Girls who disappear. Kidnappers. Masks.
My scratching reminds me of the crickets in Cedar. Growing up, I would listen to them through my window screen at night, marveling at how their rhythm was the same as Ted’s when he clawed at his psoriasis. I have not inherited my father’s skin condition, but sometimes I itch.
“And this happened in New Hampshire?” I ask.
“Yeah, hang on.” Eric grabs his phone, opens an app, and types. “This says it was Foster, New Hampshire, which is…” He pulls up a map and zooms in. “Maybe forty-five miles from Cedar?”
Astrid’s eyes stare out at me from the TV. They’re green like the oak leaves that hem in my childhood home, and the longer I look at them, the more I feel the need to look away.
“I’ve never heard about any of this,” I say, “but I really think I know her from somewhere.”
Eric pulls his plate back onto his lap, takes a bite of tomato and feta. “Her face was all over the newspapers. There’s no way you could have missed it. Everyone was obsessed with the story since her reappearance was so weird. Oh—also…” He eats another forkful before continuing. “She just had a memoir come out, so she’s been doing a bunch of publicity for it. I think she was on Good Morning America recently.”
I don’t remind him that, until a couple days ago, I was still Mrs. Douglas, school social worker at Stuart Halloway Middle School, juggling meetings and home visits and paperwork. This is the first news of any kind I’ve watched in weeks.
I press Play on the remote, but Astrid’s picture stays frozen. If the reporter wasn’t speaking, I’d think the TV was still on pause.
“Oh, see?” Eric says after a moment, and the sound of his fork clanging against his plate makes me jump.
He gestures toward the screen, which has filled with a picture of Astrid’s book. Behind the Red Door: A Memoir. On the cover, a bare bulb illuminates a door the color of rashes, of sunburns, of things that must be scratched. The reporter mentions the book’s recent spike in sales, how it’s zoomed up all the bestseller lists since news first broke about Astrid’s disappearance.
“Some readers of the memoir are speculating that it was the book’s publication that drew Sullivan’s original kidnapper out of hiding. Some even say he might have used the memoir to track her down and take her for a second time. Those close to Sullivan, however, say these theories are unhelpful distractions.”
The shot switches to a woman with dark hair speaking to a microphone held in front of her face. Rita Diaz, wife of Astrid Sullivan, reads a bar across the bottom of the screen.
“I appreciate that people have taken an interest in my wife’s book,” Rita says, her forehead creased, her hair in a messy bun. “But right now, these conspiracy theories aren’t helping us find her. I know, to many people, the why of her disappearance is important, but honestly, all I care about is the where. And the when she will return. So if you have any information to share that might help us find her, please—don’t go on Reddit or Twitter or Facebook; go to the police.”
Right before the news moves on to the next story, the station shows a phone number for police in Ridgeway, Maine, along with another recent picture of Astrid. There are lines around her eyes that weren’t in her photo as a teenager. Her freckles aren’t as vivid, but I can still see the one beneath the arch of her eyebrow that sits like a stray punctuation mark. Staring at it, I feel a pinch in my throat, as if, for some reason, this single freckle belongs on my list of triggers. It makes me certain—with a level of conviction I can’t explain—that I know her. And not just know her. Not just seen her picture in a newspaper. I’ve met her. But when? But where?
“Hey, what’s this?” Eric asks. “What happened?”
I look down to where he’s pointing. My wrist is slashed with thick stripes of pink. I’ve scratched so hard that I’m bleeding, the beads of red perforating my skin.
* * *
The sheets scrape against my Band-Aid as we get into bed. The bleeding stopped hours ago, but Eric did such a good job patching me up that I’m reluctant to peel off his handiwork. The bandage is clean and smooth and perfectly square. Looking at it soothes me.
Eric reaches for me before I’ve even shut off the bedside lamp. His hand rests on my hip, then inches upward, his fingers spidering along my ribs. I turn to him, nuzzle my face against his neck.
“You’re insatiable,” I say.
“Can’t help it, Bird.”
I kiss his Adam’s apple. It’s been six years, and I still love that nickname. He’s been calling me Bird since the night we met, when he misheard my name at a noisy Harvard Square bar. It stuck because it suits me: sparrow-brown hair, a slightly hooked nose, bony and petite (so small, in fact, that from behind, I sometimes get confused for students at school). But what I love most about Bird is how, every time he says it, I’m reminded why I decided to go out with him in the first place. The reason I thought, like I never had about anyone before, I could marry this guy.
I’d been standing with him at the bar, the two of us talking so long I didn’t notice my friend getting sick at one of the tables. When she stumbled past us, puking, I lurched forward to help her toward the door. Eric grabbed a napkin off the bar and followed. When we got outside, he wiped at the vomit in her hair. Never mind that she was a stranger to him. Never mind that the puke was clotted with chunks of olive from her martini. He stepped right in, a hero with a bar napkin. Afterward, when I thanked him, he said, Of course, Bird, shrugging it off like it was nothing. But it was the kindest thing I’d ever seen.
“Do you want to try one more time before you go?” he asks now.
I stiffen, and he pulls me closer, reading the tension in my body as desire. “I’m not even ovulating anymore,” I tell him.
When those circled days passed on my calendar this month, I let out a breath that took a long time to exhale.
“We can only have sex when you’re ovulating?” He’s kissing me as he says it, slowly and teasingly, his words fluttering against my mouth. “It can’t be because I’m going to miss you?”
I arch my neck as he slides his lips toward my collarbone. “Of course not,” I breathe. “You just said ‘try,’ so.”
I’ve been off the pill for three months now. I want to make my husband happy. He spends his days caring for other people’s children—same as me, I guess—and when his patients’ parents ask if he has kids of his own, I know it hurts when he has to say no. That’s where we’re not the same. When I do home visits, and the parents get defensive, ask me if I know from personal experience how hard it is to raise a child, I feel momentarily weightless as I get to shake my head no.
I like kids. I do. Sometimes, I even get that primal, womb-stirring feeling when I see a baby. But I’ve witnessed so many ways that a parent can fail a child, and it seems so easy to do. Easier than being good. And then there’s everything else, every little threat that hisses in the air or coils into genetic code, waiting to strike. I can’t imagine how much I’ll have to add to my list if I ever become pregnant. SIDS, heart defects, car seats improperly installed. Girls who disappear. Kidnappers who catch and release, then catch again. My hands grow slick on Eric’s skin just thinking about it.