Barefoot (8 page)

“He’s here somewhere,” Vicki said. “He has to be here.”

“Of course,” Brenda said. “Obviously. We’ll find him.”

“I’ll go to the left,” Vicki said, though there was no evidence of humanity to the left—no people, no footprints, nothing but five or six plovers pecking at the sand. “I’ll go to the right, I mean. You check the dunes. He probably had to go to the bathroom. Mel can stay with the baby.”

“Is everything all right?” Caroline called out.

“I lost my son!” Vicki said in a lighthearted way. She didn’t want to sound too frantic in front of Caroline. She didn’t want Caroline to think that she’d
actually
lost Blaine—because what kind of mother took her eyes off her child when that child was playing at the water’s edge? “He must have wandered away!” She waved at Caroline as if to say,
You know how kids are, always putting the fear of God into you,
as she speed walked down the beach. She couldn’t go as fast as she wanted; she was wheezing already, and her heart was galloping at an unsafe speed.
Do not panic,
she thought.
He’s here somewhere
. She would find him any second, she would flood with relief. He’s okay, he’s right here . . . he just . . . but no, she didn’t see him anywhere. Not yet
.
She was approaching the main section of ’Sconset Beach, just thirty or forty yards away from the parking lot entrance. There were people here—families, couples, college girls lined up on a blanket. Vicki hurried to the lifeguard stand. As long as Blaine wasn’t in the water, he was safe. Why, oh why, hadn’t they sat between the two red flags? They were so far down that the lifeguard would never have noticed Blaine drowning.

“Excuse me,” Vicki said.

The lifeguard didn’t remove her eyes from the water. She was a chunky girl in a red tank suit; she had a sunburn on her cheeks that had peeled, revealing raw pink skin underneath
. Skin cancer!
Vicki thought.

“My son is missing,” Vicki said. “He’s four years old. We’re sitting down there.” She pointed, but the lifeguard did not move her eyes. “He was wearing a green bathing suit with green frogs on it. He has blond hair. Have you seem him? Did he wander by, maybe?”

“I haven’t seen him,” the lifeguard said.

“No?” Vicki said. “Is there anything you can do to help me find him?”

“You’re sitting beyond the flags?” the lifeguard asked.

“Yes.”

“I have to keep my eyes on the people who are in the water between the flags,” the lifeguard said. “Lots of times kids just walk away and get lost. Maybe you can ask some of the folks sitting nearby if they’ve seen him. I can’t leave my post to help. I’m sorry.”

Vicki studied the other families, the other children, many of them Blaine’s age. The families reminded Vicki of herself and Brenda and her parents and Aunt Liv, sitting on the beach every single day, happy as larks, swimming, sunning, eating, sleeping in the sun. She had never gotten lost; Brenda had never gotten swept away by the undertow. They had been like the kids in front of Vicki now: whole, happy, in one piece. Blaine was someplace else, an unknown place. What if they couldn’t find him? Vicki would have to call Ted—though there was no way she could tell him Blaine was gone; that was just not acceptable
. Three grown women on the beach, one of them his own mother,
Ted would say. How did he slip away? Why wasn’t anyone watching?
I thought Melanie was watching! I asked her to watch! I closed my eyes for . . . three minutes. Maybe four.
Vicki felt like collapsing in a pile on the sand
. Okay, fine,
she told God, or the Devil, or whoever listened to pleas from desperate mothers.
Take
me.
Let me die. Just please, please let Blaine be okay.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

“Vick!”

The voice was far away, but Vicki heard it over the roar of anxiety in her ears. She turned and saw a woman in a green bikini waving her arms. Brenda. Vicki allowed her hopes to rise a little bit. She saw a figure under the umbrella—maybe a little boy wrapped in a towel? Vicki got closer, running, walking, stopping to control her breathing. Vicki saw Brenda on her cell phone. The “figure” under the umbrella was just a towel hanging from the cooler. Vicki burst into tears. How many hundreds of hours in the past month had she spent wondering:
What could be worse than lung cancer? What could be worse than chemotherapy? What could be worse than having my chest sliced open, my ribs spread, and my lung removed?
Well, here was the answer. This was worse. Blaine was missing. Where was he? Every molecule in Vicki’s body screamed in chorus,
Find him, find him!
Porter was crying. Melanie was rocking him, but he pitched forward toward Vicki.

Brenda said, “I checked the dunes. He’s not there. Your friend left. She really wanted to help us look, but she had a tennis lesson at the casino. She suggested I call the police, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“I am so sorry,” Melanie said. She was weepy, though not actually crying. If it had been Brenda, Vicki would have lost her temper, but this was Melanie, her dear, sweet, heartbroken friend.
Kid gloves!
Vicki thought. Melanie had a lot on her mind; Melanie could not be held accountable.

“It’s okay,” Vicki said.

“It’s not okay,” Melanie said. “You asked me to watch him, and I was thinking about something else. I didn’t even see him leave.”

“Did you see him go into the water?” Vicki asked. “Did you see him swimming?”

“No,” Melanie said. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I was thinking about Peter, and . . .”

Brenda held up a finger and gave the 911 operator the information: four-year-old boy, blond, green bathing suit, ’Sconset Beach north. Missing for . . . twelve minutes. Only twelve minutes? Vicki could easily dissolve, but no, she was going to be strong.
Think!
she urged herself.
Think like Blaine.
Porter was screaming. Vicki took him from Melanie. She recalled the day before, Melanie falling from the steps of the plane. Melanie had been anxious, tired, sick, distressed, and wearing those ridiculous gardening clogs. She’d had her hands full, and Blaine had knocked her over. Yesterday was not Melanie’s fault. Porter reached inside Vicki’s bikini top and pinched her nipple. Her milk came in. She hugged Porter and whispered, “We have to find your brother.”

Brenda hung up with the police. “They’re sending a squad car,” she said. “And a guy on a Jet Ski.”

“Do they think he’s in the water?” Vicki said.

“I told the police the last place we saw him was at the water’s edge.” Brenda glared at Melanie.
“Right?”

Melanie made a retching noise. She bent in half and vomited into the sand. She staggered toward the dunes. Vicki followed her and gently touched her shoulder. “I’ll be right back, okay?” Brenda had checked the dunes, but maybe not closely enough. Blaine might have found a nest of some kind, or maybe he had to go to the bathroom. She hobbled through the dunes, looking for a little boy crouched in the eelgrass. Porter held on tight, one hand locked on Vicki’s breast, which was leaking milk. Her bikini top was wet, and milk trickled down her bare stomach. The path through the dunes funneled her between two private homes and then back onto the street, where a squad car waited, lights flashing. Vicki pried Porter’s hand from her breast, and he started with fresh tears. Milk was leaking everywhere; Vicki needed a towel. She needed to wean the baby. She needed to find her child! Her exuberant, out-to-conquer-the-world firstborn. Would he have come this far by himself? Of course. Blaine was afraid of nothing; he was impossible to intimidate. Ted loved this about him, he
encouraged
Blaine’s fearlessness, his independence—he fostered it! This was Ted’s fault. It was Melanie’s fault. She said she would keep an eye on him! Ultimately, however, Vicki blamed herself.

The policeman was a woman. Short, with a dark ponytail and eyebrows that met over her nose. When Vicki approached, she said, “You’re the one who called?”

“I’m the mother,” Vicki said. She tried to wipe the milk from her stomach, pull her bikini top so that it lined up evenly, and comfort her screaming baby. All this disarray, a missing child . . .
and I have cancer!

“Where did you last see your son?” the policewoman asked.

“He was on the beach,” Vicki said. “But now I’m wondering if he didn’t try to walk home by himself. Or to the market. He knows there’s ice cream there. Could we get in your car and drive around to look for him?”

“The fire department sent a Jet Ski,” the policewoman said. “To check the waters.”

“I don’t think he’s in the water,” Vicki said. What she meant was:
He can’t be in the water. If he’s in the water, he’s dead.
“Could we just go in your car?”

The policewoman murmured something into her crackling walkie-talkie and indicated with a tilt of her head that Vicki and Porter should climb into the back. As soon as Vicki was sitting down, she latched Porter onto her leaking breast. The policewoman caught a glimpse of this and her eyebrows wiggled like a caterpillar.

“Do you have children?” Vicki asked hopefully.

“No.”

No,
Vicki thought. The policewoman—Sergeant Lorie, her ID said—had no children, thus she had no earthly clue how Vicki teetered on the brink of insanity. Twelve minutes, thirteen minutes . . . surely by now Blaine had been missing for
fifteen minutes
. Sergeant Lorie cruised the streets of ’Sconset, which were only wide enough for one car. They were bordered on both sides by cottages, privet hedge, pocket gardens.
Where would he have gone?
Vicki thought of a fireman on a Jet Ski discovering Blaine’s body floating a hundred yards offshore—and then pushed the image away.
Take me,
she thought.
Do not take my child.

Sergeant Lorie pulled up in front of the ’Sconset Market.

“Do you want to run in?” she asked Vicki.

“Yes.” Vicki unlatched Porter from her breast and threw him over her shoulder. He let out a belch. Sergeant Lorie murmured something else into her walkie-talkie. Vicki hurried into the market. She checked aisle by aisle—cereal, crackers, biscotti, chips, jasmine rice, toilet paper—she checked around the small deli case and the soda coolers, behind the spinning book racks, and then, finally, the only place Blaine would logically be—the ice cream counter. No Blaine.

A young girl wearing a green canvas apron poised her ice cream scoop in the air. “Can I help you?” she said.

“Have you seen a four-year-old boy in here by himself? Blond hair? Green bathing suit?”

“No,” the girl said. “Sorry. I haven’t.”

“No,” Vicki said. “Of course not.” She zipped back outside to the police car. “He wasn’t there,” she told Sergeant Lorie. “Let’s try Shell Street.”

They drove to Shell Street slowly—Vicki checking in every yard, in every climbable tree—but when they got to Aunt Liv’s cottage, the gate was shut tight and so was the front door to the house. Vicki knew Blaine wasn’t inside. Okay, that was it. She was free to flip out—to pull her hair and scream and pound the re-inforced windows of the police car until they shattered. He was in the water.

“What would you like to do, ma’am?” Sergeant Lorie asked.

“Let’s go back to the beach,” Vicki said. Brenda and Melanie had probably found him.

They drove back to the spot where the squad car had waited initially and Vicki hopped out. Her lungs ached. She pictured her tumor glowing hot and red like an ember. Did things like this really happen? Did a woman get lung cancer and then lose her child? Did this much bad luck visit one person? It shouldn’t be allowed. It wasn’t allowed.

On the beach, a crowd had gathered—Caroline Knox had re-appeared, and the lifeguard was there, as well as the college girls who had been snoozing on the blanket, and some members of the previously happy families that had been frolicking on the beach. Everyone was gathered in a loose knot, though some people stood at the water’s edge or waded in, kicking up the sandy bottom. A teenaged boy veered around with a mask and snorkel; the Jet Ski zipped back and forth, making small, predictable waves. Vicki was astonished at the gathering—part of her was embarrassed. She hated to draw attention to herself; she felt like telling everyone to go back to their business, Blaine was just hiding in the dunes, pushing things too far, he didn’t know any better, he was only four years old. There were other mothers in the group—Vicki picked them out—women with the worst kind of sympathy stamped on their faces.
I can’t imagine . . . thank God it’s not my . . . why on earth wasn’t she keeping an eye on . . .

Brenda was in the center of things; it looked like she was organizing search parties. One for the beach to the left, one for the dunes. Melanie stood at the edge of the crowd, rubbing Brenda’s cell phone like it was a rabbit’s foot. Caroline Knox saw Vicki and rushed over.

“I feel awful,” Caroline said. “This is my fault. If you hadn’t been talking to me . . .”

“Did you see him playing?” Vicki asked. “Do you remember seeing him playing by the water? Blond hair, green bathing suit?”

“That’s the thing,” Caroline said. “I don’t remember.”

Vicki heard a motor approaching—three policemen on ATV’s came sledding over the sand. These were summer cops, teen-agers, basically, in fluorescent yellow shirts, with Ray-Bans and walkie-talkies.

“We’re here to help,” one of them said. He was the alpha dog, with linebacker shoulders and dark movie-star hair.

“I’m his mother,” Vicki said, stepping forward. She pried Porter’s hand from her breast once again, and he started to cry. “His name is Blaine. Blaine Stowe, he’s four years old.”

“Blond hair, green bathing suit,” the policeman said.

“Yes,” Vicki said.

“We’ll find him,” the policeman said. He was all of twenty years old, but the sunglasses and the walkie-talkie gave him a cocky self-assurance.

“Please,” Vicki whispered.

Brenda said, “We’ll go this way, then,” and she headed off to the left. A second group went to the right. Some people, seeing the police, wandered back to their camps. When the cops gunned their motors and left to search, the area cleared out, leaving Vicki, Melanie, and Caroline Knox. Vicki felt deserted; she couldn’t stand being stuck behind to wait, and certainly not in present company. Blaine had been missing for thirty minutes at least. She would check the dunes herself. She took the cell phone from Melanie. “You stay here and hold down the fort,” Vicki said. “I’m going to look.”