Invisible (43 page)

The side entrance to the plant was ajar. That was weird. Martin always walked around and made sure everything was locked up tight.

Mr. G’s secretary smoked. She’d have a lighter or a matchbook in her desk. There were still some people around. She could hear their voices in a nearby room. Machinery thrummed from the other end of the plant, not making noise but making the floor tingle beneath her feet. She hadn’t realized that it did so before. What else had she missed or not noticed? Her mother was always telling her to slow down and enjoy the process. Scratch that.
Julie
had always said that.

It was delicious being here, where she had no right being. She ran her fingertips along the wall, recently papered in white and soft gray stripes, the paper bumpy where the gray came in, smoothing out for the white. A metallic scent hung in the air. Maybe one of the machines was running wrong and her dad would be called in to fix it. Nope. Not her dad. Just some guy named Frank.

She found the lighter in the secretary’s desk, in one of the compartments of the plastic divider. She thumbed the wheel, holding the lick of flame to the tip of her cigarette. She drew in and the cigarette caught.

The two clownfish were swimming in unison, flipping this way and that, like they were playing a game. Mr. G was right: Charlie was getting along with his new friend, someone who looked just like him, to reflect back his happy self and show him he belonged.

She had a wild thought. The best thought.

All that powder Dana claimed was making people sick. Peyton knew where it was stored. Everyone was so afraid of it, and
wouldn’t it be something to send it flying all around? She could rig up that fan Ronni used in the packing room, and position it over the opened bin of powder. That would be cool. Then everyone would be equal. She wouldn’t be the only rudderless one.

She’d get into the storeroom through the manufacturing room. She knew the code. Fern had tried to be secretive about it, but she was old and her fingers had moved slowly. If anyone had been clever, it had been Peyton, who’d looked away the instant Fern glanced over to see if she’d been watching. Ha.

She turned the corner and saw a bright yellow wire running along the baseboard, like it was leading somewhere. Interesting. She decided to see where it led.

Around the next corner, she saw LT crouching at the end of the corridor. He saw her at the same moment, and scrambled to push himself up. “Peyton?”

LT clasped a reel of yellow wire to his chest. So he’d been the one to string it along the floor. “What are you doing?” she asked him. LT had been fired, hadn’t he? So what was he doing here, creeping around after hours?

“Get AWAY! You’re not supposed to be here! Get AWAY.”

She glanced at the wire by her feet. The most poisonous creatures in the ocean were brightly colored. It was nature’s way of warning away other animals,
Bad News. Stay Away
. Here was this glow-in-the-dark neon yellow, the kind that made you automatically pay attention.

LT lurched toward her and the reel dropped, bounced. Now she saw the gray duct tape around his chest, holding a small black box against his sweatshirt. “GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!”

Yeah, good idea. He was looking real freaky.

“Peyton!”

There was Dana, running toward her, her face twisted in horror.

A loud boom and the world shook.

No one’s daughter.

 [DANA]

B
Y THE TIME JULIE ARRIVED HOME, HOURS AFTER
she’d told me to expect her, I’d grown crazy with worry. I’d started imagining all sorts of terrible scenarios, fueled by the awful certainty that my sister would be snatched from me at the very time I needed her most. Her car sailing over an embankment. Someone kidnapping her from a parking lot. An angry employee bursting into the office and gunning down everyone in the waiting room.

At last, Julie nudged open the door and dropped her keys on the small table. She looked perfectly fine, wearing the same print blouse and denim skirt she’d left in that morning, her blonde hair falling in soft waves to her shoulders, her cheeks pink from the summer sun. She glanced around the room, at the magazines lying askew on the couch beside me, the glass of ice water sweating condensation on the coffee table, everywhere but at me.
Don’t tell me you’ve been watching TV all day
.

Gently chiding, not a word about why she was so late, but I could tell from the tight way she was controlling her voice that she wasn’t the least bit fine.
What did the doctor say?

There are lots of things you could be doing, Dana. How about learning another language? Or how to cook?

Tell me
, I demanded.

She sank into the armchair across from me, its worn cushion scooped and scratchy. It was our least favorite chair in the place, and we used it as a way station for laundry to be folded or library books to be returned, but here my sister was, leaning back against the ugly green fabric as though she did so every day. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her mascara smudged. She’d been crying, but she tried on a smile.
How about knitting?

So that was it. She’d never be able to have a baby.
Is he sure?

Pretty sure
. She lifted her hair from the nape of her neck and let it fall.
Let’s treat ourselves. How about Chinese?

But …

Don’t look like that, Dana. It’s not the end of the world
. But it
was
the end of the world. I saw it in her eyes.
Frank and I can always adopt
.

You said Frank would never love a child that wasn’t his own
.

She started to respond, then faltered. She was trying so hard to be brave, and I was making it difficult for her. I’ll
have lo mein
, I said, and she smiled.

Just think
, she said, reaching for the phone.
Soon I’ll have a little niece or nephew to spoil
.

Julie had done everything for me and had asked for nothing in return. I put my hand on my belly and felt the answering kick. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. But was I strong enough to do it?

Frank and I took separate cars. Even then, we weren’t united. Even then, we were on opposite sides.

I rolled through intersections, searching in both directions for Julie’s small blue sedan. Thought I saw it in the JCPenney’s
parking lot, until I spied the Wisconsin license plate. I tried every phone number I could argue out of the operator. When Eric Hofseth answered, he sounded distracted. At the mention of Peyton’s name, his voice sharpened.

“I don’t know,” he told me bleakly, and I believed him.

Sheri sounded worried. “I don’t know where she could be, but if she heads this way, I’ll let you know. Dana, what’s wrong?”

I drove along the lake, turned in to the amusement park, and looked at the mob of people thronging the walkway. Peyton couldn’t possibly be there. All that giddy gleefulness would make her sick. She’d look for silence. She’d want to be alone. Where would she find that? I thought I might know.

Sure enough, along the far side of Gerkey’s parking lot the car sat at an angle. A few other cars were parked nearby. I didn’t recognize any of them.

I banged on the glass doors. A man emerged out of the gloom on the other side, someone I recalled seeing before, though no one I knew. He waved,
We’re not open
, and wheeled away. I rapped harder, drawing him back, pressed my hands together in supplication.
Please
.

Shaking his head, he unlocked the door and held it open a few inches. “Read the sign. We’re closed.”

He’d been one of the workers in the manufacturing area when I’d gone through with the monitor; he’d eyed me the entire time with a dour expression.

“I’m looking for Peyton Kelleher.”

“I told you, we’re closed.”

“Her car’s parked right there. She has to be in here somewhere. Just let me look around. I’ll only take a minute—”

“No can do. Sorry.”

He wasn’t sorry. The bastard looked pleased to be shutting the door in my face. I grabbed the handle. “Look. She’s upset. She just lost her mom.” Twice over. “I’ll be quick.”

“Frank know you’re here?”

“Frank’s looking for her, too. Please. It’s important.” I kept my gaze even on his.

“Okay,” he relented, holding open the door. “You got ten minutes.” He walked away, toward the manufacturing area, where light spilled through an opened door. People were working, their voices a low mutter.

I headed right, toward the administrative offices.

The hallway was hushed, door after door closed tight. Would Peyton give me a chance to explain? I couldn’t just pretend nothing had happened. There’d been enough silence between us. It was time to tell the truth.

I reached a dead end, realized I’d made a wrong turn, and backtracked.

How much did I dare tell Peyton? No one knew the whole story, not even Julie. I’d held tightly on to my secrets all these years, and now they were shriveled reminders of all the ways my life could have been different. I’d refused to think about the past. I’d put my head down and forged forward. But that had been a terrible mistake. In the end, the truth had come out. In the end, I had to accept responsibility.

But how much was truth worth, really? Look how I’d ferreted it out here, and everything had collapsed. Maybe Joe had been right—there might have been a better way.

The administrative suite was dimly lit, the carpeting soft underfoot. The sweet green notes of lilies and roses hung in the air, pleasant. Something tangy and acerbic twined among the floral aromas, something out of place, a smell so familiar it resonated in my very marrow.

Dynamite?

I froze. There, along the baseboard of this handsome office suite, snaked bright yellow detonation cord, heading joyfully and with great purpose around the corner.

Dynamite. I began walking, faster and faster, then I ran. “Peyton!”

Corner after corner, feet pounding, following the yellow cord as it lured me deeper and deeper into the building. The guy who’d let me in stared as I passed. “Get out,” I yelled. “Call the fire department.”

He backed away, turned and jogged.

“Peyton!”

Another corner and there she was, miraculously whole and unhurt, standing with her back to me. Beyond her was LT, with a black box bristling with wires, duct-taped to his chest.

Space tunneled. Peyton stood miles away, too far.

“PEYTON!”

She wheeled around, her face blank with confusion.

A clap of thunder.

She flew up like a doll.

The floor shook. I stumbled, threw out my hands for balance. The walls collapsed. A wave of gray debris rolled toward me. Instinctively, I threw up my forearm, clenched my eyes shut. Small things rained against me.

Peyton
.

White dust coated a topsy-turvy world. The world had gone sickeningly silent.

I clawed at chunks of cement. The ceiling was above me, then it was not. It was gone, revealing a desk on its side, a shattered bulletin board hanging askew, a blinking fluorescent bulb. I fell to my knees, crawled forward. My white-powdered hands reached for things and left behind red smears. I slithered between tented sheets of linoleum. The floor was wet. A tiny black-and-white fish flopped in a dusty patch of linoleum.

Beside it stretched a hand, a slim hand lying beneath it all.
No
. Not again. Not again.

I heaved rocks and boulders. Someone was working beside
me, the flash of hands grasping and lifting. Bit by bit, Peyton’s arm was uncovered, her shoulder, her face, pale and bloodless, her beautiful blue eyes unseeing.

I pressed my mouth to Peyton’s and blew. I pounded her chest, bent again to blow. My heart and breath and will pouring for all eternity, and then I was jerked away and lifted, kicking, straining to see her as I was carried away, my daughter gone and growing smaller until I could see no more.

 [PEYTON]

C
REATURES IN THE ABYSS SOMETIMES SLITHER OUT
of their homes at night, pulled northward by the rising moon into the middle reaches of the ocean. It’s called vertical migration, and they only remain long enough to grab a meal. Well before the sun rises, they turn and make the long journey home, descending through icy black until they’ve reached the bottom. Why do they do that? Since they’ve already made the long trek north into warmer waters, why not stick around where there’s light and food is plentiful, where they could find a mate and have babies?