counts. I step closer. Individual pages behind document protectors are thumbtacked to a large blue board. I do the math; altogether there are eighty-four pages. Every page has a picture of a child, a name, gender, age, height, weight, eye, and hair color. This child was last seen on, then a date, sometimes a description of the circumstances—disappeared walking home from school or didn’t return from a friend’s house—and some have an additional age-progressed picture. I scan the missing dates and realize they reach as far back as ten years. Just a few of the pictures have a red Located banner across them.

I wonder where they are. Have they willingly abandoned their families or are some held captive? I cannot conceive of the fact that so many people, children at that, just float around somewhere, on the fringes of society, forgotten, abandoned, and written off. Those who are no longer alive ended up … where? In basements, ditches, hidden graves? Washed up on shores, floating on ocean surfaces in plastic bags? Hidden somewhere in basements just to be recovered decades later, in shallow graves in backyards? Or buried in some woods, underneath branches, shed leaves, bark, acorn caps and other vegetative debris in various stages of decomposition.

The images of missing children overlap and tilt my mind; suddenly I sense a zigzag pattern, like a contorted screen between my eyes and the physical world. I see flashing lights and my skin starts prickling. It begins in my fingertips and travels slowly up my arm and my shoulder blades, all the way up to my temples. As they start pulsating, I feel as if I am on my back in a field of prickly grass or some golden yellow crop that suddenly turns black right in front of my eyes. It grows all around me, tingling and pinching my skin. I want to scratch my entire body but my hands won’t cooperate and then billions of spores fly off the black crop and I can no longer breathe. The world around me is shrouded in hot and aromatic pungency and trying to escape this odor is like trying not to smell food cooking on a stove. I desperately bury my face into the crook of my elbow to make it stop, to escape this almost resinous compound. The scent reminds me of a place I can’t be sure of, for I don’t recall the location itself, but I stand barefoot on rough wood, a porch maybe, peeling away squeaky corn husks and handfuls of silk.

By the time I get home, the feeling has dissipated. The Texas summer sky is a doodle of colors, hesitant brushstrokes at best. The sun is about to set and the entire picture will soon turn into a canopy of luminous stars; minute specks of light will shine within the blackness.

I have never hulled the husk of an ear of corn in my life. Not that I know of. Just like the snow blizzard, maybe this is all just my brain misfiring?