Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

exchange I’d had with Jim, barely registering any of the passing scene.
    By die time we got to the cottage, we only had time to pick up Emil/Emily and Madison’s backpack if we were going to get her home on time. Madison ran up die stairs before r had a chance to do so myself. I stayed in die living room, waiting, thinking about the strange phone call from Jim, whatever he had to say it was so urgent he had to say it tonight and in person.
    When Madison came bounding down the stairs, Dashiell right behind her, I picked up the shopping bag and handed her the plastic purse. But instead of taking it, she picked up the leash and clipped it onto Dashiell’s collar.
    Walking her home, she and Dashiell ahead of me, the way her head was moving, the way he kept turning his face to look at her. I’d swear she was talking to him, but I wasn’t close enough to hear.
    Leon was waiting out front. Madison handed me the leash and took the shopping bag and the turtle, barely seeming to notice her father as she passed him and headed into the lobby. I guess she did have a key.
    “How did it go?”
    “Fine, really fine.”
    “What do I owe you for . . .“
    I waved a hand at him. “I just bought her a few things, it’s no big deal.”
    “What about the haircut?”
    “I did it myself. She looks great, doesn’t she?”
    Leon nodded. He even smiled.
    “I hope you don’t mind about the nail polish,” I said.
    He turned toward the lobby, but Madison was inside already. When he turned back to me, he looked puzzled.
    I showed him my nails. “I did hers. She did mine,” I said, my mind elsewhere, Jim’s whispered words ringing in my ears.
    “What next?” he asked.
    “I’ll call you,” I told him.
    When I got to the comer, Leon was still standing out front. I walked home quickly, keeping Dashiell close at my side, leaving the door open to let some cool air into the house, to let Dashiell choose where he wanted to be. For a moment, the house seemed empty without Madison sprawled on the rug communing with Dashiell, without Emil/Emily swimming in his/her makeshift pond on the green marble table.
    I dropped my jacket on the arm of the couch and headed up to the office. I wanted to look at those letters again, see if there was anything I’d forgotten, something telling that I’d missed in his letter or mine, but when I leaned over the desk to turn on the computer, something caught my eye. There was a small photograph sitting on the keyboard of my laptop, beaten up from having been handled so much, one of the comers broken off, that edge rough and uneven. I picked it up, turned on the lamp, holding it in the light, a pretty young woman addressing the camera without a smile. She had the same straight blonde hair as her daughter did, some of which was still clinging to my terry robe and spread out like tiny pickup sticks on the blue tile floor of the bathroom. Her eyes, like her daughter’s eyes, were blue, her skin pale and clear, and her expression, too, was like her daughter’s. Or was it the other way around? Wasn’t it the daughter who, in her grief, had modeled herself after her missing mother, her face neutral, almost serene, no hint of her inner life, her feelings invisible? Except that hadn’t worked for Madison. Circumstances had pushed her over the top, out of control.
    Out of control. That’s what Leon had said that first day at the dog run, that Madison was sometimes out of control. I thought of Dr. Bechman’s monochromatic office, pictured him lying on the rug, his arms and legs askew, the needle next to him. Had she been out of control that day?
    And what of her mother? Perhaps Sally was better able to hide her inner chaos, at least until five years ago.
    I held the picture of Sally under the light for a long time. Then I tacked it carefully onto the bulletin board, letting the heads of the pins brace the edges of the photo so that when I returned it to its owner it would have no holes in it. Sally at twenty-two or twenty-three, I thought. Sally more the way she might look today, enough so that if I found her, I’d know who she was.

CHAPTER 19

    I sat in a booth at the far end of Dean’s Coffee Shop, facing the door. He would be around Sally’s age if he knew her in high school, twenty-eight or twenty-nine, maybe thirty. He said he’d be coming from work, but he didn’t say what he did, so I had no idea what he’d be wearing. Would I know him? Would he know me? Not a problem so far, I thought. There