I pulled at the lid. It stuck for a moment, and I knelt on the floor and pushed harder. The lid sprang open and scraped against the fencing like a scream.
The trunk was empty.
Closing the lid, I sagged backward, placing a hand over my heart in a futile attempt to slow it down.
But if Delia wasn’t in the trunk, she was somewhere. Nate was involved in her disappearance, or her murder. Why hadn’t we gone to the police at the time? Because in our family, you didn’t poke at things. You just accepted them. Delia was angry, Delia moved away. There had been a short investigation, but it was clear that Delia had been rejected by her family and had chosen to go. We didn’t know where she’d kept her money; she’d handed over the rent to Da in cash every month. It made sense that she would just go. Never darken our door again, like in some melodrama.
If we suspected that Nate had done something terrible, we pushed the thought away, because it meant we were responsible for it. I’d been only twelve, so of course I would hide my head under my pillow and try to forget. But Da? What was his excuse? Was the answer so easy — that Da hid from everything?
I remembered his loyalty to me, how he believed in me, and I felt helpless against the great tide of his love. Delia had been right — he took the easy road. But he loved us and protected us. He was all kinds of things in one — liar and charmer and schemer. He was my da.
He wasn’t alone. We all chose to believe that Delia had left. We didn’t believe it — we chose to. We saw there was a mystery, but we decided to believe the easiest thing, the thing that made us the most comfortable. My father had led a whole life by that principle. Maybe choosing to believe the easiest thing was the worst sin of all.
And what about me? I had taken the easy road, too, accepting the apartment and the job and clothes…. How many things did I turn my face from, afraid of losing something?
I put everything back the way I’d found it and left. As I reached the stairway I realized that I was still wearing the jacket. The light was better here, and I looked down at it. For the first time I saw a stain on the front, near the waist. I slipped it off and looked at it closely. Dark brown, faded now, but an irregular stain that had splattered a bit, faint drops in a trail.
Wine?
Or blood.
Suddenly, I heard the whirr of the elevator. I looked over at it, my heartbeat thudding. It was between me and the stairs. Any minute the small round window would reveal a face.
I bolted backward, turning and running silently back toward the storage room. I heard the thunk of the elevator settling, then the sound of the heavy door opening.
I’d have to hide. There was no telling who it could be — a zealous reporter, or something worse… Nate. Footsteps headed toward me.
I carefully opened the door to Nate’s unit. The gate squeaked.
The footsteps stopped.
I reversed direction and glided across the concrete floor.
Maybe there was another exit toward the back. I slipped down the corridor, but it ended at a bare wall. I doubled back. There was a side room with a washing machine and dryer, and another where carriages and bicycles were stored. I took a cautious step forward when the lights went out.
It was like someone knocked me to the ground. I couldn’t see, and I was afraid to move. I tried to orient myself. How close was I to the first storage unit? How many steps to the door? I inched over, holding out a hand. When my fingers met cold metal I kept a hand there lightly as I moved forward. As frightened as I was, I was more frightened of standing still.
Inch by inch, I went forward. I heard a slithering noise, a footstep, but it was impossible to tell where it came from. I was breathing hard, I realized, and I tried to slow down.
As my eyes adjusted, the blackness dissolved into grays. I could make out shapes. Faint light from the barred window in the laundry room illuminated part of the basement. At last I could make out the shape of the door to the stairs.