Before She Was Found. Heather Gudenkauf
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head onto the track, the rusty bolts tearing at the girl’s cheek, the delicate skin below her eye. Again and again she thrusts the girl’s head down until her muscles burn and the girl goes limp. She considers leaving her on the tracks but in a burst of adrenaline she pushes the girl off the rails.
As she breathes deeply, her eyes search for him but he’s gone. He’s slipped back into the tall grass. He can’t leave her behind. He promised. A wail from deep inside tries to find its way out but she finds she can’t make a sound.
The freight train bears down on her with a long mournful cry and she considers staying still, allowing the engine to pull her beneath its iron wheels, but somehow her legs carry her over the tracks. She sees herself pushing through the plumes of winter wheat, painting them red as she brushes by, and finally catches sight of him. He pauses and turns to face her. He looks pleased.
Excerpt from the journal of Cora E. Landry
Sept. 5, 2017
Today was my first official day of sixth grade and it actually went really well! Middle school is a lot bigger than my elementary school because three dinky towns have to share the building. For once I’m going to school with kids I haven’t been with since preschool.
The good news is I don’t have any classes with Melody Jenkins, who was awful to me during fifth grade. She’s the one who sent the top four lists all around school. I was at the top of each one. Dumbest, ugliest, weirdest, most likely to be a virgin. That last one is just stupid. I tried to not let it bother me but it did. And I only have lunch and one class with Jordyn Petit. Jordyn isn’t as bad as Melody but last year she did tell everyone that I liked Dakota Richter. NOT true!
The best news is that I have lunch and social studies with Gabe Shannon, who I’ve liked forever and I think he might actually like me, too. This summer I helped my mom in the elementary school office where she’s the secretary and Gabe helped his mom set up her kindergarten classroom for the new school year. We hung out a bunch this summer and really got to know each other.
Anyway, I’ve got social studies with Mr. Dover, who is cute and is supposed to be a really fun teacher, and I’m even thinking about going out for volleyball. My mom says that it’s really important to be “a joiner” in middle school in order to discover what I like to do and to meet some new people.
My sister, Kendall, says that this is Mom’s way of saying, Don’t be a loser, Cora. If you don’t make some friends now, you never will. I think that Kendall is probably right. She’s super popular and pretty and outgoing. I mean, I’m not a monster, but I’m definitely not as good-looking as Kendall. I’m pretty much her complete opposite.
The good thing is in middle school everyone who goes out for a sport is on the team. They don’t cut anyone, which is a huge relief because I know I’m going to be terrible at volleyball. My only other option is joining the cross-country team and I can’t think of anything worse than running on purpose. So volleyball, it is. The first practice is tomorrow. Wish me luck—I’m going to need it!
Monday, April 16, 2018
I’ve been called a lot of things in my thirty-six years: trash, slut, home wrecker. And much worse. All true, I guess, if I’m being completely honest with myself. But one thing I won’t let people get away with saying about me is that I’m a bad mother. Those are fighting words. Just about everything I’ve ever done has been for my two children. I may be stupid when it comes to men but I’m a good mother.
Seven months ago I quit my job as an administrative assistant at an office supply company, loaded our belongings and squeezed a reluctant Violet, a pissed-off Max and Boomer, our basset hound, into our car that was more rust than steel and began the twenty-five-hour drive northeast from Algodon, New Mexico, to Green Bay. The plan was to begin a new life with my boyfriend, Jerry, who moved there to take a job with Proctor & Gamble a few months earlier.
I had some hard selling to do but by the time we reached Kansas City I almost had them convinced that even though we would be giving up Picacho Peak we would get Lambeau Field and the Green Bay Packers. And though we were trading in the Rio Grande there would be Lake Michigan where we could go fishing and water skiing. And though we would miss driving through the Mesilla Valley and seeing the fields of cotton, white, fluffy and soothing against the dusty, dry ground, once in Wisconsin we would have piles of crisp clean snow to build snowmen and have snowball fights.
Max wasn’t buying it but Violet was easier to convince. Always in her own little world, Violet would retreat into her notebook of drawings and stories and a few hours later she’d look up, blinking rapidly as if trying to bring her surroundings back into focus. Max, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the move. He was completely content in New Mexico and didn’t even try to hide his hate for Jerry. It’s to Max’s credit that he didn’t say I told you so when the car broke down in the middle of Iowa and Jerry suddenly had a change of heart and got back together with his ex-wife.
Long story short, we stayed in Pitch, a dying railroad town with a population of about two thousand. We were rescued by a nice lady by the name of Tess Petit, who has a granddaughter the same age as Violet.
I know I should answer the phone but for the first time in almost a year a man is beneath me and inside me. Our fingers intertwine and we move as one person. The phone rings and rings and I briefly think of my kids. Violet is spending the night at Cora’s house and Max, I hope, is fast asleep downstairs. Usually Boomer alerts me to the comings and goings of my kids but I have been a bit distracted for the past hour or so. Sam reaches out and cups my face in his palm, his fingers pressing into my cheek, keeping my eyes on his, and I push any thought of my children aside.
Finally, my heart stops galloping and Sam presses his face to my neck, his beard velvety against my skin, and I remember the ringing phone. It’s late. Or early, depending on how you look at it—1:00 a.m. Way too late for any good news.
“Don’t worry, they’ll call back if it’s important,” Sam murmurs in my ear, reading my mind. We doze. Then that voice, that good mother voice that I so pride myself on having says, Get dressed, you don’t want Max or Violet to see you like this. But instead I move closer to Sam all the while thinking it’s been so long since someone has held me like this.
It isn’t Max or Violet or the telephone that wakes us up, it’s the sirens. At first a single alarm whoops off in the distance and then is joined by several more. I scramble from the bed, pulling the sheets around me, and run to the window and crane my neck to the left and the right, hoping to catch sight of the emergency lights. No such luck. No streetlights line our road and the houses across the street are still dark.
“Max,” I breathe, somehow sure that the sirens are for him. That he has been in a car accident or is out doing something stupid—hanging out on the train tracks, drinking with friends. “Max!” I shout as I quickly throw on the clothes I wore earlier. “Max!”
I move through Violet’s side of the bedroom that we separate with one of those room partitions. On my side of the partition I have pictures of Max and Violet and an old one of my parents. On Violet’s side are a few hand-drawn pictures of unicorns and fairies and landscape sketches of the railroad tracks west of town.
I rush down the steps and to the family room. Max’s bedroom door is open and I slap at the light switch on the wall. His bed is unmade, but that doesn’t mean anything; he rarely makes it, anyway. I turn and push through a second door, the bathroom—empty—and a third door that leads to our narrow galley kitchen, also empty except for a few dirty plates and silverware in the sink. Max has been here between the time I snuck Sam up into my bedroom and now.
“Try and call him,” Sam