Page 14 of The Deepest Lake
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Vision still blurry with tears, Rose huddles near the window of a small shop, pretending to be fascinated as she studies the jars of salsas and traditional wooden cocoa whisks. Really, she’s waiting for her eyes to dry and her sinuses to clear.
She skims the sun-bleached flyers stuck to the inside of the glass, facing the street: a meditation workshop from last spring; a reggaeton concert in Antigua, in June.
Matt promised that the entire village had been plastered with flyers of Jules, but she sees no signs of them now.
In the photo they picked of their daughter, Jules was wearing a tank top, cargo shorts and white tennis shoes. Her dark blond hair was in two braids, and she was crouching and cuddling a stumpy-legged dog. This was in Panama, at the dog shelter where Jules volunteered for several days. It was the best, most recent and neutral close-up they had. She didn’t take a lot of close-up selfies. When she did, she hammed it up, made fish lips or crossed her eyes while striking a yoga warrior pose.
When you’re the parent of a missing child, sitting at home, sifting through photos, you realize how difficult it is to pick the right one. No crossed eyes or jubilant high kicks. No beer bottles, either. (No sir, she doesn’t drink too much, she doesn’t party, not any more than any other person her age.)
The clothing in the photo must be typical, and not in any way suggestive.
Is your daughter reckless?
She’s active. She’s healthy. She does sports. She travels.
The scruffy dog in the photo made Jules look like the type of person who volunteered, which she was. It made her look like a good and generous person. Which she was.
Did you get along? Any serious disagreements?
The police, consul and private investigator all asked stupid questions and they all seemed equally incurious about the answers. They didn’t want to know about Jules’s life and the normal sorts of arguments they had—that any family has. Like Jules’s admission to Rose, a week before flying to Panama, that she wanted to get her own apartment after the trip. Which made no sense financially. Jules had three parents—two bedrooms available, in two perfectly comfortable houses. If she wanted to go to grad school, if she wanted to be a writer, as she claimed . . .
If I want to be a writer? Jules asked at that final dinner before her trip—a dinner that was supposed to be celebratory. If?
Rose thinks about all the thought they put into those flyers, the social media posts, the hiring of so-called experts. Maybe what they should have paid attention to was Jules herself—those early signals.
As a mom, you’re always underreacting or overreacting. There seems to be no happy middle ground. Because Jules was born premature and those first months were so hard, Rose treated her like she was too fragile. In some ways she seemed to be: no child got more colds and ear infections in those first five years than Jules did. The grade school years were different. Jules became ultra-sporty in defiance of her parents’ concerns and the dire warnings of one especially gloomy physician, who told them about preemies’ higher asthma and heart problem rates.
Then came college. Jules attended nearby Northwestern—a compromise. She’d had her heart set on California, but Matt’s faculty discount was too valuable to ignore. Although Jules’s childhood home was less than fifteen minutes away, the university required students to live in dorms for their first two years—and thank goodness for that, Jules told her parents. She also insisted, freshman year, on minimizing contact with both Rose and Matt. Can we please at least pretend I’ve actually “gone away” to college?
The first semester went well. The holidays were normal. But then that February, Jules dropped out of contact. Rose assumed she was talking more to Matt and Ulyana. They assumed Jules was in close touch with Rose. Their daughter’s geographical proximity made them all complacent. Imagine how those other parents feel with their kid thousands of miles away!
It was a professor-friend of Matt’s who let them know Jules had stopped showing up for class. Not an R.A., not a roommate, not some campus counselor who recognized that their daughter was seriously depressed and a good candidate for medication—like her mother and grandmother before her. They’d almost missed it. Minutes away, their daughter had nearly gone under, and they had done nothing about it.
Rose should have learned. She should have swung into action, the moment she got a bad feeling on Jules’s twenty-third birthday, three months ago when Jules didn’t check in. They’d never been out of touch on any of Jules’s earlier birthdays.
Rose had asked about setting up a video call. No answer.
2 P.M. Let’s talk sometime today. I’ve never missed seeing you on your birthday!
4 P.M. I’m sure you’re busy working but just let me know if tonight’s a possibility. I can stay up.
5:30 P.M. Even if it’s tomorrow, just ding me quick. Let me know you’re good. We can set up a time tomorrow.
Rose remembers her alternating anxiety and melancholy. Your birthday was a special day for me, too. Can you maybe give me two minutes?
But she knew that wasn’t something you should put on a child. An hour or so later, when she was curled up with Netflix and leftovers, the texts and the mild disappointment behind her, she suddenly felt the strangest sensation.
She checked the clock: 7 P.M. Perhaps Jules was having a special birthday dinner.
She felt a chill run down her spine. She heard, or thought she heard, one word: “Mama.”
That was it. Nothing more.
Finally around 7:30 P.M. the texts all streamed in at once, and she laughed with embarrassment and then started crying with relief.
Dawn hot and noisy, birds singing. One big fat cockroach scuttled out from under my bed to greet me. Is that lucky?