Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

“You smoke?”

“Nope.”

“ ’Cause you’re a cop?”

“ ’Cause I’m sober.”

“That’s cool. Mind if I indulge?”

“Actually, if you want to do that, Dixie, I’d appreciate it if you went outside.” He was matter-of-fact, not mean.

“No worries.”

She put the roach away and lit a cigarette instead.

“Temptation can be… tempting,” said Willow, trying not to sound defensive. “‘The phenomenon of craving’ and all that.”

“So you’re in AA?”

“I try to be.”

“I’ve been to some meetings—mostly Al-Anon. It’s crazy how many nurses and doctors I know are drug addicts. But I never really drank because it gives me migraines. My dad’s an alcoholic, though. And I never liked painkillers because they make it hard to poop. I do like weed but I don’t get too crazy. I take it mostly for my headaches.”

“Are you having one now?”

“Nope! You haven’t given me a migraine—yet.” She stared at the wall opposite them. “I love that you painted on that! I promise I won’t tell the landlord or you might have to arrest yourself.” She scrutinized the creation. “What is it?”

“What does it look like?” he said. “I mean, to you.”

“A fence?” She tilted her head. “Like, a fence lying on its side? It’s hard to… It’s kinda dark in here. But is it—”

“Train tracks.”

“Ah! Okay. Yeah, I can see that.”

“It’s kind of whatever you want it to be.”

She smiled and said, “C’mere, Rorschach,” then kissed him. Despite his older-man tricks, Dixie had all the power—it wasn’t even close. It was ridiculous the amount of power a woman had. “Willow… such a sad and beautiful name. ‘Dixie’—I mean, what does anyone think of? Dixie cups and rednecks. But Willow…” She began to softly sing, stroking his neck with her perfect, slender, chewed-up fingers. He’d always liked a nail-biter. “‘ Willow, weep for me. Willow, weep for me. Bend your branches green, along the stream that runs to sea… ’ Mom used to sing us to sleep with that.”

“Your voice is really beautiful.”

“Ya think? You’re lucky I wasn’t stoned! My singing tends to be a little more dramatic when I’m high . ”

“That’d be okay. I like drama.”

“Careful what you wish for.”

2.

After she left, around 10:00 P.M.—she had to get up at 5:00 for a morning shift—Willow lay on the couch, his mind wandering.

He thought of how good it would have been to smoke that weed. How good the sex would have been… not that it could have gotten much better. Replaying choice bits from their rumble in the jungle, he felt himself becoming aroused, like some kind of teenager. There’s hope for you yet, ol’ boy.

He went to the bedroom and tried to sleep. Sniffed the pillow where her head had been. Sniffed the sheets and started playing with himself, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was restless.

Hungry.

Without thought, he got up, got dressed and drove straight to the Early World Diner.

It was a quarter full.

Random folks: a solitary older woman, three kids with piercings and spiky hair, an old vet (not his neighbor) out way past his bedtime. Prolly got some bad news from the VA. Willow ordered fried chicken, a lifetime ritual he liked to indulge après sex.

The solitary woman walked toward him. When he glanced up, she smiled.

“Willow?” she said, eyes twinkling.

“Yes?”

“Annie Ballendine, ‘World’s Greatest Volunteer’—we met the other night at the hospital.”

“Oh! Yes—hi,” he said, his own smile fading.

She shook his hand and then plunked herself across from him. “You surprised me the other day.”

“How so?” said Willow, perplexed.

“I wasn’t expecting you so soon. But there you were. I came to you tonight— here ,” she said, laughing, “because I didn’t want any more surprises!”

She charmed and terrified him all at once. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

He was still trying to be affable. He wouldn’t want Adelaide to get a bad report.

“I understand,” she said. “I felt the same way when Jasper—Mr. Sebastian—paid me a visit my first time. But I didn’t have the luxury of being in a cozy little coffee shop, enjoying a lovely late-night meal. I was ‘in hospital,’ as they used to say. The nut ward.”

“What is it that you want, Annie?” he said, with an edge to his voice.

“What do I want?” She smiled. “Well, what I want is just one thing.”

Willow felt himself softly come asunder. He didn’t know what was happening (yet absolutely knew) . The part that was ignorant dug in and spun its wheels. Would she ask for money? Blackmail him over some old felony? The spinning tires splattered mud in a frenzy, deepening the rut. Was she the mother of some douchebag he put behind bars, here to exact an explosive, fatal revenge?

But the part that knew stiffened, and made him wonder if he would be able to survive the ordeal that was coming. What ordeal, though? Instinct only told him so much. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut, waylaid by imperial powers commanding him to drop everything and set off on an expedition to climb Everest, without oxygen.

Their booth contracted, like the cabin of a train.

“Give me one thing, Willow,” she said.

“And what’s that?” he said numbly.

“Your attention. I want your attention.”

1.

He felt hungover when he got to the office in the morning.

They talked—Annie talked—for more than an hour, while he listened, insensate. Willow figured he’d retained only 10 percent of what she said, if that. He spent the morning cautiously revisiting the few snippets he was able to recall, fearing a more comprehensive effort might somehow prove injurious.

His wheels stopped spinning; they’d fallen off entirely.

What the woman described was nothing short of madness. He had already begun a heroic struggle not to be sucked into the vortex, but to Willow it was insane that he even felt susceptible. He wondered if he’d been poisoned. She shook my hand before sitting down… maybe that’s when I absorbed the pyschotropic powder. As a detective in New York he’d interviewed every crackpot known to man, sometimes climbing deep inside their heads; Annie had climbed into his. He dredged up a phrase from college psych books— folie à deux —a term that defined the sharing of a delusion or mental illness by two people. Maybe this is what that looked like. Or the beginning of it…

At the moment, the only thing that offset the disorienting outlandishness of Ms. Ballendine’s bullet points was Dixie. When his thoughts became too crazy, he flashed on their carnal moments and it settled his nerves—the sole shared delusion he was up for.

During Annie’s monologue, he wanted to bolt but his feet were encased in cement. He was shocked when she spoke of the train, reminding him that it was the place where they first met. “You had a Tom Collins—remember?— that was a new wrinkle.” She even referred to his wall paintings, saying that many years ago she’d been compelled to do a mural “in the same theme myself, in the room where I lived during my apprenticeship.” She discreetly paused whenever Willow zoned out; though it didn’t have much effect, Annie occasionally touched his hand, to comfort. Then she would ask if he had any questions, like a doctor trying to interview a patient who’d just had surgery and was still under the fog of anesthesia.

“You don’t have to know the ‘whys and wherefores,’ because there aren’t any, not really. At least none we can understand. But what is important to know, as a father , is that you’re going to be a father again . Which is marvelous, isn’t it, don’t you think? And it’s important to know as well that you have arrived—you’ve disembarked and you’re in the station now, whether you know it or not! We don’t have a choice about such things. I’m just like you, Willow. I didn’t have a choice either. And like you, I’m no one special—but I can show you what to do, where to go, how to be . That is my privilege and my honor.”