Dwelling Places (32 page)

“Just call everybody and then go home, all right?” She leaves Bekka in the upstairs hallway and runs out to the car. There's enough ice on
the road to force her to drive slowly to Mitchell Jaylee's. The drive is empty, the doors locked and curtains drawn. No one is in the barn or the yard. She stands in the drive and feels weaker than she's ever felt. Her little girl is with some older guy in a car, heading far from here.

In the truck, heading to town, the panic turns into rancorous self-indictment. She yells at her reflection in the rearview. “If you hadn't been running around the county acting like a whore…. How could you miss something this big? What good are you to anybody?”

She drives into town, to Rita's house; the garage is open and the car gone. Of course, now that she's mobile, God only knows where she is. Jodie goes inside, using her key to the back door, and calls the sheriff's office. They reach Jerry on his radio, and he instructs Jodie to go back home, and he'll meet her there.

She nearly plows into Mack at the intersection two miles from the farm. He appears to be on his way home. She jumps out of the car and shouts at him. He puts the truck into park and rolls down the window.

“Have you seen Kenzie?”

“What's wrong?”

“Have you seen her?”

“No—what's the matter?”

It takes a moment for her to explain and for him to comprehend. When he does, he shifts the truck back into gear. “Go home,” he barks. “Go home and wait for Jerry. I'm going to Jaylee's.”

“I was there already. It's all locked up.”

“Just go home.”

Through the next hour, Jodie feels as if she is watching bizarre scenes from some fictitious life. The whole sequence of events is surreal. When Jerry arrives, she shows him the journal page and tells him what she knows, but she barely understands any of their conversation. It's as if she is merely an observer, watching things fall apart. When Mack returns from the Jaylee place, his face is stone-white, and he shakes his head before she can ask him anything. Jerry comes over to both of them.

“State Patrol's looking for them. Mitchell's van will be easy to pick out. Can't be traveling too fast either, in this weather.”

“His place is all cleaned up, stuff packed away.” Mack's voice is hoarse.

“She's been dating him?” Jerry is still doing his best to get information from both of them, taking notes.

“Oh, no,” Jodie says. “At least, we had no idea. This is all a complete shock.”

“He ever call over here, or give her rides home, anything like that?”

“No. She gets rides with her friends from school, or her brother—” She turns to Mack. “Did you see Young Taylor? He went over to Eric's.”

“No. Did you call over there?”

“No, I didn't think.”

He picks up the phone and walks into the living room with it, stretching the cord around the doorway. She can tell by his responses that the kids aren't at Eric's house. Mack heads for the door. “I'll look some more.”

Jerry grabs his arm. “Mack. Just stay here, all right? You can hardly see straight. I've got Stan and Donny both out there, plus the guys in Oskaloosa and the State Patrol. He won't get far without somebody seeing him. And—” He measures his words. “It appears from what Kenzie wrote that they've both been cooking this up. It's not a kidnapping or an assault. Mitchell doesn't have anything like that in his history, you know that.”

“I know he's half nuts.”

“Diagnosed bipolar a few years ago.”

Mack and Jodie stare at him. Jerry shifts weight to the other hip, looking more authoritative than usual. “They used to call it manic-depressive.” Jodie thinks that he probably knows every secret in Beulah and beyond. She wonders if he has noticed her comings and goings with Terry. The sheriff keeps talking.

“He goes off his meds from time to time—but he's never bothered a soul around here. I've known him since he was a kid, and I'm tellin' you, he's not the violent type. So just get all those ideas out of your
heads. It won't help a thing for you two to work yourselves into hysteria.”

Mack pulls away from Jerry and goes to the family room. He sits on the couch and stares out the window, hands clasped in his lap. He doesn't speak to Jodie or look at her. Was it just a little while ago that she made that horrible confession? Why, today of all days, did she do that? Why tell him at all? What good has it done? She looks at her husband, in his own universe, sitting on their couch, and suddenly she's sick to her stomach. They need to find Kenzie together. They need to handle all of this together. But because of what she's done, the whole process is crippled now. She hurries to the bathroom and vomits. When that is over, she cleans up and walks back into the hall. Mack is standing there.

“Did you know anything about this?”

“What?”

“Her hanging around Jaylee?”

“No! Bekka didn't even know about it.”

“Because if I find out that you knew and didn't tell me—”

“Mack, I didn't know anything. Nobody knew anything.” She stares at him, and the rage in his eyes continues to flame. “You think I wouldn't tell you something like that—about our own daughter?”

“I don't trust you to tell me anything anymore. Anything could be going on in this house! I committed the sin of getting sick—and I come home and I may as well still be in the hospital. You cut me off—” He fairly hisses this, moving closer to her so Jerry won't hear. “You cut me off, no discussion, no warning. So, no, I don't think you'd tell me something like this. I don't trust you, Jodie. I don't trust you!” He leaves her in the hallway.

She goes back into the bathroom, this time to cry. It has finally happened. She has finally killed her family. She has done the one thing that will cause everything to fall apart.

Mike Williamson, the youth pastor, calls, alarm in his voice. He will keep calling kids from his house, hoping to raise some information. Somebody must have seen Kenzie sometime today. Then the
house is quiet, sleet and wind hitting the windows. It's dark outside. They wait, not talking much, in the family room and kitchen. The phone rings at five-thirty. It's Jenna Braeburn, one of the older girls in Kenzie's youth group.

“Mrs. Barnes? I'm sorry to bother you, but Kenzie and I are stuck at Wal-Mart, and I tried to call home but my stupid sister is online and I can't get through. Would you mind sending somebody to get us? My car just spins around in the parking lot, and I'm afraid to drive.”

Jodie feels faint and sits down. Mack shoots off the sofa.

“Are you girls okay?”

“Yes. Kenzie wanted to buy my birthday present. My birthday isn't until next week, but we decided to go shopping today. I guess that wasn't such a great idea.”

“That's all right.” Jodie is motioning to Mack and Jerry that everything's fine. “Kenzie's dad will come out in the truck and get you, okay? Just stay where you are. Can I talk with Kenzie?”

She hears the phone changing hands. “Hi, Mom. Sorry about this.”

“It's all right.” She fights to keep her voice normal. “Dad's coming to get you, all right? Just stay right there. Do you hear me?”

“Sure, Mom. Thanks.”

She puts down the phone. “She's with the Braeburn girl at Wal-Mart. Their car's stuck.”

The sigh that fills the kitchen issues from all three of them. Mack puts on his jacket. “Thank God.” He heads for the door.

“Well, that's easier than what I was expecting,” Jerry says as he grabs his own jacket from the back of a chair.

“Maybe it was just a daydream or something.” Jodie looks at the journal, which is still on the kitchen table. “Just something a kid would write in her journal.”

“Jaylee's gone, though. That's a fact.” Jerry puts on his cap. “I think you'd better talk to Kenzie and find out for sure what's been going on.”

“Oh, I intend to. I'm sorry we caused all this commotion, Jerry.”

He waves at her. “I'm just happy it's turned out this way. You and Mack come talk to me if you find out anything about Mitchell. If he's been involved with Kenzie, that's a whole other problem. She's only fifteen, right?”

“Not quite fifteen.” Jodie doesn't get up but watches Jerry disappear into the night air, where the silver lines of sleet are now illuminated by the yard light.

She picks up the journal and reads the first few pages, then closes it and puts it down. Her daughter's dreams and longings break her heart. And she can't bring herself to enter a place that is so private, so absolutely true.

Rita

In midafternoon the Ford dies halfway between the Glen farm and town. Just the way Rita has imagined it would, all those other times when it didn't after all. She turns the corner at Miller's Mile, and the engine slows down and just stops. At that very moment, a gust of wind catches the car, rain with it. Rita leans into the front windshield, and she can see that the rain is tapping the glass and hardening as it slides down. It is three in the afternoon, but the countryside has fallen dark as the weather moves across it.

“Well, this is just fine.” She grips the steering wheel and hears her own breath gust inside the car. During the seconds when the wind lets up, there is a massive silence around her on the road. She looks at her watch, at her hands in their gloves. She tries to stare down the road in any direction, but the windshield is fast becoming a glaze. The Glens are the only people who live on this stretch, and they are a mile behind her. Another two miles lie before her.

Rita has not been truly afraid of much in her life. She is a person who gets out of her chair and does something when the situation turns grim. But the only options now are to stay in the car and pray for someone to happen by—not likely on this road at this time of
day—or to start walking. Just the thought of the cold air makes her lungs hurt. The time at the hospital taught her a new sort of fear. She remembers the sensation of not being able to get her breath, of coughing and coughing and not being able to clear her throat and gulp in air. The doctor preached hard at her upon dismissal. “You can't afford to get so much as a cold, you understand that? Take care of yourself or you'll be back in here.”

So she sits in the car, the cold creeping in and beginning to nip at her cheeks and legs. A mile or two isn't that far to walk, in good weather. Her arthritis makes it painful, but she could do it. But she can tell that the temperature is dropping quickly, and the worn soles of her shoes will not keep her upright on a sheet of ice. It wasn't that many years ago when Frank Darling's wife tried to walk across a field to home when her car got stuck during a snowstorm. It was after dark, and she never found the house. Her body was found a quarter-mile from the barn the next morning. Nancy Darling knew those fields like the back of her hand. But zero visibility and cold have a way of wiping the map clean and confusing a perfectly good mind.

Rita tries to start the car. She tries to at least get some juice to come on so she can run the heater. But the alternator light flashes weakly, then goes out. She pulls her coat tighter. “Lord, you'll have to send someone out of their way.” Her prayer sounds tiny in the lonely car. “Please do that.”

She waits and waits. Her watch tells her that an hour has passed. She can't see out any of the windows now. And she is truly cold. She thinks of Alex, out in that drafty garage with his radio on, working on his truck, too drunk to know that it was time to go in. She figures that the cold didn't bother him at all. His death was probably as easy as death gets. In some ways, he had died before that anyway. Something in his soul had given up. That bothers her almost more than the drinking did.

“Lord, I'm calling on your help,” she says, loudly. “You've got me in a situation I can't get out of on my own. Please send help soon. Amen.” She's not necessarily blaming the Lord, but she's out here be
cause she was delivering medicine and groceries to the Glens, both too old and feeble to get around, even together. She's out here for the right reason, but maybe her timing was off today. Maybe if she'd skipped her TV story that came on after lunch…

As the space outside her car grows darker, her memories become clearer. How white her son's face was, almost the color of the concrete floor of the garage. He looked peaceful. She tried to move his body, but it was so stiff. She couldn't move his fingers, his neck. He was heavy as lead. She had to leave him and walk to the house. The handle of the back door was so cold she could feel it through her heavy gloves. The door made a great crack when she pulled it open and went inside to make the phone calls. So disrespectful to leave Alex out there in the garage, frozen into a position of uncomfortable sleep.

Something thumps the window, right near her head. She looks out and sees Alex's dark eyes staring in at her. “Lord,” she says, tears rumbling up, “is this heaven? I expected it to be warmer.”

The car door comes open, ice crackling with it, and two slender forms lean down to look in at her. “Grandma, are you okay?” The person who has bent down to get closer to her pulls a scarf away from his face. Young Taylor's cheeks are rosy from the cold, his thick lashes harboring tiny droplets. “We nearly slid into you.”

“Young Taylor, what are you doing out here in this ice storm?”

“Eric's taking me home. Decided to go the back way, because there's a pileup on the main road.”

“Pileup? Anybody hurt?”

“No. They're trying to get one guy out of the ditch, and everybody's hanging around, blocking traffic.”

“This car just stopped. I've been out here for an hour. Didn't think anyone would come by.”

“Normally, nobody would,” says Eric, leaning closer. “But we can pull you home. How's that?”

“Please do.”