The vanishing year, p.10
The Vanishing Year, page 10
“This.” She runs her hand along her scar, turning her head slightly to the left so I can see it, glinting and silvery in the bright light. “Isn’t from the job. It’s from a man. A man who owned me and beat me, within inches of death until I ran away. I had to hide, too, for a while. Then, fuck it, I became a cop. I was the oldest one at the police academy.”
“Where is he now?” I play with a small lock of hair, twirling it between my index and middle fingers and as I wait for her answer, I pull. Hard. My eyes tear.
“He’s locked up now. Couldn’t get him for what he did to me, but I got him for what he did to the next girl. Almost killed her. I have guilt about that.”
I nod again. I feel tongue-tied around this weathered woman who wears all her scars on the outside. I’m jealous of her many physical reminders, the ones that tell the world she’s a warrior. Sometimes, I forget who I am. I have one thin pink line on my right wrist to remind me.
She pushes away the file and folds her hands. Her nails are manicured bright red. She catches my stare and fans her fingers out for me to see. “I’m Not Really a Waitress.”
I shake my head, confused.
“That’s the name of the color. It’s a . . . reminder.” She winks at me. She takes one of those red manicured hands and touches my arm. “Tell me.”
I know she’s not talking about nail polish. I tell her. I tell her about San Francisco and Mick, and I find myself loosening, spilling long locked-up details. Jared twisting my arm behind my back, that glint of the gun in his coat. Things I thought I’d forgotten. The smell of Mick’s aftershave, mingling with the tang of sweat. The sharp sting of betrayal from Mick, how I’d thought he was shady, a borderline abuser, but never really evil, until later, then I knew. I wondered how close Evelyn came to his circles, how involved he’d been when he’d known her. I said all this, and more, rambling and disordered. She nodded like she was following.
I told her how later, two men—Jared’s lackeys, I assume—broke into Evelyn’s apartment and, pressing a gun against the small of my back, threw me in a white utility van, the back stripped and separated from the front with a stainless steel cage. They cut my clothes off, tied my wrists and calves together with electrical cable. I tell her how they wound duct tape around my middle anchoring my wrists to my back. I tried to knee the larger of the two between the legs, and he brought his boot down on my forehead, quick and shockingly forceful.
I tell her how sometime around the three-day mark, near as I can figure, the smaller guy came back in the middle of the night, alone. He’d asked me, where are the girls? And no matter how I pleaded, he wouldn’t believe I didn’t know. I don’t know how he thought that I had the resources to hide anyone. I was barely getting by. He was a bottom-feeder, scared and hung out to dry. I had shrugged. I was gagged. My seeming indifference enraged him and he pushed a gun against my temple, screaming in my face, Tell me where the fuck they’re hiding! I know she talked to you. You helped her. But I couldn’t. Before he got out, he kicked my foot so hard, he snapped my left ankle, clean in half. I could see the white knob of bone pushing out against my skin.
I studied the inside of the van, favoring my right side so my left ankle was supported. In the corner lay a child’s white sock, the kind trimmed with white lace. A sock for church, or preschool graduation. Maybe Easter Sunday or Christmas Day. I was able to flip it over with the toe of my shoe, exposing a quarter-size bloodstain. I was tortured by images of a little girl, blonde and freckled. Pink-ribboned pigtails. Covered in blood.
When I began to lose my grip, my sanity sliding through my fingertips, I began to dream I was little again, going to church with Evelyn and her lady friends, bright lipstick and large hats. Sunday best. Lacey socks. Bloody feet. I’d wake up screaming.
I tell her how they left me there for five days—a time I couldn’t discern and would learn later. They might have left me there forever, to rot in the back of an unidentified vehicle parked outside an abandoned construction site. Except I had figured out how to kick the metal floor in the right way to make a racket. Initially, I kicked for hours. Then later, I faded in and out of consciousness, waiting for the right moment, listening for a noise, straining my eyes against the crack in the van door, searching for any faint light. I heard the muted whirp of the siren before I saw the quick glint of headlights, and I hit my right heel against the gas tank, banging hollow and empty, again and again. My left ankle, flopping lifelessly. I don’t remember it hurting. The headlights beaming in after they’d crowbarred the van doors open—that hurt. The noise, the sirens that came later, the ambulance, and inexplicably a fire truck—that hurt. My body did not. My body felt blissfully numb.
The whole time I talk, I rub the thin, pink scar on my wrist, from where the cable ties tore into my skin. I had seven stitches there to hold the flesh back together. It’s barely visible. Lately, I find myself running the pad of my finger along the edge, a reminder of where I’ve ended up and maybe what I don’t deserve.
I tell the entire story, which is something I’ve never done before. Not to Detective Maslow, not to the lawyers, or the cops, or later to a psychologist I saw a total of three times. Everyone knows bits and pieces of the story but no one has ever heard me tell it, all at once in a rush. I say it all, quickly but flatly, dispassionate, almost like it happened to someone else.
Which is true, when you think about it. It happened to Hilary.
CHAPTER 10
Yates promises that she’ll be in touch and drops me off in front of my building. She touches my hand once, a tactile thank you and don’t worry all at the same time, her crimson fingernails flittering.
I stand on the sidewalk, studying my apartment building with Hilary’s eyes. The opulence, the gold and brass. Fear pricks at the back of my scalp and I scan up and down the street, expecting to see Mick or Jared Pritchett leaning languidly against the black stone of the building. Picking his teeth. Grinning like a Cheshire cat. You’re dead now, chatty girl. His scarred face glinting in the afternoon sun. My brain is flinging memories at me, long buried. The curled snake around Mick’s bicep. His nails, cut square and rimmed with black, fingers tap tap tap on his knees, his foot bobbing.
I haven’t relived the kidnapping in years, maybe ever. I buried it, deep and inaccessible. Now, on the streets, the lights seem too bright, the cars seem too loud. I can’t catch my breath and I feel shaky and weak. I think of Henry’s face if I told him, how his eyebrows would protrude downward, his mouth slightly open in disbelief.
Peter is at the door, hunched over and white-haired. He gives me a sympathetic pat on the back. It seems everyone needs to touch me today, but in that quick funeral parlor way—taps and pats.
“There’s a man inside the lobby waiting for you.” He wheezes. My heart lurches into my throat and sticks there. He turns his head to the side. “He says he’s from the New York Post? Might want to write about the break-in? Seems funny.”
Cash. I blow out a breath and shake my fists loose. I need to get a grip. I hesitate in the vestibule and check my phone. No Henry.
Cash is hunched over, elbows resting on his knees on the plush sofa in the lobby, fiddling with his cell phone. At the click of my heels on the marble floor, he looks up and gives me a half wave.
“How do you know where I live?” I halt about ten feet from him and eye him suspiciously.
He half stands, fumbling with something on the sofa next to him and it falls to the floor between us. It’s my wallet. He snatches it up, almost guiltily.
“You, uh, left this. When you ran out this morning.” He extends his hand and rushes on. “I tried to call you a few times.”
“I ignored them. I . . . I didn’t recognize the number. It’s been a . . . hectic day.” I take the wallet and feel a stab of sympathy. He looks flustered and awkward, and he shoves one beefy fist in his pocket.
“So I also had an idea. About our conversation this morning?” His eyes slide over to Peter.
I hesitate. I don’t want to discuss my adoption in the lobby. The apartment is still torn apart, likely streaked with fingerprint powder by now. I’m overwhelmed. At least Cash is a friend. Sort of. I sigh and motion him to follow me. We ride the elevator in silence and I’m self-conscious of the apartment. The flaunting wealth never bothered me before, but now as I slide the card across the top, I view the apartment through Cash’s eyes. The custom designed flooring and rich paint hues, large, European antique furniture, fourteen-foot ceilings. The ransacked belongings.
I clear my throat, hang my coat in the hall closet.
“Holy shit! You’ve been robbed!” He pulls out his cell phone. “Here, I’ll call 9-1-1—”
“No!” I wave my hand. “The apartment was broken into this morning. That’s where I was all day. I’m sorry. I feel so . . . disconnected or something. I should have mentioned it in the elevator.” I do feel disconnected. My reactions are out of whack.
I study the living room. The credenza has been emptied, its contents littering the carpet like a flea market. I bend down, pick up a pair of pewter candlesticks, and place them back in the cabinet I think they came from. It’s such a small gesture, like taking a chip out of a block of ice. I shrug.
“Are you okay?” he asks, raising one arm to pat me and I involuntarily step back.
“I’m okay, let’s sit in the kitchen. There was nothing done there.” He follows me and takes a seat on the kitchen island. It’s been so long since I’ve had a friend, I feel like I’ve lost the skill. If he was Lydia, would I cry? Would I ramble about being insecure and violated and scared? Would I tell him about Mick? I can’t remember how to need someone. A year is a long time to be so emotionally self-reliant. I feel tired.
I open the fridge and pull out two water bottles. On second thought, I pull out a bottle of pinot grigio and uncork it. I tilt a wineglass in Cash’s direction and he shakes his head no.
“Thanks for the water, though.” He takes a long time to unscrew the cap and take a sip. I down my glass of wine and feel the heat behind my breastbone. My back relaxes almost immediately, that taut string between my shoulder blades, and the release tingle travels down my arms and into my fingertips. I flex my hands. I pour the second glass and take a deep swig. It’s cold and acidic. Cash doesn’t fill the silence, which I like. Neither does Henry. Where the fuck is Henry? And suddenly, I’m filled with anger. It’s bubbling up, fighting its way up my esophagus against the river of wine, and before I know it, I’m crying. The kind of crying where you can’t see and you can’t stop. It’s embarrassing, and I know that, but I can’t do anything about it. I’m just so tired of always trying to “do something about it.” The release feels good, if not vulnerable.
Cash half stands and I wave him down, blubbering and gasping like a fish out of water. I pull a paper towel off the roll and blow my nose in it, ungracefully. The whole outburst can’t last more than a minute. When I’m done, I feel better. Cash looks worried.
“Honestly, Zoe, you don’t seem okay.”
“God, Cash, I can’t explain it. I have no one. Not one person to call. To talk to. My ex–best friend thinks I’m pathetic. I have no family. My husband has chosen today of all days to be MIA. Do you have someone? Do you have people?”
He nods, slowly. “I have friends, yeah. My mom lives in Jersey. I have seven brothers and sisters.”
“Seven! I can’t even fucking imagine that!” I slam my hand down on the counter. Cash smiles. Dropping the f-bomb while wearing Chanel linen pants feels good.
“It was crazy growing up. We were all shoved in a three-bedroom duplex in Jersey City. I couldn’t hear myself think half the time.”
“I’m so tired of hearing myself think.”
“That’s why you want to find your biological mother?” Cash peels the label off his water bottle. He’s a fidgeter, it makes me feel at ease, all his outward discomfort.
“Yeah, I guess? I just can’t take this. I have no roots in the world. At all. It’s disconcerting.”
“You have Henry.” He rolls the label around his thick index finger and avoids my eyes.
“Do you see Henry?” I throw it out there, even though I know it’s irrational. But honestly, where the hell is the man? It would be nice to have another person to call.
“Zoe. I have to tell you. In that feature I wrote? Very rarely did the biological parents remain in the picture. In most cases, they had already moved on. They had new lives, new families.”
“I know all that.” I dismiss it, although I’m not entirely sure that I do know all that. “I can’t explain it. I have no roots. I just want a root. I feel . . . untethered. If I just floated away, who would notice?” I don’t mention that I’ve already done it once before, floated clear across the country and no one cared. Except maybe now, maybe now someone cares and they care enough to try to kill me. Or scare me. I’m still unsure, and the wine revolts in my stomach.
“Okay, well, I was thinking. Probably 60 percent of all domestic adoptions are in-state. But you said you were raised in California. Your birth certificate is from Connecticut. Of those 40 percent out of state, I’d guess that more than half of them were because the adoptive mother knew the biological mother. A cousin, or a sister, or something. So, those are decent odds. I’d start there. Try to find a link between your adoptive mother and the name on that memo.”
The birth certificate and memo are shoved in my purse. The room is taking on a soft blur, the wine doing its job, and I feel hot and lazy and tired. So incredibly tired. I sink down onto one of the stools at the island and rest my temple on my hand. I want to sleep. I think about the living room with the ruined sofa and overturned end tables and I want to sleep for days. Which might be fine. Penny can clean up the mess. The one thing about having no one is that no one expects anything from you.
“Will you help me?” I ask him, pathetically, running my index finger along the lip of the glass. It hums.
“I said I would help you. Give me all the information you have. I’ll help you.”
I reach over, clumsily grab at my purse, and hand him the crinkled paperwork. “Evelyn Lawlor. My adoptive mother’s name was Evelyn Lawlor.” Then, even softer, “I miss her.” I’ve passed the point of loosening and am starting to feel unraveled, like no moment after this one will be the same. Like I won’t be able to go back now and be the Zoe I used to be. Which makes me laugh, a gurgling, wet sound in the back of my throat. Who is the Zoe I used to be?
“Zoe, what the hell is going on?” Henry’s voice booms above my thoughts, echoing in the austere kitchen. Cash and I both visibly jump.
Everything snaps to sharp focus. Henry stands in the kitchen doorway, his hands on his hips, his chin jutting. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cash shove the paperwork into his back pocket. Cash’s eyes go from Henry, to the bottle of wine, to me.
“Who the fuck are you?” Henry demands. “Did you do this to our home?”
“Henry! No! This is Cash Murray from the New York Post. He did the article on CARE. I met him this morning to go over the article and I left my wallet at the coffee shop. He returned it.”
“Drinking wine with my wife?” Henry crosses the kitchen and swipes the half-empty bottle away, holding it away from me, like a snappy parent.
“Henry. Stop. You’re embarrassing me. I was the only one drinking. See?” I point to the single wineglass. “I was rattled from the break-in.”
“I’m sorry, Zoe, Mr. Whittaker, I should probably go.” Cash stands up, wiping his hands on his jeans. Henry gives him the once-over, with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. I love how Cash calls him Mr. Whittaker.
Then, it’s like a switch. Henry smiles. Cash hesitates, his mouth flickering up to return the smile, but dubiously. Henry crosses the room in two long lopes and extends his hand. Cash shakes it.
“I’m sorry, Cash, was it? Listen, please accept my apology. I’ve been rattled, my home is torn apart, my wife is drinking wine with a man I’ve never met, I’ve had a hellish day—” His smile widens and I wonder if his face will crack, split wide open. His eyes are steely in a way that maybe only I notice.
It fleetingly crosses my mind that I’ve had a much more “hellish day” than Henry, and I remember the way his hand cupped Pink Spandex. The hand that is now snaking possessively around my neck and across my shoulders, his fingertips massaging into my collarbone. It also occurs to me that he has yet to ask if I’m okay.
“I understand. I should go, anyway. I’m sorry that we had to meet under such unfortunate circumstances. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Whittaker.”
“Please call me Henry. Let me walk you out.” He claps a hand on Cash’s shoulder and steers him toward the front door. “Were you at the CARE benefit, then? I’m sorry, there were so many people there that night.” Their voices fade into the living room, then the hallway, until I can’t hear them anymore. I marvel at Henry’s smoothness, his voice is warm butter, but I shiver. I hear the front door latch open and shut and seconds later Henry appears in the doorway. His tie is still closely knotted and I think about how other men would pull it loose, unbutton that top button, sink into a chair, and get wrinkled. Henry never gets wrinkled. Even his boxers are starched.
“Are you sleeping with him?” His face is dark, his eyes look black in the fading kitchen light.
“What?” The question throws me off guard. “No. Are you sleeping with a girl at the gym?”
He advances toward me, his fists clenching and unclenching. He reaches up, his warm hands pushing hard against my shoulders. “Don’t play games, Zoe. What is going on?”
I’m tired. “Nothing, Henry. Nothing is going on.” I break free of his grasp and hold his gaze, backing up against the sink. Trying for casual.
“Cash is just a reporter?”
