Little Deaths(8)

Carla went to take her arm but Ruth shook her off angrily, stared wide-eyed around her, and then back. “Find them. Please.”

And she moved on, stumbling, her arms wrapped around herself. Carla stood staring after her.

Back home, Ruth picked up the phone with shaking fingers and dialed. Pressed the receiver hard against her ear, clenched her other hand, nails digging into her palm. Listened to the phone ring.

Waiting.

Waiting.

And then:

“Frank? Have you got the kids?”

“Don’t fool around! Where are the kids?”

“They’re not here. They’re . . .”

“Of course I checked their room! I’ve been all around the block.”

“Twenty, thirty minutes—I don’t know! I’ve looked everywhere and I . . . I can’t find them.”

“Please. If you have the kids, tell me. Don’t do this, Frankie. Please.”

It was the last time she called him Frankie.

He said something, but she couldn’t take it in, just heard the words “coming over” and when he hung up, she clung to this. She went to the window to look for his car, and put a cigarette in her mouth. It took her three attempts to light it.


Frank arrived. She opened the door and he took her in his arms. Ruth stood stiffly for a moment and then patted his shoulder. He let her go and then he just stood in the hallway.

“You need to . . .” she gestured toward the kitchen and finally he began to take charge.

He picked up the phone and she heard:

“I want to report . . . my kids are missing. I want to report my kids missing.”

“An hour ago.”

“Malone.”

“My address or the address the kids live at?”

“No, we’re . . . they live with their mother at present.”

He brewed more coffee, made her sit down. Poured a glug of brandy in and watched while she drank. It was the last of the bottle that Gina had brought down on New Year’s. It burned and Ruth shuddered, but the sick feeling disappeared. She looked at him, saw his lips slide back over his clenched teeth in an imitation of a smile.

“Okay, honey. Okay. The cops are on their way. We have to stay calm. We have to think.”

Minnie trotted in and pressed her nose against Ruth’s knee until she pushed her away. She couldn’t bear to be touched.

It took Ruth a moment to get to her feet. She had to pee, and then she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face was covered in a film of perspiration, and her eye makeup had smudged.

She repaired the damage as best she could, lifted her arm to comb her hair and smelled sweat. She looked in the mirror again. Beneath that layer of makeup, her body, her face, were all wrong. She looked wrong. Smelled wrong.

You smell like a bitch in heat.

She went into the bedroom and changed her clothes. Put on a clean blouse that flattered her figure. She knew that there would be men, strangers, looking at her, asking questions. Their eyes all over her like hands. She had to be ready for them. She had to look right.

As she walked back into the kitchen, there was a knock at the front door.

There were two of them. Two cops, in her home. One of them, the younger one, said, “I understand that you’re separated, Mr. and Mizz Malone?” That’s the first thing he said. Then he said, “Is this about custody?” She had no idea what he meant, what to say.

They sat in the kitchen. Ruth put a clean ashtray on the table, and one of them got on the phone to someone. He came back, and there was a look between them, then he took Frank off into the living room. She was left with the younger one. He told her his name but she forgot it.

He just sat there, asking questions. What were the kids’ full names? Their ages? Had they gone missing before? Did she have a recent photograph?

Then he asked, “How long have you been separated from your husband, Mizz Malone?”

“I don’t . . . what does this have to do with the kids?”

He said nothing, just waited.

“Since last spring. Frank moved out in April last year.”

“Why did you split up?”

She looked at him, sitting there in his cheap suit and his scuffed shoes, and she knew she couldn’t make him understand. None of her reasons had been enough for Frank, for her mother, for most other women she knew. It wouldn’t be enough for this cop, this kid.

“We weren’t getting along. We were arguing a lot.”

“And now he’s suing for full custody of the children? On what grounds?”

“He says I’m . . . he’s claiming the children would be better off with him.”

He wrote that down and then his voice got stern.

“If this is some kind of game, Mizz Malone, if you’re doing this to get back at your husband, you better stop before it goes too far.”

She looked at him. A game? Her face grew warm and she could feel a prickling at her hairline, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“What the hell is all this? Why aren’t you out there looking for my children? You need to find my children!”

He cleared his throat. Ignored her. “Have you hidden the kids somewhere?”

Something in her eyes made him raise his hands. “Okay, okay,” he said. His face was flushed. He looked like he should have been in high school.