Chapter Four

KAT RACES THROUGH THE HOSPITAL,unlaced shoes squeaking on the linoleum, personnel whipping by her in a blur of blue scrubs and white coats. My baby. My baby. My baby. The two words run a loop through her head. Something primal has escaped inside of her. She'd caged it up after Ellie disappeared. Couldn't handle all that love, with nowhere and no one to channel it toward anymore. She rounds a corner, spots Detective Chelsey Calhoun, and halts, suddenly tentative, self-conscious.

"Is it her?" Her vision pulses. If it's not Ellie, it will be okay. Really, it will not be okay. But Kat will pretend it is. She will pretend she is happy some other lost girl has come home.

Jimmy catches up and places a hand on Kat's shoulder. She grips his blunt fingers. He squeezes. They both want it to be, need it to be, Ellie. Of course they do. They want their baby back. They believe she will fix all that is broken between and inside of them.

Detective Calhoun straightens. "It's her."

She grips Jimmy harder, knees weakening, and tilts her chin to him. The bill of his ball cap is frayed and the embroidered American flag is faded—red to pink, blue to gray. "It's her."

He nods once. Kat wishes for more, a sign he is as flayed by happiness as her. "Thank god," she says to Calhoun, straining to hold her emotions back. "I want to see her."

Calhoun points to a door. "She's through there. But, Kat, Jim…"

"Yes?" Kat keeps her gaze on the door. Ellie is behind it. It's silly, but Kat thinks she can feel Ellie, her heartbeat, the gentle pull of her.

"It's Ellie." Calhoun pauses. "But she's banged up pretty bad. Skinny. There's evidence she's been abused for a very long time. I want you to be prepared. It can be shocking. She has an aversion to light and doesn't like to be touched."

Kat stills, feels like one of those bugs entranced by blue light, flying high and suddenly zapped. She's had nightmares. Plenty of them these last two years. Visceral images of Ellie trapped somewhere, beaten and bloody, calling for her like she did when she was little. Mommy, I need you. Mommy, could you help me? Mommy, I can't do it on my own. She only sleeps if she takes a tiny blue pill before bed. She has consoled herself, thinking it can't be worse than what she's imagined. It can't be worse than the not knowing. But now, she isn't sure. The only word she can mutter is "Okay."

"Can we see her now?" Jimmy's voice is hoarse.

"Of course," Calhoun says. "I'll give you some privacy."

Now Kat moves slowly. Hand splayed on the door, she eases it open. It's dim in the room. Ellie sits up in the bed, her profile turned to the ceiling. Kat remembers running her finger down Ellie's tiny ski slope of a nose when she was a baby.

Ellie shifts to peer at her and Jimmy. Time slows and stretches. Kat takes it all in, digesting her daughter, what's become of her, like a bitter pill.

"Ellie," Kat says.

"I was counting the specks on the ceiling," Ellie says matter-of-factly.

Kat bursts into tight sobs. It's Ellie. An echo of her, at least. A skull with empty sockets. Jimmy shuts the door, finds his feet first, and shuffles to the bedside, his gait slow and heavy, like some sort of penance.

"It's really you," he says. When Ellie was suspended the week before she disappeared, Jimmy had raged. Slammed cabinet doors, put a fist through one. What about your future? he'd yelled at their daughter, but then he'd grown silent and pulled away. The next morning he'd taken off on a weeklong work fishing trip. Leaving Kat to deal with Ellie. Ellie was grounded, but Kat did not see why she should be locked at home, too.

She'd forced Ellie to go with her to the salon, then hang around after hours with her co-workers and friends. Ellie had sulked, slowly twirling in a ripped stylist chair while Kat and the ladies smoked and drank. Ellie had to drive Kat home. It wasn't a big deal. But Jimmy came back, and Kat was hungover. They'd fought. Jimmy implied Ellie's behavior was Kat's fault. She'd thrown her hands up. Of course, always blame the mother. Kat had said maybe if Jimmy was home more… Everyone knew girls with daddy issues rebelled. They'd quit speaking to each other. Hadn't been speaking to each other when Ellie disappeared. It wasn't always this way between them. Once, their relationship and marriage had been formed on a bed of concrete on which tough times broke. But Ellie… Ellie had been a jackhammer, chipping away at all they had built. An unexpected storm in the summer of their lives.

"Honey." Jimmy reaches for Ellie, and she recoils.

"I'm sorry." Ellie's smile is warped and fractured—a bird with a limp wing.

Kat inhales. She wipes her eyes and smooths her hair. She stands next to Jimmy and slips an arm through his. Jimmy is stiff and uncomfortable. Unsure what to do, Kat can tell. Sometimes she thinks he's a robot. When they'd been dating he'd been stoic, sometimes mechanical, and she'd liked it. The challenge of him. She'd been young and foolish and too romantic then. Thinking he might open up to her. Thinking she was special. Different. All Jimmy needed was a good woman. But Jimmy was Jimmy. His father had been a career Marine, serving in Vietnam and Desert Storm. He'd been tough on Jimmy. Called him a little soldier. Stuff like that. And Kat often wondered if that had locked something up inside of him.

"Jim." Kat keeps her voice light. "Why don't you find a nurse? See if we can take Ellie home?"

"Yeah, sure." Jimmy lifts a hand as if he wants to pat Ellie on the head like he used to do, ruffling her hair and calling her "buddy." But he just flexes his fingers, as if shocked at the empty spaces between them. "Right," he says, hand gripping the rail of the hospital bed. "Right." He taps the metal, crosses the room, and leaves.

Kat slides the water pitcher to the center of Ellie's tray. Straightens a stainless-steel kidney dish. Tucks the bedsheet under the end of the mattress. "Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?" She wrings her hands. There is nothing left to do but look at Ellie, even though it hurts.

Ellie shakes her head. "I'm fine."

Before Ellie disappeared, Kat would speak to anyone about her daughter—clients, co-workers, people in line at the grocery store. What to do about Ellie. Grounding her did not work. Yelling did not work. Naked disappointment and shame did not work. Kat had been exasperated. Her daughter was unbreakable. Now, Kat sees that she was wrong. Ellie is fractured.

Kat stands next to the bed and whispers to Ellie, "I never gave up hope, you know? I could feel it here"—she places a hand to her chest—"that you were still with us." Kat longs to tell Ellie all the things she has done to find her. Walking into seedy bars to enlist the help of the local motor club. Calling psychics and spending money that she and Jim did not have. Sitting in the parking lot where Ellie was abducted, following truckers for miles and miles. Hunting down Brett Jones, the guy who had rented the room next door to India and Ellie that night at the motel. But he had died of an overdose not long after. And Kat had tortured herself, thinking Brett took the truth of what happened to Ellie with him.

Kat smiles, strained, and stares at Ellie in silence for a long moment. A fly buzzes about in the windowsill. She's flooded with relief when Jimmy reappears, Nurse Hart in tow. The doctors would like to keep Ellie overnight for observation, but Ellie balls up her fists hearing that.

"I want to go home. I want to go home." She pounds her bed.

Kat twists her mouth. "Only for observation?" she says to Hart. "Surely we can watch her at home?"

Nurse Hart hesitates but agrees. She leaves and returns with discharge paperwork. A bottle of pills is pressed into Kat's hands while Hart speaks. Ellie is having acute anxiety. Ellie's pregnancy test was negative. Ellie's blood tests are normal. Ellie should see a counselor, a Dr. Fischer in Astoria.

Then Ellie is released.

Kat walks next to Jimmy wheeling their daughter through the ER and feels daunted. Maybe she shouldn't have been so hasty asking for Ellie to be discharged so soon. This is kind of like when she and Jimmy left the hospital after Sam, their first daughter, was born. They'd been so young. So unsure. Kat couldn't believe the doctors and nurses were letting her take a newborn home. Especially when they barely had a home to bring Sam to, only a studio apartment above the grocery store on Main Street. The ceiling laden with asbestos, the walls with lead paint. Sam had been an accident; Kat never meant to get pregnant at eighteen. Ellie had been on purpose. They'd waited ten years to have another baby. Everything was supposed to be different with their second daughter. Easier.

Soon, they arrive at a set of double doors. Jimmy jogs off to the parking lot to bring the truck around. Outside, the crowd of reporters multiplies, their bodies and voices humming with excitement. Kat grows queasy and protective, and she stands between Ellie and the media, a human barricade. Jimmy returns, and Ellie bows her head and covers her face as they go outside. Voices crest and crash into them:

"Elizabeth, can you tell us where you've been?"

"Is it true that there was blood on your clothing?"

"Elizabeth, who took you and why?"

"Did you run away?"

"Elizabeth, I am from the National News Network. We'd like to offer you an exclusive. One hundred thousand dollars for your story."

Inside the Blacks' truck, the voices of the media are muted. Ellie slumps in the back. And Kat is drained, dazed. The drive home is silent. Awkward. Kat fiddles with the radio and settles on an oldies station. Thick forest gives way to rocky cliffs and a dark ocean about an hour into the ride. Kat glances back at Ellie, she can't stop, has been checking on her daughter every few minutes. Ellie has opened her window a crack, visibly inhaling and exhaling.

Headlights flash in the rearview mirror. A station wagon approaches from behind, drawing threateningly close. What is wrong with the driver? What could they possibly be thinking? Kat swings her body around to face Ellie, a hungry instinct to protect her daughter.

Jimmy speeds up and says, "Probably teenagers. They don't know how dangerous these roads can be."

The wagon keeps pace with their truck, its lights flooding the interior. Ellie clenches, flexes her hands, squeezes her knees, her breathing rapid. "Jimmy," Kat says calmly, "let them pass."

Jimmy sighs. He flicks on the blinker and moves to the shoulder. The blue station wagon flies by, hand heavy on the horn.

It's three o'clock in the morning when they walk through their front door. Kat whips around Jimmy and Ellie. The lights are all on, dishes are piled in the sink, and the television blares with a popular news station. Ellie is the top story. A clip of her exiting the hospital plays on loop. Her head is down, her face obscured by matted hair. A news ticker scrolls across the bottom of the screen: ELIZABETH BLACK FOUND ALIVE.

Kat finds the remote and clicks the television off, pushing the button so hard it sticks. "Sorry about that," she says to Ellie. Jimmy moves around the kitchen, dumping his keys into a wooden bowl of loose change, miscellaneous screws, and batteries.

Ellie winces, and Kat remembers the lights. She hurries to dim them. "Better?"

Ellie nods. "Thank you."

"Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?" Kat drifts into the kitchen. "I have some chicken I could make. Or maybe spaghetti?" That had been Ellie's favorite. Noodles with sauce and lots of parmesan.

"I'm not hungry. Thanks." Ellie wanders into the kitchen, smiling feebly as she passes Kat. She stops at the sink and flicks on the faucet, turning the nozzle to the hottest setting. It takes a moment for the water to heat, but then steam rises, and Ellie runs her fingers under the spout. Ellie muffles a groan and closes her eyes. Kat startles and her mouth parts, watching the rapture on her daughter's face. It's as if Ellie is touching hot water for the first time. She glances at Jimmy, alarmed, and he shakes his head—don't say anything. Neither knows what to do. Taut silence is their only option.

Ellie shuts off the faucet and turns to them. "I'm tired."

Kat smiles even as uneasiness twists in her gut. "Let's get you to bed, then."

"Go on ahead," Jimmy says. "I'll lock up."

Kat follows Ellie up the stairs. Photographs in wooden frames line the walls, and Ellie pauses in front of one image. The baby in the photo wears a ridiculous flower headband and sports a gummy smile. Ellie tilts her head.

"That's Sammy's girl," Kat says.

"What's her name?" Ellie asks.

"Mia. After the soccer player. You know Sam, how much she loves the game. I'm sure you'll get to meet her soon. Valerie and Sam live here, in Coldwell, now. They moved home after you had been gone awhile…" Kat realizes she is talking too much, that her frayed nerves are showing. "Anyway, they were headed out for a vacation. Just a few days in Seattle. Sam loves the city. But they'll be driving home in the morning, and they want to come right to see you. That is, if you're up to it? I don't know…" Kat stops as Ellie turns and drifts up the stairs.

She catches up and finds Ellie standing in the middle of her room. It is exactly as Ellie left it. A sloppily made bed, photo collages all over the walls and on her dresser mirror, tennis shoes, a record player, shirts stuffed into a too-full, disorganized closet, a collection of fairy figurines. Kat could not bear to go inside the room. Other than the detectives, she would not let anyone inside the room either. It hurt to see the empty space but hurt more to imagine someone else in it, cleaning or touching or dismantling all Kat had left of Ellie.

Kat wrings her hands as Ellie walks the room's perimeter, letting her fingers run along surfaces. Ellie stops at the light and switches it up and down—three short bursts, three long bursts, three more short bursts. SOS. Morse code? A chill runs down Kat's spine.

"We haven't touched anything…" Kat speaks, a tenor of fear in her force. "We kept everything as you left it. We knew you'd come back and want it exactly that way."

Ellie pauses at the window, parts the blinds, and looks out at the darkened view of the sad brown grass, emaciated trees, and rooftops with peeling shingles. Kat knows Danny used to sneak in through that window. She'd looked the other way. Maybe she let Ellie get away with too much. Maybe Jimmy was right. She was a bad mom. Not fit. She had known Ellie was lying about spending the night at India's. Moms always know when their daughters are lying. But she'd been so tired of fighting with Ellie. Every conversation was nerve-jangling, like walking a tightrope. She'd let it slide. What's the harm? she'd asked herself back then. She'd only wanted one day off from Ellie. One night without slamming doors, loud music, or shouting—I hate this house. I hate you. Why did you even have me? What was the harm, indeed.

"Tomorrow we could give your hair a trim," Kat suggests. "It's been a while since I've done any cutting." She quit her job soon after Ellie disappeared. Didn't like the way people looked at her. As if what happened to her family was catching. "But I've got my old shears here somewhere."

"No," says Ellie, quick. "I'm not allowed."

Kat waits a terrifying second, letting the words compute. "What do you mean?"

"Mom," Ellie says at the same time.

Kat's insides flare with warmth. "Yes?" Kat recalls the way Ellie used to say her name. As a baby, little girl, teen. Mama. Momee. Mom. A spectrum of emotions contained in that one word. Wonder. Joy. Worry. Derision. Kat could tell how her daughter was feeling by how Ellie said her name. How does she say it now? Hollowed out. Painful.

"I'm going to go to sleep."

The warmth fizzles out. But Kat keeps a punishing smile on her face. "Oh, okay. I'll be up for a bit longer. Just come and get me if you need anything."

Ellie says sure, and Kat is suddenly standing outside her daughter's door, staring at the faux grains of wood. Eventually, she stumbles downstairs. Jimmy is waiting in the kitchen. He's filled two glasses with amber liquid and pushes one toward Kat.

"Thanks," she says, and sips.

"She okay?"

She peers at Jimmy over the rim. Three days after Ellie disappeared, Jimmy abruptly announced he needed to go back to work. Then he'd waited for Kat to say something. All she could do was stare at him blankly and mutter okay. She sensed his relief immediately. Inside, she was so angry, white-hot angry, but it was better than the fear, better than the anguish, so she nourished it a bit. Eventually, fury turned to ambivalence. Sometimes she wonders if she loves Jimmy anymore. If the only thing keeping them together is a black rope of grief and a thin string of red hope. "She wants to sleep."

"That's good. That's good," he mutters.

They sip in silence, and Kat is suddenly crying. She places the glass on the counter, covers her face, her mouth, muffling the sound, the carnage. Jimmy wraps his arms around her, holding her from behind. She grips the counter and pushes away. She can't look at him, at his clouded eyes. She blames him as much as he blames her. "I'm going to clean up."

"She's going to be okay," Jimmy says.

"Of course she is," Kat says. "She's home now."

He nods. "I'm going to head to bed. You come up soon?"

"As soon as I am done," she promises.

Jimmy goes upstairs, and the house is achingly quiet. Kat busies herself, and an hour later, she lies down next to Jimmy. She does not take a blue pill. Again, it is like she has a newborn. That pressing need to stay awake. The knowledge that she must be ready. Alert. She cannot remain still, and finally, she gives in and checks on Ellie. She pads down the hall and flashes to seventeen years ago… No, she corrects, Ellie isn't seventeen anymore, she is nineteen, nearly twenty. Time has stood still for two years.

Now, she pauses outside of Ellie's door and listens. All quiet. She turns the knob. The lights are off, but Ellie is not in bed.

Panic surges through Kat. She races through the house, opening doors, peering under beds, readying herself to shout for Jimmy, but then she stops, wide eyed and frantic. There, in Sam's old bedroom, the crawlspace door is ajar. Just as she felt Ellie behind the hospital door, Kat feels her daughter in that unused space. Slowly, she steps around tubs of old clothes and a dusty elliptical machine. She kneels down and pulls the door wide. Ellie is curled up in the fetal position, comforter twisted around her legs. Her daughter's body twitches as if she's caught in a nightmare. This isn't right. This isn't my daughter. This is a stranger. Silly thoughts that bring a burst of bright red shame. But Kat cannot shake it. The idea her daughter has been replaced by a changeling. Somebody else's baby.