Girl One(27)

“Thank you, Bonnie. Seriously.”

Bonnie faked a yawn. “Hey, anything for my sister,” she said. Then she slipped back into her labyrinth of hallways, leaving only her scent on my pillow.





14

Jittery with impatience, I was out of the car before it came to a complete stop, hurrying to the pay phone that stood near the concrete picnic shelters. I slipped the quarters into the slot, punched in the number that I’d memorized by now. Please pick up; please pick up.

“No response?” Tom asked when I returned to the Volvo a few minutes later, defeated.

“Nope.” I’d told Tom about the Bowers this morning. The decision to stop by Arkansas and seek them out in person was unanimous and obvious. As long as we were heading southeast, we could continue toward the Arkansas Ozarks to meet the Bowers and add no more than a day to our trip. A minor detour.

We pulled back onto the long gray ribbon of the freeway. I reached over to turn down the volume. I was sick of bad news, and all the radio stations were busy discussing Kurt Cobain’s death, the upcoming anniversary of Waco, the hijacked cargo jet.

“I can’t get over what Deb said.” This was a particularly bland stretch of the Midwest. Trees and guardrails dotted with fast-food wrappers, billowing white grocery bags. “My mother reaching out to Bellanger. It doesn’t make sense.”

Tom glanced at me. “I’m going out on a limb and assuming you and your mother never discussed her decision to work with Bellanger?”

I had tried so many times to imagine my mother, a young woman, not pregnant yet, right on the cusp of a whole new future. The world before my conception. I’d wanted to know what it was like to be chosen by Bellanger. The idea of my mother choosing Bellanger instead left me fumbling in the dark.

“She said she volunteered because she wanted a baby. That’s it.” I sighed. “She never seemed interested in scientific progress or fame and fortune. Obviously. Look what our lives were like in Coeur de fucking Lac. My mother, she just—I always thought the only way a person like her would be involved in the Homestead was because Bellanger talked her into it. She didn’t even understand what she was getting into. That’s why this feels so weird. I might be Margaret’s daughter, but I’ve never been her idea.”

We were quiet for a minute. My mother—how she’d managed to unofficially take on new responsibilities at our small library despite not wanting to go to school for a library science degree (“I’m done with all that, Josie,” though as far as I knew she’d never gone to school). I remembered her reading me books at bedtime and the subtle changes in her voice for each character, a lower octave there, a hoarseness here, until the whole cast of characters came alive. Watching her bent over crossword puzzles, tapping the pen against the edge of the table for a long time and then suddenly filling out the whole thing in a few minutes, looking at me with a shy pride, like she was checking whether or not I’d noticed.

“You don’t know my mother,” I said, not ready to accept a new vision of her.

“Maybe not,” Tom said, “but I’m getting to know her daughter.”



* * *



The motel that night squatted close to the freeway exit. I offered to take the car, leaving the room to Tom. I needed to make a call anyway. This was already the fourth night away from Chicago, the outermost limit I’d set for myself. I was expected back in classes by Tuesday at the latest. Tomorrow. Taking this much time off was unheard of. A girl in my class had been out for a week with the flu last fall and ended up dropping out. I had a decision to make.

The pay phone was tucked around a corner, hidden from the road and the parking lot. A small square of concrete beneath the phone was all that differentiated it from the weedy lot that bordered the motel. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, a raw and lonely sound. At the far end of the empty lot, a greenish streetlight illuminated a patchwork of metal fence.

I listened to the endless ringing that I now associated with the Bowers, my chest tight with the hope that one of them would pick up. That they were safe somewhere. Talking about Bonnie’s attack had turned my fear more sticky and immediate, my head filled with blood, knife blades, heat. I just wanted to talk to the Bowers. Not only to hear that they were fine, but—selfishly—so they could tell me what had happened with the stalker, and maybe that, in turn, would lead me to my mother.

The truth was, I’d never imagined a world without my mother in it. I couldn’t let myself start now.

When the Bowers didn’t answer, I recycled another couple of quarters into the phone. It was late, and I wasn’t supposed to use his home number except in emergencies. But there he was: “Hello?”

“Dr. McCarter? It’s me, Josephine.” I added: “Morrow.”

“Jo,” he said, brightening. “Our little scientific anomaly. Where have you been? Any word about your mother?”

“Not yet. I’m calling because I still need a day or two to make sure she’s fine. Would it be all right if I came back on Wednesday—maybe Thursday—instead?” This was optimistic to the point of being unrealistic, but it felt good to say it, like maybe it would really happen.

Dr. McCarter was quiet for a moment. “Wednesday? We’re going over the maternal immune system in class tomorrow. Have you arranged with a classmate to take notes?”