Dream Country (2 page)

“Ben’s a senior,” Paulina said. “He’s always been a good student, and this year he’s captain of the soccer team. It’s been his dream, and yesterday he missed the game. He should be visiting colleges, planning—” She had to stop, her voice shaking with rage. “I’ve forbidden him to see Sage before, but this time I mean it.”

“When did you forbid him to see Sage?” Daisy asked. Her worry was instantly supplanted by defensive rage at this other mother’s tone of voice regarding her daughter.

“A month ago,” Paulina said. “Not that he listened.”

“Listen, Sage is a good student, too. An honor student,” Daisy said hotly. “I’m not wild about her spending every free minute with Ben, that’s for sure. I trusted them all summer because they’re good kids, especially Sage, she’s always—”

“Look, I’m sorry.” Paulina cut her off. “I’m upset. Seeing each other nonstop all summer was one thing, but now school has to come first, I’m sure you agree. It’s just a matter of making some rules and sticking to them. I just think—”

“Have you been home since the school called?” Daisy asked.

“No, of course not. I work until— Why?”

“Because I think maybe they’ve run away.”

“Run away?”

“Sage has, anyway.” Daisy started to shake as she said the words. “Run away. She left a note.”

“Did she mention Ben?”

“No.”

“Ben wouldn’t run away,” Paulina said flatly. “Would not.”

“I didn’t think Sage would, either,” Daisy said.

Ben hadn’t left a note, but he had packed some things and taken his backpack and tent. Paulina had left work immediately to go home, and she called, upset, the minute she checked his room. Hathaway leaned against the refrigerator, waiting while Daisy held the phone and listened. Daisy was upset, but she wasn’t surprised by the fact the two kids had gone off together.

“He doesn’t have a car, she doesn’t have a car,” Paulina said. “What are they, hitchhiking?”

“Hitchhiking, yes, probably,” Daisy said.

“This is great,” Paulina said. “This is wonderful.”

Paulina’s tone said she was blaming the whole thing on Sage, and Daisy felt like screaming at her. “Should we . . .” Daisy didn’t want to finish the question: “Should we call the police?”

“The police,” Paulina said. “For one thing, they’re teenagers old enough to play hooky, and your daughter left a note. So the police won’t give this the time of day. For another, my son is seventeen, and I don’t want them getting the wrong idea.”

“What wrong idea?” Daisy asked.

“That this is
his
plan.”

“Maybe it is!” Daisy said harshly, closing her eyes, picturing Sage cuddled beside her on the loveseat, wanting her mother to play with her hair.

“No, Daisy. It is not! One thing I know about my son is he would not run away from home. Would not, unless someone was coercing him. If this isn’t Sage’s idea, I don’t know what. So don’t give me
that
. We’re a close family! My son wouldn’t just disappear.” Paulina choked back a sob.

“I want to call the police,” Daisy said with her eyes closed. She felt Hathaway take her hand. She had a new pain in her chest, from saying it out loud, the fact that she wanted to call the police, and from hearing Paulina Davis say with pure and total conviction that her son wouldn’t just disappear. Jake’s image flooded Daisy’s mind.

Only three years old, her son had been strong and solid. He had the same dark hair and green eyes as his twin sister, a brilliant smile and an amazing laugh, a way of scrambling up to his mother’s neck and hanging under her chin, refusing to be put down. He would laugh, his lips against her skin, and she would start to laugh too, as if his happiness and good humor were catching. Oh, God, she had never thought he could just disappear. She had never thought she would look into her husband’s eyes while he told her he’d lost their son. Jake had been missing, presumed dead, for thirteen years. And now Sage was gone, too.

Daisy dialed 911. When the operator answered, Daisy had to concentrate on not losing it. “My daughter . . .” she began.

“Yes?” the operator asked.

“Go ahead,” Hathaway urged.

“My daughter’s missing,” Daisy said. “That is, she left a note. We had a fight, and she was very upset.”

The operator directed her call to a detective. He gave his name, but Daisy didn’t even hear it. She started talking right away. “My daughter is sixteen,” she said, her throat aching, filled with relief at the sound of this anonymous voice that was going to find Sage, bring her back home.

“You say you had a fight? And she left a note?” the detective asked. “That’s what you told the dispatcher?”

“Well, yes,” Daisy began. “But—”

“This isn’t unusual,” the detective said in a calm voice. “It’s a gorgeous day out, and she’s probably playing hooky. Sixteen is prime time for that.”

“I know,” Daisy said. “I called the school, and she hasn’t been there. But—it’s not like Sage.”

“She’s a teenager,” he said calmly. “They like to hang around the orchards, go pumpkin picking this time of year. Whole groups of them do it, every Halloween. You’re the third mother to call this week.”

“The third . . .”

“See?” he asked.

Daisy tried to breathe. She almost felt lulled by the officer’s tone, his non-panic. What he said made perfect sense. Daisy herself had played hooky at sixteen. She had skipped school more than once, gone to the beach with Hathaway and their friends. But Sage’s note was too abrupt. And besides, Daisy had been here before: with one of her children missing, everyone telling her to sit tight, be patient, wait for him to come home.

“Please,” she said. “When you see the note she wrote—”

“She’ll be home before dark,” the officer said.

“How do you know?” Daisy asked, closing her eyes.

“Because kids are kids. You say you and she had a fight. If she’s not there by suppertime, call us back. Okay?”

“Oh . . .” Daisy said, her heart skidding out of control. But she pulled herself together. “Okay,” Daisy said, after another thirty seconds. She had to tell herself she was overreacting because of what had happened to one child thirteen years ago. Sage was emotional, dramatic, and sixteen. She would come home on her own.

The day passed slowly, and Daisy spent it working. Sunlight streamed through tall windows overlooking her yard. Prisms hung on fine threads, throwing tiny rainbows on the floor and walls. The spare room had two parts, front and back: Daisy worked in the darker back half, which those customers who knew about it called her magic cave.

Daisy made jewelry that brought people love. She had never set out to do it, and even now she didn’t understand how it happened. As a girl she had enjoyed stringing beads and twisting wire. She would drill holes in pebbles, coins, and shells, link them together with pine cones and acorns. It was just a hobby, something to fit in after homework. She would give the pieces to her sister or their friends, and they would get boyfriends. She had traveled to Wyoming, in search of inspiration, and there she had met James.

“Mail’s in,” Hathaway said now. She had called her assistant at the shop, told her she wouldn’t be in. She walked into the room with a handful of letters.

“Oh.” Daisy hunched over her workbench. Her heart was beating too hard, and she knew it wouldn’t settle down until Sage walked through the door. She heard Hathaway rip open an envelope and sigh as she read the letter inside.

“Here’s another one,” Hathaway said. “You’ve done it again. Want me to read it?”

“Okay,” Daisy said, desperate to be distracted.

“‘Dear Ms. Tucker,’ ” Hathaway read. She had quit smoking recently, and her voice was rough and low. “‘I’m writing to tell you about the miracle you have brought to my life. Friends have told me about your necklaces, but I had to experience this myself before I would believe. For so long, I had been alone . . .’ ”

Sitting in the darkened cubicle, Daisy kept working. Her gooseneck lamp cast a circle of light. The surface was covered with stones, bones, silver, and gold. Gold dust stuck to her fingertips. She concentrated, carving a disc of cow bone to look like the face of an Indian ghost.

Making jewelry, she used myths, family stories, western and New England Indian lore in her work. Using sharp tools, she etched fine designs in the bone, filling them with black ink like tattoos or scrimshaw. She used dot, circle-and-dot, and concentric circle designs to symbolize love, eternity, and spiritual vision.

When she set the carved bone faces in eighteen-karat gold or sterling silver, strung them together with polished granite and tourmaline for a bracelet or necklace, they looked like parts of a totem pole connected by a gold chain.

“Bring her back,” Daisy whispered to the bones. Sometimes customers wanted to heal broken relationships, win back husbands who had left, sweethearts who had walked away. Daisy would pray for their wishes, whisper their intentions as she carved the faces, filled the finely etched lines and dots with ink. But right now, her thoughts were for Sage.

“‘I never thought it could happen to me,’ ” Hathaway continued reading. “‘I never thought my life could be like this. I look at Bill, and then I look at the sky, and it’s like something I’ve never seen before. I don’t think I’ll take your necklace off for as long as I live.’ ” Hathaway folded the letter. She took her time smoothing out the stationery, fitting it back into the envelope, examining the postmark.

“They keep coming,” Hathaway said.

Daisy squinted at the bone face she was carving. She knew her sister was pulling herself together. The letters really got to her. They got to Daisy, too. There were so many different kinds of love in the world, and everyone wanted it. To fall in love, to heal broken hearts, to bring families back together.

“You don’t have customers,” Hathaway said. “You have devotees.”

Daisy shook her head.

“You okay?” Hathaway asked.

“I don’t know,” Daisy said. “I don’t think so.”

“She’s coming home,” Hathaway said. “This isn’t like Jake.”

She just hugged Daisy, and Daisy closed her eyes, thinking of the truth: that her three-year-old son had disappeared in a canyon, that her daughter had run away, that she and her children’s father were divorced. She had a family of bone ghosts.
This isn’t like Jake,
Hathaway had said.

“What if it is?” Daisy asked, afraid to open her eyes.