The only one of them who was not allowed to be what she would become was Sarah. And she
12
Sarah had stood among them but always, somehow, apart. She didn’t belong there-in The Hollows, in that school, and she knew it. Everyone knew it. And yet no one could accuse her of being a snob or stuck-up in any way. It was her gift that kept her separate; maybe she didn’t even want it that way. But how could someone who knew the passion and discipline of an artist before she was fourteen stand anywhere but apart from the rest of them, who barely knew who they wanted to be or what they might be good at?
Music had claimed Sarah when she was too young to know anything else. Maggie saw that clearly, looking back. When Sarah played the violin, she disappeared, became a portal through which her prodigious talent passed. Maggie remembered the way Sarah’s face would contort, her eyelids flutter, her head move willowy and slow; she was utterly unself-conscious with a violin beneath her chin and a bow in her hand. She was lost and found. It was a special thing, an uncommon thing. And everybody, even those who would normally taunt and tease, torture a thing they didn’t understand, kept a reverent distance.
Her parents had moved from the Pacific Northwest so that Sarah could have proximity to New York City but chose the suburbs so that they could keep her safe from all the threats and temptations of an urban environment. Sarah was absent every Friday, when she commuted to Juilliard for the day with her mother for the precollege program. Sometimes they spent the weekend, returning Sunday afternoon. It was impossibly glamorous, yet she sat in the same cafeteria, failed to climb the rope in gym class, got detention for passing notes to Melody during study hall. Among them, but apart.
Maggie hadn’t thought about Sarah for years, not in that way. She didn’t remember often the way Sarah had lived, who she had been. Sarah was forever defined by the way she died. She was every parent’s nightmare, a warning, a cautionary tale. She was proof that everything parents feared was possible, even in this quiet, not quite suburban, not quite rural town. The worst happened, even here.
Maggie was thinking this as she watched Ricky slumped on the long suede couch of their great room. The large stone fireplace on the far wall was flanked by shelves filled with books and photographs, Jones’s old sports trophies, Ricky’s various art class creations-an ashtray, the sculpture of a frog. The high, beamed ceiling gave it a spacious feel, but it was a warm room, a real room, where they ate pizza and watched movies, spilled soda on the carpet-nothing like the showplace where Denise and Britney lived. It was designed for comfort with the sectional and plush carpet, a cozy love seat, a new flat-screen hanging on the wall.
“If you know something, Son,” Chuck was saying as Maggie walked into the room. Both man and boy raised their eyes to look at her, but neither acknowledged her. Chuck kept talking. “Now’s the time to let us know before this gets out of hand. If she’s taken off and you know where, you’re not helping her by keeping it to yourself.”
She sat beside her son. “Do you know something, Ricky?”
He offered a shake of his head, kept his eyes blank and staring at the ground. He was a charismatic kid when he wanted to be. When he didn’t, he was a locked box with the key inside. Just like his father.
“I told you,” he said, an annoyed edge creeping into his voice. “Charlene stood me up tonight. She didn’t answer any of my calls. If I knew where she was, I’d tell you. Especially with her mom so upset.”
“Let’s go through it again. You were supposed to meet her where?” asked Chuck.
“At Pop’s Pizza.”
“How was she going to get there?”
“Her mom was going to drop her off, I guess. I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t ask? Didn’t offer to pick her up?”
“Char’s not allowed in the car with me. Her mom doesn’t want her to ride in cars with boys.”
Chuck issued a conspiratorial chuckle, a kind of
Then, “So you never drove anywhere together?”
“No, we did,” Ricky admitted. “All the time. But her mother doesn’t know that. I don’t pick her up at the house.”
Chuck nodded slowly. He was a heavyset guy, with a thinning head of dark brown hair, a round, sweet face. He always had a slightly disheveled look about him, even more so now, as he’d clearly been roused from sleep, the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the back of his head matted. He had a demeanor that seemed to encourage people not to take him too seriously. But Maggie knew it was a mistake not to.
“What else doesn’t her mother know?” Chuck asked.
“That’s enough, Chuck,” Maggie said. “Are you interrogating him? Do we need a lawyer?”
“Come on, Maggie. There’s a girl gone missing.”
“And Rick says he doesn’t know anything.” She didn’t like the pitch of defensiveness she heard in her own voice.
“Well,” Chuck said. He glanced over at her son, who seemed to be sinking deeper into the couch. “I think he does.”
In the silence that fell between them, Maggie heard the ticking of that old grandfather clock. She and Chuck locked eyes. He hadn’t grown up in The Hollows. He was a beat cop from New York City who’d moved to town after his second son was born. His wife didn’t want to wait up nights for him, worried sick, wondering when two of his buddies would come to the door with the bad news. He drove patrol in The Hollows for two years, was promoted to detective last year after scoring high on his exam.
“She broke up with me, okay?” Ricky said. His voice was faint in that way it always was right before he was about to cry. “She stood me up, and then I got a message on Facebook.”
Maggie turned to look at her son. The blank outer shell had dissolved; he looked the way he had when his best friend in kindergarten had moved away, or when Patches, their dog, had been hit by a car and died in his arms. The profound, unapologetic sadness of youth pushed down the corners of his mouth, sloped his shoulders; it crushed Maggie to see it on his face. It also ignited a flash of anger at Charlene-a silly, selfish girl who had caused all this drama, all this pain, because she had a fight with her mother.
“What did her message say?” asked Chuck gently. “Let’s take a look at it.”
They followed Ricky upstairs to his computer. Jones hadn’t wanted Ricky to have a computer in his room. Jones had wanted it left in a common area so that they could monitor Ricky’s online activity, keep him safe from the Internet predators, prevent him from downloading porn. But when he’d turned sixteen, they’d decided to give him his privacy, considered him trustworthy and smart enough to be granted that small privilege.
In the mess of his room, rock posters covered every inch of wall space. A shelf held a slew of soccer trophies he’d won in middle school before he fell in love with the drums. A hamper overflowed with dirty clothes. A cup sat filled with some congealed liquid. The room held the scent of sweat and old food.
Ricky sat in front of his computer and showed them the screen; her message was already open, as if he’d been reading it over and over. Maggie looked over his shoulder, just as she had done with Britney earlier. Chuck stood behind her.
I’m sorry I didn’t meet you. Something happened at home. I can’t go back there tonight. Maybe never. It’s better if we say good-bye anyway, Rick. I’ve got to go my own way. You’ve got to go yours. Go to college and be a good boy. Maybe our paths will cross again someday. I do love you. I’m sorry.
Love,
Char
“Where would she go?” asked Chuck, backing up to let Ricky pass as the boy stood up from the chair.
Ricky sank onto the bed and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know. She always said she was going to the city. She said she had friends who could get her into the music business. But I don’t know who.”
“You never went to the city with her?” said Chuck. “You never met any of these friends?”
Ricky looked at his mother. “We’ve been to the city to see bands and stuff. But I never met anyone she
