She pulled into the driveway but did not shut off the engine. What was it but a sleepover, really? Maybe she shouldn’t even go knock. Maybe she should wait a few minutes and see if Meredith emerged, headed back to Becca’s house, or if Evan called the cell. But who knew when he would call? She imagined them on that chilly field, Mark trying to hit the ball straight up, missing half the time, connecting, and then the ball dropping just out of Evan’s reach. Who knew how long they would be? They might be there forever trying to get it right. They might be there forever and never get it right, but stay anyway.
She got out of the car and walked to the front door, then gave a tentative, light knock. The dogs inside exploded into fits of barking. Well, so much for the quiet knock, the gentle awakening. The dogs were right on the other side of the door, whimpering, their tails slapping the wall. She prepared her apology face.
But no one opened the door. Had they really slept through the barking? Maybe Becca was wrong. Maybe Meredith had not spent the night here. Maybe Colleen Bellow was at her boyfriend’s house . . . but if this was the case, then where was Meredith?
She rang the bell, propelling the dogs into further hysterics. Then she pounded on the door, first with her knuckles and then, in some imperceptible shift caused by the lack of response, as seconds passed, with the side of her closed fist. Probably she was waking up a neighbor. Probably she— The door opened, leaving her fist suspended, almost comically, mid-pound. Colleen Bellow stood there in black sweatpants and a gray American Eagle T-shirt, her face expressionless, her eyes heavy with sleep. Or with something. She stared at Claire for a moment as if she didn’t recognize her.
“Is Meredith here?” Claire blurted out.
“Meredith?” Colleen said sleepily. “Um . . . ”
Claire pushed past the dogs and into the living room. One of the dogs bolted out the door and sprinted across the front lawn.
“Shit,” Colleen said.
“Where is she? Is she here?”
“What? Who?”
“Meredith,” Claire said. “Is Meredith here?” Then she called to the house, in a voice she did not recognize, “Meredith?”
“She’s in the bathtub,” Colleen said.
Claire turned. “What?”
“She’s . . . she’s in the bathtub. I’m sorry.”
Claire saw her then, her little girl. She saw the unseeable image on the other side of the door. The door opened and the sight of her dead daughter came at her with the rush of water, a wave that was remarkable mostly for its sound as it crashed over her and she could hear nothing, not the dogs nor Colleen nor the sound of her own feet pounding up the carpeted stairs to the hallway that seemed to have a thousand different doors, opening the door first to a bedroom, then spinning and opening another to a towel-packed closet, then spinning again and opening finally to a sink and mirrortoothbrushsoapdish, knowing already what she would see in the next moment, what she had lost sometime in the night as she slept unaware, what she had already, already, already, already, impossibly, impossibly lost.
Meredith was asleep in the bathtub. There was no water in the bathtub. The sound of the wave ceased and Claire felt her legs give out under her and she was kneeling beside the tub and her hands were shaking.
“Meredith,” she said. “Meredith . . . ”
And now again a moment, when she did not stir—but no, she was breathing, her chest rising and falling under the unfamiliar pajamas. On the tile wall above her daughter were criss-crossed lines drawn in red marker.
“She’s asleep,” Colleen said.
Claire turned.
“She’s sleeping,” Colleen said. “I gave her something to sleep.”
Claire stood up, still trembling. “You what?”
“I gave her something to help her sleep. She was upset. I—”
“What did you give her?”
“Just what they gave to me,” she said. “The same thing I take.”
“How many?”
“What?”
Claire could have shaken her, struck her. “How many did you give her?”
“Just one,” Colleen said. “That’s what I—”
“Are you sure it was just one?”
“Of course I’m sure.” She was angry now. “What do you think I am? I’m not crazy.”
“How long has—”
“She was upset and I wanted to help. But then afterward she came in here and I thought she was just going to the bathroom but then I came in and she was like this. I woke her up and asked if she wanted to get into bed but she said she just wanted to stay here. But she was okay. She is okay. She’s just . . . sleepy.”
“Meredith,” Claire said. She crouched down and put her hand on her daughter’s arm. “Meredith, wake up.”
A small stir.
“What exactly did you give her?” she asked Colleen. “And when? What time?”
Colleen took a pill bottle from the pocket of her sweat pants. Claire snatched it from her hand and looked at it.
“Meredith,” she said firmly.
Meredith opened her eyes for a moment, then closed them again.
“I just thought it would help her sleep,” Colleen said. “It helps me. She was upset.”
“Of course she was upset,” Claire said.
“I just—”
“This is wrong,” Claire said, standing, turning to face her fully. In her sweats and T-shirt Colleen looked somehow tinier than ever, so slim and fragile and young, not like a parent at all. “You have to see that. You have to know this is not okay.”
“She said it—”
“No,” Claire said. “She’s a child. She’s just a child.”
“Lisa was a child,” Colleen said.
“Yes,” Claire said. “Yes. I know. She was.”
Claire crouched down again. “Meredith,” she said. She looked once more at the red lines on the tile wall. Was it a graph? Some kind of math problem? There were dots, marking a curve.
“We’re going to stand up now,” Claire said. “I’m going to take you home.”
Meredith opened her eyes. “What?” she said.
“We’re going to go home,” Claire said. “I’m going to take you home.”
“No,” Meredith said.
And there was a moment, even then, assessing the momentous task that lay in the tub before her, when Claire thought maybe it would make sense, right now, to leave her daughter where she was, just for a little while longer, to let her sleep it off, to sit downstairs with a cup of coffee and come back up in a couple hours with reinforcements—the brother whom she worshipped, the father who could lighten the mood—come back when Meredith could stand without assistance, when both she and Colleen had overcome their sedation, to heed her disoriented child’s simple request, her dazed “no,” to let her make this decision for herself. Meredith was not going to die in this bathtub. She was not going to be abducted from it. She was in no imminent peril. She was, Claire thought, in no greater danger than the danger posed by a mother who would make the choice, for whatever reason, to not carry her daughter to safety.
She slid one arm under Meredith’s shoulders and another under her thighs.
“You can’t lift her,” Colleen said.
Claire half-lifted, half-slid Meredith from the confines of the bathtub, then fell backward onto the bathroom floor with Meredith sideways across her lap. Something rolled from Meredith’s hand onto the bathroom floor, an uncapped Magic Marker.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she said. “We have to go home.”
“You can’t carry her,” Colleen said.
Meredith opened her eyes again. “Mom,” she said.
Claire got her feet under her. She stood slowly, her knees shaking, her daughter draped across her arms. She took one step. She took another.
19
This is me. This is my real life.