He’s unmoved. “This is the way it is, Smoky. I trust you. If you give me your word, then I know you’ll keep it. That’s what I want. Come back fixed, or don’t come back at all. It’s nonnegotiable.”
I stare at him. I don’t see judgment or pity.
He’s really not asking much, I realize. What he’s saying is reasonable.
I hate him anyway.
“I give you my word. Now get the fuck out of here.”
He gets up and leaves without looking back.
21
WE LEFT IN the early morning, and the flight back was a silent one. Bonnie sat next to me, holding my hand and staring off into the distance. Callie spoke once to let me know that two agents would be posted at my home until I said otherwise. I didn’t think he would be back now that he’d tipped his hand, but I was more than happy to have the protection. She also told me that AFIS had come up empty. Oh, happy day.
I am boiling over inside, a big mess of harm and confusion lit by little starbursts of panic. It is not the emotion overwhelming me, it is the reality. The reality of Bonnie. I glance at her. She unsettles me even more, responds by turning her head to give me a full, frank look. She regards me for a moment, and then goes back to her stillness and that thousand-yard stare.
I clench a fist and close my eyes. Those little panic starbursts glitter and burst and crack.
Motherhood terrifies me. Because that’s what we’re talking about here, plain and simple. I am all she has, and there are many, many miles to go. Miles filled with school days, Christmas mornings, booster shots, eat your vegetables, learn to drive, home by ten, on and on and on. All the banalities, big and small and wonderful, that go into being responsible for another life.
I used to have a system for this. The thing was, it wasn’t just called motherhood. It was called parenthood. I had Matt. We bounced things off each other, argued about what was best for Alexa, loved her together. A large part of being a parent is a constant near certainty that you are screwing it up, and it is comforting to be able to spread the blame around.
Bonnie has me. Just me. Screwup me, towing a freight train of baggage while she tows a freight train of horror and a future of…what? Will she ever speak again? Will she have friends? Boyfriends? Will she be happy?
I realize as my panic builds that I know nothing about this little girl. I don’t know if she’s good in school. I don’t know what TV shows she likes to watch, or what she expects to eat for breakfast in the morning. I know nothing.
The terror of it grows and grows, and I am babbling to myself inside and I just want to open the hatch on the side of the plane and jump out screaming into the open air, cackling and weeping and—
And there’s Matt’s voice again, inside my head. Soft and low and soothing.
Shhhh, babe. Relax. First things first, and you have the most important one out of the way already.
What’s that? I whimper back to him in my mind.
I feel his smile. You’ve taken her on. She’s yours. Whatever else happens, however hard it is, you’ve taken her on, and you’ll never take that back. That’s the First Rule of Mom, and you did it. The rest will fall into place.
My heart clenches at this, and I want to gasp.
The First Rule of Mom…
Alexa had her problems; she wasn’t a perfect child. She needed a lot of reassurance, sometimes, that she was loved. In those times, I would always tell her the same thing. I would cuddle her in my arms, and put my lips in her hair and whisper to her.
“You know what the First Rule of Mom is, honey?” I would say.
She did, but she always answered the same way:
“What, Mommy? What’s the First Rule of Mom?”
“That you’re mine, and I’ll never take that back. No matter what, no matter how hard things are, no matter if—”
“—the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, and the stars stop burning,” she’d say, completing the ritual.
It was all I had to do, and she’d relax and be certain.
My heart unclenches.
The First Rule of Mom.
I could start with that.
The starbursts stop glittering inside me.
For now.
We all get off the plane. I walk away without saying anything, Bonnie in tow.
The agents in question accompany us home, driving behind us the whole way. The air outside is chilly, just a little foggy. The freeway has only started getting busy, not quite up to speed yet, like a hill of sluggish ants waiting for the sun to warm them up.
The inside of the car is quiet the whole way home. Bonnie isn’t talking, and I am too busy thinking, feeling, fretting.
Thinking a lot about Alexa. It had not occurred to me until yesterday how little I have thought about her since her death. She’s been…vague. A blurred face in the distance. I realize now that she was the shadowy figure in my dream about Sands. The letter from Jack Jr., and remembering, has brought her crashing into focus.
Now she is a vivid, blinding, painful beauty. Memories of her are a symphony turned up too loud. My ears hurt, but I can’t stop listening.
The symphony of motherhood, it’s about loving with absolute abandon, loving without regard for self, loving with a near totality of being. It’s about a passion that could outburn the sun with its brightness. About a depthless hope and a fierce, rending joy.
God, I loved her. So much. More than I loved myself, more than I loved Matt.
I know why her face has been so blurred for me. Because a world without her, it is—unbearable.
But here I am, bearing it. That breaks something inside me, something that will never heal.
I’m glad.
Because I want this to hurt, forever.
***
When we get to the house twenty minutes later, the agents don’t speak, just give me a nod. Letting me know they’re on the job.
“Wait here a sec, honey,” I tell Bonnie.
I walk over to the car. The window on the driver’s side rolls down, and I smile as I recognize one of the agents. Dick Keenan. He had been a trainer at Quantico while I was going through the academy. Heading into his fifties, he decided he wanted to finish out on the “streets.” He’s a solid man, very old-school FBI, crew cut and all. He is also a practical joker and a marksman.
“How’d you get this detail, Dick?” I ask him.
He smiles. “AD Jones.”
I nod. Of course. “Who’s that with you?”
The other agent is younger, younger than me. Brand-new and still excited about being an FBI agent. Looking forward to the prospect of sitting in a car doing nothing for days at a time.
“Hannibal Shantz,” he says, sticking his hand out the window for me to shake.
“Hannibal, huh?” I grin.
He shrugs. He’s one of those good-natured guys, I can tell. It’s impossible to get under his skin, impossible not to like him.
“You up to speed on everything, Dick?”
His nod is terse. “You. The little girl. And, yeah, I know how she came to be with you.”
“Good. Let me be clear on something: She’s your principal. Understand? If it comes down to a choice between shadowing her or me, I want you to keep an eye on her.”
“You got it.”
“Thanks. Good to meet you, Hannibal.”
I walk away, reassured. I see Bonnie waiting for me, with my house as a backdrop.
I had time in the car to wonder about why I stayed in that house. It had been an act of stubbornness. Now it might also be an act of stupidity. I realized that it’s something basic to my nature. It is my home. If I were to relent, to give that up, then some part of me knew that I’d never be whole again.
Here there be tygers, true. But I still wasn’t leaving.
***
We’re in the kitchen, and my next move comes to me without asking.
“You hungry, honey?” I ask Bonnie.
She looks up at me, nods.
I nod ba
ck, satisfied. The First Rule of Mom: Love. The Second Rule of Mom: Feed your offspring. “Let me see what we have.”
She follows me as I open the refrigerator, peering in. Teach them to hunt, I think, and then I have to fight back a little hysterical bubble of laughter. Things don’t look good in the fridge. There’s a near-empty peanut butter jar and some milk that is putrefying past its expiration date.
“Sorry, babe. Looks like we’ll have to do some shopping.” I rub my eyes and sigh inside. God, I’m tired. But that’s one of the truths of parenthood. Not a rule, really. More of a given natural law. They are yours, you are responsible for them. So too bad if you’re tired, because, well—they can’t drive and they don’t have any money.
To heck with it. I look down at Bonnie and give her a smile. “Let’s go stock this place up.”
She gives me another one of those frank looks, followed by a smile. And a nod.
“Right.” I grab my purse and keys. “Saddle up.”
I had told Keenan and Shantz to stay on my house. I could take care of myself, and it was more important to me to know that no one would be waiting for us when we came back.
We’re moving through the aisles of Ralph’s supermarket. Modern-day foraging.
“Lead the way, honey,” I tell her. “I don’t know what you like, so you’ll have to show me.”
I push the cart and follow Bonnie as she glides across the floor, silent and watchful. Each time she points something out, I grab it and look at it for a moment, letting it set into my subconscious. I hear a loud, bass voice inside my head: MACARONI AND CHEESE, the voice booms. SPAGHETTI WITH MEAT SAUCE—NO MUSHROOMS, EVER, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH. CHEETOS—THE HOT AND SPICY KIND. The Food Commandments. Clues to Bonnie, important.
I feel like something rusty and dusty inside me is starting to get into motion, one screechy gear at a time. Love, shelter, macaroni and cheese. These things feel natural and right.
Like riding a bike, babe, I hear Matt whisper.
“Maybe,” I murmur back.
I’m so busy talking to myself that I miss that Bonnie has stopped, and I almost run her over with my cart. I give her a weak smile. “Sorry, honey. We got everything?”
She smiles and nods. All done.
“Then let’s get home and get eating.”
It’s not riding the bike that’s the problem, I realize. It’s the road the bike is traveling that’s changed. Love, shelter, macaroni and cheese, sure. There’s also a mute child and there’s a new mom who’s scarred, talks to herself, and is a little bit crazy.
I am on the phone with Alan’s wife, and as I talk, I watch Bonnie wolf down her macaroni and cheese with dedication and intensity. Children have a real pragmatism when it comes to food, I muse. I know the sky is falling, but, hey—you gotta eat, right?
“I really appreciate it, Elaina. Alan told me what’s going on, and I wouldn’t ask, but—”
She cuts me off. “Please stop, Smoky.” Her voice chides, gentle. It makes me think of Matt. “You need time to work things out, and that little girl needs a place to be when you’re not there. Until you get things settled.” I don’t respond, a lump in my throat. She seems to sense this, which is very Elaina. “You will get things settled, Smoky. You’ll do the right things for her.” She pauses. “You were a great mother to Alexa. You’ll do just fine with Bonnie.”
A mixture of grief, gratitude, and darkness comes over me when she says this. I manage to clear my throat, and get out a husky “Thanks.”
“No problem. Call me when you need me to help.”
She doesn’t demand more response from me and hangs up. Elaina has always been long on empathy. She’d agreed to look after Bonnie if there were times I needed a sitter. No hesitation, no questions asked.
You’re not alone, babe, Matt whispers.
“Maybe,” I murmur back. “Maybe not.”
My phone rings, startling me out of my conversation with a ghost. I answer it.
“Hi, honey-love,” Callie says. “Little development I wanted to apprise you of.”
My heart clenches. What now?
“Tell me,” I say.
“Dr. Hillstead’s office was bugged.”
I frown. “Huh?”
“The things Jack Jr. said in that letter, honey-love: Didn’t you wonder how he knew them?”
Silence. I’m startled and dumbfounded. No, I realize. I hadn’t wondered. “Good grief, Callie. It never occurred to me. Jesus.” I am reeling. “How is that possible?”
“Don’t feel bad. With everything else that happened, it didn’t occur to me, either. You can thank James for thinking of it.” She pauses. “Dear God, did I really just say ‘thank’ and ‘James’ in the same sentence?” I can hear her mock-shudder through the phone.
“Details, Callie,” I say. The words come out tight and impatient. I’m not interested in humor right now and I’m too tired to apologize for it.
“He had two audio bugs planted in Dr. Hillstead’s office—functional but not high end.” She’s letting me know that they aren’t distinctive as gadgets go and probably not traceable. “Both were remote activated. They transmitted wirelessly to a miniature recorder placed in a maintenance closet. All he’d have to know is when your appointments with Dr. Hillstead were, honey-love. He could activate the bugs and pick up the recordings later.”
A sense of violation surges through me, a powerful jolt of electricity. He’d been listening? Listening to me talk about Matt and Alexa? Listening to me be weak? My rage is so overwhelming I feel like I want to swoon, or vomit.
Then, as fast as it came, it goes. No more violation, no more rage, just exhausted desolation. My tide has gone out, my beach is dry and lonely.
“I gotta go, Callie,” I mumble.
“Are you all right, honey-love?”
“Thanks for telling me, Callie. Now I have to go.”
I hang up and marvel at my own emptiness. It is exquisite, in its way. Perfect.
“At least we’ll always have Paris,” I murmur, and feel a cackle building.
I realize that Bonnie has finished eating and that she is looking at me. Watching me. It startles me, shakes me down to my bones.
Jesus, I think. And it comes to me that this is the first thing I need to realize, once and for all. I am not alone. She is here, and she sees me.
My days of sitting in the dark, staring off at nothing and talking to myself—those days have to end.
No one needs a crazy mommy.
We’re in my bedroom, on my bed, looking at each other.
“How’s this, honey? Will it do?”
She gazes around, runs her hand over the bedspread, and then smiles, nodding her head. I smile back.
“Good. Now, I thought you would probably want to sleep in here with me—but if you don’t, I’ll understand.”
She grabs my hand and shakes her head like a bobble-head doll. A definite yes.
“Cool. I do need to talk to you about some things, Bonnie. Is that okay with you?”
A nod.
Some people might disapprove of this approach. Getting down to business so soon with her. I don’t agree. I’m going by feel here, and something tells me to be honest with this child, nothing less.
“First thing is, sometimes when I sleep—well, most of the time—I have nightmares. Sometimes they really scare me, and I wake up screaming. I hope that doesn’t happen with you sleeping in here, but it’s not really under my control. I don’t want you to be scared if it does.”
She studies my face. I watch as her eyes slide over to the picture on my nightstand. It’s a framed photo of me, Matt, and Alexa, all smiles and with no idea that death was in the future. She gazes at it for a moment, then looks back at me, raising her eyebrows.
It takes me a moment to understand. “Yes. The nightmares I have are about what happened to them.”
She closes her eyes. She lifts her hand up and pats her chest. Then opens her eyes and looks at me.
“You too, huh? Okay, honey
. How about we make a deal—neither one of us gets scared if the other one wakes up screaming.”
She smiles at this. It strikes me, for just a moment, how surreal this is. I am not talking to a ten-year-old about clothing or music or a day at the park. I’m making a pact with her about screaming in the night.
“The next thing…it’s a little harder for me. I’m deciding whether or not I’m going to keep doing my job. My job is to catch bad people, people who do things like what was done to your mom. And I might just be too sad to keep doing that. You understand?”
Her nod is somber. Oh yeah, she understands.
“I haven’t decided yet. If I don’t, then you and I can decide what to do next. If I do…well, I won’t be able to keep you with me all the time. I’ll have to have someone watch you when I’m working. I can promise you this: If I do that, I’ll make sure you like whoever you’re with. Does that sound all right?”
A careful nod. I’m getting the hang of this. Yes, that nod says—but with reservation.
“This is the last thing, babe. I think it’s the most important, so listen to me carefully, okay?” I take her hand and make certain that I am looking right at her when I say what I say next. “If you want to stay with me, then you will. I won’t leave you. Not ever. That’s a promise.”
Her face shows the first real emotion I’ve seen since I found her in that bed at the hospital. It crumples, overtaken by grief. Tears spill out onto her cheeks. I grab her and hug her to me, rocking her, as she weeps in silence. I hold her and whisper into her hair, and think of Annie and Alexa and the First Rule of Mom.
It takes a while, but she stops crying. She continues to hold on to me, her head against my chest. The sniffles die away and she pulls back, wiping her face with her hands. She cocks her head and looks at me. Really looks. I see her eyes roam over my scars. I start as her hand comes up to my face. With tremendous tenderness, she traces the scars with a finger. Starting with the ones on my forehead, running feather touches over my cheekbone. Her eyes tear up, and she rests a palm against my cheek. Then she is back in my arms. This time, she is the one hugging me.
Strangely, I don’t feel like weeping as she does this. I have a brief glimpse of peace. A place of comfort. Some warmth enters into that part of me that froze at the hospital today.