The Lies We Told

  “You’re lucky to have him, then,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

  I set my plate with its one remaining egg on the wobbly table next to my wobbly chair. “Simmee,” I said, “I need to figure out how to get back to the airport.” I looked at her almost apologetically. She was so nice and I felt as though I was insulting her hospitality with my need to escape. “That skinny strip of land Tully was talking about…could someone wade across it to the mainland?”

  Simmee’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, ma’am,” she said. “It’s way too deep, and even if it wasn’t, there’s a bad current. It’d sweep you off your feet in no time. You ain’t got no idea how bad the crick is right now.”

  I looked at her helplessly. “What am I going to do?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Patience is golden,” she said, not unkindly.

  “Right.” I sighed. My shin burned and I leaned forward to pull up my pant leg. The wound was still red and swollen around the black stitches, but I thought it looked a little better.

  “Lady Alice been sewing us up a long time,” Simmee said. “Sewed up Tully’s foot one time. He screamed bloody bejeezus while she was doin’ it, too. He ain’t as tough as he looks, sometime.”

  “And your eyebrow?” I touched my own eyebrow in the exact spot where Simmee’s was split in two.

  “Yes.” She shivered, at the memory I supposed. “We had ice last winter, and I slipped gettin’ firewood. Tully was out and I was bleedin’ to death, practically, and had to slip and slide over to Lady Alice’s tryin’ to hold a rag to my head the whole time.” She touched her scar with her fingertips. “Lady Alice, she boils the thread and needle and cleans her hands with this special soap she saves just for sewin’ people up.”

  “Is she…royalty?” I asked.

  “What’s that mean, ‘royalty’?”

  “Well, why do you call her Lady Alice?”

  Simmee shrugged again. “That’s her name. Lady Alice Harnett. The name she was born with. Lady Alice, I mean. Harnett’s what she married into. Don’t know what her other name was.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Right close,” Simmee said. “We’ll visit her when you’re good enough to walk.”

  Oh, no we won’t, I thought. I planned to be home in Raleigh long before my leg was healed.

  “Lady Alice and my gran was friends when they was comin’ up,” Simmee said. “They didn’t have no schools for black kids here back then, but my gran would teach Lady Alice things. Even though Gran only made it to fifth grade herself.”

  Lady Alice was black. I realized I’d been picturing a woman who resembled Queen Elizabeth.

  “So…” I tried to puzzle out how Simmee and Tully came to live in this remote area. “You grew up here?”

  “Sure did. So did my mama and my gran. And Gran’s kin, too. They was moonshiners, which is how Last Run got its name. Gran brung me up after my mama died. Then a couple years ago, Gran died, too.” Simmee looked past me, as though she could see her grandmother standing behind me. I nearly turned to look. “You’re stayin’ in her room,” she said, returning her gaze to mine. “She was sick a while. Bad lungs. Hope that don’t spook you, sleepin’ where she died.”

  “No, of course not,” I said. “I’m grateful to have anyplace at all. I’m sorry you lost her, though.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I miss her.”

  “Did you go to school?” I asked.

  She looked, I thought, a little insulted by my question. “Of course,” she said. “I got through ninth grade, but that’s when Gran took sick and she needed me to stay home.”

  “Did Tully grow up here, too?”

  “Oh, no. He showed up about a year before Gran died. He lived in a tent.”

  “Really!”

  “He’s just one of them outdoorsman types. Amazin’ I can even get him to sleep in the house.”

  “How long have you two been married?” I asked.

  “Oh, we’re not married the church way or nothin’.” She picked at the fabric on the sofa cushion. “Someday maybe, but it don’t matter to me. We’re like common law. We been together a couple years. Practically since he come to Last Run.”

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Seventeen.”

  And they’d been together nearly a couple of years? The words statutory rape slipped into my mind. I knew more than I wanted to about statutory rape. Maybe out here, people didn’t worry about that sort of thing. Besides, it was clear Tully loved her. I remembered the way he’d inhaled the scent of her hair the night before. She’s gonna be a good mama, ain’t she?

  “How long you been married?” Simmee asked.

  “Three years.” I wanted to be with Adam right that second. I thought of how warmly he’d treated me in the airport. It had given me hope, even though we’d carefully tiptoed around any loaded topics. No talk of babies. Definitely no talk of adoption. “His name’s Adam,” I said.

  “You got kids?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Maybe that’s good, though.” Simmee smoothed her hand over her belly. She was wearing the same dress she’d had on the day before, and the fabric was stretched taut across her middle. “They’d be right scared now, with you missing.”

  Simmee was the sort of pregnant woman artists painted, all light and airy and golden. She was the sort of pregnant woman I used to look at with envy, longing for that gravid belly, for the baby inside. But I felt no longing, looking at Simmee. I felt only sadness, because I no longer trusted my own body to carry a baby to term.

  “When is your baby due?” I asked.

  “I don’t know exactly.” Simmee smiled down at her belly as if she could see her future son or daughter there.

  “Didn’t the doctor give you a due date?” I asked.

  Simmee drew little curlicues across her belly with her fingertips. “I ain’t seen one.” She studied the invisible design she was making instead of looking at me, as though she knew I wouldn’t approve of her answer.

  “Not even…not at all?” I asked.

  “No, ma’am,” she said. “Lady Alice says I’m healthy and the baby’s healthy. Kicks like a trapped possum, I swear. Lady Alice had eight kids, so she knows all about it.” She looked directly at me again. “All I care about is that it’s healthy,” she said. “That’s the only thing.”

  “Will you go to the hospital to have it?”

  “We ain’t got money for no hospital,” Simmee said.

  “Well, there are ways to have the birth and your care covered.”

  She drew more invisible curlicues on the fabric of her dress. “Lady Alice’ll take care of it,” she said. “Deliverin’ it, I mean.”

  “Is she…is Lady Alice a midwife?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A midwife. Someone trained and licensed to deliver babies.”

  Simmee gave me a patient look. “Well, I guess after eight babies of her own and deliverin’ plenty more, she’s trained good enough,” she said with a smile. But there was something behind the smile, I thought. Something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

  Something a little like fear.

  25

  Rebecca

  THE HELICOPTER LANDED ON THE ATHLETIC FIELD OF A ONE-STORY-HIGH school that looked as though it might have been built in the late fifties or early sixties. Climbing out of the chopper with Adam, ducking low as they moved quickly onto the open field, Rebecca felt as though she’d been born around that same time. She’d aged a good ten years in the past few days. She looked at the track that circled the field, hoping she’d have time to run later. She had to run. Had to keep herself centered. They had so much to do. They had to make sure things were set up properly in the school, treat the incoming evacuees, and most critically, stay on top of the search efforts. They needed to make sure Maya’s case didn’t get lost in the sea of missing persons.

  “Where are the trailers?” Adam asked as the chopper rose into t
he sky above them.

  Rebecca lit a cigarette, then pointed toward the school. “Probably on the other side,” she said.

  “Hey!” A teenage girl wearing an orange Day-Glo vest called to them from the side of the field. “Are you Adam and Rebecca?”

  “Yes!” Adam shouted.

  The girl approached them at a trot. Her brown hair was in a little flip that bounced with each step. “I’m one of the volunteers,” she said as she neared them. “I’m going to take you to your trailer.” She did an about-face and set out a few yards ahead of them, and Rebecca and Adam followed wordlessly behind her, lugging their duffel bags. It was blistering hot on the field, and Rebecca was drenched with sweat by the time they’d walked around the far corner of the concession stand and the parking lot came into view. A white brick wall bordering the lot proclaimed Welcome—Viking Territory! Five trailers were already parked close to the building, and two trucks were in the process of towing in a couple more.

  “What’s the chance of air-conditioning?” Adam asked Rebecca.

  “Good chance.” She pointed to the generator sitting behind the trailers. “Our own little source of power. Hallelujah.” She’d stayed in trailers before, ones nearly identical to the simple white tin cans in front of them. The trailers were cramped and Spartan, but there would be electricity they’d have to be careful not to abuse, and there would be actual beds, a luxury after the floor of the airport. Not that she expected to be able to sleep.

  The girl turned to smile brightly at them, pointing to the trailer closest to the school. “There’s pizza inside for you,” she said.

  Adam hiked his bag higher on his shoulder. “You’re kidding.” The stubble on his cheeks and chin could almost be called a beard now, and Rebecca thought it looked good on him.

  “Donated by a local place that wasn’t damaged,” the girl said. “They sent some over for you two and for the rest of us who are setting up stuff in the school. It’s been there a while, so it’ll be a little cold, but still—”

  “That’s great,” Rebecca said. The volunteer was too perky for her to deal with. She wanted to get inside the trailer and dump her duffel bag. She needed to get her bearings and figure out what to do next. “Do you have a key?” she asked.

  “It’s in the door. Two of them on a chain. And I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke in there.” She pointed to Rebecca’s cigarette.

  Rebecca considered blowing a smoke ring in her face, but thought better of it. “Where I smoke is none of your business,” she said.

  “Smoke’s going to come out of her ears if you don’t watch it,” Adam warned the girl, though his voice was light and kind.

  “I’m just saying,” the girl said. “And I’m supposed to give you a message from Dorothea Ludlow.”

  Rebecca stopped walking, her muscles suddenly tight. “What?”

  “She said to tell you that you’re just supposed to get settled into the trailer this afternoon and not go over to the school.”

  Rebecca let out her breath and exchanged a look with Adam. Beneath the beard, his face was the same white as the trailer, and she knew that the last two seconds had stolen the color from her face as well.

  “Okay, fine.” Rebecca started walking again.

  They reached the trailer and she turned the key in the lock, then looked over her shoulder at the volunteer. “Thanks,” she said. “We’re good.”

  “Miss Ludlow said she’ll be pissed off if she finds out you went over to the school.”

  Rebecca stared daggers at the little twit.

  Adam took the girl’s arm and walked a distance away from the trailer with her. “We know Dorothea,” Rebecca heard him tell her, “and we’re not afraid of her being p.o.’d, but thanks for letting us know.”

  The girl hesitated, but finally seemed to realize her job was finished. “Okay.” She sounded chipper, then added as she walked toward the school, “Thanks for volunteering!”

  Rebecca crushed her cigarette beneath her shoe before climbing into the trailer. She took two steps to one of the narrow settees on either side of the small, built-in table and flopped down. “Thanks for preventing me from killing her,” she said as Adam followed her inside.

  He smiled. “No prob.” He raked a hand through her short hair as if she were his kid sister. “Bet she’s a cheerleader,” he said. “I thought all that bubbliness was kind of cute.” He pulled a couple of bottles of water from his duffel bag and tossed one to her.

  “I thought it was kind of insufferable.” She watched as Adam looked to the right, where the double bed was tucked into one end of the trailer, and to the left, toward the long built-in couch that would serve as the second bed.

  “Has a little cottage charm,” he lied as he sat down across from her. He was sweet, and she regretted her bitchiness.

  “Better than the conference room,” she said.

  A pizza box and two paper plates rested on the table between them, and Adam lifted the lid to peer inside. “I think this is the first time in my life that the smell of pizza is turning my stomach.”

  “Mine, too.” She raised the lid higher and frowned at the cheese pizza. She lifted a slice, so cold that it came away cleanly from its neighbors, and took a bite. It may as well have been cardboard. “I can’t taste a thing,” she said. She had a jarring realization. She’d worked in dozens of disaster zones and had never lost her appetite or her sense of taste. As a matter of fact, she’d usually been ravenous. You had to be ravenous to enjoy MREs. But for weeks after her parents died, she couldn’t taste or smell. She’d lost twenty pounds in a month. She took another bite of the pizza, moving it around in her mouth with her tongue, determined to taste it. Nothing.

  She set the slice of pizza on one of the paper plates. “We’ll go over to the school after we’re done eating.” She needed to get busy. Keep herself from thinking.

  “Absolutely,” Adam said. “We’d go out of our minds hanging out here at the Ritz.” He took a bite of pizza, and his eyes slid closed and stayed closed while he chewed. He was falling asleep, and Rebecca felt a smile cross her face.

  “Do I look as tired as you do?” she asked.

  His eyes popped open and he looked surprised at finding himself in the trailer with a mouthful of pizza. “Whoa,” he said. “I was in another universe for a minute.”

  She sighed. “Another universe sounds great right now, doesn’t it?” She poked at the congealed cheese on her pizza with her fingertip. “I need to be sure they’re setting up the clinic the right way,” she said. “Sometimes the volunteers don’t know what makes the most sense, from a medical standpoint.”

  Adam leaned back on the settee, his sleepy eyes studying her. “You have so much…I don’t know…inner strength,” he said.

  “Ha,” she said. “Then why do I feel like I’m falling apart?”

  “Maya always says you can get things done no matter what’s going on around you, but I never saw it firsthand before.”

  Rebecca looked down quickly at the almost casual mention of Maya’s name, and whatever was left of her so-called inner strength seemed to slip away. “I didn’t want to leave the airport.” She gave her head a small shake. “I know it’s irrational, but I feel like…what if she comes back there looking for us and she doesn’t know where we are?”

  “Hey.” Adam set down his pizza and reached across the narrow table to cover her hand with his. “If she returns to the airport, she’ll find us, kiddo,” he said. “She’s more capable than you give her credit for.”

  “She’s fragile, Adam.”

  “You need to get over that,” he said. “I think I know her better than you do, as an adult. You still think of her like a kid.”

  She remembered Brent saying that she infantilized Maya. Maybe she did.

  “That’s your family story,” Adam said. “Rebecca’s the tough, brave, wild one who raised her little sister single-handedly. Maya’s the brainy mouse who needs to be taken care of. She might not be as tough as you are, but s
he’s tougher than you think. And you’re probably more of a wuss than you let on.”

  “Am not.” She made a face at him. She was embarrassed at letting him see her vulnerability when he’d just applauded her strength. “Anyway, I said it was irrational.” She got to her feet and picked up her duffel bag from where she’d dropped it on the floor. Setting it on the counter, she began unpacking. When she pulled out her cell phone, she flipped it open out of habit and let out a gasp.

  “My cell’s working!” she said.

  Adam jumped to his feet, digging through his own bag for his phone.

  “Mine, too,” he said, “though the battery’s just about had it.”

  Rebecca speed dialed Maya’s cell number.

  You’ve reached Dr. Maya Ward.

  She stomped her foot in frustration. “Damn it, Maya, where are you?”

  Adam leaned against the counter. “You were out there, Bec,” he said soberly. “You saw even more than I did. Do you honestly think she’s still alive?”

  She felt like throwing her phone at him, and if she hadn’t needed it so badly, she would have. “Don’t you give up hope,” she said. “We both have to stay positive.” She sat down on the settee again. “I’ve worked in so many disaster sites where bodies were never recovered, at least not while I was there,” she said. “And I never got it. Not really. I never completely understood what those families were going through. I just focused on my work.”

  “That’s what you were supposed to do,” he said. “That’s what I do in the O.R. What your sister does.”

  “And will do again,” she said, as if daring him to challenge her words.

  He hesitated, then nodded solemnly. “I hope she’ll be able to do it again,” he said. Then he dropped his gaze to his phone and began scrolling. “I have hundreds of messages.”

  Rebecca checked her own messages, hunting for Maya’s familiar phone number. She scrolled through the numbers once. Then again. Many of her friends had called, some of them repeatedly. She looked for unfamiliar numbers—numbers of people who might have found Maya and were calling to let her know. There were a few she didn’t recognize and she wondered if she should try calling them.