Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel (22 page)

I can’t breathe. He thinks I’m some black widow, seducing men so they’ll rob their own wives, so they’ll harm my own child? That I’m the mastermind behind this plan and Michael’s the dupe who’s carrying it out?

“I would never ever hurt Marley. Neither would Michael.”

Strickland stands up. His work here is done.

“You’ve got the wrong idea,” I say desperately. I’ve shifted back to the distraught mother, but he’s not buying it. My little vixen act with the bedroom eyes (oh, God, I had him come see me in my bedroom) only confirmed whatever theories he might have had.

“Time will tell,” he says. “That’s one thing I’ve learned in this job. Marley has to turn up sometime. People don’t really disappear.”

He’s saying she’ll turn up either alive or dead. One way or another, he’ll get his answers. “Marley’s fine, and she’s coming home.” I sound wobbly, a stool with a missing leg.

“I hope for your sake that’s true.” His tone is mild. He could either be wishing me well, as a frightened mother, or warning me, as the perpetrator he intends to catch.

When he’s gone, I fall back against the pillows. I imagine I’m white as their cases. Paul sticks his head in and says, “You okay?,” almost like he doesn’t want to get involved, and then seeing how I look, he forces himself to come in. He perches on the bed, far away, like I might be contagious.

“I’m not okay.”

“What did Officer Strickland want?”

Oh, so we’re back to “Officer.” I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. I don’t want to report any of that conversation.

“You don’t feel like talking?” Paul sounds cold. That’s how he does rage.

“Strickland thinks Dr. Michael and I have been having an affair. Do you believe that? Did you tell him that you believe that?”

He looks down at the bedsheets and then up at me. “I have no knowledge of anything you’ve done. That’s what I told Officer Strickland.”

“He thinks Dr. Michael is in love with me, and he’s right about that. But I’m not in love back.”

“Is that really what you call him? Dr. Michael?”

“No. I call him Michael.”

“Then call him that. He’s not my kid’s psychiatrist anymore. He’s the man who’s fucking my wife.”

I’m not used to that word, out of Paul’s mouth. We don’t do it much, and we say it even less. “So you do think I’m having an affair.”

“What else could it be?”

“It’s a friendship. We had coffee together.”

He narrows his eyes at me in disbelief.

“That’s all we did.”

“Was he in our house while I was away?”

“Yes.”

“Where did he sleep?”

I can’t meet Paul’s eyes. “Here.”

“In our bed.”

“Yes.” I’ve learned, too late, the value of brevity.

He shakes his head, almost like, “I knew it.” As if he always knew it would come to this someday. I don’t deserve that.

“I didn’t sleep with him!” I say forcefully. “Yes, he slept here, but we didn’t have sex. We’ve never had sex.”

“That’s comforting.”

“It should be.”

“What I mean is, it can’t be comforting because I don’t believe you. And what I really don’t understand is how you could let me go forward with the website, with the whole campaign, if you knew you had a skeleton this big in your closet. I told you everything would come out.”

“So this is all about FindMarley? That’s what really bothers you?”

He won’t admit it’s the public humiliation that bothers him, or that it’s the betrayal. No, forever the pragmatist, he has to pretend it’s all about the search. Maybe it really is. Maybe he really is that shallow.

“We’re supposed to be the perfect family,” I say. “That’s the way you get your daughter back. If you’re not perfect, you don’t deserve anyone’s help or sympathy?”

“Do you even get what you’ve done to our family?”

I should be contrite. I have exposed us to public ridicule. To ruin. Perhaps I have jeopardized the operation to find Marley. But what was it yielding, really? She could be anywhere. I can’t take his self-righteousness for another minute.

“You did all this,” I say.

“Am I the reason Officer Strickland couldn’t get a court order for the cell phone records?”

I stare at him, stunned. So that’s it, our strongest lead has been wiped out? Because of me? And that’s how Paul chooses to tell me? “It’s not my fault. He’s always had it out for me. I don’t think he even wants to find Marley.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

“You foisted the search on me! And who knows what you’re hiding.”

“I gave you my password!” His indignation matches mine.

“You gave me the password for your computer. Not your e-mail.”

“You want the password to my e-mail? That’ll satisfy you?”

I shake my head, my lips pressed tightly together. I have no idea what’ll satisfy me.

“So
you’re
the one who’s angry at
me
. You have Michael Harrison, of all people, in our bed, and you’re angry.” I don’t answer. “So you’re done talking, right? I won’t hear from you again for days.”

“There’s never been any point in talking to you.”

“I don’t even understand what you’re mad about. I can’t believe that after all you’ve done you’re questioning me. That you’re the one searching my computer.”

“And you’ve never done anything wrong. You’ve been the perfect father.”

“I’m not saying I’m perfect, but haven’t I done everything in my power to find her? I just somehow neglected to ask you beforehand”—he looks away, and I finally see the hurt—“if you were having an affair.”

“I didn’t have an affair.”

If he shakes his head one more time, I might push him out that window. Or jump out myself. Maybe both. That’ll be the moment Marley decides to walk back into our lives. She’ll cross the field and see us both lying in a heap and she’ll run toward us, shouting, “Mommy! Daddy! No!”

“Where are you?” he asks sharply. “Half the time, you’re off somewhere in your head. Be here, in this moment. Sit with what you’ve done.”

I can’t sit any longer with what any of us have done—not Paul, or Marley, or myself. I head for the bathroom, making a beeline for the medicine cabinet.

What will it b like?

It’ll be great. We’ll be happy.

End of story?

U reading my poems again, Mar?

Sometimes.

What will I do? I won’t be in school.

U want to be in school? We’ll get u in school.

I don’t know what I want.

We’ll go on Disappeared.com first thing and figure it out.

I’m getting nervous. What if I don’t like Durham?

U will. I’ll show u my favorite café.

I’ll get u the best fried chx ever.

U’ll meet my friends. They r excited to meet u.

Will they like me?

They’ll love u.

Will I like them?

Probably. If u don’t, I don’t have to see them.

But they’re ur friends.

I’m only going to need u.

Are u going to back out on me, Mar?

Marley?

No.

I wish u typed it faster.

Don’t u think about what if? What if something goes wrong?

No. Because it’s right.

U were not meant to stay with those people.

They hurt u.

They lie.

U are meant to be w/ me.

U’ll be happier than u ever were.

Imaginary Facebook

Marley Willits

Is drunk and disorderly

4 hours ago

1,000,000 others like this.

Marley Willits

Has never felt so alone

1 second ago

B. likes this.

I DRANK A LOT
of beer today, but I started early so it would wear off by the time B. came home. I listened to the “Teen Angst” playlist. It must have been the alcohol, but it’s like I became her for a while. What I know of her, anyway: a girl with no father and a shitty mom, dreaming of California. Then when she gets there, all she does is marry Dad and live in suburbia. It’s like she was pissed already at sixteen, knowing how it was going to turn out. She already sensed the ending.

I don’t want to make her mistakes. I don’t want to wind up married to someone I don’t really love. I need a bigger life than that, and I didn’t want to wait for it. You know that whole debate about whether
life begins at conception? For my parents, life begins in college. I wanted something extraordinary, now.

I listen to “To Be in Your Eyes,” and I remember how I used to feel when I heard the lyrics: “And the people with their voices / Random choices will they ever learn / To really see / Really be on fire when their spirits burn / I want the person inside me / To be someone I’d recognize / If he was in your eyes.” I was burning to be with B. I wanted the chance to see myself in his eyes, through his eyes, and now . . . I’m a housewife. A drunk housewife. Soon, it’ll be the weekend and my husband will be home, and I don’t know what will happen between us. It’s not a good feeling. I’m not having many good feelings at all.

I told him so tonight. I was scared to do it, but I thought, If I don’t, then I’m no better than my mother. I don’t want to be timid and weak and agreeable.

He came home and asked what was for dinner. I said, “Leftovers.” He hasn’t been eating leftovers. I have, every day, for lunch. I wake up and I make him a sandwich and that’s his lunch. It started when he was running late one day and he called to me from the shower, “Mar, could you get my sandwich ready?” I did, and then the next day, it seemed expected. So I made him another fucking sandwich, and that’s how it starts.

That must have been the way it was with my parents. One day, my mom says, “Yes, dear, you’re right,” almost like a joke, like she’s playing some housewife from the 1950s; then the next day, my dad expects that, and it’s too hard to fight it. Besides, it’s not such a big deal, telling them they’re right or making a sandwich. And he’s so happy; he feels loved.

I used to picture B. at lunch eating the sandwich I made, all the loving thoughts he’d have about me. But I bet B. doesn’t think about me anymore when he unwraps his sandwich. It’s only a sandwich, something I’m expected to do. It’s the same with dinner. He’s not ungrateful, he says thanks, but he doesn’t think it’s special anymore. He doesn’t think I’m special because I cooked for him. It’s like it’s my job.
I didn’t think I’d be taken for granted so fast. Couldn’t I have stayed special for a whole month, at least?

When he asked about dinner and I told him it was leftovers, he stared at me, and I made myself stare back. I wanted to drop my eyes, but that’s weak. What’s the worst that could happen? I repeated to myself. So he’ll get mad. So what? B.’s not one of those monsters like from my mom’s work. He gets mad sometimes, and he apologizes. It’s only a big deal if it stops me from speaking up or doing what I want.

“We need to talk,” I said. “Do you want to eat first, or can you talk now?” I was channeling someone else. I think it was my dad. I was being someone who knows how to get her way.

B.’s eyebrows scrunched a little and he said, “Let’s talk now.” He took a seat on the futon, all alert. His body was this taut wire. I realized: He’s kind of scared. He thinks I might be leaving him.

Then I realized: I have power.

I felt good, really good, for the first time in days. I sat next to him and I told him everything. Well, not about the beer, or the trips outside, or the fact that I knew about my parents’ websites before he said anything. But I did tell him that everything’s turned out differently than I thought, and that I’m cooped up every day and I’m not happy. I might even be depressed. I have no one to talk to, and he’s not even leaving me Trish’s cell phone anymore so I can text him. It’s not only that, though. He can’t be the only person in my life. “I need to hear other voices, you know?”

“Like your parents’ voices?” He was trying hard to listen without getting mad. I could see him working at it as he cracked his knuckles, slow motion, one at a time.

I reached out and held on to one of his hands. It felt like the right gesture, so patient and kind. I was proud of it. I can do this, be a supportive girlfriend. This whole thing doesn’t have to be a mistake. “No, not my parents. I don’t want to go home.”

I could feel him relax, like he’d done a big exhale right down to
his hands. “You want to stay with me?” He looked so hopeful.

“Yes.”

He smiled. “Well, how do we make you happier?”

I smiled back. “I’m glad you said that. It helps already.”

He squeezed my hand, a little roughly. That’s how he is sometimes, rough around the edges. It’s just because of his childhood. “You don’t want to make dinner anymore?”

“I can make you food. It’s not that. I just want to be appreciated, or something.” It seemed so lame, spoken out loud.

“I can appreciate you more. I do appreciate you. I love you.”

I smiled bigger. He doesn’t usually just come out with it like that. “I’ve got an idea. I know you said we can’t start doing the Disappeared.com steps in Durham, with all the flyers everywhere, and that makes sense. But maybe we could move somewhere together. You know, start over.”

His brow got so furrowed that it was like his face was collapsing in on itself, like a building being demolished.

“You don’t even like it here,” I said. “You don’t like your school.”

“It’s home.”

“Well, I left my home. And my parents.” I shouldn’t have said that last thing, about my parents. I know he’s touchy about his. If we keep living here, I wonder if I have to meet them someday. “You’re a good son. But they can’t expect you to stay in Durham forever just because they’re here.”

He seemed to be thinking hard, which was a good sign.

“We could be really happy somewhere else. My ID will say I’m eighteen, and everyone who meets us will think we’re just a regular couple. We can have friends. We can have a life.”

He was silent. My heart was going race car fast.

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

I DON’T KNOW HOW
to withstand this level of stress. Yesterday, I took some extra pills—not to overdose, but because I need more to get any relief. Most people would agree my situation is pretty extreme: Your daughter is missing, and you might have driven her away, and you’ve got no way to really explain yourself to her or anyone else, and you’ve become the prime suspect in her disappearance, along with your alleged lover. If you had a whole lot of Klonopin and Ativan in your medicine cabinet like I do, you’d take extra, too.

Paul hates me. The volunteers hate me for what I supposedly did to him. My house is filled with people who think that I’m guilty. They all believe I’m a liar and a cheater who’s married to a saint.

The last time I went downstairs, Paul and Candace were sitting close together in the living room and they clammed up instantly. They must have been talking about me. It was damage control, or he was crying on her shoulder. He could be having an affair with Candace, for all I know. She might not be the first woman either.

I hadn’t eaten all day and was on my way to the kitchen but I couldn’t continue. I turned around and went back upstairs. I was shaking so badly that I needed another Ativan. As needed, that’s what it says right on the bottle.

I’m not built for this. I’m not strong like Paul. I look at myself in the medicine cabinet above the sink and it seems like a funhouse mirror. I open the cabinet and take out both bottles of pills and try to
decide how many to swallow. Enough to end all this? It’s tempting. It’s never been so tempting.

But if Marley’s still out there, alive, if there’s any chance she might still be found, any chance she might come home, then I can’t do it. She’ll need a mother. Pathetic as I am, she’ll still need me. I can only hope she’s stopped reading the coverage, if she ever was.

I’m sure Paul is getting lots of sympathy. Smelling like a rose through all this. But he’s not innocent. For one thing, he must have seen the pill bottles. They’ve been in the medicine cabinet for months. He never once asked. If he looked at the label, Michael’s name is right on it. I’ve always paid cash for jumbo bottles, never gone through my insurance. Paul should have known. Was I hiding the pills in plain sight or begging to get caught? I don’t know anymore. I can’t remember. I’m just so tired.

If Strickland keeps digging around, this might be the next story to break.
MY LOVER, MY DRUG PUSHER
—that’ll be a great headline. Or no, it’ll be something like
BLACK WIDOW CONVINCES LOVER TO PRESCRIBE BENZODIAZEPINES
. Not catchy enough. Will we get a real headline, or are we still just Internet fodder? I sure don’t feel real, but those reporters and news vans outside suggest otherwise.

I feel like I’m dematerializing. It started happening in slow motion a while ago, and Marley’s leaving sped it up. For months, I’ve been spacey and unfocused, only half here. How has Paul missed it? Or did he just not care enough to say anything?

When Michael first started prescribing for me, it didn’t seem like a big deal. It wasn’t some big cover-up. We were sitting in Starbucks talking about my trouble relaxing, which had gone from a long-standing personality quirk to an undeniable problem. I’d even had a full-blown panic attack, my first ever. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Marley’s had been, no trip to the ER for me, but still. It scared me.

I didn’t connect it to Michael’s presence in my life, to all the tumult he was causing, and now I wonder if he had connected those dots and thought it was in his interest to take care of it.

No, he saw that I was in distress and he wanted to fix it. He’s
always had something of a savior complex. It’s served him well in his job, but once he was partially retired, he needed something more. He won’t admit it, but that’s part of his attraction to me.

So he wrote me a prescription for a few pills, almost like an experiment, and I filled it, paying in cash. I guess the idea was that I’d go to my regular doctor if they worked or get my own psychiatrist, but we didn’t talk it through fully. Life got busy, and so Michael wrote me another prescription.

Did he get off on it, being my savior? I don’t know. I think he liked that we were in this together. It was something no one else knew about; it was our secret. He was able to do something for me that Paul couldn’t.

I didn’t abuse the medication. If I was worrying about Marley—like when she got accused of cheating at school, and I had this inkling of a suspicion that she’d played me, and it was easier to take a pill than ruminate on it—or feeling generally keyed up, I’d take it as Michael directed, as needed. The jumbo bottles were because I was moving away, not because I’d been taking that many pills.

Since Marley’s been gone, I need more pills than I would ordinarily, but these aren’t ordinary times. I would have had a right to take more sooner, and I haven’t. I’ve held out.

I shouldn’t call Michael. Because he’s in hot water, too, and because he turned Marley away. But the betrayal doesn’t feel so acute now. He’s only human. He made a mistake, an error in judgment. He didn’t know what was to come. Who am I to throw stones? I miss him. He’s always shown me compassion.

I shouldn’t reach out to the man who loves me when my own husband (who theoretically loves me) is downstairs ignoring me, but if I don’t reach out to someone, I’m going to swallow every last one of these pills in the hope of never waking up.

I make the call from the bathroom floor in my nightgown, the gilded legs of the claw-foot tub inches from my face. I’m a total cliché, a Judy Garland wannabe, my pill bottles in my hand, the cell phone
on speaker on the tile. All I need is for someone to hear me downstairs and to transcribe and post this conversation for posterity.

Michael’s not answering.

So I call again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And finally, there he is. Whispering, like he’s stepped out of a session. I can see his office with its brightly painted shelves, the menagerie of toys and games, and the miniature easel set up in the corner. I can see ten-year-old Marley sitting on the floor, cross-legged. “I’m so happy to hear your voice,” he says. “I really wish I could talk to you, but it’s complicated over here—”

“It’s complicated over here, too.”

“Is that her? Are you talking to her?” Alicia is yelling. So he’s not at the office, he’s home. I know from everything he’s said that Alicia isn’t a yeller. Well, join the club. We’re all behaving out of character. I’m not normally a suicidal drug addict rolling around on my bathroom floor.

“I can’t take it,” I moan. “I really can’t.”

He puts his hand over the receiver and shouts back, “Yes, it’s her! She’s falling apart! She doesn’t have anyone else to call! Her daughter could be God knows where! Let me be a human being here, will you!”

“Go to hell!” Alicia screams. “Go to hell, Rachel!”

Already there.

“I’m going outside,” he tells Alicia. “Don’t follow me.”

Historically, he and Alicia have had a very civil marriage. Courtly, companionable, and passionless. But isn’t that what they all say, all the married men who are trying to get laid?

“Jesus,” he says. I assume he’s outside now. “She’s lost her mind.”

“Public humiliation. It does funny things to you,” I mumble. The tile is cold against my cheek. I realize that I’m starting to act the part
of the boozy floozy, and it’s not entirely unenjoyable. I’m not Judy Garland; I’m late-period Marilyn Monroe. That moment where you let yourself go, where you float away, it has to be liberating, right?

“Are you abusing the Klonopin, Rachel?” He’s Dr. Michael now. Competent, caring, trustworthy—the psychiatrist everyone loves to love.

“And the Ativans,” I say.

“How many have you taken this morning?”

“Only a few more than prescribed.” I finger the label of one of the bottles. “I’m thinking of taking the rest.”

“How many pills are left in the bottles?”

“I haven’t counted. Do you think she’s ever coming home?”

“Yes. I really do.”

“Why would you think that? It’s been three weeks.” I feel like I’m crying, but no tears are coming out. I’m making a terrible sound, like a beached seal.

“I know your relationship with Marley. I’ve watched you worry about her—”

“That’s all I do is worry about her, all I’ve ever managed to do for her—”

“—and love her,” he says, interrupting me right back. “You’ve shown her incredible love, and she loves you, too. I know she does. It’s strong, the bond between a mother and a daughter. She’s coming back.”

I have this strange feeling, this sense that this is my chance. He might finally break confidentiality, if I finesse it, if I push the right brick in the wall. But which brick is it? “I don’t think she’s coming back. You know that, too. You know what she told you about me.”

“What’s that?”

“She said”—think, Rachel, think—“I’m not worth respecting. That I let her father walk all over me. That I worry but I don’t do anything. I’m all intentions, no action.”

Apparently, I’m close enough to the truth, because he says, “She
only thought that sometimes. The important thing is the bond between you. She knew who the real problem was.”

My breath catches. This is more than he’s ever revealed from treatment. “Paul,” I say.

“He was domineering. He took your power away, and he tried to take her power away. He wanted to make all her decisions.”

She was a prepubescent girl then. He’s her father. Of course he needed to make some decisions for her.

“She had to distance herself from him, if she wanted to have a self at all.”

“That’s what you told her?” Angry as I am at Paul, confused as I am, it doesn’t sound quite right.

“That’s how she saw it. My job was to validate her reality.”

Was that his job, really? I try to remember the therapy courses I took in college so long ago.

“Rachel?” He sounds worried, like he might have said too much. “I helped her. You know that.”

It’s true. He did. And he’s helped me, too, hasn’t he?

“She loves you, Rachel.”

“Say it again.”

“She loves you very much.”

“Will she still love me after it comes out about you and me? Or do you think she already knew, and that’s why she . . . ?” I can’t say the rest.

“I’ll tell you this. When she came to see me again, she didn’t know about us. There’s no reason to think she’s found out since.”

“Except that it’s all over the Internet right now.”

He doesn’t have an answer for that.

“I’m sorry, Michael. I feel like I’ve screwed everything up.”

“It’s not you. It’s Paul. File it under narcissism. He’s the one who started the website without even consulting you.”

“He sort of consulted me.” I never spoke up. I was too chicken to confess.

“You don’t have to make excuses for him.” He starts speaking more rapidly. “Listen, I want to help you, but it’s hard right now. Alicia is furious, as you probably heard. I’ve told her that you and I haven’t had sex but she doesn’t believe me. I’ve told my kids that it’s all lies and innuendo and I’m not sure they believe me either.”

I hope Strickland is wiretapping this. “No one can believe that we haven’t had sex. Officer Strickland was here insisting we had.”

“The police have been here, too.” He lowers his voice. “Alicia is making it sound like I was planning to run off with you. Like I’m hiding money.”

I want to ask if it’s true, about the money, but I don’t want him incriminating himself on the off chance there is a wiretap. “Strickland makes it sound like we had a motive for doing something to Marley.”

“It’s insane.”

“That’s what I told him.”

Long pause. “You said ‘we.’
We
might have had a motive. I thought they were here investigating you. Do you mean they’re investigating me?”

“You wouldn’t talk to them.”

“That’s because I didn’t want to incriminate you. I didn’t realize . . .” He pauses again. “Do they know that I was in town that day?”

“There were witnesses in the Starbucks.”

He’s silent, calculating.

“I know you didn’t harm Marley,” I say. Are you recording this, Strickland? I hope you are. “And I didn’t harm Marley. The police will have to realize that.”

“But it could spread on the Internet. I could be implicated. I have my practice. I think it can survive the infidelity talk, but the idea that I hurt a child, or if there’s talk about the pills . . . I have a reputation, Rachel.”

It sounds so pompous, his talking about his reputation. I have a reputation, too. I exist, too, Michael.

I lift myself off the floor and lean back against the tub. The pill bottles in my hand look like a prop, so I set them down. “I’m getting trashed in the media. I get interrogated every other day. There’s a guy with a beret camped out in front of my house.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“No, it’s worse. My daughter’s missing on top of it.”

“You’re right,” he says. “Of course. Marley’s the most important thing.” But I can tell that he’s preoccupied, thinking of himself. I can’t entirely blame him. He’s just learned he’s a suspect. I know what that feels like.

There seems to be enough blame to go around. He wants to put it all on Paul, but we’re all implicated. Did he really validate Marley’s “reality” that her father was domineering, that she needed to pull away to maintain a sense of self? I’m no child development expert, not like him, but is that a reality that should be affirmed?

“Marley
is
the most important thing,” I repeat.

“Yes.” There’s less conviction now that his ass is seemingly on the line. Oh, Michael. You’re just like the rest of us.

I feel this fondness for him, like I’m looking back over my shoulder, like we’ve passed into retrospect. It already seems crazy that I ever considered hurting myself when Marley’s out there, somewhere.

I’m her mother. That means everything.