The Good Daughter: A gripping, suspenseful, page-turning thriller

“Palestine. Where’s that?” Quinn asked, merely trying to be polite. She crossed her legs like she had seen Sigrid do. She feared she didn’t look half as sophisticated as her.

“About thirty miles from here, a small town.”

“Do you always work with your uncle?”

“I do a lot of work for lots of people,” he said and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m saving up to start my own business.”

Soon Benito’s uncle had enough of Benito taking his time collecting tools or dumping buckets and he began interrupting their conversations by tossing random items to and fro in the truck bed and then walking off, mumbling something under his breath. After a week of protest, the uncle called from the backyard every few minutes, making it impossible for them to have a conversation at all.

“Ven aquí,” the uncle shouted at first, then he’d yell, “Me estas escuchando?” and by the end of the third week, when the soil was tilled, the hay folded, the rosebushes planted, and all that was left was to attach a trellis to the back porch, Benito no longer accompanied his uncle.

“Where is Benito? Please, tell me,” Quinn begged and watched the uncle holding a nail below the head with the fingers of one hand.

The uncle simply replied, “No hablo inglés,” and Quinn watched him tap the nail gently to set it in place, then he grasped the hammer firmly at the end and hit the nail straight on. A few smacks and it was done. “Todo ha terminado,” he added and turned his back to her.

Days later, after school, Benito waited for Quinn by the hardware store she passed every day on her way home. They drove out of town and parked in secluded places, knowing people would talk about the daughter of the late town treasurer and the Mexican farm help, but that too was power to Quinn, the fact that she did as she pleased. They sat in Benito’s truck and he told her about his hometown, where he had lived before he came to Texas. A mesa in Mexico, Mesa de Sagrado, an elevated piece of land with a flat top, and on one of its steep sides, his family owned a small farm where they raised goats and chickens. He spoke of his grandmother, who still operated the farm with her cousins, and how she lived for the one day a year when the gates of heaven opened and the spirits of the deceased reunited with their families.

“There’s a day for that?” Quinn asked, wondering if this was real or something the superstitious people who had their futures read at the yearly carnival believed in.

“Día de los Muertos,” Benito said, and crossed himself.

“What’s that mean?” Quinn asked and tried to pronounce it the best way she could. “Dee-oz dayla merde,” she said and they both laughed and scooted closer to each other.

“It’s the Day of the Dead and the only night of the year my abuela sleeps in her bed.”

“Where does she sleep if not in her bed?”

“On the floor.”

“But she’s an old woman. Why would she do that?” Quinn thought of Sigrid and her large bed covered in the finest linens.

“When my grandfather died, she promised to never again sleep in their bed unless it was with him. That one night she believes he joins her and she cooks and sets out a plate of food for him, and washes his clothes and lays them out on the bed.”

Quinn tried not to think about Benito’s story too much, for it made her remember her father, and Sigrid hardly even visited the cemetery to leave flowers on his grave.

“Does her husband ever show up?” Quinn asked, but the image in her head was not one of old abuela waiting for her dead husband to join her, but rather of her father in the blue suit, his head resting on a satin pillow in the cherrywood coffin, propped up at Mitchell’s Funeral Home in town. His face had appeared waxen and bloated, he had looked nothing like himself.

“It’s just something you do. The dead don’t show—I mean not really, but in spirit—it’s a matter of honoring them,” Benito said.

Later, careful as to avoid curious eyes watch Quinn get out of Benito’s truck, they agreed on another day and time when they’d meet again. The following Sunday, after they walked the fields by the forest, Benito showed her how to pick grass with the widest and coarsest blade. He put it between his thumbs, pulled it taut, and pursed his lips and blew into it. Depending on how he cupped his hands, the sound changed. He said that the grass in his hometown grew higher than any grass he’d ever seen in Texas. Soon they began meeting after dark and with every passing day, with each stride she made toward him, she felt more in command of her own life. She felt like a girl walking toward her destiny, and geisha stories seemed silly and thoughtless and she imagined leaving Aurora with Benito to start a life someplace where no one knew them.

That night, with thoughts of a future together, Quinn forged ahead, mesmerized by the moon above. It offered a brilliance and silvery light that she had never seen before and even as she stumbled over dips in the ground, she continued to stare into the night sky. Some stars were rather dull, merely flickering into existence every now and then, but some were powerful enough to illuminate the night. She walked on, down the rural road, and at some point she cut across a field and ended up on the dirt path leading into the woods. When she entered, low-hanging branches tickled her cheek ever so slightly, making her jump.

The woods seemed different that night, the surroundings suddenly unfamiliar. The trunks were slanted and the paths had all but vanished, the trees were higher than in the daylight and they were spreading toward something way beyond their reach, up into the night sky, almost touching the moon. There was talk about these woods. Always had been. The trees whispered, locals said; on certain nights you could make out voices and it was best to walk in the other direction and not turn around. Quinn knew that the cottonwood trees were abundant and the leaves were flattened sideways, conducive to a particular type of movement in the wind, and that was all there was to it, even though she had to admit when the wind picked up and rustled the leaves, the noise level seemed unnatural, even to her. When she finally reached their secret place, an oval clearing within the darkest part of the forest, she sat on a fallen tree and waited for her lover.

“Mi corazón.” She felt the words more than heard them.

They embraced and his wet hair tickled her cheek. His wrinkled shirt smelled of soap and some faint odor of food that was unfamiliar to her. Everybody in his family called him Benito. He was nineteen with a strong body from the hard labor of setting up fences and removing trees, stints at farms where they’d brand cattle and build barns. He had a broad face with a hooked nose and his skin was soft with barely a hair on his entire face.

They spread a blanket on the forest floor and they became lovers. Quinn was a virgin but Benito wasn’t and he was gentle and whispered words in Spanish Quinn didn’t understand yet that sounded like a melody to her. Even though his hands were coarse and calloused, they felt soft as he took hold of her face, forcing their eyes to meet. A beautiful stillness descended upon them as they lay on the forest floor and even though he was not inside her yet, they were one. Their bodies were trembling and Quinn felt something take hold within her, some entity clinging to her as if she’d done this a million times. His mouth captured hers and he kissed her slowly as he moved with her. Her chest rose as she drew in a breath and held it while his body shifted. She felt a tinge of pain and cried out. Benito stopped moving. Finally Quinn let out the breath she’d held in and then she slowly drew in another. Everything she’d ever believed this to be was a mistake, this was not crude and vulgar, there wasn’t any power over Benito, not like Sigrid and Cadillac Man, but the power was within her, and pouring out of her into him. It was like the lunar eclipse she had watched with her father years ago, an event so momentous that every time she thought of it, she felt as if she was reliving it. That’s how this moment would feel to her for all eternity.

Benito reached out and touched her, running his fingers over her flushed cheeks. He drew her into a hug, then covered her face with kisses. Eldorado was real, a golden city, he told her, the land of a king who was covered with gilded dust so thick he seemed to be made of solid gold. Quinn wasn’t sure if it was a legend or if a scrap of truth rested beneath his words but she didn’t care. She thought of Benito as a prince who would soon become a man and then rule some sort of kingdom. And she’d be his queen.

“I have to go,” Benito said. “I have to work with my uncle early in the morning.”

“Come see me after school on Monday? At the hardware store?”

“Yes, mi corazón, I’ll try but it’s a big job. A deck. It will take all weekend and maybe all of Monday. I’ll wait for you Tuesday, maybe Wednesday,” he said and held out his hand to help her up. “Let me drive you home.”

“I’ll leave in a bit. I want to see the sun come up.”

He bent down to kiss her and Quinn watched him disappear between the cottonwood trees. She heard a faint sound of a car door opening, then slamming shut, followed by the revving engine. Quinn imagined Benito skillfully maneuvering across the potholed dirt road.

She propped her arms behind her head and stared at the night sky. The wind had died down and as she lay under the stars, she still felt Benito’s soft breath and his heartbeat. She was nothing like Sigrid, and whatever wiles were, they didn’t apply to boys like Benito. She was too much in her heart and not at all in her head, so whatever advice Sigrid had given her was no longer relevant, maybe never had had any significance at all. Forever she wanted to remember the moment she became Benito’s lover. Quinn closed her eyes and drifted off into an inky darkness.

She awoke to a gunshot sounding in the distance. Quinn opened her eyes, but only for a second, and when all remained silent she drifted back to sleep, thinking she could have been mistaken.

The last image she’d remember later was the moon looming overhead with a sharp point, almost like a hunter’s horn.

Chapter 7

Dahlia

After leaving the Barrington for the last time, I rack my mind, wondering what the next step down from hotel housekeeper is going to be. On my mother’s street, I find her house sitting quietly without a sign of life. The glaring and lonely porch light illuminates the impeccably clean front porch. I can’t make out a single cricket in the harsh light of the bare bulb.

When I cross the threshold, beneath my feet something crackles as if I am stepping on a cracker or a piece of popcorn. I take another step and again I hear a crunching sound. Another step, another crunch. I swipe the light switch upward. Arranged two inches apart like cookie dough on a sheet pan is a carpet of cricket carcasses.

“Mom?” I call out, but there’s no answer.

The back door gapes open, leaving a hole big enough to swallow a body. After I check the house and search for a note haphazardly left atop newspapers and magazines, I step out into the backyard. The fence gate is wide open.

My mother’s neighborhood sits in rows of identical houses, all bungalows, no basements, small upper windows above narrow porches and square bays. The only differences are the conditions of the lawns and an occasional hanging basket, but mostly the houses are uniform. I call out her name every so often and I tell myself that she went for a walk and forgot to shut the back door. And the gate. And forgot to leave a note.

When I arrive at the nearby park, less than half a mile from the house, I find the parking lot deserted. The entrance sign states that entering after dark is prohibited but around here no one really cares. The walkways are concrete and the silver maples, planted many years ago, now reach all the way up to the streetlights. No faint trickle of a nearby creek, not in the summer, not in Texas.

I stride down the walkway, past park benches and a small pond. I catch a whiff of garbage cans from the dog park to my right and I smile, for once certain this is not a figment of my imagination or my nose betraying me. About half a mile later, I hear a whining sound coming from the playground. Then I hear a whimper; this time it seems almost childlike.

“Mom?” I walk toward the general location of the whine, stop, and wait for it to resume.

“Mom?” This time louder, more urgent. I hear hissing that sounds like a snake, but then a cat scurries past me and disappears into the bushes.

I return home and dial the Aurora precinct number. I ask for Officer Roberto de la Vega and leave a voicemail. I tell him, “My mother has walked off into the darkness.” I realize how melodramatic that sounds. “Call me back,” I add. “I don’t know if I should wait at home or look for her. Or where to look. I don’t know if I should worry even. The back door is open and she’s gone.” I’m trying not to sound too alarmed, it’s not an emergency, but it is in the middle of the night. “She didn’t leave a note or anything.”

I am exhausted and I prop my legs up on the coffee table and fall asleep.

I awake to harsh lights shining through the kitchen window. Parting the curtain, I see a police cruiser parked in the street with its nose poking into the driveway. A face stares at me through the window and Bobby points toward the front door. After I open the door, Bobby fumbles with the radio attached to his shoulder.

“Hey, troublemaker,” he says and smiles. Then, more seriously, “I got your message. A couple of patrol cars are out looking for her. Do you have any idea where she could be?”

“She goes out without telling me, but never in the middle of the night. I told her to always leave a note so I know where she is. I checked the park earlier. That’s where she goes often.”

“Was she upset or acting strange at all?” Bobby asks.

My body blocks the view into the house and the crickets on the floor. I step outside and pull the door shut behind me. No one needs to know about the crickets just yet.

“Not that I know of,” I say. “I got home and the back door was wide open. I wouldn’t have known she was gone if it hadn’t been for that door. I thought she was upstairs, in bed. She’s usually asleep by the time I get home.”

“Well, sit tight, we’ll find her. Call me if she shows up?”

“Sure,” I say.

I follow Bobby down the driveway to his cruiser and watch it crawl down the road. He never really speeds up, and then he stops and puts it in reverse. He rolls down the passenger’s seat window and leans forward.

“Just got word. They found her.”

“Where?”

“Down country road 2410, toward Elroy.”

“2410 and Elroy? That’s miles from here.”

Bobby doesn’t answer. He fumbles with the mobile computer and, without looking at me, he says, “They’re taking her in.”

“Taking her in for what? Did she rob a gas station or something?” I say, trying to sound lighthearted.

“She’s okay, but she has a few scratches. And she refused to tell the officers her name. They asked her repeatedly but she wouldn’t tell them. Told them she was out for a walk.”

FM 2410 is nothing but a deserted country road and I don’t know of any houses out there at all. There’s an occasional mailbox, and driveways leading to properties, most of them just plots of deserted land. Walking down 2410 is a peculiar thing to do. Not telling the police her name is a new one, even for my mother. And then there are the neatly arranged crickets in the house. A voice in my head is whispering, telling me that none of this is remotely in the realm of normal, reminding me that lately she has been talking without punctuation or taking a breath, but all I can think is that I’m glad she’s okay.

“They’re taking her to Metroplex,” Bobby finally confirms. “They will call you.”

He goes on, but I stop listening. I don’t mean to tune him out but I can’t erase the picture of my mother walking down a dark country road. I imagine her defiant, ignoring the officers, stomping off: I don’t need to tell you my name, walking down the street isn’t illegal.

I spend the rest of the day sweeping the crickets out of the house, and I do the long-neglected laundry. As I finish folding the towels, a Dr. Wagner calls me from the hospital. He’s calm but curt. Emotionless. After scribbling down his number and asking him to repeat it back to me three times, I ask him about my mother.

“Your mother is a bit confused,” he says, and I wonder if that’s a word a doctor ought to use regarding the mental state of a patient. “I have her on a mild sedative and we’ll keep her for a few days. She has asked to stay and seems content for the moment.”

“When can I see her?”

“No visitors for the time being.”

“But she’s okay, isn’t she?”

“She’s requested a few days of peace. That’s what she called it. No reason to be alarmed.” I hear him take in a deep breath. “Something seems to have happened?”

A few days of peace seems like something she would say. In the back of my mind I hear my mother’s voice during our last conversation, sharp as a knife, the day after I found Jane.

“Why did you bring the cops to my house?”

“I told you last night, I found a woman in the woods.”

“You lied when you were a child,” my mother said. “You’d tell stories, get people in trouble.”

“You mean when I broke my arm?” There were many incidents but the one with the broken arm was big.

“There were others,” she said and kept wiping the sink that was already clean.

“Give me an example. I don’t remember any of them.”

“Reliving your glory days? I’m not repeating any of your stories if that’s what you’re trying to get me to do.”

“Why don’t you tell me something else then?” I asked her, feeling myself getting upset. That sharpness in her voice, the cold eyes. “Tell me why we moved so much, why I never went to school. I don’t even recall going to school until we moved to Texas.”

“No one remembers their childhood. It’s not unusual.”

“Why didn’t I go to school like everybody else?”

“I homeschooled you.”

“You were never home.”

“I worked, more than one job at a time. You’re going to blame me for not being home?”

“If you worked so much, why did we live in squalor?”

“You want me to hand you a résumé? What’s with all the questions?”

Her spotted, blue-veined hands held the dirty rag, shaking ever so slightly, hardly noticeable, but I knew there was a storm brewing underneath her cool and calm demeanor.

“Who is my father?” The question hung between us like a heavy gray rain cloud about to unleash its fury. “I don’t remember him at all.”

“He ran off when you were a baby, I told you that. He was—”

“I remember Bobby’s father taking us to the police station. I remember when they filled out the paperwork and you told them my name was Dahlia.”

There was a long moment of silence. It stretched beyond the kitchen, beyond the house, beyond both of us, her need to keep secrets a gaping divide no bridge would ever overcome.

“Dahlia was not my name,” I add. “You called me Pet before that.”

Finally she broke her silence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. He stopped us because we had a broken headlight. You know that.”

I know better. I knew better then and I know better now. There was no broken headlight. There are, however, questions that I must ask before she drifts off deeper into this murky world of hers, infested with crickets and her fear of police. Our love for each other is fierce, we are all we’ve ever had to hold on to, and it was enough when I was younger, it was even enough when we just talked on the phone the past fifteen years, but it’s not enough now.

Later that night, I wake up. When I open my eyes, I can feel something is wrong. Off somehow. It’s dark outside—not even six judging by the lack of light—but something is glowing up ahead of me, almost like a pinprick-sized dot of light at the end of a tunnel. I blink and blink again. Is it possible to observe light and it remain obscure at the same time? It takes me a while until I realize that it’s not an actual glow but more a feeling of being lit up from the inside out that is reflected off my eyelids. It remains within me, never leaves my body. My hand tingles, then twitches. My skin feels snug and hot and I remain completely still, hoping it will just go away. My hand twitches again, stronger this time, no longer just a feeling but a visible spasm now. As quickly as the feeling materialized, it vanishes.

I don’t hear the AC humming and that’s all the explanation I need. Nothing wrong here, just the heat. The air is thick and heavy, making it hard to draw a breath. Stagnant and idle, capable of melting candles. Texas heat has a fierceness to it, everyone knows that. It makes people lose their minds, my mother always says.

I lie in the dark, unable to shut off my thoughts. Like a bundle of yarn, my mind loops around itself, repeating things to me, no matter how hard I try not to think at all. It’s been ten days since I found Jane and still there’s no update. I have no job, no money. My mother is in the hospital after wandering down a country road in the middle of the night. I want to call her, talk to her, and convince myself she is okay, but then there are these fears I have. That I’ll call and she’ll be confused and dismissive. That I’ll never get to the truth if her mental decline continues—I am halfway there myself, it feels like at times, with my headaches and smells and twitching limbs. I am as afraid for her sanity as I am afraid I’ll lose my own before I ever get any of the answers I need.

When the sun comes up, I check the news on my phone, call the hospital for a report on my Jane (I call every day even though they are not allowed to give me any information, but they have taken to No change now instead of Only relatives may inquire). Just as I hang up, I get a call. It’s Dr. Wagner.

“Your mother is well,” he says and after a short pause he adds, “Relatively speaking. She agreed with me that it would be best if she stayed with us for a few more days. Her exact words were Going for a walk is not a crime.” Dr. Wagner goes on and on about how she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her, although he believes there’s a personality disorder or two but “without proper counseling and an official diagnosis I’m unable to categorize her just yet.”

He calls her actions a behavioral pattern of impairment in personal and social situations. I don’t care about what he’s saying—his medical gibberish is redundant; after thirty years I know my mother is teetering on the edge of crazy. She hasn’t quite fallen in, yet she’s staring into the abyss. That’s what I know during this moment of clarity: the crickets, her secretive nature, the suspicion she feels toward just about everybody aren’t normal. When we go shopping and the cashier asks for ID, she holds up her wallet, and when the cashier reaches for it, she gets irritated; Don’t touch it, I don’t like germs. See with your eyes, not your hands.

“Has anything stressful happened in your mother’s life lately?” he asks. “Any specific event you can tell me about may be important and could help me gain a better insight into what triggered this.”

I can’t help wondering if the police showing up at her house is what did her in. I tell him about the woman in the woods, how I was in the hospital and the police came to the house and how she’s an overall suspicious person. He listens intently, does not interrupt me. I drift into talking about myself, the strange odors coming out of nowhere, passing out or whatever those episodes are, the forgetfulness, at the same time remembering things I’m not sure about. I want to talk about everything, I even use the appropriate terms, cognitive problems and dizziness, just so he doesn’t think I’m like her, because I’m nothing like my mother.