Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

her last name, he didn’t want that responsibility, and he wouldn’t tell her his.
    “Sally, had there been any talk of abortion? Did Jim suggest it? Or Leon?”
    She shook her head. “No. And I couldn’t have.” Looking away again. “I know it makes no sense, but I just couldn’t have.”
    We took one last swim, Roy, too, to rinse off the sand. Then we stood at the edge of the beach, Sally holding her mask, flippers and snorkel, mine in the bag from Hank’s.
    “You’re sure?” I asked.
    “I am,” she told me.
    I nodded. I thanked her for being up front with me. I didn’t suggest she come back for just a week or so, see if Madison would start talking. For her to do that and then leave again, I couldn’t think of anything worse.
    “If Leon wants to come down here . . .“ She shook her head. “You tell him...“
    “I will,” I said, knowing she’d be gone anyway. Knowing she’d be someplace else, someone else, before I got off the plane in New York. Even staying in one spot, she’d been traveling light for over five years. She knew how to do it. I imagined there wouldn’t be more than a couple of bags to pack, more than likely, no car. No bank account either. My guess was that Sally Russell didn’t exist the way the rest of us did, that she didn’t pay taxes, serve jury duty, have a phone, a library card, get junk mail. I’d passed a used book store on the way down. I bet they knew Sally there, the way Hank did. I bet if I’d shown her picture there, whoever was behind the desk would have shaken their head, no, no, pretty girl, never saw her. Something about her made you want to protect her. By the time I was in a cab on my way back to the Village, I was sure Sally Russell would be swallowed up by the Keys again, paying cash, living free. It was something everyone thought about from time to time, disappearing without a word to anyone. Standing there, my last minutes with her, part of me was rooting for her to get away with it.
    She clipped a short rope onto Roy’s collar and turned to go. Then she looked at me one last time.
    “I used to have a pair of glasses just like yours.” She looked sad for a moment, but only for a moment. “But that was a long time ago.”

Chapter 26

    There was an airport in Marathon. I could have returned the car there, flown to Miami, and tried to get an earlier flight home. But I decided to drive back to Miami. Heading toward the mainland, the Bay of Florida on one side, the Atlantic Ocean on the other, visible because of a full moon, I’d have time to think, time I needed because I had no idea what I was going to tell Leon and Madison about this trip. What, I wondered, were my choices? Leon was my client. I’d come here to try to do what he’d asked me to. I’d come here on Leon’s dime. So what would I tell him, that against all odds, I’d found his missing wife, but what might seem like a combination of incredible genius, some great second-guessing and a ton of good luck hadn’t turned out all that great after all, that said missing wife had refused to come back with me, had declined the opportunity to even look at photographs of her daughter or to examine Dr. Bechman’s records of the treatment, if you could call it that, of Madison’s disease? Would I tell him, too, that while I was driving to Miami to catch my plane home, I was sure Sally was packing her few belongings and moving elsewhere, that even before he heard what I had to say, she’d be missing again, this time for good?
    And what of Madison, hearing all of this? What of Madison? Of course, I could talk to Leon privately. Then what? Would he lie to Madison and say I’d failed to find Sally? Would I do that, too? Would she be better off thinking Sally was still out there someplace, not wanting to come home, not wanting her, or that she was dead? And where in myself could I possibly find an answer to these questions?
    I’d taken a turn someplace past the one to the Everglades to stop for something to eat, something to wake me up. There’d been only three other vehicles at the all-night diner, all delivery trucks. On the way back to the highway, I heard the mournful sound of a train whistle, but I didn’t see the railroad crossing or the train. Still, the whistle kept blowing, warning people that something big and fast and unforgiving was heading their way. Watch out, it said, watch out, watch out. Why couldn’t we have something like that in our lives, some warning sound to