The Oysterville Sewing Circle. Susan Wiggs

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СКАЧАТЬ the surf eddied around their sun-browned bare feet, feeling the shy prodding of youthful attraction, watching for the mythic green flash as the sun went down over the ocean, telling stories around a beach fire made of driftwood bones.

      Now she merely said, “Yep. I am.” Then she took Flick’s hand and turned toward the Bait & Switch. “Come on, let’s go find your sister.”

      The entrance to the shop, where she’d left the little girl, was deserted.

      Addie was missing.

      “Where’d she go?” Caroline demanded, looking from side to side, then lengthening her strides as she towed Flick along with her. “Addie?” she called, ducking into the shop. A quick scan of the aisles yielded nothing. No movement was reflected in the convex security mirrors. “Have you seen a little girl?” she asked the sleepy-looking clerk at the counter. Not Mr. Espy, but an overweight youth with a game going on his phone. “She’s five years old, mixed race, like her brother.” She indicated Flick.

      “Is Addie lost?” Flick asked, his gaze darting around the aisles and display racks.

      The clerk shrugged his shoulders and palmed his hair out of his face. “Didn’t see nobody.”

      “I left her right here by the door, like thirty seconds ago.” Caroline’s heart iced with fear. “Addie,” she called. “Adeline Maria, where are you? Help me look,” she said to the kid. “She can’t have gone far.”

      Will, who had followed her into the shop, turned to his team of sweaty athletes. “Go look for her,” he ordered. “Little girl named Addie. She was here just a minute ago. Come on, look lively.”

      The boys—there were about a half dozen of them—fanned out across the parking lot, calling her name.

      Caroline found the clean leggings and undies in a small heap by the door. “She needed the restroom. I told her to wait. I was only gone a minute.” Her voice wavered with terror. “Oh, God—”

      “We’ll find her. You check inside the store,” Will said.

      She grabbed the clothes and stuffed them in her jacket pocket. “Stay with me, Flick,” she ordered. “Do not let go of my hand, you hear me?”

      His sweet round face was stony, his eyes shadowed by fear. “Addie’s lost,” he said. “I didn’t mean for her to get lost.”

      “She was here a minute ago,” Caroline said. “Addie! Where’d you go, sweetheart?” They went up and down the aisles, looking high and low among the stocked shelves. The store seemed no different from decades ago. They passed bins of candy and bags of marshmallows for s’mores. There were fishing supplies in abundance and a noisy chest freezer filled with bait and ice cream treats. Boxes of soup mix and Willapa Bay oyster breading and fish fry. A sign designating goods from local vendors—kettle corn, bread, eggs from Seaside Farm, milk from Smith’s Dairy. Caroline’s mother used to send her or one of her siblings to the Bait & Switch for supplies—bread, peanut butter, toilet paper, cupcake tins … With five kids in the house, they were always running out of something.

      She made her way methodically along each aisle. She checked the restroom—twice. The indolent clerk pitched in, poking around the supply room in the back, to no avail.

      Good God. Good fucking God, she’d only been in charge of these kids for a week and she’d already lost one of them. They had come from the urban pile of Hell’s Kitchen back in New York City, yet here in what had to be the smallest town in America, Addie had gone missing.

      Caroline unzipped her pocket and fumbled for her phone. No signal. No goddamn signal.

      “I need your phone,” she said, grabbing the clerk’s from the counter. “I’m calling 911.”

      The guy shrugged. At the same time, Will stuck his head in the door. “Found her.”

      Caroline’s legs nearly gave out. She set down the phone. “Where is she? Is she all right?”

      He nodded and crooked his finger. Feeling weak with relief, she grabbed Flick and followed Will outside to Angelique’s car—her car now, Caroline supposed.

      She leaned down and peered into the window. There, curled up on the back seat, was Addie, sound asleep, clutching her favorite toy, a Wonder Woman doll with long black hair. Caroline took a deep breath. “Oh, thank God. Addie.”

      “One of the guys spotted her,” Will said.

      Flick climbed in through the opposite door, his face stolid with contrition.

      Caroline collapsed momentarily against the car, trying to remember how to breathe normally. The panicked departure, the jumbled, seemingly endless days of the drive, her terrible fears and confusion, the careening sense that her life was reeling out of control, rolled over her in a giant wave of exhaustion.

      “You all right now?” asked Will.

      Another echo sounded in Caroline’s head. He’d asked her that question ten years before, the night everything had fallen apart. You all right?

      No, she thought. Not even close to all right. Had she done the right thing, coming here? She nodded. “Thanks for helping. Tell your guys thanks, too.”

      “I will.”

      After so many years, he didn’t look so very different. Just … more solid, maybe. Grounded by life. Big and athletic, a square-jawed all-American, he had kind eyes and a ready smile. The smile was fleeting now.

      “I guess … you’re headed to your folks’ place?”

      “They’re expecting me.” She felt a sense of dread, anticipating a barrage of welcome. Yet it was nothing compared to the situation she’d fled.

      “That’s good.” He cleared his throat, his gaze moving over her, the crappy car stuffed with hastily packed belongings, the little kids in the back seat. Then he studied her face with a probing gaze. His eyes were filled with questions she was too exhausted to answer.

      She remembered the way he used to know her every thought, could read her every mood. That was all so long ago, in an era that belonged to different people in a different life. He was a stranger now. A stranger she had never forgotten.

      He went around to the rear of the car, where she’d left the hatchback wide open. His gaze flicked over the crammed interior—hastily stuffed luggage and gear, her prized single-needle sewing machine broken down in pieces to fit, her serger, boxes of belongings. He shut the door and turned to her.

      “So you’re back,” he stated.

      “I’m back.”

      He looked in the car window. “The kids …?”

      Not now, she thought. The explanation was far too complicated to explain to someone she barely knew anymore. Right now she just needed to get home.

      “They’re mine,” she said simply, and got back in the car.

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