Mother May I(87)

In my mind she wasn’t the woman from the mug shot, with her picked, grayed skin and thin hair, middle-aged and brittle. She was the fresh-faced, pretty girl that Trey had known. I half expected her to come at us right now, screaming out of the trees, her wide-set eyes lamplit by rage.

Robert and I both had to go and get checked out at the hospital. Everyone was so kind to me. We were the victims after all. A policeman talked to me there, but just a little. A few questions. There would be more later. By then I’d have a lawyer with me. Trey had called to put Leticia Marks, Gabrielle’s friend, on retainer. He’d called his family, too, and his father was mobilizing a fleet of lawyers and publicists. The Cabbats had a vested interest in keeping details out of the press. This distant flurry of activity mattered little to me in the moment, and yet I thought that one day I’d be grateful for it.

Trey was the one who called my mother. She brought the girls home, and he sat them down and told them all an extremely expurgated version of the weekend, while I sat quiet, Robert in my lap, my daughters pressing in close against my sides.

That night Leticia sat by me in my own great room as I gave my statement to the police. Marshall had already given his. I stuck to his story, truthful about all things except that one, my answers short and broken. It was easy to follow his instructions, because I could not stop crying.

The whole time Lexie Pine was a blur of motion that kept catching in the corner of my eye. I felt her breath in every breeze that touched my neck. I heard the whisper of her feet in every hallway.

After Leticia and the cops left, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in our big bed staring at the window. The drapes were open, the way Trey liked them, because once the lights were off, I needed to see out. Lexie Pine had Peyton’s house keys. Or at least no one had found them up at Funtime. Trey had already called a locksmith, who was going to redo all our doors, even our back gate, tomorrow morning. As for tonight I hoped Lexie Pine had not yet learned that her mother’s business was unfinished, but I had to see for myself that she was not standing in her mother’s old footprints, bending my basil plants to press her nose against our glass.

Robert slept between us, my hand on his chest, so that I could feel him breathing. I looked at him, then out the window to our moon-drenched, peaceful yard, back and forth, again and again. The simple act of closing my eyes started a panic attack. So I watched over him until almost dawn, when I was tired enough to drift off without noticing.

I dreamed the concrete stairs that led to Funtime. Coral was waiting for me there. Carousel music drifted down, a garish, joyous waltz. I climbed up to find the painted animals whole again, rising and falling on golden posts. Coral rode astride a perfect lion, noble as Aslan, wreathed in living roses. As I reached the edge of the ride, she smiled at me and checked her cheap watch, and all around me the world exploded into fire and ash. I bolted upright to find a regular sunny Monday. Well, almost regular.

Peyton and Anna-Claire were in the kitchen, arguing over coconut milk yogurt flavors, as if a pair of bulky, silent ex-soldiers from the private security firm that Trey had hired weren’t sitting nearby at the kitchen table. They knew that their brother had been taken by the same woman who the police believed had snuck into the gala and murdered Spencer Shaw, and yet here they were, fussing over the last honey-vanilla. Perhaps the presence of these large armed men relaxed my anxious middle child. My oldest, I thought, was a little bit excited by it all. The drama of having bodyguards appealed to her. She lost out on the yogurt in the end because she was too involved in nine simultaneous group chats to fight for it.

I had to remind myself that they hadn’t known about Robert’s absence until it was over. They’d been at their grandma’s, making cookies, sleeping in. He was safe before they ever knew he’d been in danger.

My mother was still upstairs, asleep in a guest room. She’d been more upset than the girls. Too upset to go home. But also strangely vindicated. She didn’t say out loud that this proved the world was as blackhearted as she’d always said; she didn’t have to. I’d made her promise to go home this morning and make an appointment with her doctor, maybe go back on her antianxiety medication for a little. I thought I ought to find us all therapists. Ones who specialized in trauma. I wanted mine to have an M.D., so she could write prescriptions. Prescriptions sounded pretty good.

I made avocado toast for Anna-Claire, wondering how I could stand to let them go to school. I wanted to keep things normal for them, as much as I could. In the end I put Robert in his car seat and drove them myself.

An ex–Army Ranger named Mills went with us. His partner, Maxwell, discreetly followed in a dark sedan. It was a strange ride. Mills was young and beautiful, built like a movie star with a low fade haircut and a gun. Anna-Claire kept leaning up between the seats to ask him questions about his job and his military service and whether or not he was a dog person. She was both overconfidently flirty and thirteen years old, which made poor Mills wildly uncomfortable. He kept cutting his eyes at me, giving short, awkward answers while Peyton giggled.

I couldn’t help him. The closer we got to St. Alban’s, the tighter my chest screwed shut around my lungs. Robert had been stolen from this very campus. In the car-pool line, I gripped the wheel so tight that the blood drained from my hands. It was all I could do to let the girls get out and go inside. Then I sat frozen until the cars stuck behind me started tapping their horns in brief, polite peeps. I pulled forward, out of the way, but leaving wasn’t possible.