A Field Guide to Deception (40 page)

“It wasn't snowing this hard when I left, and you told me you'd be working late, so I just focused on getting there before you left. Besides, I took Bailey's Subaru—new snow tires and four-wheel drive—I didn't even notice the snow.”

Sophia had asked Claire if she could stay with them until Bailey got home. Claire could remember being frightened like this when she was pregnant. Sometime in that last miserable month, her aunt had
found her, weeping in the shower, and she'd climbed in—boots and all—to hold Claire while she cried.

Claire followed Fourteenth to Maple, along the bus route, since they'd plow bus routes first. Half a dozen cars on the road, each one crawling along, and leaving as much space as possible in every direction. The truck fishtailed at the stop sign on Walnut.

“Fuck,” Claire said, throwing the emergency brake. “I love winter.”

Once they were off the hill, they both relaxed perceptibly.

“I think he feels my anxiety. He's freaking out.” Sophia unfastened her seatbelt to stretch forward, and massage her belly, flex her back. “You know what I miss? Sleeping on my back. I really miss sleeping on my back.”

“I missed sleeping on my belly. After Simon was born, I still couldn't because I was breast-feeding.” She laughed. “I thought I'd been uncomfortable before …”

“How long did you breast-feed?”

“Ten months.”

“God, that's amazing. It wasn't hard?”

“It was wicked hard. My nipples bled for days, and ached for months. I would have kept going, but he bit me so hard that last time I told him we were done.” She adjusted the heater. “Anyway, he'd already acclimated to sippy cups by then.”

“He never had a bottle?”

“Sometimes. I'd pump so Dee could feed him from a bottle while I napped.”

Claire thought she heard a sniff, and glanced at Sophia. The girl had bent so far forward she looked like she was trying to kiss her own belly.

“Are you OK?” Claire asked.

“Yeah,” Sophia breathed. “He just kicked me really hard. He's got hiccups. I don't think he likes hiccups.”

“Me neither. We're almost home,” Claire said, reaching out to her. “There's the bridge up ahead, and we're the first right.”

Through the snow, two deer ran into the headlights.

The pounding at the kitchen door startled Liv from her magazine. She hopped up and ran through, anxious that Simon not wake. Claire on the doorstep: blood smeared over her right eye and down her cheek, the sleeve of her coat ripped and bloody, her jeans and boots slick with mud. Liv took this in without moving, said, “What's happened? What have you done?”

Claire stood, silent. Blood in her hair, and from one of her ears, and all at once Liv's brain unlocked her body, and she seized Claire, brought her straight through to the bathroom, sat her on the toilet, and turned the shower on.

“What happened?” She couldn't tell if the cuts were serious. “Claire, where are you hurt?”

Claire trembled. Liv could hear her teeth chatter. Kneeling, she peeled off Claire's boots, and coat. Tore her shirt away to avoid pulling it over her head, eased it past Claire's torn hands. “Tell me what happened.” She had the most trouble with Claire's jeans, had to brace Claire's body with her head and shoulder in order to yank them down.

“Claire,” Liv said, forcing her voice to be sensible, soothing. She stripped her own clothes off, grabbed Simon's step ladder from the pantry, and shouldered Claire from the toilet seat to the highest step of the ladder. “Claire, can you tell me what happened?” Liv used her own body to keep Claire from toppling into the tub, and poured water over her head, rinsing away the blood and dirt.

“Simon's asleep,” Liv said now, digging into Claire's hair to pull several pieces of glass from her scalp. “We read a couple of stories, and then he fell right to sleep. I figured I'd give you another hour before I called. Thought I'd wait until ten to interrupt you.” Claire's ear was cut, and her right eyebrow. Neither was deep, though they bled easily. Already her torso, along her ribs, as well as her right knee and thigh were bruised.

“Claire, were you in an accident?”

Once she'd been rinsed off, the cuts were obviously minor; even on her hands, she'd only cut a couple of shallow lines in her palms.
“Claire, did you hit your head?”

She talked while Claire shivered. She kept the water hot, rubbed at Claire's arms and legs. When the chattering seemed to be louder, Liv pulled Claire from the shower, toweled her off, and eased her into Liv's own pajamas before leading her to the sofa and cocooning her in blankets. Liv grabbed sleeping bags, and a heating pad, and propped Claire between the arm of the sofa and a battery of pillows.

“Claire?” Liv said. “Should I take you to the hospital? Your injuries look superficial—the ones I can see anyway. Does your belly hurt, or your head?” Starting at her feet, Liv pressed her fingers gently into Claire, hoping a hidden injury would evoke some response. She'd worked up to Claire's face, pressing into her temples, when she realized that she'd never heard the truck. “Claire? Did you have to leave the truck someplace?”

Should she wake Simon, drive to the emergency room in a blizzard? In the bathroom again, she grabbed Claire's clothes and jacket and boots, and took them through to the laundry room. She didn't know for sure what had happened. If she found the truck, though, if she found the truck she might know more. She grabbed clothes from the hamper, and Claire's boots, and put them on.

Liv returned to the living room with an ice pack, and held it against Claire's head. “Claire? Can you talk to me?” She'd stopped shivering. “Were you in an accident? Did something happen to the truck?” Out the bay window, the snow seemed to fall more heavily still. Her tools were in the lockbox in the bed of the truck. If the truck were on the road somewhere between here and town, at night, in the middle of a blizzard, she'd have to leave sooner rather than later, if she hoped to find it.

“Listen, Claire, Simon's asleep. He's in his room, sleeping.” She turned the television on, found a nature show. “I'm going to run out for just a minute, OK? I'm going to run out and see if I can find the truck. I'll just walk along the road for fifteen minutes, that's all.”

Claire pulled her legs up, drew the blankets tightly around herself.

“Claire? Can you talk to me?”

Claire was staring at the TV when she whispered, “By the bridge.”

“What?”

“I lost Simon,” Claire said. “He had hiccups and I couldn't find him.”

“No, honey. Simon's in his room. He's asleep. Don't you worry about him. You just need to rest. Do you think you can rest?”

“You have to go,” Claire said. “By the bridge.”

“That's right.” Liv kissed her several times on the forehead, and mouth. “You'll rest here; and I'll take care of everything. Keep this on your head.” Liv adjusted the ice pack. “And I'll see if I can locate the truck and figure out what happened.”

Liv set the cordless phone on the couch, and kissed Claire again. “I'll be right back.”

Liv's flashlight barely penetrated the snow. She pulled her cap lower on her face, zipped her coat up so that the metal pressed into her chin. She could still see Claire's footprints, and followed them to the road, along the road to the bridge, and then began to look for tire treads.

Ten yards from the bridge, she saw tracks run away to the left, and followed these. The truck had hit a maple tree, and rolled at least once, sliding on the passenger's side into another tree. Claire had pushed, or kicked, through the windshield. Both doors were locked. Amazingly, Liv's tools were still in the lockbox she'd built in the truck bed. Her poor truck—essentially intact, though—and far enough from the road to remain for the night. She walked around the far side of the truck and stood looking at a pair of legs.

Liv vomited twice. She had blood on her hands—she'd pulled off her gloves to get a better grip—and had smacked her head on the truck so hard that she'd cut herself. She wiped blood from her eyes. Sophia lay supine, her left arm and shoulder pinned under the cab of the truck, the rest of her upper body buried deep in snow. Liv had stood,
staring at the legs, trying to puzzle the incongruity, legs beside her wrecked truck in the woods. She'd tried to make them animal legs at first, despite the lace-up shoes. Her mind had pulled together slowly. And then she knew everything.

She'd checked for a pulse, and found a slow one, though Sophia's skin was blue. She'd tried to shift the truck. Tried to dig Sophia out. Finally, she'd run back to the road, and called 911, given directions for an ambulance, learned there was a pileup on the freeway, and it would be twenty minutes before anyone could get to her.

Liv ran back to the truck, pulled blankets and a tarp through the broken windshield and tried to cover Sophia. The snow had not let up. Liv called the house phone. It rang and rang and no one answered.

She heard a siren in the distance, and ran back to the road. The fire truck stopped beside her, killed the siren, but kept its lights flashing.

“She's this way,” Liv said. Crying now, stumbling. Two of the firefighters lifted her, turned back toward the fire truck.

“You're bleeding,” one of them said. “We can see your truck all right.”

They guided Liv to the fire truck, sat her down, wrapped her in a blanket, working around her as though she were injured. She could only cry.

“We're taking you in,” a voice said. “You've sliced your head open.”

The sirens started again.

“Don't leave her,” Liv said. “Don't leave her.”

“It's OK.” The same voice. “It's OK. We've got her. We've got her too.”

Thirty-nine

A sound woke me

He called her several times before her eyes opened. They closed, and he called her again.

“Mama.”

“I'm awake.”

“Mama.”

“What is it, baby?”

“A sound. I heard a sound.”

He'd heard a shriek like a pterodactyl, and found his mother's bed empty. Down the long hallway, he thought maybe they'd been eaten. In the living room, his mother slept in a nest of blankets, on television a commercial for pet supplies.

“I want to sleep with you,” he said.

“OK.”

“Mama.”

“I'm coming.”

He came and stood beside her. She followed him down the hallway—leaving the light on, the television—crawled into bed, and tucked him against her. Sleep broke over them.