Every Secret Thing

“She’s not here. She’s…out.”

“Do you know where she is, or when she might be home?”

“May I ask what this is about?” Helen’s voice squeaked a little.

“We just want to talk to her,” the female detective repeated with a firm, unyielding tone. “Nothing more.”

“I think she took a walk.”

“A walk?”

“She walks a lot.” God, she must look like a terrible mother, standing here with her morning hair, in this decadent silk robe, like some madam in an old Storeyville brothel. All she needed to complete the picture was a bare-chested man at her kitchen table, reeking of sex and screaming for his breakfast. But Jesus, Alice was eighteen, a grown-up under the law. Was Helen to be held to a different standard because of the past? How many women could produce their eighteen-year-old children on a Saturday afternoon? It’s 1:30P.M., do you know where your children are? Helen had always thought the old public service a

“Does she have a cell phone? Or a job where we might find her?”

“You know, I’ve encouraged her to get a job.” Helen felt relief at being able to tell that small truth. “She says she’s looking. That’s probably what she’s doing today, following up on some leads.”

“Do you know where?”

“Well, no.” Helen tried to remember what they had discussed, specifically. “Not the grocery stores, because they’re union. And not the convenience stores. They’re not safe. I mean, don’t you agree? You wouldn’t want to have a daughter working in a convenience store, would you?”

She was flirting, she realized, setting up the male detective to tell her that, no, he didn’t have a daughter, wasn’t even married, in fact. Maybe he would scrawl his home number on his business card, or ask with fake nonchalance if there was a Mr. Ma

But it was the girl who pulled out a card and handed it to Helen.

“Would you call us when she comes home? We just need to talk to her. Nothing formal. May have more to do with one of her friends than her.”

“ Alice has a friend?” Helen could not bear the idiocy of her own voice, this stupid, echoing, out-of-it quality, as if she were some Judy Holliday type. She never sounded this way, never. “I mean, she seems to keep to herself, as far as I know.”

“When did she get home?” the female detective asked.

Until that moment, Helen had been trying to cling to the idea that this was all a coincidence, that there was no link between present and past. Damn it, Alice, she thought, suddenly furious with her daughter. She had been given every chance to start over-second chances, third chances, even. But she would rather keep punishing Helen than take advantage of her opportunities.

“Last night,” the young woman prompted. “What time did she get home last night?”

“Do I have to talk to you?”

“No,” the male detective said. “But why wouldn’t you?”

“I can think,” Helen said, “of no shortage of reasons. For one thing-you still haven’t told me what this is about.”

“Well, it’s not really about anything. We’re working on a case, your daughter may be able to help us. That’s all.”

Ah, these were the police Helen remembered, in their most unhelpful guise. They were always so maddeningly elliptical, so noncommittal. Taciturn, reserved, insisting you were on a need-to-know basis even as they began destroying your life. Do you recognize this, Ms. Ma