One September Morning (38 page)

Fort Lewis
Jim

I
t’s not until later in the afternoon, just before sunset, while Jim Stanton is loping along his usual jogging path, that he recalls the dream.

Some movement in the trees—a squirrel or a falling dead branch—brings the jungle imagery back to his mind, and suddenly it all comes back to him. The football game in the jungle, a tropical forest like Vietnam. Cut amid the trees and hillocks is a muddy football field, its grass surface and lime lines slightly clumped and ripped up by cleats but still holding.

Three men in combat fatigues occupy the field. On the twenty-yard line, Jim is poised, pumping the ball, deciding where to pass. In the end zone is John, ensconced in a wide white hospital bed, his head propped up, his body whole. His arms are open wide, and his smile—big and gregarious—is so John. He’s too far away for Jim to consider lobbing the ball, but John looks so damned happy that Jim cannot take his eyes off him.

In the dream Noah keeps calling from midfield, “Dad! Throw it here! I’m open!” as he zigzags exuberantly over the field.

If you drew a line between their positions, you would have a triangle, with Jim standing at the skinny acute angle. That is, if Noah would stand still.

“I’m open, Dad!” he calls, somehow annoying Jim, who grips the ball, not sure what to do. A pass to John is like throwing the ball away, while Noah could easily catch the ball and run.

Still, Jim palms the ball, riddled with indecision, at the head of the triangle.

“Triangulation.” Dr. Jump’s voice peels in his head. “Triangulation occurs in family dynamics. For example, you have an issue with your wife but you cannot communicate with her directly, so you discuss it with Madison, who then is compelled to intercede and becomes part of the relationship.”

Jim looks from Noah to John, unable to make his decision. But then the bushes move behind John, and heads appear in the brush beyond the end zone. Goddamn it, the Viet Cong, creeping up behind John.

Lit by panic, Jim drops the ball and tears down the field to his firstborn son. Got to push that bed off the field before the enemy gets to him. Move it, move it! Come on, man, run!

But the pain in his bad leg throbs.

And then he woke up.

After the dream, Jim didn’t have too much trouble getting back to sleep, probably because of the medication. But now, as he lopes toward home, the ache in his bad leg steely from the cold, the dream tugs at the edges of his conscience, something minor to be attended to, something to straighten out, like a traffic ticket or an overdue electric bill.

Since he’s been working with Dr. Jump, nothing really rattles his cage. It’s all on the fringes. Surface level.

The streetlights are on when he turns onto the last block, yellow glows against the cobalt sky. Slowing his pace in front of the house, Jim winces at the pain in his leg. Man, it’s a whopper.

Inside, the only light comes from the computer monitor in the dining room alcove, where Madison and Sharice sit together, faces lit by the screen.

“Oh…” Sharice gasps at the sight of him, as if he wasn’t supposed to come in through the front door. Although she quickly turns back to the monitor, he does not miss the shimmer of tear streaks on her face.

“Mom…” Leaning in front of her mother, Madison usurps the mouse and clicks a few pages closed. “Just close it out, okay?” she says, clearly annoyed with her mother. She is worlds ahead of her parents when it comes to navigating the Internet, a skill that frequently leaves Jim wary and wondering if she has too much cyber-freedom.

“But I…” Sharice shakes her head. “I’m not going to lie to him.”

“What’s going on?” Jim demands.

Madison is already on her feet, storming to the stairs. The tips of her hair sweep his shoulder as she hurries past him. “I’m done.”

“Don’t go anywhere.” Jim reaches for her wrist, but she yanks it away, scowling at him. “What is it?” he asks his wife.

Sharice tips her head toward the computer. “We found Noah.”

Those three words open up a wide chasm between them; it’s as if Jim could separate his life into the minutes and hours spent on solid ground before this moment, and the marshland of the future riddled with mud holes that will suck his feet down into pits of guilt, puddles of disloyalty.

“Actually, Madison found him a few weeks ago. She’s been e-mailing back and forth with him, and it sounds like he’s doing well.” Sharice speaks quickly, nervously. “His name and photo are posted on a Web site of war resisters who’ve fled to Canada, and we were just looking at the site. His personal statement is beautifully written. You should take a look.”

Jim sits on the sofa, leans down and begins unlacing his running shoes. “You know I can’t.”

“Okay,
that
I don’t get.” Madison pounds up to the landing, then wheels. “He’s your son, Dad. He survived, and he’s just trying to stay alive. What is wrong with you? You act like he’s dead, too. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not.” Jim looks up at her, his heart racing to keep up with the emotions that can’t seem to find a main artery to flow through in his body. He loves his son, of course he does. Then why can’t he feel anything at this moment? Nothing but a stagnant numbness in his soul. “Noah is my son. You don’t give up on one of your own. But I can’t turn my back on my country to spare the life of one man. That goes against everything I believe in, everything I’ve sworn to protect.”

“Oh, please!” Madison tosses her head defiantly. “Take a look around, Dad! This country you’re protecting doesn’t want soldiers overseas getting in people’s faces and getting themselves killed. People want peace. No one wants to lose a son or brother or husband in a war where there isn’t even a fucking enemy!”

Jim sucks air between his gritted teeth as Sharice springs to her feet at the computer desk. “Madison!” Sharice glares at her daughter.

“Watch your mouth, young lady.” Jim’s head is beginning to ache. Domestic strife is an alien thing in this household. He and Sharice have always kept their arguments on the level of debate, their disagreements tamped down.

“Don’t shush me when you know it’s true,” Madison rails. “You can act like a patriot all you want, but at the end of the day Noah is out there somewhere, all alone.” Her voice cracks with emotion. “And I for one am going to keep letting him know that someone loves him. And you can’t stop me.”

“Don’t push us,” Jim threatens.

“I—I hate you!” she shouts, then pounds up the stairs.

Jim is looking down at his hands when the door slams upstairs and a silence falls over the dark house. “Adolescence,” he mutters. “How long does that go on?”

“Another thirty years or so?” Sharice’s slippers tap the wood floor as she moves about, turning on lights. The red dragonfly Tiffany lamp in the living room, the orange glass cones that hang over the kitchen counter. The house is instantly warmed, a home. This, he realizes, is Sharice’s gift—turning a building into a home, making a dark place warm and inviting and inhabitable.

“At least she’s not drinking,” Sharice says. “And you can understand why she’s upset.” She returns to the computer and clicks the mouse. “If I ask you a question, do you promise you won’t snap at me?”

Jim sighs. “Ask away.”

“Is it treasonous and illegal just for you to look?”

“That’s not it.” He paces past her, past the Web site behind her, into the kitchen where he grips the counter. “You know that’s not it.” The truth is, he’s never had much of a tolerance for the war resisters. He remembers them from the sixties, their faces splashed on TV screens with their bold, black eyeglasses and picket signs. College kids spitting at cops, shapely girls in bell-bottom pants shoving peace signs at you, long-hairs, freaks, lazy-ass kids who expect someone else to fight for their freedom.

“Then please.” She pats the bench beside her. “Come look. For me?”

And there he is on the football field, palming the ball, quarterback in the clutch. Why doesn’t he throw it to Noah? Why not give the boy a chance to run with it?

With a sick feeling in his gut, he puts his hands on his wife’s shoulders and allows himself to take in the Web site. No long-hairs or hippies, just boys, young men like the ones who served in his own platoon.

Boys like his son.

“He looks good, doesn’t he?” Sharice asks.

Jim blinks back tears, unable to answer for the knot in his throat.

Fort Lewis
Abby

A
bby awakens in the dark, her mouth dry and fuzzy, her shoulder stiff from sleeping in such an unnatural position huddled in the chair. Trying to find comfort, she shifts positions and notices the digital clock on the TV cable box: 6:14. a.m. or p.m.?

Through the haze of drowsiness she tries to orient herself. She’s at home in her own living room, but—

Oh, God!

She bolts upright and nausea springs through her core. Sofia…where is she? And—

“No!” She curls up, face to her thighs and hands balled into fists as she remembers it all far too vividly.

Jump.

Oh, God! He took her.

“Sofia?” Maybe she’s here. Maybe his threats were unfounded. “Sofia, honey?” Pushing out of the chair, she breathes over a wave of dizziness and stumbles over to turn on the light.

Palming the walls for support, she searches the apartment. Although there are signs of Sofia everywhere, from the sweet baby-powder scent of her hand wipes to the plastic booster seat strapped onto Abby’s kitchen chair, the child is not here.

Being upright makes her dizzy, and she races into the bathroom, gagging. Afterward, she rinses her mouth with cold water. As she straightens and spies her own reflection in the mirror over the sink, the seriousness of the situation hits her once again. She has lost a child.

“Oh my God!” The words are almost a desperate prayer as she grabs the phone and searches her directory for Charles’s number. He took her. He took Sofia away!

Did he think she wouldn’t remember?

With shaking fingers, she presses in his number and waits, seconds ticking slowly, as the phone rings and rings.

“This is Dr. Jump.” His voice sounds cordial, professional.

“You need to bring her back, right away,” Abby says, swiping her sleeve over her face. Until now she didn’t even notice that she was crying. “Bring her back to me.”

“Who is this?” Now he sounds pompous.

“Bring Sofia back right now!” she rages.

“Abby? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

As the bottom drops out of her world, Abby collapses onto the dining room table. Her mind goes to the dark places where Jump might have taken the toddler…did he mistreat her? Was that part of his psychosis?

The table’s surface, cool against her cheek, grounds her somehow, reminding her that her reality is not a hallucination. Jump took Sofia, but obviously the direct approach is not getting her anywhere. She needs to take a different tack. “You took her for a walk this afternoon,” she says. “Remember? After we ran into you in the park and I…” She restrains her fury as the pieces fall into place. “I got sick.”

From the cider you pressed me to drink. Poisoned. Laced with some drug
.

Which one did he use on her? OxyContin? Morphine? Xanax? Percocet? Or a mixture of narcotics and tranquilizers?

A drugstore full of prescription medications lurks at Dr. Jump’s fingertips.

That would explain the sudden illness, the cotton mouth, the nausea. But right now, her fury isn’t going to play with Jump.

“Thanks for taking care of her,” she says. At this point she’ll suck up to him, stroke his ego, anything to get Sofia back safely. “How about if I come pick her up?”

“Abby, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Has the stress of the internship gotten to you? Or perhaps it’s latent grief from John’s death. Grief does have a way of catching up with us.”

“No! Stop twisting things around and tell me what you did with Sofia!” she demands. “Where is she?”

His sigh is dramatic, loaded with pity. “Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you’ve lost track of a young child, you’d better call the police…and not your internship director, who has better things to do on a Saturday night.”

“You’re lying!” she protests, but it’s all in vain. With a click, he disconnects the call.

“Damn you!” Abby hangs up and pushes herself away from the table. Her head, still woozy from the drugs, is swimming with panic and adrenaline, but she has to organize her thoughts.

First priority: find Sofia.

She goes through the house once again, this time searching under the bed and inside closets. Where could she be? Abby’s heart twists at the image of Sofia alone in the dark. “Where are you?”

She can’t do this alone. Every minute counts when a child is missing.

Quickly, she calls 911 on her cell. While she talks to the dispatcher, she shrugs on her jacket and begins circling the house. The sight of the pink tricycle on the front porch makes her throat grow thick with emotion but she presses on, circling around the side, checking every shrub.

The dispatcher on the phone is removed but patient, and Abby tries to stay calm as she answers every question. Yes, a child is missing. A baby girl. No, not an infant, she’s three, more a toddler. How long? It’s been a few hours. Struggling to explain, Abby simply says that she dozed off while the child was playing and she’s afraid the little girl let herself out of the house. She’ll tell Suz the truth, of course, and once the police arrive she’s going to tell them the entire story: the drugs, the lies…all of Jump’s deceptions.

But, right now, Sofia is everything.

Panic overtakes her as she checks the park, searching in the tunnel slide, the sandbox, behind the picnic table. This was where it started with that damned hot cider. What a fool she was! Why did she drink it—just to avoid making a scene? So what if the neighbors thought she was rude and crazy.

Breathing is impossible, but she pushes on, her entire body trembling.

“Are you still there?” the dispatcher asks.

“Yes, yes, I’m here.” She breaks into a run on the path until she reaches the back of her house.

“Please stay on the line,” the woman says firmly. “The police will be there in two to four minutes.”

“I’m here.” Abby’s jaw quivers as she cuts around the side of the house and begins to search the front. The light from the streetlamp bounces off the hood of her car, and she heads that way, wondering if she should wait to call Suz or phone her right now.

Two steps later, she sees the bulky quilted coat in the backseat.

Sofia is strapped into her car seat, deathly still.

“Oh, honey!” In one forward movement Abby lunges toward the car and grabs the door handle.

The interior light of the car and the rush of cold air cause the child to stir, allaying Abby’s worst fears. “Sofia, sweetie…” She leans into the car fumbling over the straps with one hand. “I found her,” Abby tells the dispatcher breathlessly. “In her car seat. I’m hanging up now so I can get her out.”

“The police are on their way. Should I dispatch an ambulance, too?”

“No, I don’t think so. She’s breathing and…I don’t want to scare her.”

As this conversation goes on, Sofia cracks open her eyes, then rubs her face with one fist. “Get out!” she whines, kicking her legs.

A very good sign. Abby tucks her cell phone into her jacket pocket and unbuckles the straps. “Here you go, pumpkin.” She tries to lend a hand, but Sofia is already climbing down to the floor and reaching for Abby, who hoists her into her arms and hugs her thoroughly and gently. The downy feel of a child’s hair against your cheek, the smell of baby powder and cherry No-More-Tears shampoo, the perfect combination of solid bone and pliant muscle and flesh—Abby savors it all, grateful for Sofia’s safety.

“Abby?” Sofia pats her shoulder and Abby lifts her head. “Can I have french fries?” Her tone is so earnest Abby feels a pang in her heart.

“Are you hungry, sweetie?”

Sofia nods, yawning. “Do you have french fries?” she asks, tucking her tiny fingers into the collar of Abby’s coat. “I hungry.”

“We’ll get you some french fries,” Abby promises. She closes the car door and carries the little girl up the front walk and into the warm house.

When the police arrive two minutes later, Abby focuses on keeping things on an even keel for Sofia, who seems happy to lie on her back with her legs curled to her chest and watch
Dora the Explorer.

When the police ask Sofia what happened that afternoon after Abby “got sick,” she just shakes her head and answers, “I’m not allowed to tell.”

Officer Thompson asks her, “Who says you’re not allowed to tell? You can always tell the police.”

But Sofia just shakes her head and smiles. Her lips are sealed.

Outside on the front porch, Abby keeps one eye on her charge inside as she quickly tells the police her account of the afternoon—that she was drugged and Sofia was abducted by Dr. Jump.

“Those are pretty heavy charges, ma’am.” Officer Thompson shifts from one foot to the other.

“I know, but it’s the truth. I…I would give you one of the cups he put the drugs in, but he took them away.”

Officer Thompson nods. “Have you ever used illegal drugs before, ma’am?”

“No! Of course not.” Abby covers her eyes with one hand then rakes her hair back from her forehead. Her head hurts and nausea still bubbles in her stomach, and, to top it all off, the police don’t seem to believe her. “You need to go and arrest Dr. Charles Jump for kidnapping and…and whatever charge there is for drugging someone. He lives in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters on base.”

“Ma’am…Mrs. Stanton…” the second cop speaks up now. An older man with bristly gray hair and a mustache, Officer Bigelow. “We deal with your situation a lot, and I can assure you that we don’t take sides.”

“My situation?” Abby’s fists press to her hips. “What might that be?”

“Stay calm, ma’am.” Bigelow’s eyes are wide with condescension. “I’m just saying we handle lots of domestic disputes.”

“This is not a domestic dispute!” Abby growls, keeping her voice low.

“Mrs. Stanton,” Thompson intervenes, “we took a complaint earlier this afternoon, charging you with harassment and reckless endangerment of a minor.”

“What?” Abby feels the earth shifting beneath her for the second time that day. She backs against the door, holding the knob for balance. “Who lodged a complaint against me?”

Officer Thompson’s eyes glaze over; he’s seen this a thousand times before. “Dr. Charles Jump.”

After the police leave, Abby turns her total attention to Sofia.

French fries are delivered from one of the small restaurants on base.

The Wiggles expound the beauty of cold spaghetti and mashed bananas over John’s sound system that used to be dedicated to Green Day and the Eagles.

A warm bath is drawn, and all the tub toys are allowed to float at one time while Abby and Sofia draw on the tiles with special tub crayons and talk about their day.

“If you get her talking, she’ll tell you if something bad happened to her,” Suz said when Abby reached her on her cell phone after the police left. “She might have been scared to talk to the police, but I know my daughter; she’ll spill the beans to you.”

Suz had been the eye of the storm, the voice of calm amid swirling chaos. When Abby apologized and berated herself for losing control of the situation, Suz told her to “Shut the hell up and stop blaming yourself.”

As Abby wipes Sofia’s back with a warm washcloth, she employs her interviewing skills to keep Sofia talking about the afternoon. At the same time, she unobtrusively examines the child’s body for bruises or marks or signs of abuse. Thank God, there are none.

“You know,” Abby says, a fluffy yellow towel huddled under her chin, “I think tomorrow is going to be a lot more fun than today.” She’s already decided that Jump can go to hell with his treatment plans; after this weekend, schoolwork is the least of her worries. “Maybe we can go visit Chuck E. Cheese’s.”

“Chuckle Cheese!” Sofia draws a huge orange swirl of excitement on the side of the tub. “Yay!”

After many questions and rambling conversations about their day, Abby’s assessment is that Sofia wasn’t harmed during her absence. But what did happen during those hours when Abby was unconscious? She knows she won’t be able to sleep tonight, worrying about it.

They are stretched out on Abby’s bed, pillows stacked behind them, just finishing their third book. “Goodnight, Moon,” Abby says, turning to kiss Sofia on the forehead.

A tiny fist comes up to rub her nose.

“I thought you were already asleep,” Abby says.

“No, Moon.”

“Sofia? I want to ask you a question. Where did you go today? This afternoon when I got sick and fell asleep, what did you do?”

“I ride my bike,” she says proudly.

Did she mean earlier in the afternoon? “You know you’re not supposed to ride your bike without a grown-up.”

“I know, silly.” Sofia lifts her feet in the air and grabs her toes, knees to nose.

“Sofia, was there a grown-up with you?”

“Of course, horse.” Sofia kicks her feet into the air excitedly. “Dr. Jump!”