to finish it,” I say. “It’s really well written, of course. But…”
I trail off. I can’t, as Sarah, explain to her that my mind could only handle the memoir a bit at a time. That I threw the book across the room as soon as Lily appeared.
I glance away. Down at the coffee table between us. It’s empty too. Just like the hutch.
“Did she tell you how the memoir came to be?” Rita asks. When I look at her, her lips flick upward, but it’s still not a smile.
“No,” I say.
“Oh, well, it’s kind of interesting. Astrid published a short story a couple years ago, and the editor from a small press here in Maine stumbled upon it. The editor recognized Astrid’s name and saw that she could write. Like, really, truly write. So he actually approached Astrid with an offer to publish a memoir, in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of her kidnapping.”
The story has a practiced quality to it, like she’s told it many times before, and something about it unsettles me.
“Weren’t you worried,” I ask, “that they were trying to capitalize on her trauma?”
Rita shrugs. “Yeah, well—they definitely were. But there’s not much money in dancing. Or teaching. And we’d decided to start trying for a baby, but IVF was way more expensive than we realized.” She shrugs again. “We needed the money. But—we’re so stupid. Pretty much two seconds after Astrid signed the deal, one of our friends told us we probably could’ve taken the offer to bigger publishers—New York City ones—and used it as leverage for a larger advance.”
She rubs her cheek, as if the regret is a painful, impacted tooth.
“There could have been a bidding war,” she adds. Then she looks around the room. Its blank walls. Its bald surfaces. “We could have gotten out of this little house.”
I look at my hands in my lap. Cross one leg over the other. Suddenly I can’t stop picturing Astrid at her computer, her fingers paused over the keys, her forehead creased with a memory she isn’t sure she wants to relive. Then I see Rita standing behind her. Bringing her a cup of tea. Massaging her shoulders. Whispering through the fog of chamomile steam that the money will be worth the words she has to bleed.
“Sales were only okay to start,” she continues, and the image doesn’t dissipate. It sharpens. Its colors deepen. “But then she went missing. Again.”
And just like that, her voice changes. There’s a hitch to it. A weighted sadness that has nothing to do with missed opportunities. I feel a burst of guilt, strong as nausea in my gut. This whole thing keeps messing with my mind. Making me look for villains everywhere.
“Now the book’s doing great, but it doesn’t even matter,” Rita says. “All I care about is getting her back.” She rakes her fingernails over the pillow. Slides over the tiny grooves in its fabric as if strumming a guitar.
A muscle quivers in her chin, but only for a moment. Then her jaw tightens. Her face becomes marble hard. “When Astrid comes home,” she says, “we’ll have to move away from here. We’ll go to another country if we have to. Get away from him.”
“Him—the kidnapper?”
Her brows pinch together. “Who else?”
“Well, hopefully he’ll be in jail,” I say. “Then you won’t have to worry about him at all.”
She tilts her head back, exposes her throat to let out a punch of laughter. “In jail? They’d have to catch him first.”
“They will.”
“No, they won’t. Because it’s all gone exactly the same as last time. Taken while walking, taken while running. No witnesses, no trace; no witnesses, no trace. So he’s going to return her, too. I know he will. But he’ll do it when no one’s looking, probably drop her off half a mile from here. She’ll be blindfolded and sedated, and he’ll be far away before she even wakes up. Exactly like before.”
She looks at the pillow in her arms. “But at least she’ll be back.”
There’s a delicate tremble to her voice. I imagine that the confidence she tries to project has all sorts of cracks in it. Maybe her own words are the only caulk that can fill them.
“What did he want with her?” I ask. “Twenty years ago. And what do you think he wants with her now?”
For the third time since I arrived, Rita rolls her eyes. It’s a strange response to a question so chilling. “I