When You Come Back Read online

  Wait, I do the math and realize that the ship she and her friends were scheduled to board actually left port the day before the girls went missing. My instincts go on point. Something else is wrong. “Are you all right?” The idea that she looks more frail, maybe thinner, certainly paler slams into me. “Have you been ill?”

  She pats her rollers as if she only just realized a couple are loose, then her gaze catches mine. “I had a heart attack, Emma.”

  I blink, certain I heard her wrong but her eyes warn that I heard right. The duffel bag drops to the floor. “What?” Images of my dad, the cancer sucking the very life out of him, swim in front of my eyes. I can’t lose her, too. “When did this happen?”

  “It was only a mild one,” she assures me as she comes nearer, pats me on the cheek as if I’m a child though I tower over her by at least four inches. “The doctor ran endless tests. He says I’ll be fine. I just have to take a baby aspirin every day and one of those newfangled cholesterol drugs. That’s all. No surgery. No big deal.”

  No big deal? My mother—the only family I have left in this world—has a heart attack and it’s no big deal?

  On top of that it happened at least three days ago and she didn’t call her only daughter?

  Maybe we’re more alike than I realized.

  3

  HELEN

  “I know it’s late.” I clutch the phone to my ear as I glance toward the stairs.

  Emma cannot hear this conversation. When I am certain she has reached the third floor I can finally breathe deeply once more.

  “It’s okay.” My friend’s voice draws my attention back to the phone. “Is everything all right?”

  I close my eyes, reach for calm. “Emma’s home.”

  I am so very happy that my daughter is home and at the same time I am terrified. As strong as she wants me to believe she is there is a part of her that is very, very fragile. I worry so about her. With those poor girls missing darkness looms over this town…just like before. This is not a good time for Emma to be home.

  Misery swells inside me. Please, God, don’t let it be like before.

  “Oh that’s good. That’s real good,” Ginny says, excitement chasing away the sleepiness in her voice. “You need Emma here.”

  Ginny Cotton loves Emma. Her daughter Letty and Emma have been best friends their whole lives. But Ginny doesn’t understand how this could turn out for Emma. I love my dear friend, but I can’t tell her everything. Emma wouldn’t want anyone else to know…she doesn’t even want me to know. The only reason I do is because the university listed me as her next of kin when she was admitted to the hospital scarcely two weeks ago. I flew to Boston immediately to see her but the doctor told me how Emma didn’t want anyone to know what happened—especially me. So I came back home and waited to hear from her.

  She never called.

  I was stunned when she showed up tonight. Stunned…and grateful, despite my fears.

  “She said Letty didn’t call her about the girls.”

  A moment of silence echoes in my ear. “She mentioned she might call,” Ginny explains, “but I put a bug in her ear about waiting until she discovered something concrete before she bothered Emma way up in Boston.”

  The air shudders into my lungs and I feel a pain deep in my chest. Lord, I do not want to die. Not yet. I want to live long enough to see Emma happy. Really happy. I don’t want this burden Ginny and I carry to one day belong to our daughters and yet I see no realistic way around it.

  For the first time in more than twenty years I fear our lies—our awful sin—will find us out.

  “Well,” I remind myself how late it is, “I just thought I’d let you know she’s here.”

  “We’ll get through this, Helen. Just like before. We don’t have a choice.”

  “You’re right. We will,” I agree. “Good night, Ginny.”

  I hang up the phone and hug my arms around my cold body. As hard as I try I cannot block the memories of that day. I will go to my grave wondering if God was punishing me for what I did…if he’s still punishing me.

  That day, twenty-five years ago, I waved to the girls as they climbed onto the bus to go to school. I had never been so worried and terrified in my life but I knew I was doing the right thing. I knew it deep in my heart.

  If I knew this, why have I spent all these years doubting the decision? Andrew and I made the decision together. It was the right thing to do for our family. But maybe if I hadn’t gone to Birmingham things would have turned out differently.

  As soon as the girls were off to school that cold April morning, Ginny picked me up. I insisted that Andrew stay home and work as if it was just another day. Besides, someone needed to be close to home in case one of the girls needed us. The house Andrew was restoring was in town. It was best that he stay. Ginny was free to take me. Mildred Potter and both her sons had the flu so Ginny couldn’t clean the Potter house that day. I offered to pay her for taking me—I knew she needed the money—but Ginny refused to take my money.

  “What are friends for?” she’d insisted.

  We drove the ninety miles to Birmingham, arrived at the clinic with half an hour to spare. Waiting in the car, I started to cry. Ginny held my hand and cried with me. She understood how difficult this was. She wasn’t Catholic so birth control had been a part of her daily regimen since she brought Letty home from the hospital. I, on the other hand, had never taken a birth control pill in my life. After we had Natalie, I thought we were never going to be blessed with children again. Suddenly seven years later we had Emma. It was a change, we’d adapted to the idea of having only one. But Emma was such a blessing.

  Who would have thought eight years after Emma’s birth it would happen again? I was almost forty but that didn’t matter. We would have adjusted…except something was wrong. Andrew and I were convinced it was just a faulty test result, but we needed an amniocentesis to be sure, to be prepared for whatever was coming.

  Maybe we should have simply trusted God.

  But we didn’t. God knew this as well. Why else would we have bothered with the test?

  The procedure wasn’t so awful. Once it was over Ginny drove me to a nice restaurant and insisted I eat. We prayed that all would turn out well. After all the fear and emotional drama, somehow in that moment I felt at peace. I sensed that everything would be okay with the baby. It was a wonderful feeling of calm—as if God were giving me a message to trust Him.

  I made up my mind then and there that I would put all my faith in Him rather than the foolish test that had brought me to Birmingham in the first place.

  We should have been home before five but a multi-car pileup on the interstate put us behind. Neither of us had cell phones so we couldn’t call anyone. Andrew would take care of the girls. James, Ginny’s husband, was home with Letty who, like the Potter boys, had the flu. There was no need to worry.

  It was almost six by the time we turned onto Long Hollow Road. I was mentally exhausted and cramping a bit, both common symptoms. Nothing to worry about. The doctor had assured me all I needed to do was rest and put the worries out of my mind.

  “I’ll wait until I get you settled at home before checking on Letty,” Ginny insisted as she drove past her own house. “You’re too tired to be waiting around on me.”

  I started to argue, I knew she was worried about Letty, but she was right. I was exhausted and I just wanted to go home.

  Two and a half miles beyond her house we saw the overturned school bus.

  At first it didn’t occur to me that it was Emma and Natalie’s bus. I don’t know why, denial I suppose. Then I spotted the number nine.

  I was screaming my daughters’ names and trying to get out of the car before Ginny pulled to the side of the road. I ran toward the half a dozen older women crowded around the bus. I looked from face to face and demanded to know where my girls were.

  No one could tell me what I wanted to know. Lincoln Russell was dead and Emma, Natalie and Stacy Yarbrough were missing. Andrew,
James and every other able bodied man and woman in the surrounding area had joined the search teams assembled by the Sheriff and the Chief of Police. The older women had volunteered to wait for Ginny and me. One had gone to the Cotton home to stay with Letty. They knew we would drive upon the scene of the accident and they wanted to be here to help.

  As I stood staring in shock at the women from my parish—women I had known my entire life—a tow truck arrived to take the bus away.

  I grabbed Ginny by the arm and begged her to help me find my babies.

  We tramped through those woods all night. At some point we came upon other members of a search team. And eventually Andrew found me. He tried to talk me into going home, considering what I’d been through that day. I refused so we carried on together, both of us terrified.

  “Sam is out here looking,” he said to me. “I told him to find them and I know he will.”

  I could only nod. Sam was a good dog. Smart. He loved the girls. I told myself he would find our babies.

  We had walked for miles calling the girls names and poking into bushes and stumbling over logs by the time the sun lazily hauled itself above the horizon the next morning. Defeat tugged at me. I hurt all over and the cramping was worse…but how could I go home?

  Suddenly Sam’s deep, thunderous barks echoed through the dark woods, through my soul and I knew he had found our girls. We moved faster, rushing toward the sound of his barks. Sure enough there was Emma. I drew her into my arms and almost fainted with relief.

  But where was Natalie?

  I collapsed then. Couldn’t move, could only hug my baby girl and cry. Andrew kissed us both and sent us out of the woods with the paramedics. He promised me he wouldn’t stop until he found Natalie.

  Only he couldn’t find our sweet Natalie and that same night I lost the baby we had worried for weeks might have Downs Syndrome.

  Ten days later the amniocentesis results came back normal. The baby, a boy, would have been fine.

  Except there was no baby…and there was no Natalie.

  And I don’t think God has ever forgiven yet me for doubting Him.

  4

  Friday, May 11

  EMMA

  The next morning I lie in the bed. Have no desire to get up. The ceiling fan turns too slowly to actually move the oppressive air. Though a new central heat and air system was one of the first upgrades Dad supervised when we moved into this one-hundred-thirty-year-old house, retrofitted duct work in a house this age never really operates as efficiently as the neatly designed systems installed in new builds. Combine that with the mostly nonexistent insulation and the thin wavy glass of historic windows and the result is an icebox downstairs and a hotbox up. It’s the curse of renovating old homes while attempting to salvage historic elements like original clapboard siding and mint condition horsehair plaster. To achieve one, the other is inevitably sacrificed.

  Sometimes I feel like an old house. I don’t fit well with change and I rarely function efficiently unless I’m deep in the dirt unearthing bones. Today I feel particularly unfit. My brain has operated on Eastern Time for nearly a year, which explains why I forced my fatigued body from the bed an hour ago. I showered and then promptly crawled back into the waded linens that smell exactly like a lavender field. The sheets are freshly laundered and one hundred percent cotton—Helen Graves would have it no other way. I know the scent and feel of them as well as I know that of my own skin.

  How on earth will she take care of this enormous house? The yard? I push the endless questions away. Don’t want to think about that right now. The good news is the doctor says she’ll be okay and for the first time in weeks I didn’t dream last night. For the past month or so I’ve relived that bus crash in my dreams nearly every night. The dream ultimately morphs into that hole in the Iraqi desert, then I wake up sweating and crying out for help. Maybe I was simply too dead tired to dream last night.

  Whatever the case, I’m grateful for that small measure of relief.

  Framed Science and Math awards line the walls of my room. Dear God, the faded X-Files poster still hangs between the two windows on the other side of the room. A school banner hangs over the shelves burdened with all the books I loved growing up. Ray Bradbury and R.L. Stine and too many others to name. White walls, white bedspread. As desperately as my mother tried with all the frilly dresses and cute sweaters, I was never really a pink girl. Natalie was the girly one. Didn’t have my first kiss until I was seventeen. Only one boyfriend in school. Natalie would be married by now with children for Mother to gush over. I close my eyes, blocking the ancient history determined to roll through my brain like a tidal wave stirring up all manner of unsettling memories.

  Beyond lying here, the other option is going downstairs and that means facing my mother and explaining my sudden appearance. Last night we let the subject be in deference to the hour. Besides, she couldn’t exactly complain. She has been keeping one hell of a secret from me, which is in all likelihood the only reason she didn’t give me the third degree the moment I walked through the door. But there would be no avoiding an explanation this morning. Mother is, after all, part bloodhound. My dad always said she could dig up the dirt no matter how far it had been swept under a rug.

  Maybe if I just lie here she’ll feel sorry for her travel-weary daughter and go on about her daily routine. Except that isn’t possible. Helen Graves, the sixty-four-year-old workout queen and health foodie of Jackson Falls had a heart attack three days ago. She swears my unexpected middle of the night arrival almost gave her another one. I squeeze my eyes shut and roll my head from side to side.

  Why didn’t she call me? I ask myself this, feel completely neglected, all the while knowing that I did not call her when I had my meltdown and was carted off to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. But I have a legitimate excuse: I did not want to worry her. As it turns out, I was right to be concerned.

  How can this be? Mother is as healthy as the proverbial horse. She participates in the annual spring five-kilometer breast cancer run every year in honor of a friend she lost a decade ago to the horrible disease. Notably, this year she came home with her best finish time ever. Regrettably, an hour later she was in the throes of a cardiac event and on her way to the ER. The cardiologist refused to release her for travel until after considerable testing, forcing her to wave au revoir to her friends as they left her hospital bedside headed to Mobile for their annual cruise.

  A truly unpleasant and frightening reality for her, and a sheer disaster for me. As harsh as that sounds, her presence disrupts my entire plan of sorting out my life—the life that is going sideways far too quickly. Add to that the undeniable wake-up call that my mother is not invincible and my suffocating anxiety escalates. I love my mother. No matter that I don’t call or visit the way a good daughter should, I cannot imagine life without her.

  I think maybe we both need a break from the realities of our lives at the moment.

  The news she relayed about the two girls who disappeared day before yesterday echoes through me. Both had just turned fifteen years old. Honor students, soccer players, and Beta Club members. The similarities to Natalie and Stacy are indisputable.

  I watch the three wooden blades turn overhead, listen to the whir of the antiquated motor in an attempt to tune out this unexpected reality. I focus on the mundane, review the ordinary all the while ignoring the mounting anxiety. The fans came with the house, as did the twelve-foot ceilings, creaky wood floors and horsehair plaster walls. While Dad renovated the place I found dozens of marbles, old photos, and plenty of newspapers—all tucked into the walls he’d been forced to open for plumbing or electrical upgrades. Stacked on a shelf downstairs I found an entire series of local newspapers that recounted the ongoing search and investigation details of the first month after that day. I’m not sure if they were in the house before or if my parents brought them. Eventually they ended up in my room.

  I think they’re still in my closet.

  Hard as I might try, I
cannot stop thinking about those two girls. I drove all this way to escape the nightmares haunting me only to crash headlong into history repeating itself. Based on the details that Mother told me, some folks around town have already jumped to the illogical conclusion of a connection to twenty-five years ago. This latest disappearance can’t possibly be related to what happened to Natalie and Stacy. Theirs was a crime of opportunity. The bus accident wasn’t planned or triggered by some outside factor. And if a sick pervert didn’t take them, then they went into the woods for some reason—maybe the same reason I did—and were lost. There are sinkholes in northern Alabama. There are coyotes and wolves. Bears. I tell myself that Sam would have picked up their scent if they had been lost in the woods or dragged to some den or cave. I squeeze my eyes shut to block the images. I don’t want Natalie to have suffered. Even now I can’t bear to imagine her death.

  These girls, the ones whose bicycles were found on the side of the road, were most likely being watched. Their stalker no doubt learned their routines and waited for the perfect moment to snatch them. He had a plan he followed. The act was not spontaneous. The local news channels are probably buzzing with constant updates. Reporters will compare the disappearances, then and now, in every imaginable way. That sort of reporting will only draw critical attention away from the search for the girls who might very well still be alive.

  Dread roils inside me at the idea that if anyone learns I’m here, I will become part of the circus. Not that I mind if my participation can in any way help but nothing I remember, nothing I know can help find those little girls any more than I helped find Natalie and Stacy. I chew at my lip. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to review the newspaper articles from that first month after my sister disappeared. In all this time I’ve never looked at them. Maybe if I read the daily reports something long buried will bob to the surface. My therapist seems to believe there are more memories about that day locked away in my head.