Cemetery Girl

Someone knocked lightly on the screen door, so we turned. In the faint porch light, Caitlin looked calm, unaffected. Two uniformed cops walked behind her, but they didn’t appear to be forcing her to move along or into the house. She came in on her own, as though it were perfectly natural to be brought to our door by the police at sunrise.

I took a quick look up and down the street. The neighbors had received quite a show. News vans and cops and now this.

Neither one of us touched Caitlin when she came in. She stopped in the living room and stood with her hands jammed into the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt. She looked like any slightly grubby teenager waiting for a bus.

Ryan nodded at us. “I’d like to see you keep that appointment in the morning” he said.

Rosenbaum. I understood what he was saying.

“We’ll be there,” I said.

“You could even call him now,” Ryan said. “He might have some ideas-”

“We’re okay,” I said. “We’ve got it.”

When Ryan was gone, Abby broke the silence.

“Do you want something to eat, honey?”

Before Caitlin could form a response, I cut her off.

“No,” I said. “She needs to sit down. We have some things to talk about.”

“Tom-”

“Sit down,” I said. “All of us.”

Caitlin didn’t move. She stayed rooted in place, her eyes a little vacant, her mouth a narrow line.

“Caitlin?” I said.

“I don’t want to sit,” she said.

My voice rose and I pointed at a chair. “I’m telling you to.” “I want to go to bed.”

“And run off again?” I said.

She didn’t say anything else. She stared past me toward a point somewhere in the air.

“Where were you going tonight?” I asked.

When she didn’t move or respond or even change the expression on her face, I felt anger welling up within me. I wanted to reach out and take her by the shoulders and shake.

“Tom, why don’t we just get her something to eat?” Abby said.

I stormed off toward the kitchen. I wasn’t going to eat. I took a piece of paper from the counter and returned to the living room. Caitlin and Abby started to follow me, but when they saw me coming back, they stopped in the dining room. My dirty dish was still there, the tomato sauce hardening like dried blood.

I held up the sketch.

“Who is this man?” I asked Caitlin. “Is this the man you were going to see tonight? Is it?”

She blinked a few times and leaned closer. She studied the sketch like it was a rare bird that fascinated her.

“Is this the man who took you?” I asked.

“Tom.”

I moved the paper closer. “Is this the man who took you to strip clubs and made you watch him?”

She blinked again, surprise showing on her face.

“Did he give you flowers in the park? For Valentine’s Day? What’s his name, Caitlin?” I asked.

Her chin puckered. “You. . said. . you weren’t going to ask me those things.”

And then she crumpled. She fell into Abby’s arms, sobbing, her face pressed against Abby’s neck, her body shuddering so much that Abby had to hold her up. Abby rubbed her back and held her tight and looked over Caitlin’s shoulder at me, her face sending me a clear message.

I hope you’re happy now. I hope you got what you wanted.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Abby woke me by knocking lightly, then coming in the guest room before I could say anything. Light spilled in from the hall.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She’s in the shower. She needed to take one.”

I sat up quickly. “You left her-”

“It’s fine. The door’s open, and the water’s running. I helped her get undressed. She doesn’t have anything else to wear.”

“Where did she sleep?”

“In the bed. She slept a couple of hours at least.”

“Did she say anything?” I asked.

“She apologized for leaving and for scaring us.”

“Did she say where she went?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Did she say anything in her sleep?”

“I want to tell you something else. Something important.”

I was more insistent. “So she didn’t?”

“I was asleep, too, Tom.” Abby looked behind her, checking on the bathroom. When she turned back around, I took note of the fact that she looked calmer, more relaxed than the day before. Even with a lack of sleep, she looked refreshed. “I want to tell you that I feel good about the way things are going.”

“You do? Our daughter goes out the window, and you feel good?”

“I had a dream last night, while I was sleeping next to Caitlin. In my dream, there was this woman, and she came to our door here, the front door of this house. She was maybe twenty-five years old, and she was pregnant. She didn’t look like Caitlin, not at all. She didn’t even resemble her. But when I opened the door and saw her, I knew it was Caitlin. She was coming here to tell us she was pregnant. You see?”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“It means she’s going to be okay,” Abby said. “She has a future, one that’s going to turn out fine. We just have to accept that this is the path we’ve been set on, and know that eventually we’ll get to the place we want to be. Like Dr. Rosenbaum said last night, this is a long road.”