What a Mother Knows (3 page)

The aroma of strong coffee woke Michelle the next morning. Confused, she opened her eyes, expecting to see long tubes of fluorescent light above her hospital bed. Instead, there was a smooth white ceiling. She basked in the warm sunshine streaming in over the headboard and considered the empty trough in the mattress beside her. She was sore from their reunion, but that was to be expected, wasn't it? Then she realized the bright room faced west. She must have slept late.

Michelle spotted her bathrobe draped over the chair of her vanity, where the spring bouquet now rested. She stood up slowly and inhaled the fresh perfume of the daisies before slipping on her robe. She ignored the cane leaning against the chair and headed down the hall to the kitchen. Drew was reading a newspaper at the dinette. A plate of sandwich crusts lay in front of him. “Good morning! What time is it?”

“Afternoon,” he said. “Would you like some French Roast?”

“Definitely,” Michelle said, sitting carefully. Drew circled a trash bag full of party debris, then poured her a fresh cup with far too much milk. She took a sip, then noticed that the orchid plant was here on the dinette.

“Looks like you've been busy. Sorry I wasn't up to help.”

“Tyler helped. He's out walking the dog.”

“Is Nikki with him?”

Drew shook his head. “Can I make you some toast?”

“No, thanks.” She looked back down the hallway to Nikki's closed door. “Shall we wake her up? I can't wait any longer.”

He bit his lip, but didn't answer.

Michelle hurried back through the foyer. “Nikki! Rise and shine, honey! It's me!” No answer. She knocked on the door.

“Don't, Michelle,” Drew warned.

“Don't what?” Michelle asked. “Nikki! Come on, I'm dying to see you!”

She turned the doorknob. It was locked. She rattled it, then looked up. “Didn't you pick her up this morning? Is her flight late?”

“Not exactly.” She turned to see Drew with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What's going on?”

He squeezed his eyes shut as if enduring unbearable pain. “She's not here.”

“Did something happen in Australia?”

“She didn't go to Australia. I didn't want to upset you, so I made that up.”

Michelle blanched as if she had been struck. “You what?” She rattled the knob again. “No. She told me about it last summer, right before she left.”

“Her last visit was the December before that. After they induced the coma.”

“No, I definitely saw her after I woke up.” She pounded on the door.

“You must have imagined it.”

Michelle stopped pounding. She imagined it? She envisioned her daughter's brown eyes, sparkling as she described her upcoming trip. Lexi had warned her about confusing memories with imagination. Michelle tried to sort the swirling fragments in her mind. “Are you sure?”

“You had plenty of visitors, Michelle—some you didn't recognize at first. But Nikki wasn't one of them.”

“Then where is she?” She saw the dark look on Drew's face and screamed at the locked door. “Nikki?” Michelle burst into tears. “Nikki!”

“She's gone.”

“Where?” Michelle was shaking so hard she could barely stand. Had Nikki been in the accident? Had she been—Michelle couldn't even say the word in her head. Maybe she was still asleep and this was a nightmare. Wake up, she told herself. But Drew was still there. And from the look on his face, she got the feeling that the nightmare was just beginning.

He put his arm around her. “Calm down.”

“Calm down? What are you not telling me?”

“She ran away.”

“No. Why are you saying that?” Michelle pressed her hand to the wall for support. He was making it up. And she had proof! She hurried to the bedroom.

Drew followed her. “It was after the accident,” he said, following her. “She just…disappeared.”

“No, she didn't!” Michelle yanked the drawer of her bedside table out so hard that it fell. Postcards went flying across the floor. She fell to her knees to collect them. “Look! The Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Manly Beach…” She held one up to show him her handwriting in purple ink. “See?
Thinking
of
you. Love, Nikki
. She even made a flower dotting the
i
.”

Drew reached to help her up, but she was too angry to accept his hand. He pointed at the smeared postmark.

Michelle blinked back her tears. “What? I can't read that tiny writing.”

“It says Los Angeles. They all do. They were mailed from here.”

Michelle squinted to decipher the print. It was true. She knocked it from his hand, then sunk to the edge of the bed while he gathered the rest. She glared at him through her tears. The liar. “Where is she, Drew? What are you doing to find her?”

Barking drowned out her voice as Bella dragged Tyler into the house. Michelle pushed herself up from the bed and shuffled to the doorway. “Tyler?” He peered down the hall, but looked past her to his father. He led the dog out of sight. The back door slammed shut and the barking grew faint.

Michelle started after him, but Drew caught her shoulders. He spun her around like a lifeguard saving a drowning swimmer, then steered her back to the bed. He shut the door, then went into the bathroom. She heard the faucet gurgle, then he returned holding a cup of water out to her left hand.

She took it, but she wasn't thirsty. “What did the police say? Could she have been kidnapped?”

“No. There was no ransom note. Hundreds of kids run away every month.”

“Not my kids!” Michelle slammed the cup down. Water spilled on the quilt.

“Our kids,” Drew said.

“You know what I meant. I read to her every night, took her to every checkup, scheduled extra driving lessons for freeways and canyons—”

“You're a good mother.”

“Then why would she run away?” She felt as if someone had carved out her insides. And that someone was standing right in front of her. “How could you let this happen?”

Drew crossed his arms. “Don't put this on me.”

“Did you put up fliers and freeway signs and post a reward on Facebook and everything? Are the police still looking?”

“Everyone is looking,” Drew said.

Michelle pushed herself up. “So why are you just standing there!”

“I'm doing everything I can.”

“What do you mean, everything? Nikki's not here! She could be lying in an alley off Hollywood Boulevard, for all we know, shooting up heroin on some urine-stained mattress. She could be selling her body for food!” She punched his shoulder, then felt a shooting pain across her shoulders, rippling down her back. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered, her whole body collapsing, until Drew caught her. She whispered her worst fear. “What if she's dead?”

Drew brushed the tears from her cheeks. “She's fine, Michelle.”

“How do you know that?” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. Drew's face settled into deep lines of pain. She clutched his pocket and pleaded. “Drew, talk to me. How can you say she's fine if you don't know where she is?”

“Because she calls. Every couple of months, I get a message. Short and sweet, like the ones you got.”

The relief she felt wasn't enough to make her chest stop aching. “Call her now, tell her I'm home.”

“I did. I left a message, but she hasn't called back. It's an Internet number, untraceable.”

“Then how can you be sure she's all right?”

“Because I can't bear to think of her any other way!” Drew pulled free of her and pounded down the hallway.

Michelle looked back at the postcards, then spied the get well card half hidden by the bed. The front showed a bunny carrying a basket of daisies. She picked it up and pressed it to her chest. Please, don't let it be a trick, she prayed. She opened it and listened closely to the familiar recording.

“Hello, Mother. I feel awful about what happened.

But I can't see you like this. I hope you understand.

Love, me.”

Michelle sighed. That was Nikki's voice, all right. Who else called their mom such a formal name—besides Michelle? It had started as a joke and then it stuck.

The message was simple, but maybe it explained why she left. Michelle had looked awful after her surgeries, with all the tubes and machines that kept her alive. Nikki must have been so traumatized by the sight of her mother as a vegetable that she couldn't bear to see her. Michelle shut the card quickly, as if to keep her daughter safe.

She wondered about the postmark and went to ask Drew, but was winded by the time she reached the foyer. She leaned against the corner to catch her breath.

The afternoon sun blasted through the French doors, casting a harsh light across the living room. Without the crepe paper and cake, the room looked bigger than she remembered. She looked around, then realized that it wasn't bigger, it was emptier. The leather couch was gone, and the rest of the furniture had been rearranged so that the plaid armchairs flanked the fireplace. The coffee table was also missing, leaving faded squares of green carpet. Only the bookshelves looked the same, stuffed with files and photo albums and parenting books. Except, now there was a film of dust on them. The sight was upsetting.

She crossed the hall to the kitchen where Drew sat with his head in his hands. Her voice trembled. “Is that why the furniture is gone—the police are dusting for prints?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “Remember the apartment I rented in New York for that miniseries? I've been working as a local for the past year.”

“In New York?” Michelle tried to understand. “You're telling me that Nikki hasn't been here in over a year—and you're living it up in New York?”

Drew's voice rose in anger. “She's not the only one I have to take care of, Michelle. I need union hours to qualify for benefits. Your insurance was tapped out long ago. You've had the best care possible and I flew back to visit as often as I could. Should I have put you in a cheap convalescent center to waste away?”

“I just find it hard to believe there are no jobs in LA.”

“There aren't enough that pay union,” he explained. “Reality shows pay shit. You can't count on a series like you used to, the state film commission is broke, and locations are cheaper in Canada. Half the guys I know are on unemployment.”

There was a knock on the French door. Michelle backed up and spied Tyler through the glass. “Is that the real reason why Tyler is in boarding school? To be close to you?”

“It wouldn't have done him any good to be close to you,” Drew said, rising to go speak with Tyler.

Michelle sputtered from all the swear words that came to mind. She took deep breaths to calm down, but it was no use—she was furious. To think she'd felt so grateful that he'd taken such good care of things, when he hadn't at all. He had abandoned her. “Drew!”

He came back inside the living room.

She held up the get well card. “Where was this mailed from?”

He shrugged. “Someone at the hospital opened it. Every time we visited, there were more cards in your room. Clients and friends—”

Michelle remembered Nikki's words about feeling awful. “Oh my god, was it Nikki's fault? Was she driving?”

“No, honey. You were.”

Michelle blinked, trying to remember. Her anger began to cool from the effort. “Right, that's what the lawyers kept asking about. Car insurance or something.” She looked through the glass at her son playing with Bella, as if nothing had happened. Michelle had always feared that something
would
happen, as soon as they left her sight. Nikki would fall off the swing set onto cement, or Tyler would be struck in the head by a baseball, or a bomb would go off on a field trip. And sure enough, that time had come. How could she not have felt it, deep inside? “Does Tyler know?”

“Let's get you back to bed. Let Tyler be—this has been hard on him, too.”

She pulled her hand away. “I can imagine. He had to lie to his mother for—oh, I don't know—almost a year?” She spied a napkin left on the floor beneath the dining room table. The thought of her friends at the party last night made her stomach clench. “Tyler wasn't the only one pretending, was he? Is that why Julie didn't know about Australia—because you forgot to tell her? Cathy was acting strangely, too.”

“I'm sorry, honey. I really am.”

“I don't understand. Why pretend at all?”

“You were already overwhelmed. Lexi dragged you from one rehabilitation room to the next all day long. I wanted to tell you, but every time I visited, you were too exhausted to have a serious conversation. And to be honest, I didn't want Lexi to know.”

Michelle was relieved that at least one person hadn't betrayed her. “Why? Because she would have told me?”

“That, or she'd ask to be reassigned to avoid saying something that might hamper your progress. The doctors were adamant that we were not to let anything upset you. Anything.”

Michelle heard Tyler coughing. Drew swore under his breath and stood up. “I need to run out and get him a new asthma inhaler. I'll fill your prescription while I'm there,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I woke up in the Twilight Zone.”

“You need rest. Let's get you back to bed.”

Michelle let him help her back down the hall and into the bedroom. But one thing was certain. She was not staying in bed.

Michelle had learned to pick door locks with bobby pins long ago, but opening Nikki's lock was tricky using only one hand. She was tempted to ask Tyler to let her go through the adjoining bathroom, but his father had expressly ordered him to make sure Michelle got some rest. He had been caught between loyalties for long enough. Finally, Michelle felt the lock surrender. She dropped the flayed bobby pin into the pocket of her bathrobe, pushed the door open, and stepped inside Nikki's bedroom. It felt like a forgotten world.

Dim light filtered through the front window blinds. Stripes marked the bare mattress. Michelle flipped on the ceiling light. The bulb popped and went dark, but the buttercup walls still glowed. This pale yellow paint was the only thing she and Nikki had agreed on after they'd torn down the bunny wallpaper. Nikki's walls were bare of posters now, but her old blanket was folded on the end of the dusty trundle bed.

Michelle picked up the blanket and rubbed the frayed fabric against her cheek. It had been a gift from her film crew a few days before Nikki's birth. After staying home for twelve weeks, Michelle had hired a babysitter and packed her briefcase for a production job wrapping another movie. She ended up wrapping her baby in this blanket instead.

Growing up in the Midwest, Michelle had seen her share of tornadoes ushered in by green skies of warning. But when she awoke to the cacophony of furniture crashing to the floors, there was no mistaking the neon sign flashing in her head: earthquake.

Michelle scooped up the baby and staggered across floors
that were bouncing up and down between walls that were
moving side to side, like the rope bridge of a fun house. Just as suddenly, it all stopped. The power went out. Time slowed like an intravenous drip. In the eerie silence, she sat in the front hall, haunted by a high-pitched hum from the earth until the dogs howled and the house shuddered again. In the darkness, through endless aftershocks, Michelle kept Nikki wrapped in that blanket, safe in her arms.

At dawn, she carried her baby around the rubble and climbed over the upside down dresser back to her bed. That evening, when the sun hid behind the black smoke, Michelle nursed Nikki to sleep by candlelight. Then she lay, fully dressed and rigid with fear, as fire trucks blared past. No power, no plumbing, no phone service—and the baby didn't get so much as a cut from all the glass on the floor. The next day, Michelle found her briefcase and unpacked it. That show would go on, but without her.

Michelle turned to survey the room. A new crack rose from the corner of the window frame and spread a foot across the wall. The plaster buckled in spots, as if reluctant to let go. “Settling,” the local realtors called it, a natural phenomenon that was as much of a surprise to new homeowners as the reality of parenthood was to new mothers. She gave up the long hours of production for a desk job close to home, but as Nikki grew, so did the job of protecting her. And now it seemed that everything Michelle had done was for nothing.

A few minutes passed, or maybe an hour. Michelle shook herself awake and surveyed the dusty room. It was like a magazine puzzle: what is wrong with this picture? Nikki's white dresser and desk were still here, but the drawers were empty. Storage boxes were stacked in the corner. Michelle stepped slowly across the room to find the seams of the top box taped shut. She backed against the wall and braced her feet to get leverage. She tugged at the tape with her left hand, but the box shifted. When she shoved it back with her shoulder, the box toppled to the floor and took her with it. She listened for a moment to be sure Tyler hadn't heard the crash from his room. Thank goodness for headphones.

Michelle spied Nikki's little bookshelf behind the door. She rolled over to her knees and crept closer. The particleboard was plastered with stickers ranging from My Little Pony to a Skull & Crossbones sneaker logo. A forgotten ball of knitting yarn was wedged behind the bottom shelf. Michelle used it to dust off the plastic snow globes Drew had brought home from location jobs, then the spines of books ranging from
The
Tell-Tale Heart
to
The
Runaway
Bunny
. She pulled out the picture book and flipped through the scribbled-on pages. No matter how far the little bunny ran away, the mother vowed to find him. Michelle put the book back and wiped her eyes. “For you are my little bunny.”

The top shelf was empty except for a jewelry box with a ballerina that twirled when she opened it. Inside, there were two pennies, a purple pen, and one dangling disco ball earring. Nikki always used purple ink, much to the consternation of certain English teachers. Michelle smiled at her daughter's independent streak, despite the trouble it caused. Her knees were getting stiff, so she took the earring and stood up. The tiny mirrors caught a shaft of light from the hallway and reflected sparkles on the walls. Michelle's eyes widened to take it all in—the room seemed to be alight with fireflies. That must be why Nikki had kept it. She wasn't big on jewelry.

Michelle wanted more sparkles, more fireflies, more of Nikki, so she pulled the drawstring to open the blinds. Beneath the window, she spotted one of Nikki's posters jammed between the bed and the wall. Michelle couldn't lean very far without losing her balance, so when she grabbed it, the corner ripped off. The rest of the shiny paper slipped from sight. Michelle held up the corner, but could only read part of the band's name: house. Playhouse? Dollhouse? Michelle had been quite the rocker in her day, but gave up when it came to the kids' music. Tyler was into hip-hop, but Nikki preferred obscure indie bands she found on the Internet. This must have been one of them. It seemed vaguely familiar, but then, everything did.

Headlights lit the window as Drew pulled up. She closed the blinds.

A few minutes later, he leaned in the doorway. “I saw you.”

“I wasn't hiding. It's my house, too.” Her nose twitched at the reek of cigarette smoke, but she let it go. “Will you open those boxes for me?”

“Not today. I picked up your Xanax. Take one and get some rest.”

Michelle shook her head. “It just doesn't make sense, Drew. I left her a message last week that I was leaving the hospital and couldn't wait to see her. There's no reason for her to be upset anymore.”

“You hungry?” Drew asked. “I got three flavors of applesauce.”

“Stop changing the subject. I've been eating solid food for months—and I can smell the burgers you brought home.”

“Your discharge papers say to go easy on the digestion. Those are Animal Style with extra dressing and onions—a far cry from hospital food. Want me to go back for a plain one?”

“No, stay.” Tyler was coughing in the other room. Drew went to the door. “Wait, I still don't get why she didn't come home.” He didn't turn around. “If it's not about my injuries, what else could it be? People have car accidents all the time—and Topanga is notorious for being dangerous. Nikki used to complain how long it took to drive the ten miles to the beach. I know I'm foggy on the details, but…”

Drew turned around slowly. Too slowly.

She was beginning to feel nauseous.

“There was more to the accident than you know,” he admitted.

“What are you talking about?”

“You might want to sit down.” Drew pointed to Nikki's trundle bed.

Michelle held her ground.

Drew took a deep breath. “The accident happened after one of Tyler's games. There was a boy in the car with you. He was killed.”

Michelle froze. This couldn't be true. Why was he looking at her like that? A boy was dead? She tasted bile and swallowed it down. She reached out to Drew and her whole body jerked with pain. Wrong arm. “No,” she wailed. The room started to spin.

He helped her to the trundle bed and sat beside her. When the stars cleared, she thought of all the times she had driven boys home. Michelle hardly understood what it meant for anyone's life to end, but for someone so young…“Who was it? A teammate?”

Drew shook his head. “Noah Butler.”

She thought for a minute, then remembered the lanky college student. “Tyler's pitching coach?” He nodded.

“Oh my god.”

A few minutes ago, she'd feared the worst for her daughter and it was unbearable. Now this—it was hard to comprehend. She took a deep breath and tried to connect the pieces. “Could this have anything to do with Nikki running away?”

Drew shrugged. “There was some innuendo that might have embarrassed her.”

“Innuendo?”

“I was out of town, so—you might have been lonely. And you were an attractive woman in a car alone with a nineteen-year-old, a good-looking college kid with a band.” He stood up and crossed his arms.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“No.”

“But you believe that?”

“No, but things had been strained between us, so it was awkward. And some people blame you for Noah's death.”

“Because I was driving?”

“Yes.”

Michelle couldn't fathom Nikki's embarrassment. “Does Lexi know?”

“How could she not? It was in all the newspapers.”

Michelle covered her face with her hand. “That explains why we were so cloistered at the hospital. But…”

Drew's phone rang. He checked the number, but didn't answer. When the screen went dark, so did the room.

“This light needs a new bulb.”

Drew tested the switch. “Forget it. Moping around in here will only upset you.”

“Right. Nikki is missing and Tyler's pitching coach is dead, but an empty room will upset me.” She stood up, fueled by anger.

“See what I mean?”

Michelle kicked the dented corner of the fallen box. “Do we have scissors?”

Drew heaved the box back on the stack in the corner, then rubbed his lower back. “Forget it. I've been through her things. Who do you think packed these?”

“But why? What if she comes home?”

“That's why I kept the bed. But it was creepy seeing her T-shirts piled on the floor where she left them.”

Michelle leaned against him. He put his arm around her.

Tyler coughed again.

“I need to give him the inhaler,” Drew said, walking her out. He took the bags he'd left on the hall table into the kitchen, where Tyler had the refrigerator door open.

He held up the plastic-wrapped piece of cake saved for Nikki. “Okay if I eat this?”

“No,” Michelle snapped.

Tyler eyed his father and put it back. “Dad, can I go to Cody's? I need to practice for the game—and his mom's making stroganoff. I can walk over.”

Michelle felt bad. “I'm sorry, Tyler, I didn't mean…”

“Go ahead,” Drew interrupted, tearing open the pharmacy bag. “I don't blame you for being sick of burgers. Take this with you.”

“Thanks,” Tyler said. He pocketed the inhaler, kissed Michelle, and started heading out.

Michelle followed him to the foyer. “But, don't you want to have a family dinner?” She winced at how lame that sounded, especially with Nikki missing. And someone dead.
Noah
Butler
dead
. It was a long time ago now, though, and she wondered how Tyler felt about it. Was he over it? Did he blame her? She was afraid to ask and risk upsetting him. She wanted to say something, to hold him and make it better, but she didn't know how to do that, or if it was even possible. She hated feeling so helpless.

“Be home by ten,” Drew told him.

Tyler's phone buzzed. He read the text before walking out and closing the front door behind him.

Michelle wondered what happened to her own phone. Was it lost in the wreckage with her wallet? And her wedding ring? When Drew took the other bag to the counter, she noticed that his hand was bare, too. “What happened to your ring?”

“Got caught on scaffolding when I was hanging mikes. Nearly ripped off my finger.”

“Ouch,” Michelle said.

He glanced at her withered right hand and shrugged. Then he put the last grocery bag away. She watched him, conscious of every movement, as if they were acting in a play, reading lines someone else had written. He brought paper plates to the table with the In-N-Out bag, then set out the prescription bottle like a condiment. “Want Tyler's shake?”

She sat back down at the dinette while he grabbed a beer from the fridge. He pushed the vanilla shake toward her, then unwrapped his double burger and dumped a haystack of fries beside it. The shake reminded her too much of the protein drinks that she'd grown to hate at the rehab center. She stole a french fry, which tasted a lot saltier than she remembered. She consoled herself that this was like a second date with her husband—if only she were in the mood. All the hope she had yesterday was gone. She could say words out loud and swallow bits of potato, but all the while, a dead boy hovered in her thoughts. Maybe he always would.

She eyed the prescription bottle. The promise of relief was tempting. She had no idea what had happened, and even if she did, she could never bring Noah back. But she could try to find her daughter. And she needed to be clearheaded to do that.

She took a deep breath and pulled the dangling disco ball earring from her pocket. The mirrors reflected sparkling light across Drew's hamburger.

“What's that?”

Michelle hesitated, surprised that he didn't recognize it. “An earring from Nikki's jewelry box. It doesn't look familiar?”

“She didn't wear earrings,” Drew said. “Remember how mad she was when I gave her the sapphire studs? You said it was the September birthstone.”

“It is,” Michelle said, toying with the clip. “But she was so proud about being natural—no pierced ears, no tattoos. She was disappointed you didn't notice. If she were here, she'd be eating a cheeseburger without the burger. Hold the lettuce and tomato.”