Mark has not thought about Bethany for years until, coming home on a crowded commuter ferry from San Francisco, he sees a woman who might be her. She has the same dark brown hair, smooth and full, the same glowing olive skin. His memory of Bethany's actual face is weak and fading since the thing about Bethany is not Bethany but what he did to her, and what happened later.
The guilt comes back like a punch in the groin. That is always the physical feel of it, what he imagines she felt. Images from that summer back in college stream and flash through his head.
All this mental drama, even though he knows the woman could not be Bethany. She is too young – Bethany would be at least forty by now – and too tall. On the crowded ferry, he can't see if she is wearing heels, but the age thing seems to seal it. And Bethany's nose was smaller, less Mediterranean than this woman's. Wasn't it?
Still, he angles closer in her direction, the better to see her left hand, which is gripping the support rail. Surely the scar – a square patch from a childhood accident – would still be visible.
No scar, not even a discoloration. Mark returns to his newsmagazine, a piece about the recent resurgence of the bond market, but he can't find the place in the article where he left off.
His wife is waiting in the minivan when he disembarks. She clears her real estate binders off the passenger seat then leans over for the quick, married couple kiss.
"How was the ferry?"
"Same old, same old." He folds the magazine length-wise, slips it into his leather computer bag, and zips the bag closed. "How was your day?"
That night, Mark's daughter Carli is to go to a slumber party at her best friend Jenny's house, an end-of-season event for the girls on her soccer team. But the evening news initiates a quick volley of phone calls among the parents, and the slumber party is postponed.
The big story is the disappearance of an eleven-year-old girl from Novato, only a few towns away. The girl, Susie Leigh, was allegedly snatched away from the rope swing in her own yard while her mother was inside ironing clothes and watching a soap opera. Witnesses observed a man in his thirties or forties directing her into a minivan. A police sketch of the suspect is shown above the hot line numbers.
All the soccer parents – the girls are all eleven and twelve themselves – agree that everyone would feel better if the girls slept safe and sound in their own beds that night. Everyone except the girls, of course, who have been looking forward to the slumber party for weeks. Carli thinks the decision is "bullshit" and says so; she is sent to her room to cool off.
Later that evening, the phone rings and Mark and Carole let Carli answer it; most of the calls these days are for her anyway. She calls down the stairs for Mark to pick up.
"Hello?"
"Is this Mark Baylor?" The voice is male, low and gravelly.
"Who is this, please?" Mark asks. He is slightly annoyed at Carli. She's usually pretty good at screening out telemarketers. Maybe she's still upset about the slumber party.
"Is this Mark Baylor? From Corinth, New York?"
"Yes. Yes it is." Mark eases up. It would not be the first time an old college buddy from Corinth University looked him up. "Who's this?"
"Thanks. That's all I need to know."
The caller hangs up and the line is silent. Mark checks the caller-ID history. It reads PRIVATE.
Before bed, Mark watches the late news while he flosses his teeth. The Susie Leigh case is still the top story.
The first image is a close-up of a school photo: she is blonde and has buckwheat freckles and big teeth with pink tinted braces. Most kids would smile closed-mouthed to hide their braces, but not this one. She is too full of life, the happy kind of child everyone loves. She could easily be one of Carli's friends.
This image is immediately followed by a clip of the parents, bathed in the white light of a dozen television cameras. The mother has the same blonde hair as the daughter, only limp and tied back. Her husband has one arm around her shoulder. His right hand is wrapped protectively over her right hand, their fingers intertwined. His eyes are cast down to the floor. The mother pleads for the kidnapper to return their baby. In her left hand she holds up a flier with the same school photo shown before; Mark can make out the words Missing and Help. She clutches the flier so tightly, it's crumpling in on itself.
Toward the end of the clip, she collapses into a crying fit and her husband holds her tighter. The flashbulb lightning strikes over and over. Mark can see that the father's whole effort is going into helping the mother keep it together. He understands; he would be doing the same for Carole.
Next comes the black ink police sketch of the suspect. Mark tries to place him – the school, the soccer field, the mall, the car wash – but the face is wholly unfamiliar.
The segment ends; the next story is about a tree knocked over by a car in Los Gatos. Mark presses the off button on the remote and goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth and gargle.
That night Mark dreams about Bethany. Almost.
In the dream, he is preparing hamburgers for the grill, pressing the soft meat into patties, when the doorbell rings. Carole comes into the kitchen with a tall young man. This is his son, the child he conceived with Bethany. She decided to keep the pregnancy, after all, to have the child in secret, and suddenly here in his breakfast nook is his son, now twenty-one. Carli is delighted to have an older brother, everything he says is a riot to her, and she drags him out of the kitchen by the arm to show him the house.
Carole wants an explanation.
"Remember Bethany, the girl I told you about…"
"You mean that girl…"
"Yes, that girl."
"Bethany, the girl from the Fourth of July picnic."
"Yes, well, she got pregnant that night and that's my son. Our son."
"I know, Mark, but she had an abortion. You said you were there."
"Well, she didn't. I guess she didn't."
"But Mark, you were there. You told me you even held her hand during the procedure."
Mark remembers the actuality of the abortion and the memory replays within the dream: Bethany on the table, her feet in the stirrups, beige machinery clicking and beeping, the doctor probing under a bright light, the same kind of light a dentist uses. Dark shoots of Bethany's hair are sweat-plastered against her brow. She grips Mark's hand hard enough that the pain in his fingers will last for days. Each time she squeezes she gives out a little squeak through gritted teeth and each time she squeaks, Mark feels a stabbing pain in his groin.
In his dream kitchen with his dream wife, dream Mark says, "Yes, you're right. I was there."
So who is this young man? Carole and Mark go into the living room. All the windows are open, the curtains billowing in the wind. The room is silent and the expansive parquet floor screams emptiness. There is no furniture, nothing. The bright red front door is smashed open and hanging off its hinges.
Carli is gone.
Next he sees the school portrait on the television again, only now it is not Susie Leigh, but Carli Baylor.
Next it is not Susie Leigh's parents pleading in the TV light and flashbulb surf, but Mark and the Bethany look-alike from the ferry. Her left hand, the wide scar visible below the knuckles, is a talon of tension gripping the flier with their son's adult picture. Mark holds her tightly, his eyes cast down to the floor.
Next comes the sketch of the suspect, an older version of the young man who claimed to be his son, the one who was never born.
Mark snaps awake at 4:37 AM. The phone is ringing.
"Hello?"
"Baylor. Izzat you, Baylor?" It is the same voice as earlier but drunk. "You sick fuck."
Mark rubs his eyes. "Please do not call this number again."
"We know all about you, Baylor. We know what you did to that girl. You sick fuck. You sick sick fuck. We shou' take you out and shoot you like a dog."
"I think you have the wrong Mark Baylor. If you call again, I'm calling the police."
"S'only a matter time, Baylor. Matter of time." He hangs up.
Mark replaces the phone in its cradle, stares at the dark ceiling, and thinks about Bethany.
