The Night Visitors(24)

“NO! I just told you, I was asleep . . . Fuck this! We have to find him.” Her eyes get big and she looks at me. “Unless you took him? Did you decide that I wasn’t good enough to take care of him and take him away?”

I ignore the fact that I have been wondering if Alice is able to take care of Oren and practice one of the techniques we learn in counseling instead: reflect back what you hear the client saying. “Why would I think that?” I ask. “Are you worried that you’re not able to take care of Oren?”

Like many of the techniques we learn in counseling, this one doesn’t fly so well on the ground. Alice looks like she’d like to smack me. I automatically shift my right foot back so I can pivot away from the blow if she does. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Atefeh tense behind the counter. Loud angry voices are triggering for her.

Looking at Alice, I consider what Frank said: There are things about this case you don’t understand. I’m beginning to think he’s right. I’ve made the mistake I caution my interns not to make: I’ve made assumptions. I’ve assumed that Alice is the victim because she’s the woman. But what if she’s the abuser? What if she killed her husband and fled with Oren because he’s a witness to her crime? I recall how Oren flinched when Alice touched his arm last night—and then this morning she grabbed him so hard she dislocated his shoulder.

I’ve made a terrible mistake. I should call Frank immediately, but if I give any indication that’s what I’m going to do, Alice will bolt. Then Frank won’t be able to question her. I have to keep her calm—and I have to find Oren.

“I bet he just went exploring,” I say with a calm I don’t feel. “Oren’s an adventurous boy. Let’s take a walk through the village. We can stop by Sanctuary and get one of my colleagues to help—”

“I don’t want any more of you people involved,” she cuts in.

“All our volunteers are pledged to confidentiality”—unless the client presents a threat to self or others, I think but don’t add—“and it’ll just be Doreen, who talked to you last night on the phone.” I’m hoping that Doreen will be there. I can park Alice with her and call Frank.

“But what if he comes back here looking for me?” she objects, but in a much weaker voice. I can tell that she’s running out of steam.

“Atefeh will keep an eye out for him. Won’t you, Atefeh?”

Atefeh nods eagerly, obviously relieved that the yelling has stopped. “That I will,” she says. “And I bet Ms. Lane is right. The boy has gone adventuring. My little boy is always running off, scaring me half to death, but he always comes back.”

Alice gives Atefeh a tight nod and then turns to me. “Shouldn’t we split up? We’ll cover more ground.”

I was afraid she would suggest this. “You don’t know the town,” I say. “I know the places a boy would hide.”

She gives me a strange look. “Is that because you had a little brother?”

Although I’ve prepared myself for a physical blow, I am completely unprepared for this. “How did you know about Caleb?” I demand.

Alice flinches as if I’m the one who’s out of control. “I—I saw his picture—and you have a lot of boy stuff in the house. What happened to him?”

“We’re wasting time,” I say. “Let’s start walking toward Sanctuary.”

I walk out quickly, not caring for the moment if she follows me or not. It’s been years since anyone asked me about Caleb and it feels like a violation. There’s something wrong about this woman . . . something . . .

And then it hits me. The picture of Caleb she said she saw. The only picture I have of Caleb is in my bedroom. What was this woman doing in my bedroom?

ALICE IS RIGHT that the reason I know where a boy would hide is because of Caleb. He was always running away.

He likes the attention, my mother would say when I called. But the summer I came back to stay, when Caleb was ten, it seemed to me that what he wanted was to disappear. No doubt it was because of the tension at home, which was worse than ever that summer. My father was always locked in his study poring over old case files, my mother scrubbing the kitchen floor until her knuckles bled. To get Caleb away I’d take him into town for an ice cream at Stewart’s, and when I turned around he would be gone. It scared me half to death the first time it happened; I thought he’d been kidnapped by a pervert trucker passing through town. I kept picturing his body discarded and broken at the bottom of a ravine—so I’d headed first for water.

As I do now. There’s a path that leads from the back of the Stewart’s parking lot down to the creek and a little swimming hole—the hollow, we called it, growing up. I’m scanning the path for footprints when Alice comes up behind me. “There!” she says, her voice sharp and hysterical. She points at the snow at the edge of the parking lot. “Those are Oren’s prints. The boots you gave him have that pattern on the sole and he splays his feet like that . . .” Her voice catches. She does love him, I think, but then I’ve seen people do the worst hurt to the people they love.

“So did Caleb,” I say, stepping off the asphalt into the snow. “My mother made him wear braces until he was ten.”

“The doctor said that doesn’t work,” Alice says, following me onto the wooded path.