The Long Way Back, page 2
We’re new to Instagram. Are we doing it right?
[IMAGE CONTENTS: Two pairs of feet standing toe to toe on cracked concrete. One pair of feet are in wide-strapped sandals with the toenails painted red, orange, yellow, green, and blue in color wheel order. The other pair of feet are in purple converse sneakers with bright white laces. Together, they make a double rainbow.]
“We’re not from the South,” Charlie told Eva as she stared at the phone screen, proofing the short text. She had an old smartphone with few bells and whistles, and it was already becoming a bit of a feat to upload pictures from her Canon to the computer and then send them to her phone. Still, it felt momentous to post again. Like there were now thousands of people breathlessly waiting to read what they would write next. It wasn’t an entirely welcome thought. “I’m not sure you spelled y’all right.”
She gently lifted the phone from Eva’s hand and thumbed open the internet search engine. As she typed, she said, “You know it was a fluke, right? What happened with the waterfall post, I mean. There was something about Gooseberry Falls that day, the way the light was filtering through the trees and—”
“Yeah, Mom. I know.”
“I just don’t want you to think we’re going to be famous or something. Hollywood’s not going to call because of a cool picture.”
Eva bumped Charlie’s elbow with her own. “An awesome picture,” she countered, grinning.
Charlie couldn’t help but smile back. “Well, yes. But it was a one-time thing.”
“I know.” Eva said it quickly, lightly, and that was how Charlie knew her daughter was far more invested than she let on.
Something inside of Charlie squeezed tight. It had been a hard year—the worst—with letters home from the guidance counselor and emails to fellow parents that she typed in a blind rage and then viciously edited before sending. Their replies were terse, formal, defensive. And nothing changed.
The kids were subtle in their cruelty, but certainly not original. A handful of mini candy bars left on Eva’s desk when she got up to sharpen her pencil, a stifled cough that sounded a lot like “Tubby.” In the lunchroom, girls shuffled and slid, making sure that there was never room at their table for Eva. As if the invisible disease that made Evangeline Sutton untouchable at Lincoln Park Middle School was somehow catching.
To Charlie, Eva was ample in the most perfect way, soft-cheeked and rounded in the belly like a well-fed kitten. It reminded Charlie of when Eva was a toddler. Of how she used to cup her little girl’s sweet tummy in the palm of her hand to feel it rise and fall as she fell asleep. It would all disappear, Charlie knew, melt off when Eva hit a growth spurt just like Charlie’s own baby fat had done twenty-some years ago. They were late bloomers, that’s all. But that was cold comfort now, especially when boys started to call her Evangeline the Blubber Queen when no teachers were near enough to hear. Eva heard. Every time.
Charlie put the phone back in Eva’s hand and kissed her temple. “You’re perfect. And you spelled y’all exactly right.”
Eva grunted in response and let her finger hover over the Share button. “Ready?” she asked.
“As I’ll ever be.”
And then it was live. Their feet—matching size 9s—for all the world to see. It felt a bit like the first drop of a roller coaster to Charlie, a mix of adrenaline, delight, and fear. Almost immediately, notifications began to ping.
“Here we go!” Eva said, and the hope in her tone tipped Charlie off another ledge.
“Let’s go.” Charlie reached for the phone, suddenly desperate to turn it off. “I want to walk the Aerial Bridge. When’s the last time we had ice cream from the Boxcar? I’m craving a strawberry shake.”
But Eva wasn’t listening. Angling away from Charlie, she pulled the phone just out of reach. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the upper righthand corner of their social media mailbox. “It says we have twenty-seven requests.”
Before Charlie could utter a single word, Eva had clicked it and opened the first message. Tilting their heads together, they read.
Hi! We love your look and are seeking new influencers to help us reach our 450K followers. We’d love to have you on board!
Charlie took the phone from Eva and scrolled. They were all the same. Wear our swimming suit, sandals, scarf. Try our shampoo, body lotion, eco-friendly soap. And they all echoed the very words that Charlie had said only mere minutes before.
The perfect look.
The perfect fit.
You’re perfect.
Perfect.
“Mom?” Eva asked, looking over Charlie’s shoulder. “What does it mean?”
But Charlie didn’t know how to answer.
CHAPTER 2
SATURDAY
The wind howls down the dock and whips Charlie’s short hair against her cheeks as she’s ushered toward land. She’s never seen the small Landing Marina like this before: crowded with people, emergency vehicles, and lights. Her friends are huddled together on their boats, clearly trying to give the emergency workers space. Weston has gone to comfort Frank and is sitting with one arm draped around the old man, holding him close. Weston comforting Frank? When pigs fly. Eva would giggle, roll her eyes at Charlie and the ancient, bewildering grudge between the two eightysomethings. She would love to see this. The thought rips a sob from Charlie’s lips.
Then suddenly they’re off the dock, Charlie and her entourage, and the steady ground beneath her feet is enough to make her stumble.
“We just want to make sure you’re okay, Ms. Sutton.” The young man who is holding her elbow sounds grim. “The ambulance is going to transport you to Landing Memorial—”
“No,” Charlie croaks, her throat sore from screaming. She plants her feet. “I’m not hurt.”
She drops the Mylar blanket from her shoulders so that the small crowd gathered around her can see that she’s not bleeding, nothing is broken. But that’s not true. Charlie feels splintered, like a piece of glass that has spiderwebbed into a thousand tiny shards but is somehow, impossibly still whole. One shiver and she’ll shatter. Almost the moment the blanket has puddled at her feet, it begins: huge, convulsive spasms that judder through her body.
An EMT catches her. His shout is carried on the growing wind. “Let’s get her inside. Who has a key?”
It’s a mad scramble as several people hurry toward the loose shingle, the not-so-secret hiding spot for the key to the ramshackle boathouse. In seconds the door is open, the lights flung on, and a musty, rolling chair is procured by Ted, who must have beat the coast guard responder to his slip. He catches Charlie’s hand and squeezes it hard before ducking back outside.
Charlie is pushed into the chair with a blood pressure cuff wrapped around her upper arm. She is aware of the growing pinch, the way her fingertips feel disconnected from her body, but not much else as her vision shrinks to a pinprick. The boathouse is crammed and humid, and a snippet of conversation reaches her ears.
“The helicopters are out, but no one could survive in that water.”
“You’d have to be a hell of a swimmer.”
“The water’s barely forty degrees. Doesn’t matter how well you swim.”
Charlie’s pierced with a sudden, ice-cold clarity. “What time is it?” She doesn’t mean to yell, but it gets everyone’s attention.
The EMT at her side keeps pumping the blood pressure cuff.
“Eight fifty-eight,” a man in a black sweater answers, consulting the oversized chronograph watch on his wrist. His eyes narrow as he takes a step closer and squats down to come face-to-face with Charlie. She doesn’t recognize him; he’s not Landing Police Department.
But he’s nothing more than a momentary distraction. She closes her eyes—8:58? She and Eva got to the marina around two. They were planning on a lazy afternoon on the water, the wind in their hair and the sun—after a long, cold winter, and unusually rainy spring—warm on their skin. At just after three they eased the Summer Moon out of the bay and puttered a couple nautical miles from shore before tossing in the first few lines. When did the sandwiches come out? The wine? When did Charlie go below and leave her daughter alone on the deck of the boat?
A tap on her knee makes Charlie’s eyes fly open.
“You feeling better, Ms. Sutton?” The man in the sweater is still crouching before her. “Are you ready to answer some questions?”
“Please,” the EMT cuts in. “I can’t get an accurate reading.”
“I’m fine.” Charlie rips the cuff off her arm, and the sound of Velcro crackles through the small room.
“But—”
“She said she’s fine.”
With a huff of frustration, the EMT tosses the blood pressure cuff into his medic bag and zips it shut. The three paramedics that escorted Charlie into the boathouse withdraw, letting the wind slam the door behind them. Through a grimy window she can see them stop just outside the low building, the flash of their ambulance lights still dancing on the dark water of the bay and illuminating their profiles. The marina teems with unfamiliar vehicles and people.
“How many people are here?” Charlie isn’t even aware she’s voiced the question until the man across from her clears his throat.
“We brought out the full cavalry,” he says, shifting his linebacker frame into a folding chair that a short woman with a drooping ponytail has carried over for him. He holds up his hand and begins ticking off his fingers. “Coast guard responded from the port in Duluth. Landing PD, fire, and ambulance are all here, as well as several civilian volunteers. We’ve got crews in cold water suits searching an area around your last known coordinates, and the coast guard helicopters have been called out. They should be on-site by now. We take an SOS call very seriously. Especially when the victim is a minor.” His hand is in a fist now, and Charlie can’t help but stare at it.
Victim. It’s such a grisly word. She thinks of police tape, forensics teams, body bags. “Who are you?” she asks through the sting of bile at the back of her throat.
“Detective Mitchum James, Duluth PD. Missing Persons division. I was nearby when your call came in. Just lending my services.” He considers his fist, the white-knuckled severity of it, and shakes out his hand, giving Charlie a tight-lipped smile. “We all just want to find your daughter.”
She watches him for a moment, the buzzed hair, square jaw, heavy brow. It’s not surprising that the tiny Landing PD was more than happy to let someone with more experience take the reins—a missing person case is a far cry from their usual duties of handing out speeding tickets and the occasional DUI—and Detective James exudes confidence and competence. He’s a middle-aged All-American boy with a permanent dimple in his left cheek and shoulders that wrestle the fabric of his sweater. It’s clear he knows exactly what he’s doing. But something feels off. He’s studying her too intently, and his gaze fastens on her crossed arms. Brushing the underside of her elbow with her fingers, she feels the torn skin and dried blood from her tumble off the bench in the belly of the Summer Moon. Suddenly, Charlie knows exactly what he’s thinking.
“I fell,” she says lamely.
“Looks recent.”
“On the boat. Just a bit ago.” Guilt blooms in her chest, a suffocating swell that makes tears spring to her eyes. Detective James doesn’t trust her. He’s already imaging the worst—that her scrape is a defensive wound, or something even darker. Charlie didn’t do anything, but whatever happened, wherever Eva is, Charlie does know it’s her fault. Because she drank and slept and got careless. For once she didn’t micromanage every little thing, and look what happened.
A tear slips down her cheek. She knuckles it away and says, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
The woman with the ponytail hands Detective James a tablet in a protective case that makes it look like a piece of tactical gear. He balances it on his knees and swipes the screen a few times before taking a stylus and beginning to write. Charlie hasn’t answered a single question and already she feels like a suspect.
“Full name and age,” he says, not looking up from the tablet.
“Charlotte Greer Sutton. Thirty-nine.”
One eyebrow quirks, but he goes on. “And your daughter’s?”
“Evangeline Rose Sutton. Seventeen.”
“Occupation.”
Charlie clears her throat. It’s hard to talk. Hard to focus on the questions when Eva is… But that line of thinking is a black hole of pure terror. She digs her fingernails into her palm and makes her mouth form words. “I’m a photographer. And freelance writer. I write articles for magazines sometimes. Outside, Wanderlust, Midwest Living.”
At this, Detective James looks up. “That’s interesting,” he says, then squints back at the tablet. “Because it says here you’re a social media influencer.”
Charlie has no idea what he’s looking at or where he got that information, but she doesn’t have time to dwell because she can feel the heat creeping up her neck. The boathouse is chilly and damp, and she knows her blush is telling. She almost says: “It’s complicated.” But that sounds like an excuse better suited for Match.com. She decides to keep her answer simple. Neat. “We were. Not anymore.”
Detective James is already flipping through screens. “Looks like your account is still live. Eva Explores. You have quite a few followers.” He whistles low. “Over a quarter million on Instagram. That’s really something.”
It’s not. Not really. There are thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of accounts with more followers, more influence than Eva Explores. But it paid the bills. It allowed them to live the sort of life that dreams were made of. The Sutton girls’ dreams, anyway.
“I don’t see how this is relevant,” Charlie says. Hearing Eva’s name on his tongue makes panic sizzle across her skin. “My daughter is missing.”
“Just gathering information,” Detective James says, writing away. “Everything is relevant at this stage. Can you tell me what you and Eva were doing on the boat today?”
“It was beautiful out. Eva wanted to be on the water.”
“It was her idea?”
“Yes.” Charlie nods, suddenly unsure whose idea it was to take out the Summer Moon. Did it matter? But yes, she can picture Eva thundering down the stairs and pointing at the glittering lake framed in the window above the kitchen sink. “It was her idea.”
“Go on.”
“There’s not much else to say. It felt like summer, and we wanted to enjoy it. We were celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?”
“Graduation. It’s a week away,” Charlie says. But of course, that was only part of it. She doesn’t explain that they had been fighting for weeks. That after a months-long stalemate, Eva had finally agreed to one last summer of Eva Explores. Charlie was ecstatic. But she can’t tell Detective James any of that. She says, unnecessarily, “Eva’s a senior.”
“A seventeen-year-old senior? She’s pretty young to be graduating.”
“Eva was homeschooled for most of high school. She finished all her coursework early. Could have graduated last semester.” A note of pride creeps into her voice, but Charlie doesn’t have the capacity to feel sheepish about bragging about her girl.
“Why didn’t she? Graduate early.”
It’s a simple question with a complex answer. Charlie settles on: “She wanted the experience. You know, homecoming, prom, graduation.”
The detective stares at her for a moment, but apparently decides not to press this line of questioning because he changes tack. “Do you and Eva get along?”
“Yes,” Charlie blurts. “She’s my best friend. I mean, she’s my daughter, but we’re very close.”
“Ever fight?”
A blush rises as Charlie thinks about the night before. The angry words. The yelling. “Everyone fights.”
“How about recently?” Detective James asks, his look boring right through her.
He knows, Charlie thinks. But she never gets the chance to answer. From across the room someone calls: “Detective James?” His tone is sharp enough to silence all the chatter in the boathouse. “I think you should take this.”
Charlie holds her breath as the stranger hands over a cell phone. Detective James thrusts the tablet at the ponytailed plainclothes officer—her name is Mia and she’s Landing PD; Charlie recognizes her now—and takes the phone into the far corner. It’s a small building, one low-ceilinged, open room separated by a few desks, a bookshelf or two, and a pair of glass cases that hold artifacts of a time long gone. Stone Harbor was dug out by hand in the fifties, courtesy of a group of young men who wanted to put Landing on the map. Some of the things they found in the process now collect dust in the display case where Detective James drums his fingers. Charlie focuses on what she knows is there instead of the military-straight line of the detective’s back. A brass gimbal compass, a copper cup, a thick, ugly ring. There’s a sextant of questionable origin and a small wooden mermaid carved by hand.
Charlie is picturing the curve of the mermaid’s hair, the way the wood ripples as if it was once water, when the detective turns and strides back to where she’s sitting.
“Is there a life raft on the Summer Moon?”
She blinks, trying to clear her head. “Yes. Of course.”
Detective James gestures for her to continue.
“It’s a, a…” Charlie stutters, trying to remember. “It’s a compact life raft. Inflatable. Yellow. For up to four people.”
“Where is it stored?”
“In a seat locker.”
“Are you sure?”
“I put it there myself.” Charlie’s heart begins to thunder. “Just a couple weeks ago when we dewinterized the boat.”
But he’s shaking his head. “It’s gone.”
INSTAGRAM POST #57
Living our best life on the slopes of Lut sen! It’s a winter wonderland here and we may never go home. We’ve already told you all about where to get the best pizza (yes, the kitchen is in the back of a gas station, but TRUST US), who makes the best white chocolate mocha (we love you, Will!), and that you should definitely buy a bag of copper shavings for some truly spectacular nighttime fire magic. But, if you want to know which runs to hit and miss, stay tuned. There are four mountains and ninety-five runs, and the Sutton Girls have three days left to hit them all. We live to give. #charlieandevaexplore #nofilter #lutsen resort
