Hannah Maureen Holden

Rescue

Excerpt

Beyond the cafe’s glass walls, the light at the intersection changed. Dana glanced at the pedestrians in the crosswalk, relieved to no longer imagine the back of Corinne’s head in every crowd. A flash of dark hair among the cabbage would never again send her chasing after a tall child or diminutive woman in the produce aisle. Her daughter was unmistakable. She could cling to that.

Dana placed her elbow on the table. It wobbled. From the tabletop dispenser, she gathered a stack of napkins and shoved it under the table’s curled foot. When she lifted her torso, Corinne had arrived. Dana stood, breathless. They locked eyes before Corinne’s gaze swept to the floor. She wore the Chuck Taylors that Dana bought her at the mall for the first day of senior year. Once white, they were stained gray. 

Corinne brushed a strand of greasy hair behind her ear. Dana sensed that if she rushed her, she would vanish. Corinne shuffled to Dana’s table. Dana embraced her. She felt the knobs of her spine through the fabric of her pullover.

“My baby, what have they done to you?”

“Mum, stop.” Corinne pulled away and folded her arms over her chest. 

Dana winced. Dr. Klein warned her and Glen that disparaging the church would only further alienate Corinne. When she left that morning, Glen was blustering to Zephyr, their rescue greyhound, about kicking Pastor Liam’s ass as he pulled a raincoat over the dog’s narrow head. He couldn’t help himself. 

“I’m sorry. Sit, please.” 

Corinne shrugged off her backpack and dumped it on the floor in a careless after-school gesture. Dana considered grabbing the backpack to separate Corinne from her cellphone and whatever money she had. But playing captor was how you lost them forever.

Corinne slouched into a chair, and Dana sat opposite her. Corinne continued to avoid her gaze. She lifted her hands and placed them on the table. The gesture seemed full of exertion. Dana took her clammy hands. Her wrists were stacked with hemp bracelets. 

“Can I have one?” Dana waited for her question to rouse Corinne from her languor. Corinne reached into her pocket and withdrew a strand of braided hemp. She flipped Dana’s palm open, pulled the bracelet taut, and tied three knots. Her jagged nails were dirty. “I’ve trapped happiness, peace, and love in this bracelet. Wear it until it falls off to bring these things into your life.” 

Dana adjusted the bracelet on her wrist. The waitress who filled their water glasses was about Corinne’s age, but tall and broad through the shoulders. Beside her, Corinne looked especially pale and diminished. “Another coffee?”

Dana shook her head. She felt queasy. Corinne gazed at the cherry tree. “You must be hungry.” Nothing. Dana surveyed the cafe’s austere one-page menu. Spring salad garnished with nasturtium, pea shoot soup, miniature rosewater pavlovas. Food for forest sprites. How was she supposed to feed her daughter? “Would it be possible to fix her a grilled cheese?”

The waitress set her pitcher on the table. She withdrew a small tablet from her apron and rubbed her index finger across its screen. “I’ll ask our chef.” She lifted the pitcher and left. 

Dana fixed her attention on Corinne. “Your dad and I used to come here when it was a casual place. Pancakes, home fries. We brought you a few times. Do you remember? Of course not. You were tiny.”

“Is Dad mad at me?” 

“Why would he be mad at you?”

“I took $200 from him when I left.” Her voice cracked. She sunk her head in her hands. 

“We never noticed. We were too worried about you.” The morning Corinne vanished, the police instructed them to check Glen’s billfold. After that, nothing they said mattered. She was a runaway. 

“I thought maybe that’s why he’s not here.” 

“He wanted to be here. More than anything. He came down with a bug.” Two truths and a lie. “Zephyr wishes he could be here, too.”

Corinne lifted her head from her hands, the corners of her mouth upturned. Zephyr loved them all, but he was loyal to Corinne above all others.

She brushed her sleeve against her cheek and took a long draw of water. She withdrew a napkin from the tabletop dispenser. “I never want to steal from you and Dad again.”

“Thank you for saying that, Corinne.” 

She crushed the napkin into a ball and dropped it on the table. “But I need money.” 

“You mean the church needs money.”

Corinne sucked in her lips and glanced at the crosswalk. Dana followed her gaze. Were they out there, watching? “It’s fine. But first tell me what you like about the church.”

“I don’t want to play this game, Mum.”

“Help me understand.” 

“Everyone is honest. I’m never lonely. And we’re going to restore the world.” 

“How do you plan to do that?”

“Pastor Liam knows how to free people. Free their minds and hearts.” 

“So he’s Christ now.” 

She sighed. “It’s not like that.” 

Dana inhaled. Dr. Klein wasn’t familiar with the church Corinne had joined, but assured Dana and Glen that attrition was high in all new religious movements. Trust the process, Dr. Klein said. But now that Corinne was in front of her, half-starved with shadows under her eyes, Dana couldn’t endure the process a day longer. She unhooked her purse from her chair, removed her checkbook, and clicked her pen. She wrote Corinne Gallagher as the payee in the amount of $240. When she reported the check as fraudulent, Corinne would be arrested for a misdemeanor. One year in jail, beyond the reach of Pastor Liam. Corinne might despise her, but she would be safe.

She tore the check from her checkbook.

Corinne examined it. “This isn’t enough.”

Sweat beaded under Dana’s arms and rolled down her biceps. “That’s all you’re getting.” 

“But it’s for my friend McKenna. She needs to get home.”

The waitress set a plate with the grilled cheese sandwich on the table. As she met Dana’s eyes, her broad smile wilted. Dana shook her head. “Enjoy your meal.” The waitress retreated with her hands clasped.

“Why does she want to leave the church?” 

Corinne withdrew a cellphone from her backpack. Corinne tapped the screen and showed it to Dana. Through a spiderweb of cracked glass, she saw a photo of a girl, thirteen or fourteen, seated on a wooden fence in a field. Two white-blonde braids hung over her shoulders and draped to her hips, where her denim coveralls swelled. She was at least six months pregnant.

Dana twisted her head away and covered her mouth with her hand. She blinked the world into clarity and it blurred again. Corinne returned her phone to her backpack. 

“Give that check back.” Corinne slid the check over to her side of the table. Dana ripped it into pieces. “You’re eating, and we’re going to get that girl.” 

Corinne tore a piece from the sandwich and hoisted it to her mouth. She repeated the gesture, her eyes glazed. Crumbs stuck to her chin and her fingers shone with butterfat. Dana pushed the other half of the sandwich toward her. Corinne shook her head.

“I broke my fast.” Her voice was a wheeze of anxiety. “Pastor Liam will know.” She struck her forehead with the heel of her palm.

Dana grasped her arm above the elbow. “Stop it, Corinne.”

About the Author

Hannah Maureen Holden (Fiction concentration) is a writer and editor based in New York City. Her short fiction has appeared in Cordella Magazine, High Shelf Press, Grody Mag, Anxiety Dream Zine, and elsewhere.