A Seahorse in the Thames (5 page)

I blurt out a question that makes sense to only those of us who know Rebecca.

“Did she take her headbands?”

“Yes! Yes!” Pauline answers and I can hear her begin to break down in tears. She has only been a Center employee for a few weeks and I’m sure she does not know what it is like to “lose” a resident. It happens sometimes. One of the residents will wander off but within hours a helpful policeman, a kind neighbor or the frantic Center employee who went looking for them brings them back.

But usually when a resident wanders off, they do not pack. They do not take their headbands. They do not leave a note to please feed their fish.

Rebecca didn’t just wander off.

She left.

“Did she leave any other kind of note? Anything at all?” I ask. “How long has she been gone?”

“I don’t know how long she’s been gone. The night manager says Rebecca was in her bed last night at eleven, but when I got here this morning, her bed was empty. She had made it. And there’s nothing but the note for the fish!”

My mind is reeling as I pace. “Did you call the police?” I ask.

“The police?”

“Yes! The police!”

Pauline hesitates. “But…” she finally says.

“But what?”

“She’s not… she is technically free to leave here whenever she wants. All the residents are.”

“I am not suggesting she was kidnapped, Pauline! I’m just saying the police should know! What if she is wandering around on the Interstate? She’s a vulnerable adult!” Even as I say this, I know Rebecca is certainly not strolling down the median on I-5. She has the mind of an adolescent, not a toddler.

“Oh! I think I need to call Frances first,” Pauline replies, and again close to tears.

“I’ll call the police myself. I will be there as soon as I can. Ask Marietta if she knows where Rebecca went.”

“I already did! Marietta doesn’t know!”

“You call Frances. I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”

“Okay.”

With shaking fingers, I press the “off” button.

My incision has stopped itching and is now starting to burn.

What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to handle this? And what can the police do? Rebecca is disabled but she is not incapacitated. I don’t have power of attorney over her and neither does my mother. Despite Rebecca’s mental condition, she is a consenting adult. She still has the IQ of a functioning member of society.

But she is alone in world that is often hostile. Especially to the innocent.

At least I think she is alone.

What if she is not?

With an anxious heart I pick up the phone to call the police anyway, wishing with all my heart I could call my mother instead and let her be the one who has to worry.

T
he Falkman Center looks as serene and peaceful as it did yesterday; the manicured lawns and swaying palms seem to mock my unease as I park my car. I don’t feel any better for having called the police. The cop I spoke with was kind and sympathetic but when I hung up the phone after talking with him I was simply more convinced of what deep down I already knew: Rebecca is a disabled American citizen, with all the rights U.S. citizens have, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As the facts appear, my sister packed a bag, left a note for her fish, took her headbands and is presumably now out pursuing happiness. The police can keep a lookout for her, and they can alert other law enforcement agencies but Rebecca is technically not a missing person. Not yet. The policeman did say that if it appeared in any way that Rebecca was forced or coerced into leaving the Falkman Center that he wanted to hear back from me.

Before I got into my car to leave for the Center, I had taped a note to my front door. It’s remotely possible that Rebecca might hail a taxi and come to my place. The note is addressed to her and in it I tell her the location of my spare key and that she should go inside and wait for me.

I get out of my car now and walk up the cement pathway to the Falkman Center’s lobby doors, wondering for the umpteenth time if I should have gone to Mom’s first. Or maybe I should have called her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Devore, and told her to relay the news of Rebecca’s running away to my mother. But I only consider this once. If Rebecca has indeed run away—can a thirty-seven-year-old run away?—Mrs. Devore should not be the one to tell her. It should be me.

Pauline is waiting for me at the door and behind her I can see Frances in the administration offices just inside. Frances is talking on the telephone and wearing sweats. I have never seen Frances wear anything but tailored slacks. She must have decided to come in when Pauline called her at home and told her one of the residents had left in the middle of the night.

“Alexa, I am so glad you are here.” Pauline pulls the door closed behind me and ushers me into the office where Frances stands in her weekend clothes.

Frances hangs up the phone.

“Well, I guess you and I probably got the same information from the police,” Frances says, calmly but with heaviness. “It doesn’t look like there was any foul play, Alexa. I’ve looked in her room. The windows are still locked from the inside. There is no sign of a struggle in her room or at the front door where we must assume she left the Center. The back door triggers a fire alarm at night and it didn’t go off.”

“I see.” I mumble. I don’t really see. Rebecca has thoroughly amazed me. I can’t come up with a reason why she would do this. She loves living at the Falkman Center. She loves Marietta. This is her home. It has been for more than a dozen years.

“Can I see her room?” I ask.

“Of course,” Frances says and I can tell she is worried for my sister.

The carpeted halls are quiet this morning. Many of the residents are on home visits or already involved with one of the Saturday activities the Center plans each week. Rebecca’s half of the room looks like it did yesterday. Neat, though not overly so. Her bed is indeed made. I walk over to her desk and pick up the note that is resting against the side of her fishbowl.

Don’t worry about me. I am fine. Please feed Cosmo.

There is no mistake that it is Rebecca’s handwriting and there is no frantic slant or agitation to the round letters of her script. She didn’t write it under duress. I walk over to her closet and open the door. Her pink suitcase is gone as are half her clothes. Her three church dresses are gone and her dress shoes. The empty hangers in a neat line make me think she took time packing. Or she was being quiet so as not to wake Marietta. Or anyone else.

A few of the old shoeboxes on the top shelf of her closet are in mild disarray, suggesting she needed or wanted something from one of them and she had stood on tiptoes to look through them. A little, bound stack of invitations from the weddings of her high school friend rests on its side rather than on top of the boxes where it usually sits. Inside those boxes are treasures from her past, like swimming medals from high school, postcards from friends, photographs of the people she loves and odd things like candy wrappers, movie ticket stubs and napkins from restaurants. I reach for the one that sits at the oddest angle; perhaps the one she looked in last. It is a shoebox, a large one, and I know it holds most of her dearest belongings. I lift the lid and notice immediately that the little photo of Julian that is usually right on top is gone. So is the photo of the three of us—me, Priscilla, and Rebecca—taken the spring of her eighteenth birthday at Anza Borrego when the desert was in bloom. The absence of the photos suggests a painful truth to me: Rebecca planned her escape.

I turn to face her dresser, knowing the headbands are gone, but needing to see the empty space where they would be if Rebecca were here. The dresser top is nearly empty. The headbands aren’t the only things not there. Her rosewood jewelry box is gone and her hairbrush and so is a little statue of a fairy kneeling down to rub noses with a butterfly. I open the top drawer where she keeps her underwear but also things she doesn’t want to lose or misplace, like her address book, the take-out menu of her favorite Chinese restaurant and her pass to the community swimming pool. Most of her under garments are gone as is her address book. In their place, however, is a folded-over piece of paper with my name written on the top flap. I snatch it up.

“What is that?” Frances says.

“She left me a note.” I open it to read what Rebecca has written, hoping she has told me where she has gone.

Alexa: I have looked everywhere but I cannot find it. Please, please, if you find it, throw it away. I don’t want it anymore. Remember, it’s a secret.

Love always, Rebecca

p.s. I will write you!

I have absolutely no idea what she is talking about. None. It’s not unlike Rebecca to forget to tell me something but it is a little unlike her to think she
has
told me something when she hasn’t. Although I can’t say it has never happened. It has just never really ever mattered before.

“What does she say?” Frances says.

I show the note to Frances. “She doesn’t say where she has gone. I have no idea what she means. She says she will write to me.”

“Write?” Frances echoes. We both know what this means. It means Rebecca intends to be gone awhile.

“I can’t believe she did this.” I stuff the strange note in the back pocket of my denim skirt.

Frances touches my arm, communicating with her touch that she empathizes. “Alexa, do you remember yesterday when I asked you if you had noticed anything different about Rebecca? That I got the feeling she was being secretive around me? I think maybe she has been planning this for awhile.”

“I never saw it coming.”

But then I immediately think of how Rebecca was acting yesterday. How she greeted me with an enthusiastic “Guess what?” and then told me she wouldn’t say anything until we got to her room. I remember how flustered she seemed when she saw Marietta on the bed. How she seemed to dart from one subject to the next, first talking loudly to the whole room and then whispering things to me as if in confidence.

And I had Stephen and my mother and Priscilla on my mind and I had tuned her out.

She was subtly telling me she had plans. Secret plans.

And I hadn’t heard any of it.

A groan escapes me.

“I’m so sorry, Alexa,” Frances says. “I wish I had been more insistent in my comments to you.”

“It’s not your fault, Frances. I think Rebecca was actually trying to tell me something yesterday and I just wasn’t paying attention. This is my fault, not yours.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Rebecca has her limitations, but she is a consenting adult, Alexa.”

“That doesn’t mean she knows how to behave like one.” I rub my temple. “What will she do for money? How will she get around? What if she gets lost?”

“We can hope that she
does
get lost, that she does indeed run out of money. I think she will call us then. All kids call home when they need money. Hopefully she will be in a safe place when that happens. I think she will be mindful of danger, I really do. Rebecca has immature ideas but she is not ignorant of danger. She still looks both ways when she crosses the street.”

I let myself sit heavily on Rebecca’s bed. “We can’t just let her run off and do nothing but wait for her limited funds to run out. We have to do something.”

“I’ll ask all the residents today and on Monday when they are all back if they know anything. And I’ve already called the train station and the bus station downtown. Pauline has called the homeless shelters and tomorrow I will go to the church that the Center takes part in and I will see if she shows up there.”

Again, I sigh. “Thanks, Frances.”

But this isn’t enough. I can’t just sit by while Rebecca doles out whatever money she has been able to save. What if she wanders into the wrong neighborhood? What if she is approached by a madman? What if she accepts help from a would-be rapist?

I have to look for her.

And I can’t do it alone. This city is huge. The world is huge.

I have to look for her.

But first I need to go to Coronado.

And I am dreading it.

I am sitting in my mother’s living room with Humphrey and Margot vying for my lap when I tell my mother Rebecca decided to leave the Center without telling anyone where she was going. I carefully avoid saying Rebecca has run away.

“What do you mean she didn’t tell anyone?” Mom says, furrowing her brow.

“I mean, she left sometime last night with her suitcase. She wrote a note asking that her fish be fed but she didn’t tell anyone where she was going.” I say nothing of the other note. Rebecca obviously wants that kept between her and me.

“Are you telling me no one knows where Rebecca is?”

Her eyes do not betray what she is thinking. It could be anything. She could be on the brink of hysterical crying or an angry tantrum or wordless shock. I hesitate before telling her it’s true. That no one knows where Rebecca is.

Mom closes her eyes and shakes her head slightly, like she just had a tiny, silent conversation in her mind and part of her asked a question and the other part said, “No, we’re not going there.”

She says nothing audibly.

“Mom?”

“Rebecca packed a suitcase?”

“Yes.”

“Did she take everything?”

“No. Not everything.”

Mom sits back in her chair a little. Margot gets off the couch where I am and hops onto my mother’s lap. “Then I am sure she will be back,” Mom pats her dog but her hand is shaking.

Of all the responses I was picturing my mother having, this was not one of them. She has completely detached herself from the very real possibility that Rebecca could be in danger.

“Mom,” I reply. “She took what she could fit in her suitcase. She took the photograph of Julian!”

Mom flinches a little when I say Julian’s name. It’s a name not mentioned very often in her presence. I did not mean to so easily say it just now. But I think by taking Julian’s picture Rebecca was offering us a glimpse into her plans. She took what was most precious to her because she does not know when she is coming back. Or maybe she took it because she has no plans to come back at all.

“I can’t deal with this, Alexa,” my mother whispers. “I really cannot.”

“We can’t pretend there’s nothing wrong here!” I snap back.

“She’s an adult,” Mom says, feigning ease.

“She’s a disabled adult!”

My mother winces. She hates that word.

“Mom.”

My mother raises her eyes from the dog on her lap to look at me. “What are we supposed to do, Alexa!” she asks, and the tone of her voice is tense and laced with sadness. “If Rebecca wants go somewhere, who are we to stop her? She is a grown woman.”

“Mom, she is a vulnerable adult!”

“As are we all,” Mom says, looking back at Margot.

“So you’re not going to do anything about this?” My words are evenly spaced with tiny flecks of anger in each one.

Mom doesn’t answer right away but she continues to stroke the dog. “The police will find her.”

“The police aren’t looking for her.”

She looks up at me and says nothing. For several moments I don’t either.

“She’s my sister. I love her.” I finally whisper.

At the word “love” I see the faintest of tremors run through my mother’s body. I know she loves Rebecca, but I don’t understand the way Mom loves. I haven’t for a long time.

“If Rebecca had wanted you to know where she was going, she would have told you,” Mom says.

For a second or two I ponder this.

“I can’t just do nothing.”

“Then by all means do something.” My mother’s words, though whispered, sound urgent. Her eyes, when she raises them to look at me, are ablaze with emotion she refuses to give in to.

It’s after noon, and since I’ve not had breakfast, I am ravenous, but I decline Mom’s offer to make me a sandwich. I want to get home to see if Rebecca has showed up on my doorstep. I decide to call my father on my way back to Mission Beach. We don’t talk often, but I call him anyway. Perhaps he will be able to make some decisions about what to do about Rebecca since my mother refuses to.

Dad, who is on the golf course when my call comes through, has the same reaction as my mother to Rebecca’s disappearance, although his is delayed. At first he is genuinely concerned, but then the more he hears—that Rebecca made her bed before leaving, that she packed a suitcase, that she took Julian’s picture, that she left a note about the fish—the more he begins to temper his concern.

“So you’ve called the authorities, then?” he says.

“Yes,” I answer and I tell him what I was told.

“Alexa, I don’t know what else we can do except wait for her to come home herself.”

“That just doesn’t seem like enough, Dad!”

“Well, what else can we do? We can’t walk the streets of San Diego putting up fliers on telephone poles. She is a grown woman.”

I’m getting really tired of hearing that.

“Well, what about a private investigator?” I venture.

Dad thinks for moment. “Well, maybe,” he replies. “But I think it’s a little soon to take such a drastic measure.”

“I don’t think it’s
drastic
to want to find her.” I am driving with one hand, holding my cell phone with my “bad” arm and getting increasingly agitated.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Well, what do you mean?”

He pauses and I hear the breeze whistling around the mouthpiece of his cell phone. “Let me ask around and see if I can find someone to look into this.”

“How long will that take?”

“I haven’t the foggiest, Alexa. I’ve never had to hire one before.”

He’s getting ticked. He doesn’t want the responsibility of having all the answers.

“What should I do until then?”

“I guess that’s up to you. If you really think you can make headway by combing the streets of San Diego, then I’m not going to tell you not to.”

I say nothing in return. I don’t know what to say. Truth is, he’s right. Combing the streets probably won’t tell us where Rebecca has gone.

“Call me tomorrow, okay? Maybe you, your mother, and I can get together and decide what, if anything, we can do.”

This is actually a fairly gracious offer on his part. Mom makes no attempt to hide her contempt for my father’s new life when family matters bring us together. My parents’ marriage, which faltered when Julian died and which they somehow resurrected the year Priscilla and I were conceived, disintegrated when Rebecca nearly died. Within two years of her accident my parents were divorced and Dad quickly remarried. Seven years later, Dad’s second wife gave birth to a son who lived.

“I’ll call you in the morning.” I say.