“That’s good. I haven’t seen your dad around in a while.”
“He’s busy. Work.”
She narrows her eyes at you. “Right.” Silence between you. Even the child is quiet. She sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we stopped coming around.”
There had been a fight, before your mother left. Your father had started drinking more, losing himself, shouting, all impulse and ego. He broke the bow of Della’s husband’s fiddle in an argument, tossed it into the flames on the bonfire like it was kindling.
“Well, she’s not here.”
Della sighs. “I wanted her to leave him. But I thought she’d take you.”
“Do… do you know where she is?” you ask, your throat gone to sandpaper.
Della shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Annabelle. I miss her though, and I know you must miss her too. I still think of her every spring, when the heather blooms.”
The little girl starts to fuss. She doesn’t like this talk, you think, of mothers disappearing.
“And Sabrina? I heard some rumors. She shouldn’t be hanging around with—”
“Sabrina is fine.”
“It’s just that, I’ve started working at the police station. They had to bring her in the other night. Something about a fight.”
This is news to you. “She was arrested?”
“I don’t know the whole story, but there was property damage, a broken window. Down at the bait shop. There had been an argument.It was late. I wasn’t there. I only answer phones during the day. But I’m worried about her. About both of you.”
A shriek from the little girl in the cart. Della turns to her, pats her head.
“This is Wren. She’s three.”
You nod. You can’t look at her anymore without thinking of Della and your mother, both of them with their big laughs and quick-moving hands, and who, from across the yard, were nearly indistinguishable with their heads bent together whispering secrets, plotting, the ends of their hair touching and making a curtain in front of their faces.
Della bends to pick up the pacifier on the ground, holds it out to you. Her eyes glitter with questions.
“Why would you take this, Annabelle? You had it under your coat.”
You shrug.
Ask me again, you think, the same way you did with Miss Hamilton.Ask me again who this is for and I’ll split like a ripe fruit, like the pods of seeds my mother dried for you to prime your womb for a child, like the firewood underneath my father’s axe, like the thin skin of a roasted marshmallow before you pressed it between two graham crackers.
Della opens her mouth and you can almost taste the relief of telling her. This woman who may be the closest thing to a mother you’ve got left. Squint and it’s her. Close your eyes and remember the feeling of her fingers along your scalp while she braided your hair and your mother worked on Sabrina’s. But then the child screams again, ear-splittingly shrill, and Della remembers that she already has a daughter, a daughter who is calling her back, territorial in her fury, her small face red and clenched in outrage.
“Don’t be like her, Annabelle. Don’t go getting into trouble like Sabrina. Finish school and get away. Start your life.”
That’s the story everyone wants for you. Your mother, Miss Hamilton, Della. The good sister, the one who did everything right. You shove the pacifier back on the display rack.
“Good girl. Call me if you need anything, Annabelle.” She opensher purse, unfolds her wallet, hands you two twenty-dollar bills. “Promise me you’ll only use this for you. To get away. You have to think of yourself. You have to take care of you first.”
You nod, taking the cash. The little girl scowls at you from the cart as they walk away.
CALLIE
That Saturday she’s working late at the station—reviewing resumes of new job candidates, more admin, another grant application, this time for a K-9 unit and handler. Under everything she does the questions still hum: Who was Baby Doe’s mother? Who is the father they share? When, how, will she ever learn what happened to Jenna? She forces herself to concentrate, even as she feels this sticky mess of secrets sucking her backward. The last thing she needs is anyone on the squad to think she’s slipping: after all, they’ve still got all these overdoses on their hands. Another just last week, a father of two. Callie found a picture of his family online, posted along with his obituary. She can’t get the round cheeks of his smiling sons out of her mind.
As she’s wrapping up Jane texts to ask if they can go for a drive somewhere in the morning. Damien, Callie thinks. Maybe she’s finally ready to talk about the drugs. Maybe Jane will give her what she needs to go after Luke.
You got it. Where to?
