I want to tell Jed he’s wrong, that he doesn’t understand how deep this thing goes. But I also want to demand that he marry me, that he save me from this. Take this man or any man you can get your hands on. Maybe that is your wish for me. Maybe that’s the solution, the only way I can stop myself from disappearing.
* * *
—
The next week rocks me back into your world without you: riding horses, cleaning windows, riding horses, cleaning windows. Every day at five o’clock, I go back to my cabin, force down a peanut butter sandwich and fall asleep. My body aches but it’s oddly pleasant, and I think, Maybe I should give up. Maybe I should let go. Maybe I need to accept that you can’t find someone who was born to be gone. But every night, I still switch on your podcast. I still fall asleep to the sound of your voice.
Episode 64: They told her she was crazy to think anything nefarious had occurred.
Episode 18: They looked the other way.
Episode 37: The case went cold.
All the missing women, and the story ends the same way. The story ends when people stop looking, when they stop searching, when no more evidence is found. I won’t let your story end that way. I won’t let my story end that way. I won’t give up. I won’t stop looking. If Jed is right, if I’m looking for you because I’m lost too, then finding you will save you and me both.
I still have my list of names. I still have Clementine. I think of what she said about you, that you were friends when you were young, when everyone was friends. Tasia said that same thing, and I think how alike we are in our aloneness. I think that no one would look for me if I disappeared. But then I think you might.
I make a plan. I will offer to speak to Clementine’s class. And I will make her tell me everything about you to return the favor. I rub the windows like I can force everything to be clear.
A couple times a day, your mother checks in on me. She admires my work ethic, my dedication, the fire in my belly.
“You’re a hard worker,” she says. “I like that.”
She tells me stories of the latest disasters—the PC culture is destroying this country; all those shootings are a government conspiracy to get her to give up her guns; the people that own the land across the way are growing cannabis and they want to get her out—and all the potions she has conjured to solve them: thoughts and prayers, lavender to sleep, calendula around the perimeter to overpower the stench of cannabis. Then she sighs and says, “We’re so happy you’re here.” Over and over.
One night she invites me to dinner at the main house. “We’re going to have everyone over. All the staff.” I assume she means me and Jed. “We’ll eat out on the patio.”
“Do you want me to bring anything?” I ask although the concept is ridiculous. What could I bring? I’m not supposed to leave.
“Just yourself.” She flashes a smile that flushes hot youth through her face, and then she leaves me to my windows, to the meticulous, solitary, bone-crushing work of making glass disappear.
I think about you almost all the time, often in an exhausted, abstract way, but other times I examine Tasia’s words for clues. She seemed so angry at you—why? Because you let yourself be affected by a girl’s disappearance? She seemed angry and afraid, and she didn’t like you? What was she afraid of? And what did you argue about the day Florence disappeared?
After work, I lie down for a moment and fall asleep. Heated dreams swirl through my head, and I hear your voice, hear your angry voice like it’s right outside.
I get out of bed, still off-balance. I put on one of the shirts your mother gave me, a bright orange flannel with daisies embroidered in a chain around my neck. I walk across the ranch as the sun lowers, throwing dapples through the trees.
As I pass by the garden, I notice a brown patch where the blackberry bushes have died. Was that there before? I step closer, timidity infecting my limbs. The thorny bushes have gone a pale beige color, shriveled and receded, revealing what lies beneath. I step forward. I tip the thorny bush with the toe of my shoe, and that’s when I see it, the shape of a tiny pale hand, fingers outstretched.
My heart throbs in my chest. My neck breaks a sweat, like I’ve been found guilty. I swivel my eyes around the ranch, feeling watched.
“There’s something here,” I say out loud, even if no one is listening.
It’s a baby. There is a baby in the bushes.
* * *
—
I crouch down on my knees. I feel sick and then I think—Don’t leave your DNA! I cover my hand with my shirt and peel back the blackberry bushes so I can see the body, laid out in the shadows.
It’s a doll. It’s a doll, and somewhere I knew that. But I remember so many episodes where real dead bodies were described: I thought it was a mannequin. I thought the blood was spilled red wine.
I know that I should leave it, but I use my sleeve-covered hand to drag it out. The displacement in the bushes releases a rich, rotting smell that pushes me back. The doll falls on my lap. There are puncture wounds in her chest and scratch marks on her cheek. I am reminded of Murder of a Jane Doe 1, like I have found the body you told me about. And for a moment it is as if that story is not just real, but here with me. Like everything you told me was not only true, but also tied to this ranch, to you, to me.
We had a nursery; that was the worst thing. We had a nursery with yellow walls like the walls of your yellow house. I tried to move the furniture so many times. I tried to redecorate, make it an office that no one worked in or a guest room that no one slept in. But really it was just an empty room, yellow and empty, like your house.
And I’m sitting alone in the dirt, holding a doll. Who is the crazy woman? Who is the one losing her mind?
* * *
—
I hear the sound of a party before I arrive, and I think I must be imagining it. Your mother hates everyone. Who would she invite? I left the doll propped up at the side of the greenhouse. I felt bad leaving it, but I also didn’t particularly want to take it home with me.
When I arrive at the house, I see another big black truck parked outside. Does everyone in this town drive a truck? I find a group of people weaving in and out the back door under your mother’s command. I don’t see Jed. Instead I see the two women from church, parked in patio chairs with their bare legs crossed, jawing to each other as gnats swirl overhead. Your two nieces, dressed in long skirts, carry plates and cups in prairie patterns. They look up fast when they see me, then look away. Your brother is here.
I walk into the house to see if I can help. Plates of organic food steam on the counter—the food is brighter than the plates and smells like earth and nettles. Beside it, your mother is seething already.