“This is a big misunderstanding. Please give me my daughter back. Please . . .” I was sobbing now, trying to free my hands. The plastic cuffs cut into my wrists.
“What did Anna tell you? No offense, Anna’s my girl and all, but she’s never told it straight in her life. What did she tell you?”
When I didn’t answer right away, he started screaming, “WHAT DID SHE TELL YOU?”
“Nothing. She told me nothing.”
He sucked in one deep breath as if he had just emerged from minutes under water. “When I was a kid, I had just one wish. That someone would come and take me from my parents. My mother was just like you.”
“You’re getting it all wrong.”
“Shut up and listen!”
“You got it all wrong, I’m—”
“
I’m
the one getting it wrong? No, you’re the one who got it all wrong. You left her in the car. Everyone knows you don’t leave a baby in the car.”
“You hear a baby cry and you make up this entire story.”
“I know what mothers like you are capable of.”
“Mothers like me? You know nothing about me.”
“I know the likes of you.”
The likes of me.
To him I’m
one of those mothers
. An abuser. A mother who neglected her child.
Lieberman started pacing back and forth, the blade gleaming in the moonlight. I watched him, hypnotized by his movements.
“Why did you take her? I don’t understand—”
“I took her because you didn’t want her. I don’t care what you’re telling me now, you did not want her.” He paused for a second, then smiled. “Some mothers are like that.”
And then he told his story, the story of the boy he used to be. I listened as he painted a picture of his childhood and he took shape in my mind, a kid growing up in a strange part of rural America inhabited by peculiar people and far removed from romantic notions of wooded hiking trails. Between moments of unintelligible ramblings and pacing in circles, he spoke of his parents, Esther and Gabriel Lieberman. I wanted to ask questions but then I thought otherwise. I decided to allow him to peel back the layers of his madness. He was a little boy, about eight years old, he said, Anna, about five. He spoke of how they trudged around the only neighborhood they knew: dirt paths and dead-end roads. His childhood was spent around a cluster of houses without electricity and running water, just a collections of trailers and shanties, surrounded by lots of garbage and not a glimmer of hope.
At times Lieberman turned and listened to the darkness, his eyes scanning the night as if he was making sure no one else was witnessing his story of living in squalor and misery in an old farmhouse without a foreseeable exit out of a hellish life. Other times his voice would soften unexpectedly, especially when he spoke of his “rescue,” his “new family,” so full of joy that his eyes lit up like a kid telling you about a new bike. The state intervened, “mercifully” he called it, after he showed up one too many times with bruises on his face and filthy clothes. A large lady with drawstring pants and a clipboard appeared on their doorstep, took him and Anna to live with a foster family.
“We had breakfast that first morning at the foster home, and when they told us it was time for lunch later on, I didn’t understand. Didn’t we just eat? I asked. Damn, I don’t think I ever had more than one meal a day.
“There was running hot water and I had my own room, and what d’ya know, not all families yell at each other all day long and not all dads slap their kids around. I didn’t know there was a life without beatings, shooting stray dogs with pellet guns, and disemboweling hogs.
“That foster family, the mom worked in a travel agency. She brought home these catalogs, and Anna and I, we couldn’t get enough of the pictures. You could just pick a country, a hotel, and go there. Like it wasn’t a big deal and getting away was just a matter of picking a place.
“But the dream didn’t last long. The only vacation we ever had was three months in that foster home. That’s all we got. And it just wasn’t enough. All Anna and I ever talked about after that was getting away.
“The worst day of my life,” Lieberman said, “was the day they made us go back. Old Gabe complied, that’s what they called it. He was in compliance with the state, he fixed the place up a bit, ran some cables, scrubbed the tub and washed the sheets, bought some groceries, and before we knew it, we were back home. They called it parent-child reunification. What a crock of shit. It was fucking hell.”
He spat the word
hell
into the night like some poisonous chewing tobacco. As he continued his story, I wiggled my hands back and forth, trying to loosen the plastic cuffs. I shifted my legs, trying to find a more comfortable position but the move caused him to swipe the knife at me.
“I did a lot of praying but nothing changed after that.” His eyes widened and he was far away for a long time. Then his face stiffened. “We started messing around in the backyard shed when Anna was twelve years old,” he said, “until they found out.”
“So you burned down the house and killed your parents?”
“They smoked a lot and fell asleep with their cigarettes all the time. I just forced the inevitable along.”
There it was again. This notion of having a right to do as he pleased, as he saw fit, as he thought the world ought to be.
His eyes focused on me again and he started to wave the knife back and forth. “I was waiting for your baby to stop crying.” Lieberman’s voice was lower now, almost contemplative. “But you are one of those spoiled rich bitches. House, husband, vacations, car, money. Ever wanted for anything? Tell me, you ever wanted for anything?”
He backed up, started to pace in circles. Then he came toward me again, gravel crunching under his boots. “Some women should not be mothers. Like you.” He screamed, his voice carrying into the cornfield, lost among the husks and stalks.
I lowered myself on the ground, sideways, with my legs half tucked under.
“I love Anna. She is
not
my sister. Don’t call her my sister.” He stepped closer and I turned my head, afraid of what he was going to do, his madness right on the surface.
As if someone had snapped a leash, his eyes stilled and his words started to slur. “You should thank me, is what y . . . y . . . you shou . . . d d . . . Anna told me to do something, but I can’t remember. I can’t remember. She’s gonna be so mad at me.” And then insanity owned him like the tide, wavelike it washed over him, and carried him farther away from reason. “What was it, what was it . . . damn . . .” He hit his forehead with his fist, “I can’t remember what she told me to do. So much to remember, so much . . . it’s so hard to do everything right . . .” He kept checking his watch and wiping his forehead with his arm while holding on to the gun.
Then his face shifted and again he focused on me. His chest rose with primal power. “I’m just gonna kill you.”
My bones turned to dust and I felt hope leaving my body. His voice was still there, in the background, yet no longer playing a major role.
I will make him look into my eyes
, I thought,
and I won’t whimper or cry or leave him with an image of me curled
up in a fetal position in the dirt
.
I will not allow him to triumph over me.
“Who are you to decide who’s worthy and who isn’t? And I’m not your mother.” I spit those words at him.
“You’re a sorry excuse for a mother.” He was spraying saliva, and then paused, replacing his angry expression with a revolting smile. “Are you afraid? You think it’s gonna hurt? You look afraid.”
I could barely sit upright.
“I can’t hear you.”
“I’m not . . .”
“I can’t hear you. Quiet as a mouse, huh?”
He left me no room, no place left to go. “Where is my daughter? Tell me where she is . . . please . . . I’m her mother. Where is she?”
“Safe, bitch, she’s safe without you.” He laughed. Contrived. Breathless. Diabolical.
And then the Prince of Darkness pointed his gun at me. A bright light exploded. The moonlight faded and everything went dark. My last thought was that no one would ever know what had happened to my daughter. No one.
I felt so much colder than I ever had before. The wind wheezed through the cornstalks and then the crisp autumn night turned to ice.
—
The next two sessions are eventless. I enter the elevator, I descend, but there’s nothing left. Like a dog in hot pursuit, pads raw and branches tearing at me, the shadows are longer, the sun is about to go down, and I’ve pushed myself beyond all endurance. We sit in silence for a while. Mia is alive, somewhere. Maybe. Maybe not. The Liebermans are gone, nowhere to be found. He shot me, somehow I survived. We have come all this way, yet we still know nothing.
I look up at Dr. Ari and start to cry. “What now?”
Dr. Ari gets up and walks around his desk. “We keep looking.”
“Looking for what?”
“We still don’t know how you ended up in the ravine. There are still unanswered questions.”
“Lieberman shot me. He shot me and pushed my car into the ravine.”
“The car drove into the ravine—it wasn’t pushed.”
I look at him, puzzled.
“The keys were in the ignition. There were also tire marks indicating not only did the car drive into the ravine, but it accelerated.” And after a long pause: “The driver accelerated.”
“Can I go?”
A long pause. “Go? Where?”
“Home.” When I say the word, I pause. North Dandry? I realize I have no home.
“You think this is over?” Dr. Ari covers his forehead with his hand as if to say
You poor fool, what are you thinking?
“Estelle, the police and the DA are not going to be satisfied with this conclusion.” He pauses, folds his hands on top of the desk. “This is what we have: A missing baby, a mother who doesn’t report the crime, even keeps it from her husband. Yes, we have a missing construction worker and his sister, I give you that, who by the way have been vagrants on and off, and the police have been unable to track their every move before they lived in Dover and before Lieberman accepted the job at North Dandry. Do you know how many people just don’t show up for work? Or move and don’t leave a forwarding address? Disappearing is not a crime.”
I swallow hard. “The blanket. Tinker Bell.”
“So what? You could have found that anywhere. There’s no proof. Just two people who can’t be found and your word.”
“Which doesn’t count at all.”
“You remembered everything else, Estelle. The scent of the blanket, titles of books, flowers on a teacup. But you don’t remember how you ended up in that ravine?”
“Do
you
even believe me?”
“What I believe is of no significance. The police and the DA need proof. The truth without proof is meaningless in their world. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
I get up and start to leave. At the door I turn around. “Short of a miracle, I have nothing.”
—
As I stab at the meat loaf and draw the tines of my fork through the mashed potatoes, the dining room falls silent. Marge drops her spoon and then the sound of knives and forks hitting plates ceases altogether. I look up and see Marge gawking in the direction of the cafeteria entrance.
Dr. Ari rushes toward our table and I detect a slight limp I’ve never noticed before. I rest my fork on the side of my plate.
Oliver, too, is confused, his hand suspended in midair. “Something’s up,” he says without taking his eyes off Dr. Ari. “I’ve never seen him in the cafeteria.”
Dr. Ari continues toward me. I push my tray toward Marge. Hope takes shape in the back of my throat.
This is it. They’ve found her. They’ve found Mia.
I picture Dr. Ari sitting down, grabbing my hand, smiling at me, saying the words I’ve been longing to hear.
Dr. Ari doesn’t sit down, he doesn’t grab my hand. No one can misinterpret his empty facial expression as a smile. One more moment is all I want, one more moment of hope, of believing they’ve found her. Then I surrender and accept the end.
—
Later, in his office, Dr. Ari clears his throat. He pushes his glasses way up on the bridge of his nose.
“I received a call regarding a piece of evidence. The lab results have just become available now.”
“What evidence?”
“We’ll talk about that in a minute. Tell me, do you remember what they found in the car with you?”
“My purse. A map. And Jack’s gun.”
“Four things. Your purse. A map. The gun. And a piece of paper.”
I remember now. My purse, that’s how they identified me. A map and the gun. “I don’t remember anything about a piece of paper.”
“It was soaked in blood. They had to send it to a lab in Florida.”
“I don’t remember any paper.” The air in his office is chilly and I rub my arms to keep warm.
“Tell me about the gun,” he says.
“The gun they found in my car? It was the gun from Jack’s closet.”
“The same gun you took to Anna’s house.”
“Yes.”
We stare at each other.
“What are you saying? What’s the point of all this?” I ask, frustrated. “Why don’t you ask me what I remember, not what I don’t remember?”
“I’m not asking you anything. When you found the gun in the closet, you put one bullet in the chamber. One bullet. I’m telling you the gun had one bullet in the chamber when you went to Anna Lieberman’s house. And when they found the gun, there wasn’t a single bullet in it. But your fingerprints were all over it. And you had been shot.”
“How is that significant?”
“Just a detail I want you to keep in mind. But here’s the thing.”
The thing.
I take a deep breath and look out the window. It’s foggy and dark, and I can’t make out as much as a tree.
“We need to talk about the note.”
“I thought it was a piece of paper.”
“It was a piece of paper until the people at the Florida lab managed to take digital photographs after applying different kinds of light sources . . . anyway . . . I’m not familiar with forensic
procedures but it turns out they were able to create a decipherable image of the note. I just received a copy an hour ago.”
There’s a piece of paper in front of him on his desk. I lower my eyes.