Darkness My Old Friend

agitation, dread, and anger ratcheted up with each of the four miles along the narrow, twisting road between school and home, then back again.

Where would Willow go? There was no place to go in this town. Willow knew that better than anyone. But Bethany had thought that’s what they needed, after everything they’d been through-a quiet, peaceful place to live. Or maybe it’s just what Bethany had needed. Or what she thought she needed. Or maybe, as Willow was quick to accuse, the decision to move from Manhattan to The Hollows was one she hadn’t thought through at all.

Arriving back at home, she was sure she’d find Willow slumped on the couch, her hand buried in a bag of potato chips, the television blaring. But no, the house was empty. Feeling the space around her expand with her anxiety, she listened to the silence-no siren, no bleating horns, no constant hum of traffic, electricity, elevators in shafts, subways beneath her feet.

She walked up the creaking staircase, an extravagant sweeping turn up the wall leading to a landing.

“Willow!” she called pointlessly.

She walked down the long hall, glancing into the myriad empty rooms occupied by boxes she had yet to touch from the move. She’d fantasized about these rooms-this one would be a gym, this one a library. Downstairs they’d finish the basement and make it a media room. But those plans, so exciting while she was packing up their New York City apartment, now just seemed daunting and unattainable-not to mention silly and naive. Every little project would take months, cost thousands.

Everybody thinks it’s so romantic to move to the country. Oh, the stillness and solitude. And then… Unsolicited commentary from her friend and agent, Philip May.

And then what?

And then they’re in the country. And oh, God, the stillness! The solitude!

She pushed into the door of her daughter’s huge bedroom, amazed at how much clutter and mess had accumulated in the short amount of time they’d been there. Willow’s closet was so stuffed with clothes that the door wouldn’t close completely. The drawers were gaping, spilling T-shirts, tights, socks, and underwear. There were stacks and stacks of books, a giant television, piles of DVDs. Willow’s desk, dominated by a computer screen, had disappeared beneath mounds of paper, magazines, photographs, and sketchbooks. They’d simply moved her old mess from her much smaller room in Manhattan. It had apparently grown to fit the new space.

She sank onto Willow’s bed and fought the urge to start poking around. That’s when the imagining started. Willow on a train to New York City or getting high in the woods with Jolie or, worse, with some strange boy. Bethany could see her daughter tumbling in the leaves with some pierced and tattooed kid. And then it got even worse: There was Willow, angry and vulnerable, climbing into some stranger’s van. Bethany could see the stranger’s hands, big and muscular on the wheel. He’d ask her little girl, Where are you headed? Bethany had no idea what Willow might say. But it wouldn’t matter. The driver of that imaginary van wouldn’t care where Willow wanted to go, only where he wanted to take her. Next Willow was falling down one of those mine shafts Bethany was always hearing about. She’d be walking, defiantly miserable, with her iPod blaring, when the earth gave way beneath her. Willow was alone, in the dark. Hurt, weeping. Bethany could write the whole story-the manhunt, the hotline, the tearful news conference. She could feel the horror, the grief. She could rocket through the seven stages of loss.

The rich and vivid imagining that served her so well on the page was torture in her real life sometimes, if she let her thoughts sweep her away. But she didn’t; she knew better. She was always able to keep her feet on the ground, especially for Willow. She didn’t have the luxury of hysteria. She pushed out a deep breath to calm herself.

She walked the rest of the house, even climbed up to the attic-which was spacious and studded with skylights. Eventually she planned to renovate it and make it her office. But she wasn’t thinking about that as she headed back down to the first floor, out through the sliders to the elevated deck that allowed them to look over the tops of trees to the mountains beyond. It was her dream house, really. But she bought it during the worst time of her life, almost like a consolation prize. And the thought of it had consoled her. It was just that the reality of it took more work than she’d imagined. Kind of like marriage. Kind of like life.

She was walking back into the kitchen when she heard the front door slam, Willow’s heavy footfalls beating their way down the hall. Such a small girl-legs like reeds, torso as slender as a pencil, ballerina arms-and yet she thundered about the house like a rhino, crashing down the stairs, banging around her room.

Bethany knew she should be angry, furious. She should storm and shout. But instead her own legs felt wobbly with relief. She put the phone back in the charger and rested her head in her arms on the counter, summoning her strength for the battle ahead. When she looked up, her daughter was standing in the doorway. Willow’s hair was wild, her face flushed.

“What happened?” Bethany asked. “Where were you?”

She fought the urge to run to her daughter, hold her in her arms and squeeze. She had to at least pretend to be angry, not just afraid and sad and feeling like a complete failure as a parent. Willow dropped her bag heavily to the floor, pulled out a chair from the table with a loud scrape against the hardwood, and threw herself down.

“That place-” Willow began.

“Don’t, Willow.” Bethany raised a palm, feeling a welcome wave of anger. “Don’t tell me how and why you had to leave that horrible place. I don’t want to hear it. You are not supposed to leave school without permission. Not ever. Not for any reason.”

“But, Mom-”

“There’s no excuse for this.”

Her words didn’t feel powerful enough, sounded lame and weak to her own ears. She’d ground her daughter, but the kid was having trouble making friends here and had no place to go, anyway. Bethany put her hand on her forehead, trying to think of something with some impact. “No Internet for a week,” she said finally. “And I want your cell phone.”

“But-”

“No. I told you if I ever tried to reach you on that phone and you didn’t answer that I’d take it away.”

Willow slumped in her seat and blew air out the corner of her mouth, lifting some wisps of hair from her eyes. “I lost it. My phone. I dropped it somewhere.”

Bethany looked at her daughter, who in turn was looking at the ripped knees of her fishnet tights. Bethany could see that Willow’s knees were skinned, that her shirt was ripped. Worry shouldered anger aside.

“What happened?” Bethany asked. “Tell me.”

Willow rolled her eyes. “I came home through the woods.”

“Christ, Willow!”

“I got scared and started to run,” she said. Willow looked teary and so young suddenly, just like when she was a toddler, in those moments right after a fall and before the real crying started. “I fell and dropped my phone. I was too afraid to go back for it.”

“Oh, Willow.” Bethany didn’t know whether to believe her or not. That was the really sad thing. She just didn’t have an instinct anymore about when her daughter was lying. Lord, what she wouldn’t give for a glass of wine. She glanced at the clock; it was a few minutes after three. She heard that if you were looking at the clock waiting for the hour to chime five so that you could have a drink, you might have a problem with alcohol. Bethany wasn’t sure she believed that. Seemed like there was always someone waiting to tell you that you had a problem with something.

“Really?” she said. “You lost it.” Bethany picked up the phone and dialed Willow’s number.

“Don’t!”

Bethany watched her daughter and held the phone out from her ear against the blasting music that played instead of a ringtone. She didn’t hear the phone ringing in her daughter’s backpack or on her person, as she’d suspected she would. She practically dropped the phone when a male voice answered. Some unnamed fear pulsed through her.

“Who is this?” she said.

“Who is this?” the voice on the line asked. There was something nice about his tone, something soothing. “I found this phone in the woods.”

Willow was pale, staring at her with eyes the size of dinner plates.

“Don’t tell him who you are,” she said. She was standing now, pulling on Bethany’s arm. “Mom, hang