Untethered Page 20

  “I’m not planning to.”

  “Good girl,” Char said, and then thought how ironic it was that she was praising the girl for her wisdom in making sure she got enough rest—before she drove the rest of the way to Florida, without permission, without a license, and with someone else’s ten-year-old. “Promise me you’ll stop soon. Before it gets too dark. I don’t want you two out on the highway in the dark—”

  “I know how to drive in the dark,” Allie said. But she changed her tone from argumentative to pleasant and added, “But I won’t. I promise. I’ll find a hotel.”

  “Near the highway,” Char said. “Not way down the road, miles away from the exit. Find a busy place with lots of people around. A chain, not some mom-and-pop place that might have sketchy security.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ask for a room high up, not on the ground floor. And make sure you lock the door twice. You know, with the deadbolt and the—”

  “The other metal thingy. Yeah, I know.”

  “Oh, wait,” Char said. “I just thought of this. You can’t rent a hotel room if you’re not eighteen.”

  “I look eighteen,” Allie said. “Close enough, anyway.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look. It might take a few tries, but somewhere there’s going to be a desk attendant who doesn’t really care if my ID checks out as long as I show him a handful of cash.”

  “That’s not comforting right now,” Char said. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to pull over right now and just wait for me to come and get you?”

  “And then what?” Allie said. “You drive us back, and we make a . . . return delivery . . . so the . . . package just ends up being sent someplace else? I told you, I’m not letting that happen. And that’s how things will go if we do what you’re asking. Unless you have another plan?”

  “No,” Char said.

  “Then we’re done talking.”

  “But—”

  “I’m hanging up now,” Allie said. “And I’m not talking to you again if all you’re going to do is tell me we should come home. That’s not happening.”

  “Allie—” Char tried.

  Her answer was a dial tone.

  “Shit.”

  Char stared at the cell phone in her hand. She’d never be able to talk Allie into turning around and coming home. And the girl wasn’t going to wait for Char to go get them and drag them back. Even if Char jumped in the car this minute to chase after them, how would she ever find them? She was out of her depth.

  For the second time, she found the nine on her phone, and this time, she pressed it. She pressed the one next. But she moved her finger away from the one before she could push it again. Now, in addition to taking a car without permission and driving without a license, Allie could add transporting a minor without her parents’ permission. They had surely crossed at least one state line already. Wasn’t that a major offense? Allie was only trying to help, but would that matter? What if this was one of those statutory offenses for which there was no defense? Could Allie be sent to jail?

  Char disconnected the call. She needed to figure out what the possible legal consequences could be to Allie before she sent the police after the girls. She pressed Colleen’s number, hit “speaker,” and left the phone on the kitchen counter as she dumped water into the coffee maker and scooped twice the normal amount of grounds into the filter. She would give Colleen the time it took to make and drink one pot of high-test coffee. If her friend hadn’t gotten back to her by then, Char would head out on her own.

  The call went to voice mail again. “Allie and Morgan took off, and I need you to come after them with me!” Char called across the kitchen. “Call me as soon as you get this! Or just come right over!” She was reaching to disconnect the call when the phone’s screen lit up: Lindy.

  “Shit!” She had already seen Lindy’s name flash twice before. Both times, she had pressed “ignore.” She couldn’t put the woman off any longer. She tapped “accept.”

  “Charlotte,” Lindy said. “I’m beginning to wonder what’s going on. I canceled a meeting so I could be available to take my daughter’s call—a call you assured me you’d have her make—and it never came. I’ve now left her four voice mails. And I’ve left two for you. All unreturned. If I can find time in my hectic schedule to try to track the two of you down, I would think that you . . .”

  Char held the phone at arm’s length and let Lindy lecture the air. The gall. Char had spent the past two hours frantically trying to assure the safety of the woman’s daughter, who was presently hurtling down I-75, and Lindy was bent out of shape about a few unreturned voice mails? What she would love to say to this woman.

  This woman, she reminded herself, who was completely unaware of what her daughter was up to—because Char hadn’t told her the truth. If anyone should be curling her lip in anger, it was Lindy. She had a right to know. Char cleared her throat and raised the phone back to her mouth.

  On the other hand, what could Lindy possibly do from Los Angeles? She couldn’t chase Allie down I-75. And if Char couldn’t get through to Allie about Morgan, there was no way Lindy could. Char at least knew Morgan, and loved her. Lindy, with her “That young child . . . Mason? Meghan?” and her “Tutoring is a waste of time if you’re not getting credit for it,” was hardly the right person to try to talk Allie down. Lindy would only make things worse.

  Allie’s mother had a right to know what was going on with her daughter, Char couldn’t deny that. But didn’t Char have rights, too? If not legal ones, then emotional ones? After all this time with Allie, after everything she had done for the child, didn’t she have the right to make some decisions of her own?

  Since January, she had been dutifully taking Lindy’s calls, answering every question the woman asked, reporting on Allie’s grades, her soccer training, her social life. And what had it gotten her, besides passive-aggressive reproaches from Lindy and harsh words from Allie?

  “I’m so sorry, Lindy,” she said. “Allie had a last-minute team dinner tonight, and I guess in all the rush of getting her home and showered and dressed and out the door, I forgot to tell her to call you. My mistake. As for her not answering or returning voice mails, I noticed after I dropped her off that she left her phone in my car. I’d have driven it back to her, but I’ve been on a call with a client since I got home, and . . .”

  She held her breath, hoping Lindy would take the bait.

  “Oh,” Lindy said. “I completely understand. We’ve got to take those client calls, don’t we! Just have her call when her dinner’s over.”

  “Uh . . .” Char said. “The thing is . . . it’s a sleepover.” She couldn’t believe how quickly and easily the lies were coming. It wasn’t so difficult, now, to imagine how Morgan could lead Allie down a long trail of untruths. Once you opened the gate, they marched right out. “They have the day off school tomorrow. Because of . . . professional development.

  “So they decided to have a dinner and sleepover. They’re evidently going to spend the entire night watching soccer movies. You know, Bend It Like Beckham, that kind of thing. I don’t think I’ll be seeing her until pretty late in the day tomorrow. You know teenagers and their late mornings.” Stereotypical teenagers and their stereotypical late mornings, that is.

  “Oh, of course,” Lindy said, still oblivious to her own daughter’s sleep-wake schedule. “Well, have her call me when she gets home tomorrow afternoon, then, please.”

  “Will do,” Char said.

  She clicked “end call,” and was about to try dialing Colleen again when the doorbell rang.

  “Oh, thank God! Colleen!” She must have picked up her voice mail message and come right over. Char jogged to the door and flung it open.

  There, standing on the front porch, her shirt only partly tucked into her too-loose pants, her unbrushed, unwashed hair hanging in her face, was Sarah Cr
ew.

  Thirty-two

  Char led Sarah to the family room and offered her coffee. “I put a pot on a few minutes ago. It should be done soon. Have you spoken to Dave? I was at your house earlier, but you were out. Do you know what’s going on? Do you have more information about . . . I don’t know . . . anything?”

  “No coffee for me, thanks,” Sarah said. She put a hand on her stomach as though the idea of ingesting anything nauseated her. She didn’t answer Char’s other questions.

  Char settled into one of the armchairs and regarded Sarah, who took the other. Char tried not to gape at the other woman, who had, in the two weeks since Char had seen her, morphed into an entirely different person. Gone was the upright posture, the hands held just so. For the first time Char could recall, Sarah wasn’t inspecting her shirt for creases, pulling up her socks, dusting lint from her pants, straightening her shirt.

  Sarah’s oversized T-shirt was stained at the collar, and there was a small hole in the knee of her pants. Char could see the waistband of Sarah’s pants and noticed another first for the woman: she wore no cute belt, carefully chosen to match her shoes. She wore no makeup, either, and no jewelry other than her wedding band.

  Her eyebrows, normally plucked into obedient parentheses, had been ignored for at least a few weeks, by Char’s estimation. Which was, Char guessed, the amount of time Sarah hadn’t been eating. Her wrists and collarbones were knobs and her face, once full, was sunken. No one would have described Sarah as angular before, or even thin. She had been like Char: padded. Now she was headed for emaciated.

  The few minutes that Sarah had been in the house was the longest Char had seen her go without brushing hair from her forehead, tucking it behind one ear or the other, smoothing it at the back. And no wonder—the strands poking out of her careless ponytail were so greasy that even in her current mental state, however it could be described, there was no way Sarah would want to touch it.

  Char thought about the shocking state of the Crews’ house. She recalled the last time she had seen Sarah, the Monday after spring break, and how Sarah’s makeup had looked like she’d applied it in the dark. Clearly, whatever was wrong had begun back then, and now Char was furious with herself for not pressing Sarah about it at the time. The woman had let Stevie make grime angels and splash his feet into a dirty puddle of water, for God’s sake. Char never should have ignored such obvious clues.

  “Sarah, are you ill?” she asked, putting a hand on the other woman’s knee. “Is that what all of this is about? Is that why you sent Morgan to stay with your aunt and uncle? Is that why . . .” She stopped herself. There was no polite way to inquire about the changes in Sarah’s appearance, the state of her home.

  Sarah shook her head. “No, I’m not sick. Not physically, anyway. Mentally, I’m not sure . . .”

  As Sarah struggled for words, Char walked to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. She added milk, took a sip, and winced. It was awful. But she didn’t want to have to make coffee stops on the way, and she wanted to give Colleen a chance to get her message. She wouldn’t force herself to finish the entire pot, she decided, but she would take the time to swallow two full cups, no matter how bad they tasted.

  She walked back to the family room with her coffee. Sarah was still trying to finish her sentence, and Char tried to be patient. She had no idea why Sarah was here, and once she had finished her second cup, she was going to stop waiting to find out. She felt badly about that—she was worried about Sarah. But she was more worried about the girls.

  “You talked to Allie,” Sarah said. “I heard you say so to Dave.”

  “How could you have heard?” Char asked. “You were at the store.”

  “No,” Sarah said. “He lied. I was upstairs, and our window was open. I was listening—”

  “What? Why would he lie about that?”

  “Did she say how Morgan is?” Sarah asked. “How she’s feeling?”

  “Why don’t you answer my question first?”

  But Sarah went on as though she hadn’t heard. “Is she . . . ?” She let out a long, ragged breath. “I don’t know what I’m asking. I want you to tell me that she’s okay. That she’s perfectly . . .” Her voice broke, and she covered her face with a hand. “Fine,” she continued. “That she’s happy, even, now that she’s with Allie. But of course you can’t.”

  “She didn’t say,” Char said. “We didn’t talk very long. But it sounds like you must have had some idea that Morgan wasn’t happy. Did you? When you talked to her on the phone, did she mention she didn’t like it there? Did she say why? Did she give any hint that she was thinking of running away?”

  Sarah didn’t respond, and Char felt her patience fading. She drained her cup and stood. “Look, I’m really sorry for whatever’s going on. You’re clearly not yourself, and you obviously don’t want to tell me why, or answer any of my questions. I wish I had time to sit here with you and figure out why, but I don’t.”

  She headed for the kitchen and her second cup of coffee. “So, let’s just forget I asked,” she said as she walked away. “You don’t have to tell me why your husband lied about the grocery store—”

  “He didn’t just lie about the grocery store!” Sarah cried. “He lied about Morgan!”

  Char spun around and walked back to the family room. “How did he lie about Morgan?”

  Sarah was sitting ramrod straight now, her body rigid, her hands clutched together. “She wasn’t with my aunt and uncle! She was . . . she was with . . .” She interlaced her fingers as though in prayer and squeezed her hands together tightly, her forearms straining with the effort.

  Char dropped into her chair, her legs unable to support the rest of her body. Her chest constricted and she pressed the heel of a hand against it, massaging. “She was with . . . ?” she asked.

  Sarah, still pressing her hands together, rocked forward and back as though gathering steam to answer.

  “Sarah. Honestly. I do not have time—”

  “She was with strangers!” Sarah shrieked, and as she did, she brought both hands to her head as though trying to keep her skull from coming apart. “Everything she told Allie was true!”

  Char leaned forward until her face was mere inches from the other woman’s. “What are you telling me?”

  “We gave her away!” Sarah cried.

  “You what? What do you mean, you gave her away? Does Dave know?”

  Sarah tilted her head, thrown off by the question, and Char lifted her hands dumbly. Of course Dave knew. He was the one, according to Allie, who drove Morgan to Toledo.

  Char thought of the night the sheriff’s department had called her about Bradley. She kept asking, “But what do you mean, he didn’t survive?” as though there could be further explanation. Allie, too, had asked the nonsensical “But is he all right?”

  “We gave her away,” Sarah said softly. And again, she said, “We gave her away,” as though she still couldn’t believe it herself. “Saturday morning, the weekend after spring break. Twelve days”—she looked at the clock on the wall above the TV—“seven hours, and fifteen minutes ago.”

  Thirty-three

  I can’t . . .” Char stuttered. “I’m not following. What does that even mean, you ‘gave her away’? How do you give away a child? And why on earth would you do that to Morgan?”

  “We didn’t want to,” Sarah said. “But we didn’t have a choice. You have to believe me. There was no other way—”

  “No other way?” Char asked. “No other way to what? And what do you mean, you didn’t have a choice? Under what circumstances could anyone think they had no other choice but to ship their own child off to—”

  “We almost lost Stevie!” Sarah wailed, and Char scooted backward in her chair as though Sarah’s voice had blown her there. Sarah pressed her hands onto her knees, her entire upper body taut, then sprang out of her chair as though she could no lon
ger contain the energy inside her. She crossed to the wall of windows at the back of the family room and began to pace.

  “Lost him?” Char asked, swiveling toward the windows and the woman wearing a path in front of them. “What are you talking about?”

  “She started using razor blades! She started cutting herself with razor blades! And one day over spring break, she thought her bedroom door was locked but it wasn’t, and Stevie walked in on her, and he saw! The next day, he got hold of one of the blades and he tried to mimic what he’d seen her do. But he has that terrible fine motor control, you know, and he must have slipped, or pushed too hard, and—”

  “Oh my God!” Char said, on her feet now, too. “Wait, did you say spring break? So, he’s okay, then, because I saw him after that. That’s why he had a bandage on his arm.” She put a hand on her chest and let out a relieved breath. “Thank God he’s okay.”

  “This time!” Sarah said, still pacing, her arms gesticulating wildly. “And not completely okay. He has nerve damage. Two of his fingers aren’t working! They’re not sure how long that will last. It could be—”

  “This time?” Char asked. “But I can’t believe he’d ever do it again. He only did it to copy her, you said so. Not because he wanted the release she gets. All that’s in it for him is a lot of pain. I’m sure he’d never go near another—”

  “But what if he does?” Sarah said. “Don’t you see? He copies everything she does! As long as she’s in the house, and cutting, there’s a chance he’ll see her doing it again. And he’ll copy her again! And who knows what might happen! Sending her away was the only choice we had!”

  “But she loves him so much!” Char said. “She must feel terrible about this. Enough to stop it herself. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for him.”

  “She won’t! She can’t!”

  “Why can’t you just keep razor blades out of the house?”

  “Don’t you think we thought of that?” Sarah said. “We got rid of all the blades a long time ago. It’s the first thing we did. We locked up the knives and the scissors, too. She stole a pack from the store near our house, and she hid them in her room. She can’t help herself!”