Mother May I(23)

“I need some food. And maybe a cup of coffee.” He was trying to pull loose.

I shook my head, kept my hand on his arm. “These pills work so much faster. Charcoal pills.”

That got his interest. “Charcoal pills? I think I’ve heard of that. Is it a prescription?”

“No, of course not. It’s more like a vitamin. You can get them at CVS.” I traded the flask for the pill bottle and rattled the capsules for him, careful to keep my hand over the label. “They line your stomach. They’re for if your kid accidentally takes too much medicine or eats a Tide Pod.”

This was true. I still had some at home, left over from when Peyton was a toddler on a mission to find something poisonous and shove it into her little pink mouth. Activated charcoal came in capsules much like the ones in the bottle. They were black instead of blue, but it was dark. If he ever saw a real charcoal pill, it wouldn’t look that different.

At the same time, this was insanely risky. Hypnodorm, I assumed, would only wreck memories formed after it was in his system. He wouldn’t remember the daughter, but he might very well remember me giving him these pills. That might be the last thing he remembered, actually. I had no idea what the mother wanted her girl to get from him, but all I could do was hope he was too drunk to connect it to this moment.

I opened the bottle, dumped the pills into my hand, and then quickly put it away. I was worried he might get it in his head to read the label. I held them out for him. “I bring them to parties in case I overdo it. A couple of these babies and I’m good to drive.”

This was pure fantasy. Activated charcoal didn’t absorb alcohol.

“They really work?”

“Sure,” I said. “I mean, it isn’t a miracle or anything, but they’ll undo a couple of drinks.”

I could see a faint shaking in my hand. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.

Spence was interested. “I take three?”

God, I didn’t want to hurt him. Roofies could interact with alcohol. Dangerously. Google had said so.

I said, “I usually take two.”

I almost whispered it, hiding the words under the moan of the distant cello, in case the daughter was nearby. She might be hiding in the curvy paths of the Orchid Center, waiting to take Spence in hand. I said it as a sop to guilt, even as I rendered him helpless for a woman who wished him ill. And truthfully, I would have done much worse than this to Spence. To anyone. To save Robert.

“Yeah, but you weigh what? A buck-twenty?” He grabbed all three out of my hand and popped them into his mouth, then washed them down with the dregs of his drink.

I was instantly so relieved it made me dizzy. I felt myself sway, putting one hand on an arch to steady myself.

“Easy there, hon!” he said, smiling. “Maybe you needed those pills.”

I smiled back, light-headed. I had obeyed, fully, and whatever happened now, my part was finished. I would get Robert back. She had promised. I was woozy with joy and a thousand other, fainter feelings: guilt and worry and mistrust and a sick, sick fear.

I said, “I took a Lyft here, no worries.”

He smiled. “Then you can drink that Pappy. I’m jealous, but I need to go butter some clients. I haven’t so much as said hello to the Clausens, and you better believe I will hear about it from Jim Astor if they escape before I do.” He turned to go, lumbering up the narrow path. At the turn he paused. “Thanks, Bree. You and Trey, you always have my back.”

Then he was gone. My spine sagged. I almost sat down right there on the hard stone floor. I leaned against the arch instead, digging in my purse for the cheap phone. The mother had told me to text her as soon as I got the pills down Spence, but I wanted to call. I wanted to hear my son breathing or eating or even crying.

There was only one number in the contacts. Robert. I stared at his name, as if the letters could bring me closer to him. I would have him soon, back in my arms. Tomorrow, she’d said. I pressed the message icon instead of the call button. I wanted to do everything perfectly. The hard part was over. I could not mess up now.

It’s done.



It took an endless span of seconds for her to answer. I could see the dot-dot-dot in the window. My heart was still pounding, and I still felt dizzy, but I could not fall apart. Not yet. Not until I had him back.

Good. Now go home.



I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Not without more assurance.

When will you give him back? I felt my body shivering.

When it’s finished. Go home.



I couldn’t tell if she was being reassuring or threatening, or if she was scared, like me. The words could be read as cold, but I remembered the tremble in her voice. Her own child was here, up to something risky. The daughter had to intercept Spence now, tempt him away from the crowd. The mother had to be so frightened for her child. We were alike in this.

My clammy hands texted, I understand. I will get out of your daughter’s way. But please, can you please tell me when I’ll get Robert back?

STOP TEXTING ME AND GO HOME. I’ll call you in the morning.



I felt my head shake back and forth. The morning was a thousand years from now. She’d said “tomorrow” from the start. But I had done what she asked, and I wanted Robert now.

Then a wild hope rose. What if the instructions for getting him back were at my house already? She could have left them there, the way she’d left the phone and the bottle of pills, hanging on my door. She could be setting Robert himself down in my backyard, his infant carrier crushing the basil plants by the window where I’d first seen her. It was a crazy thought, but that didn’t change the effect. All at once I was moving, almost running, flushed with new urgency. Roofies worked fast. Ten minutes, fifteen, Google said. I had to get out, get home, and not see the face of the woman who came to gather up a reeling, slurring Spence. If the mother thought I was a threat to her child, she’d be a threat to mine.