In Her Skin(6)

“Medical exam,” Ginny corrects.

I look to Mrs. Lovecraft wildly. “I don’t want anyone touching me.”

She looks to her husband, begging.

He leans toward the detective. “The Weirs’ will states that we are Vivienne’s legal guardians. There is no reason we can’t just take her home right now.” He slips a white card into the detective’s hand. “That’s my attorney’s number, if there are any questions.”

“Leaving so soon may not be in the best interests of the child,” Ginny warns. “There will be therapy. Grief counseling.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft, we don’t yet have a full statement from the victim. There’s a criminal out there to find,” Detective Curley says.

I look only at Mrs. Lovecraft. Mr. Lovecraft has hardly looked at me. I should be relieved by this, since I don’t trust men much, but it pokes at me, messes with my performance. I refocus on her.

“I want to leave this place,” I beg.

Mrs. Lovecraft rises. “You said our coming here was for the purpose of identification. This is Vivienne Weir. She was like a daughter to me.” She turns her smile on me. “I would know her anywhere.”

Ginny covers her mouth hard, thinking. She wants this win badly. Mr. Lovecraft and the detective glare at each other. Finally, Ginny drops her arms and turns to the detective. “It’s late. It wouldn’t hurt anyone if Vivienne went home with the Lovecrafts tonight and came back tomorrow. The police can take their statements then, and I can provide therapy referrals. Phone numbers, names. A plan. Will that work?”

I look at Mr. Lovecraft full-on for the first time. He gazes at his wife and they smile at each other, not with their mouths but with their eyes. I won’t be coming back here tomorrow, and I am grinning like a dead pig in sunshine, which is inappropriate, so I stop.

Mrs. Lovecraft takes a long look at my unshoweredness, at my body pouring from my too-small sweatshirt and ripped leggings, the ones I stole from the tent of a younger girl. I am dirt and sex, too, and maybe that’s why Mr. Lovecraft hasn’t looked at me yet, though I don’t think so.

The station buzzes, an angry vibe, charged by the fact that we are leaving together, which is against the rules. Suited detectives and uniformed cops and the dispatcher who works the phone and even the hooker stare. Mr. Lovecraft is a tall glass of water, and it feels good to walk alongside him. We step outside into the night to their car at the curb. As I sink into the backseat of their huge SUV with its tinted windows, I almost don’t care what they do to me. Because the possibility that these people are perverts is low, but it’s still a possibility.

Mrs. Lovecraft looks over her seat. “Are you tired, Vivi?”

I nod. The relief of being out of the police station is overpowering. I try to say “very” but it gets caught in my throat.

Mrs. Lovecraft’s face bunches up. “We don’t need to talk now. You should rest. Go ahead, lie down in the backseat. We don’t mind if you don’t wear your seat belt.”

As if the worst thing that could happen to a girl who was held captive in a man’s backyard for seven years is getting whiplash in a car accident. I’m starting to see these announcements as the habits of people who live with roofs over their heads—pointing out the mildly unsafe to keep away the real horrors. The Lovecrafts are halfway right. Words have power, but you have to use them the correct way.

My family. My family. Mine.

Mr. Lovecraft presses a lit screen and fills the car with soft music. I have never seen Boston through the inside of a car window, and it’s a different city. People in light jackets huddle and rush and laugh, the women in shoes made from expensive animals walking with men who look like they smell good when the women lean in. The store displays are lit jewel boxes, and the sidewalks are even and clean, and inside this car you can’t smell the garbage and the pee, the exhaust and the sausages. As we turn off Newbury Street and take another right onto Commonwealth Avenue, the street is lined with newly budded trees strung with white lights. This is the Lovecrafts’ city, and it glows. I went to a buffet restaurant once and this is like that: food for miles, so many things to choose from, and I want to gobble it up.

I touch the window.

Mr. Lovecraft looks back. “Don’t worry about going back to the station. We would never put you through remembering. This is a new start for you, Vivi.”

They murmur in the front seat, their words watering as I drift again. I catch the name Temple a lot, and there is worry in their voices, worry that relates to newspaper reporters and people who remember our case, but the city is beautiful tonight, because Henry and Clarissa Lovecraft are going to take care of me.

We park a few blocks away from the Lovecrafts’ brownstone. Mrs. Lovecraft rubs her thin arms as we walk. “There’s nothing prettier than May in Boston,” she says. “When the dogwoods bloom. Though they hardly last.” We stop as Mr. Lovecraft slips off his scarf and wraps it around her neck. She lifts her hair. They don’t speak: this is a practiced act, an expected one.

“What Clarissa’s saying,” he says, tweaking the scarf, “is that you picked the perfect time to come back to us.”

I smile weakly at the ground. I am from Boston. I am supposed to know that this city is pretty in May but pretty doesn’t last. On the street corner ahead, laughter trails from a group leaving a restaurant. This is the restaurant next door, maybe not exactly the same restaurant where the Lovecrafts sat when Vivi disappeared, but the same spot. Which seems totally wrong, now that I’m on this well-lit sidewalk on Commonwealth Avenue. This is a busy part of the city, a neighborhood for sure, but still busy, and suddenly I want to know the details of Vivi’s abduction. How did the kidnapper get in? How did he escape with Vivi without anyone seeing? Is there an alley in the back? How did Temple not hear anything?