Capturing Angels (11 page)

Thinking this made me realize just how much of the conversation between a wife and a husband was taken up with their child or children. Everything—their clothes, their health, their observations about people and places, things you liked and did and things they dreamed—filled up hours and hours of dialogue between you. Losing those topics left a gaping hole in that wonderful and magical bond that tied you together as one. Suddenly, at least in our marriage, we were selfish again.

After all, what else did we have now but ourselves? That meant we were tossed into the pool of childless couples, couples who either had chosen not to have children or had been divorced and remarried and had less to do with their own children. There was no longer any mutual sacrifice. Everything a wife and her husband did for each other was counted. Without realizing it, they were competing. They were more like two partners, with each vying to get more out of the business deal between them than the other.

John and I had friends like this. Some of these people kept separate bank accounts and talked about his or her money. Did they have a marriage or a corporation? To me, it seemed as though they were more critical of what each other had done for their union than the couples who had children. Yes, there were mothers who demanded that fathers do more, and there were fathers who did and fathers who didn’t, and that led to some tension, but in the end, they both worried themselves sick when their children were in trouble. They reached for each other to comfort each other and do whatever they had to do, make any sacrifice they had to make, to help their children. The big joke was still out there: Little children, little problems; big children, big problems. But regardless, Mom and Dad were always there to bail them out. They might complain about it, but they would do it.

What would really happen to us if we didn’t get Mary back and I didn’t get pregnant again? After having a child like Mary, could I just put aside all the motherly instincts and needs within me and become one of those wives in a childless marriage? Could I shift into another mode and be more self-centered? Was it too late for someone like me to care only about herself?

I was so lost in these thoughts that I said barely a word at dinner. John was used to my deep silences now, but he also was keen enough to recognize something different. After a few minutes, I suddenly realized that he had said something significant, but it had gone by me too quickly for me to reach out and pull it back.

“What?” was all I could think to say.

“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” he asked.

“I was . . . no, I didn’t,” I admitted.

“Margaret told me you went somewhere today. Where did you go?” he asked.

“When did you see Margaret?”

“She was just pulling into her driveway when I came home. Don’t change the subject. Where did you go?”

I sucked in my breath and thought that maybe I should tell him everything. Maybe it was important to see how he would react.

“I finally went to the mall where Mary was abducted,” I said.

“You mean, you haven’t been since?”

His question floored me for a moment. How could he be so oblivious to that fact? How could he not realize how traumatic it would be for me?

“No.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding very surprised.

“You didn‘t know that?”

“No. I know there were other stores there that you favored,” he said with a nonchalance that was annoying. “I just thought that some of your girlfriends and you went shopping there or had lunch there.”

“No, no one has dared suggest it.”

“Dared? Why wouldn’t they suggest going to a mall? Not everyone in that mall can be blamed for what happened, Grace.” He ate a little and then shrugged. “Matter of fact, I was there two weeks ago for a lunch meeting. We met at Limoncello’s.”

“And it didn’t bother you?”

“It’s just a place. It’s not a murder scene.”

“We hope.”

“Nothing violent happened to her there.”

“Seizing her, wrenching her from our lives, was not violent?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t hound every word I say, Grace. I miss her as much as you do.”

“Okay, John. I’m sorry. What did you say that I didn’t hear?”

“I said I had gone to see a doctor about our failure to conceive another child.”

“Oh?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me, no reason for it not to happen as far as I’m concerned.”

I shrugged. “And there’s nothing wrong with me physically, either. I guess it’s God’s choice,” I said, and began to clean off the table.

“Maybe God wants to be sure we both have love in our hearts, enough love for another child,” he said.

I lost it. I slammed a dish to the floor, and it shattered in a dozen pieces. He barely winced. He wiped his mouth and stood up.

“You had no call to do that, Grace. You want to bring God into the conversation, fine, but then don’t be surprised at what I might say.”

I put my hands on my hips and looked at him. It occurred to me at that moment that John didn’t look all that different from the way he had looked the day before Mary was abducted. There were no new lines in his face, no deeper lines, nothing to show his inner agony. I knew I looked as if I had aged years for every month that had gone by. My look of sweet childhood innocence and joie de vivre was gone, while he looked as cool and as handsome as ever. Was it wrong for me to hate him for that? Why should it surprise me? He was always able to remain stable and calm in the face of trouble or tragedy. Originally, it was one of the reasons I was drawn to him, his inner strength.

“Why, John? Do you believe you hear God? Are you special in His eyes? How can you be so special to Him if something like this has happened to us, to you as well as to me?”

“I’m not saying I’m a prophet or anything like that, Grace. I’m just a religious person, and my religion tells me that God can see into your heart. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he added, and then began to pick up the pieces of the plate very carefully. I started to kneel down to help, but he put his hand on my arm. “No. I’ll do this. Go rest,” he said. “Calm yourself. Go on.”

I went into the living room and sat looking out the window that faced the front of the house and the street. As if she could have heard what went on in our kitchen, Margaret suddenly appeared on our sidewalk, approaching our front door. She was carrying something. I waited until I heard the doorbell.

“Who’s that?” John called from the kitchen.

“Margaret. I’ll get it,” I said, and rose as slowly as someone twice my age.

“Hello, Grace,” Margaret said. “I brought you a freshly baked apple pie.” She uncovered it to show me. “I hope I’m not too late for your dessert.”

I stared at the pie. She knew that John and Mary liked her pies, especially her apple one. I could take it or leave it, but what also occurred to me was how much we lived on a schedule. Our neighbor knew when we ate, when we slept, and when we rose in the morning. There might as well not be any walls between our houses.

“No, you’re not too late,” I said. I took the pie. “Thank you, Margaret.”

“My pleasure. I saw you run off today. You know I hate to ask. I know the pain it brings, but was it anything to do with Mary?”

I stared at her for a moment. I hadn’t said anything about Sam Abraham to John yet, so I wasn’t going to say anything to her. I just shook my head.

“What’s that?” we heard John ask as he came up behind me.

“Just an apple pie made from scratch,” Margaret told him.

“Well, thank you, Margaret. Just in time. Care to join us for some coffee and a piece of your own pie?”

She looked at me first. “No, I’ve got to get back to my oven, John. I made some brownies for the seniors at the center.”

“You’re just an angel bringing joy everywhere,” John told her.

“Whatever the good Lord wants me to do,” she replied.

“I guess I’m the only one He doesn’t talk to these days,” I said. I handed John the pie and walked back to the living room. I sat again just as John closed the door.

“That was really unnecessary, Grace. The woman is just trying to be helpful and caring,” he said, standing in the living-room doorway and holding Margaret’s pie. I didn’t respond. “You really have to see someone. I insist now.”

“Insist?”

“Yes, Grace, for both our sakes. You need to start new therapy. I’m going to talk to that new therapist Dr. Bloom suggested for you and see about scheduling something.”

“Do what you want,” I said.

“I want,” he replied as he walked back to the kitchen. “At this point, it should be something
you
want.”

Maybe he’s right,
I thought.
Maybe I should return to therapy
.

I stared out the window. Margaret turned as she left our walkway and looked back at me. She looked so sad and concerned. In fact, she looked as if she was the one who needed someone to bring her pies and compassion, not me.

Maybe John was right.

Maybe I was being selfish with my pain.

It was time to share it and accept that others could appreciate what it meant, too, even if that felt as if I was letting go of Mary a little more. What else could I do now? I was lost at sea.

The only hope I had left was the lifeline Sam Abraham was tossing in my direction.

Whether it would lead to anything or not, I wanted to grasp it as tightly as I could and never let go.

8

In the Dark

Sam Abraham waved from a booth in the rear the moment I entered Woody’s. It looked like a London pub with its brass and wood. There was a long bar across from a mirror the length of it, but there were also round dark walnut tables spread evenly throughout the establishment. A set of faux-leather and dark wood booths were all in the back, where the lighting was a bit more subdued. There was the aroma of something delicious being prepared in the kitchen.

Four young men in sport jackets, ties loosened, were at the bar and turned to look at me. The bartender was a curly-gray-haired man with a face that had the kind of deeply etched lines that people would rationalize as giving him more character. There was a waitress sitting on the farthest stool at the bar. I saw no other woman in the tavern. Two older men were at a table on my right, and three men who looked a bit older were at another table down from them. One of the men had a golden retriever sprawled at his feet. Everyone stopped talking for a moment to look at me.

I waved back at Sam and started toward him. He rose when I reached the booth and reached for my hand. He wasn’t shaking it so much as guiding me into the booth and not letting go until I started to sit.

“What is this, a men’s club or something?”

“No,” he said, laughing. “Time of day. It’ll fill up in about an hour or so with couples. Would you like something hard or soft to drink?”

“Soft. Just a mineral water, thank you.”

He signaled the waitress and sat across from me.

“That does look more inviting,” I said, nodding at his drink.

“It’s a Cosmopolitan. The guys at the station ridicule my choice of beverage. They say real men don’t drink Cosmopolitans.”

The waitress approached. “What’ll it be, Sam?” she asked him with her eyes on me.

“A mineral water,” he told her.

“No, I changed my mind. I’ll have what he’s having,” I said, and Sam smiled.

He waited for the waitress to leave and then leaned forward. For the first time, I noticed that he had a small scar just under his left eye.

“I don’t have much to report, except I had a nice surprise when David Joseph agreed to use his manpower to investigate costume rentals. I’ll have to tell you,” he added quickly, “that doesn’t mean he’s bought into my theory about the abduction the way I described it to you yesterday. The best I could get from him was ‘That’s possible. It might lead to something. We’ll look into it.’”

“At this point, I guess I have to grateful for anything,” I said.

He stared at me a moment, his gaze intense. He didn’t look critical as much as he looked concerned. I actually brushed back my hair and then wondered if I had forgotten to put on lipstick.

“You look tired today,” he said, sitting back.

“It’s difficult not to. I don’t sleep well, but I didn’t sleep well especially last night.”

“I hope that wasn’t because of what I put you through yesterday.”

“No, it was more about what I put myself through by returning to the scene of the crime.“

He asked, “Did you tell your husband about the things I said, and did that create some problems at home?”

Before I could respond, the waitress brought my drink.

“Would you like something with it? They have great appetizers here,” Sam said.

“No, no, this is fine.” I took a sip and smiled. “I remember drinking these when I was in college. My girlfriends thought I was pretending to be sophisticated. My mother actually introduced me to them. My parents were more liberal-minded back then. They thought it was proper to permit their daughter to imbibe, but mainly at home. My mother was quite the little Bohemian in her day, and my father was no slouch when it came to causes about which he felt strongly.”

“And now?”

I shrugged. “Reformed liberals are like reformed smokers, their biggest critics.”

He laughed and then nodded to the waitress, who had stood by waiting and listening, apparently fascinated with what I was saying. She smiled at him and left us.

“I guess I was rambling a bit there.”

“No, no,” he said, and then obviously had a sudden thought. “You’re not on any medication that prohibits alcoholic beverages, are you? I suppose I should have asked you that first.”

“Not yet,” I said, and drank some more. “But that looms in my near future, so maybe I should enjoy this while I still can. John is pushing the new-therapist idea with possibly a new prescription.”

“Oh,” he said, without indicating agreement or disagreement with the idea.

I looked around the tavern again. There were some framed prints of idyllic country scenes on the walls and interesting sconces. “It’s a very nice little place,” I said. “From the waitress’s reaction, I guess you’re a regular here, huh?”

“Home away from home thing. I’m not much of a cook. In fact, the last thing I recall making for myself was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I didn’t do all that great a job of that. Too messy.”

“My husband can cook and bake well when he wants to. Like with everything else he does, he’s a perfectionist.” I knew the way I said “perfectionist” made it sound like a profanity.

“Getting back to my first question, did you tell your husband anything about our meeting yesterday?”

“No.”

“Was that because of the way I categorized it back at the mall? Fantasy police work?”

“Sort of,” I said. I sipped some more and added, “As I said, he’s now insisting I have more therapy. I didn’t want to give him more reason.”

Sam nodded and sipped his own drink. “To be honest, I would have thought you were continuing to have it. It would be understandable in your situation, of course, and maybe very necessary.”

“I’m sure it is. I’m not the easiest person to live with these days, and that includes how I treat my friends and our closest neighbor, Margaret Sullivan, who’s an honorary member of the family.”

“And your babysitter, right?”

“Yes. You remember. I’m impressed.”

“I’ll confess that I spent a few hours going through the FBI file last night in between things.”

“Between things? You really don’t sleep.”

He laughed and watched me finish my drink. He was still nursing his. “I don’t think I should ask if you want another,” he said.

“I do.”

“Then at least have something to eat with it.” He signaled the waitress. “You’ll like the spanakopita. It’s a Greek pastry with spinach and feta cheese.”

“I know what it is.”

“I’m sure you do. They make their own here. Woody’s wife, that is. She’s half Greek and half English. She does a great shepherd’s pie, too.”

“Shepherd’s pie? The moment I walked in, I thought this place reminded me of an English pub.”

“As I said, my home away from home,” he said. “How about the spanakopita?”

“Fine,” I said.

He ordered a platter for us and another Cosmopolitan for each of us, too.

“All right,” he said when the waitress left us again. “David’s doing another favor for me. He’s getting me the scan they ran on other abductions in the state that involved children around Mary’s age. I’ll have the results tomorrow.”

“So, they already looked into that idea about it being a random kidnapping?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t they ever say anything about it, especially when they left hunkering down at our house?”

“In the beginning, they were focusing too hard on this being a personal thing, someone deliberately after your daughter. Once they got off that, they put the case in their computers and ran out some similar MOs. They have other agents in other parts of the state and even around the country looking into these, but so far, nothing’s come up concerning your Mary. At least, the way I see it.”

“You mean, there was no abduction of a girl around Mary’s age that possibly involved someone in a Santa costume?”

“No.”

“But if they were serial kidnappers, they would use a Santa costume only during the holidays, right?”

“Yes.”

“But they might have done it somewhere else around the same time.”

“Exactly. And there’s been nothing similar reported about any of the other abductions during that period. That’s why David Joseph wasn’t that excited about my theory. He recalled how it had turned out to be a dead end when I first looked into it.” He twirled the little bit left in his glass. “Speaking of that, I remember your husband wasn’t terribly keen on talking about Mary’s belief in Santa and that sort of thing.”

“He just doesn’t know what Mary’s dreams and illusions are. Sometimes John has trouble talking to children, his own child included. He isn’t in any way cruel to her, nothing like that. He’s somewhat oblivious, focusing on other things. He has this hobby. He gets lost in it for hours sometimes. He puts ships in bottles. That and watching football are his biggest distractions from his work. He reads a great deal, too.”

“Not things you can share so much with kids Mary’s age, I guess.”

“He did try to turn Mary into a football fan, but she wasn’t as enthusiastic as he would have liked.”

“A football fan? She’s a little girl and just a little more than five, right?”

“Now going on seven,” I said. “I think her recent birthday was the darkest day of my life. John and I hardly said a word to each other all that day, and I couldn’t eat a thing. I took a sleeping pill in the afternoon and then another in the evening, but I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat, trembling, and spent the rest of the night in Mary’s little bed, curled up in a fetal position. John didn’t wake me before he left for work, but he knew I was in there.”

“Damn,” Sam said. “I’m so sorry for the pain you’re going through.”

“Thank you.”

“Getting back to Santa Claus . . . how much of a big deal was made of him in your home? I hate to dwell on it, but . . .”

“As John told you, I don’t think we did anything more than any other family does for their small children. Nothing unusual was said about Santa, by us or by Margaret. As far as I know, that is. I mean, Mary asked the same sorts of questions other children might, maybe even more serious questions. She’s an extraordinary child.”

“What sorts of serious questions?”

“How old he really is, how he can read so many letters, how he can deliver all the presents in one night. Stuff like that.”

“Interesting. A child like that might be more apt to pay attention to someone in a Santa costume, like why was he there and not working on his preparations for Christmas or whatever.”

“Yes, I can believe she would wonder and even ask him.”

“Precocious?”

“Yes, very, but she’s John’s daughter, too. I’m not surprised.”

“You sound both proud and angry about that,” he said.

“I have no idea what I sound like anymore. I feel like something is rotting inside me.”

“I understand. Tell me more about her.”

“Like what?”

“Anything special, unusual, something someone else might notice.”

“You mean, something that would attract a pervert or a serial child kidnapper?”

He shrugged.

“You saw her pictures, right?”

“Remarkably beautiful, yes. Almost unreal. That smile, the glow in her face.”

I smiled through the tears that were forming. “Some people think she is a little angel.”

“I’ll bet.”

“No, I mean literally.”

“Pardon?”

“They say they see a glow around her sometimes, and then there was that incident with Molly Middleton’s child, Bradley.”

“What incident?”

“I call it an incident. Bradley’s mother calls it a miracle. Bradley is a seven-year-old who suffered from acute lymphoblastic leukemia. At the time, he was being treated with chemo and radiation, but we all heard that he wasn’t doing well. John says children have an eighty-five-percent survival rate with that form of the disease. It looked like Bradley Middleton was falling into the fifteen percent.”

“And?”

“This is ridiculous, of course.”

“I’m interested. Please go on.”

“Molly visited me one Saturday. She brought Bradley along, and he spent most of the time with Mary. Kids who are two, three, even four years older than her don’t seem to feel it’s beneath them to talk and be with Mary. Anyway, the following week, we heard that Bradley was suddenly reacting to treatment dramatically. As far as I know, he’s now in the eighty-five percent.”

“And some people attribute that to the time he spent with your Mary?”

“Those who know, thanks to Molly’s big mouth.”

He sat back. The waitress brought our platter of spanakopita. I reached for one. They were hot, but I used a napkin.

“What did your husband have to say about all that?”

“Why?”

“Well, with his religious beliefs and all. Did he get upset about it?”

“No. Actually, we didn’t talk that much about it. John just shook his head. He did say that desperate people are more susceptible to miracles.”

“More susceptible to miracles? What does that mean?”

I shrugged. “That they’ll grab on to anything that gives them hope. He hates that the church at one time sold holy relics, and he has no interest in going anywhere like Lourdes. He and Margaret have little arguments about it sometimes. She says God works in mysterious ways and could work through someone on occasion. He didn’t disagree with that, but then again, he would never criticize Margaret Sullivan because of her religious beliefs.”