The Longings of Wayward Girls (26 page)

July 7, 1979

T

he search for Francie moved into its third day, and still there was no mention of finding a body in the pond. It was a saturday, and the fathers gathered at

the end of the street to meet with state police and firefighters, with people on horseback, with the national Guard. They were placed into search parties and sent out into the same woods, the same swampy ground they’d searched for the last three days, that they’d searched five years ago for another girl. Already, a few had expressed frustration. “Maybe there’s a black hole in the woods,” one said. “Maybe there’s a bermuda Triangle thing going on here.” sadie heard her own father downstairs that morning.

“It’s just getting depressing,” he’d said before he left.

The mothers gathered around kiddie pools with the younger children, their voices lowering and then ceasing altogether when sadie and betty approached. each car that drove by was noted and its make, model, and tag recorded: maroon oldsmobile Toronado, blue wood-paneled Chrysler Town and Country wagon, black Cadillac Calais. The list was supplied to the detective, the cars checked out, the occupants verified: Mrs. Holmes going to visit her daughter, Jill Mandell bringing doughnuts to her sister’s family, a priest going to visit the Mansfield kids’ grandfather and administer last rites.

betty and sadie sat up in sadie’s bedroom in the sweltering heat, eating root beer Popsicles. It was late afternoon.
260

before betty came over, sadie had passed by her mother’s bedroom door and seen her packing her suitcase. she’d stood and watched her through the crack in the door placing items in, the suitcase open on her bed. Then her mother had closed the suitcase and stood before the mirror, fixing her hair, and sadie had slipped away from the door and into the hall bathroom, where she’d watched her mother with her suitcase head downstairs, the hem of her sundress brushing the carpeted steps. sadie heard the garage door, and when she went downstairs the garage was empty and her mother’s car was gone. sadie wondered where she’d go, whether she was coming back. Her father came into the garage, his T-shirt damp, his face and arms sunburned and scratched in the search.

“where’s your mother gone?” he asked.
“To the store,” sadie said. “For some ice cream.” Two hours had passed since her mother had left, and the

prospect of her never returning filled sadie with a buzzing sense of apprehension. betty sat across from her on the bed, and relayed how she’d heard her mother on the phone with her grandmother and that she was thinking of taking them all to her grandmother’s house in Farmington. “ ‘Another girl is
missing,
’” betty said, imitating her mother’s harsh whisper. “ ‘They already took a neighbor boy in for questioning. what about all the other neighbors they haven’t questioned? what about the people who drive through that we don’t see? I can’t sit at my window all day thinking everyone is a kidnapper, or worse!’”

betty’s grandmother must have suggested that Francie ran away. “This girl isn’t like that,” her mother said. betty imitated her mother taking a long drag of her cigarette. “she’s a little, dumpy thing.”

betty said her grandmother must have asked whether

Francie was a
Mongoloid.
“It’s called Down syndrome, Mother, and no, she isn’t, she’s a smart girl, smarter than my kids. They found sheaves of notebook paper in her bedroom, practically a book she’d written, some fairy tale with kings and queens and magic spells.”

sadie eyed betty. They’d gotten some of that in the letters. but not a book, not a whole story. “I wonder if we can find that,” sadie mused, preoccupied. she still half-believed that Francie was running away—escaping whatever it was that came into her room at night.

betty dripped her Popsicle onto her leg and then dipped her mouth down to lick it off. outside the wind picked up in the trees, and they could smell the air, cooler, filled with the approaching afternoon thunderstorm. The sun flitted in and out of clouds. The curtains billowed out. They talked about poor ray Filley and wondered what would happen to him next.

“It’s all our fault,” betty said.

“no,” sadie said, jaded by her experience with beth at her house. “It’s not.”
“what if she was really taken?” betty said.
sadie shifted back onto her pillow. “who would take
her
?”
betty gave her a halfhearted smile. “I guess.”
“After five minutes anyone would kick her out of the car.” sadie sat up and made a Francie face and assumed her Francie voice. “excuse me, but I’d like a general idea of the direction we’re heading. I do have a vocal lesson this afternoon, and I told my boyfriend, Hezekiah, that I would meet him at two o’clock precisely. I’m a stickler about being on time, and I really appreciate that in others as well. A ride in a car with the windows down is a nice change from my routine, but getting back
on time
is a priority.”
betty fiddled with her Popsicle stick, and sadie kept on, believing she could make betty laugh. “I like this part of town, it’s really new to me, and it’s been a pleasure taking this sightseeing tour of new england’s quiet country roads, but I hate to worry my family unduly.”
“stop,” betty said.
sadie widened her eyes and puffed her cheeks up. “I’m quite certain that it is past my lunchtime, and a regularly scheduled mealtime is essential for children’s health and well-being. I haven’t noticed any restaurants on our drive through these scenic woods, so perhaps you have a picnic lunch packed? I enjoy peanut butter and jelly, but bologna is okay if it’s been kept cool.”
There was a soft knock on sadie’s door, and betty jumped. Then the door opened just a bit, and sadie’s mother spoke through the crack.
“I just want you to know that I hear you,” she said, her voice hoarse and quavering. “I’m so very disappointed with the way you’re behaving.” And then the door closed, and sadie and betty heard sadie’s mother’s soft footfalls moving down the hall. Her bedroom door opened and then closed. nothing remained of her mother but her words, and the almost imperceptible smell of stale Chanel no. 5. sadie felt a joyous relief, sure her mother had left them, had a change of heart, and returned. betty said nothing. she bit her lip. “oh my God,” she whispered.
Then sadie’s father came upstairs. They heard the creak of the stair treads, heard him open the bedroom door and accost sadie’s mother in his booming voice.
“well, where’s the ice cream?”
sadie’s mother said she didn’t know what he was talking about, her voice muffled by the pillow.
“why aren’t you out searching?” she said.
“The sent us home,” her father said, his voice lowered. “They don’t want us to be the ones to find her body.” betty’s eyes widened, and sadie put a finger to her lips, signaling her to be quiet. once they heard her father retreat down the stairs they emerged from sadie’s room. They stepped quietly by sadie’s mother’s bedroom door, and betty moved past it to the stairs, but sadie paused, listening, and heard only her mother’s sobbing, stifled by the pillow. she felt all of her gladness depart. In its place was a hollow worthlessness—weren’t she and her father enough to make her happy? And now there was her mother’s concern for Francie.
betty started down the stairs, but sadie made her Francie face.
“yes, I’m thrilled to spend the night! no one asks me. This is exciting, almost like a campout. I’ll just snuggle up here in the backseat.”
“what kind of girl are you?” her mother cried out from inside the room, her voice close to a wail. “I can’t believe you are my daughter.”
sadie told her mother she was going to betty’s, and she followed betty down the stairs. They went to the screen door and watched the wind whip up the poor maple tree, the green leaves flapping violently, the sky a roiling gray. Upstairs they heard the bedroom door open.
“we’d better run,” sadie said, and they took off across the front lawn, the wind yanking their hair, bending the trees. They reached betty’s house, and inside her mother clanked the pans around in the kitchen, and sadie felt the strangeness she always felt, no matter how many times she’d been there, of being a guest in another house—allowed the opportunity to be served first at the large kitchen table, having to bow her head for the blessing, mouth the words she did not know, having to observe the petty arguments of a large family, from the size of the servings (“He took more!”) to the proximity of chairs (“Move
over
! you’re touching me!”), and endure the questioning of betty’s mother playing amateur sleuth.
“you girls sure you didn’t notice anything unusual that day?”
Charlene kept her cigarettes and her ashtray on the window ledge near her chair. Her mouth was narrow and tense, and between small bites of food she squinted at betty, then at sadie.
“nothing at all?” she said. “no cars on the street? what about the Filley boy? Did you see him? was he anywhere around?”
betty whined and sighed, imposed upon and humiliated. sadie offered as much information as she could invent without giving herself away. she wanted to divulge the location of the pond, and she decided betty’s mother was the conduit.
“The other day when betty and I went looking for Francie and got lost, we did find this pond, a big one, on the edge of the woods.” she took a bite of pork chop and chewed.
betty’s mother perked up. “really? A pond?”
betty’s father sighed and shifted in his wooden chair. “Charlene,” he said.
“but a pond? I don’t know if that’s been checked out. That’s a hazard, you know? The kids should be warned away from that.”
“The kids are smart enough not to go into a pond if they don’t know how to swim.”
“I swam in a pond once and they have mucky bottoms. lots of weeds,” sadie said.
betty’s father took up two spaces at the table. His face, perennially red, made him seem as if he was always holding his breath. He gave sadie a paternal look, his eyes kind.
“That’s true,” he said.
betty’s mother set her fork down on her plate. “we should mention the pond to the police,” she said.
“The entire area has been searched. I’m certain the pond was—well, searched, too.”
“A girl did drown there once,” sadie said.
“what, sweetie?” betty’s mother said.
“In the pond,” sadie said. “back in the seventeen hundreds?”
betty’s mother and father exchanged a glance. betty’s siblings, their faces all a version of betty’s—younger, shorter, thinner, with only slightly varying shades of hair color—all looked up at sadie, then at their parents in turn.
“who wants dessert?” betty’s mother said, her voice high and sweet.
“I’m pretty sure it was that pond,” sadie said. “A Filley girl.”
betty elbowed sadie. Her siblings were already stacking the plates, clearing the table, distracted by the mention of chocolate pudding. The rain came slashing against the window, pooled in the sill, and betty’s mother quickly shut it. The second-to-youngest Donahue child, Joey, was afraid of thunder and lightning, and betty and sadie were required to take him with them to the subterranean level of the split ranch to distract him with a rerun of
Wild Wild West.
sadie sat on betty’s modern couch, the cushions stiff squares, the fabric a nubby tweed that left its imprints on her legs. while betty’s brother sat immersed in the television she leaned toward betty.
“what if she’s out there?” sadie said. A wet leaf, ripped from a tree, pressed up against the high window. The temperature dropped with the storm, and the rain would wet Francie’s clothes, her hair. Her glasses would be smeared, rendered useless. Maybe she would huddle at the base of a tree, but sadie remembered the warning about trees and lightning. There might be an old abandoned fort, a cave. sadie imagined Francie in the trunk of a stranger’s car. The thunder sent Joey Donahue up onto the couch between them, and at the moment that James west in his tight pants thwarted Dr. Miguelito loveless, the evil dwarf, the television clicked off, and the room, once lit by its rays, was thrown into darkness. betty, sadie, and Joey all shrieked, and from upstairs came Mr. Donahue’s lumbering footsteps.
“The lights are out,” he said. “I’m coming down.”
He appeared behind a wavering beam of light and showed them the way upstairs, where betty’s mother was moving about the kitchen, lighting candles, telling the children who seemed to be glued to her clothes, “Don’t touch! Don’t touch!”
betty and sadie took a candle back down to the rec room and sat on the couch and watched the wax melt around the base of the candlestick holder. “remember old-FashionedDays House?” betty said.
sadie had been thinking more about James west’s blue eyes, his tight clothes, the vest he wore over his nice white shirt, than about wandering the woods in a long dress. The strangeness of these thoughts, their allure, made her feel oddly empty, as if the girl she once was had gone forever, and in her place was someone she was afraid to know. she stayed at betty’s another half hour, watching out the window for a light to come on in her house, but it remained dark, and she dreaded going home. when betty’s mother started calling the younger kids for baths, sadie told betty she should probably go, hoping she’d say no, but betty didn’t invite her to spend the night, and betty’s father gave her his golf umbrella and stood at the door watching her as she crossed the street.
The rain had slowed to a soft pattering. sadie only pretended to enter her dark house, waiting for betty’s father to leave his post at his front door, then walked down the street in the rain. The streetlights were out, but the clouds had moved on, and the street seemed as she’d once imagined it—magical and moonlit. In this strange light, sadie saw a figure approaching—smallish and wet, covered in mud—and she stared in amazement, sure it was Francie finally relinquishing her hiding place, newly thankful for her warm house, her comfortable bed, still oblivious of what sadie had done. sadie stepped up her pace and almost called out. but as she got closer she saw the figure was beth. she wore the oxford shirt she’d had on the afternoon of the lobster bake, now streaked with dirt, and a pair of shorts. Her shoes were caked with mud, her hair soaked to her head, as if she, and not Francie, had been outside these past two hours in the storm. sadie held the umbrella for her, and beth stepped beneath it, and sadie felt beth’s body shaking, the kind of uncontrollable tremors sadie would get after swimming too long in very cold water.
“where have you been?” sadie said, shocked at beth’s appearance.
“where have you been?” beth said, her voice quaking.
“At betty’s,” sadie said.
“At betty’s,” beth said, the strange hiccupping not masking her snide tone.
“why are you mimicking me?” sadie said. betty’s younger brothers and sisters often mimicked each other. It became a game to see how long one child could keep it up until the other resorted to violence. beth didn’t answer. Instead she continued her shaking and allowed sadie to walk her up the street to her house, then up her driveway, through the iron gate, to the back door by the pool. As they stood there the power suddenly returned, and the pool was illuminated, the shrubbery surrounding it lit by carefully positioned lamps. The light by the back door had come on, too, and sadie saw the true state of beth’s clothing: the mud on her back, on the sleeves of her shirt, and on the front another smear—a rusty color, like blood.
“were you up in the woods?” sadie asked. “Are you hurt?” she wondered what beth had been doing, if she’d been following ray, like she always threatened to, or if she’d been frightened by something instead—kidnapped by the same person who took laura loomis and Francie, and made a narrow escape.
“what were you doing up there?” sadie asked, desperate now to know. “Did you see something? Did you see someone?”
beth stared at her, her hair wet along the sides of her face, her eyes dark and wide, and said nothing. Then she flung her back door open, and sadie set the umbrella on the patio and followed her inside into a dim tiled hallway. she watched as beth slopped mud across the white tiles into the laundry room. Here she kicked off her shoes, took off her shorts and her shirt, the whole thing performed quickly despite her uncontrollable shaking. she left the clothing in a sodden pile, glanced up, and seemed surprised to see sadie still standing there, staring.
“Don’t look at me!” she shrieked, and slammed the laundry room door. For the second time that day sadie stood outside a door, listening to sobbing.