I had rehearsed this speech since the day I’d had the restraining order lifted. For months afterward, I hesitated to call the prison. Did I want to reopen this drama? I had no business poking a beehive.
“Another thing,” I said.
Mom glanced up. “Anything,” she said. This was the most earnest I’d ever seen my mother. She knew how to play earnest like an Oscar-winning actress.
The door on the far side of the room opened. The guard from earlier emerged. “Time’s up, Watts,” he barked.
“Already?” she said.
She stood, so I did the same. She wrapped me in another bear hug and whispered in my ear, “To be continued?”
This first visit had gone better than I could have hoped. I’d come to see my mother as a last resort, expecting the meeting would end in me storming out and never seeing her again. So far, she’d been willing to meet me halfway. She hadn’t lied, as far as I could tell. Maybe we could get past our past, after all.
“How about next week?” I whispered back.
She pulled out of the hug and gripped me by the shoulders, searching my face for signs I was kidding. When she saw I was serious, her face broke into a wide grin, split lip and all. She squeezed my hand tight. “I would love that.”
I watched my mother follow the guard through the door, shoulders back, head held high. She whistled, winked, and waved one more time before the door closed behind her.
That was the Patty Watts I knew.
21
Patty
Rose Gold is still not home. She should have been back an hour ago. She hasn’t called or texted.
Maybe Gadget World is busy today. Maybe her manager asked her to work late. Maybe she’s getting drinks with friends I don’t know.
I send her a text.
Me: Hi honey, will you be home soon?
I stare at the screen. No reply comes back.
Adam gurgles from his bassinet, unaware his mother is MIA. I get off my recliner and walk to the kitchen, pull his bottle from the fridge, move more frozen milk from the freezer to the fridge. Thank God Rose Gold has been pumping and storing all this milk.
I warm the bottle, then bring it back to the living room. I cradle Adam in my arms.
“Big strong boys need to eat, eat, eat,” I sing. He gulps the milk.
I distract myself with attending to Adam. After he finishes the bottle, I burp him. I give him an extra-long bath, making sure he’s spotless. I dress him in his duckling jammies, then rock him back and forth. I imagine every night like this one from now on: Adam and me winding down in a quiet house somewhere. Just the two of us.
I was born to be his mother.
I move the bassinet from the living room to my bedroom. By seven thirty, Adam is sound asleep inside it. For now the bassinet will do. His crib is in Rose Gold’s locked room.
I call her phone twice. No answer.
We could leave first thing tomorrow.
I force that line of thinking from my mind. It would look fishy if I took off the morning after Rose Gold didn’t come home.
I call Gadget World, but no one answers the phone there. I’ll call again in the morning, if she hasn’t come home by then. It’ll be good to have a record of texts and calls, proof I was worried about and searching for my daughter. In case she doesn’t turn up.
Me: I’m worried about you, honey. Please text me back
Of course she doesn’t.
I pace from the living room to the kitchen to the hallway to the living room. Around and around in circles I go, my phone clutched in my hand. This is what a Concerned Mother would do, wouldn’t she? That is the role I need to play.
In the hallway I pull strings off the grass cloth wallpaper, like I used to when I was young and eavesdropping on my parents’ arguments. I ball the string up into a little pile between my thumb and forefinger. These rooms are haunted with the spirits of all of them—Mom, Dad, David, and now Rose Gold.
I call my daughter’s cell phone another dozen times, leaving stressed voice mails, even stubbing my toe so I cry in the last one. At eleven, I give up and get ready for bed. I wash my face and brush my teeth.
I’ll deal with my missing darling in the morning.
* * *
• • •
I barely slept at all last night, between Adam’s nighttime feedings and my anxiety about Rose Gold. At six, I get out of bed.
She’s not coming home.
I check my phone, although I’d turned the ringer volume all the way up, in case she called in the middle of the night. No e-mails. No texts. No missed calls.
I feed Adam a bottle and weigh my options. A Concerned Mother would call the police, but they’re going to ask too many questions. Besides, Concerned Mother doesn’t know for sure Rose Gold is in any danger. For all I know, my daughter got fed up with Adam and me and decided to leave.
I like that explanation. If anyone tracks us down, I can say I left because Rose Gold left first. No one was keeping Adam and me in Deadwick. We wanted a fresh start.
As I burp Adam, I think about checking the news for information, but decide against it. It’s been five years and two months since I tuned in, and I’m not about to start now. Besides, the authorities would reach out to me before the reporters got wind of any “scoop.” They never get the story right anyway. I think back to an op-ed that ran in the Deadwick Daily right before my trial started: HOW THE PATTY WATTSES OF THE WORLD ENDANGER ALL OUR CHILDREN. Ridiculous. I put my grandson in his bassinet and promise I’ll be quick.
I call Rose Gold, shower, then call her again. I cross the hallway to my bedroom to get dressed and pause at Rose Gold’s door. What has she been hiding from me these past six weeks? Maybe Concerned Mother will find clues to her daughter’s whereabouts.
After dressing and checking on Adam, who’s fallen asleep, I return to the master bedroom. I try the door handle for the millionth time—still locked, of course. With a bobby pin from the bathroom, I try again to break the lock. Again the bobby pin snaps in half.
I walk outside and around the house to the exterior of Rose Gold’s bedroom. All the curtains are drawn, covering the windows, per usual. It doesn’t make sense to break a window when I can break down a door. Besides, my snooping neighbors can’t see what I’m doing if I’m inside. I head back into the house, picking up my pace.
I consider googling “how to break into a room,” but decide there’s no time. A Concerned Mother wouldn’t be so logical as to research steps for finding her missing daughter. She’d go ahead and break down the godforsaken door.