REMEMBERING SARAH CHAPTER 1 It was probably the weatherman's hyping of yet another potential nor'easter that triggered the memory of his mother. This morning, Friday, he and Bill had been in Wellesley, starting in on a two-floor addition and kitchen renovation for a newly divorced mother with too much money and too much time on her hands when a light snow started to fall. Bill flipped the radio dial over to WBZ, the all news station, and heard the weatherman talking about a major storm-front coming in late tomorrow afternoon that, after it left sometime late Sunday night, would dump somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve to sixteen inches of snow over eastern Massachusetts. Bill heard that and gave Mike a look, and by two, they both decided to quit early today and take the girls sledding. The problem with the plan was Jess. Since last month's incident, Jess had put a ban on sledding. Yes, what happened was an accident—Mike hadn't seen the other sled until it had slammed into them. And yes, Sarah had tumbled across the snow and whacked her forehead on a patch of ice—not bad enough to warrant a trip to the ER, but they took Sarah there anyway, Jess announcing along the way that sledding at The Hill was over, end of discussion. If Jess wanted to live in a bubble, fine, that was her choice, but it didn't mean he had Sarah had to live that way too. By the time Mike pulled up into his driveway, he had a solid plan in place. Jess stood in the kitchen, a cordless phone wedged between her ear and shoulder as she picked up the stacks of file folders on the island table and shoved them inside one of those cardboard filing boxes. She was dressed in some sort of power suit—black pants and a matching jacket, the wide collar of her white shirt spread out like wings to reveal the new set of pearls he had given her for her birthday. Jess was in charge of St. Stephen's Annual Spring Craft Fair to raise money for the church's after-school daycare program. Her partner and co-chair had dropped out at the last minute due to a family illness, and with the Fair seven weeks away, Jess was left to shoulder all the details herself. Jess's eyes shifted up from her packing, puzzled as to why he was home so early. "Finished early," Mike whispered. He kissed her on the forehead then grabbed a Heineken from the fridge. "I'll have to get back to you on that." Jess hung up the phone, looking frazzled. Mike said, "Your meeting with Father Jack still on?" "Still on. How bad is the snow?" "The roads are fine. They're already out plowing." Jess nodded, sighed. "Shirley's running late—car problems—and since you're home, I was wondering if you'd mind watching Sarah when she comes—" "Go ahead. What time will you be home?" "Probably not until seven." "Want me to grab dinner?" "The steaks are already defrosted and in the fridge. I'll do the rest when I get back." Jess scooped up her pocketbook and coat and hurried out the back door to the garage. Ten minutes later, Mike was sitting in the chair-and-a-half in the family room, reading today's Globe and working on his second beer when he saw Shirley Chambers' red Honda Civic pull into the driveway. Sarah was six, the smallest in her class, and as Mike watched her run up the walk to the front door, her Barbie backpack bouncing against her back as one hand waved goodbye to Mrs. Chambers, the other pushing her glasses back up her face, he wondered when his daughter's growth hormones would kick in, help her catch up to the rest of her first grade class. The front door slid open and Mike heard Fang, the big, burly Bullmastiff puppy they'd given her for Christmas, come charging from upstairs. Mike got to his feet and ran to the hall just as Fang bounced off the bottom step and jumped up on Sarah, all forty-plus pounds of him knocking her flat on her butt. Her glasses fell off, skidded across the floor. Sarah screamed. "It's okay, Sarah, I got him." Mike picked up Fang, the puppy's tail wagging a mile a minute, snorting as he licked Mike's chin. Sarah whipped her head back and forth, searching the floor, her world a blur. "My glasses, Daddy." "Remember what I taught you." "I need my glasses," Sarah said again, lips quivering. "I can't see without them." He wasn't going to run to her. That was Jess's job. No sooner did Sarah's glasses fall off (and they fell often, sometimes five, six times a day), no sooner did she take a tumble or bump her head and Jess would be right there to scoop her up. Mike knew how much the world loved to kick you in the ass, and when it did, it sure as hell didn't offer you an apology or a helping hand. Sometimes it kicked you again. Harder. "Daddy, help—" "Do you want to go sledding with Paula?" Her lips stopped quivering. Sarah sat perfectly still on the floor. "Okay then," Mike said. "If we're going to go sledding, you'll need your glasses. Now they were just on your face, right?" "Yes." "So that means they've got to be somewhere close." "But what if—" "You can do this. Now just relax and do what I showed you. You're a big girl, right?" Squinting, Sarah scanned the floor, patting the hardwood with her hands, and found her glasses less than a minute later near the closet door. She picked up her glasses and put them on, her face beaming. "My girl," Mike said. He put Fang back on the floor, told her to watch one of her videos while he took a quick shower, and then headed upstairs, stopping to pick up the cordless phone off his nightstand in the bedroom. "I just left the house," Bill said. "You want me to stop by and pick you up?" "Let yourself in. I'm going to jump in the shower." "See you in five." The plan didn't include Jess coming back home. Mike was in the shower when Jess walked back inside the house for the box of files she'd left on the island table. When he turned off the water, he heard shouting. "But Dad said we could go sledding," Sarah cried from downstairs. "Sarah, I said no." Shit. Mike stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and quickly dried off. "But why?" Tell her the truth, Jess. Tell Sarah that you don't like her going sledding, that you don't like her jumping off diving boards and doing cannonballs in the pool or hopping on the back of a jet-ski or snowmobiling because fun equals risk and risk equals danger and danger lurks on every street corner in the world, just waiting to take you out if you weren't careful. That's what happened to your father, right? If he had been paying attention to the road and the snow instead of fiddling around with the radio, he would have seen the drunk driver. Jess said, "No sledding. That it's." "But Dad already said—" "One more word and you're grounded." Mike heard Sarah stomp out of the kitchen and into the family room. He put on a clean pair of boxers and was in the process of sliding into a fresh pair of jeans when he heard Jess's boots clicking down the hallway. The door to the garage slammed shut. Mike buttoned his jeans and ran down the stairs, bare-chested and barefooted, and caught up with Jess just as she was about to back out of the garage. She glared at him as she rolled down the window of her Explorer. "I should have known you'd try and pull something like this," she said. "What happened last month was an accident." "Michael, she almost split her head open." "It was a bump, not a concussion. The doctor told us that, remember?" "I don't want her at the Hill. It's too crowded, and she's too small. I told you how I felt about that place. You're not being fair." "I'm not being fair?" "You want to sled around here, fine, but she's not going down to the Hill." "Sarah's my daughter as much as yours. When she looks back, I want her to see good times." "I don't have time for this," Jess said and put the Explorer in gear, backing out of the garage. Mike watched as she dove away, thinking about how, beneath her sudden interest in power suits she wore like armor now, the pearls and designer shoes, Jess still looked like the girl he had fallen in love with back in high school. She still wore her dirty blond hair long and still looked great in a pair of jeans and despite their fractured history, she still could, with just her touch, make him feel as though he was the most important, vital man in the world. But as for the private battle taking place behind her eyes, he was completely lost. * * * Jess hadn't always been that way. There was a time when she liked to have fun. Take their first Christmas party here at the house. Sixty plus people filling their basement and crowding around the pool table, Billy Joel pumping from the boom-box speakers—the old Billy and not the pussy-whipped Billy, the mad genius Billy who sang songs like "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant"—songs you'd swear were forged from your own heart. And here was Jess getting into the spirit of the night, singing along to Billy's "Only the Good Die Young" and hanging tough until the last person left, Jess still looking for fun and still looking real good at two in the morning when she sat on the edge of the pool table singing "She's Got A Way" as she unbuttoned her shirt with that wicked smile on her face that always made his knees buckle. That night she had kissed him, hard and hungry, like she needed something from him—something to help her breathe. Back then, when they had made love, they walked away bruised and exhausted and needing to do it again, the sex filling them up, energizing them. The first miscarriage came a few months after that, followed by another one a year and a half later, and by the time they had Sarah, the space between them had changed, Mike not knowing how or why it had happened but dead certain that when he hugged Jess he felt like he was holding something cold and hollow. A yellow Post-It note was stuck to the island table, right next to his keys so he wouldn't miss it. NO SLEDDING, the words underlined three times. Mike picked up the note and crumbled it in his fist. The Heineken bottle was on the table, and he picked it up and drained the rest of it, wanting to throw it across the room, swear—do something to purge the anger ringing through his limbs. Only he couldn't do any of those things, not with Sarah in the next room. He dumped his beer bottle and the Post-It note in the trash. He rubbed the anger out of his face, and when he was sure he was calm, he walked inside the TV room. Fang lay sprawled out on his bed, half-asleep. Sarah sat in the oversized denim chair, her head tilted down, her fist holding a crayon like a dagger and whipping it across the page of the coloring book spread open across her lap. Sarah's glasses sat crooked on her face. They always did, Mike wondering if it was the glass frames themselves or if one of Sarah's ears sat lower than the other. Mike knelt down, ready to pretend what happened was no big deal and, if asked, offer up some lame but hopefully acceptable excuse as to why mom lived in a constant state of anxiety. "Want to go outside and build a snowman?" Sarah didn't answer him, but Fang heard the word outside and his sleepy head jumped up, his small tail thumping against his bed. "Come on," Mike said. "We'll even take Fang out with us. We'll throw snowballs and watch him chase after them." "It's not fair," she whispered. You're right, Sarah. It's not fair we're prisoners in our own home. It's not fair, and I don't know what to do about it anymore. It was the crying that got to him—not the tears themselves, no, it was the way she was crying: her mouth clamped shut to keep silent whatever words wanted to be heard, her face a deep, dark red as tears spilled down her cheeks. A normal six-year-old didn't cry this way. NO SLEDDING. I said no, Michael. NO. "Hey Sarah?" Sarah's bawling had eased into sniffles. "Yes, Daddy?" "Let's go get your snowsuit on." * * * Everyone who lived in Belham called it The Hill, but the official name was Roby Park, named after the city's first mayor, Dan Roby. Back when Mike was growing up, the Hill had been nothing more than a long, wide stretch of grass, and at the top was Buzzy's, the only place in town where three bucks bought you a large Coke and a burger on a paper plate stacked high with fries or the world's greatest onion rings, your choice. Buzzy's was still there, along with a liquor store and video store, and now the Hill had one of those fancy jungle gyms and a new baseball diamond with stands. The real attraction was the floodlight. Winters in New England meant the sky turned pitch black by four, so the town splurged and installed a telephone poll with a floodlight that lit up every inch of the hill so you could go sledding any time you wanted. Mike found a spot in the lower parking lot, the one abutting the new baseball diamond. Daylight was gone, and the snow was coming down a bit harder than an hour ago but still light and still enjoyable. He got out first, went around to the other side of the truck and helped Sarah out, then grabbed the sled from the back of his truck. He held out his hand. "I'm not a baby anymore," Sarah said and marched off. The place was packed. The right side of the hill, the less bumpy area, was for kids Sarah's age and younger; the left for the older kids, the snowboarders. Watching the snowboarders brought Mike back to the days when he came here. When his mother could cover up the bruises on her face with makeup or hats, she would join the other mothers and talk with them as she smoked her Kools, all of the mothers watching as their boys as did stupid things like stand on their cheap plastic sleds and have races down the hill. Bill would crash into him or give him a good shove and Mike would go tumbling across the snow, laughing his ass off the entire time. Everyone did—including some of the mothers. Back then, it was okay for kids to horse around and fall. Kids got bumped and bruised and cut and got themselves back up and then got bumped and bruised and cut all over again. "Daddy!" Mike looked down at his daughter and saw that she had stopped walking and was now pointing at the hill. "There's Paula, Daddy! There's Paula! Here she comes!" Here came Bill's oldest daughter, Paula riding her blue snow tube, Mike about to call out and tell Paula to watch out for the ramp—too late, Paula was airborne. It wasn't a big jump—less than a foot off the ground—but Paula wasn't prepared for the landing. The snow tube bounced against the ground, and Paula lost her balance and fell off her snow tube, tumbling hard across the snow. Sarah said, "I want to go sledding with Paula." "Let's go," Mike said and held out his hand. Sarah swatted it away. "No, Daddy, just with Paula." "Paula's eight." "So?" "So you're six." "And a half, Daddy. I'm six and a half." "Peanut—" "I told you I don't like that name." Oh boy she's in a mood. "You're right, I'm sorry," Mike said, and knelt down so he was eye level with her. Snowflakes had melted against her glasses, the pink snowsuit's hood wrapped tightly around her head, the imitation white fur lining it blowing in the wind. "What I mean is Paula's bigger than you. The big kid's hill is very bumpy, and some of the kids have set up ramps." He pointed to where Paula just wiped out. "If you hit one of those ramps, you'll go flying in the air." "Like a bird?" Sarah seemed very excited by the possibility. "Last time you fell off the sled you hit a patch of ice and got your big bump on your head, remember?" "Oh yeah. That hurt." "So let's go down together," Mike said and stuck out his hand. "No," Sarah said, swatting away his hand. "I want to go with Paula." Seeing her act this way reminded him of last summer, when he was teaching Sarah how to swim—only she refused to wear her floaties and she certainly didn't want a helping hand from her father. So Mike let her do it her way and watched, unsurprised, as Sarah sank right to the bottom. No sooner did Mike bring Sarah up for air than she wanted to try it again—on her own. He was so in love with this part of his daughter, her stubborn, almost unbreakable need to fight to do things in her own way that he had to do everything in his power to keep from smiling. No, Jess's voice warned him. Don't you dare let her go down that hill by herself. What if she falls and hurts herself bad this time? What if she breaks a leg or cracks her head open—Jesus Christ, Michael, look at how small she is. What if— What if she has fun, Jess? You ever stop and think about that? Your mother never spoke up, another voice added. You want to raise a girl to become a woman who's terrified to speak her mind? You let Jess kill off this part of Sarah, she'll end up marrying a prize like your old man. That the life you want for her? "Daddy, Paula's getting ready to go back up the hill, can I go pleeeease—" "Sarah, look at me." She heard the tone in his voice and snapped her attention to him. "You go up the hill with Paula, you come back down with Paula, understand?" "I understand." "What did I say?" "Up and down with Paula." "Right. I'll be standing over there next to your godfather, okay?" Sarah grinned, her top teeth crooked, the bottom two missing, that smile of hers blowing straight through him, scaring him for some reason. She gripped the rope for the sled and trudged through the snow, screaming for Paula to wait up. You realize what you've done. Yes. He had committed the worst of parental sins: siding with the child. It was worth it. Real life, with all of its sucker punches and bone-weary bullshit, would always be there. You only got one turn in life to be six—excuse me, six and a half—and if that meant he had to spend some time in the dog house, so be it. Bill O'Malley stood alone, a good amount of space between him and the people who had formed small groups, talking to themselves and, Mike noticed, occasionally cutting sideways, nervous glances at Wild Bill. That Bill, people said with a shake of the head. Full of piss and vinegar. Soft in the head for sure. Everyone in town knew the story of the time when Bill was twelve and decided to drive himself and his friends to school, a move that landed him on the Boston news, one of those cutesy "Kids Do The Darndest Things" shows. But it was the stunt he pulled during the all-conference playoffs his junior year that cemented his reputation. The Belham High football team had their first shot at a championship title, and on a cold, overcast Saturday in November, it seemed as if the entire town had shown up at the football stadium in Danvers to watch Belham's own go up against the snot-nosed, rich brats of St. Mark's Preparatory High School. With thirty seconds and more than forty yards to go, the ref made a bad call that cost Belham the championship. Bill lit into the ref, got right in the guy's face, and by the time the coach ran over, Bill had ripped off the ref's toupee and was running around the field with it, holding it high over his head, everyone in Belham on their feet, cheering. "When you grow up and get married, I hope you have twin girls just like you," a weary Clara O'Malley told her son after the game. Come this spring, Bill would get twins—twin girls, according to his wife Patty's latest ultrasound. Paula O'Malley was the oldest and only at eight, and had inherited her father's crude sense of humor. Last week Paula got her first detention for bringing a whoopee cushion to school, placing it underneath the seat cushion of her teacher's chair. Bill saw the familiar pink snowsuit slide up next to his daughter and then turned around just as Mike walked up to him. A plug of chewing tobacco bulged from Bill's lower lip, and his black Harley Davidson baseball hat was pulled low over his head. A small gold loop earring dangled from each ear. Bill leaned in close and whispered, "Seriously, does Jess ever get jealous when you wear her jacket?" The jacket in question, a Christmas gift from Sarah, was made of black wool and cashmere. More importantly, it was clean and new—unlike Bill's faded blue Patriots jacket that dated back to the early eighties, Bill refusing to give up the old, ratty jacket with its grease stains and torn pocket until the Pats won the Super Bowl. "What's wrong with it?" "Nothing," Bill said. "All the pretty girls are wearing 'em this year." Mike removed the pack of Marlboros from coat pocket, his eyes locked on Sarah, watching her and Paula chugging their way up the hill. "I take it you ran into Jess." "Yeah. She told me sledding was a no-go. Glad she had a change of heart." "One of us did," Mike said, filled with the need to talk. I can't take it anymore, Bill. I'm tired of living with a shell. I'm tired of living with a woman who is terrified of life and has made me a prisoner in my own home. I'm tired of having to fight for the simple things like taking my six and a half year old daughter sledding. I'm tired and I want out. That last thought wasn't new. It had been floating in and out of his gray matter over the past year—only now it stuck around more, and when Mike was driving back and forth to work or doing some boring task like shoveling, he played around with the idea of leaving, a part of himself excited by the possibilities, this new life out there waiting for him, a new life without all these walls and barriers. Mike glanced over to his right, at East Dunstable Road where cars were piled up on both sides, and saw a taxi was crawling west toward the connection for Route 1. Mike pictured his mother sitting quietly in the back of the cab, her twelve years of marriage packed up in one suitcase, the driver asking, "Where you headed? North or south?" And for the first time his mother would make a decision and a man would listen. When she picked her new direction, Mike wondered if that scream trapped inside her skull had finally died. Paula's snow tube slid over to them. "What's with the puss?" Bill asked. "Jimmy MacDonald's up at the top pushing everyone around," Paula said. Jimmy Mac was Bobby MacDonald's youngest, supposedly, Bobby Mac the kind of guy who liked to have litters of kids with different mothers in the Mission Hill projects. "He pushed me down and then he pushed Sarah down," Paula said. Wonderful. Mike flicked his cigarette into the air. "I'll go up and get her," he said. You guys wait here in case she comes down." "He's always picking on us," Mike heard Paula say as he walked away. "We were walking home last week from Stacy's house and Jimmy Mac saw us and blew his nose all over Joanne Finzi and she called him wiener face." "Nice call," Bill said. The cold air was charged with giggles, shrieks and laughs as Mike climbed the hill, brushing his way past the parents and kids lumbering their way up the walking path. The snow, Mike now noticed, had turned bad. He could barely see a few feet in front of him. He stepped out of the glare of the floodlight onto the top of the hill. The cars parked along Delaney Road were trying to merge with the cars snaking their way down the curvy road from Buzzy's parking lot. Dozens of headlights were pointed at him. Mike shielded his eyes with his hand and looked around the crowd of bodies for his daughter. "Sarah, it's Dad. I'm at the top of the hill." Out of nowhere a group of kids rushed past Mike as if being chased—or chasing someone. Mike looked over his shoulder and watched as the kids bolted down the road, disappearing into the snow. He turned his attention back to hill and moved forward, taking slow steps as he looked for the pink snowsuit. "Sarah, I'm here at the top. Where are you?" She can't hear you. Right. He had wrapped Sarah's jacket hood so tight around her head she probably couldn't hear him over the wind, over the shouts and screams, the drivers with their fists planted on their car horns. He peeled his way through the crowd, searching for her, yelling out her name. "Sarah, it's me." "Sarah, wave to me." "Sarah, where are you?" The bodies disappeared and now Mike stood on the end of the Hill where the older kids went snowboarding and sledding. A few feet from the top of the hill, where the kids were lining up, was a long blue sled that looked an awful lot like Sarah's. Mike jogged over to it, knelt down and brushed the snow off the padded seat. Sarah Sullivan was printed in black block letters, in his handwriting. Maybe she walked down the hill, chasing after Paula. "Bill?" Mike yelled. "Bill?" "Yeah?" "Sarah down there?" "Not yet." Mike felt a flutter in his heart. He turned to his right. Twenty feet away there was an embankment with a steep drop off. The place was well marked and sectioned off—and Sarah knew to stay away from there. He looked back at the sled and search around it for a pair of small footprints that matched Sarah's. At the end of sled was a thin shaped piece of plastic sticking out of the snow. He picked it up, shook the snow off. Sarah's glasses. The flutter turned into a cold, hard lump that knocked against the walls of his heart. He stumbled to his feet, a scream rising in his throat: "SARAH, WHERE ARE YOU?" Please God, please answer me. All around him cars were leaving the parking lots, waiting for their turn to merge onto the mess on East Dunstable, the traffic moving forward in inches. She still could be here. No, Mike said to that panicky voice. No way. Sarah wouldn't leave here without me or Bill. But what if she did? Almost slipping on the snow, Mike ran up to a Honda Accord parked only a few feet from Sarah's sled. He banged on the window until the guy with the Red Sox baseball cap, a guy Mike didn't recognize, rolled down the window. The man's son, all of four or so by the looks of him, sat in the passenger's seat. "A girl in a pink snowsuit," Mike said. "She was standing right over there next to the sled." "I didn't see her." "You sure?" "I can barely see the car in front of me." "I can't find her. Help me look, would you?" The guy nodded and tried to pull over to the side. Mike ran toward East Dunstable, dodging his way through the spaces between the cars, a tightness growing inside his chest. She's here, Sarah's still here. "Sully?" Bill called out. "Sully?" An Explorer was about to pull onto East Dunstable when Mike jumped in front and held out a hand. Car horns blared as the driver rolled down the window, Mike seeing it was the guy from the lumber yard at Home Depot, Billy something. "What's wrong?" "I can't find my daughter," Mike said. "She's wearing a pink snowsuit." "Haven't seen her. You want some help?" Mike nodded, said, "Do me a favor. Block off this road with your car, tell everyone what's going on." "You got it." "And make sure you check the backseats and under the cars. She might have got hit or something." People had stepped out of their cars and were swearing at Mike to get out of the road. Mike was about to stop the next car, a Ford Mustang, when Bill appeared out from a curtain of snow, Paula beside him. "I found her glasses next to her sled," Mike said. "Paula, what happened up here? Tell me what happened." Paula flinched at the sound of Mike's voice. "Sully, it's okay, calm—" "Sarah can't see without her glasses." "I know." "She's terrified when she can't see." Bill put his meaty hand on Mike's neck and squeezed. "I'm sure someone saw her all worked up and had the good sense to bring her inside Buzzy's. She's probably in there right now pigging out on a burger and fries. Don't worry. We'll find her."