Flight Patterns (39 page)

“We've checked all of that—including Becky's friends. No leads,” Lyle said.

“There may be one thing,” Maisy said, almost apologetically. “I didn't think this was important. . . .” She stopped, waiting for encouragement.

I wanted to shake her, to tell her it was okay to speak out and be
noticed. But I caught James watching me and instead I took a deep breath. “Nothing's not important when a child is missing. What is it?”

“Birdie may have spoken to Grandpa before they left. This morning, when I went to wake him and tell him about Becky and Birdie, his notepad wasn't on his nightstand where I'd left it last night. It was on the floor next to the bed, and when I picked it up there was something written on the top page.”

“What was it?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay calm and trying not to imagine what she was feeling right now.

“‘Is it a sin to love too much?'” She gave a little shrug. “That's why I didn't think it was important, until I realized I was the last one to speak with Grandpa last night, and this must have been from a conversation he'd had since then. I asked him about it, but he refuses to communicate. It's almost as if he doesn't want them to be found.” Her voice hitched on the last word.

I ran my hands through my hair, wishing I could see more clearly, sure there was something obvious we were missing. “I'm assuming you've already spoken to Marlene.”

He nodded, his arm holding Maisy tight to his side.

“What about Magnolia Cemetery, where my daddy is buried?”

Maisy's shoulders slumped. “A patrol car has already been sent to the cemetery and they are checking it routinely. There was no trace of them having been there.”

“Is there another place? What about George's boat?” James asked.

“It was sold right after he died,” I said. “The new owners took it to Biloxi. Marlene said it got destroyed in Katrina.”

I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to clear my head of extraneous thoughts. I walked over to the dresser and picked up a miniature purple Nessie, a souvenir Marlene sold at her store for people she couldn't convince to buy the larger one outside. I tossed it in the air a couple of times. I stared at the small sea creature in my hands, as if it were a conduit to obscured memories. I looked up with a start, recalling trips I'd taken with Marlene to my paternal grandmother's home on Cat Point, where she and my daddy were raised. It was tiny,
only three rooms and one bathroom, and smelled of fish and cigarette smoke. The memorable part of it was the almost wistful hugs from my grandmother, and the dock behind their house with an unobstructed view of St. George and a glimpse of Dog Island. I'd been fascinated with the name as a child, thinking the island was filled with all shapes and sizes of canines. My grandmother had died when I was still young, and I hadn't been back since. But George had grown up there, and Birdie had certainly visited while my father was alive.

“What about my grandparents' house on Cat Point?” I said. “Has anybody been there?”

“But that's six miles over a bridge,” Maisy said, her voice rising, and I knew she must be picturing her daughter at night on the dark bridge.

Lyle took her hand. “True, but there are other ways to cross the bridge.”

“Like hitchhiking,” I said, feeling sick. I quickly found Marlene's stored number on my phone and hit the dial button. She answered after the second ring. “Georgia,” she said, her voice thick with tears.

I didn't let her say anything else. “I need the address of your mother's old house. There's a chance Becky and Birdie may have gone there.”

“The house has been abandoned for years, Georgie. It was on a dirt road right off of the old Pruitt property. But if you pick me up on your way, I can take you right to it.”

“I'll be there in less than five minutes,” I said, already rushing toward the stairs.

“We'll take my patrol car,” Lyle said, following behind me. “I've got lights and sirens. I can call for backup to bring them home when we find them.”

Feeling comforted by his optimism, I nodded my agreement as we all ran out the door to his car.

I sat up suddenly. “We need to tell Grandpa we're leaving, so he won't worry.”

“I think he already knows,” James said, indicating the side window.

It didn't open from inside the car, and before I could ask Lyle to open it for us so I could call out, he'd pressed on the accelerator and we were speeding out of the driveway. I stole one last look behind me and saw my grandfather watching us leave, his shoulders bent more than usual, his face etched with a kind of grief I'd never seen before and hoped never to see again.
Is it a sin to love too much?
I could almost hear him saying that into the empty air.

We picked up Marlene, then raced across the bridge over the bay toward Eastpoint. As soon as we got off the bridge, Marlene pointed out turns for Lyle to follow, bile rising in my throat from fear and apprehension as I imagined Birdie and Becky ducking under the bridge and hugging the shoreline in the dark. We hit a dirt road, and listened as the tires churned up sand and shells, billowing a smoke trail behind us.

“Slow down,” Marlene said. “Everything's so different. I thought I'd recognize it, but it's been at least thirty years. . . .” She squinted her eyes, peering out her side window and then through the windshield. “Turn around,” she commanded, and Lyle did as she asked.

We drove around what seemed like the same dirt road for nearly half an hour, each minute that ticked by dragging on longer and longer, the tension stealing our optimism.

Lyle began to turn left, but Marlene corrected him, pulling on his arm. “It's near the water—you have to head toward the water.”

An unfamiliar road appeared on the right, and Lyle took it before coming to an abrupt stop. As if conjured, Becky appeared, running toward us. She wore shorts and a T-shirt and held her bunny with one hand while waving frantically with the other.

Hardly waiting for the car to come to a complete stop, Maisy jumped out and ran to her daughter. I tried to follow, but James held me back. Instead of hugging her mother, Becky grabbed Maisy's arm and began running toward the car.

“Birdie's hurt bad,” she said, her voice strong, without a hint of a stutter, her face composed, as if an emergency had brought out her true mettle. “I'll show you where she is.”

Becky sat on Maisy's lap. “That way,” she said, pointing to a road we must have passed a dozen times already, the path mostly grass and weeds.

We traveled only a few hundred feet before Marlene sat up. “There—on the right,” she said, indicating what could only be described as a shack on the side of the road, the glimmer of water behind it doing nothing to mask the desolation or sense of abandonment.

Lyle pulled up in front and parked the car, turning off his sirens and lights, the sound as intrusive as birdsong at a funeral. Cicadas whirred in the tall pines and cedars that surrounded the house on two sides, the sound almost obscuring that of a boat motor plying the waters behind them.

I recognized the remains of the bright green paint that had once covered the shutters and front door. I thought of the kinds of predators that could be lurking there, the snakes, and cougars, and other things I didn't want to think about.

“Is she inside?” Lyle asked.

Becky nodded as she scrambled off of Maisy's lap and led us to the front door. I could tell Lyle was trying to get there before her, to protect her from any danger, but Becky charged forward and opened the door, then ran into the dark interior.

“Birdie! I'm back. Mama and Daddy are here.”

We followed her through a room that reeked of mildew and animal droppings, its sole piece of furniture an ancient sofa with most of its stuffing protruding from the remaining cushions that an unseen creature had made into a nest.

The room at the back of the house was what was left of a linoleum-floored kitchen, the cabinets and appliances long since taken, the flooring worn away in so many spots the floor looked more like the scales of a giant fish. We stopped on the threshold, looking for Birdie, then watched as Becky ran to a doorless pantry and knelt at an opening in the floor.

“Birdie? Are you still there?”

“Dear God,” Marlene said. “It's where my daddy used to keep his
moonshine. And where my mama let your grandpa store his honey a few times after a really good harvest.” She put a restraining hand on Lyle. “Careful—it looks like the floorboards around the opening have rotted.”

He asked Becky to stand back, then gingerly inched his way forward until he got to the opening. He took a flashlight from his belt and shined it inside. “Birdie? It's me, Lyle. Can you hear me?”

We heard a moan, and Maisy and I both stepped forward with tentative footing, peering into the darkness. Birdie lay on her side, on a brick floor that was covered in green slime. Her eyes were open, her chest rising and falling. Her right leg, the leg that lay under her, was bent at a wrong angle.

“You came,” she said with surprise in her voice, as if she'd not expected us to. Our relief at finding both of them made it almost irrelevant that she'd just spoken to us for the first time in too many years.

“Careful,” Lyle cautioned as he slowly lowered himself through the opening. “It's only a four-foot drop. I think she has a broken leg.”

“You gave us a scare, Birdie,” he said as he took her pulse, then carefully examined her leg. He placed a gentle hand on her arm before standing. “Maisy, I need you to step back into the kitchen and stay with Becky. I'm going to call for help and I don't want to move her until it arrives.” He looked at me. “Can you come down here and wait with her?”

I nodded, and allowed him to help me into the hole. He handed me the flashlight while I sat down on the damp bricks next to my mother. I was surprised to find myself close to tears. It was as if in that moment I'd realized how close we'd come to leaving everything unsaid between us. Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have been thinking there would always be time to unspool the past. There wasn't, of course. If I'd learned anything in the last few months, it was that time was a tightly pulled cord, and life sharp, shiny scissors.

I reached out my hand and touched hers. “Mama,” I said, grasping her hand in the darkness. It was cold and clammy, but she squeezed back, and I was a little girl again and all was right in my little corner of the world.

“You good?” Lyle asked. I nodded and he turned away from the hole. “James, I'm going to call for an ambulance—can you find your way back to the main road and direct them here?”

He must have said something, because I heard heavy footsteps heading away from me. And then another face appeared above us, and when I shined the flashlight I saw my sister.

“Becky's okay and Marlene's with her.” She looked at me uncertainly, as if she was waiting for me to tell her to go away. “I didn't think you should be alone with Birdie.”

I smiled at her and nodded, then watched as she carefully lowered herself into the hole, then sat down on the other side of Birdie, taking her other hand.

Birdie's eyes fluttered closed and then opened again, and I knew the pain must be excruciating, and that unconsciousness right now might be a blessing. She seemed to fight it, though, as if we both knew that there was too much to be said. Too many questions lurking in the darkness around us.

“What's this?” Maisy asked.

I swung the light in her direction. There were empty crates and piles of wet straw lying around the perimeter of the small space, perhaps remnants from the Prohibition years. Closer, there was a small empty box on its side, the masking tape that had sealed it ripped off and wadded in balls next to it. I searched the walls, trying to ignore the spiderwebs and praying I didn't find a pair of eyes staring back at me. The beam of the flashlight landed on something I thought I recognized, and realized I didn't. Not really. Just the pattern of bees flitting around the base. It was the elusive teapot, without the lid, its sides covered with a thin coat of dust but recognizable.

“My teapot,” Birdie whispered, as if the discovery had unlocked her voice completely, and I imagined I could hear the turning of a key.

I leaned toward her, wiped her damp hair off her forehead. “How did it get here?” And we all knew that my question had little to do with how the Limoges teapot ended up in this hole used to hide moonshine.

“I went up to the attic,” Birdie said, her voice so quiet Maisy and
I had to lean closer to hear her. “And I remembered. I remembered all of it.” She closed her eyes and for a moment I thought she'd gone to sleep. But then she opened them again and drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I am Colette. Colette Mouton.”

I met Maisy's eyes in the dim light, and I remembered something James had said to me.
Sometimes all we need to do to forgive our parents is to understand their own childhoods.
At that moment, looking at my sister, I knew that we were about to finally know what he'd meant.

We sat back against the wet brick floor and waited for Birdie to speak.