Darling Rose Gold, page 23
This first visit had gone better than I could have hoped. I’d come to see my mother as a last resort, expecting the meeting would end in me storming out and never seeing her again. So far, she’d been willing to meet me halfway. She hadn’t lied, as far as I could tell. Maybe we could get past our past, after all.
“How about next week?” I whispered back.
She pulled out of the hug and gripped me by the shoulders, searching my face for signs I was kidding. When she saw I was serious, her face broke into a wide grin, split lip and all. She squeezed my hand tight. “I would love that.”
I watched my mother follow the guard through the door, shoulders back, head held high. She whistled, winked, and waved one more time before the door closed behind her.
That was the Patty Watts I knew.
21
Patty
Rose Gold is still not home. She should have been back an hour ago. She hasn’t called or texted.
Maybe Gadget World is busy today. Maybe her manager asked her to work late. Maybe she’s getting drinks with friends I don’t know.
I send her a text.
Me: Hi honey, will you be home soon?
I stare at the screen. No reply comes back.
Adam gurgles from his bassinet, unaware his mother is MIA. I get off my recliner and walk to the kitchen, pull his bottle from the fridge, move more frozen milk from the freezer to the fridge. Thank God Rose Gold has been pumping and storing all this milk.
I warm the bottle, then bring it back to the living room. I cradle Adam in my arms.
“Big strong boys need to eat, eat, eat,” I sing. He gulps the milk.
I distract myself with attending to Adam. After he finishes the bottle, I burp him. I give him an extra-long bath, making sure he’s spotless. I dress him in his duckling jammies, then rock him back and forth. I imagine every night like this one from now on: Adam and me winding down in a quiet house somewhere. Just the two of us.
I was born to be his mother.
I move the bassinet from the living room to my bedroom. By seven thirty, Adam is sound asleep inside it. For now the bassinet will do. His crib is in Rose Gold’s locked room.
I call her phone twice. No answer.
We could leave first thing tomorrow.
I force that line of thinking from my mind. It would look fishy if I took off the morning after Rose Gold didn’t come home.
I call Gadget World, but no one answers the phone there. I’ll call again in the morning, if she hasn’t come home by then. It’ll be good to have a record of texts and calls, proof I was worried about and searching for my daughter. In case she doesn’t turn up.
Me: I’m worried about you, honey. Please text me back
Of course she doesn’t.
I pace from the living room to the kitchen to the hallway to the living room. Around and around in circles I go, my phone clutched in my hand. This is what a Concerned Mother would do, wouldn’t she? That is the role I need to play.
In the hallway I pull strings off the grass cloth wallpaper, like I used to when I was young and eavesdropping on my parents’ arguments. I ball the string up into a little pile between my thumb and forefinger. These rooms are haunted with the spirits of all of them—Mom, Dad, David, and now Rose Gold.
I call my daughter’s cell phone another dozen times, leaving stressed voice mails, even stubbing my toe so I cry in the last one. At eleven, I give up and get ready for bed. I wash my face and brush my teeth.
I’ll deal with my missing darling in the morning.
* * *
• • •
I barely slept at all last night, between Adam’s nighttime feedings and my anxiety about Rose Gold. At six, I get out of bed.
She’s not coming home.
I check my phone, although I’d turned the ringer volume all the way up, in case she called in the middle of the night. No e-mails. No texts. No missed calls.
I feed Adam a bottle and weigh my options. A Concerned Mother would call the police, but they’re going to ask too many questions. Besides, Concerned Mother doesn’t know for sure Rose Gold is in any danger. For all I know, my daughter got fed up with Adam and me and decided to leave.
I like that explanation. If anyone tracks us down, I can say I left because Rose Gold left first. No one was keeping Adam and me in Deadwick. We wanted a fresh start.
As I burp Adam, I think about checking the news for information, but decide against it. It’s been five years and two months since I tuned in, and I’m not about to start now. Besides, the authorities would reach out to me before the reporters got wind of any “scoop.” They never get the story right anyway. I think back to an op-ed that ran in the Deadwick Daily right before my trial started: HOW THE PATTY WATTSES OF THE WORLD ENDANGER ALL OUR CHILDREN. Ridiculous. I put my grandson in his bassinet and promise I’ll be quick.
I call Rose Gold, shower, then call her again. I cross the hallway to my bedroom to get dressed and pause at Rose Gold’s door. What has she been hiding from me these past six weeks? Maybe Concerned Mother will find clues to her daughter’s whereabouts.
After dressing and checking on Adam, who’s fallen asleep, I return to the master bedroom. I try the door handle for the millionth time—still locked, of course. With a bobby pin from the bathroom, I try again to break the lock. Again the bobby pin snaps in half.
I walk outside and around the house to the exterior of Rose Gold’s bedroom. All the curtains are drawn, covering the windows, per usual. It doesn’t make sense to break a window when I can break down a door. Besides, my snooping neighbors can’t see what I’m doing if I’m inside. I head back into the house, picking up my pace.
I consider googling “how to break into a room,” but decide there’s no time. A Concerned Mother wouldn’t be so logical as to research steps for finding her missing daughter. She’d go ahead and break down the godforsaken door.
I approach the door again. First I try shoving my shoulder into it. It doesn’t budge, but I’m confident I’ve bruised my arm. I ram the door again and again, switching sides when my right shoulder begins to hurt. After five minutes, the door is starting to give but still hasn’t broken open.
Marching to my bedroom, I pull on a heavy pair of boots, lacing them tight. I return to the bedroom door, sigh, and start kicking it. On the fourth kick, the wood begins to splinter. On the sixth, a long crack forms. On the eighth, the door gives way altogether. It bangs back against the wall. I’ve done it.
I peer inside, almost afraid. The bedroom looks the same as the day I got out of prison, when Rose Gold gave me a tour of the house. The bed is made. The crib is in order. The windows are closed.
I drag my fingers along the dresser. I open all eight drawers: no clothes are missing. I search her jewelry box: all the cheap earrings and bracelets are in place. I move on to the closet, opening the sliding-mirror door. A cursory glance tells me nothing is missing from there either—the closet is as jam-packed with junk as before.
At her desk in the corner, I dig through the three drawers to the right of the chair. They are crammed with creased papers and old journals. I check the dates of the journals, but there’s nothing here from the past few months or even the last five years. I put the journals back in the drawers. I used to read them before I went to prison, so I already know what their pages contain.
Her computer is dead. I plug the charging cord into the laptop, then press the power button. The machine whirs to life. Concerned Mother taps her foot.
Instead of wasting time waiting, I tear the comforter, then the flat sheet, then the fitted sheet from the bed. All I find is the blankie I sewed for Rose Gold when she was a baby. I’m surprised she still sleeps with it. I toss the shredded blanket aside.
Grunting, I heave the mattress off the box spring, sure I’ll find something between them. Nothing. I get down on my stomach with a flashlight and check under the bed. There’s a stack of dusty Cosmopolitan and National Geographic magazines, the same publications Alex used to read. While I flip through each magazine’s pages, I imagine Rose Gold sitting here, alone and friendless, trying to copy the life of her cool older friend, Alex—buying the same groceries, using the same makeup, reading the same magazines. Pathetic.
Nothing falls out of any of them. Nothing odd is written on any of their pages. I turn back to the laptop. It’s password-protected.
I try different combinations of Rose Gold’s and Adam’s names, their birthdays, even my own name, though I know the last one is unlikely. After the sixth failed attempt, the computer locks me out. I pound my fist on the desk. Concerned Mother is past desperate by this point. I wipe my forehead. My hand comes away damp.
Sitting in my daughter’s desk chair, I peer around her bedroom— a mess now, thanks to me, but nothing unusual or suspicious. No secrets to uncover.
Why has this door been locked all these weeks?
I check my watch—nine a.m. Gadget World should be open now.
I redial the number from last night and wait. The phone rings. On the third ring, someone picks up.
“Gadget World, Zach speaking. How can I help you?” says a chipper young voice.
“Hi, Zach. Is Rose Gold there?” I ask.
“She’s not, but we just opened, so she could be running a few minutes late.” Zach sounds like he doesn’t have a care in the world, the little prick.
I debate how best to word my next question without sounding any alarm bells.
“Did she come in yesterday?” I say as breezily as possible.
“I’m not sure. I didn’t work yesterday. Hang on. I’ll transfer you to my manager’s office.”
Zach puts me on hold. The phone rings twice.
A miserable voice fakes enthusiasm. “Scott Coolidge, Gadget World manager, speaking. How can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m calling about Rose Gold Watts,” I say.
“What about her?” Scott says after a beat.
I hesitate. “This is her mother, Patty.”
Scott doesn’t say anything.
“I was wondering if she came into work yesterday?” I close my eyes, trying to sound natural.
“No, she didn’t,” Scott says, annoyed. Bingo.
I make a clucking noise that could mean anything.
“Didn’t even bother to call and tell me,” Scott grumbled. “I called her phone three times. No answer.”
“I’m sure she’s sorry about that, Scott,” I say. “I’m having trouble getting ahold of her too.”
“So she’s not coming in today either?” Scott says, not at all concerned about Rose Gold’s well-being. “Listen, she knows I run a tight ship around here. You give one of them some slack, and the rest think you’re a pushover. That’s strike one for her.”
“That seems fair. I know she respects your authority,” I say, trying to wrap up the call. “I’ll tell her to contact you as soon as I hear from her. Bye now.”
I end the call before Scott can give me another lecture on responsibility, and dial Rose Gold’s number again. Appearances are everything. She doesn’t pick up. I put my phone on the desk.
A loud wail breaks my focus. Adam. I forgot he’s been in the other room all this time. Oh, well, he can cry it out. Self-soothing is an important lesson to learn early—some of us do it our entire lives.
Hands on my hips, I wander around the room, trying to concentrate, to figure out what I’ve missed. After a minute, Adam’s wails escalate into shrieks, stopping me short. Those are more than the cries of a hungry or tired baby or one who just wants to be held. I’ve heard it enough times. I’d recognize the sound anywhere.
I rush toward the bassinet. Adam is on his stomach, flailing his arms and legs.
Beneath his head is a puddle of green vomit. He stares up at me with a tear-streaked face.
Just like Rose Gold used to.
22
Rose Gold
November 2016
My mother leaned in and lowered her tone, though the nearest inmate was clear across the visitors center and sobbing to an elderly woman.
“I have a new cellmate,” Mom said. I was trying to stay positive, but I didn’t like the way her eyes lit up when she said it. Before I could respond, she continued. “Her name is Alicia. She can’t be more than twenty. Guess why she’s in.”
“Why?” I asked. My first trip to the visitors center was two weeks ago. We’d gotten off to an okay start, but I wanted more from this second visit. I needed her to explain why she did what she did, to take responsibility for the ways she’d hurt me. In a year she’d be getting out of prison.
“Guess,” Mom insisted.
“Burglary?”
“Nope.”
“Drugs?”
“Nope.”
“Too many DUIs or something?”
“You’re never going to guess,” Mom said with glee.
I sat back, thinking. I didn’t care about Mom’s cellmate, but decided to play along so we could get to the important stuff.
Mom leaned forward. “During her senior year of high school, she gave birth to a baby boy. When he was about two weeks old, she took him to the zoo—and left him. In a bush by the gorilla enclosure.”
I looked up, startled. “Did the gorillas hurt him?”
Mom shook her head. “One of the zoo’s staff members found the baby the next morning. He was hollering his head off, but he wasn’t hurt. They traced the baby to Alicia after a few days.”
“Then what happened to him?” I said.
Mom shrugged. “CPS or some such took him. Alicia was arrested.”
“Why didn’t she want the baby?” I asked.
“I haven’t gotten that out of her yet. She’s pretty tight-lipped. But a baby is a lot for a young girl to take on.” Mom kept glancing over at the sobbing inmate, trying to suss out the drama. The woman was middle-aged, built like a linebacker. Her jowls flapped when she shook her head.
“Wouldn’t the staff have found him when they were closing the park down for the night?” I tried to imagine being the employee who had found Alicia’s son. I’d never held a baby.
Mom rolled her eyes. “What is this, Twenty Questions? I don’t know, Rose Gold.” She tilted her head back and stared down her nose at me. “We’ve been cellies for a week. Last night she went to the emergency room after cutting herself.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. “That’s awful.”
Mom nodded. “I found her bleeding out on our cell floor.” She sounded almost cheerful, like she used to when she’d gotten a deal on deli salami. When she saw my horrified expression, she put up a hand. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a trained medical professional, remember? I got her where she needed to go. Saved her life.”
And with such humility too.
“They’ll patch her up and send her right back to me. There’s no ‘talking through our feelings’ at this place. I’ll have to fix her myself. I think I can make a real difference in Alicia’s life,” Mom droned on. “The other women have made her life a living hell. They tend to look down on child abandonment.”
This was my chance. “Yeah? How do they feel about child abusers?”
“I haven’t conducted a formal poll,” she said, not missing a beat, “but they’re probably not big fans.”
The sobbing inmate had quieted down, no thanks to the stony woman across from her. The inmate stood and turned to leave. When she saw my mother, her jaw stiffened and her head lifted.
Mom wiggled her fingers and half-smiled, half-sneered. “Stevens,” she said, nodding a greeting.
The inmate ignored my mother and marched past her, slamming the door to the visitors center behind her. Mom chuckled to herself.
I was curious about my mother’s relationship with this woman, but had to stay on topic before she eluded me again. “Do you know why you’re here?” I asked.
Mom returned her attention to me. “Of course I do, sugar plum,” she said.
We both waited for the other person to say something. When it became clear she had no intention of elaborating, I cleared my throat. “I want to hear you say it.”
Her eyebrows furrowed, questioning.
I tried again, gaze focused on the table between us. “I want to hear you say—out loud—what you were convicted of.” A trickle of sweat ran down my chest.
Mom stretched her arms out wide, forming a T. Like Jesus on his crucifix, she might have said.
“Aggravated child abuse.”
Goose bumps popped up on my arms. I couldn’t believe she’d come out and said it. My mother was finally taking responsibility for all the ways she had hurt me. Was she ready to admit she’d ruined my childhood? Maybe this would be the turning point in our relationship. Maybe I didn’t have to shun her for the rest of my life.
When I glanced up, Mom stopped humming a cheery tune I hadn’t heard her start. She sniffed. “But you and I both know that’s a load of horse hockey.”
No, I thought. No, no, no. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted things to work out between us until this moment.
Mom gripped my hands in hers. “You know how much I love you, baby. I would never, ever hurt you.”
I pulled my hands, red and throbbing, from her grip. I might explode into a million tiny pieces. Lava would boil from my ears and eyes. “So you’re saying you’re innocent?” I asked, teeth starting to clench.
Mom snickered and waved me off. “I never said I was a perfect mother,” she said, “but I did my best.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Have I told you about—”
“That thing where you give the vague answer,” I said, speaking over her like she’d done to me countless times. “Draw a line in the sand. Are you saying you did or didn’t poison me as a kid?”
