Shelter Us: A Novel (16 page)

She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. Tyler crawls into her lap. “She hates me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“That’s how it felt when I left.”

“Josie,” I say, “parents are not perfect. You know that. We try our best, but we make mistakes.” I hear the echo of Robert’s words to me about my dad; there are vectors of hurt pointing in so many directions. “I know your mom loves you.” I say this out of reflex and kindness, but what do I know? Maybe her mother does hate her. Maybe her mother is a horrible person. Maybe when we see her she will scream and throw things. A sick feeling surges through me as I anticipate the scene we may be walking into when we leave here—the anger and blame, terror and grief. It has been hypothetical to me until right now, when we are on the precipice of arriving at the home of a missing child. These are real people, whose son is really missing, who may never find him alive. The familiar stress lights up, shoots a warning flare across my head.

“She loves Michael more,” Josie says with resignation and authority, as though it is something she’s verified. “She loved his dad more, too. We say we’re brother and sister,” she explains, “because that’s how it feels, but we aren’t. We have different dads. I didn’t even know my dad.” She wipes more tears from her face. “Michael’s dad, Arnold, was my stepdad. He and my mom are divorced, so I don’t know what that makes him to me now.”

Things are getting murkier by the second. Perspiration coats my skin, undoing the benefits of my brief shower.

“I suppose it just makes him family,” I say. I offer her my hand. She looks at it as though she doesn’t comprehend what it’s for, and then at last recognizes its usefulness and lets me help her up. “Come on,” I say, feigning confidence. “Let’s go find Michael.”

W
e pull up
to the sidewalk in front of the apartment building that Josie has directed me to. It’s a drab but tidy four-unit building ready for a new coat of paint. Two staircases on either side of the building lead to the upstairs apartments. The downstairs apartments’ front doors are tucked behind the staircases, shielded from the street. A bland square of grass defines the front yard. Four black trash cans are lined up on the driveway, with U
NIT
A, B, C, and D painted in white on their sides. A basketball hoop is pushed to the back of the lot.

Next door, in front of a pink cottage, a hand-painted sign says “Ramirez Day Care.” Bright beds of pink, purple, and white pansies border the cement path to the cottage’s front door. A woman in green scrubs and spotless white sneakers walks up the path carrying a child who looks to be about two years old.

Josie looks out the passenger-side window at the apartment. Tyler complains from the backseat, fed up with the constraints he’s become too familiar with since we started this trek last night. The sky is bright and cloudless, a mismatch for our mood.

“Is this it?” I ask.

She nods. “I’m scared,” she whispers.

“I know. Me too.”

Tyler’s whines increase in urgency. Sweat trickles behind my knees, inside my stockings. Tyler’s sounds break into waves of genuine
crying, which at last prompt Josie to get out of the car and pick him up. His crying subsides.

She approaches the steps on the left side of the building, holding Tyler against her like armor. I mean to follow her, but I freeze. My face flushes, and my breathing gets shallow. The high, sweet voices of small children careen against the wooden fence of the pink house’s driveway. I bend over to put my head lower than my heart, to keep from passing out. I hear Bibi’s voice in my head, honest and harsh:
Sarah, buck up and go with her. This isn’t about you
.

“Okay,” I say to myself, “You can do this.” I suck in a deep breath and follow Josie up the stairs. She ascends to the top step, opens the screen door, and knocks on the solid wood door behind it.

“Mom, it’s me. I’m home.”

A
man
opens the door instantly. He is African American, a good foot taller than Josie, and wearing a plaid button-down shirt that strains around his belly. His face is a portrait of exhaustion and stress, with an added veneer of disappointment when he sees who it is at the door, and who it is not.

“Josie? Oh my god.” He stands stock-still, then realizes himself and leans forward to give her a hug. “I thought it was Michael,” he sighs, and his body shrinks. His eyes move to me, standing behind Josie.

“This is Sarah. She drove me from LA. Sarah, this is Arnold, my stepdad.”

“Hi,” I say.

“Frederick with you?” he asks Josie, ignoring me and looking up and down the sidewalk from his second-story perch.

“No.”

“That’s good. Come on in. Your mom will be glad to see you.” Josie and I share a quick look. “She’s in bed.” He calls into the apartment, “Victoria, look who it is!”

“Michael?!” A muted voice comes from deep in the apartment.

“No, it’s Josie!” I put my hand on Josie’s back and nudge her inside.

A man in his fifties sits on a recliner, two ladies of a similar age sit on a small sofa, and a third woman, visible in the kitchen through the half-wall that separates it from the living area, is wearing an apron and yellow rubber gloves and appears to be busy cleaning. Two boys
who look to be about thirteen years old are sitting on the floor playing a video game on a phone, the only sound in the room. The windows are shut. The front door closes behind us, and I find it hard to breathe. The stale inside air is infused with agony and uncertainty.

I stay close to Josie, wait to follow her lead. On the wall next to me are photos of a boy who must be Michael. He’s playing sports in most of the photos. In one photo he is hugging a petite woman who wears her dark hair in a pixie haircut. His and Josie’s mom, I guess. Josie takes after her. He looks more like Arnold. I don’t see any photos of Josie or Tyler.

The women give me a silent once-over, but no one is interested in introductions. One woman, wearing gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt, appropriate clothes for waiting, stands and approaches Josie. “Josie, it’s been a long time,” she says. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Linda.”

“Look how big Tyler got.” He hides his face in Josie’s shoulder.

“How’s Frederick’s music?” the other woman from the couch says, rolling her eyes toward the woman in the kitchen, who returns the cynical look with her own.

“I don’t know, Aunt Eva,” Josie replies. “We broke up. It’s nice to see you, too.”

Stomach acid roils in my belly. I am an interloper here; why did I think I’d be needed? I just want to get out of here as fast as I can, but Josie reaches out with her free hand and pulls me toward the back of the apartment. “Let’s get this over with,” she says. I feel like I’m going to be sick; what do you say to someone whose child has disappeared? My mind and pulse race. Josie pauses by an open door on the hallway. “That’s my and Michael’s room. Was my room.” Two narrow twin beds are pushed against either wall. One is covered with comic books and crumpled school papers. The other bed is unmade, a dent still in the pillow.

Memories play across her face. “We used to talk at night before bed,” she says. “When we were ready to go to sleep, I’d always say, ‘Good night, Prince Michael,’ and he’d say, ‘Good night, Queen Josephine.’”
Tears suddenly pour down her cheeks. I know she fears the worst has happened. She reluctantly turns away from these memories and continues to her mom’s bedroom door. She taps lightly, and enters. I wait in the hall, wishing I could melt into the shag carpet, just disappear. I feel like I’m breathing poison gas. I have to get out of here before I pass out. Frozen in place while Josie reunites with her mom, I overhear the women talking in the living room.

“How can she be gone all this time without a word? What kind of daughter does that to her mother?” It sounds like Aunt Eva.

“She’s here now,” Linda says, annoyed.

“For how long?” Eva retorts.

“Stop it,” Arnold admonishes. “We’ve got enough to deal with.” The boys’ video game pings and buzzes. “Boys, take that outside!” I hear footsteps, the screen door squeaking open and closed, then rumblings down the stairs. The living room is quiet again. The kitchen faucet turns on and off. A cabinet opens and shuts. Everyone is on edge.

Josie and her mom emerge from the bedroom and I straighten up to meet her. Her mom is about two inches shorter than Josie, with a coffee ice cream–colored complexion. She limply extends her hand and says without affect, “Josie told me you brought her here.” Her voice is raspy.

“I, um, yes,” I mumble, taking her hand. Without another word, she drops her hand and moves past me, down the hall into the living room. Josie and Tyler follow behind her, and I bring up the rear.

“Hugo, get up,” Aunt Eva says. The man from the recliner opens his eyes, sees Victoria standing in the room, and offers her the chair. Victoria sags into it like a marathoner who has hit the wall. Hugo shuffles toward the front door, reaching for a pack of cigarettes in his front shirt pocket. He goes outside and down the stairs.

Everyone is quiet. Victoria breaks the silence. “Anything new from the police?”

“Nothing,” Arnold answers. “They’re sending another detective over to talk with us, any time now. They want to take another look at his room.” Arnold opens the front door and steps out to the landing,
keeping a lookout. I hear a basketball bouncing outside, and the voices of the boys who were in here earlier. I imagine rushing out there and flying off like a bird escaping from a cage. But my feet are stuck; I’m afraid to draw attention to myself.

“So what’s new with you, Josie?” Linda says, breaking the stiff silence.

“Not much.” Josie keeps her face and voice neutral, revealing nothing. “I’ve just missed my mom and Michael a lot.” Tyler has refused to be put down, so she hikes him up on her hip. His head leans on her shoulder and he looks warily at the people in the room, sensing that there’s something terribly wrong here. “Mom, remember that time, when Michael was about four years old, that he asked me to marry him?”

Victoria lifts her head. “Yeah, tell me that story again.”

Josie puts her hand on her mother’s shoulder, and Victoria covers it with her own hand. This intimacy between mother and daughter is more than I can bear. I retreat to the kitchen, as close to disappearing as I can get, but it’s not far enough to be out of hearing distance of Josie’s voice. “I told him he couldn’t marry me, I’m his sister,” she continues. “He said that he didn’t care, he was going to marry me. I asked him, ‘Why do you want to marry me, anyway?’ And he said, ‘So we can always sleep in the same room.’”

This vigil feels too much like the shivah after Ella died, except that no one could share a sweet story about my six-week-old daughter. It felt like she hadn’t ever lived. Bringing food was all people could do. I retreated to bed. Carolina played with Oliver and urged me to get up and join them. I couldn’t. Bibi put one of my mom’s books of Jewish rituals on the pillow next to me, trying what had comforted us so many years before. I threw it across the room. God had left the building, as far as I was concerned. In the midst of well-intentioned visitors with their subdued voices and pitying expressions, Oliver split open: he threw his toys against the living room wall and started pulling his hair and screaming. From upstairs I heard the commotion and finally came running. I found him in the center of a circle of stunned adults. I
scooped him up, and he keened into my shoulder. I took him with me to my room and stroked his head until he gave in to exhaustion. I fell asleep alongside him. When I awoke, I studied his face and could see in it every day he had lived, from the first breath I’d heard him draw until that very moment. “I’m back,” I said softly, a promise to him and a declaration to myself. I walked into the bathroom, threw out the nightgown I’d been wearing for days, turned on the shower, and prayed for the strength to be his mother again.

The woman in the kitchen finishes drying a large platter and turns around to face me.

“You’re Josie’s friend?” She regards me through half-closed eyes, as though I’m guilty of something.

“Yes. Sarah.”

“I’m Nell. I live downstairs.” Her tone asserts that she is closer to the crown of pain than I am, therefore higher in authority to me. “Those are my twins who were playing in here. They’re Michael’s friends.” Another source for her macabre status near the inner circle of tragedy.

“I’m so sorry about Michael.”

“Don’t say that,” she snaps. “He’ll turn up. He’ll be fine.”

“Of course! I didn’t mean—”

She removes her apron and folds it under her arm. “I’m going now. Why don’t you leave and give these people some privacy?” She walks out of the kitchen, and leaves me feeling sucker punched, like somehow I’ve caused this drama, like if I stay one more minute Michael will not be fine and it will be my fault. Nothing is making sense, except the singular urge to flee.

“Police are here!” Arnold calls from his spot by the front door.

“Oh my god!” Victoria wails, the sound of a mother who is certain she is about to receive horrifying news. Arnold hustles downstairs. Josie and Aunt Eva hurry after him, leaving Linda to coax a crying Victoria to go talk to the detectives.

My head is spinning, but I know this is my chance. I open my wallet and take out a card, one of Robert’s, and scrawl on it, “Josie, be back later.” I leave it on the kitchen table that Nell has rendered
spotless and rush outside like I’m escaping a sinking ship. I stumble toward my car on unreliable legs, nearly falling in my haste to get away from the terrible torment in Victoria’s crying. I am unnoticed by the lost boy’s family and friends, who have converged on the young uniformed officers, desperate for good news. Nell hovers by her front door to see if she can glean anything from their body language. I get in my car. I am hyperventilating, trying to fill my lungs. I feel faint again. I think I may throw up. The sound of a bouncing ball, Nell’s sons playing basketball in the driveway of the apartment building, thumps in my head. I look back to see if I can read the expression on Josie’s face. All I see is fear and helplessness. A whoop pierces the air, and everyone turns toward its source: one of Nell’s boys celebrating a perfect three-pointer, nothing but net.