Only Ever You (22 page)

“Anything else? What about her teeth?”

“Teeth?” David asked. His face was a queer yellowish color, and Jill reached for his hand.

“Does she have all her baby teeth?”

“Oh, yes,” Jill said. “She hasn’t lost any teeth yet, she’s too little—” Her voice broke on the last word and she raised her hand to her mouth.

“She has a little cowlick,” David said. “It’s a lot like mine, right here.” He pointed to his hairline, along the part, where the short blond hairs turned into a whorl pattern.

Sophia did have one like that, in almost the same place. Jill hadn’t really thought of it before, beyond being grateful that they’d shared this in common because it helped David bond with his adopted daughter.

“Can I do the identification?” Andrew asked.

The medical examiner shook his head, looking regretful. He took his glasses off and rubbed them against his lab coat. “It must be a family member.”

“I’ll do it.” David staggered to his feet. He said to Andrew, “Stay with Jill, okay?”

Andrew immediately moved next to her on the bench, but Jill waved him away, getting to her feet. “No. I have to see her.”

“I don’t recommend it,” the medical examiner said in his quiet voice. “She was in the water for many hours.” He reminded her of a priest, speaking slowly and reverentially.

Ottilo said, “We don’t need both of you, Mrs. Lassiter—you don’t have to do this to yourself.”

“I’m her mother; I have to see her.” She knew that she would never believe the answer if she didn’t see with her own eyes.

The medical examiner looked at her intently for a moment and then nodded his head. “It’s this way.”

Andrew came with them, trailing along behind as they followed the medical examiner down a long, painfully white corridor. The farther they got from the lobby the more it resembled a hospital rather than a church. There was a strong citrus smell, cleaning fluid or air freshener, probably supposed to mask the earthier smells of blood, death, and decay, but they were there underneath, fecund and frightening.

The hall ended in double swinging doors marked
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
. The medical examiner pushed through and they followed, Ottilo, David, Jill, then Andrew. No one spoke, the only sound the occasional squeak and rhythmic click of shoes crossing tile floor. They were in a large, open, chilly room. On the left were rows of what looked like stainless steel refrigerator freezers. To the right a pockmarked woman wearing a lab coat sat reading a magazine at a small table. She stood up and at a nod from the medical examiner walked over to one of the drawers. Jill’s heart raced; the fluorescent lights above her seemed too bright. She clutched David’s hand.

The drawer slid open like a filing cabinet and there, covered by a sheet, was an impossibly small body. Tears flooded Jill’s eyes. The morgue assistant stood at the side watching them and waiting, her jaw moving as if she were chewing gum.

“Ready?” The medical examiner’s voice seemed to come from far away. Jill felt as if everything was blocked out except that single, slight bundle on the tray. How would she survive this? How would she go on if this small body were Sophia’s?

David squeezed her hand and nodded at the morgue assistant. She peeled the sheet back slowly and Jill dug her nails into her other hand. Chalklike skin, so white, naked, fragile, all blue veins and odd marks and the pale hair slicked back from a tiny face that looked as if it had been smeared a little, the features blurred as if it were made of wax that had melted slightly. Jill leaned forward, staring hard at the little girl, but it was hard to make sense of this child that was no longer a child. She could hear her own panting. She said, “Turn her over. Can you turn her over?” Her voice higher than normal, not her voice, someone else’s. The morgue assistant carefully moved the body—so insubstantial, so easily shifted—and Jill and David searched the back, the hairline and that little, pale cavity behind the knee.

All at once Jill sank to the floor, her legs giving way completely, tears pouring in a rush down her face, like standing under a shower. “It’s not her,” she cried, smiling up at David and the medical examiner through her tears. “It’s not her, it’s not Sophia.”

chapter twenty-four

JOURNAL—JUNE 2010

No one raised an eyebrow at the hospital, but I was conscious of being the only woman giving birth alone. You said you couldn’t get away, but it’s clear that you aren’t one of those men who find pregnancy a turn-on. The last time you saw me I was seven months and huge and the look that flashed across your face was horror.

Everyone has seen some depiction of the birth experience and knows what is supposed to happen: The doctor declares, “It’s a girl!” and the wriggling, impossibly tiny, remarkably monkey-like little form is put on the mother’s chest for her to hold. This didn’t happen. Someone cut the cord and immediately took our baby away.

I’d pleaded with you to reconsider keeping the child. “No one needs to know. I won’t tell anyone that you’re the father.”

“It would come out. Someone would notice eventually.”

I had to ask a nurse weighing our child whether it was a boy or a girl. She answered me with her face turned away. I begged to hold her. The young nurse looked at the doctor. She looked uncomfortable. She said, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea under the circumstances.” She meant the woman from the adoption agency standing quietly by the door with a car seat.

You found the agency and arranged everything. That was after you found me a job at a crappy little firm in another county. “Lay low for a while,” you said. “Just until after the birth.”

I’ve lived like a virtual hermit, seeing none of my old friends, commuting back and forth every day up until I went into labor, turning down the offers of my new coworkers to grab a drink after work. I didn’t even tell my family, per your advice. “Why get them excited about a grandchild they aren’t going to be allowed to see?”

“Please,” I pleaded with the nurse. “Please let me hold her. Just for a moment.”

They relented. They placed her in my arms, our little girl, and I touched her soft, silky head and counted each one of her impossibly small fingers and toes. I wanted so much to say it had all been a terrible mistake and I was taking her home, but I was exhausted and I couldn’t hold on when they came to take her out of my arms. I cried, tears sliding from my eyes and into my hair, and the doctor and nurses bustled around me pretending not to notice.

I couldn’t hold on to her so I’m holding on to what you promised me the last time I saw you—that I should be able to come back to the firm next year. Along with that, I’ll also be coming back to you.

chapter twenty-five

DAY FOURTEEN

The little girl who would not answer to Avery huddled on the couch staring at the TV screen, mouth hanging slightly open.

“You could have killed her the other day,” Frank said, hovering over Bea as she started preparing dinner. “You almost smothered her.”

“She’s fine.” They could have macaroni and cheese—what child didn’t like that? Her daughter used to love it and she’d loved TV too, staring at that dumb, glowing box that Bea had wanted to get rid of, but Frank insisted on keeping. She couldn’t get rid of this TV either; she needed to watch the news and it helped to have something besides Cosmo guaranteed to keep Avery entertained. She was watching a cartoon now, what looked like a kitchen sponge with arms and legs talking to a starfish wearing bathing trunks. Bea didn’t understand it.

She walked back out to the living room, waving her hand in front of the screen, trying to break the little girl’s fixed concentration. “Avery. Avery, listen to me. Avery!”

The snap made the child shift in her seat and Cosmo looked up from his bored vigil at her feet, but instead of looking over the little girl just hugged her toy dog more closely. Bea could tell from the set of her jaw that she was being purposely ignored.

“Fine then, you’ll get what I want to make,” Bea said.

She filled a pot of water at the sink. Frank said, “She’s afraid of you.”

Bea brushed her hand to move him away from the stove. “She’s not afraid, she’s just stubborn.” She set the water to boil.

When the mac and cheese was ready, she fixed a bowl and called to the girl again. “C’mon, Avery, dinner’s ready.”

In response, the child bolted out of the living room and down the hall. Bea frowned as she heard the basement door slam. This child was spoiled, probably the result of living with those awful people. She’d watched the press conference replayed a dozen times; the woman was an ice queen and her husband was an attention-seeking liar. Did anyone buy his crying act? Well, they wouldn’t for long.

She poured a glass of wine and took a large sip, relaxing a little as the warmth spread through her. The pasta was gummy, disgusting really, but the wine made it palatable. She left Avery’s dish of mac and cheese on the counter and carried her own bowl into the living room, switching through the channels on the TV until she found the local news. There was new footage of the Lassiters pushing through a throng of reporters to get into a police station. They played that clip twice before replaying footage of the search. There was a single crowd shot, but Bea felt reassured when she couldn’t spot herself in the mass of volunteers. She sat down on the couch, mesmerized by the coverage. The reporters seemed to like Jill Lassiter’s face—they zoomed in on it often enough—and much was made of where they lived.

“Who could have taken Sophia Lassiter from this upscale home in what had been considered a safe neighborhood? Police are not releasing the results of the search eleven days ago, but Channel 11 has learned that police recovered something related to the case and that item has been sent to a crime lab for analysis.” Bea recognized the reporter, a young bleached blonde with glossy red lips and an unwholesome gleam in her heavily mascaraed eyes. She probably looked at this as an opportunity to advance her career.

“Jill and David Lassiter agreed to polygraph tests, but police aren’t releasing the results.” More footage of the couple with a familiar-looking well-dressed man, dodging reporters outside of the Fox Chapel police station. Jill Lassiter flung up a hand to block a reporter’s mike.

“Mommy!”

Bea dropped the bowl of mac and cheese and spun around. Avery stood in the doorway staring at the TV with big eyes. Bea had been so caught up that she hadn’t heard her come back upstairs. “Mommy!” The child ran toward the TV with outstretched hands, and Cosmo, who’d made short work of the spilled mac and cheese, ran toward her, barking. Bea quickly reached for the remote to shut it off. When the picture vanished, Avery cried out as if she’d been stabbed.

“I want Mommy! Where’s Mommy!” She touched the TV screen, looked behind it and then tried to take the remote out of Bea’s hand, stretching her little arm until it was almost out of its socket, straining and jumping, her fingers waving fruitlessly in the air. “Give me my mommy!” The dog, confused, jumped against the girl’s legs, then Bea’s, yipping in time with the child’s cries. The noise was too much for Bea.

“Stop it!” she yelled over the din. “Stop it right now!” She had to get away, carrying the remote with her into the kitchen, but the child followed, still sobbing, and the dog followed after the child. Bea’s heart thudded in her chest, and she yanked open an upper cupboard door and shoved the remote deep inside, slamming it shut. The child’s wailing only increased. She followed Bea back to the living room, pulling at her, trying to climb her. Bea detached one hand, then the other, only to have the first return and suction on again.

She panicked at the thought of someone overhearing and swung the child up, hauling her out of the kitchen and into the hall, fighting to carry her down the stairs. She put her down hard on the basement floor. “Scream all you want now! Nobody will hear you!” Her own voice sounded ragged and harsh and she looked at her trembling arms; they were covered with red marks.

“Mommy! Mommy! I wanna go home!” The child’s screaming hadn’t abated, though it was ragged, too, and hysterical. Bea hauled the child over to the laundry tub and turned on a faucet. Cupping a handful of icy water, she turned and splashed the child full in the face.

The little girl yelped, a different cry, and stopped in shock, her mouth open, eyes rolling back in her head. Bea paused, her own hands shaking and dripping. For a moment the only noise was both of them breathing hard and the water rushing into the sink behind them. Then the little girl started to cry again, but quietly, and she dropped to the floor, folding like a paper doll.

“You’ve hurt her again.” Frank stood there surveying them, hands on his hips.

Bea turned off the water, splashing some on her face first. Her heart still beat obscenely fast and she clutched the sides of the metal tub and gulped the air like an asthmatic. “Mind your own business.”

“You’re supposed to be a healer,” he said. “Remember? Do no harm.”

“Don’t lecture me on medical ethics, Frank!”

“Who’s Frank?” The child’s voice surprised Bea. She turned to see Avery looking from her to the empty basement. “Who are you talking to?”

Frank had gone. In the sudden silence Bea could hear a distant buzzing sound, short and sharp. It stopped, then started up again. The doorbell.

Panicked, Bea fumbled on the shelf where she stored the needles, hurriedly pulling one free of the pack and filling the syringe before turning to the child, but she was gone.

“Avery?” Bea hissed. She ran out of the utility area, heading for the basement stairs. Avery scrambled up them, one hand reaching toward the door. “Get back here!” Bea lunged for her, catching her by the ankle just as the child turned the doorknob. The child cried out, but Bea dragged her down, wrapping a hand over her mouth before sinking the needle into the child’s arm. She twisted in Bea’s grasp for a moment, eyes wild, before falling limp. Bea hauled her dead weight into the basement room and bolted the door. The doorbell buzzed again. She rushed up from the basement, only to stop short at the top of the stairs.