The Good Girl (8 page)

Colin
Before

She won’t eat. Four times I’ve offered her food, dropped a bowl full of it on the floor in the bedroom. As if I’m her damn chef. She lies on the bed on her side, her back to the door. She doesn’t budge when I come in, but I can see her breathing. I know she’s alive. But if she keeps this up much longer she’ll starve herself to death. Now wouldn’t that be ironic.

She emerges from the bedroom like a zombie, her hair— a tangled rat’s nest—hiding her face. She walks to the bathroom, does her thing, walks back. I ignore her; she ignores me. I told her to leave the bedroom door open. I want to make sure she isn’t up to anything in there, but all she does is sleep. Until this afternoon.

I’d been outside, chopping firewood. I worked up a sweat. I was out of breath. I came barreling into the cabin with my mind on one thing: water.

There she stood in the middle of the room, stripped down to a lace bra and panties. She might as well have been dead. Her skin was drained of all color. Her hair was snarled, a bruise the size of a goose egg on her thigh. She had a busted lip and black eye, scratches from her run-in with the trees. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Tears seeped from her eyes, down the albino skin. Her body convulsed, goose bumps everywhere my eyes could see. She walked with a limp, moving closer. She said to me, “Is this what you want?”

I stared. At her hair, falling mindlessly over the ivory shoulders. At her pale neglected skin. At the hollow craters of her collarbone and her perfectly shaped belly button. At her panties, cut high, and her long legs. At her ankle, so swollen it might be sprained. At the tears that dripped to the floor before her bare feet. Beside ruby-red toenails. Beside legs that shook when they walked, so that I thought they might give. At the snot that dripped from her nose, her crying no longer containable as she reached out and placed a shaking hand on my belt and started to unfasten the clasp. “Is this what you want?” she asked again, and for the time being I let her get both hands on my belt. I let her take it off and drop it to the floor. Let her undo the button of my jeans and slide the zipper. I couldn’t say that it wasn’t what I wanted. She reeked, as did I. Her hands were like ice when she touched me. But that wasn’t it. That wouldn’t have stopped me.

I gently pushed her away. “Stop,” I whispered.

“Let me,” she begged. She thought it would help. She thought it would change things.

“Get your clothes on,” I said. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. She stood before me. “Don’t—”

She forced my hands on her.

“Stop.” She didn’t believe me. “Stop,” I said louder this time, with more potency. And then added, “Just stop it already,” as I pushed her away from me. I told her to get her fucking clothes on.

I hurried out of the cabin, grabbed the ax and began chopping the firewood, vigorously, maniacally. I forgot all about the water.

Eve
Before

It’s the middle of the night and, as has been the case for a week now, I can’t sleep. Memories of Mia visit me all hours of the day and night, an image of one-year-old Mia in an olive-colored bubble outfit, her chubby thighs bulging out while she tried, unsuccessfully, to walk; hot-pink toenails on precious three-year-old feet; the sound of her wail when her ears were pierced, but later, watching for hours as she admired the opal gems in the bathroom mirror.

I’m standing in the open pantry of our darkened home, the clock above the kitchen stove reading 3:12 a.m. I grope the shelves blindly for chamomile tea, knowing I’d hidden a box somewhere, but also certain it would take much more than chamomile tea to help me sleep. I see Mia making her First Communion, see the distaste on her face when she first laid the Body of Christ on her tip of her tongue; I hear her laugh about it later, alone in her bedroom, just she and me, about how hard it was to chew and swallow, about how she almost choked on the wine.

And then it hits me like a load of bricks, this realization that suddenly overwhelms me: my baby might be dead, and there, in the middle of the pantry, in the middle of the night, I begin to weep; falling to the floor, I press the ends of my pajamas to my face to stifle the sound. I envision her in that olive bubble, see her flash a toothless grin as she hangs on to the edge of the coffee table and laboriously makes her way to my outstretched hands.

My baby might be dead.

I’m doing what I can to help with the investigation, and yet it feels entirely trivial and frivolous because Mia isn’t home. I spent an entire day in Mia’s neighborhood, passing out
Missing
fliers to everyone I passed. I taped the signs to lampposts and in store windows, an image of Mia on hot-pink paper that was impossible to ignore. I met her friend Ayanna for lunch, and together we went through the details of Mia’s last day, desperate for oddities that might explain Mia’s disappearance, of which there were none. I rode into the city with Detective Hoffman, after he had secured a key for Mia’s apartment and checked that it was not a crime scene, and together we sifted through Mia’s belongings, through every circadian object—lesson plans and an address book, grocery lists and to-dos, hopeful for a clue. We found none.

Detective Hoffman phones me once, sometimes twice a day. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t speak. I find his voice, his gentle nature, reassuring and he’s always amicable even when James winds him up.

James says that he’s an idiot.

The detective gives the impression that I’m the first to know any bit of information that crosses his desk, but I’m certain I’m not. He is proofreading the fine points before offering snippets to me. These snippets leave a thousand what-ifs running through a mother’s mind.

I’m reminded of my daughter’s dissolution with every breath I take. When I see mothers holding their children’s hands. When I see children climbing onto the school bus. When I see postings of missing cats taped to the street posts, or hear a mother call her child by name.

Detective Hoffman wants to know everything he possibly can about Mia. I rummage through old photographs in the basement. I come across old Halloween costumes, and size-four clothes, roller skates and Barbie dolls. I know there are
other
cases, other missing girls like Mia. I picture their mothers. I know there are girls who never come home.

The detective reminds me that no news is good news. Sometimes he calls to tell me nothing at all, no information, in case I was wondering, which I always am. He humors me. He promises to do everything he can to find Mia. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me, or when he lingers just a moment longer than he should, to make certain I’m not about to crumble.

But I think of it all the time, about how hard it has become to stand and walk, about how impossible it’s becoming to function and live in a world that still thinks of politics and entertainment and sports and the economy when all I think about is Mia.

I was certainly not the best mother. That goes without saying. I didn’t set out to be a bad mother, however. It just happened. As it was, being a bad mother was child’s play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn’t do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul. Why did I allow Grace to make Mia cry? Why did I snap at Mia to stop just to silence the noise? Why did I sneak to a quiet place, whenever I could? Why did I rush the days—
will
them to hurry by—so I could be alone? Other mothers took their children to museums, the gardens, the beach. I kept mine indoors, as much as I could, so we wouldn’t cause a scene.

I lie awake at night wondering: what if I never have a chance to make it up to Mia? What if I’m never able to show her the kind of mother I always longed to be? The kind who played endless hours of hide-and-seek, who gossiped side by side on their daughters’ beds about which boys in the junior high were
cute
. I always envisioned a friendship between my daughters and me. I imagined shopping together and sharing secrets, rather than the formal, obligatory relationship that now exists between myself and Grace and Mia. I list in my head all the things that I would tell Mia if I could. That I chose the name Mia for my great-grandmother, Amelia, vetoing James’s alternative: Abigail. That the Christmas she turned four, James stayed up until 3:00 a.m. assembling the dollhouse of her dreams. That even though her memories of her father are filled with nothing but malaise, there were split seconds of goodness: James teaching her how to swim, James helping her prepare for a fourth-grade spelling test. That I mourn each and every time I turned down an extra book before bed, desperate now for just five more minutes of laughing at
Harry the Dirty Dog
. That I go to the bookstore and purchase a copy after unsuccessfully ransacking the basement for the one that used to be hers. That I sit on the floor of her old bedroom and read it again and again and again. That I love her. That I’m sorry.

Colin
Before

She hides in the bedroom all day. She won’t come out. I won’t let her close the door and so she sits on the bed. She sits and thinks. About what, I don’t know. I don’t give a shit.

She cries, tears spreading across the pillowcase until it’s probably soaking wet. Her face, when she comes out to pee, is red and swollen. She tries to be quiet about it, as if she thinks I can’t hear. But the cabin is small and made of wood. There’s nothing to absorb the sound.

Her body aches. I can see in the way she walks. She can’t put weight on the left leg, an injury sustained when she fell down the cabin steps and into the woods. She limps, holding on to the wall as she staggers to the bathroom. In the bathroom she runs a finger across a bruise, which is now engorged and black.

She hears me in the other room. I pace. I chop firewood, enough to keep us warm for the winter. But it’s never really warm. I’m sure she’s cold all the time, though she dresses in long johns and gets under the quilt. The heat from the stove doesn’t reach the bedroom. But she refuses to be out here where it’s warm.

I imagine the sound of my footsteps scare the shit out of her. She listens to nothing but the footsteps, waiting for the worst to come.

I try to keep busy. I clean up the cabin. I wipe away the cobwebs and pick up the dead beetles. I toss them into the trash. I unpack the things we bought in town: canned food and coffee, sweats and soap and duct tape. I fix the front door. I wipe down the countertops with paper towels and water. It’s all just to waste time. I pick up the girl’s clothes from the bathroom floor. I’m about to yell at her for being a slob and leaving her dirty clothes lying around. But then I hear her cry.

I fill the bathtub with water. I clean the shirt and pants with the bar of soap and hang them outside to dry. We can’t do this forever. This cabin is only a temporary thing. I’m wracking my brain to come up with next steps, wishing I would’ve thought this through before I decided to grab the girl and flee.

She shuffles by me to use the bathroom. She’s beaten up and limping. I’m not one to feel guilt, but I know that I’m the one who did it to her, out there, in the woods, when she tried to run. I tell myself that she asked for it. I tell myself that at least now she’s quiet, not so certain anymore.

Now she knows who’s in charge. Me.

I drink coffee because the tap water tastes like shit. I’ve offered her some. I’ve offered her water but she’s refused. She still won’t eat a thing. Pretty soon I’m going to pin her down and jam the damn food into her mouth. I won’t let her starve herself to death. Not after all this.

The next morning, I invite myself into the bedroom. “What do you want for breakfast?” I ask.

She’s lying on the bed, her back to the door. She’s half-asleep when she hears me come in. The unexpected sound of my feet, the explosion of words in the middle of silence, force her from the bed.

This is it,
she thinks, too disoriented to hear what I’m saying.

Her legs get tangled in the sheets. Her feet are lost though her body runs away from the sound. She falls to the hardwood floor. Her feet fight the sheet to find the floors. Her body thrusts itself as far away from me as she can. She backs herself into the wall, the bedding clutched in a shaking hand.

I’m standing in the doorway, dressed in the same clothes I’ve worn for nearly a week.

She’s staring at me with panic in her distended eyes, her eyebrows raised and mouth hanging open. She looks at me like I’m a monster, a cannibal waiting to eat her for breakfast.

“What do you want?” she cries.

“It’s time to eat.”

She swallows hard. “I’m not hungry,” she says.

“Too bad.”

I tell her she doesn’t have a choice.

She follows me into the other room and watches as I pour what are called eggs—but look and smell like shit from a box—into the skillet. I watch them brown. The smell is enough to make me gag.

She hates everything about me. I know it. I see it in her eyes. She hates the way I stand. She hates my dirty hair and the stubble that now coats my chin. She hates my hands, watching the way they stir the eggs in the skillet. She hates the way I look at her. She hates the tone of my voice and the way my mouth forms the words.

Most of all, she hates seeing the gun in my pocket. All the time, making sure she behaves.

I tell her she’s not allowed in the bedroom anymore. Only to sleep. That’s it. The rest of the day she has to stay out here where I can keep an eye on her. Make sure she eats, drinks, pees. It’s like I’m caring for a damn infant.

She eats about as much as a baby—a couple bites here, a couple bites there. She says that she’s not hungry, but she eats enough to survive. That’s all that matters.

I keep an eye on her so she doesn’t try to run, like last time. When we go to sleep, I slide a heavier table in front of the door so that I’ll hear if she tries to escape. I’m a light sleeper. I sleep with the gun nestled beside me. I ransacked the kitchen drawers and made sure there were no knives. Just my own pocketknife that I carry all the time.

She doesn’t have a damn thing to say to me, and I don’t try. Why bother? I can’t stay here forever. In the spring there will be tourists. Soon we need to go. Screw the girl, I think. Soon
I
need to go. Ditch the girl and get on a plane and go. Before the cops find me. Before Dalmar finds me. I need to go.

But of course there’s something holding me back, something that stops me from getting on that plane and going.