W
e search all morning, emerging from the woods at noon as though waking from a dream. The bright light blinds us, and we stumble from the foliage onto the dirt road. One after the other, the rest of the volunteers materialize in the road and silently climb into the waiting vehicles, which will bring us to Hudson's for lunch before we return and keep looking.
No one speaks, but it is obvious. No one has found anything. She is still lost.
When we pull into the parking lot at Hudson's, I see the news vans that had been parked at the site are now here. The police cars are also here. There are state police as well.
Huddles of people in orange vests congregate outside, smoking cigarettes, stretching, waiting for whatever is about to happen. I push through the crowd, go into the store, and head straight to the back room, where Effie and the girls are laying out sandwiches on a long folding table. Plum is carefully arranging the napkins like this is a party, and Zu-Zu is lining up cold sodas in tidy rows.
Devin and Billy Moffett are standing together, talking, in the back of the room.
“What's going on outside?” I ask Effie. “Did they find her? Did somebody find her?”
“I have no idea,” Effie says. She hands me a brown paper grocery bag filled with wrapped sandwiches and motions for me to put them out on the table. “I don't think anybody knows. Somebody said they're going to have another press conference at one fifteen.”
“Where's Jake?” I ask, glancing around, as if I could have missed him somehow in this small room. He promised to meet me here at lunch. That he'd come with us to search this afternoon.
“I think he might have gone into town? He said he needed to send out some e-mails,” she says.
“He could do that from here on his phone,” I say angrily. As if this is Effie's fault. As if she's the one who's jumped ship.
She ignores my raised voice and nods. “He was doing something on his laptop. I told him there was Wi-Fi at the library. I think he might have gone into town.”
I take a deep breath. And she reaches out and squeezes my hand.
“Are you hungry?” she asks, motioning to the sandwiches. “There's tuna.” Effie and I lived on tuna sandwiches when we were kids. Tuna sandwiches with salt-and-vinegar potato chips crumbled up inside. Comfort food. If she had a can of Country Time lemonade and a foil-wrapped Ding Dong too, this could be the summer of 1976.
I shake my head.
“Let's just see what the police have to say. Maybe it's good news,” she says. “If it isn't that she's been found, then at least maybe someone's come forward and knows who she is. Maybe they found that guy.”
I remember the man in the woods then, and I shiver. But how would they know about that guy? I scowl. “What guy?”
“The one in the white truck?” she says. “The one you saw here that night?”
“Oh,” I say. I'd almost forgotten about him. “Right.”
“Maybe he saw something too.”
I nod, but I'm thinking about the
other
guy now. The one in the woods.
“Hey,” I say. “There's this guy in the search party. Totally creeps me out. He was alone out in the woods earlier, not in a group, and he scared the shit out of me.”
“What did he do?” she asks.
“He told me this awful story about dragonflies sewing naughty children's ears shut,” I say.
“What?” She looks horrified. “
Why?
”
I shake my head, thinking of the wings of the dragonfly. Iridescent and shimmery, like the little girl's tutu.
“I have no idea,” I say. “I got a strange feeling from him. He kept grinning. Almost like he's enjoying this.”
Effie hands me a Diet Coke, and I pop it open. I need the caffeine.
“Hey,” I say, getting an idea. “Who holds on to the sign-in sheets?”
“I think Billy's keeping them. I can ask Devin. Why?”
“I want to find out the guy's name,” I say. “Do the cops do any background checks on the volunteers? Or can any nut job just join in the search?”
Effie smiles. “I'm sure he's just a concerned neighbor. People are weird. Especially some of the folks who live out here in the woods. Not always the best social skills.”
Plum comes up to us with a big chocolate-chip cookie poised at the edge of her lips.
“Did you have a sandwich yet?” Effie asks, gently grabbing her wrist before she can bite. Plum shakes her head sheepishly. “Okay, give me the cookie then. You can have it
after
you eat a sandwich.”
Plum relinquishes the cookie and then comes to me. For comfort, I suppose. I pull her close to me. I can feel her ribs under my fingertips.
I bend down and whisper. “I want to have a cookie for lunch too. But your mom is totally making me eat a sandwich first.”
She nods. Commiserates.
“But I can teach you something cool,” I say.
I grab two tuna sandwiches, then a bag of chips. I demonstrate how to crush the chips inside. She takes a bite, giggles, and then runs off to join Zu-Zu, who is sitting on a metal folding chair in the corner, tapping away on her phone.
Effie is making herself a special sandwich too.
“Can you maybe find out who he is?” I ask. “His name should be right before mine on the sign-in sheet from yesterday. He was ahead of me in line.”
“Sure,” she says, shrugging. “I'll find out.”
Â
Time passes slowly. I wind up having not only the sandwich but three cookies and two Diet Cokes as well, just to pass the time. I text Jake,
Where R U?,
and he texts back,
In town. Getting an e-mail out. Meet u back at camp. No apologies.
At 1:10 the crowd assembles outside in a strange semicircle around an empty podium in the parking lot. The news media scurries about affixing microphones, laying down cables. 1:15 comes and goes. Effie is inside with the girls still, and so I find my search group and stand with them.
“How are you holding up?” Mrs. Lund asks and pats my back, the same way she did one afternoon when I was eleven and had thrown up in the bathroom at school. I remember feeling so grateful for her in that moment, for the soft small circles she made on my back.
I nod. “I'm okay. I really hope all of this means they found her.”
“Me too,” she says.
Finally, Lieutenant Andrews appears, with Sergeant Strickland at his side, and a man I don't recognize. Looks like state police.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Andrews says, and a collective hush falls over the crowd.
“I'm Lieutenant Roger Andrews, and this is Vermont State Police captain Nielson. I first want to thank you all for your efforts in the search for the juvenile reported missing on Thursday evening.
“We have performed exhaustive searches of the area, using all of the resources available to us. Over seventy rangers have combed the surrounding area. We have had a team of trained search-and-rescue dogs, and we have utilized infrared technology in the helicopters. And this morning, we had a team of divers searching the lake.”
My heart stops like a plug in a drain. I look over at Devin, who is standing in the doorway of Hudson's. I think of his sister.
No, no, no, please no
.
“I want to thank you as well, the tireless volunteers who have responded to this report by canvassing neighbors and searching for clues. This is a testament to a community that cares deeply about one another.”
I close my eyes, hold my breath.
Please no
.
“However, I am here this afternoon to announce that our efforts are turning from one of search and rescue to investigative.”
My eyes fill with tears. I feel like I might collapse.
Mrs. Lund continues to rub my back. I am nauseated. I concentrate on staying upright, because every impulse I have is to fall.
Andrews pauses, ready to deliver the bad news to the crowd. He seems to be choosing every word carefully. I will him to hold his silence. Time slows.
He coughs into his hand and nods.
“It is our belief,” he says, then pauses. “That there is no missing child.”
The crowd begins to hum and buzz. Heads swivel, whispers hiss. And I feel the blood begin to drain from my body.
“After significant investigation, we firmly believe that the reporting party was in error.”
The crowd turns to look at each other, and then, it seems, they all turn to look at me.
“There is simply no credible evidence of a missing child. There are no missing persons reports. No secondary witnesses. And after an exhaustive search, no physical evidence has been recovered in the area.”
I feel like I am about to collapse. My blood pounds hot in my ears. My head throbs.
The reporters push forward, barking their questions like dogs. Their voices, their questions tumble together. Indistinguishable from each other. Until one loud voices demands:
“Was it a hoax?”
The lieutenant ignores the question, but looks through the sea of faces straight at me.
“At this time, we will be ceasing all search efforts, though we will continue to investigate the report in the event that new information comes in. But again, it is our belief that the report of a missing juvenile was a false one.”
Â
I am breathless, trying not to cry. My entire body trills. I storm through the crowd, ignoring their glances and hissing whispers. By the time I reach Andrews, I feel explosive.
“What are you
doing?
” I say to Andrews.
He takes me by the elbow and ushers me to the side of the building. “Miss Waters,” he says. “It's over. You just need to go back home.”
My body stiffens.
“You have to keep looking,” I say, shaking my head. “You can't stop now.”
“Miss Waters, listen. Sergeant Strickland gave you the benefit of the doubt. You're lucky it was him and not me who showed up that night. But I'm in charge, and I've got a few more years under my belt than Strickland does.”
“But there has to be some sort of law about this. You can't just ignore me,” I say, feeling desperate now. Unhinged.
“Ma'am,” he says. “We conducted a full-scale search. Went above and beyond protocol. You've gotten this entire town worked up into a frenzy over a figment of your imagination. And now it is time for you to let it go. To let these good people get back to their lives. And let us get back to our work.”
I shake my head even as he turns and starts to walk away. “I'm not crazy,” I say loudly. Several people turn to watch. “She's real. And you are leaving her alone out there.”
Someone snickers. And I realize I am making a spectacle of myself. That I am in the center ring of this circus. The main attraction.
Again
.
“What?” I say to no one in particular. To everyone. “
What?
”
W
e watch the press conference again on the five o'clock news.
Jake sits down next to me on the couch, puts his arm around my shoulder, but I don't want him touching me. Where was he earlier when I needed him? Where was he when I had to walk through that angry horde of people? Where was he when the news reporters started shoving their microphones in my face?
“So that's it?” he says softly.
On the screen Lieutenant Andrews said, in no uncertain terms, that the search would cease unless some concrete evidence of her existence materialized. I watch now as Strickland stands, nodding his head knowingly, as if they are in cahoots. As though I
am
crazy.
“That's ridiculous,” Effie says. “So they're just going to pretend like this didn't happen.”
“They don't believe me,” I say. “You heard them. They think it's a hoax.”
“That doesn't make any sense,” she says. “Why would somebody pretend to see a child in the road?”
“For attention, I guess?” Jake offers.
“That's absurd,” Effie says angrily. She's held her anger toward him in check so far, but I can see her cracking now.
He seems to sense this and stands up awkwardly.
“We'll keep looking,” she says, taking his spot next to me. Squeezing my hand. “None of this means the volunteers need to stop searching. The people here aren't going to just let this go.”
“They will if the cops say I'm lying,” I say.
“I believe you,” she says. “Devin believes you.”
What she doesn't say is that
Jake
believes me. And the irony hurts.
He
is the liar. He is the one who has willfully deceived me again and again. I cannot begin to get a handle on the depth of his deception.
But I am telling the truth.
I saw her. She is
real
.
“Well, I guess this means we can go back to New York together tomorrow,” Jake says coldly, and my whole body tenses.
Effie squeezes my hand so tightly, my bones ache.
“Let's go for a walk,” I say to Jake, and stand up.
He follows me as I make my way through the kitchen and out the back door. I don't slow to wait for him, but I can hear him behind me. Devin has taken Plum down to the access area to swim. I can hear the sounds of their voices echoing. The splashes and Plum's squeals. We walk in the opposite direction, away from them, clockwise around the lake.
Jake shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, head down, like a scolded child. “So then what now?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“I mean, it seems like we
should
probably just head back home, right?”
I stop. We're in front of an old battered dock. I think it used to belong to the Foresters, the family that had taken in Devin's sister all those summers ago, but that camp is abandoned now, the foundation crumbling, the building falling slowly into the water.
“You can always come back up if they find something. That guy in the truck or whatever. If they need you,” Jake says.
My throat feels thick. “I don't know what the rules are,” I say. “What I'm supposed to do next.”
“Well, we can find out. Call that Strickland guy maybe?”
“I'm not talking about
this,
” I say, gesturing ridiculously toward the woods that surround us. My eyes sting.
Jake looks confused, but then his face pales.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“What are
you
doing?” I almost laugh.
Jake shakes his head. Did he really think he could get away with this?
Ten years ago I might have felt anger. I might have felt rage at this injustice. This audacity of his. The vulgarity of it. Perhaps, if there were a child. If there were a
family
in jeopardy, then I might feel outrage. A mother bear protecting what is hers. But now, I feel only profoundly disappointed. When you have suffered betrayal by the universe, a betrayal by a man is not only unsurprising but expected.
So when I found the phone, the texts, I didn't feel angry but foolish. And there, perhaps, lies the problem. I am more upset by being made a fool than by his sharing his affections, by his fucking someone else. Maybe even loving someone else. And so when I picked up my phone and dialed that number (I do admit the tremble in my fingers, a sinking sensation, a certain sort of drowning), and she answered with her cigarette-Sunday-morning voice, it wasn't jealousy I felt at all but rather simple sadness. God, pity even. Understanding.
You have no idea,
I had said.
What you're doing.
She thinks there are no children involved, that she is not destroying a family. She can't possibly understand that we
were
a family. A family cobbled together out of a want bigger than anything this girl, this stupid girl, can possibly know right now (when her biggest concern is her relationship status on Facebookâ
It's complicated,
she settles on).
She cannot know the smell of jacaranda, the hollow knock of eager knuckles on a large wooden door. The sound of ten babies wailing. The way my chest heaved when I entered that filthy room with its crumbling walls and dim light, and saw the babies, a sea of babies with their mouths wide open like naked, featherless birds in a nest, reaching, pleading, screaming. That the woman assured me that they were held twice a day after their changings.
Twice a day
they were touched. She can't know the scent of a dozen dirty diapers. Muted by the smell of burning plantains and jacaranda. She doesn't know the way that bile tasted in my throat at the chorus of
mama-mama,
the word the same in nearly every language. A word so primitive it only has one sound. That universal glottal evocation.
She cannot know when she traces her manicured nails down his chest, that I once watched Zu-Zu cling to him. Once press her hot wet cheek to that same chest. And the way he told me it made him feel.
Like a father,
he said. Almost. Our bodies carry no evidence of those who have loved us. If they did, if they bore the imprints of everyone's hands, every child's wet cheek, every mother's palm, if our flesh carried the ghosts of all the hands that have touched us, then we might be more careful.
This is not her fault. She doesn't know anything more than what he has told her. And I know that he could have told her anything. Or nothing. And so it doesn't matter who she is, because in the end this has so very little to do with her (though I suspect she thinks it has everything to do with her).
Who is this?
she'd asked.
What do you want?
And I didn't confront Jake. I didn't have to, because I knew she would come to him eventually. She would shudder and cry and apologize. I could picture him closing his office door, and her wide eyes. The way she'd probably say, “Fuck, Jake. What the fuck? I can't do this anymore. If you're going to leave her then leave her. But I'm done being somebody's mistress.” Because she fancies herself independent, even though her parents still come from upstate once a month and load her refrigerator with lactose-free milk and fresh fruit and the same cereal she's loved since she was little. Even though she is still too afraid to take the subway after dark. Even though she wants nothing more, in the end, than a house somewhere filled with her own babies (though she doesn't know it yet). But I forgive her this even. Because she is so very young.
It has been three weeks since I discovered the texts on his phone. Since I spoke to her, as she broke down on the other end of the line, apologizing like a child who got caught stealing candy. For three weeks, I have kept my silence, though it's a simple enough question to ask:
What do you want?
It's as easy as this. But I haven't asked, because I know he has no answers. I am so tired of his lack of answers.
I hear Plum's voice echo across the lake. “Da . . . dee!”
“Well, what do
you
want to do?” he asks. Always depending on me to make the hard decisions. For once, I'd like him to just stand up and be a fucking man.
“I want you to go back to New York,” I say.
“And?” he asks.
“And that's all, for now. I'm not making this decision for you. Go back home. Decide what the hell it is that you want. When you get that figured out, you let me know.”
I walk out to the end of the dock now, and he doesn't follow. It feels precarious underneath me, and so I am careful. The sun is still bright in the sky. Now that the helicopters are gone, the loons have returned and are peacefully gliding across the surface of the lake. I see one not far from where I stand. Usually they travel in pairs this time of year, but this loon is alone. Or at least it seems she is alone until she swims close enough for me to see. It is early in the summer, and so the baby is young. She rides on her mother's back. I scan the surface of the lake, waiting for the father to poke his head up from the water. He must be fishing, finding them food. But the surface of the lake is still. And they are alone out there. He is nowhere to be found.