The Leaving(5)

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“Yes, but no one remembers anything.”

The woman seemed not as confused. “Well, that’s common.”



What could that possibly mean?



But then Scarlett looked at the papers on the table beside the sofa where she was sitting. Paranormal Underground magazine. UFOlogist Monthly. The cover of Open Minds had a story called “ETs and Religion.”

“Do you think we were abducted by aliens?” Scarlett asked.

“You got any better ideas where you’ve been all this time?” the woman asked with a bit of an edge.


All.

This.

Time.




A person doesn’t accumulate that many magazines in one night, or even a week.

“How long was I gone, exactly?” Scarlett asked, slowly, as a series of revelations clicked into place.



She had never before sat on this couch.



She had never before seen the cat that had peeked out once but was now hiding under an armchair by the television.



“You really don’t know?” The woman shook with tears. “You don’t know?”



????

????Know???????

??????????????? what?


The woman sat beside her on the sofa, took up her hand again. “You all disappeared eleven years ago.”

Scarlett pulled her hand away; the room spun around her.

One spin.

Two.

Three spins.

Four.

Who was this crazy person?

Five spins.

Sixseveneightnineten spins.

You couldn’t be somewhere for eleven years and not remember.

“I always believed they’d bring you back.” The woman put her hand to her heart and eyes toward the sky. “That we were chosen for this special thing for a reason.”

It was closing in on 2:00 a.m., according to the clock on the dining room wall, and Scarlett felt her body starting to shut down.

Like the lights going off in a large building, wing by wing, fuse by fuse.

Legs—clunk—out.

Lungs—clunk—out.

Head about to shut down

down





down.





She very suddenly wanted only to sleep. “I need to lie down.”

The woman said “Of course,” then wiped away tears and said she had to call some people, to tell them the news. “Steve’s never gonna believe it,” she muttered. Then she went into her bedroom with her cell phone.

Scarlett lay on the couch, but it smelled of cat, so she got up and went down the other short hall to where she knew her room had been.

And still was.

Exactly as she had left it?

The life-size cardboard cutout of Glinda, the good witch, from her Wizard of Oz–themed fifth birthday party.

The purple hanging canopy adorned with butterflies and ribbons that created a little nook in the corner.

The My Little Pony stickers on the wall.

They seemed familiar.

She liked the feeling.

She wanted to run.

Scarlett stretched out on a cupcake-print comforter—on her back, fingers laced over her belly, as if in her own coffin.

A mobile made out of wire and puffy plastic princess stickers hung from the ceiling.

She stared at it and tried to remember something. Tried to remember anything or everything.



Long stripes of blue, green, red, and yellow, with black stripes in between.

The feeling of floating away, possibly forever.


The wonder of it all, of a bird’s-eye view.



Unable to sleep after maybe twenty minutes of lying there and drifting through the sky . . .


Clouds . . .


A flock of birds





Below, a river.



Or . . . ?



She got up, went down the hall, through the living room, and out onto the terrace off the dining room. The beach—the Gulf—seemed to whisper an invitation, so she went down and across the patio and through the gate and stepped out onto the sand. It was cool and soft beneath her bare feet. Down to the right, the shoreline was rainbow-speckled, hotels aiming colored lights into the night. The boom-boom-boom of a far-off dance party tempted her. She could run there—that way—until she found it.

Found him.

Wait.

Who?

Lucas.

Or she could fold into the crowd like she belonged there, maybe disappear again through some dance-floor trapdoor.

The water was calm, lakelike. Putting her feet into the warm surf, she looked down at her toes.

When had they last felt the ocean?

Eleven years?

Then looked up at stars.

Aliens?

Really?

So very many stars.

She didn’t think she’d visited any but what-did-she-know-not-much.

No wonder her mother had had so many strange questions—“Can I check you for scars?” “Are you still a virgin?”; probably other people would, too. Maybe answers would come. In time.

Or maybe it was better to forget.

Because didn’t this qualify as a happy ending?

There’s no place like home even if home smells of cat dander and ashes and desperation.