Perhaps she isn’t experiencing negative feelings, Karen thought suddenly. Maybe she prefers being with her father. This was a possibility. Mrs. Sanchez might have found her former husband selfish and irresponsible, but that didn’t necessarily mean he would appear that way to an eight-year-old daughter. If she loved him and he was good to her, she might actually be happier in the care of an easygoing drifter than she had been with a strict and demanding mother. More minutes passed.
Then Karen said, “Turn here.”
Rob obeyed immediately, pressing his foot to the brake and giving the steering wheel a quick twist to put the car onto a dirt road that was actually more of a hiking trail.
Immediately, they seemed to have left civilization behind them. Brush rose high on either side, cutting off the view of the highway, and branches reached out to claw at the fenders. Leaves flopped against the windshield, and the wheels spun and slid through mud-filled ruts.
“You’re sure this is the turnoff you were thinking about?” Rob asked doubtfully. “It’s just an access to the river. It’s probably a dead end.”
“That’s where we want to go,” Karen said. “To the water.” She didn’t know it until she said it out loud.
They continued to inch their way along as the trail wound further into the undergrowth. Eventually, as Rob had predicted, it terminated at the river, breaking through the brush and emerging into a sunlit hollow filled with wildflowers. Daisies bloomed there in abundance, thrusting white-fringed heads triumphantly through matted, winter-browned grasses. Scattered among them, assorted other blossoms darted out in unexpected places. Birds were singing, not chirping and calling, but trilling happily, and the gurgle of the rushing river was as joyous as human laughter.
The place was beautiful. And it was terrible.
Karen did not want to be there.
“You were right,” she said. “It’s just a dead end with nothing here. Let’s go back.”
Rob shook his head. “There must be some reason you wanted to come here.”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“There might be. We’ll never know unless we take a look.”
Without giving her time to respond, he shut off the engine and opened the door on the driver’s side. The chorus of bird voices became louder and the sound of the river more uproarious.
Karen’s head began to throb.
“I don’t feel good,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”
“I know.” Rob’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “The truth is, kid, I don’t feel so hot myself.”
“Please, can we leave?”
“I’m afraid not. Not until we check it out.”
Karen opened the door on her own side and got out slowly. Her legs felt weak, and her stomach was churning.
Was it possible that a short time ago she had actually felt like eating? Now the mere idea of food was revolting to her.
The sun was warm on her arms and the back of her neck, yet she found that she was shivering uncontrollably.
“Where to now?” Rob asked softly.
Karen gestured blindly off to the right toward a path that led along the riverbank. Rob took a step in that direction and then turned back and reached for her hand. Numbly, Karen let him take and hold it. To her surprise, she found that his was trembling.
After another few steps, their eyes were caught by a metallic glitter at the hollow’s edge. It was the chrome handlebars of a child’s bicycle, which had been carefully propped against the trunk of a giant cottonwood.
“Is it hers?” Karen asked.
“I can’t be sure. It’s the right size.”
“It’s new,” Karen said. “You can tell that by looking at it. The paint doesn’t have any scratches.”
“On our way back I’ll stop and check out the serial number.”
He released her hand so that they could walk in single file on the narrowing trail. It twisted away from the river to maneuver around a tree trunk and then dipped abruptly to a pebble-covered beach. Flat rocks, black and gleaming, extended into the river and broke the stream of the current so that it swirled chaotically around them, tossing froth about like confetti.
On the beach, set well back from the water, lay a pair of small sandals.
“You can go back to the car now, Karen,” Rob said.
She heard him, but there was no way that she could have moved from the spot on which she was planted. Her eyes were riveted on the shoes.
They came from Kmart. The knowledge was as absolute as though she had been there at the time of their purchase. She knew those shoes. She could feel the metal buckles in her fingers as the child who owned them struggled to get them open. The right one came easily, but the left was harder. She gave it a quick, impatient jerk, and the flimsy, imitation leather strap came loose from the sole.
Dios mio! Mama would be mad about that! “Shoes do not grow on trees!” she would say, because that was what she always said. “Shoes cost money! If that father of yours would send some support money—” But he bought me a bicycle! “You need a bike like you need a hole in your head. You need school clothes!” School is almost over. I won’t need school clothes in the summer!
Karen closed her eyes in a frantic attempt to shut out the scene, but it would not leave her. If anything, it seemed to intensify. She could feel the jagged pebbles beneath the soles of winter-tender feet. Water splashed, cold, upon her ankles.
How lovely it was now, in springtime! In another six weeks or so the river would grow shallow and tepid, oozing dutifully along its well-worn route, pausing at extended intervals to languish, heavy and motionless, stultified by the heat of the blazing summer sun. It was no fun then. It was boring. Not like today, when it surged young and wild and filled with spirit.
The mud squished deliciously between her toes. The water was like liquid ice. Her feet were becoming numb, but that was all right; that was part of the adventure. The current was stronger than she had anticipated. Her jeans were getting wet now. She had rolled them up to her knees, but one of the pant legs kept slipping down. If she shoved them both higher, maybe she could make it all the way out to the largest of the rocks without getting sopping wet. In the summer that particular rock stuck up a good ten inches above the water, but today it could barely be seen above the surface.
She wondered if her bike was all right, sitting back there in the clearing all by itself. Perhaps she should go back and check on it. The path was so narrow, she had been afraid to wheel the bike along it for fear the bushes would scratch the paint. But, then, who was there to steal it?
Nobody ever came here except for her. Nobody knew about this special, private wading spot—not her mama, not her school friends, not anybody.
When I grow up, I will have my husband build our house here. I will take our children wading—
“Karen, stop it!” Strong hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her fiercely. “Open your eyes! You’ve got to come out of it! You can’t do this to yourself!”
“She fell,” Karen whispered. “Off the big rock. She was bending over, trying to get the legs of her jeans pulled up. The rock was slippery—”
“Open your eyes!”
She did, and the glare of the sun struck her full in the face like an electric shock. Its brilliance exploded upon her, shattering the vision.
“She fell,” Karen repeated. “I saw her fall.”
“I know. I believe you.” Rob’s face was pale. “I saw you seeing her. You looked like… like you were going to fall over or something.”
“Can we go home now?” Karen asked him.
“Sure,” Rob said. “Sure we can.” He released his grip on her shoulders but kept his hands poised at either side of them, as though afraid she might not be able to keep her balance. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” Karen said.
“Do you want to sit down?”
“Not here. I want to get out of here.”
“We’ll leave in one minute. First, I’ve got to get
the shoes.”
He left her standing on the path while he scrambled down the short, steep incline to the beach. He bent to pick up the sandals, and when he straightened and turned, Karen was not surprised to see that the strap of the left one had been pulled away from the sole and was flapping loose in his hands exactly as she had envisioned it.
CHAPTER 8
They had barely reached the car when the mental exhaustion, frightening, yet familiar, came rolling in upon her like a gigantic wave from some dark and syrupy sea.
Karen struggled to keep her eyes open and her mind functioning. Rob was talking to her. She could see his lips moving and was aware of the sound of his voice, but the words themselves slid past her in a meaningless jumble of disjointed syllables as though they were being spoken in a foreign tongue.
The knowledge was undeniable. Carla Sanchez was dead. Somewhere in that rushing river, there was the body of a barefoot, blue jeans–clad child. The bright new bike would go unridden; the yellow bear unhugged. The dresses in the closet of the tiny bedroom would be taken from hangers and given to Goodwill. The portrait on the television set in the living room would be enshrined forever now, no longer just a photograph, but the last school picture—the final picture—“the way Carla looked the last year of her life.”
Mrs. Sanchez would show it to everyone who entered the house. She would speak in the past tense, her pride shrouded in pain. She was so beautiful, my Carla!
“How could I do it?” Karen whispered. “How could I?!”
“You didn’t do anything,” Rob’s voice assured her, the words lapping against her ears and slipping away again like ripples in a pond. “It was already done. It was a week ago. All you did was show me where it happened.”
“You said she was with her father!”
“We thought she was. It was so logical; her dad came to visit, he left, the kid was gone. It fit so well.”
“There’s no proof that it didn’t happen that way,” said Karen. “Like you told my mother, this was only guesswork. It doesn’t count for anything. It’s not as if Carla’s been found.”
“She will be,” Rob said with grim certainty.
“I won’t go back,” Karen told him. “I won’t ever go back to that terrible place.”
“You won’t have to,” Rob said. “Your part is over. Your job now is to put this behind you.”
She was aware that he was continuing to talk to her, but his words seemed to be coming from farther and farther away, muffled and lost in the haze of fatigue that was enveloping her. She gave in to the weight of her eyelids, and when she managed once again to force them open, she found that the car had come to a stop.
“You’re home,” Rob said. “I’ll come in with you and help you tell your parents.”
“They’re not here,” Karen said. “My dad’s playing golf, and Mom’s car isn’t in the driveway. She’s probably gone shopping or something.”
“Do you want me to wait with you until they get back?”
“No,” Karen said. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know you don’t feel well. I don’t like to drop you off like this with no one home.”
“I don’t need anybody.”
Please, go away. Go drag the river or whatever it is that the police do when they’re looking for bodies.
“I’m tired,” Karen said. “I just want to lie down.”
“Well, if you’re sure you’ll be okay…”
“I’m sure.”
She opened the door and got out of the car, feeling dizzy and uncoordinated, as if her brain had somehow become disconnected from her body. As she made her way up the pathway, the house appeared to be receding as she approached it, like a desert mirage. It was only when she turned and looked back at the car that she was able to see that she had been making progress.
In this dreamlike state, she continued walking, realizing at some level of her consciousness that the dulled condition she was experiencing was her body’s way of cushioning itself against the shock.
When she did finally reach the house, she discovered that the door was locked. Though this was only to be expected, it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears. The rummage through her purse to locate her house key loomed as one more nearly impossible hurdle to clear before she could put the horrible morning behind her. It seemed like a million years before her fingers finally closed upon the key, and when she tried to fit it into the keyhole, her hand was shaking. She wrestled with the key and then with the doorknob, painfully conscious of the fact that Rob was watching from the car, ready to rejoin her at any indication that help might be needed.
Go away! she wanted to scream at him. Can’t you understand that I never want to think about you again?
At last, the knob turned and the door swung open. Karen stepped quickly into the hallway and shoved the door closed behind her. She felt a sense of overwhelming relief as she heard the click of the latch falling into place.
On the far side of the entrance hall, there rose the staircase, extending endlessly upward as though it led to the very gates of eternity. Karen approached it with grim determination, making each of the steps a separate challenge:
There are fifteen steps still ahead of me… now there are fourteen… now only thirteen…
By the time she had reached the second-floor hallway, she was staggering under the weight of such exhaustion that she could barely keep from sinking to the floor.
Resisting that temptation, she staggered down the hall and entered her bedroom. It was bright with afternoon sunlight, and the gentle blue walls glowed softly like sections of sky. Karen closed the door and crossed the room to the bed. The rumpled sheets and mussed covers were a reminder of her hasty morning exit. The spread lay tossed on the floor, its petal-sprinkled surface smiling up at her like a woodland clearing dotted with wildflowers. The shade of the porcelain lamp on the bedside table echoed the pattern—flowers, flowers by a river. The costumed dolls that lined the shelf on the far wall seemed to run together into a blur of blended shapes and colors. The only one that stood out clearly was clothed in a white lace dress that might have been a First Communion gown.
“Put this behind you,” Rob had commanded. Easier said than done.
I will never forget this day as long as I live.
Karen threw herself down onto the tumbled bed and closed her eyes. As if someone had clicked on a TV, the backs of her lids sprang to life like twin screens displaying a sequence of overlapping visions. A newborn baby, red and gleaming, let out its first shrill cry. That same baby, cheeks grown rounded, nuzzled contentedly at its mother’s breast. A toddler in a damp and drooping diaper staggered triumphantly across the front room of a small adobe home. “She’s walking! La niña is walking!” And then a birthday party.
“What’s in the package from Abuelita? A yellow teddy! Mira, Carla, mira! Mira el bonito oso de peluche!”
I will not see! I will not look!
But there was no way to avoid looking, for scene followed scene so rapidly that it was no longer possible to separate one from another.
The child grew taller. The baby-soft hair gave way to rich, dark locks that fell thick about her shoulders. She rocked her dolls. She played with blocks. She gathered eggs from the henhouse for her mother. Her father took her to an amusement park, where she ate tacos and cotton candy and washed them down with orange soda pop. “Idiota!” shouted the mother. “What do you expect when you feed her junk like that? Of course she throws up on the Ferris wheel!” Carla cried. She had not meant to get sick and make her mama angry.
There was heavy snow that winter. There was ice in the river, and the wind blew very cold. Spring came, and summer, and autumn; leaves spun crazily from green to gold to brown in one dizzying instant.
“Stop,” Karen whispered, or tried to whisper, but the images kept coming, piling one on top of another, faster and faster, as if someone were fast-forwarding through the girl’s life.
Carla was in school now, and her father was go
ne. “We will do without him fine,” her mother assured her. He was not there for the First Communion, but he sent Carla a card with five dollars in it and no return address on the envelope. The yellow bear fell into the toilet and was rescued. Mama boiled it to kill the germs. The school picture was taken, and Carla’s eyes were closed. Carla felt so sad about the picture that Mama made new Mickey Mouse curtains for her bedroom and her abuelita embroidered a bedspread.
“Happy birthday, Carlita! Blow out the candles!”
“But there are eight of them. I’m only seven.”
“There is one to grow on. Don’t you want to grow up big?”
Another school picture. “Oh, that’s a good one!”
That winter was milder but there was frost on the panes of the windows and luminarias at Christmas. Another spring, and the father was home for a visit. “Go see what is in the back of the truck for you.”
“A bicycle! Oh, I love it! I love it! Thank you, Papa!”
“You need a bike like you need a hole in your head! You need school clothes!”
“School is almost over, Mama. All I need are sandals.”
“Shoes do not grow on trees.”
Papa was gone again. He took Carla out for a ride in his truck before he left, and they stopped for ice cream at a drive-through.
“One of these days I’ll have you come stay with me. First I have to find a job. Up in Vegas there’s a lot of work opening up. That’s where I’m headed. When I find me a job and a place to live, then I’ll send you a plane ticket.”
He let her off in front of the house and kissed her good-bye. After he drove away, Carla stood staring at the house, thinking about her mother inside, waiting for her. She would ask questions. “What did your papa say to you? Is he going to start sending money? Does he have a lady friend? Does he want to take you away with him?”