Black Out

I absorbed each moment like a person going blind, trying to soak up all the color, all the little details: the way he smelled of Ivory soap and charcoal, the way the stubble on his face was sharp against my mouth. The way the wind howled against the thin walls of our trailer, how the rain pounded on the roof, but how we were safe inside, my mother at work or off to visit Frank.

It was my birthday; I’d turned seventeen. My mother made pancakes before she went to work that morning and placed a candle on my stack. Together, she and Marlowe sang to me. My mother gave me a shirt I’d admired during a trip we’d taken to Macy’s, a tiny pink sparkling makeup bag containing a bottle of nail polish, a tube of lipstick, and fifteen dollars, and a card that read, To my beautiful daughter. I think it had a picture of a fairy princess on it. She was sweet that day, a loving mother. I remember that, remember feeling giddy with her attention.

She left after breakfast, giving me a quick hug and a kiss, promising pizza for dinner and a real birthday cake.

“What’s your birthday wish, Ophelia?” he asked me when we were alone, as I cleared the table of our dishes. The question, his grave tone in asking it, put me on guard. He had bizarre, ugly mood swings; I’d grown to fear them already. Not because he’d ever hurt me, but because they took him someplace I couldn’t follow. His gaze would go empty, his body slack. He might disappear like that for hours, then return to me as though he were waking from a nap. I was too naive to understand that this was not normal. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

“To be with you,” I said, because I knew that was the answer he wanted. I remember that the sunlight had a way of coming in golden at that time of day. It made the place seem less dingy than normal.

“Forever?” he asked, reaching out his hand. I took it, and he pulled me onto his lap. He held on to me hard, buried his face in my neck. I wrapped my arms around him.

“Forever,” I whispered in his ear, drawing in the scent of him. And I meant it as only a teenage girl could mean it, with a fairy tale in my heart.

He released me and took a small black box from his pocket. I snatched it from him quickly with a squeal of delight that made him laugh. I opened it and saw the gold half heart glinting back at me. He pulled back the collar of his shirt and showed me the other half around his neck.

“You belong to me,” he said as he hung the pendant around my neck. It sounded so strange for a moment, it moved through me like a chill. But when I turned to look at him, he was smiling. No one had ever said anything like that to me. It was a drug-I couldn’t get enough.

I told my shrink about this. I hadn’t told anyone else; I have been ashamed of the way I loved him, of the things I allowed myself to do to keep that love. Just like my mother. Worse.

The doctor said, in that soothing manner of his, “It’s not how we feel about someone that makes us love them, Annie, it’s how they make us feel about ourselves. For the first time in your life, you were the center of someone’s attention, the primary object of someone’s love. Not waiting for a sliver of truth to shine through all your father’s lies or for your mother to put your needs before her need to be with a man. You were the one. At least that’s how he made you feel.”

I heard the truth in that but thought it was a kind of clinical way to look at love. Isn’t it more than that? Isn’t it more than just two people holding up mirrors to each other? I asked him this much.

“In a healthy relationship, yes, there’s much more to it. There’s support, respect, attraction, passion. There’s admiration for the other person, his character and qualities.” Then the doctor asked, “What did you love about him? Tell me about him.”

But when I thought of him, he was a phantom slipping away into the shady corners of my memory. The adult, the woman who had survived him, couldn’t remember what the girl in her had loved.

The cheap necklace glints in my hand. I remember how a tacky piece of jewelry, for a while and for the very first time, made me feel loved. And I hear the echo of a voice, the voice I heard last night on the beach:

When the time is right, I’ll find you and you’ll be waiting. That’s our karma, our bond, Ophelia. I’ll leave my necklace somewhere for you to find. That’s how you’ll know I’ve come for you.

When and under what circumstances Marlowe spoke these words to me, I can’t recall, but they are ringing in my ears now, drowning out the sound of the surf.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Victory has come back and is looking at me with an uncertain, worried expression. I’m in space; I’ve already stuffed the necklace in my pocket.

“Nothing, sweetie,” I say, resting my hand on her head.

“You look scared,” she says. She is small, her hair a golden flurry about her in the strong wind.

“No,” I answer, forcing a smile. “Race?”

She takes off in a run, shrieking. I chase her to the water, let her beat me there. When I catch her, I pick her up and spin her in a wide circle, then pull her body to mine and squeeze her tight before releasing her. She takes off again. All the while I pretend I don’t know that my time is up.

12

I am thinking about my daughter as I edge my way along the hall. She is my shield and my weapon. Everything I have done and will do is to keep her safe, so that I can return to her. I force myself to breathe against the adrenaline thumping. Fear has always been my disadvantage. It makes me clumsy and sloppy. I have made so many mistakes acting out of fear.

Now that the engine is off, the ship has started to pitch in the high seas, and my stomach churns. I pause at the bottom of the staircase that leads up to the deck. I can hear the wind and the waves slapping the side of the ship. I strain to hear the sound of voices, but there’s nothing, just my own breathing, ragged and too fast in my ears.

I make my way up the stairs, my back pressed against the wall. My palm is so sweaty that I’m afraid I’ll drop my gun. I grab on to it tightly as I step onto the deck. I am struck by the cold and the smell of salt. The sea is a black roil. The deck is empty to the bow and to the stern; the light on the bridge has gone dark, like all the other lights.

Suddenly I am paralyzed. I can’t go back to the cabin, but I don’t want to move outside. I don’t know what to do. I close my eyes for a second and will myself to calm, to steady my breath. The water calls to me; I feel its terrible pull.

13

There wasn’t much to Detective Ray Harrison. At least there didn’t seem to be at first blush. He was a man you’d pass in the grocery store and wouldn’t glance at twice-medium height, medium build, passable looks. He’d hold the door for you, you’d thank him and never think of him again. But watching from an upstairs window as Detective Harrison approaches the house, my heart is an engine in my chest. The gold necklace in my pocket is burning my thigh. I go downstairs to greet him before Esperanza can get to the door and let him in.

I remember his face from last night; he’d seemed nice. Kind and without artifice. I’d liked him. But there’s something else I see in him as I open the door that I don’t like: suspicion. Today he’s a wolf at my door.

“Detective Harrison,” I say, offering my best fake smile. “Are you checking in on us?” I keep my body in the door frame, careful not to welcome him in with my words or gestures.

He smiles back at me, squints his eyes. I notice a few things about him: His watch is an old Timex on a flexible metal band, his breath smells faintly of onion, his nails are chewed to the quick. “Everything all right here last night after we left?”

“Fine,” I say with a light laugh and a wave of my hand. “I think Esperanza overreacted a little by calling the police.”

He keeps that slow, careful nod going, his eyes looking past me into the house. “You seemed pretty freaked out