“Okay, honey. Okay. The cops are on their way. We have to stay calm. We have to think.”
Minnie trotted in and pressed her nose against Ruth’s knee until she pushed her away. She couldn’t bear to be touched.
It took Ruth a moment to get to her feet. She had to pee, and then she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face was covered in a film of perspiration, and her eye makeup had smudged.
She repaired the damage as best she could, lifted her arm to comb her hair and smelled sweat. She looked in the mirror again. Beneath that layer of makeup, her body, her face, were all wrong. She looked wrong. Smelled wrong.
You smell like a bitch in heat.
She went into the bedroom and changed her clothes. Put on a clean blouse that flattered her figure. She knew that there would be men, strangers, looking at her, asking questions. Their eyes all over her like hands. She had to be ready for them. She had to look right.
As she walked back into the kitchen, there was a knock at the front door.
There were two of them. Two cops, in her home. One of them, the younger one, said, “I understand that you’re separated, Mr. and Mizz Malone?” That’s the first thing he said. Then he said, “Is this about custody?” She had no idea what he meant, what to say.
They sat in the kitchen. Ruth put a clean ashtray on the table, and one of them got on the phone to someone. He came back, and there was a look between them, then he took Frank off into the living room. She was left with the younger one. He told her his name but she forgot it.
He just sat there, asking questions. What were the kids’ full names? Their ages? Had they gone missing before? Did she have a recent photograph?
Then he asked, “How long have you been separated from your husband, Mizz Malone?”
“I don’t . . . what does this have to do with the kids?”
He said nothing, just waited.
“Since last spring. Frank moved out in April last year.”
“Why did you split up?”
She looked at him, sitting there in his cheap suit and his scuffed shoes, and she knew she couldn’t make him understand. None of her reasons had been enough for Frank, for her mother, for most other women she knew. It wouldn’t be enough for this cop, this kid.
“We weren’t getting along. We were arguing a lot.”
“And now he’s suing for full custody of the children? On what grounds?”
“He says I’m . . . he’s claiming the children would be better off with him.”
He wrote that down and then his voice got stern.
“If this is some kind of game, Mizz Malone, if you’re doing this to get back at your husband, you better stop before it goes too far.”
She looked at him. A game? Her face grew warm and she could feel a prickling at her hairline, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“What the hell is all this? Why aren’t you out there looking for my children? You need to find my children!”
He cleared his throat. Ignored her. “Have you hidden the kids somewhere?”
Something in her eyes made him raise his hands. “Okay, okay,” he said. His face was flushed. He looked like he should have been in high school.
She swallowed hard, then took a long drag on her cigarette. Shook her head, although by then he’d left the room.
It burned down to her fingers and she threw the butt in the sink, ran cold water over her hand. The icy spattering on her skin woke her: she became aware of the sourness in her mouth, the sick feeling in her stomach.
Time passed. Frank came in, asked if she’d eaten that morning. She made a gesture with her shoulder, pushing him away. Drank more coffee. All she could hear was Frank’s harsh breathing as he smoked, occasionally the murmur of the other cop’s voice on the phone.
Frank left the room and she heard water running in the bathroom. Then there was a knock at the door and she heard Carla Bonelli’s voice. There was a low murmur and she heard “. . . to help. Can I see her?” Another low rumble, then the door closed. Frank came in and said, “Carla wanted to come in. I told her it was best not to.”
She didn’t understand, but she nodded.
He said, “I asked her to take the dog too. Just until . . . for now.”
She nodded again, lit another cigarette, stared at the clock on the wall until she remembered it had stopped the week before. It had made them late for Frankie’s dentist appointment.
Another knock at the door and footsteps in the hall. She looked at Frank and he looked back at her. Voices. Two men stood in the doorway: one was the kid cop with the pink face.
The other man was older. There was a stillness about him that let her mind rest for a moment. He was big, square-shouldered, wearing a loose-fitting suit that hung from his large frame. His skin was yellowish, waxy, with large pores, his face sagging above his thick neck, heavy eyes drooping above a scowl. His nose twitched as he looked at her, like she smelled bad. She smoothed her skirt. Patted her hair.