Girl One(6)

For a second I fantasized about running out there, ripping the car door open, demanding answers. But I thought of Bonnie Clarkson and was gripped with a well-worn fear. Girl Seven, attacked in 1982 when she was barely eight years old. Five years after the fire, just when we’d started to breathe again. The assault happened right on the heels of the much-televised reunion between the Homesteaders. As my mother and I had huddled silently in front of the news, I’d known exactly what she was thinking. That she’d been smart to avoid the reunion. That it had been a red flag waved in front of the bitter, seething masses who still listened to Ricky Peters’s proselytizing from his prison cell.

When I glanced out the window a few minutes later, I saw taillights vanishing around the corner. My heartbeat dipped with relief. But it was a reminder that I couldn’t hide here all night. I had to figure out my next step.

I went back down to my bedroom, pausing for a moment before going inside. Knowing that my mother had been the one ransacking my things made the room feel unnerving. Like I’d just missed her; like she was about to step out from the corner. Kneeling, I looked again at the butchered bylines, the sliced-up photos, all of which had apparently gone into my vanished mother’s creepy scrapbook.

I shifted the papers around with my fingertips. “What were you doing, Mom?” I whispered. So many faces I hadn’t seen since I was a little kid, my sort-of sisters. Some of us had been better than others about staying out of the public eye. The Kims and the Grassis hadn’t been heard from for years. Others—like the Clarksons—were right there in the spotlight. I paused at an image of Emily French, Girl Five, her solemn eyes and wispy bangs. It was a piece from six months ago, last October, when Tami French died in a car crash. I remembered seeing Emily’s face staring up at me from a discarded newspaper in the dining commons. The haunted and unmistakable look of a girl who’d lost her mother.

I pulled the paper closer. The story was in the Kansas City Telegraph, a publication that wouldn’t have caught my attention normally. But now everything was covered in the layer of significance my mother had left behind as strongly as her fingerprints. I checked the byline. Thomas Abbott. Kansas City Telegraph. I fished in my pocket for the Post-it note, smoothed it out. T.A.—KCT. The phone number. Voilà.

For a second my excitement over figuring out the code overshadowed the actual implications: Why would my mother—a woman who wouldn’t even talk about the past with her own daughter—keep the name and number of a reporter?



* * *



The phone lines in the house were down. I looked around before venturing back out of my shell of a house, making sure there were no strange cars lingering. The street was dark and empty. I hurried out, sticking to the shadows, mentally tracing the way to the nearest convenience store. I was so focused on keeping a low profile that I didn’t notice it until I stepped on it: a crunch underfoot. I backed away. It was a bird, belly-down, eye filmy, lying near the overgrown rhododendron. The bird—a robin, maybe?—looked almost as if it could fly away, but one outstretched wing was scorched and blackened. As if the little bird had dipped a single wing into the fire. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but my stomach twisted, and I hurried away from the little body, clutching the Post-it in my hand as if it would fix everything.





3

“Yeah, hello?”

“Is this Thomas Abbott?” I asked. “From the Kansas City Telegraph?” My brain was buzzing as I huddled between the convenience store restrooms, staring at the half-scrubbed shadow of a Sharpied obscenity on the wall.

“Most people call me Tom. Who’s speaking?” A youngish voice, neutral, like he was expecting a sales pitch and was already distancing himself. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. Some weirdness about him right off the bat that would tip me in the right direction.

I leaned in closer to the pay phone, my warm, travel-soured breath curling back on me. Now that I had him on the line, I wasn’t sure what to say. I opted for bluntness. “I’m calling about Margaret Morrow. Why did she have your number? Where is she?” Because I couldn’t help myself, and because I had another living, breathing person to talk to, I added: “Do you know anything about the fire?”

“Whoa. Okay, slow down.” Call-Me-Tom’s voice turned more serious. “One question at a time. Yes, I know about the fire. Everyone in Kansas knows by now.” A shift of voices, muted and tinny. A newscaster in the background. I imagined the phone receiver held up to the TV:… with any information about Morrow is encouraged to come forward. “Second question: No.” Tom’s voice arrived back in my ear. “I don’t know where Margaret is. Trust me, I wish I did.” A pause. “Can I ask a question now? Who is this?”

“Why was she in touch with you in the first place?” I persisted. “I once watched my mom chase a journalist off our porch in her bathrobe. She nearly took his head off with a flowerpot.”

A much longer pause. “Your mom? Margaret’s your—” Something adjusted on the other end, a restructuring of attention. Tom’s voice brightened with a barely suppressed excitement. “That means you’re Josephine Morrow.”

“The one and only.”

“Holy shit. I didn’t ever expect to hear from you. Girl One.”

“Usually I make guys wait for the third date to call me that,” I said, a reflexive joke that came out before I could stop it.