The Air We Breathe (24 page)

H
ANNA
N
OVEMBER
2002

She had seen Dr. Diane that morning but said nothing to her, even though it was a day she had quite a bit to say—all about how her mother didn’t want to let her see Claire anymore, was threatening to end the visits. But she’d been watching Dr. Diane as much as the psychologist watched her. She knew talking wouldn’t get results.

But silence . . .

She spent the entire session staring at her hands. She didn’t nod. She didn’t make eye contact. She didn’t color. She didn’t even shift in the hard plastic chair when her hipbone started to ache. She counted the clicks of the big wall clock, knowing after sixty of them she could go home. It was boring but worked as she had hoped. After forty-eight clicks, Dr. Diane excused herself to talk with Susan. Ashley, the intern, tried to engage her with a yarn-haired puppet, but Hanna blocked her out so she could listen to her mother and the psychologist
speaking in the other room. She could hear both of them, not their words but their tone, with voices raised. And when Dr. Diane returned at fifty-five clicks, she wished Hanna a pleasant weekend, reminded her of Monday’s appointment, and asked her to say hello to Claire on Saturday.

Hanna smiled against the sleeve of her sweater.

As soon as she arrived home, she ran upstairs, swiped the cordless phone from her mother’s bedroom and, locking the bathroom door, dialed Claire. She had memorized her phone number, just in case. When Claire answered, Hanna flushed the toilet to muffle her voice and hastily asked the woman to bring ice cream tomorrow. She didn’t care about the treat; she wanted to be certain Claire still planned to come. Susan had been on her cell phone when Hanna left Dr. Diane’s office, and she wondered if her mother hadn’t decided on her own to end Claire’s visits, despite the psychologist’s recommendation.

By the time her mother called her to the table for lunch, Hanna had returned the phone and washed her hands, confident she’d still be seeing Claire tomorrow.

Then the knock came. Susan went to answer the door as Hanna ate her cheese, biting the rectangles into animal shapes before swallowing them between bites of Granny Smith apple. She only liked the green ones, tart enough to suck the spit from her cheeks and make the inside of her mouth dry up. Before she was taken, her mother rarely had them in the house because she and Henry liked Red Delicious better, and used to only buy apples in bulk bags, never individually. Hanna couldn’t eat an entire five-pound bag of green apples before they went bad.

Now her mother made sure to have the Granny Smiths in the fridge. She made sure to have most things Hanna liked
around the house—smooth peanut butter, frozen toaster waffles with chocolate chips, microwave bacon. Lucky Charms, of course. And plenty of cucumbers.

“I told Detective Woycowski that you need to call first,” Susan said, her voice floating back to Hanna.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am.” A man’s voice. “But given the nature of this new information, I thought it best to come down here straightaway.”

Hanna froze. Her bladder released, the heat and wet spreading under the backs of her thighs, soaking into the kitchen chair cushion. She squeezed her cheese animal in her hand.

“I understand, and I know you have a job to do. I just would have liked to have prepared her first.”

“I could come back in an hour or so.”

“No, no. Don’t do that. Hanna’s eating lunch. I can call her into the living room.”

“I’d love to sit and chat with her for a few minutes, if that would be all right with you, Mrs. Suller. It may allow her to be more comfortable. I know she’s been working with Woycowski, so this is a change. I can’t imagine Hanna does well with change at the moment.”

“You’re right, Detective. That would be fine. Please, follow me.”

Susan came back into the kitchen and Thin Man followed. He wore a suit and tie, and as soon as he stepped through the door, he adjusted his jacket. Hanna saw a gold badge pinned on his belt, and a pistol holstered at his side. “Hanna-Bee, this is Detective . . . I’m sorry. What was it again?”

“Detective Mahoney.”

“Detective Mahoney,” Susan repeated. Her mother was charmed by him, she could tell. “Detective Woycowski
transferred to another case, so Detective Mahoney is in charge of . . . everything now.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Hanna.”

She squeezed harder. Cheese seeped between her fingers.

“Please, sit,” Susan said. “Can I make you something? We’re having breakfast for lunch today. Except Hanna-Bee couldn’t wait and needed a snack.”

“No, ma’am, but I appreciate the offer.” Thin Man grinned, and she saw rows and rows of big, white, pointed shark’s teeth. He would devour her, given the chance. Her teeth began chattering; she bit down, hard. Her head bobbed instead. “Hanna-Bee, huh? That’s an adorable nickname for a little girl like you.”

“Her father gave it to her. Baby, you want your yolks runny?”

She couldn’t speak. Her mother glared at her, probably thinking she was still in silent-protest mode from the appointment. She managed to shake her head the smallest amount, more a tremble than an actual movement.

“I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me, Hanna. Detective Woycowski said you were talking again.”

“She is. Must be shy today.” Susan sucked her cheeks in, opened her eyes wide behind Thin Man’s back, mangy eyebrows raised. She mouthed,
Answer him
. “Are you sure I can’t at least pour you a cup of coffee?”

“Now, that would be lovely. As long as it’s no trouble.”

Susan opened the cabinet, removed a tall ceramic coffee cup. “It’s already made and still warm from this morning.” She poured the coffee and gave it to him.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

Susan carried the skillet from the stove to Hanna’s plate and, careful not to touch her with it, slid the eggs out in front
of her. “Hanna, Detective Mahoney said they think they may know who was at the bank that day. I believe he has some more photos for you to look at.”

She said nothing, hands still fisted on either side of her plate, heart hammering against her rib cage so loudly she didn’t know how no one else could hear it. A drop of water-thin mucus formed in one nostril and, slow as a slug, crept over the top of her mouth and spread into the crack between her lips.

Her chin quivered.

Her mother hesitated over her, touched her cheek, and Hanna stared back, willing all her fear into her eyes, thinking,
It’s him, it’s him, it’s him
, as if somehow the words would shoot, like a laser beam, into Susan’s brain. Susan glanced down into Hanna’s lap, saw the wet spot—now cold—on her jeans. She reached down, touched it, brought her fingers to her nose. A quick, all but unnoticeable motion. Hanna crossed her legs. Her mother nodded, set the pan on the table, pried open Hanna’s fist, and taking the napkin from beside the plate she wiped the crumbled cheese away.

“Over easy,” Susan said, grabbing the handle of the fry pan again, her skin white around the cast iron. She stepped back toward the stove. “Hanna’s favorite.”

“Well, they look delicious on her plate. I don’t mind waiting until she’s finished to—”

In one swift, smooth motion, Susan brought the pan down on Thin Man’s head.

Hanna’s entire body jumped, startled by the movement, the sound of metal against skull. Thin Man fell off the chair, hitting the floor with his hands, his arms pinned under his torso.

“Wait . . .” he croaked, trying to turn over but couldn’t
before Susan hit him again—this time a chopping motion, like an ax in wood, the way her Papa Loop used to hack at the logs in his yard, the ones he used to burn in his woodstove for winter. He’d set those logs on an old stump, split them in two with one blow.
Thud
.
Thud
.
Thwack
. Thin Man’s head split the same way, blood pouring out onto the kitchen floor, trickling toward the sink because the floor tilted. Every time Hanna dropped a grape or spilled her juice, it rolled that way, too.

“You sick—!” Her mother swore. The pan hung by her side, and with her other arm she wiped her sleeve over her face. Blood had spattered on her, teeny pinpricks on her forehead, her cheeks, her shirt. And then her contorted face slackened, the anger draining away.

She jabbed him with the pan, let the skillet drop back onto the stove, wrong side up. Let out a deep, rickety breath.

“Mom?”

“It’s okay, baby.” Susan pulled Hanna from the chair and hugged her fiercely, led her upstairs. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry about him. He can’t hurt you anymore.” Her mother sat her on the toilet. “Wait here. I’ll get a change of clothes.”

Hanna waited, the bathroom quivering around her. She closed her eyes, hard, an attempt to blink away the cottony confusion filling her head. Susan returned and helped her out of her soiled jeans, washed her legs with a warm cloth. Hanna stepped into the fleece jogging pants, her body moving independent of her mind, her brain slow to process what had happened downstairs only minutes ago.

Her mother zipped a matching hooded jacket over the fresh T-shirt and then rinsed the washcloth and used it on her own face and neck. Susan kicked her specked shirt against the tub, slid a purple cowl-neck sweater over her head. She ran her hands under the faucet and, after shaking off the excess water, patted them over her hair to control the static-charged flyaways.

“I need to call the police now,” Susan said.

“No!”

“It’s okay, Hanna.”

“You’ll get arrested.”

“I won’t. It’s not like that.”

“You ki—”

They heard a noise then, like someone stumbling. And then a slam. The bathroom window shook.

Hanna began to cry.

“Lock the door, Hanna.”

“Mommy, don’t go.”

“I’m locking the door. Do not let anyone in. Understand?”

She nodded.

Then Susan left her alone. Minutes. Hours. She didn’t know. The handle of the door jiggled, and Hanna backed against the far wall, sank down and crouched behind the toilet. The push lock popped up, and the door opened; it was Susan, kabob skewer in hand, fear in her face.

“Come on. Now.”

Hanna stumbled along behind her mother as she dragged her down the hallway into Susan’s bedroom, where Susan yanked a small suitcase from the top shelf of the closet—she stood on a stool to get it, shaking, swaying, and Hanna thought she’d fall off—and threw handfuls of underwear and
socks and shirts into the case. Then into Hanna’s bedroom, leaving Hanna on the bed with the bag, coming back with an armful of clothing she dropped into the suitcase. Zipped it.

“Your coat. Where’s your coat?”

Her mother lugged the bag from the bed, pulled Hanna behind her again, back down the steps, into the hall. Hanna glanced toward the kitchen.

Thin Man was gone.

Every nerve in her body splintered with panic. “Where is he?”

“Just keep moving, baby,” Susan said, throwing open the coat closet and giving Hanna her jacket. She knelt, tried to zip that closed, too, but her hands shook now, and she just patted down the Velcro tabs, grabbed Hanna’s hair, and twisted it into a makeshift bun before stuffing a knit hat over her head. “Let’s go.”

Susan put the suitcase in the van, put Hanna in it. She turned the key and sat for a moment, the engine idling, the fasten-seat-belt icon blinking. In the rearview mirror, Hanna watched the gray exhaust swirling over the back windows.

And her mother backed out of the driveway, turned toward the highway, and drove.

M
OLLY
M
ARCH
2009

“And that’s what happened,” Molly said, eyes still focused on the wax child standing in front of her. She reached out and fluffed Shirley’s ringlets. “That’s why we’re here. Mom was afraid he’d try to find us again. Or the other one would. She wanted to keep me safe.”

“I tried to find you. I knew you were okay. I mean, I knew you were alive, at least. But the police couldn’t tell me where you went, and your aunt wouldn’t, either.” Claire shifted her purse from one arm to the other. Unzipped it. “I’m sure it was a relief for all of you when they were arrested.”

Molly swallowed. “They who?”

“The men who robbed the bank—they’re in prison. A few years ago one of them came forward and confessed.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It was all over the news—”

Molly shook her head, cheeks wiggling. “No, you’re
mistaken. Aunt Serrie would have contacted my mom. Or the detective. He knew where we were.”

“Hanna—”

“It’s Molly.” She raised her arms up and out, knocking Claire’s hands from her shoulders. Stepped away. Her voice rose, loud enough that Claire flinched. Molly’s stomach twisted inside her, spiraling tighter and tighter, a cotton dish towel being wrung over the utility sink, all manner of filth squeezed out down the drain. But she had no drain; the bile simply pooled in her gut. “Why can’t you get that right? Hanna is gone. She stayed in the house when my mother drove away.”

She finally looked at Claire, the angel God sent to her twice, now her adversary, whispering things she wouldn’t allow herself to hear. The woman gazed back at her with clear, dark eyes, moist with pity. She stood with one hand in the crook of her back, the other supporting her pregnant stomach, her skin tired. Claire knew sorrow. Christ knew sorrow.

And yet Molly had never been more alone.

“You don’t understand. He has to be still out there. If he’s not, we’ve been trapped here for nothing.” She averted her eyes again. “Please go.”

Claire didn’t protest. She removed a small, square envelope from her purse and set it against Shirley’s foot. Then she left. Molly heard the recorded
hahahahahahaha
as the door in the lobby opened.

HahahahahahaHanna.

I’m not Hanna. I’m no one.

She left time behind. She lost awareness without losing consciousness. Her entire being unplugged from her brain
and descended as deep into her core as it could burrow, the place where all her most terrifying memories lived, where not even she could find herself.

When she finally became cognizant of the world again, the first thing she noticed was the air. Stale. Dusty. Clotted with a certain hush she recognized as pulseless—and how could it be anything other than that, in a roomful of wax people, Molly included? Even though she took in oxygen, it had been a long, long time since she’d actually lived.

Her limbs unfroze, and she went into the office and closed both doors—the one to the apartment and the one to the museum. Clicked on the Internet. If he had been arrested, if it had been reported as Claire told her, she would find the article online.

Her thumbs waited on the space bar, and she saw the letters in her head, the ones she needed to type. The middle finger on her right hand pressed the
f
, lowercase, not wanting to waste energy stretching her pinky to the Shift key. Then an
s
, and
r
. And then
bank robbery avery springs
. Hopped her little fingers over two keys and pressed Enter.

Eight thousand results.

She went back and added quotation marks around the town name and
“bank robbery,”
then as an afterthought added
“hanna suller.”

Three hundred and nineteen.

She scrolled down the first page until a headline caught her eye.
Local Men Charged in FSR Robbery, Murder
. In the text beneath the underlined hyperlink, her name glared back at her in bold letters.

She clicked on the story. Thin Man’s face appeared in the upper left corner of the monitor, one of those police photos,
the height lines visible behind his head, face grim, jaw set, right eyelid drooping slightly.

She didn’t remember that.

Below his picture, another mug shot. Short One.

The article, dated 2006, stated Kenneth Karey of Albany, New York, had come forward to turn himself in for the 2002 robbery of the Avery Springs FSR Bank. During the interview, he implicated his accomplice, the ringleader of the plot, William P. Martin of neighboring Redfield. Karey also accused Martin of shooting the bank security guard and a patron, and kidnapping a young girl.

Hanna Suller.

Martin denied all charges.

Molly returned to the search listing, found another article dated eight months later.
Martin Sentenced to Life
. Thin Man had been found guilty on two counts of second-degree murder, one count of robbery in the first degree, and one count of kidnapping in the first degree. He would be transferred immediately to an upstate New York prison.

Karey had made a plea bargain with the district attorney in return for his testimony against Martin. He was serving fifteen years at Daawkill Correctional Facility. She printed the story.

Once again she hit the back button and scanned the articles. She clicked on one more, an exclusive prison interview with Kenneth Karey, where he was asked why he turned himself in.

“I just couldn’t live with myself anymore,”
he’d said.

Molly gathered the two printed pages from the printer and went into the apartment. Louise stood at the stove, mixing something in a bright yellow saucepan. A housewarming gift
from Mick, for when she moved into his place. She’d kept the rest of the set packed in the original box but wanted one to use until then.

“Baby, set the table, will you?”

“Is Mick here?” She took paper plates from the package on the table. Most of the kitchen had been packed and labeled and moved to the other house.

“Running late. Some heating problem at one of his other properties.”

“Oh.”

“You feeling all right? You look awful.”

Molly held the pages out to her. “Read this.”

“Ever heard of please?” her mother asked, one eyebrow raised in amusement.

“Please.”

“Seriously, Molly. Are you okay? You’re pale as—”

“Just”—Molly raised her voice enough to get her mother’s attention—“read it.”

Louise frowned. She switched off the stovetop and gently slid the pot from the hot burner to an unheated one. Held out her hand. “Give me.”

Whatever she saw first on the paper—the headline, the photos—made her stop. Her hand shook. Her eyes met Molly’s. “Claire,” she said.

“Claire.”

Her mother pulled a dining chair from its tidy place beneath the table, its legs scraping the tile, and flattened into it, folding the printed pages in half, smoothing her thumb over the crease once, twice. “I never meant to keep it from you.”

“Three years ago they were put away. Why are we still here, still hiding? Why didn’t we pack up and—?”

“What? Go back to Avery Springs? To pick up where we left off? We made a life here, Molly. Going back would only mean more scrutiny for you. More questions. I thought it best we stay.”

“We didn’t have to go back home. We could have gone anywhere.”

“What’s the difference between any other place and here?”

“Because
here
meant we were trapped,” Molly said, and the tears came. “
Here
meant we couldn’t leave, because
he
was out there.
Here
was a reminder, every day, that our lives were ruined because I was with Dad, and I picked going to the post office first. If I’d chosen differently, none of this would have happened.
Here
meant
my fault
.”

She dropped hard into the chair beside Louise, her body droopy and without the strength to do much more than slump in half, her chest to her thighs, her head resting on her crossed arms and knees. Her back bounced up and down as she cried, silently, except for a wheezy gasp of breath every now and then. Her mother moved to the floor, kneeling at her feet, their heads pressed close together. Louise threaded her arms around her daughter and rocked her.

“I didn’t know, baby. I had no clue you blamed yourself.”

“How could you not?” she mumbled against her shirtsleeves.

“Because I was too busy blaming myself.”

“You?” Molly lifted her head. “You gave up everything for me.”

“No. I was afraid.” Louise wiped the wrist cuffs of her blouse under Molly’s eyes, down her cheeks. “We could have gone home and just . . . faced things. But I had so much fear inside me. Fear you’d be taken again, or worse. Fear you’d
never heal, or I’d never heal. Fear of
dealing
with everything in front of us. But running only brought us closer to it, not farther away.”

“I love you more than anything, Mom,” Molly said, and her mother squeezed her close.

Louise nodded. “I know. Time to stop hiding now. Both of us.”

Thank you, Gee.

Louise called Mick and told him not to come, and they talked a long time, over pizza, her mother’s beef stew forgotten on the stove, both their faces throbbing with emotion. They swallowed Tylenol to help with the headaches, and the words poured out of them.

Louise apologized for her irrational jealousy of Claire—“You were all I had left. And you wanted her. People can do and think some stupid, stupid things when they’re broken.”

Molly said she wanted to make the move to Mick’s place—“It’s time for a change.”

It felt like midnight when they decided they’d talked enough, throats irritated and eyes burning, but the clock read a little past nine. It happened like that during the northeastern winters, days so short darkness came by suppertime. Molly tossed their paper plates and claimed the bathroom first, brushing her teeth and flossing crust out from between her bottom teeth. She found Louise wrapping the leftovers in aluminum foil and asked if she was going to bed now, too.

“In a few. I’m going to call Serrie first.”

Molly squinted. “You’ve kept in touch with her all along, haven’t you?”

“Not in the beginning. She knew how to reach me if she needed to, but we didn’t start talking regularly until I learned . . . of the arrests.”

“Tell her I said hi,” she said with a nod of understanding.

Her mother smiled a little. “I’ll do that.”

In her bedroom, Molly changed into flannel pajama bottoms and an oversized MAINE sweatshirt, then tugged open her top dresser drawer. Ran her hand along the underside and dislodged the paper she’d taped there, with the name and phone number of her Bible’s previous owner. Then she turned off the light and climbed under her down comforter, waiting for her mother to go to bed, the folded square flat between her palm and breastbone. She heard Louise hang up the kitchen phone, saw the shadow of feet at her bedroom door, and then more noise as her mother shuffled to her own room. Molly lay still awhile longer before taking her watch off the nightstand and lighting its face.

Ten thirty.

Only eight thirty in Colorado.

She slipped into the office, feet bare, wishing she’d kept on her socks. The computer was on; she tapped the space bar for light, sat in the chair crisscross-applesauce, toes nestled behind her knees. Without giving herself time to reconsider, she held the paper near the screen so she could read it, and dialed the number.

Three rings and, “Hello.” A man’s voice.

“Um, hi. Is Ellen there?”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Well, I, uh . . . This is Molly, and I found the Bible she left in a hotel room drawer. In Boston.”

“How did you get this number?”

She spoke quickly. “Sir, I’m sorry I called. I know there was a PO Box I was supposed to send a letter to, but I’ve had the Bible nearly six years, and I wasn’t sure it would still be open. The name in the cover was blacked out with marker, but I . . . I was still able to see it. And the number was there, too. I’m sorry I intruded. I just wanted . . .” Molly thought she would cry. “I just wanted to thank her. I needed it.”

The man laughed. “Oh my. I can’t believe it. Six years, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That girl,” he said, and she could hear the delight in his voice. “Her mother and I were so angry at her when she told us what she’d done. Docked her allowance until she’d earned enough money to buy herself a new one. Ellie didn’t mind one bit. No, she said she was certain the Lord had told her to leave the Bible there, that someone would be coming along who had to have it more than she did. Molly, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Where you from, Molly?”

“Maine.”

Another laugh, low and friendly. “I cannot wait to tell my wife. And Ellie. She’s away at college. I’ll give you her number, but if you don’t mind—” he cleared his throat—“could you wait a day or two before you call? I’d really like to give her the news myself, first. I have to admit, I have some crow eatin’ to do.”