13
On the desk, my phone is doing a little dance. Beeping and lighting up. Another beep. One more. It sounds like an emergency. Except that’s how Maggie always texts, three pops in a row. Her fingers and mind, never quite catching up to each other.
Rod’s assess of Angel: Dehydrated, a few scrapes, but good. Even the eye. Old injury. Still not talking. Sweet smile. Scared . What’s the plan?
Lola and Angel made matching pirate eye patches. With sequins.
What are you doing??? Worried.
I poke a quick text back before maneuvering awkwardly to the floor. The space is tight behind the desk, my back crammed against the wall, my leg not cooperating. I flick on my phone’s flashlight and examine the scratches. Definitely a pick job. It was hurried, probably because this room is often crowded, full of professionally curious eyes. The scratches weren’t here the last time I opened my father’s little memory crypt. When was that? Five months ago? Six?
I shine the light over the entire front of the drawer. One visible print. Probably mine.
Another cop would remember to wipe it down. Anyone who watches TV would.
I try, but the drawer still won’t click shut. I shift so that I’m lying on my stomach. I see the problem. Something small and white, probably one of Dad’s mementoes, is stuck in the track. I tug, and it tears, half of it left behind.
The piece of paper I’m holding has five numbers written on it. 3-5345. I wriggle out the other half. The 3 is half of an 8. Ten numbers in all. Probably a phone number. No name. I flash the light all the way to the back. It catches on something else, attached to the bottom of the desk. Maybe extra screws for the desk, forgotten.
The tape holding it in place is so old and cemented, I break off a fingernail digging at the edges. How did I miss this?
“What kind of shit are you up to?”
I lurch into a sitting position, heart thudding. Mother-May-I is sipping from a Coke can and setting another on my desk.
“The usual shit,” I breathe out. “Plus a little extra. There was something wrong with the drawer. Off its track or something. Thanks for the drink.”
“This metal desk of your dad’s is crap. I’ve told you before, say the word, and I’ll requisition a new one. Everybody else has. Have you looked at the clock? Honey, you’re twenty-six, not forty. It’s way past time to get home to that husband of yours.”
“I promise, I’m almost out of here.”
I wait until she’s resettled at her perch to pull a tiny plastic bag out from under my leg and examine it. Not screws. My father was hiding … weed? Disappointment, and a little bit of confusion. I open and sniff. Brown and crumbly. Musty. A very old baggie of weed.
The things I didn’t know about you, Daddy. I tuck it in my pocket with the phone number. Hell, maybe I’ll smoke it before I go to bed. Maybe we can commune together in the in-between.
My stump is cramping, a deep ache that, when it starts, is hard to stop. I snake my fingers into the muscle until I can bear it.
This time, when I close the drawer, it stays shut. I hope I’m the only one who found something new in here. I pull myself up. I grab a large plastic container from under my desk and load it up with the Santa box, the vodka, and the paper bag with the gold scarf. I tuck in the water bottle laced with Angel’s DNA that I extracted carefully from the cup holder with latex gloves.
Never drink anything in the presence of a cop. And don’t say a word. Angel at least got the last one right.
I take a deep drag on the Coke, my eyes even with Trumanell’s across the room. I have a direct view of her face, her missing poster, every day. When I look up, it’s Trumanell. When I turn around, it’s my father. When I’m gone, they stare at each other.
From here, Trumanell could almost be an actress in a movie ad for the latest rom-com. Beautiful girl. Crazy hair, crooked crown, quirky smile.
Almost. There is the screaming type—WE WILL FIND YOU—a threat to her killer and a promise to Trumanell.
4 words.
20,000 posters.
7,478 tips.
406 sightings.
52 bones checked for DNA.
11 sites excavated.
Nobody wants to add up numbers when they equal nothing.
The key is still in the lock, the chain dripping down the drawer. In an impulsive second, it’s around my neck again, the key a cold brand against my skin.
On the way out, I stop at Trumanell.
I say goodbye, swirling a finger on the glass like I’m tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.
Five minutes from the house, I yank my truck over.
I tug the baggie out of my pocket and hold it up to the dome light. I am a kid back in the field, blowing a wish. The hot sun burning my scalp. Wyatt’s angry voice ringing. My hand stinging with his slap.
I know I’m drunk with exhaustion. It feels crazy to think it.
These bits of broken dust that my father taped to the back of his drawer—are they dandelions?
14
I’m looking into the mirror of my sixteen-year-old self. Angel sits upright in the ocularist’s chair, humiliated, vulnerable, angry, wishing to disappear.
It took fifteen minutes for us to coax her out of my sunglasses. I’d lifted them from my dresser, a last-minute thought on my way out the door before I picked her up at Maggie’s this morning.
Oversized cat-eye lenses, tortoise frames, dark tint, perfect to hide her identity in the truck.
And, it turns out, perfect for her to retreat into the cool anonymity of a typical teenager. As soon as she found them waiting on the passenger seat, that’s exactly what she did. I wish I’d thought of sunglasses sooner. Her smile was a wide arc underneath them.
Now her face is bare again, the empty eye quivering, and I’m her worst enemy, holding the sunglasses like a promised piece of candy.
What or who hurt her? How? Why? When?
I wonder if her heart is beating as fast as her foot, tapping against the tile.
My desire to pull her out of that chair right now—even though I put her there—is overwhelming. I feel her dread. A prosthetist is a hand held out across empty space, and no one can grab it for you.
This man’s promise to Angel is big. Transformation. I cringed when he said the word. My prosthetic leg required fitting and refitting for a year, while the remaining part of my leg shrank and I adjusted to excruciating months of relearning to walk and run.
No matter how highly touted he is—one client called him the Picasso of prosthetic eyes—I don’t believe it. I feel like pulling up the leg of my jeans and telling this guy to hold any bullshit because I’ve heard everything.
You are turquoise that’s more stunning with a flaw—from a woman behind me in a grocery line, who stuck her ring in my face.
You are Empusa, the shape-shifting Greek demi-goddess with a leg made of copper—from a college history professor who was after sex.
You are kintsukuroi, a broken Japanese pot more valuable after its cracks are repaired with gold—from my cousin Maggie.
So what if you’re a little fucked up?—from my partner, Rusty.
I keep my mouth shut. I remind myself that this ocularist was kind and careful making the impression of her eye and emphatic about a prosthesis being necessary to keep the muscles of her eye from deteriorating. I know we lucked out that someone this gifted agreed to see Angel in the turnover of a single night.