Moonlight Mile

her rejection said about him.”

“When did he begin showing serious interest in gaining custody?” I asked.

She chuckled. “When he found out who Cheryl left him for. He was clueless for a good six months. He thought she was living with a girl friend, not a girlfriend . I mean, look at me-do I look like I ever lived a straight day in my life?”

She had heavily gelled spiked hair the white of Liquid Paper. She wore a sleeveless plaid work shirt over dark jeans and brown Doc Martens. When it came to Elaine Murrow, if we were operating under the policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, no one would need to ask.

“Not to me,” I said, “no.”

“Thank you. But dipshit Brian? He didn’t pick up on it at first.”

“And once he finally clued in?” Angie asked.

“He’d show up here in a rage and scream at her, ‘You can’t be a lesbian, Cheryl. I won’t accept it.’ ”

“ He wouldn’t accept it,” Angie said, “so it must not be true.”

“Exactly. Once it finally got through to him that not only was Cheryl not going back to him but that she was, in fact, very much in love with me and this wasn’t some identity-crisis fling? Well…” She blew air out of her mouth, her cheeks puffing and unpuffing. “All Brian’s rage, all his feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing, which had probably been eating at him since, I dunno, birth-guess what form they took? A moral crusade to rescue the daughter he’d never known from the clutches of an immoral lifestyle. From there on, when he’d come to pick up Sophie, he’d wear T-shirts that said charming things like GOD MADE ADAM & EVE, NOT ADAM & STEVE, or the word DE- EVOLUTION over a drawing of a man lying with a woman, followed by a man lying with a man, followed by a man lying with-wanna guess?”

“I’m betting some type of livestock.”

She nodded. “A sheep.” She wiped the corner of one eye. “He wore that around a child, and then he preached to us about sin.”

A large dog-part collie, part who-knew-wandered into the converted barn from a dog door in the back. It ambled between the sculptures and put its chin on Elaine’s thigh. She scratched the side of its face and ear.

“In the end,” she said, “Brian threw everything at us. Every day was a pitched battle. Every morning, we opened our eyes and our hearts filled with dread. Just… dread. Would he show up at one of our jobs with a picket sign filled with biblical verse and calling us child abusers? Would he file some ridiculous order with the court based on alleged conversations he’d had with Sophie about our drinking or pot smoking or having sex openly in front of her? All it takes to turn a custody battle into-I dunno, carnage?-is someone with no love for the actual child involved. Brian would make any claim, no matter how outlandish, invent ridiculous lies and put them in Sophie’s mouth. She was seven when this started. Seven. The court costs drained us financially, his ridiculous lawsuit, which he’d been told from the start didn’t have a chance. I-” She realized she’d been scratching the dog’s ear a little too hard. She took her hand back and it was shaking.

“Take your time,” Angie said. “It’s okay.”

Elaine nodded her thanks and closed her eyes for a moment. “When Cheryl first complained about acid reflux, we thought, ‘It figures,’ given all the stress we’d been under. When she was diagnosed with stomach cancer, I remember standing in that doctor’s office and picturing Brian’s smug, dumb fucking face and thinking, ‘Wow. The bad guys really do win.’ They do.”

“Not always,” I said, though I wondered if I believed it.

“The night Cheryl died, Sophie and I were with her until the last breath left her body. We finally leave the hospital, and it’s three in the morning, it’s damp and raw out, and guess who’s waiting in the parking lot?”

“Brian.”

She nodded. “He had this look on his face-I’ll never forget it-his mouth was turned down, his forehead furrowed so he looked contrite. But his eyes? Man.”

“They were lit up, huh?”

“Like he’d just won the fucking Powerball. Two days after the funeral, he showed up here with two state policemen and he took Sophie away.”

“Did you stay in contact?”

“Not at first. I’d lost my wife and then I lost the child I’d come to think of as my daughter. Brian forbade her to call me. I had no legal rights with regard to her, so after the second time I drove to Boston to visit her at her school during recess, he filed a restraining order.”

“I changed my mind,” Angie said. “I wish I’d been more judgmental on this asshole. I wish I’d kicked in his larynx.”

Elaine’s face cracked around a smile. “You can always make a second trip.”

Angie reached out and patted her hand and Elaine squeezed my wife’s fingers and nodded several times as tears fell to her jeans.

“Sophie began contacting me again when she was fourteen or so. By that point she was so confused and filled with rage and loss, it was like talking to somebody else. She lived with an asshole faux father, a trophy wife faux mother, and a spoiled prick of a half brother who hates her. So, in the logic of human nature, I was one of her favorite targets-Why’d I let her go? Why hadn’t I done enough to save her mother? Why hadn’t we moved to a state where Cheryl and I could have legally married, so I could have adopted her? Why were we fucking dykes in the first place?” She sucked a clogged breath in and let a clogged breath out. “It was brutal. All the scabs got torn off. After a while, I stopped answering her calls because I couldn’t stomach the rage and recrimination for crimes I hadn’t even committed.”

“Don’t blame yourself on that one,” I said.

“Easy to say,” she said. “Hard to live.”

“So you haven’t heard from her in a while?” Angie asked.

Elaine patted Angie’s hand one last time before letting it go. “A couple times in the last year. She was always high.”

“High?”

She looked at me. “High. I’ve been in recovery ten years. I know when I’m talking to somebody who’s fucked up.”

“On what?”

She shrugged. “I’d guess a hard upper. She’d get that edgy motormouth vibe cokeheads get. I’m not saying it was coke, but it was something that jacks you up.”

“She ever mention Zippo?”

“Boyfriend, yeah. Sounded like a beaut. She was very proud of his connections to some Russians.”

“As in the Russian mob?” Angie asked.

“That was my inference.”

“Joy,” I said. “How about Amanda McCready? She ever mention her?”

Elaine whistled. “The goddess? The idol? Everything Sophie wanted to be? Never met her, but she sounds… formidable for a sixteen-year-old.”

“That’s the impression we get. Sophie the type of girl who looks for a leader?”

“Most people do,” Elaine said. “They wait their entire lives for someone to tell them what to do and who to be. It’s all they want. Whether it’s a politician they’re waiting for or a spouse or a religious leader, all they really want in life is an alpha.”

“And Sophie,” Angie said, “found her alpha?”

“Yup.” She stood from her chair. “She sure did. She hasn’t called me in… Since July, maybe? I hope I was some help.”

We assured her she was.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for talking to us.”

We shook her hand and followed her and the dog out of the barn and down the dirt path to our car. Dusk was settling into the bare treetops and the air smelled of pine and damp, decaying leaves.