is what I do now. I listen, but I don’t hear anything except him, talking.
I hate to think of her getting into some trouble out there, he says, stepping on a diamondback or running into the wrong kind of person. Have you seen my Gloria? He lifts his right hand and holds it out to his side, palm down. Little Mexican gal? About yay high?
My throat slams shut, but I swallow hard and try to look him right in the eye. No sir, we haven’t seen her. Maybe she hitched a ride back to town.
Can I come in and use your phone?
I shake my head real slow, back and forth. No.
He pretends to look genuinely surprised. Well, why not?
Because I don’t know you. I try to speak this lie as if I mean it. Because now, I do know him—who he is and what he’s done.
Listen, Mrs. Whitehead—
How do you know my name? I am nearly shouting now, pushing one hand against the baby’s foot, which hammers against my rib cage.
The young man looks surprised. Well, it’s right there on your mailbox, ma’am. Listen, he says, I feel bad about what happened out there, and I’m real worried about her. She’s a little crazy, you know how these Mexican gals can be. He stares at me intently, his blue eyes just a shade darker than the sky. If you’ve seen her, you should tell me.
He stops talking and gazes past me toward the house for a few seconds, a broad grin spreading across his face. I imagine my daughter peeking out the window at him. Then I imagine the other girl looking through the glass, her blackened eyes and torn lips, and I do not know whether to keep my eyes locked on him or turn my head to see what he sees, know what he knows. So I stand there, me and my maybe loaded gun, and I try to listen.
I want you to step back, I tell him after a thousand years of silence have passed. Go stand next to the tailgate of your truck.
He doesn’t move. And I told you that I want a drink of water.
No.
He looks up at the sky and lays his hands on the back of his neck, fingers threaded. He whistles a few bars of music and though the song is familiar, I can’t name it. When he speaks, he is a man, not a boy.
I want you to give her to me. Okay?
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you go on back to town?
You step inside the house now, Mrs. Whitehead, and get my girlfriend. Try not to wake your husband, who is sleeping upstairs, except he’s not, is he.
It is not a question, and suddenly, Robert’s face rises wraithlike before me. You did all this for a stranger, Mary Rose? You risked our daughter’s life, our baby’s life, yourself, for a stranger. What the hell is wrong with you?
And he’d be right. Because who is this child to me, anyway? Maybe she got into his truck willingly. I might have done the same ten years earlier, especially for a man this pretty.
Lady, I don’t know you, he says. You don’t know me. You don’t know Gloria. Now I want you to be a good girl, and set down that gun and go inside that house, and you bring her out here.
I feel the tears on my cheeks before I’m aware that I have begun to weep. There I stand, with my rifle, that useless piece of beautifully carved wood, and why should I not do as he asks? Who is she to me? She is not my child. Aimee and this child whose feet and fists kick and flail, they are somebody to me. They are mine. This girl, Gloria, she is not mine.
When he speaks next, the young man is no longer interested in asking questions, or talking. Bitch, he says, you listen here—
I try to listen for something other than his voice—a phone ringing in the house, a truck coming up the road, even the wind would be a welcome noise, but everything on this particular piece of flat and lonely earth has gone silent. His is the only voice I can hear, and it roars. Do you hear me, you stupid bitch. You hear me?
Gently, I shake my head. No, I don’t hear you. Then I pick up the rifle and snug it against my shoulder, a right and familiar sensation, but now it