No Safe House Page 2

  Cynthia’s efforts to keep our fourteen-year-old daughter, Grace, safe from the big, bad world were pushing the child to experience it as quickly as she could.

  I kept hoping we’d eventually work our way through the darkness and come out the other side. But it didn’t look as though it was going to happen anytime soon.

  • • •

  GRACE and her mother had shouting matches on a pretty much daily basis.

  They were all variations on a theme.

  Grace ignored curfew. Grace didn’t call when she got to where she was going. Grace said she was going to one friend’s house but ended up going to another and didn’t update her mother. Grace wanted to go to a concert in New York but wouldn’t be able to get home until two in the morning. Mom said no.

  I tried to be a peacemaker in these disputes, usually with little success. I’d tell Cynthia privately that I understood her motives, that I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Grace, either, but that if our daughter was never allowed any freedom, she’d never learn to cope in the world on her own.

  These fights generally ended with someone storming out of a room. A door being slammed. Grace telling Cynthia she hated her, then knocking over a chair as she left the kitchen.

  “God, she’s just like me,” Cynthia would often say. “I was a horror show at that age. I just don’t want her making the same mistakes I made.”

  Cynthia, even now, thirty-two years later, carried a lot of guilt from the night her mother and father and older brother, Todd, disappeared. Part of her still believed that if she hadn’t been out with a boy named Vince, without her parents’ permission or knowledge, and if she hadn’t gotten drunk and passed out once she’d fallen into her own bed, she might have known what was happening and, somehow, saved those closest to her.

  Even though the facts didn’t bear that out, Cynthia believed she’d been punished for her misbehavior.

  She didn’t want Grace ever having to blame herself for something so tragic. That meant instilling in Grace the importance of resisting peer pressure, of never allowing yourself to be put into a difficult situation, of listening to that little voice in your head when it says, This is wrong and I’ve got to get the hell out of here.

  Or as Grace might say, “Blah blah blah.”

  I wasn’t much help when I told Cynthia almost every kid went through a period like this. Even if Grace did make mistakes, it didn’t follow that the consequences would have to be as grave as what Cynthia had endured. Grace, God help us, was a teenager. In another six years, if Cyn and I hadn’t killed ourselves by then, we’d see Grace mature into a sensible young woman.

  But it was hard to believe that day would ever come.

  Like that night when Grace was thirteen and hanging out at the Post Mall with her friends at the same time Cynthia happened to be there looking for shoes. Cynthia spotted our girl outside of Macy’s sharing a cigarette. Cynthia confronted her in full view of her classmates and ordered her to the car. Cynthia was so rattled and busy tearing a strip off Grace that she ran a stop sign.

  Nearly got broadsided by a dump truck.

  “We could have been killed,” Cynthia told me. “I was out of control, Terry. I totally lost it.”

  It was after that incident that she decided, for the first time, to take a break from us. Just a week. For our sake—or more specifically, for Grace’s—as much as her own. A time-out, Cynthia called it. She bounced the idea off Naomi Kinzler, the therapist Cynthia had been seeing for years, and she saw the merit in it.

  “Remove yourself from the conflict situation,” Kinzler said. “You’re not running away; you’re not abandoning your responsibilities. But you’re going to take some time to reflect, to regroup. You can give yourself permission to do that. This gives Grace time to think, too. She may not like what you’re doing, but she might come to understand it. You suffered a terrible wound when you lost your family, and it’s a wound that will never completely heal. Even if your daughter can’t appreciate that now, I believe someday she will.”

  Cynthia got a place at the Hilton Garden Inn, over behind the mall. She was going to stay at the budget-minded Just Inn Time to save money, but I said no way. Not only was it a dump, but there’d been a white-slave operation running out of it a few years back.

  She was only gone a week, but it felt like a year. What surprised me was how much Grace missed her mother.

  “She doesn’t love us anymore,” Grace said one night over microwaved lasagna.

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “Okay, she doesn’t love me anymore.”

  “The reason your mother’s taking a break is because she loves you so much. She knows she went too far, that she overreacted, and she needs some time to get her head together.”

  “Tell her to speed it up.”

  When Cynthia returned, things were better for a month, maybe even six weeks. But the peace treaty started to crumble. Minor incursions at first, maybe a shot across the bow.

  Then all-out warfare.

  When they had one of their battles, feelings would be hurt and it’d take several days for our normal life—whatever that was—to resume. I’d attempt mediation, but these things had to run their course. Cynthia would communicate anything important she had to tell Grace through notes, signed L. Mom, just the way her own mother used to do when she was pissed with her daughter and couldn’t bring herself to write Love.

  But eventually the notes would be signed Love, Mom, and a thaw in relations would begin. Grace would find some pretext to ask her mother for guidance. Does this top work with these pants? Can you help with this homework assignment? A tentative dialogue would be opened.

  Things would be good.

  And then they’d be bad.

  The other day, they were really bad.

  Grace wanted to go with two of her girlfriends to New Haven to a huge used-clothing bazaar that was running midweek. They could only go at night, because they had school through the day. Like that concert in New York, it would mean a late return home on the train. I offered to drive them up, kill some time, and then bring them back, but Grace would have none of it. She and her friends weren’t five. They wanted to do this on their own.

  “There’s no way,” Cynthia said, standing at the stove making dinner. Breaded pork cutlets and wild rice, as I remember. “Terry, tell me you’re with me on this. There’s no way she’s doing that.”

  Before I could weigh in, Grace said, “Are you kidding? I’m not going to fucking Budapest. It’s New Haven.”

  This was a relatively new wrinkle. The use of foul language. I don’t suppose we had anyone to blame but ourselves. It was not uncommon for Cynthia or me to drop the f-bomb when we were angry or frustrated. If we had one of those swear jars where you drop in a quarter every time you used a bad word, we could have used the money to take a trip to Rome every year.

  Just the same, I called Grace on it.

  “Don’t you ever speak to your mother that way,” I said sternly.

  Cynthia clearly felt a reprimand was inadequate. “You’re grounded for two weeks,” she said.

  Grace, stunned, came back with: “How long are you going to take it out on me that you couldn’t save your family? I wasn’t even born, okay? It’s not my fault.”

  A verbal knife to the heart with that one.

  I could see, in Grace’s face, instant regret, and something more than that. Fear. She’d crossed a line, and she knew it. Maybe, if she’d had a chance, she’d have withdrawn the comment, offered an apology, but Cynthia’s hand came up so quickly, she never had a chance.

  She slapped our daughter across the face. A smack loud enough I felt it in my own cheek.

  “Cyn!” I shouted.

  But as I yelled, Grace stumbled to the side, put out her hand instinctively to brace her fall in case she lost her footing.

  Her hand hit the side of the pot that was cooking the rice. Knocked it to one side. Grace’s hand dropped, landed on the burner.

  The s
cream. Jesus, the scream.

  “Oh God!” Cynthia said. “Oh my God!”

  She grabbed Grace’s arm, spun her around to the sink, and turned on the cold tap, kept a constant stream of water running over her burned hand. The back of it had hit the hot pan and the side had connected with the burner. Maybe a millisecond of contact in each case, but enough to sear the flesh.

  Tears were streaming down Grace’s face. I wrapped my arms tightly around her while Cynthia kept running cold water on her hand.

  We took her to Milford Hospital.

  “You can tell them the truth,” Cynthia told Grace. “You can tell them what I did. I deserve to be punished. If they call the police, they call the police. I’m not going to make you tell them something that isn’t true.”

  Grace told the doctor she was boiling water to cook some macaroni, iPod buds in her ears, listening to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” dancing like an idiot, when she flung her arm out and hit the handle on the pot, knocking it off the stove.

  We brought Grace home, her hand well bandaged.

  The next day, Cynthia moved out for the second time.

  She hasn’t come back yet.

  TWO

  “REGGIE, Reggie, come in, come in.”

  “Hi, Unk.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “Jeez, let me get my coat off.”

  “I’m sorry. I just—”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t find . . . her. Not yet. No money, either.”

  “But I thought—You said you found the house and—”

  “It didn’t work out. It was a false lead. Eli lied to us, Unk. And it’s not like we can go back and ask him again.”

  “Oh. But you said—”

  “I know what I said. I’m telling you, we struck out.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I got my hopes up. You seemed so sure last time I talked to you. I’m just disappointed is all. There’s coffee there if you want it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I still appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”

  “It’s okay, Unk.”

  “I mean it. I know you get tired of my saying it, but I do. You’re all I got. You’re like the kid I never had, Reggie.”

  “Not a kid anymore.”

  “No, no—you’re all grown. You grew up fast, and early.”

  “Didn’t have much choice. Coffee’s good.”

  “I’m just sorry I wasn’t there for you sooner.”

  “I’ve never blamed you. You know that. We don’t have to keep going over this. You see me obsessing about this? Huh? And I’m the one it all happened to. So if I can move on, you should be able to, too.”

  “It’s hard for me.”

  “You live in the past. That’s your problem, Unk. God, that’s what all this latest shit has been about. You have a hard time getting over things.”

  “I . . . I was just hoping you’d found her.”

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “But I can see it in your face. You think this is all stupid. You think it doesn’t matter.”

  “I didn’t say that. Not the last part. Look, I get why this is important to you, why she matters so much. And you’re important to me. You’re one of only two people I give a shit about, Unk.”

  “You know what I can’t figure out about you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You understand people, you get how they think and how they feel, you’ve got a real insight into them, yet you’ve got no . . . what’s the word?”

  “Love?”

  “No, that’s not what I was going to say.”

  “Empathy?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

  “Because I love you, Unk. Very much. But empathy? I suppose. I understand what makes people tick. I know what they’re feeling. I need to know what they’re feeling. I need to know when they’re afraid. I very much need to feel that they are afraid, but I don’t feel bad for them. Otherwise, I couldn’t get things done.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d be better off if I was more like you. I guess it was empathy I felt for that damned Eli. He seemed like a lost kid—hell, he was no kid. He was twenty-one or -two. Something like that. I thought I was doing right by him, Reggie. I really did. And then the son of a bitch stabs me in the back.”

  “I believe he approached the other interested party.”

  “Shit, no.”

  “It’s okay. Just an initial contact. He was holding back details until there was a face-to-face, which, of course, won’t be happening now. I think he told us the truth about what was done with her, but lied about where. And the teachers’ house was a nonstarter. Also, I’m starting to wonder about whether any of the people know. Whether they’ve given consent.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s okay. But what I was going to tell you is, I’m going to need more people, and it’s going to take a lot more up-front money.”

  “Eli took all I’d set aside, Reggie.”

  “That’s okay. I can put up money of my own. The tax refund thing’s going well. I’ve got reserves. And when this is over, I’ll not only get back my investment, and your money, but plenty of other money, too. There’s a silver lining to all this, as it turns out.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “That’s okay. You don’t have to. You just let me do what I do best.”

  “I just can’t believe . . . after all these years, I finally win her back, and then I lose her again. Eli had no right, you know. He had no right to take her from me.”

  “Trust me, Unk. We’ll get her back.”

  THREE

  TERRY

  JUST because Cynthia was no longer living with Grace and me didn’t mean we were strangers to each other. We spoke daily, sometimes met for lunch. Her first week away, the three of us went out to Bistro Basque, over on River Street, for dinner. The girls both had the salmon and I went with the chicken stuffed with spinach and mushrooms. We were all on our best behavior. Not a word about our visit to the hospital, even though Cynthia couldn’t keep her eyes off Grace’s bandaged hand. The unreality of the meal was exceeded only by the end of the evening, when Grace and I dropped Cynthia off at her place and we drove on home alone.

  She really lucked into the apartment. Cynthia had a friend at work who was leaving the last week of June for a trip to Brazil and not planning to return until August, or maybe even September. Cynthia remembered her saying she’d tried to sublet the place for the summer, get someone who could take over the rent while she was away. She’d found no takers. A day before her friend was to fly out, Cynthia said she’d take the apartment. The friend cleared it with the landlord, an old guy named Barney, and then it was a go.

  I hadn’t expected her to be gone until Labor Day, but as each day passed, and Cynthia showed no inclination to return, I was starting to wonder. At times I lay awake at night, half the bed empty next to me, wondering whether Cynthia would look for another place if this dragged on until early September when her friend returned.

  About a week and a half after she’d left, I dropped by her place around five, figuring by then she’d be home from her job with the Milford Department of Public Health, where she was involved in everything from restaurant inspections to promoting good nutrition in the schools.

  I was right. I saw her car first, parked between a sporty-looking Cadillac and an old blue pickup I recognized as Barney’s. He was cutting the grass down the side of the house, limping with each step, almost as if one leg was shorter than the other. Cynthia was sitting on the front porch, feet propped up on the railing, nursing a beer, when I pulled up out front of the house.

  It was, I had to admit, a pretty nice place, an old colonial house on North Street, just south of the Boston Post Road. It no doubt belonged to some prominent Milford family years ago before Barney bought it and converted it into four apartments. Two on the ground floor and two upstairs.

  Before I could say hello to my wife, Barney spotted me and killed hi
s mower.

  “Hey, how ya doin’?” he called out. Barney viewed Cynthia and me as minor celebrities, although ours was not the kind of fame anyone would want, and he seemed to enjoy brushing up against us.

  “I’m good,” I said. “Don’t let me keep you from your work there.”

  “I got two more houses to do after this one,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. Barney owned at least a dozen homes that he’d turned into rental units between New Haven and Bridgeport, although, from what he’d told me in previous conversations, I’d learned this was one of the nicer ones and he spent more time on its upkeep. I wondered whether he was planning to put it on the market before long. “Your missus is right up there on the porch,” he said.

  “I see her,” I said. “You look like you could use a cool drink.”

  “I’m good. Hope things are working out.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Between you and the wife.” He gave me a wink, then turned and went back to his mower.

  Cynthia rested her beer on the railing and stood out of her chair as I came up the porch steps.

  “Hey,” she said. I was expecting her to offer me a cold one, and when she didn’t I wondered whether I’d come at a bad time. Worry washed over her face. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said.

  “Grace is okay?” she asked.

  “I told you, everything’s fine.”

  Reassured, she sat back down and put her feet back up on the railing. I noticed that her phone was facedown on the arm of the wooden chair, holding down a health department flyer headlined, “Does Your Home Have Mold?”

  “May I sit?”

  She tipped her head toward the chair next to her.

  I pointed to the flyer. “Problems with your new place? You show that to Barney and he’ll flip out.”