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She could feel a tiny tremble in the child’s body, and if she listened very, very carefully, she could hear the unasked questions in Izzy’s in-drawn breaths.
“Your daddy will be back soon, Izzy,” she said softly, praying it was true. “He loves you very much. ”
Izzy didn’t move, didn’t respond.
“Sometimes grown-ups get confused . . . just like kids do. And your dad’s confused right now. He doesn’t feel like he belongs anywhere, but if we’re patient, and we give him time, I think he’ll figure it out. It’s hard to be patient, though, isn’t it? Especially when the waiting hurts. ”
Annie’s voice faded. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the rocker, listening to the rhythmic scraping of wood on wood and the plunking echo of rain on the porch roof.
“He loves you, Izzy,” she said at last, perhaps more to herself than to the silent child. “I know he loves you. ”
It took her a moment, but Annie realized there was a sound coming from the child, a tiny, reed-thin whisper that sounded like png-png-png.
She was mimicking the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof overhead.
Annie smiled.
Izzy was trying to find her way back.
Izzy felt the scream starting again. It was way down deep inside her, in that dark place where the nightmares lived. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her mommy, and she remembered what she’d heard. You can’t follow me . . . can’t follow me . . . can’t follow me . . .
What if that were true? What if she disappeared into the fog and still couldn’t find her mommy? A tiny, whimpering cry escaped her lips.
She was scared. It was one of those nights when nothing good happened in her sleep and she woke up with tears on her cheeks. She kept dreaming about that doctor, the one with the pointy nose and the thick glasses who told her that she had to talk or else she wouldn’t get over her mommy. It had scared her so much, those grown-up words that she hardly understood. The last thing she’d ever said was to him. I don’t want to get over my mommy. . . .
Her whole body was shaking.
She didn’t want to scream again.
She threw the covers back and slithered out of bed, walking barefooted to the closed door. There, she stopped. She stared down at her own hand, at all that nothingness around her thumb and forefinger. She wished suddenly that she wasn’t disappearing, that she could just reach out and grab that old doorknob and twist it hard.
With a sigh, she used her two fingers to turn the knob. It took a while, but finally, she got the door open.
She poked her head out and saw the dark hallway.
Her daddy’s room was to the left, just three doors down, but she knew he wouldn’t be there. She’d heard Annie talking to Lurlene. They thought she was gone, but she wasn’t. She’d been hiding in the corners, listening.
Her daddy was in the bad place, the place that made him smell like cigarettes even though he didn’t smoke, the place that made him come home with that scary look in his eyes and slam his bedroom door shut. The place that made him walk funny.
She crept down the hallway and peeked over the railing, and saw Annie asleep on the sofa.
Annie, who held Izzy’s hand and brushed her hair and acted like it didn’t matter at all that she didn’t talk. Annie, who was going to make her mommy’s garden grow again.
Very slowly, she went down the stairs. The steps felt cold beneath her bare feet and made her shiver, but she didn’t care. Once she started walking, she felt better. The scream slipped back into the dark place.
She almost wanted to say something, call out Annie’s name, maybe, but it had been so long since she’d even wanted to talk, it felt weird. She couldn’t even remember what her voice sounded like anymore.
She tiptoed to the sofa. Annie was asleep, with her mouth open. Her short hair was smashed to one side of her head and stuck straight up on the other.
Izzy wasn’t sure what to do. When she was little, she used to climb into her mommy and daddy’s bed whenever she was scared, and it felt so good, so warm. Mommy would curl Izzy up in her arms and tuck the blanket around them both, and Izzy would go to sleep.
Annie made a quiet snoring sound and stretched out, leaving a big empty space along the edge of the sofa. Just enough space for Izzy.
Izzy cautiously peeled back the scratchy blue blanket and gingerly crawled onto the couch.
She lay stiffly on her side, hardly breathing. She was afraid Annie would wake up and tell her to go back to her room. But she didn’t want to be alone in her room. She was scared of the dark in there.
Annie made another quiet sound and rolled toward Izzy.
