Authors: Jane Bradley
She just looked out her window at the land going by. I was regretting my words. Finally Livy shook her head. “It’s a mystery.” She tightened her lips. “I’ve been told by two preachers and a priest that there are divine mysteries we are supposed to accept. It all works together for those who follow the Lord and believe in his word.”
I could see she was struggling to hang on, but I needed her to face this world, not some idea of the next. “I went to college for a while,” I said. “I studied the history of religion. The gospels. They’re stories written long after Jesus was gone.”
“I know that,” she said. “I went to college too, Bible college. And I know they are stories, but we are supposed to believe they were divinely inspired.”
“You’re right,” I said. And I said it again like I meant it.
She nodded and looked out her window. “There’s something I didn’t tell you about Katy. Lawrence, he’s hard on Katy. She is rebellious, and he doesn’t like that. But there are some things he doesn’t know. Her daddy had a weakness. He liked guns more than a man should.” She looked at me, her eyes squinting a little like she was focusing on something just out of range. “You know, it’s strange,” she said, “how things seem to follow you around. I left Suck Creek to get away from all the guns and rednecks ready to shoot anything in sight. So I went up on the mountain to Covenant College—about as far away from Suck Creek as a girl can get. But it was too strict up there, made the world seem like nothing but a whole lot of wrongs piling up, and the only right thing we could hope for was heaven. There was a meanness and a self-righteousness to those people. So I went to college in town, and that started to feel a little more like something I
could stand. Then I met Katy’s daddy; he was an engineer, but later I found out he loved shooting at things as much as any Suck Creek redneck boy. There I was, living in a gorgeous home halfway up Lookout Mountain, but I was still in Suck Creek in my own house. Some things just follow you, I guess. I have to wonder, did that meanness follow Katy to here? It scares me sometimes.”
I couldn’t say anything to that. I said, “There could be some situations we just don’t understand yet.”
Livy shifted in her seat. “When Katy was a teenager, she had a drinking problem, just a little, out of hand. I like to think she outgrew it, but Lawrence—his ex-wife was a drunk; she died of liver disease—Lawrence says you don’t outgrow these things. And Lawrence is not a foolish man. He makes a point of being an authority on things, and he is an authority on this, and he’s always right, and goddamn it, that drives me crazy!” She covered her mouth with her hand, but I could see the grin there. “My momma always said cussing was contagious. Just a little car ride with you, and I’m already cussing.” She smiled, but her eyes stayed cold. “Lawrence says Katy got drunk and ran off, and I’m praying he’s right again.”
She looked out her window at all the nothing out there. “Don’t you ever get tired?” she said. “All this driving around and around and back and forth, not knowing when the end will come.”
“I can drive for days without sleep when I’m on a mission.”
“‘A mission’?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So you do believe in things.”
“I believe in a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like the world of the living.”
“That’s a start,” she said. “No afterlife?”
“I believe in the living and the dead.”
“Do you believe in spirits? Is that why you do this, to put lost souls to rest?”
“I do what I do to put the living to rest. I see suffering and want to ease it.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “We’ll find her.”
I saw the exit for Lake Waccamaw, flipped the signal, and slowed down.
“Thank God, we’re there,” she said.
We rounded a curve and saw the shimmering lake stretched out, clean and blue. We drove along the narrow road and saw the little stretches of shore where people could wade in and swim.
“Look.” I pointed ahead to the inn. “That’s Roy’s cruiser in the lot. He’ll be inside joking with Sam, sipping coffee like he has nothing better to do in the world.” I parked, looked at her. “You ready?”
She nodded, grabbed her purse and the tote bag stuffed with Katy’s things. I knew Roy didn’t need them, but it would give her comfort to think she could offer him some kind of insight. But Roy already had all the insight he needed. He’d gone through Katy Connor’s truck. He’d talked to a girl who’d survived the man who’d carjacked, who’d probably killed, Katy. Roy knew more than Livy Baines would ever want to hear.
I got out of the truck, walked around to her side. I opened the door.
She sat there. “I don’t know where my daughter is, and it’s been over a month. Do you know how crazy that is?” I took her hand and gently pulled her out of the truck. Livy looked out at the blue sky, so wide and bright and perfect over the still water. “It’s a perfect reflection,” she said. “You can even see that little line of clouds reflected in the water. It’s hard to find water this clean. No wonder she came here.”
I nodded. “It’s fed by local creeks. Every day in the summer a little blue line appears down there to the south and moves north. It’s a wave, and it breaks right here on this shore. And the wind pushing it comes along, wraps the town in a steady breeze. Sometimes you look out there and see the wind push a string of dark clouds from nowhere. And the lake gets rough. And that’s odd because at most it’s about seven feet deep. That water can tip a little fishing boat easy and give hell to the bigger ones.”
“But it looks so calm.”
I thought of Suck Creek. “Yeah, so people get careless. But if you go out in that water, you’d better keep your eye on the horizon and life jackets for everybody on board.” She stood there, looking out at the still water. I was watching the string of clouds out there. It was too early in the day yet for a storm.
I started for the inn, and a great blue heron flew out over the lake. We watched to see if it would dive for a fish, but it just glided over the surface, then, with a thrust of wing, lifted and vanished into the distant trees. Livy took my arm, said, “Katy was a dreamer. Like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
. She always loved that movie. Since she was a girl she would sit outside, look at the sky, and dream. That’s what she did here.”
I nodded and led the way across the gravel lot.
She stopped, said, “I’ve got a feeling. I don’t like where this is going.”
“You’re going to find your daughter,” I said as bravely as I could, but I was thinking,
You’re about to walk through hell, Livy Baines, and you’re gonna need an asbestos cloak if you want to survive
. She found strength in my words. All of a sudden she was leading the way, her head high and the purse swinging. She was going to find her daughter, and the world would just have to get out of her way.
No Sympathy for the Devil Here
The elevator door opened, making a hissing sound. Jesse stepped in and nodded at the nervous-looking man smiling from behind a big vase of flowers. The man pressed button number seven, even though it was already lit, then asked Jesse which floor he wanted. “Same,” Jesse said. “Maternity floor, right?”
The man nodded. “I’m so excited I went down instead of up.”
“Excuse me?” Jesse said.
“I went to the basement because I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve got a new baby girl. Got my wife flowers.” He raised the vase toward Jesse. “Think these are good enough for a woman who came through ten hours’ labor?”
Jesse caught the sweet, warm scent of the stargazer lilies. “Nice,” he said. He looked over the lilies, saw the roses, Japanese irises, baby’s breath, the works. His mom had taught him the names for these things.
“Real nice. Must’ve set you back.”
“It’s my first.” The man’s eyes caught the stuffed dog Jesse had forgotten he was squeezing in his hand. “And you?’
“I’m just here to see a friend’s kid. He named him after me.”
The elevator stopped at the fourth floor. A woman stepped in, had
on some kind of uniform, not a nurse but something. “I know where you two are going,” she grinned. She smelled like strawberries, fake strawberries. Jesse hated those sweet, sticky smells women wore. The man was doing that smiley thing again and telling her about his baby. Jesse reached to punch the close button and bumped the man’s arm. He looked up as if expecting an apology, and Jesse noticed his bloodshot eyes. The doors hissed shut, and the girl and the man backed away a little.
“Sorry.” Jesse gave a quick smile. “Guess I’m excited too. I didn’t mean to bump your flowers, man.” The girl pushed for floor five. Just one floor up. “Guess you don’t like taking stairs.”
“No, I should, but . . .” She gave a little shrug. She had fat cheeks and black hair and big, puffy-looking boobs.
“But what?” Jesse said.
That shrug again. “I guess I’m lazy.”
“Yeah, everybody’s lazy these days,” he said. The door opened, and Jesse watched her get off. As the doors closed, he shook his head at the man. “By the time she’s forty, she’ll have an ass wide as a kitchen table.”
The man went blank for a bit, then grinned. “Yeah. A pretty face, though.”
“Yeah.” He checked out the man’s clothes. Dockers, blue oxford shirt. Nice jacket thrown over one of his arms carrying the flowers, dressed like money, but there were sweat stains at his armpits. “I bet you have a pretty wife.”
The man beamed. “I have a beautiful wife. And now we have a perfect baby.”
“You sound like my friend Zeke. He’s crazy about his wife. He’s a tough guy, and now he talks all goofy about that kid of his.”
“Yep, love makes you goofy. I got her a diamond bracelet in my jacket pocket here. That’s how goofy I am.” Jesse eyed the bulge in
the pocket. Careless. If someone got on at the sixth floor, it’d be cake to boost it. The man kept talking. “My wife, she’s just a little thing, in labor ten hours. Looked like it was killing her, but the doctor said she was all right. She didn’t look all right to me. I’m standing there, tears running down my face, and she’s panting and sweating and making these awful sounds.”
Sure enough, the sixth floor. Bing. Jesse stepped back as a nurse pushed an old woman in a wheelchair in.
Good
, Jesse thought, moving behind the man with the diamonds in his pocket. He looked down, saw the urine bag hooked to the old woman’s chair.
The woman looked up with a face all wrinkled and spotted, but she had bright blue eyes. “What pretty flowers you have there.” She had a voice like bells. How could such a sound come from a shriveled thing?
The man smiled down at her. “My wife just had a baby girl. She’s wonderful.”
The woman just stared at the flowers. Her eyes fluttered closed. She breathed, looked up, said, “I always loved the stargazers best.”
“You like those?” The man bent to her, the jacket pocket brushing Jesse’s thigh. He was set to drop the toy dog, have an excuse to bend and reach, but the man turned to him. “Could you do me a favor?”
Jesse shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Pick one of those lilies out for this lady. My wife won’t mind.”
He looked at the flowers, the man who couldn’t stop smiling. The old lady looked up at him. Jesse picked a lily, gave it to her. She took it with both hands. “Why, thank you.” She tapped the nurse’s hand. “My husband used to say the world’s going to hell in a hand basket, and sometimes I’d start to believe him, and then there’d be something like this: A sweet young man gives an old lady a flower for no good reason.” She was smiling up at Jesse.
“It’s from him,” Jesse said, pointing to the man beside him, but the woman kept smiling at Jesse. “It’s from him,” Jesse yelled.
And bing, the seventh floor. Before the door could whoosh all the way open, he was out. He stood there, saw a doctor go by, a cop standing at the nurses’ station. They looked at him, and that old metal feeling pinged in his gut. The man with the flowers brushed by him. “Sorry about the flower, man,” Jesse said.
“That’s fine,” he called without looking back. “It was worth it to see that smile on her face.”
Jesse watched him hurry down the hall, the flowers bouncing, the jewelry box still flapping in his coat pocket. He thought,
Shit, Zeke would have bought that bracelet
. He saw the cop coming toward him. Jesse put a lost look on his face, held the toy dog like a bunch of flowers, and moved to check a room number. The cop wasn’t a cop, just a security guard. Zeke had said there would be guards, to be cool, they were just there to protect the babies. Jesse gave him a nod. “Could you tell me . . .”
The guard kept going. “The nurses’ station there, they’ll get you to the room you need.”
“Thanks.” Jesse knew the room number, but he headed for the nurses’ station. He could feel the guard standing at the elevator door, watching him. When the nurse looked up at him, he smiled, held up the toy dog. “Nicki Lynn Daniels’s room?” He gave his sweetest smile, said, “Please.”
She smiled back, pointed down the hall. He said, “Thank you, ma’am,” just the way his mom would like, and headed down the hall.
Just ahead, he saw a cluster of people gawking at a window. Jesse knew it was the baby showcase. A crowd was staring with goofy smiles. He went toward the babies, looked in. The babies looked all squinched and pink. Most were sleeping, swaddled in blankets
and little knit caps on their heads, pink and blue. One just lay on its back, looking up at a light. One was crying on its belly, kind of rooting at the sheet. Up front and to the left was one lying on its back. It was more yellow than pink, had a pointy kind of head. But its face looked almost like a man’s, and it seemed to study the gawking crowd. It was bigger than the rest, a little blond fuzz on its head. Jesse scanned the little cribs to look at the others. Yep, the big one staring out had to be Zeke’s. The rest just slept, all soft and pink-looking, like the little baby rats he’d once found in an alley.
A hand landed hard and heavy on his shoulder, squeezed. Jesse jumped. “Whoa, now.” It was Zeke. He kept his hand there on Jesse, holding him still. “You’re supposed to be smiling when you look at my boy in there. And you got that to-hell-with-you look on your face. What’s the matter with you?”