The Water Keeper(51)

Over the last twenty years, my back had been tattooed with a long list of names in paragraph form stretching from the edge of my left shoulder blade to the edge of my right shoulder blade. By now the paragraph was thirty lines and eight inches long. An ink column down my spine.

Her lips moved as she read each name out loud. One after another. “There must be a hundred . . .”

I spoke without looking at her. I knew them by heart and in order. “Two hundred and twelve.”

“Who are they?”

When I answered, the remaining stones of a wall she’d erected to protect herself from me shattered in a pile of rubble at our feet. If we’d been staring through the window at the table set before us, we were now seated. White tablecloth. Buffet before us. The faces attached to each of the names flashed across my mind’s eye. Each distinct. Each anchored in time and place. The pain returned beneath the scars. As did the laughter, the screams, and the silence. I shifted beneath their weight. “Daughters. Friends. Moms. Broken children like . . .”

She stood, holding one hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. “Angel?”

I shook my head. “Like you and me.”

She dropped her hands and wrapped her arms around my stomach, pressing her chest to my back. Holding me and wanting to be held. She spoke with her face to my back while I bled. “Tell me about them?”

“What do you want to know?”

She read the sixth name on the third line. “Fran McPherson.”

“Number thirty-six. Fourteen at the time of her disappearance. Taken from a Boston school bus stop. Sold in southwest Texas. We stole her back in Mexico. She’s now married with two boys. Husband is an architect.”

“Blythe Simpson.”

“Fifty-eighth. Seventeen at the time. Not real compliant until it got real bad because she was having too much fun. Last seen in Chicago. We found her in New Orleans. Spent a couple years in rehab. Talented artist. Overdosed eleven years ago. Opioids.”

She dragged her finger gently up my back and whispered, “Melody Baker.”

“Number seven. Twelve years old. New York City. Taken out through the window of a movie theater bathroom while her parents shared a bucket of popcorn. We lost the trail in Managua, Nicaragua. Her body was found on the shoreline by fishermen a hundred miles away.”

Summer swallowed and said, “Kim Blackman.”

“One hundred and eighty-third. Eight years old. Taken in Dallas. Day care. Flown to Seattle. Later to Brazil. A year later, I found her in a hospital in South Africa. She died six hours later.”

I felt her finger move across my skin. “Amanda Childs.”

“Two hundred and fifth. Thirteen at the time, which was three years ago. Still missing.”

Summer stood crying. Finally, she moved her finger to a single name, tattooed at the base of my neck, above the paragraph. While the names had been tattooed in script, this word had been etched in small, bold block letters. Her question fell to a broken whisper. “Apollumi?”

“It’s a Greek word. It means ‘that which was lost.’ Or ‘to perish . . . die.’”

“Why?”

“It’s a reminder.”

“Of?”

“The consequences.”

“Of what?”

“Not going.”

Summer hugged me from behind again. “And Angel? Where will you put her name?”

I turned. “We’ll find—”

Her eyes narrowed and she pressed her finger to my lips. “How do you know?”

I wrapped my hands around her arms.

She was shaking her head when she spoke. “She’s already gone, isn’t she? I’m living in a fairy tale.”

“No. She’s not.”

“She’s gone, isn’t she?”

I held her by the arms. “Summer.”

She wouldn’t look at me.

“Summer!”

Her eyes found mine. She was cracking.

“You have to let me do what I do. She’s not gone. Not yet. If she were, I’d tell you. It would hurt too much not to.” I looked around. “We’ve got a couple of problems and I need to get to work on them. And I need your help. Starting with not bleeding to death. You standing here crying and me bleeding does no good. Just makes you tired and me weak.”

She stared at my back. “How do you live this way? Why not just move on? Forget. Live your life.”

I shook my head once. “Once you step foot into this world, there is no moving on. No forgetting.” I tapped my back. “No matter what happened to put them on the list, no matter what they might have done or not done, these are people. They laugh. Hurt. Cry. Hope. Dream. Love. I wrote them in ink so I won’t ever forget. They go where I go. Always.” Blood dripped onto the floor. Dark red, warm, and sticky. A single tear drained out of my eye and mixed with the mess on the floor. “These are the names I carry.”





Chapter 22


Summer had sewn her fair share of costumes both on and off Broadway, which proved helpful. Once she had closed all the leaks in my hull—a phrase that had caused her to laugh the most delightful laugh—she brought me some clean clothes from Gone Fiction and we returned to the dock. One of our biggest problems had to be addressed quickly.