“A friend of Ray’s at the FBI forwarded him a client list. The federal government keeps very close tabs on those privatized military companies, for obvious reasons. Let me ask you this: What kind of services might a military company provide to an organization established to help people with their grief?”
It’s a good question. So good that I’m not sure I want the answer. I drain my coffee cup.
“If these things are true, you’re putting yourself at great risk by coming here, Sarah,” I tell her. “You should think of your daughter.”
“I
I stand up then. I don’t want to listen to anything else. I pick up my bag and put it over my shoulder.
“You have access at home to Gray’s computer, right? Find the client list for Powers and Powers, Inc. See if I’m telling you the truth.”
I put some money on the table, a tip for service I didn’t get. And move toward the door.
“If you won’t do it for yourself, Annie, do it for your daughter.”
I leave her there. I don’t look back.
In a karst topography, there’s a feature called a disappearing stream. At a certain point in the flow, the water slips through the delicate pores of the limestone bedrock and winds its way beneath the ground through an intricate system of caves and caverns. It travels like any moving body of water and may connect with the flow of yet other streams, traveling swift and steady but in darkness, far beneath the world. Then, as if from nowhere, the stream percolates and resurfaces, sometimes hundreds of miles away from its origin.
In this subterranean environment, creatures called stygobites, animals perfectly adapted to the wet darkness, proliferate-spiders and flies, millipedes and lizards. Through evolution they have lost their eyes, their skin has become translucent. Even the most minimal exposure to the light would be lethal.
Ophelia dropped beneath the surface of the earth and then appeared again as Annie. The streams of their lives merged, continuing on together, only to dip into the darkness again. I thought I’d come into the light once and for all. But perhaps it’s true that I don’t even know the difference between light and dark anymore. Perhaps I am perfectly adapted to my life as it is.
I drive around for a while, my heart thrumming, my throat dry and painful. My lungs have not recovered from the smoke inhalation, and I’m having trouble getting a full breath of air. I drive up the beach, turn around, and wind through the streets of our quaint little ocean town, watch the tourists with their terrible sunburns; the teenagers with their lithe, perfect bodies strutting about in bathing suits and bare feet; the retirees with their silver hair and walking canes. After a while I am calmer, but Sarah Harrison’s words are still loud in my head. I want to go home, pretend I never saw her. I try to convince myself that she was a product of my demented mind, yet another fantasy on my part. But I can’t do this. It’s what she said about her daughter that echoes: I want her to know that there’s more to life than just playing it safe. That when you make mistakes, part of the way you move on is by correcting what you can. The simple truth of this hurts. I realize that I am betraying myself again, this time for my daughter.
44
That night we have plans to go to dinner at Drew and Vivian’s. I’m nervous and edgy because of this. I have not been comfortable around Vivian since my return. And I have not spoken to Drew at all. Having dinner at their place is the last thing I want to do. But Gray has convinced me that it’s a much-needed return to normalcy, the point from which we all move forward as a family. I don’t hate him for it, but almost.
I have snapped at Gray twice while we get ready, and now he’s avoiding me. Victory is cranky and fussy, maybe because of my mood, which is always contagious where she is concerned. But maybe for reasons of her own. She doesn’t want to go, has said as much, keeps angling for pizza and a movie. I ask her about it as I help her into the new outfit I bought for her after my encounter with Sarah Harrison today. I used it as an excuse for Brigit as to why I didn’t come straight home after dropping Victory off.
“You always love to go to Grandma’s,” I say, fastening the heart-shaped buttons on the back of the pink gingham dress she wears over her pink leggings. She holds up her hair for me.
“No I don’t,” she says stubbornly. “I like pizza and a video better.”
I can see the sad downturn of the corners of her mouth in the mirror across from us. I turn her around gently so that we are face-to-face. There’s nothing of Marlowe in her; her face is a mirror of my own.
“What’s wrong, Victory?” I ask her, almost whispering.
She drops her eyes to the floor. “Nothing,” she says, then leans into me and wraps her tiny arms around my neck. I wrap my arms around her and am about to ask her again, but then Gray’s at the door.
“How does a guy get in on that hug?” he asks.
Victory runs to him, her face bright now, no trace of the sadness I saw a moment ago. He lofts her into the air and then squeezes her. We smile at each other over Victory’s head as she giggles with delight. He puts her back down.
“Everybody ready? Dad just called. Vivian has the steaks on the grill.”
If he notices that Victory and I both lose our smiles, he doesn’t say anything.
The farce of it all sickens me. Sarah Harrison might as well be seated across from me at the long glass table where we have gathered for dinner. A wide orange sun is dropping toward the blue-pink horizon line over the Gulf. We feast on filet mignon and twice-baked potatoes, fat ears of corn. Drew and Gray knock back Coronas while Vivian and I drink chardonnay. Victory sips her milk from a plastic cup adorned with images of Hello Kitty. Anyone looking at us might feel a twinge of envy, the rich and happy family sharing a meal at their luxury home with a view of the ocean.
“Annie,” says Drew, breaking an awkward silence that has settled over the table once vague pleasantries and chatty questions for Victory have been exhausted. “You seem well.”
He is smiling at me in a way he never has before. There’s a satisfied benevolence to him, the king surveying his subjects. I thank him because it seems like the right thing to do in this context.
“I’m glad to see it,” he says. “It’s a blessing to be here as a family. It’s been a long journey to happiness-for all of us.”
“Yes,” says Vivian, looking at her plate. “A blessing.” She lifts her eyes to me then and takes my hand. I have the urge to snatch it away but I don’t. I smile at her and then over to Victory, who is sitting beside me, watching me intently.
“I have to admit,” Drew goes on, voice a little too loud, a little too bright, “when you first came to us, I didn’t think you were right for my son. You weren’t well, and I was afraid Gray was trying to rescue you in a way he could never rescue his mother.”
The words land like a fist on the table, everyone pauses mid-action-Vivian’s glass at her lips, my fork hovering over a tomato-to look at Drew. I’ve never heard him say anything like that; his candor makes heat rise to my cheeks.
“Dad,” says Gray with a frown, sliding forward in his chair. He throws a meaningful glance in Victory’s direction, and I can see the tension in his shoulders and his biceps.
“Let me
I see then that Drew is drunk. He’s had at least four bottles of beer since we sat down at the table, and he has probably been drinking since before we arrived. There’s an unbecomingly loose, loquacious quality to him.
Gray casts me an uneasy look but leans back in his chair, still tense, still waiting. It’s not that he’s afraid to
