Cutting Teeth: A Novel (38 page)

Susanna had dropped into a chair and was crying, a sound that made Allie think of an animal. A keening.

Tenzin helped the children downstairs, and they crowded around Susanna, their arms goose-bumped, their eyes unblinking.

“Mommy,” Levi said to Allie, on the edge of tears, “where’s Dash?”

“Do
you
know where he is, sweetie?” Allie knelt in front of him and cupped his cold elbows in her palms. “If you do, tell us right away. So we can get him and bring him here where’s he’s safe.”

Levi began to cry.

“Levi! Listen to me!”

Then she looked at Susanna, whose eyes were open but unseeing and remembered that afternoon on the beach right before Susanna threw up, Susanna demanding Allie comfort the boys.

“Everything will be okay,” Allie said, wiping at Levi’s cheeks with her thumbs. “Stay here with Mama. I’ll go get Dash.”

She remembered the windows upstairs. Did they have screens? Definitely not bars. Oh fuck, what if she left the windows open?

As she took the stairs two at a time, she heard Tenzin say, “Come, Levi, put your hand on Mama’s belly. Feel your new baby kick.”

Allie tripped and righted herself at the top of the stairs, remembering that friend of Susanna’s whose three-year-old had fallen through a window screen to his death and how Susanna had cried in the bathtub for hours after she’d heard the news. His head on rocks. A splash of blood. Still alive when they made it to the hospital. But not for long. They had planted trees in the park in his memory. Fucking trees for a beautiful boy.

She saw that the bedroom windows were open just a few inches, and yelled up at the top floor. “Josh? Anything?”

“Nothing,” he called back.

No Dash on the deck.

No Dash in the basement.

No Dash in the bedroom closets and the bathrooms.

No Dash anywhere, Allie thought, and the lines of one of the boys’ favorite bedtime books hopped through her mind, like an absurd tic:

Goodnight stars

Goodnight air

Goodnight noises everywhere

“Do you want me to call the police?” Josh asked.

“Yes!” Susanna cried, and then Levi was wailing again, “Mama! Mommy! I want my brother now!”

“Motherfucking shit,” Allie whispered, running her hands through her hair, tugging at the roots.
Think,
she told herself, trying to focus through the two glasses of wine she had drunk. Was this happening? The cops?

“Sure. Call the cops. Do it now.” She barreled down the stairs and leapt out the front door. As gravel spit out behind her, she heard Susanna’s bellow, “You find my baby!”

The moon was high and full, an immaculate white, animating every shrub, every stone with shadow. A world of secret hiding places. Her boy could be anywhere. She spun in a slow circle, searching for movement, for the sound of pebbles under little bare feet. A giggle. Anything. Something. Please, Dash.

She sprinted to the weathered shack on the side of the house and threw the door open, so that the hook fell with a ping on the gravel behind her. She yanked on the string overhead. It tore off in her fingers, and the explosion of light revealed clear plastic bags filled with old teddy bears and stuffed animals. Like some demented carnival, and it made her think of the state park and the town beach, both just a short walk from the path she had chased Dash down that day, and what if some fucking pervert had seen them. He could have seen them, she thought, trying to measure the distance in her mind, couldn’t he? And then lay in wait like some predator, maybe even lured Dash out that night, maybe he had her boy somewhere right now, somewhere dark and distant and cold and fucking terrifying. Right now.

She yelled toward the front door, “Call the cops!”

Allie ran to the cars that lined the driveway. She opened the doors on the two closest to the house, not bothering to close them, and as she fell to her stomach to check under each car, the pebbles pressing through the thin cotton of her shirt, the ding-ding-ding sounded. She climbed to her feet and paused to look up at the house, the bottom windows glowing gold under a moon-tinted cloud-streaked sky.

There was one more car to check, a dark SUV. She jiggled the handle and the alarm went off, a blaring siren punctuated by a honk. No Dash in there, at least not as much as she could see in the flashing taillights.

“Dash!” she screamed over the alarm. “Dash! Where are you? Come here now!”

“Hey! It’s all clear up front!” Michael shouted from the deck. “I’m going down on the beach to check the boats.”

“Did you check the rocks?” Allie called back. “Check the rocks!”

The rocks.
Oh fuckfuckfuck,
she chanted, and a sob lifted from her belly and stuck in her throat and she thought she might choke if she didn’t let it loose and she screamed,
dashdashdashdash.
Until her throat felt raw.

Then, suddenly, she knew where he was. The woods. That afternoon.

“I need flashlights!” Allie yelled at the house, then whirled to face the tree-and-bramble-lined path that led to the dunes, and beyond them the woods. The car alarm stopped. She stood for a moment, listening as her ears rang. Maybe she could hear her boy, the shush of his pajamas rubbing together, his sniffles, the little clucking noise he made when he laughed, his cry for help, but there was only her pulse screaming in her ears—
move, fucking move, you moron.

She was sliding down the dunes—the sand once again filling her pants, slipping into the back of her underwear, stinging her eyes—when she saw the cop car pull onto the beach by the park entrance. The hum of a motorboat engine made her look to the sea.
Oh God no!
she cried aloud when she saw the blue searchlights of the police boats sweeping the water.

what dreams are made of

Rip

Rip ran down
the aisles of Target, the soles of his sneakers squeaking across the gleaming floor. He stopped in front of each aisle, read the sign, and took off running again. Like the sprints he’d done as a kid on the junior varsity basketball team. There were shiny toys in primary colors for infants. A whole aisle of toy cars. Cars that talked, cars that blew bubbles, cars that shot up a track of intersecting circles and into the mouth of a giant, roaring dinosaur.

He almost ran right into a mom in a windbreaker and sweatpants.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He was off and running before he heard her reply.

Sweat stung his eyes. Maybe tears too, he thought. He remembered crying on the drive to the store as he swerved around the sharp turns of the dark road, pushing the car until he was flying at 80 MPH, Red Hot Chili Peppers pumping through the speakers.

He thought of calling Grace, in case she’d woken up in the commotion. Was Hank awake, too, asking for his daddy? Maybe he should head back?

No, he told himself. This mission was more important.

He was nearing the back of the store, only a few more aisles left. Beach toys, no. Scooters and bike helmets, no. Board games, no.

He was there. An aisle of pinkness. Even the boxes that held the erect Barbie dolls were pink. The plastic pretend baby carriages and tubs, all pink. It was a little girl’s fantasy. An aisle sprayed with Pepto-Bismol. There were dolls that talked and walked and pissed and moved their squat arms and legs and closed their eyes when you laid them on their backs. The motion-activated dolls sprang to life, and as he rushed past, he left a wave of mechanical giggles in his wake.

And there it was, at least twelve feet of pink and violet and silver and gold polyester, iridescent tulle and sequins that caught the fluorescent light and dazzled. Princess dress after princess dress, what his Hank had coveted for months. Maybe longer. Who knew how long Hank’s princess-dress dream had percolated inside the boy’s perfect little heart?

There were tiaras, some sprouting pink mesh fountains, like a bride’s wedding veil. There were even tiny pink rubber shoes with miniature heels.
Princess
in curlicued cursive. On tee shirts. On the bodices of the dresses. On purses and glitter-adorned makeup kits.

He tore through the dresses, letting one after another fall, the hangers clicking against the floor. Which one would make Hank happiest? Which one would be good enough? Enough to forgive Rip for that afternoon, the way he’d scoured Hank’s face with his rough fingertips to wipe away the makeup? Which would forgive him for wanting another child, one who might feel more like his own?

Rip was standing in a pile of pink pouf and puff when he found it. A gown in size XXL. Pink satin bodice and shimmery skirt. A pair of matching shoes with little heels and a tiara were part of the set—$16.99. He gave the outfit a hug, inhaling the tang of the flame-retardant chemicals, and he was off and running again.

He threw the dress on the checkout line conveyor belt and leaned over, hands on his upper thighs, coughing as he caught his breath.

The belt whirred to life.

“Just the dress, sir?” asked the checkout girl in the baggy red tee shirt.

She looked down at him with flat uninterested eyes and snapped her gum.

She had been a little girl once, Rip thought. She had been filled with dreams of pink gowns and glass slippers and sparkling tiaras.

“Just the dress,” he said.

knock wood

Nicole

Something bad really
was
happening, Nicole thought.

Not just bad, the worst.

“What the fuck do you mean I can’t go in there?” Allie shouted, as the rotating lights streaked the silvery white dunes red, blue, red, blue. “Dash!” Allie screamed toward the black woods. “Dash!”

Nicole had her arm wrapped around Allie’s shoulders—to comfort her, but also to keep her locked in the little huddle on the beach—Allie, Nicole, Josh, Michael, and the two town police officers standing at (guarding, it seemed to Nicole) the entrance to the state park. The cops had said, politely, that they’d
appreciate
it if Allie didn’t go in the woods. When Allie had raged at this—Nicole had seen saliva spray from her mouth as she shouted—the cops had apologized. There was a country charm in their
yes, ma’am
and
no, ma’am
and
sorry, ma’am
, Nicole thought. They had explained that two lost people would stretch their resources thin.

There was a team of state police on their way, the cops said. The search and rescue team was bringing canines. The thought of the drooling, barking dogs lunging on leashes sent a shiver of queasy fear through Nicole’s stomach.

One cop had introduced himself as Officer Morrello—a young guy who couldn’t be more than twenty-five. A spray of zits dotted his chin. He turned to Nicole and Josh, and asked, “Is the boy her son?” As if Allie weren’t there. Or as if she couldn’t be trusted.

“Um, yes.” Nicole said. “Of course he’s her son. His other mother,” she began, then stopped, worrying it would confuse things. Hadn’t she seen that on an
ER
episode years ago—a boy refused medical care because his biological mother wasn’t there to give permission?

“Yes, he’s my son,” Allie said, pointing to the woods, the veins in her arm tense cords. “I
know
he is in there. Please, just go. Or let me go. We can’t just stand here!”

“Ma’am, I know it is hard”—the second cop stepped forward and spoke slowly in a nasally Island accent—“but the search team will be here soon. They are on their way. They will get in there and find your boy. We cannot let you go in there, ma’am.”

“Stop calling me that!” Allie yelled.

Michael spoke for the first time. “Hey, man. I was a registered lifeguard. Maybe I can search the shore.” Nicole caught the antiseptic smell of hard alcohol on his breath and almost gagged. She realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch and felt hungover from the Xanax she’d taken on an empty stomach.

“Sir,” Officer Morello said. “You’d help us best by staying right here for now.”

“Gotcha,” Michael said, and stepped back, half falling to sit on the shelf of a rock.

Jesus, Nicole thought, he was wasted. And where was Tiffany? And Rip? At least Tenzin and Susanna, and hopefully Grace, were with the kids. Nicole thought of Wyatt’s being tucked into bed again by Tenzin’s warm hands, then she imagined Dash, barefoot and in thin nightclothes, shivering in the shadowy woods.

“Okay,” Allie said loudly, “Can we focus here? What are you
doing
to find Dash? Why are we just standing here?”

“The rangers will be here any minute, ma’am. For now, we need to ask you some questions. To get vital info that will help
us
help the search team once they arrive. Okay?”

“Yes,” Allie said, “Yes, please. Ask me.”

Nicole tightened her grip around Allie’s trembling shoulders. She felt Allie resist, then melt into her arm. The wind picked up, and the cordgrass shivered, the whisper of the stalks a shushing that momentarily drowned out the hum of the cop car’s engine. Nicole and her brother had called the grass sea-hay as kids, and had used it for make-believe magic wands.

“We need to talk about anything you might have seen during the day,” the second cop continued. “Anyone—a car, maybe—that seemed unusual. On the road or on the public beach.” He—
O’DONNELL
the pin on his uniform read—looked at Nicole, and asked, “You live here, right?”

“No,” she said, and it was difficult to speak at first.

O’Donnell was heavy-cheeked, clean-shaven, but she could see the red-brown stubble in the glow of the headlights. Officers Morello and O’Donnell—they sounded like fake names. Like they were characters on some cop show.

Josh finished for her, “My wife’s parents live here. Over there.” He pointed to the beach, to the houses that sat side by side behind the stacks of black boulders, still wet from the departing tide. “In the third house. We visit often. But I don’t know much about this area. I’m sorry. We’re from the city. All of us. But Nicole grew up here.”

Josh looked down at her. The cop followed his eyes and took a step closer to her. So close that she thought of running away, up the beach, hiding inside one of the shell-and-pebble-filled crevices in the boulders, like she had as a child.