Donna bolted upright. She stood, paralyzed, her face swinging back and forth between Charlie and Mary. Her instinct was to run and help, but her instinct was also never to leave her daughter alone. She bent down and grabbed Mary’s face between her hands and spoke softly but firmly. “Mary, you sit right here. Do not move, okay? Do not move. Sit right here. Please, baby, I need you to understand. Show me you understand.”
Mary’s eyes were filled with confusion and glassy tears. She didn’t move.
“That’s good, baby, you sit right there, you don’t move.”
Donna sprinted for the highway, fumbling with her cell phone and punching the numbers 911 as she ran. Her work clothes felt clumsy. Her blouse came untucked from her skirt. She lost her balance as her high heels tripped her up, and she swore and kicked them off. Rocks chewed at her nylons and cut her feet. When she reached Charlie, she murmured a prayer as she watched the bloodstain spreading like a cancer under the boy’s head. She craned her neck to stare up and down the highway, which was dark now in the deepening twilight. There were no cars approaching from either direction. She spotted a silver RAV4 parked on the shoulder a quarter mile to the north, but she didn’t see anyone inside. She was alone.
Donna saw Mary. Still on the bench. Her thumb in her mouth.
She heard the 911 operator in her ear and was relieved to hear another person’s voice. She took a breath and swallowed down her panic. She tried to remember exactly where she was, but the names of the streets and towns didn’t come. For an instant, she could have been anywhere on earth. Then the location burbled out of her brain, and she stuttered, trying to relay it. The operator was annoyingly calm, asking her the same questions over and over, making Donna repeat herself.
“I need help!” she insisted. “Get me some help!”
The operator finally told her what she wanted to hear. The police were on their way. An ambulance was on its way. Everyone was coming. Stay with him.
Donna heard moaning at her feet. Charlie was waking up, trying to move his limbs.
“No, no, stay still,” she murmured. She didn’t know if he heard her. She got on her knees on the highway and took his hand. It was limp. He didn’t squeeze back. “Stay still.”
His eyes were closed. He tried to turn his head, and she put her lips next to his ear. Her hand was in his blood. “Don’t move. Stay right there, Charlie. Help’s coming.”
She listened for the sirens. Where were they? She took another glance up and down the highway, looking for headlights, afraid that the cars wouldn’t see her and Charlie in the gloom until it was too late to steer around them.
Her cell phone rang. She answered it with sticky fingers and heard Clark’s voice.
“Where the hell are you? This is so damn unfair, Donna.”
Words spilled out of her mouth. She couldn’t slow them down. “Clark, get down here, get down here now!”
“What’s going on? Is it Mary?”
“Just come now, I’m on the highway south of town. Come right now!”
God bless him, he didn’t ask any more questions. The phone was dead. He was already gone and on his way. When you needed him, Clark always came through. That was why she had loved him for so long.
All she had to do was wait. Wait for the sirens. Wait for Clark.
Donna turned over. Crouching on the ground, she couldn’t see the bench by the river where Mary was sitting. She didn’t want to call Mary’s name and risk her wandering into the road. She laid Charlie’s hand on the pavement. “I’m still here,” she told him.
Donna stood up.
“Oh, my God!” she screamed.
The wooden bench was empty in the shadows. She didn’t see Mary anywhere. Donna tore at her hair. Blood smeared on her face. She looked everywhere, at her car, at the trees, at the path that disappeared up the river bank. “Mary! Mary!”
She screamed over and over, but she didn’t see her beautiful girl.
“Oh, God, someone help me! Help! Mary!”
A baby rabbit no bigger than Mary’s fist poked its nose out of the goldenrod and hopped into the middle of the dirt trail. Mary wanted to hold it so she could feel better. She had held a rabbit before, and its fur was soft on her fingers and its warm little body made her happy. She got up and crept toward the path, laying each foot down softly and quietly. The rabbit watched her come. Its big dark eyes blinked at her. Its nose smelled her. The animal took two more hops, turning its white puffball tail toward Mary. They began a little dance, Mary taking a step, the rabbit taking a hop, as if they were playing with each other.
“Bunny,” Mary cooed. “Here, bunny.”
She followed it up the trail. She looked down at her feet, not at the trees or the river, and not at the highway, which soon disappeared from view behind her. She didn’t notice it was getting dark. The bunny led her away, a hop at a time, and when it finally shot north on the trail and disappeared, Mary ran, trying to catch it. She called out for the bunny in a murmur and hunted in the brush. It was gone, but when she jumped into a patch of wildflowers, she flushed another butterfly, which floated just out of her reach. She forgot about the rabbit and followed the butterfly instead.
She forgot about Charlie, too. And Mama. She didn’t think about being alone, because the butterfly was with her. It wasn’t until the butterfly soared off into the treetops that Mary stopped and looked around her and realized that no one was close to her anymore. It was nearly dark inside the trees. She could see the river down the bank below her, but the dancing dots of sunlight were gone, and the water looked black. Mary stood in the middle of the trail, not knowing what to do. She bit her lip and blinked. Tears dripped down her cheeks.
“Mama?”
She didn’t dare speak loudly. She didn’t know who would hear her. She wished the bunny would come back. Somewhere below her, awfully far away, she thought she heard Mama’s voice. Mary didn’t know how to find her, and she was afraid that Mama would be angry at her for running away. She had done that before, and Mama always got upset, although she hugged her hard.
Mary wanted a hug right now.
She heard noises in the woods. Her eyes grew wide. She hoped it would be Mama, or Charlie, or Daddy, and that they had come to get her and take her home. She took a step backward and laced her fingers together over her stomach. It was hard to see anything at all now, just shadows that were like the night outside her bedroom window. She looked up, wanting to see the sky, but the branches drooped like arms over her head, and she didn’t like it at all. The noises got louder. She cried harder and whimpered.
“I’m sorry.”
The trees moved. They were alive. Mary saw a man climb out of the trees, not even ten feet away from her. He reached out his hands toward her the way a monster would, but it wasn’t Charlie, or Daddy; he was a stranger, and she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t scream, because she wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. Not at all. Not ever.