Boy Still Missing (28 page)

We lived like that for three days.

Kissing.

Talking.

Sleeping.

Watching TV.

Taking care of Sophie.

Jeanny never left. Once when I was in the shower, she phoned her mother, and I could hear that they were arguing. I asked Jeanny about it later, and she shrugged it off, not wanting to get into it. I made up my mind not to ask anymore, because I didn’t want her to give it too much thought and decide to leave. She knew what she was doing. And I got the feeling that staying in this motel was almost like another protest for her.

She was picketing the fact that her mother had checked out two years ago. That she’d stopped noticing Jeanny at all.

Leon swung by every afternoon to bring us whatever we needed. Clothes from my apartment that he snagged when my father wasn’t around. More pizza. Chinese food. Soda. Pretzels. Toothbrushes. Toothpaste. All of it on the house. I asked him about Ed’s cabin, and he said he would see what he could do, but I was going to have to be nicer to Ed if I wanted to use his grandparents’ place. I promised, even though something told me that I wouldn’t end up there. Not that I had seen any more signs from my mother telling me what was to come next. Whenever I looked into the bathroom mirror, only my expectant face stared back. I was beginning to believe that I had simply imagined her there. Imagined her voice all along, too.

At the end of each day Jeanny and I took turns going outside for air while one of us stayed behind with the baby. Taking walks was Jeanny’s idea, since she thought we might go stir-crazy sealed in that dim room. In the woods behind the motel we found a narrow, snow-covered path that led to a pond. The surface looked more like some sort of galactic landscape than the slick, smooth white of a skating rink. All jagged bumps and craters left by the wind and snow. Whenever it was my turn to take a break, I walked along the path to the pond and stepped out onto the ice. All that black water seemed like death down there beneath my feet, waiting for me, waiting for all of us, even Sophie, who had only just been born. I always slid around on my boots, then sat down on a tree trunk near the edge of the pond. As the sun set and my breath fogged the air around me, I thought about all that had happened and wondered what to do next.

Beneath the ice a dozen or so goldfish the size of trout floated still in the cold water, which seemed weird to me because it was winter. But there they were—bright orange bursts of life under the frozen surface. Judging from the goldfish motif in the motel, I figured they must’ve belonged to Old Man Fowler. I had never seen goldfish so big, and I always stared down at them as I knocked those questions around my
brain before walking back to the room. Even though I didn’t come to a decision right away, I felt happy on those walks back to the room. It seemed odd to feel happy, considering my predicament. But knowing I was going to spend another night with Jeanny and Sophie filled me with a joy that I couldn’t put into words. It was a little like the way a man must feel returning to a family he loved. And this is what I told myself: My mother had one perfect day with Truman; I had three with Sophie and Jeanny.

Three days, that was all.

As happy as I felt, the whole while I sensed that menacing fairy-tale bird pecking away behind us, getting closer and closer all the time. I knew it was the part of me that realized this life would end. That somewhere Edie was looking for her baby. That sometime soon I was going to have to make up my mind. So it was during my last afternoon trip to the pond that I finally decided what to do.

I had spent a big part of the day laughing with Jeanny because she was trying, unsuccessfully, to teach me how to yodel. She said I sounded like a dying goat. We watched
The Price Is Right
and guessed along with Bob Barker and the gang. Jeanny whipped my ass and walked away with a washer and dryer, plus a brand-new car. After we finished the sandwiches Leon had brought us the day before, we played with Sophie. If you put your finger in her hand, she squeezed it tight. Since that was her first major physical feat besides blowing our eardrums with her crying, Jeanny and I were pretty impressed. When Sophie had had enough, we put her down for a nap and went into the next room, through the closets, and fooled around on the bed in there. Something we started doing after I explained to Jeanny that it made me feel more relaxed to be with her in that room, away from my mother’s tragedy. We both fell asleep in there, too, and when we woke, Jeanny suggested I go outside first.

I headed back to the ice and sat on that tree trunk. I was staring down at those meaty goldfish when I saw her.

My mother beneath the frozen surface.

She moved faceup, hair wet and snarled, watery and slow, drifting
by me with that same message she had given me in the mirror the night I arrived in her room. Only this time I didn’t let my fear distract me. I watched every move of her mouth. And that’s when I finally understood her.

She wasn’t saying,
Baby maybe stranger, too.

She was telling me:

The

baby

may

be

in

danger

here

with

you.

The sign I had been waiting for. But what was the danger?

My heart pounded, and I scrambled along the ice to follow her, slipping and banging my elbow as she drifted off into the gray murkiness of the pond. I watched her blue legs vanish into a tangle of weeds.

“Are you okay?” another voice said.

I yanked my head up to see Jeanny standing at the edge of the ice. “Where’s Sophie?” I asked, breathless.

“Leon came by. She’s asleep, so I told him to stay with her for a few minutes while I came to see you. Outside of that room for a change.”

“Is she okay? What if she wakes up?”

“I told Leon to shout out the window if he needs us. Don’t worry. Nothing will happen.”

“We should get back to her,” I said, thinking of my mother’s words.

“Relax. Leon will call us if she wakes up,” Jeanny said. “What were you looking at down there?”

I took a breath and forced myself to trust Jeanny. Something in my gut told me that whatever danger my mother spoke of was far greater than Sophie waking up with only Leon in the room. I stared down at the
ice, and just as I had come to expect, my mother was gone. But those fish were still there. A red one—not gold or orange but a flaming red—kept still beneath me. “I’m watching the fish,” I said. “I wonder how they stay alive down there all winter long.”

Jeanny stepped out onto the ice and slid her way over to me. She pretended to figure-skate. Twirling. Stretching her arms out before her. “Let’s see,” she said, kneeling next to me.

“There,” I said. “See them.”

We watched the red one. Its gills barely moving. Breathing in its own strange way. Jeanny said, “I guess their bodies adjust. They can take the cold.”

We watched the fish a moment more, waiting for it to do something, I supposed. But it just sat there. Dormant.

“I’ve been thinking,” I told Jeanny as we stared down at the ice, a blank mirror that wouldn’t reflect our images. “Maybe you’re right about giving Sophie back. Maybe she’s not safe here.” I hadn’t quite realized my decision until the words came out. But it was my mother’s message that had convinced me. I needed to reverse what I had done before anything else went wrong. And giving Sophie back to Edie seemed the only realistic thing to do, even if that felt like failure.

We stood up, and Jeanny put her arms around me, over my shoulders. I squeezed her low on the waist, locking us together. “I know it will be hard,” she said into the air over my shoulder. “But it’s the right thing to do.”

You would have thought that settling on a plan would’ve caused a great weight to be lifted from me. But no, I actually felt more pressed down and flattened with hopelessness. I realized that giving Sophie back meant letting go of Jeanny, too, the temporary life we had been living in the Holedo Motel. I pulled away and took a good, long look at her. She was wearing a pair of my jeans that Leon had brought to us, so baggy the cuffs went down over her boots and touched the ice. Her cheeks were pink from the winter air. The thing that struck me as so cool about Jeanny was that she showed every part of herself to me. Most girls
seemed to reveal only a glimpse of their personalities before reeling themselves back in. Jeanny was different. Real. Honest. She said what was on her mind, even if people—including me—didn’t like it. But just because she had all her opinions about the world, that didn’t mean she couldn’t let loose and have a good time. Looking at her, I told myself that no matter what happened after I returned the baby—the same way my mother had Truman—I would always remember my time here with her.

“So do you want to go back?” Jeanny asked. “Unless you’re part goldfish, you must be freezing.”

Leon wasn’t exactly Mary Poppins, so I figured we’d better get back. I took Jeanny’s hand, and we headed across the ice, shuffling our boots so we didn’t lose our balance and fall. We were about to step off the ice and start down the path when Jeanny stopped. “Look,” she said, pointing. “It’s starting to snow.”

The light flakes made the slightest patter as they fell onto the bare tree branches and the floor of the woods. More white to cover the white that was already there.

“I love when it snows,” Jeanny said. “It slows everything down.”

I couldn’t help thinking of the storm the night I found my mother. Would there ever be a time that snowfall didn’t make me think of seeing her body on the floor? We stood on the edge of the ice a moment longer. Listening to the patter. Letting the wet flakes land on our faces and melt with the heat of our skin. Then I tugged on Jeanny’s hand, and she followed me back through the woods. Something made me think of Marnie as we stepped through the woods. I remembered her telling me that I could stay at her place, and I wondered if she had meant for good. In a weird way I actually kind of missed the Bingo Queen.

We stopped at the corner of the motel, made sure no cars were passing the place, then scooted up the cement stairs. When we got to the door, Jeanny stepped aside and told me to open it. “Why?” I asked.

“Open it,” she said. “You’ll see.”

I turned the knob and pushed in the door. A dozen balloons floated up near the ceiling—pink, white, yellow, red, blue, green. On the
dresser was a bowl of chips and dip. A six-pack of Dr Pepper. Two small presents wrapped in the paper from a brown shopping bag. A bow had been stuck to Sophie’s guitar-case bed.

“Happy birthday!” Jeanny and Leon said in unison.

My birthday. Only it wasn’t until tomorrow. I figured I didn’t need to let them know they’d gotten the date wrong. We might as well start the party early. Jeanny picked up Sophie and brought her to me. There was a bow taped to one of her feet, too. I peeled it off and stuck it to Jeanny’s head. Gave Sophie a kiss on her soft cheek. Then I heard my mother’s voice telling me that Sophie was in danger here with me. As much as it killed me, I had to take her home.

“Here you go, birthday boy.” Jeanny grabbed a present off the dresser and handed it to me, took Sophie again. “From the pea and me. Keep in mind, this is a low-budget birthday. I haven’t exactly had a chance to go to Bloomingdale’s.”

I tore it open and found six twelve-packs of gum. Not Juicy Fruit, but Chiclets in every flavor. Along with that there was a doodly drawing of Sophie, Jeanny, and me. Jeanny had sketched herself in a pleated skirt and dark sweater. The bubbled caption read “World’s Worst Outfit!” An arrow pointed to Sophie’s hand with a bubble that read “Future Arm-Wrestling Champ!” Over my head it simply said “Birthday Boy.”

I laughed, thinking I’d frame the drawing the way my uncle had that photo of him and Truman at Laguna del Perro. It would be my only tangible reminder of the last three days. Once again I saw my life stretching out before me. A blank chalkboard. An empty notebook. I felt the heavy weight of sadness I guessed I’d always feel without my mother. But it was my birthday—or almost anyway—so I tried to forget that for the time being and smile.

Jeanny tapped a yellow balloon in the air with her free hand. It bumped the red one, and I grabbed it, pulled it down to me, thinking of those hats at St. Patrick’s. It was one of those balloons that had a smaller balloon inside. Like the kind Marnie used to bring me from the dingy gift shop at Griffith Hospital when I was a kid. She used to get the end-of-
the-day no-sales on her way out of work, and they always sank to the floor in no time. I looked at the stretched rubber surface and saw a curved version of myself and the room behind me, tinted red just like my dream, only more disorienting because of the round reflection. I let go, and the balloon shot up to the ceiling, thumped against the flat white surface, and cocked its faceless face down at me. Watching. Staring. The balloon’s string was more like a ribbon, and it hung like an upside-down question mark, curling in front of me. I thought of what it might be asking from up there:

Are you sure you want to give the baby back to Edie?

Before I had time to answer that in my mind, the balloon popped, making a gunshot of a noise, startling all of us. Jeanny let out a surprised sort of yelp. The baby began to wail. The shriveled bits of red skin dropped to the floor, and I thought of a cardinal released into heaven. My mother.

“Okay,” Jeanny said. “No playing with the survivors. Let them float freely. Balloons have rights, too.”

Jeanny worked at calming Sophie, and Leon took the second present from the dresser and handed it to me. I shook it near my ear. Not a sound. It weighed next to nothing. “Let me guess,” I said, kidding him. “Another gun. More bullets.”

“Just open it,” he said, looking over my shoulder toward the door instead of at me. He kept tapping one hand on his leg in a way that seemed fidgety, not at all like him.