Birthday Girl Page 2

  Later, however, he found that the center of the cemetery was a place of peace after sunset, where he could sit undisturbed and watch the night unfold.

  Tonight was exceptionally clear for November, and the oncoming winter sky with all its stars was open to him, obscured only intermittently by his clouding breath. Leaves of birch trees, curling and brown but stubbornly holding on, rattled nearby.

  Eight years ago, the wounds had been raw and wide. His little girl gone, his marriage dissolved, his career a fast-fading memory. The one thing that would stay constant, he knew even then, was the pain. He’d thought about his life, before and after, looking for meaning. Nothing had come to him and, for no particular reason, he’d decided to carry on until, in time, persevering itself became the purpose. Had it been courage or cowardice? He still didn’t know.

  Learning to survive on the streets came incrementally. A lesson here, a beat down there. He’d accepted it all until he found a kind of equilibrium—don’t expect too much, take what you can, move on. He managed to stay alive and, for a time, he even fooled himself into thinking that he’d found a sliver of purpose. Reaching out to the homeless around him, he’d started using old skills again, talking to them or, more often, listening. Trying to help. Throughout it all, Cee Cee’s voice kept him going.

  As time passed, however, he began to see the same people begin to slip away—to drugs, to booze, to crippling mental health problems. There were no long-term solutions for street people, only temporary stays. He watched an endless procession of damaged souls walk the streets, get help, only to wind up back on those streets again.

  His drive to help them withered away and with it went Cee Cee’s voice until, a week ago, it had culminated in him sitting here, in this very spot in the cemetery—as dead inside as any body in the ground around him—thinking about what the last eight years had yielded. The pain had devolved into the dull ache promised on daytime talk shows, but that only described its intensity, not its persistence. His work on the streets, if you could call it that, had amounted to nothing. He had never done less with his life. He’d never been worth less in his life.

  As if in a trance, he’d stood and shuffled out of the cemetery toward the downtown area. Drinkers and diners had been out in force. A couple, holding hands and with eyes only for each other, had crossed in front of him and opened the door to a restaurant. Laughter and voices, the clatter of dishes and glasses, had splashed onto the street, then were cut off as the door swung shut.

  The vitality of so many people had overwhelmed him. He’d ducked into an alley to escape. Threading his way past dumpsters and loading docks, he’d crossed one last street before finding himself near the train station.

  He’d jumped the fence and skulked toward the tracks, timing his movements so the station attendant wouldn’t see him. A pile of railroad ties had given him a place to hide. He’d squatted there until the rumble of an oncoming engine vibrated up through his feet; then he’d crawled forward, his heart thrashing in his chest. Down the line, a train ground its way along the track at a glacial four or five miles an hour. Slow, but enough to do the job.

  Swallowing convulsively, he’d lowered himself to the track and placed his head on the rail, his cheek resting on the cold steel, facing the train as it came into the station.

  The single headlight, a blinding eye, stared back at him.

  Vibrations ran down the rail, so strong they rattled his teeth and bruised his cheek.

  The noise of the engine was the sound of a thousand horses, a rock slide, the crash of a tidal wave.

  The instinct to run had been overpowering, and he’d fought to keep his head pressed to the rail. He forced himself to watch as it came closer, the bones in his body turning to jelly. Despite the fear coursing through his body, he’d smiled. Eight years of pain, seemingly so unnecessary now, about to disappear in an instant.

  He closed his eyes, then said goodbye to Cee Cee instead of his normal Good night, baby. It was the closest thing to prayer or a wish he’d made in all that time. Hoping to hear her voice one last time.

  But there was no answer.

  Why? He almost screamed it. Why won’t you talk to me?

  The roar of the engine filled his mind, invaded every part of his body. The train was almost on top of him.

  Suddenly he was off the track, rolling in the cinders, thrusting himself out of the way of the train, yelling, screaming at the top of his lungs. The heat of the engine had scorched him as he’d kicked and bucked away from the rail.

  Lying on the berm an arm’s length from the track, he’d cried, bawled like a baby, because he wanted to live, he just didn’t know why.

  He sat in the cemetery now, remembering that night. Somewhere above his head, a mockingbird trilled a nighttime song.

  Elliott reached up and touched his face. His beard was still singed from the heat of the train. That’s how close he’d been.

  Why not end it all, Dr. Nash? What are you holding on for?

  He had no answer. But one thing he did know: if he was going to go on living, he needed to hear his little girl’s voice again.

  2

  Amy

  With one foot mashing the clutch and the other braced against the dashboard, Amy gritted her teeth, grabbed the shifter in both hands, and leaned back. It was her third and probably final try to move it back to “R.” Behind her, the cars that had piled up waiting for her to park began honking, unaware that it was a minor miracle that the little car had managed to cross the river from DC to Virginia in one piece.

  The stick wiggled in her hand, then chunked into gear. Humming a prayer of thanks, she hauled on the wheel with a practiced move, punched the gas, and slid her little rust bucket into the space. The Celica didn’t mind drive as much as reverse, and she straightened the car out and shut the engine off in a snap.

  As the convoy of cars slid past, she turned in her seat and flashed each of them her sweetest smile of apology. The last driver, a pale, fat guy crammed into a yellow minivan like the cream filling in a Twinkie, yelled something obscene as he passed her. She offered him the same smile she’d given the others. What had she read in the paper the other day? Share a piece of your heart instead of your mind. Then again, she’d also read, Whatever gets you through the day, so she flipped off his rapidly disappearing bumper.

  The driver’s door hadn’t worked for months, so she grabbed her pack of Marlboros off the dash and began the contorted dance across the seat to the passenger’s side, arching her back to avoid getting jabbed in the kidney by the emergency brake.

  As she wriggled across the seat, her pocket rattled like dice in a cup. Inside was a little, ugly, orange plastic bottle with its awkward, childproof, adult-accessible cap, and inside that were seven white, oblong pills. They’d been in there, untouched, for almost a year. The sound sent a ripple of disgust through her, and she put a hand over her pocket to quiet it, but made no move to leave the bottle in the car. It belonged in her pocket as much as the crystal around her neck or the ankh tattooed on her wrist.

  She hopped out, slammed the screeching door, and headed east toward the water. No need to lock it; there was nothing to steal, and she couldn’t afford to fix the window if someone broke it trying to get in. They were welcome to the handful of candy wrappers and the dream catcher hanging from the rearview mirror.

  Then again, Old Town Alexandria didn’t look like a neighborhood with those kind of problems. It was a hamlet of fired bricks and cobblestone streets, with businesses that could afford to close for lunch and boutiques she could only dream of visiting. They had garden tours and parades and bakeries for dogs marked by signs designed to look like pink bows wrapped around a bone.

  It was nothing like her own tiny studio in a corner of DC, where sometimes the electricity worked and sometimes it didn’t, and sometimes the trash was picked up and sometimes it sat on the curb for weeks on end. Where you went when you had just enough to get by, but definitely not enough to get ahead.

  No, p
eople here turned up their collars on their trench coats when a gust of wind kicked up dirt and leaves with a sound like running water. They stepped carefully over puddles to keep their shoes dry. More importantly, they looked like they had somewhere to go and were on a mission to get there. Where Amy lived, almost no one moved with purpose; entertainment was to sit on the front stoop and watch the world leave them behind.

  But in Alexandria, it was a sunny, crystal-blue morning, gorgeous as November days went, though unpredictable—fast-moving clouds shrouded the street in shade every few minutes. Amy pulled the long sleeves of her sweatshirt over her hands, then shoved them into her armpits, twisting her arms tight into her center, trying to trap the warmth there.

  She took her time on King Street, peering into the windows, considering purchasing things she had no money for, keeping her head down as she passed. She was stalling, she knew, an attempt to warm up to the job she’d given herself.

  It wasn’t the mechanics of the task—she knew what to do. Detective Cargill had given her directions, told her what to say, even let her know where to park. She had questions that desperately needed answers, and this was her best shot to get them, now that the police had officially given up.

  Francis House wasn’t what she’d imagined. From Cargill’s description, she’d pictured a medieval monastery, all dark stone and fake arrow slits, like the churches she remembered from her childhood in Ohio. Instead, what she found was a sand-colored, institutional-looking building from an era when funding was as scarce as imagination, squeezed between two other more modern office towers. Anonymous and unremarkable, it could’ve been a school or the sewer authority or the county unemployment office.

  A knot of men and women of all ages and races huddled outside the building’s double doors. Each wore layers of accumulated clothing: shiny jogging shorts over dirty jeans, or a sweater with a vest and a turtleneck. Some stood, some leaned, and some slouched, but the way they did all these things made it evident they were tired, both in the short haul and the long run. They were secondhand parts in a broken machine.

  One or two swayed in place, a hand pressed to the wall for support. They had the look of old pros. It was late morning, the lowest point of the day—they were caught halfway between the damage of one drink or one pill and the bliss of the next. As she walked toward them, her mouth puckered and her heart slammed a quick dozen beats in her rib cage.

  Sliding a hand into her pocket, she grabbed the pill bottle and gave it a little shake. The rattle gave her the tiniest peace of mind she needed, and her heart slipped back to its regular rhythm.

  “Ain’t open until eleven, miss,” a man in a green poncho said as she walked up. A large wen on his forehead stood out above soulful eyes.

  Amy’s heart sank. “It’s not open?”

  “Kitchen ain’t open,” an older white woman sitting on the steps corrected. Frizzy gray hair stood out in tangles from her scalp. The collars and cuffs of three different coats peeked out from under one another. The pile of clothing made her already broad shape indistinct along the edges. “You can go in, you got business, but Sister Madeline will shoo you out if you’re here for the food. They don’t like no one trying to get ahead of no one else.”

  She thanked them and passed through the glass doors as the conversation veered toward other topics. Inside, the building was as functional and institutional as the outside, with a long central hall branching off in three different directions. Clouds of bleach and old coffee sat on the air. Unsure where to go, Amy stood in the foyer. She flinched at the distant clash of dishes, then jumped at the even louder sound of metal pans hitting the floor immediately after.

  A door in the hall opened and a woman’s head, adorned in a nun’s habit, popped out. She had turned automatically to the right, toward the source of the noise, then came fully out into the hall. As a reflex, she glanced toward the front door and started when she saw Amy standing there. Her face, doughy and wrinkled, held the businesslike expression of those who dole out kindness on an industrial scale.

  “The kitchen’s not open—”

  “Until eleven. I know,” Amy said. “I’m not here for the food, Sister. Detective Dave Cargill sent me.”

  The sister, already moving toward the source of the noise, stopped and pivoted at the unexpected answer. “How can I help you, then?”

  “I’m looking for a man named Elliott. Elliott Nash. Detective Cargill said he might be able to help me.”

  “Help you how?”

  “He . . . he might be able to find someone I’m looking for.”

  “Yes?” the nun prompted. “Find who?”

  She swallowed and the lump in her throat, almost a year later, was instantly there. Answering a thousand times hadn’t made it any easier. The nun looked at her, her eyes wet and unblinking, a fish-eyed stare that was neither unsympathetic nor impatient; she’d simply heard and seen too much.

  Amy breathed in slowly, then exhaled her answer, giving life and sound to her last hope. “Almost a year ago, someone very special was taken from me and hasn’t been seen since. The police have closed the case. And the last person who might be able to help me is Elliott Nash. That’s why I need to find him.”

  The nun’s stare softened. “Then I guess we’d better find him for you.”

  3

  Sister

  Sister stared up at the coffered ceiling. High, thin windows let in a milky light that illuminated crown molding, the flags in their brass stands, the hard, marble floor. The floor she was sitting on right now.

  Why was she sitting on the floor?

  Flat, clapping footsteps came close, rousing her. “Hon, are you all right?”

  Sister looked up, but the face didn’t register right away. It never did.

  The face loomed closer, but it was still as featureless as an egg. A tentative hand reached out to touch her shoulder. “Hey, it’s me. Denise.”

  Where am I?

  By force of will, she bore down on the fear, clamping down on it long enough to get her bearings. Where was she? She was sitting on the corner bench by the elevators. No. No, she wasn’t sitting on the bench, she was squatting next to it like an ape, one hand grasping the hard oak arm for balance.

  Her thighs were burning, so she must’ve been down here for a while. Her legs were splayed open by the position. A compromising situation that should’ve embarrassed her—it would’ve mortified her mother’s social and religious sensibilities—but in a lifetime of setbacks and horrors, it was not something that even registered.

  Besides Denise’s questions, the only other noise was a reedy whistle that, she realized, was the sound of her own breathing, passing in and out of her open mouth. Tears had slipped down to her nose to join the snot, and the combination had cascaded down to merge with a thin line of saliva that had escaped her lips.

  The voice came back. “Do I need to get security? Did someone . . . were you assaulted?”

  Assaulted? What a meaningless, inadequate word. How did you explain that a Friday afternoon office prank, meant in good fun, was enough to send her right up to the edge of sanity, close enough to look over the lip, in fact, where she could see firsthand what would happen if she let go?

  A couple of young idiots, excited by the prospect of the weekend, had gotten carried away, laughing, pulling her by the arms into the elevator. Come to happy hour with us! Forget the stairs. Get in here! But all she could see was a miniature steel cube, stuffed with people, and growing smaller by the second, ready to trap her, to suffocate her.

  It was a special thing, this fear of hers. Like a time machine, but one that only went back to a single place, a special little Hell specially made for her, a three-by-three-by-three metal box where the door slowly closed on her life . . .

  A tiny, far-off voice reminded her she’d done the same to little Maggie in the name of discipline. Wasn’t it a horrible thing, the voice seemed to say, that you were so very willing to visit this same terror upon her?

  She pushed the t
hought out of her mind. A single episode was nothing compared to the horror her mother had exposed her to, time and again. Maggie would recover and, in time, appreciate the . . . correction.

  Sucking in a deep, clean, mind-clearing inhalation, she smiled and forced herself to pull the face in front of her into focus. It was Denise, just like she’d said, the young girl from Document Control.

  “Thank you, Denise.” She wiped the back of her hand across her face, ignoring the smear it left on her blouse, then pushed herself to her feet and sat on the bench. “Oh, I must look like a mess.”

  “You could say that. What happened? Are you hurt?”

  “You know,” she said, wiping the tears away with a finger, careful not to smear her mascara, “about ten years ago I hurt my back lifting a box of those damn legal books, and it hasn’t been the same since. The doctor said it was a slipped disc and tried to get me into the OR, but who wants to have back surgery?” Her voice was high pitched, she knew, but she couldn’t control it. Close to babbling, snatching at any idea that would sound halfway sane, she forced herself to slow down. “Anyway, sometimes I have a spasm at the worst time. I was standing here at the elevators and it just went snap! like that. The pain is incredible, but if I wait long enough it gets better on its own.”

  Denise looked at her skeptically. “Slipped disc?”

  “Yes. Terrible thing to have. I hope you never suffer from it.”

  The woman bit her lip, struggling with something. “You know, my husband was an infantryman in Iraq for three tours. And about once a week, he wakes up in a panic, with the same look on his face you had just a minute ago. Like he’s being hunted.”