Page 60 of Husband Missing

The words, so inappropriate, coated with bitterness, left a strange feeling of relief in their wake. Something hard and impenetrable inside her dissolved, evanescing in a way that almost felt blissful. It was one of those things you didn’t even know you felt until it was gone.

Roe stared at her with an odd look in her eyes but she neither nodded nor shook her head.

“Why?” Josie said quietly, still spinning out, unable to stop herself from asking things she knew she shouldn’t. “Why the others and not Lila?”

A look of confusion crossed Roe’s face.

Yes or no questions, Josie reminded herself.

“Did you kill the other babies because they were boys?”

No response, just that odd, indecipherable look again.

“Did you let Lila live because she was a girl?”

Nothing but the jangle of the cuffs as her right hand shook.

“Because you thought boys would grow up to be a threat, but a girl wouldn’t?”

Josie wondered whether Roe was refusing to answer or if she failed to understand the line of questioning. It didn’t matter. Knowing why Lila had survived when her siblings hadn’twouldn’t change one damn thing. It was an endless hamster wheel of searching behavior. As if she could undo years of suffering just by finding one shining piece of information that made everything that had happened to her make sense. That wasn’t how life worked.

Sometimes, bad things just happened.

Roe’s lips formed a circle. An “uh” sound came from her throat. This was an easy one.

“You’re trying to say something that starts with O.”

This was met with confusion. Then Josie remembered she couldn’t read. She knew the word she was trying to say but not how it was spelled. Josie made an “oh” noise. Roe shook her head and tried to form the word again, this time opening her mouth wider. “Uh.”

Josie repeated it and was rewarded with an empathic nod. Her earlier guesses had come as much from the context of their conversation as from the shapes Roe’s mouth made. This time, she had no idea what the word could be.

Roe lifted her hands and pointed to the guard and then to Josie. “Uh, uh, uh.”

The tip of her tongue touched the roof of her mouth, as if she was trying to add to the first sound, but nothing came. Again, she indicated the guard and Josie. Then she brought her hands to her chest and shook her head. Josie watched as she alternated between the two gestures, pushing out the “uh” sound when she came to Josie and the guard. She attempted the second part again, tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth, just behind her front teeth. This time, a “th” noise came out. Air hissed around the sides of her tongue. Spittle flew onto the table.

Josie tried to put the two sounds together with Roe’s gestures. Indicating Josie and the guard. Fisting her hands at her chest and shaking her head. “Us three?”

Immediately, Josie felt stupid. The question was if Roe had killed her other children because they were boys and she believed they would grow up to be threats. What did the three of them in this room have to do with anything?

Face flushing, Roe shook her head violently. She repeated the sounds, the motions. Again and again.

“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

Roe slumped in her chair, head lolling against her chest in defeat.

“Try again,” Josie told her. “Is there another way that you can…show me what you’re trying to tell me?”

Roe’s arms returned to the cradling position, rocking and rocking. This time, she looked from the invisible infant to the clock high on the wall to their right. Slowly, she brought her hands up, angled toward the clock. Then she arced them down toward where the crook of her left elbow had been. “Roe,” she said. “Roe.”

She repeated the pattern. Cradling, pointing to the clock, slashing downward, repeating her name. More tears spilled down her cheeks. Her tremor grew worse. Was the downward motion supposed to represent her bringing a blunt object down on the child’s head? But what did the clock have to do with anything?

“Is that how you did it?” Josie asked.

No response, just a repeat of the gestures, her movements becoming jerky.

“Time,” Josie tried. “Something about time.”

Roe shook her head, even as she thrust her hands up toward the clock once more. She held them there, her cries growing more frantic. “Roe. Roe. Roe. Roe!”

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