Cheryl Crane-Murphy was irritated. I had seen her face so many times in recent weeks that I could read her expressions. “This revelation is certainly important, but what exactly does it mean for the investigation?”
“We simply don’t know,” the correspondent told Cheryl, “but chronologically, the kidnap of Wilson and Martinez was the first Jennifer-related event, although we didn’t know it at the time. They were kidnapped, and the rest of the Dirty Dozen were kidnapped, and they were all held somewhere for a month before being dropped from the plane into the desert. During that time, the other Jennifer attacks began.” On the screen, there was footage of the Harbor Freeway interchange and the brown canvas bags containing Simmons and Green, which at the time had seemed like the first Jennifer attack. I felt queasy as I recalled the slips of paper that’d been stuffed down the men’s throats—Jennifer’s calling card, the way she’d announced herself to the world.
The correspondent explained that Luz’s mother, Soledad, had recently traveled to Mexico City to visit her sick aunt, so the FBI was working with the Mexican police to locate her for further questioning. “I should remind our viewers that Soledad Ayala served as an army medic in Afghanistan with distinction,” the correspondent said. “Nevertheless, according to my sources, she was investigated after Lamar Wilson and Chris Martinez, two of her daughter’s rapists, went missing and were later killed, but she had an alibi and the police have never considered her a suspect.”
“So what are we supposed to think?” Cheryl asked the correspondent. “That Jennifer decided to avenge this woman’s daughter? And that Leeta Albridge helped out because she knew the family?”
“That’s one theory,” said the correspondent.
“Did Soledad help out too?”
“Anything is possible,” said the correspondent.
Sana stood up from her chair and sighed. “In other words, they have no idea what any of this means. You can just tell that Cheryl wants to scream, Who the hell is Jennifer? at the top of her lungs. Look at those bags under her eyes. She probably hasn’t slept for weeks.”
Sana went to the cupboard and took a box of corn flakes from the shelf. “I assume I have to eat this crap since you’re not going to feed me?”
I told her I was sorry, but the news had derailed my morning.
“Are you okay, Sugar Plum?”
I told her I didn’t know how to feel about Leeta being connected to Luz and Soledad, people we had seen in the news, characters in a national drama. I was thinking about Leeta and those days only months earlier when she followed me around the neighborhood. I wished she could go back in time and become that carefree young woman again, but that Leeta was gone, perhaps forever. I thought of the police officers with their guns drawn, searching for her.
Cheryl Crane-Murphy went to a commercial break, so I joined Sana, pouring myself a bowl of corn flakes too. We still didn’t know anything about Leeta’s actions, but I feared she was destined for capture and prison. If she hadn’t done anything wrong, she wouldn’t have run away. The authorities called this consciousness of guilt.
“I’ve never known an outlaw,” I said, packing my mouth with cereal, not even tasting it.
“Me neither,” Sana said.
The other women began trickling into the kitchen and Sana shared the news. I must have looked visibly shaken, because everyone tiptoed around me, grabbing cereal and yogurt, making toast, not engaging me in conversation. When the breakfast rush ended, Sana and I were alone in the kitchen again. She asked if she could make a suggestion.
“Have you been out of Calliope House at all since you left the underground apartment?”
“Just for the bomb threat.”
“I think it’d be a good idea for you to go out. Maybe you could go back to your place in Brooklyn and pack some clothes?”
I was wearing the beige shift and black leggings from the underground apartment. I had nothing else. “No, I don’t want to go back there.” I pictured myself opening the door to my old apartment, a lobster about to be dropped into a boiling pot of water. If I left the door closed, my unhappiness would remain sealed there, trapped inside.
“Then go out and do something else. Fresh air will do you some good,” she said. “You should listen to me, okay? I’m a licensed social worker. I’m also very wise.”
Perhaps Sana was right. Since moving upstairs into Calliope House, I had stayed within its womb, or in its bosom—Verena’s house always brought to mind female metaphors—but there was a whole world out there, lapping at the door. I couldn’t avoid it forever.
I squeezed my feet into my tattered black flats and opened the front door of Calliope House. Outside there was fresh air and sunshine and people who stared at me. Outside hadn’t changed—but I had changed.