Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(26)

My mother will never leave her farm. Probably wouldn’t have anyway. But the land, her place, her community, it’s her solace, her anchor. It was there when she needed it most, and without it, I don’t know what she would’ve done.

She has her place in the world.

It’s my brother and I who remain adrift.

Darwin left. A year after my return, when I couldn’t magically smile on command. When the pancakes I once loved were now a smell I couldn’t stomach, he’d had enough. The family protector melted down, had a little episode involving driving way too fast with no headlights, and my mother realized all the love and attention I didn’t want should be turned on him instead.

After many heartfelt discussions, she sent him to Europe. Got him a passport, a rail ticket, a backpack, and sent him off with a kiss and a hug. Go forth, young man, and find yourself, and all that.

Darwin doesn’t send postcards. He knows better. But from time to time, we get a call. He’s in London now. Likes it a lot. Is thinking of enrolling in the London School of Economics. Certainly, he’s bright enough, while having some pretty interesting topics to write about for his college entrance essay.

I think, more than anything else in the world, I would like my brother to have a happy ending. I wish he’d fall in love, land a great job, build a life. Then my mistake doesn’t have to be his punishment anymore.

Which is funny, because I think he would say exactly the same about me.

I’ve showered long enough. Soaped. Shampooed. Conditioned. Done everything except feel clean.

The smell of burning human flesh.

Not pork. Maybe more like roast beef.

I saved a life, I remind myself as I whack the ancient faucet to off. Another girl is safe because of me. Another animal is off the streets.

The sun is out. My apartment smells like blueberry muffins. This is one of those moments when I should stop, give thanks for the day.

I think of Jacob. I don’t want to. I just can’t help myself.

I remember Jacob Ness, the man who took me, broke me down, and then rebuilt me for four hundred and seventy-two days.

And in the back of my mind, he’s laughing at me.


*

MY MOTHER HAS CLEANED THE KITCHEN. If I hadn’t emerged dressed and freshly showered when I did, I’m pretty sure she would’ve taken down and washed the French-printed valances she bought and installed last year. My mother is a farmer mostly because she needs to keep busy. She’s one of those people who require a long list of chores, or her life lacks all meaning.

She’s dressed like herself today. Black wide-legged yoga pants with a funky print on the bottom hem, and a loose-fitting sea-foam-green, 100 percent organic cotton wrapped shirt. Over that, she’s thrown on a man’s unbuttoned gray flannel shirt. In Maine she’d blend right in. In Boston, not quite so much.

About six months after I returned home, she boxed up all the clothes the victim specialists had helped her buy for the press conferences. Together, we took the items to the thrift shop that operates out of the congregational church’s basement. The ladies were pleased to receive such high-quality, hardly worn clothing items.

We called it Liberation. An ongoing campaign to get our lives back. My mother gave away clothes that were never really her. I painted my childhood bedroom butter yellow and resolved to be more appreciative of everyday beauty.

Let’s just say my mother is doing better with the campaign than me.

When I reappear, she has heaped the muffins on a plate in the middle of the rolling butcher block piece that serves both as my kitchen-prep island and sole dining table. She has also poured two glasses of orange juice and cut up fresh fruit. Given my refrigerator held mostly bottles of water and cartons of stale takeout, she went to the corner store while I was showering.

Which, of course, compels me to turn around and check the front door locks. I snap the bolts home. When I return to her, I know my expression is disapproving, but I can’t help myself.

“Muffin?” she says cheerfully, gesturing to the plate.

I take one. Suddenly, I’m famished. I eat two muffins, then devour half the bowl of fruit. My mother doesn’t say anything, but picks at her own food. She probably ate hours ago. Waiting for me. Worrying about me.

Now, she’s working on playing it cool.

“Samuel says you killed a man,” she says at last, waiting game obviously up.

I pick up my plate, carry it to the tiny sink. “Self-defense. I won’t face any charges.”

“You think that’s what scares me?”

She’s standing right beside me, and despite her best attempts at deep-breathing exercises, I can tell she’s agitated.

It hurts me. It does. I don’t know how to be her little girl anymore. I don’t know how to turn back the clock and undo what was done. I can’t feel what I can’t feel. I can’t be what I can’t be.

But it pains me, this look on her face, this worry in her eyes. It kills me to know that the person I am now hurts the mother who’s never done anything but love me.

“I didn’t plan on what happened,” I hear myself say. “But I was prepared. And I handled the situation. This guy, he’s hurt other girls, Mom. But not anymore. He’s done.”

“I don’t care about other girls,” she says. “I care about you.”

She hugs me then, hard and fierce. The way I know she’s always hugged me. And I force myself to stand there. To not flinch, to not go rigid. To remind myself these arms are my mother’s arms. Her hair smells like my memories of my mother’s hair. This is the woman who tucked me in at night, and read me stories, and offered me warm milk when I couldn’t sleep, and made me cinnamon toast when I was sick. A million tiny moments.