Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

“We need to talk about anything you might have seen during the day,” the second cop continued. “Anyone — a car, maybe — that seemed unusual. On the road or on the public beach.” He — O’DONNELL the pin on his uniform read — looked at Nicole, and asked, “You live here, right?”

“No,” she said, and it was difficult to speak at first.

O’Donnell was heavy-cheeked, clean-shaven, but she could see the red-brown stubble in the glow of the headlights. Officers Morello and O’Donnell — they sounded like fake names. Like they were characters on some cop show.

Josh finished for her, “My wife’s parents live here. Over there.” He pointed to the beach, to the houses that sat side by side behind the stacks of black boulders, still wet from the departing tide. “In the third house. We visit often. But I don’t know much about this area. I’m sorry. We’re from the city. All of us. But Nicole grew up here.”

Josh looked down at her. The cop followed his eyes and took a step closer to her. So close that she thought of running away, up the beach, hiding inside one of the shell-and-pebble-filled crevices in the boulders, like she had as a child.

“Can you help me, ma’am?” Officer O’Donnell asked.

She? Help them? A spasm of doubt made her mumble, “Um?” and she felt that same net of anxiety fall over her, that which had stopped her short so often in the last few months. Can I really call the insurance company, the landlord, the washing-machine repairman — interactions that promised conflict, that demanded confidence, that made her feel like an agoraphobic freak trapped in a cage.

“This is just so unbelievable,” she managed to say.

“Ma’am?” O’Donnell said, as the radio in the car squawked. The grass rippled again, a wave of motion and stalks clacking, and Nicole looked to the path, to the woods lined with trees that seemed to be drowning in the sand and whose branches were so gnarled by sea wind and salt that they reminded her — as they had when she was a child — of witches’ claws.

Allie pulled out of Nicole’s embrace and gripped Nicole’s arm with what felt like the strength of a man. “Help them, Nicole!” Allie shouted as she shook her. “Snap the fuck out of it.”

This was what Nicole needed. It felt like a cup of cold water thrown in her face. She almost turned to Allie and said thank you, but instead she looked at the cop, and said, “Well, it’s a holiday, so the beach”—she pointed to the public beach, still strewn with bits of trash that reflected the headlights of the ranger vehicles—“it was busy like it always is on Labor Day weekend. There were some families, I think. And the usual couple of Hispanic — I mean, Latino men fishing. We spent most of the day on the beach right in front of the house. I just wasn’t paying attention.”

Allie interrupted. “But Dash ran into the woods. And I chased him. This is what I’m trying to tell you. He’s in there! I know he is. He’s pissed at me, and he went back in there!” Allie was pleading now, the tendons in her neck stretching as she rose on her toes and balled her fists at her side. Like a frustrated child ignored by the grownups, Nicole thought.

“Ma’am,” O’Donnell asked, looking again at Nicole with a sympathetic frown, “did you see a car?” He paused and motioned for Morello. “What was it, Tony? Yeah. A Honda. Green. With a bike rack? We had a report of someone loitering in the parking lot over here. We made it part of the Amber Alert that went out.”

“Oh my fucking God,” Allie said, and fell to her knees. Her head bent forward, and when she looked up, Nicole saw that her forehead was dusted with sand. Nicole knelt next to Allie, the sand cold under her bare ankles.

“It’s okay, Allie. It’s going to be okay. I swear it. They’ll find him.”

Nicole couldn’t make out what Allie was saying at first.

“Susanna will kill me. She’ll take them away. She’ll take them away forever.”

O’Donnell looked to the dark road, then at Morello, who had ducked into the car. He coughed and leaned over, resting one hand on Allie’s shoulder.

“She’s right, ma’am. Listen to your friend,” O’Donnell said. There was such gentle kindness in his voice. Nicole wanted to hug him, to cry into his muscled shoulder. “We’ll find your son. Now, ma’am”—he paused—“Allie, where is your husband? Can we get him here to help you? To help us?”

He peered over Nicole’s shoulder at Michael, now slumped on the sand half-asleep. “Is this him?”

“She doesn’t have a husband,” Nicole said, and she started to explain that Allie had a wife, but Allie’s bitter laugh interrupted her.

The ranger dug a hole in the sand with the toe of his boot.

Nicole tried to rub Allie’s back as she waved Josh over. They’d have to take Allie back to the house, convince her to take a pill to relax her, a glass of wine, something, but Allie shoved her away, and the girl-thin woman was running toward the woods, sand spraying out behind her heels, her pants a spot of pure white against the tangle of black branches.

The cop cursed under his breath. “Damn. Just what we need.”

A few minutes later, the parking lot blazed with the headlights of three vans. Nicole leaned into Josh, shielding her eyes. Two vans pulled onto the beach, sand spitting out through back tires. The rear double doors swung open and what seemed like a SWAT team of men piled out, each wearing a fluorescent orange vest. Ten, twelve, maybe more — too many to count. A siren blared and Nicole jumped, reaching again for Josh’s hand. His breath was hot in her ear. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Be strong.”

O’Donnell turned to her, and said, with triumph in his voice, “They’ll take over from here, ma’am. You’re in good hands.”

He and Morello vanished into the headlights, and she felt a pang of loss as she called out, “Thank you!”

The strips of reflectors on the men’s vests caught the cop-car strobe as O’Donnell and Morello backed up onto the parking lot. They were leaving them, Nicole thought, and now they were in a swarm of strangers, of broad shoulders, black boots, and low, grumbling voices. It was as if she and Josh were invisible. The men shook hands with each other, mumbled greetings, and she even caught the sound of a laugh thrown up in the wind. She felt small and naked, like a child in her white cotton summer clothes and bare feet.

“Excuse me,” she said in the direction of a cluster of men, “Um, excuse me. The boy’s mother — she went into the woods.”

The back of the second van opened with a loud creak and the Labradors and German shepherds leapt onto the beach, lunging in all directions, straining against the chain-link leashes, and she flinched, backing away, almost stumbling onto the sand. Josh caught her and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I got you,” he said, and as the dogs tugged at the leashes, a jangling that felt like the stuff of children’s nightmares, she pressed her palms together and whispered the prayer she had said every night since she was a girl, five times in a row, sometimes with barely a breath between. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us.

Allie ran through the woods, branches whipping against her face, thorns tearing at her calves. She made deals with God, although she wasn’t sure if she believed in a damn God. She told who-the-fuck-ever that she’d do anything, everything, to bring Dash back. She’d be home for more family time instead of heading to her studio every weekend morning. She’d play Legos each and every time the boys asked her, no matter what. She’d give up smoking, she’d give up sleeping in, she’d give up her art, anything and everything, if whoever was in charge would make Dash appear right then and there. Please.