Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

Then Willow walked in, shifty-eyed and ashen. He sat down almost reluctantly; for a few minutes no one spoke.

“First of all, I am never going to call you by those names,” he said at last. “ Maya and Troy —that’s the last time you’ll hear me say them.”

“Fair enough,” said Lydia, in sympathy.

“We get it,” said Daniel.

Compared with Willow, they were old hands at the game, and they knew he had some serious catching up to do. They were actually surprised that he was doing so well—um, considering.

“Secondly, I have some questions. Forget the big questions—I can’t even go there. I’ll lose my fucking mind.”

“We hear you,” said Daniel.

“Don’t humor me,” said Willow brusquely. He composed himself and was about to speak when the waitress approached. They ordered coffees. When she left, he said, “What part of you is Lydia and Daniel—and what part is… those kids ?” The absurdity of the question made him bridle halfway through the asking; he was grinning like a dyspeptic clown.

“Well , sometimes it’s hard to say,” said Lydia.

“Try me! ” he said cynically.

“And by the way,” she said. “The Porter—Annie calls us ‘landlords.’ Lydia and Daniel are the landlords of Maya and Troy.”

“That’s the lingo,” said Daniel.

“And Maya and Troy are the ‘tenants,’” she added.

“ Whatever ,” said Willow.

“As to your question,” said Daniel. “Sometimes it’s more one than the other. Landlords and tenants switch off. But at a certain point the tenants take over. At least they’re supposed to.”

“Sometimes I feel more like Maya—is it okay to say the name?”

“Say it all you want! I’m just not going to say it.”

“Fair enough,” said Daniel.

“And stop saying ‘fair enough’!” he barked. “I hate that.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Sometimes I feel more like ‘Maya’ than ‘Lydia.’ What my brother—what Daniel was saying is that we do feel all those little-kid kind of feelings, but we’re still the main—we’re still the adults. Daniel and Lydia are the adults in the car, and Troy and Maya are the ones along for the ride.” She turned to Daniel and said, “Does that make sense?”

“Absolutely. It wasn’t like that at first, though,” he said, continuing the analogy. “It was like the kids were in the trunk! Very confusing. Then one day they sort of popped up in the backseat. Now sometimes they’re in front, giving directions!”

“Or trying to,” said Lydia, in a nod to their recent crossed-wires trouble.

The veins in Willow’s head looked like a blue candelabra. “But I knew you,” he nearly shouted. “I knew both of you—I knew your parents . How could you not have recognized me?”

“ Troy did!” she said gleefully, as Daniel smugly looked on. “He totally did. He was always telling me that he thought he remembered you from somewhere…”

“Yup—just couldn’t put it all together. Plus, you don’t exactly look like you used to. You got fat and your face changed.”

Lydia tittered at the indiscretion.

“That’s right,” Willow snorted. “I’m a fat, ugly slob.”

“Sorry about that, sir. You actually don’t look too bad.”

“I think you’re handsome,” said Lydia.

“And as far as not recognizing you,” said Daniel, “Maya wouldn’t have because she was too young. When exactly did you move away, sir? Didn’t you move to New York?”

“In ’97,” said Willow.

“Well, there you go—she was only three… and we only really saw you occasionally , when you dropped by to see our folks. But I was six then and old enough to remember. And the Fourth of July, the day we ‘went away,’ was the first time we’d seen you in a long time.”

“Oh my God, Pace !” exclaimed Lydia. “We loved Pace! She was the bestest babysitter!”

It seemed to Willow that Maya was talking now, not Lydia, and he felt on the verge of cracking up.

“How is she?” said Lydia.

“Fine,” he said tersely. “She’s good, she’s well.”

Wonderful. I’m giving updates on my daughter to the dead.

“Why’d you leave her? Why’d you go away?”

The general question cut to the quick and he chose to ignore it. “But what about Lydia and Daniel—the ‘landlords’ or whatever? If they had to die in order for Maya and Troy to—what happened to them? Do you know how they—how you —” The pronoun-jumping was exasperating. “Do you know how they, you, whoever, died?”

Lydia went first. “I think when I was hiking, on the Orchard Trail. I fell and hit a rock with my head. A totally freak, stupid thing. That’s when I first felt her—felt Maya come.”

“What about you?” he asked Daniel.

“Heart attack—one night at my wife Rachelle’s. The thing nobody knows is that I had a heart attack a year and a half before, right when I was about to apply to the Academy. A pretty bad one. But I wanted to be a cop and there was no way I was going to let that stop me. A doctor friend of mine lied and gave me a clean bill of health. Actually, he was someone Rachelle fucked”—Lydia didn’t like the language and looked at him askance—“and I blackmailed him into doing it.” He tilted his head, ruminating. “I guess it’s okay to tell you that now. I guess there can’t really be any official repercussions. I mean, now that you know I’m dead.”

The detective let the attempt at wit slide. “And what about your parents?” he asked.

“What about them?” said Daniel.

“Don’t you have the desire to see them?”

“But see who?” said Lydia. “I mean, which parents?”

“Whomever!” said Willow, exasperated.

“Well, if you’re talking about Daniel,” he said, “we weren’t all that close. I barely saw my folks before I died,”

“And if you’re talking about Lydia , I still talk to Mom a couple times a week.”

“And Elaine and Ronnie?” To make himself clear he needed to break his own rule, but at that point didn’t really give a shit. “What about Troy and Maya’s parents. Didn’t you both want—don’t you want to see them?”

“Not really,” said Daniel, shrugging.

“We’ve talked about going by the old house,” said Lydia, answering for Maya. “In Saggerty Falls. But it feels somehow we’d be more like tourists or lookie-loos… I know it doesn’t sound logical but I guess we just haven’t had the urge. Annie said we probably wouldn’t, at least not until our moment of balance . She said that’s the way it works. The trouble is, once you’ve had your moment , there usually isn’t any time left. You know, for a visit.”

“And what about—didn’t Lydia and Daniel have boyfriends, girlfriends? Lovers?”

Lydia blushed. “Well, I don’t know how the others handled it—the landlords at the Meeting—but we lucked out. The word kind of spread that we were an item, so people left us alone.”

“That is so creepy ,” said Daniel, in his high voice.

“And how do you feel?” said Willow, trying to get a grip—and failing. “I mean, physically .”

“I guess sex is no longer a priority,” said Daniel.

“Gross!” said Lydia.

“But the Porter told us that’s kind of par for the course.”

“No, I meant physically, in general ,” said Willow. “I mean, your bodies… how do they maintain—”

“I see what you mean,” said Daniel. “You’d think it would be the opposite but we’re actually stronger . In some ways. Right, Lydia?”