May Mitchell
She steps in, and you can tell she’s been destroyed. Like submarines on each other’s radars, you recognize each other. The ones who have lived through things.
For days, the world has grabbed onto you. Welcoming you back. Hands reaching out to you, arms pulling you in. Throats sobbing against your temples. Voices, hoarse, telling you how much you’ve been missed. A new house. Not in the city. Not yet. Some items from the past. More voices—in person, over the phone, recorded memos and video calls and postcards and care packages.
Your mother, your father. Your brother. Julie. Even Matt emailed, your almost-boyfriend. “I hope you’re doing okay,” he wrote. “Well, as okay as possible. I’m sorry if this sounds dumb.”
No one has any idea how to navigate this, and everyone is sorry.
At night, the voices go away. You lie in a bed your mother says is yours. You listen for steps down the hallway, but there’s only silence. Still, you listen, always you listen, ready for something to pierce the quiet. You doze off only in the mornings, when your family awakens and the smell of coffee fills the house and the world starts standing guard.
Cecilia.
You think about her all the time. The newspapers assure you she’s fine, “safe and in the care of relatives.” The cops, too. Every day you call and every day they tell you the same thing.
Did she get the dog back? you asked on the third day. They said yes. An officer found the crate during a search of the house. They gave the dog to the girl’s grandparents.
She’s staying with them, the officer said. She’s not alone. She’s going to be okay.
She’s going to be okay.
You need them to keep saying it. If you hear it enough times, maybe one day you’ll believe it.
And now, the other woman is here. The woman from the living room. The one who wore your necklace. Emily.
She stands in the new house, and maybe she’s the only one who understands. What it was like to live in a world where he was the center of everything.
She doesn’t know how to exist. How to stand, how to speak. How to look at your mother. How to look at you.
She wants a hug.
Your mother tries to step in. She knows you’re weird about that stuff now, that you struggle to let yourself be touched. That you don’t like people sneaking up on you. That you can’t handle being held too tight or for too long. That sometimes you need time alone and there’s nothing to do but wait it out.
What your mother doesn’t know: that this woman in her house is the only person who’s seemed familiar to you in days. That she means something to you. That you saw her then and you see her now. That this woman is like you, her body a bridge between two worlds.
You wish you could keep her close forever. You wish she could stay and the two of you could talk about everything or sit next to each other for hours saying nothing.
People have been trying to understand. Journalists have asked questions and relayed the answers. Cops, too. They’re compiling evidence, digging into his past, searching for motives and methods, retracing his steps, trying to name the women in the basement.
Everyone scrambling for every little piece, but they’ll never know.
Her, you, and his daughter. The three of you. Your stories combined. That’s the closest anyone will ever get to the truth.
“Mom,” you say. “It’s fine.”
Your mother steps aside. It doesn’t come naturally to her, these days, leaving you at the mercy of the world.
The other woman waits, wrapped in the puffy white coat that threatens to swallow her, jeans and snow boots peeking out, brown hair stuffed under a trapper hat. Brand-new. Recently purchased, probably. A new item for a new life.
She wants a hug. She has asked and now she stands, hands at her sides, already an air of regret on her face.
You open your arms.
