“I guess I’d better call the relatives,” he said as he worked.
I doubted any of them would come to help us.
Daddy’s parents were living in a Florida development for retired people and didn’t travel anymore. Mother’s father had died when she was in college, and her mother, our grandmother, Nana Clara Beth, had remarried and lived in Arizona. Her new husband had children of his own, and we sensed early on that Mother resented how our grandmother doted on her new husband’s children more than she did on her or on us. Mother was an only child.
Daddy had two brothers. His older brother, Uncle Jack, had gone into the military and was stationed in Germany. He had a wife and two children, a boy, Philip, now eight, and a girl, Arlene, now ten. Daddy’s younger brother, Uncle Bret, was a salesman for a drug company. He was married with three children—Tim, Donald, and Jack, who were five, six, and seven. They lived in Hawaii, so we saw little of them.
Daddy served me some toast and put some jam out. I stared at it. The doughnut was enough, but I couldn’t tell him. Actually, I was feeling a little nauseated.
“Try to do what the doc said, Haylee.” He took a bite of his toast and jam.
I picked up a piece and nibbled at it. “I could take Mother’s car and go looking for her,” I said.
“Oh, no. God, no, Haylee. All I need is something to happen to you now.”
“At least I would feel like I was doing something.”
“There will be plenty for you to do. Your mother won’t be herself for a while.”
A while? If Kaylee doesn’t return, she’ll never be herself, I thought. I was sure he knew that, too, but was just trying to make me feel better. He took a few more bites of his toast, drank his coffee, and rose.
“I’ll go up to check on her and make some calls while I’m there,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied, my voice tiny and thin like a five-year-old’s. “I’m going back to my room in a few minutes, too. It feels so strange being down here without Kaylee,” I said mournfully. “It’s like I feel . . . naked.”
“Sure. Rest. I’ll call you right away if I hear anything.” He left the kitchen.
How should I spend the day? I wondered. Was Kaylee’s disappearance news yet? The police had her picture. Would it be on television already? Were newspaper reporters getting ready to interview us? What should I say when my friends found out? They’d be falling all over themselves trying to be the first to speak to me.
I’ll pick up the receiver if they call my landline, say hello, and then immediately say I can’t talk and hang up. If they call my cell phone, I won’t answer and will just let it go to voice mail. They’ll be all abuzz about it and might even come over to see me. I won’t see them. Not yet, I thought. I’ll have Daddy tell them I can’t see anyone.
Who will they feel sorrier for, me or Kaylee?
Or will Mother be right again and they’ll feel sorry for us both equally?
I can’t even have my own pity.
Not yet.
But I would. Someday soon, I would.
4
Kaylee
I awoke in his arms as he was carrying me to the bed. He put me down gently. I was still shaking.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I left you alone so long so soon after you arrived. I was dumb to do that and not very considerate. I’m sure it’s difficult getting used to a new home, but I don’t take sick days, and I didn’t want my boss asking all sorts of questions. People can be so nosy because they’re bored sick with their own damn lives. They’re always trying to find out what I do, where I go, who the hell I see.”
He smiled and nodded again as if I had responded. It was eerie, because when he did that, I almost believed I had. My deliberately forced muteness wasn’t bothering him.
“Right,” he said. “We’ll have all night and all day tomorrow and all night tomorrow, too.”
I realized I wasn’t going to change his mind or frighten him into letting me go by refusing to speak. Besides, I still hoped that I could somehow persuade him to let me go because I was the wrong sister and this wasn’t going to work or please him. I wasn’t the one who supposedly fell in love with him over the Internet. Just how cozy and lovey-dovey had Haylee been with him? How sick was the whole thing? She was capable of saying some very sexy things.
It was time I confronted him, I thought.
“You didn’t leave me alone just after I arrived. I didn’t arrive,” I said. “You knocked me out and brought me here. You abducted me. You’ll go to jail and have to live in a cell that will be nothing compared to this, and you won’t have Mr. Moccasin, either, to keep you company. Just let me go home, and nothing more will happen.”