The Leaving(71)

“Why would this sicko take pictures at all?” her mother asked.

“I don’t know,” Chambers said. “He saved a lot of stuff. Drawings the kids made, that kind of thing. He appears to have been a bit of a sentimentalist. Or he was keeping everything because he was afraid if he threw it out it would be found and lead the police to him? I have no idea.”

“But what about Anchor Beach?” Scarlett asked as she set down that photo to look at others: Riding a bike with a banana seat and handlebar streamers.


Wearing a pale-pink bodysuit and tutu, arms arched overhead.


“I don’t know what to tell you, Scarlett. I guess it’s possible you figured out some way to get there? I spoke with the security guard, and he seems legit, but beyond that, I’m not sure what to do. We showed your photos around but didn’t get any other hits.”

“I swallowed that penny,” she said. “It must be important.”

“I know you’re frustrated,” he said. “But look—” He indicated the photos. “This is real.”

Scarlett gestured to the brown bag. “You said you had clothes?”

Chambers took a clear plastic bag from the brown one, opened it. He started to unfold a few things, but Scarlett reached to the bottom of the pile, for the jacket.

She nearly gasped.

It was mostly pale gray with sections of aqua and lavender.

Sort of quilted but in large patches so not overly busy.

Not particularly well made—a few stray threads knotted off poorly, and a lot of weird extra stitches—like those rectangles she’d made—on the inside back, but at least you couldn’t see all that when you wore it.

Chambers held forward a photograph of her wearing the jacket.

She looked like who she felt like she was in it.

“You recognize it?”

She slid the jacket on and it felt right, too. “Can I keep it?”

“Sorry,” Chambers said. “Not yet.”


When he left, her mother sat down at the dining room table and started to cry. Comet came out of hiding and hopped up onto the table, then gingerly climbed down to her lap.

“You okay?” Scarlett asked.

Her mother shook her head, moved Comet, got up, and went to the kitchen. She got a glass out of one cabinet and a bottle of vodka out of another. She put them on the table in front of her and sat down again.

“I don’t think—” Scarlett said.

“I never got to play Tooth Fairy. Or teach you how to ride a bike. Or how to jump rope. I never got to take you shopping, like for a fancy dress. Or go to a ballet recital. Or tell you about the birds and the bees. Or have your friends for a sleepover and yell at you all to go to bed. Or tell you you were too young to date.”

Scarlett nodded, not sure what to say.

“I used to drink when you were really small because you needed me so badly that I couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle the fear, like of something happening to me or to you.” She poured an inch of vodka into the glass, put the bottle back down. “Now that you’re back, these past bunch of days, I feel like drinking because you don’t need me anymore.”

She put her hand on the glass, stared at it, but then started to cry.

“And I missed everything in between. Everything in between is supposed to be the good stuff. I just,” in between gasps, “I just. I can’t believe it’s really over.”

“Me neither,” Scarlett said, looking away as mascara started to fill wrinkles around her mother’s eyes.


Realized she meant it a different way than the way it sounded.


She couldn’t believe it was over.


Because it wasn’t.


Something still wasn’t right.


Letting go of the glass, her mother yanked a tissue from a box, seemed to declare her cry over. “We need to move on.” She stood and took the glass and bottle back to the kitchen. “Steve wants to take us on a vacation. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

And dumped all the vodka down the sink, the bottle glugging empty.

“Yes,” Scarlett said. “We should do all that.”

The doorbell rang and Scarlett assumed it would be Chambers, having forgotten something?

Opened the door and was surprised, instead, to see Kristen.

“Hey,” Scarlett said.

“Can we talk?” Kristen said, then looked at Tammy, who said, “Nice to see you, too, Kristen,” and left the room.

“Sorry, did I interrupt a moment?”

“It’s okay.” Scarlett stepped out, and they sat on the bottom steps together. “What’s going on?”

Kristen leaned back on two elbows. “I remembered something else under hypnosis this morning.”

“About your journal?” Scarlett asked greedily.

“No, not that. Well, actually yes, I remembered more about the owl. It was carved in wood or something. But that’s not why I’m here. It’s, well, you’re really not going to like it.”

Scarlett took a deep breath, exhaled it.

It was a collage art day. Ridiculously blue sky. Cotton-ball clouds. A sailboat in construction-paper colors on the horizon.

It seemed a shame to ruin it with . . . whatever it was.

And yet . . . “Tell me.”