Secrets She Left Behind (13 page)

Not for anyone.

Keith

W
E WERE SUPPOSED TO WALK NEXT TO EACH OTHER, JUST
a few feet apart, as we moved slowly—and I
do
mean slowly—through the woods behind the Food Lion. We’d move forward ten feet at a time, then stop and examine every square inch of ground and rock and grass and weed and shrub around us. I never realized how much trash was in the woods. Soda and beer bottles all over the place. Food wrappers from Ding Dongs and Twinkies. Paper bags from McDonald’s. Empty cardboard boxes, still soggy from the last rain. Somebody’s shoe.
Oh, shit.
I nearly had a heart attack when one of the volunteers shouted out that he’d found a shoe. But it was a kid’s shoe. A sneaker. Nothing that could’ve belonged to my mother.

Sue Charles, one of my mother’s friends, was walking on my right side and she said she couldn’t get over how calm I looked. Yeah, well, looks could be deceiving. First, I was in a shitload of pain. I’d only taken one Percocet that morning so my head would be clear. I’d been doubling up on them since Monday and now one just wasn’t holding me. Plus, I ate a can of that chili the night before. Mistake. My gut was doing somersaults, and thoughts—none of them good—flew through my head a hundred miles a minute. I was afraid we wouldn’t find anything, and more afraid that we would.
This search felt like too damn little too damn late. My mother went missing Monday and here it was Friday and the cops were only now getting around to doing an actual search. Of course, they didn’t have that anonymous tipster until last night, but they could’ve done more by now than just badger me with questions. Marcus said it was all happening behind the scenes, but as far as I could tell, the volunteers were doing most of the work, taking the flyers all over the place and calling hospitals and stuff. I wished my mother could’ve seen what people were doing to try to find her. I knew she sometimes felt like she didn’t have many friends. Like people didn’t really care.

Now that the cops had this anonymous tip, here was their new theory: She made it to the parking lot of the Food Lion. The checkers working that day didn’t see her, so she probably didn’t make it inside. Instead, some guy got to her in the parking lot and forced her to go with him into the woods. Then he did whatever he did to her—I didn’t want to think about it—and then stole her car, since it wasn’t in the lot. Possibly, he took her with him. Like maybe he raped her in the woods and then forced her back into the car. By now they could be in Siberia.

So now we were searching, and I couldn’t believe how many people had joined in. That was the one cool thing about the whole mess. The cops might’ve been twiddling their thumbs, but nobody else was. Some of the Food Lion employees were out here. A bunch of marines from Camp Lejeune. A couple of cops on horseback. Two volunteers with trained dogs. Strangers from as far away as Raleigh. Miss Trish had made sure the news about my mother was on TV stations all over the state, plus in Virginia and South Carolina. Her press release mentioned me, though, and I wished she’d left me out of it. TV stations talked about how my mother had almost lost
me in the big Surf City fire, etcetera, etcetera. They wanted to interview me and I said forget it. If it would help, yeah, okay, I would’ve done it, but I couldn’t see what difference it would make. It’d just give people a chance to look at the burned guy’s screwed-up face. No thanks.

Way down at one end of the search line was this girl I swore looked like that Jen chick from Harris Teeter. She had on a blue cap and her black hair was in a ponytail, and she was skinny, but I couldn’t get a good look at her. It probably wasn’t her, anyway. She was just on my mind, so I thought I saw her everywhere. Besides, this search was about my mother, not about me, and definitely not about the Harris Teeter chick.

After a few hours, some people started peeling off from the search line. The girl who looked like Jen must have been one of them, because I didn’t see her again. I didn’t blame anyone for leaving. The going was so damn slow and boring and we were deep into the woods by then. The day was cloudy, and with all the trees, the ground was pretty dark and it was hard to tell a leaf from a Ding Dong wrapper. I had a killer headache and had stopped to rub my forehead when a man suddenly let out a holler.

“I found something!” he yelled. “I think it’s a body!”

He was a long way from me, and even though we were supposed to stay in line no matter what, I took off in his direction.

“Keith!” Sue Charles called after me. “Stay here!”

I kept going, tripping over branches and rocks and dodging tree trunks. A bunch of people surrounded the guy, and leaves flew through the air as if he was digging through a pile of them to get at whatever he found.

Marcus Lockwood suddenly jumped in front of me, grabbing my shoulders and blocking me from going any farther.

“Let me go!” I was so winded from running, I could hardly get the words out as I tried to twist away from him. My lungs burned.

“Just hold on,” Marcus said.

I pushed against him, but he wasn’t budging. Man, the dude was strong. The pain in my left shoulder felt like a sword cutting through the muscle. “Let me go!” I shouted again. “It’s not
your
mother. I want to see.”

“Let the police find out what—”

“False alarm!” one of the marines shouted. “It’s just a deer.”

Marcus let go of my arms, and my legs suddenly gave out. I dropped to my butt on the ground, and before I knew what I was doing, I put my head in my hands and cried like a fucking baby.

Maggie

I
FELT LIKE SUCH A FAKE WHEN I DROVE INTO THE FACULTY
parking lot at Douglas Elementary. Mom swore that’s where I was supposed to park and she even gave me a placard that said Faculty on it for me to hang from my rearview mirror. But I felt like, by parking there, I was asking for special treatment I didn’t deserve.

Douglas had been my own elementary school years and years ago. As a kid, I’d imagined maybe returning someday as a teacher. I never imagined returning as an ex-con.

I leaned over the passenger seat in my car, pretending to be gathering up my purse and things in case anyone was watching. Really, though, I was gathering up the courage to walk through the parking lot and into the school. It hadn’t scared me all that much when Mom suggested I do my community service there. I was picturing the first graders. I hadn’t pictured the other teachers who would know who I was and why I was there. I’d once been so self-confident. Even a little conceited. Top of my class. Popular and all that. I’d really done a number on my life.

It had taken me just as long to get out of my car near the Food Lion on Friday. I hadn’t planned to join the search for Sara, but I couldn’t sleep Thursday night, thinking about her. I’d spent most of my life loving Sara, but when I found out she’d had an affair with
Daddy, I felt nearly as betrayed as Mom did. Sara probably felt just as betrayed by me and what I did, though. Which was more normal? Having an affair or burning kids to death? Right.

I’d wrecked Sara’s and Keith’s lives a year and a half ago. I owed her more than getting her picture up on the Internet and putting together a few flyers. She was in trouble. Maybe lying hurt in the woods. Maybe even dead. All I had to worry about was a little humiliation. Joining the search was the right thing to do.

Friday morning, though, I almost chickened out again. But I put my hair up under a hat and borrowed Mom’s ugly big sunglasses, which I eventually had to take off anyway because it was so dark in the woods. Andy spent the day at the Carmichaels’ house; Mom didn’t think the search was such a great idea for him, not knowing what we’d find—which turned out to be exactly nothing. I told Mom and Uncle Marcus I’d drive myself to the Food Lion so no one would see me get out of Mom’s car and know who I was. I just didn’t want people to go “Hey! There’s Maggie Lockwood. Home from jail.”

By the time I got to the Food Lion parking lot, there were so many cars and so many people that I knew I would blend in without a problem. I saw Keith—oh my God, his poor face! He didn’t look as if he’d stepped out of a horror movie or anything, but scars covered one whole side of his face and were impossible to miss. As soon as I saw him, I turned and walked in the other direction, getting into the search line as far from him as I possibly could.

I stayed with the search all morning. I saw a bunch of people I knew, including Amber Donnelly, who used to be my best friend back before Ben. I guessed she was home from college for a long weekend, and she was walking the search line with a few other girls from my high-school class. I was glad no one knew who I was. It
was hard enough just seeing everybody, knowing I was no longer a part of them and their world and never would be again.

Now in the school parking lot, I looked at my watch. Seven forty-five, which was the time I was supposed to be in Mrs. Hadley’s classroom.

“Grow up,” I told myself, and got out of my car.

There were a lot of parents, both mothers and fathers, near the entrance to the school. Dropping their kids off, I figured, but then I realized they were standing in a line, all facing the parking lot. Facing
me.
There must have been twenty of them. What was going on?

I slowed down, unsure what to do. Turn around? Walk straight ahead like nothing was going on?

“Go home!” one of them shouted, and a few more joined in with the same words until it sounded like a chant.
Go home, go home, go home!

I took another couple of steps forward.

“You’re not going in there!” a woman shouted at me.

“I’m supposed to work in Mrs. Hadley’s classroom today,” I called out, like this whole thing was a misunderstanding and they were keeping me from helping a teacher.

“You’re not getting anywheres near our children!” a man yelled. He had a bushy blond beard and a deep, gruff voice that sounded like he’d been smoking since he was in diapers. I suddenly felt truly afraid, and I froze at the curb of the parking lot.

“Get off school property!” one of the women shouted.

I felt a
thud
against my arm and looked down at the ground to see an apple lying by my feet. I lifted my purse in front of my face as another one whizzed past my head. That was it. I was out of there.

I was starting to turn around, when a tiny African-American woman suddenly pushed open the door from inside the school. The line of parents parted for her, and I knew she had to be the principal, Ms. Terrell. She marched over to me on high heels.

“Ms. Lockwood?” she said as she came closer.

My cheeks burned as I nodded. “I’m not sure what to do,” I said.

She didn’t stop walking. “Come with me,” she said as she passed me, and I followed her nearly to the middle of the parking lot, where she turned to face me. Out on the street, I saw one of the dreaded white vans, this one with a colorful peacock logo on its side. Oh, no. I took a step to the left so my back was to it.

“This clearly isn’t going to work out,” she said. “When I gave your mother the green light and Mrs. Hadley said she was fine with it, I didn’t count on this.” She waved her hand toward the parents. “I had to let them know you’d be working in the classroom, and I got a few concerned phone calls over the weekend, but I thought I’d put out the fire.”

I winced at her choice of words. “It’s okay,” I said. I just wanted to get back in my car and go home.

“This organization on the part of the parents was unexpected,” she said. “I can’t put
your
needs over those of the students, and since the parents are refusing to bring their children to school as long as you’re here, this won’t work out.”

I glanced back at the determined faces. “It’s okay,” I said again.

“You understand my position,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“They hate me,” I said.

“It’s not a matter of liking or hating. They feel as though they have to protect their children.”

I’m harmless,
I wanted to say. “Okay.” I hiked the strap of my purse higher on my shoulder. “Sorry. I…I’m sorry about this whole thing.”

No one was around when I got home. I made sure all the doors and windows were locked, then went up to my room and lay down on my bed, the teddy bear in my arms. When I shut my eyes, I saw the angry, ugly faces of the parents in front of the school entrance. We lived in a kind, softhearted part of the world, and they were probably kind, softhearted people most of the time. I brought out the mean side in them. How many of them knew me personally? Some did, I was sure of it. Some were probably the parents of my former friends—my friends from before I flipped out. They’d probably wanted their kids to hang out with me back then, hoping a little of me would rub off on their own children. Now they thought I was crazy or dangerous. Maybe both.

I couldn’t do this community-service thing, I thought, running my fingers over the angora on the bear’s back. You needed a
community
to do that in, and I’d lost mine a year and a half ago, destroying it myself in a plume of smoke.