Three weeks after John Miller moved into the Warners’ old house across the street, Linda sat on her front step watching as he and his four-year-old daughter scrambled out the front door. He called to the girl to get into the car fast, and she did, dragging an adult-sized backpack behind her.
It was the first week of August, bright and already hot, even so early in the morning. John carried a green Coleman cooler, a handful of papers trapped on top by his thumb. He opened the passenger side door and put everything in, then walked around to the driver’s side.
He noticed Linda then, gave her a friendly wave, which she returned. He rolled the window down and started the car. “Jump” by Van Halen blared from the radio for a few seconds before he turned it down, respectful of the early hour.
He backed the car onto the street and waved again to Linda. The little girl waved, too, from the backseat, singing along to Van Halen. Linda watched the car disappear around the corner, took a sip of tea. Over the rim of the mug, she noticed an envelope in John Miller’s driveway, caught up in a sudden breeze. It cartwheeled across the street and onto Linda’s lawn, and then it kept coming, flattening itself against her shin before dropping at her feet.
Linda picked it up.
Her name was Gloria. The little Miller girl. A terrible name for a child, Linda thought. Or for a grown woman, for that matter. What could you be with a name like Gloria? A movie star? The lead singer in a rock band? A science fiction writer with too much personality? You couldn’t very well work at a regular office job, or be a clerk at the grocery store, or be a teacher like Linda, with a glittery name like Gloria. People would expect more of you. And Linda could tell already that quiet little Gloria Miller didn’t have it in her.
Not that Gloria wasn’t a nice little girl. She was, and like all the kids on Allan Court, she was drawn to Linda. The children found Linda mysterious—entertaining—because she lived by herself, with no husband and no children. How did she do that? the older girls wanted to know. Why?
The kids would come to Linda’s house when their mothers told them no to cookies and candy. Linda always had treats on hand, and she never said no or maybe you should ask your mother. They would sit with Linda on her front step, sticking their Popsicle-stained tongues out at their mothers and chanting, Na na na na na na! Ms. Suttie gave us tre-eats!
Linda liked their company, even though she wondered if they were using her for her candy, and sometimes even if they felt some sense of responsibility to fill up her empty life.
Gloria was quiet, but she tagged along with the other kids, doing whatever they happened to be doing—digging a hole to China or learning to Hula Hoop or riding their Big Wheels as fast as they could around the circle at the end of the court—while their mothers (and sometimes their fathers, if they were off in the afternoons) sat grouped together on each other’s front steps, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, talking about their in-laws or what was going wrong at the plant or whether they should let the children listen to “She-Bop” by Cyndi Lauper.
Gloria didn’t seem to have a mother, or if she did, no one knew where she was. In the three weeks since they’d moved in, only Liz Spalding from number 57 had worked up the nerve to ask John about it, twice, but they’d been interrupted. The first time, John had heard the phone ringing in his house, and the second time, he’d had to rush up the street to warn Gloria to stop running in her flip-flops. They thought perhaps Gloria might say something, but so far, she hadn’t. Even if you asked her, “So, Gloria, it’s just you and Daddy?” she would simply reply, “Yep! Just me and Daddy.”
John seemed quite capable of taking care of his daughter on his own. He’d worked out babysitting arrangements for the time he spent at work. Starting next week, Grace at number 42 would watch Gloria while he was on the day shift, and Sarah, the Clarkes’ teenage daughter at number 49, would stay with her when it came his turn to work the night shift. He hadn’t invited anyone in for coffee or a beer yet, so no one could comment on the state of the house, but he kept Gloria neat and clean. She wore clothes that fit properly. He could style her curly hair.
One Friday evening, Gloria knocked out a front tooth when she and little Patrick Lavoie from number 19 smashed into each other while riding their Big Wheels. John burst out of the house when he heard her wail, scooped her up and ran with her. The next morning, Gloria hopped outside, letting the screen door bang closed. Her top lip was swollen, and she had a nasty bruise on her forehead. She hollered to Linda across the street, and anyone else who might be listening, “The Tooth Fairy left me fifty cents!” John had come out behind her, beaming.
The mothers on Allan Court couldn’t believe it. They looked at their husbands and said, “I don’t see you doing that.”
Linda brought the envelope into the house. She dropped it on the table in the front hall, decided she’d pop over after dinner to return it.
The evening was hot and noisy with the sounds of neighbourhood kids, so Linda didn’t sit outside. Instead, she got caught up trying out a new recipe for chicken stir-fry in her new wok and then cleaning the mess she’d made. She felt pleased with herself as she placed the leftovers in a Tupperware container for supper the next day.
As the sun was falling, Linda went to close the living room curtains and noticed John across the street. He leaned into the backseat of the car, searching for something, his movements sharp with agitation. He walked around to the passenger side, flung the door open and ducked in, looking on the floor. He dropped to his knees to reach under the seats. Then he stood up, leaned against the car, his breathing jagged. He rubbed his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair, gazed up and down the street and then at the sky.
The letter. Linda had forgotten all about it. She would run it over right now. She hurried to the front hall and picked it up. It was addressed to an E.L. Mahoney in Marford, Alberta. A place she’d never heard of, despite having a sister and niece living in Alberta. There was a stamp on it; it was ready to be mailed, although Linda noticed he’d forgotten to write down his return address.
She looked out her screen door and saw John disappear into his house. She’d missed him. It was probably Gloria’s bedtime now, and she didn’t want to go over and get her all wound up.
She stuck the letter to her fridge with a flower magnet. Maybe she’d catch him tomorrow.
Now that he’d been here almost a month, it had occurred to the women on Allan Court that John Miller could be just what Linda needed. They teased her about it, even some of the older girls (parroting their mothers). They didn’t say it to her face, but Linda knew what the neighbours were talking about when she wasn’t there to hear: maybe it wasn’t too late for Linda. Couldn’t this man, with his steady job and his cute daughter and his sensible grocery shopping habits, be just perfect for Linda?
A week went by. Of course, Linda was curious about the letter. Sometimes, she pulled it off the fridge and set it on the table beside her plate while she ate her supper. The name. E.L. Mahoney. A man? A woman? Likely a woman, she figured. Did men really make time to write letters to each other anymore?
The printing was so neat it almost looked typed: small, boxy letters in smooth black ink.
Linda was heading to Alberta soon to visit her sister and her niece. Maybe she could talk her sister into a road trip, hand-deliver the letter, find out who this E.L. Mahoney was. A youngest sister, just bursting out of adolescence, ready for her life to start? Or a grandmother, checking the mailbox every day for details of her grandson’s new home, her great-granddaughter’s new friends, her first lost tooth?
Linda thought about how agitated John had seemed as he searched his car for what could only be the letter. The way he even opened an empty paper bag and turned it upside down, as though a letter had found its way inside. And then the kick of the tire, the fingers in his hair, the slam of the front door. She wondered what he had decided about the letter. That it was lost forever, and he’d have to write and mail a new one? Or that he just hadn’t found it yet?
Another week ticked by. The kids of Allan Court spent their days outside. They made up dance routines to show their parents and ran through sprinklers in their underwear. They rode their bikes up and down the street, baseball cards clicking through their tires. They showed off, riding no-hands and doing pop-a-wheelies, skills they’d taught each other over the summer. Their voices carried on the breeze all day and into the evenings, with brief pauses when their mothers called them home for lunch and dinner.
Linda thought of the letter at odd times, like when she was picking out apples at the grocery store or pulling weeds from her garden. She thought about it in the mornings, when she sat on her front step drinking tea as John left the house, waving, or when she handed Gloria a piece of candy she wasn’t supposed to have. The letter stayed stuck to Linda’s fridge, collecting water stains from Linda’s wet hands pulling the fridge door open and closed.
John was drunk when he knocked on Linda’s door at one o’clock in the morning. She was still awake, still drunk herself. There had been a party at the Dubeaus’ at number 17. They had flirted with each other. Linda was awkward, but she felt her confidence grow as the evening went on and the alcohol soaked in, first a splash, then a wave, the dangerous excitement of being completely in control of not being herself.
When she left the party, she smiled and waved to him, feeling his eyes on her as she opened the gate and headed up the street towards home.
She had her head down on her kitchen table, still in her jeans and T-shirt, when the knock came. She lifted her head slowly. She knew who it was. The only decision she had to make was whether or not to answer it.
She opened the door, and he stepped inside. Now her confidence was faltering, and she asked a ridiculous question: “What are you doing here?”
He reached out and touched her wrist with his fingertips, then led the way to the bedroom. She followed like she had no other choice, still just drunk enough to go through with this, even though she was getting on a plane for Alberta in the morning. Thoughts of not being ready, of not getting enough sleep, of arriving late to the airport, crowded into her head, but she let herself be swept away just enough to keep those thoughts at the edge, where she could hear them like a whisper but not a yell, where soon enough the throb of guilty pleasure would drown them out entirely.
Afterwards, as he muttered that he had to get home to relieve the babysitter and started dressing, she thought about the envelope still stuck to her fridge. She pictured wrapping herself in a sheet and running to grab it for him. But she didn’t—couldn’t—give it back yet. She wanted it to be here while she was in Alberta, playing Yahtzee with her niece, listening to her sister talk about her divorce and then questioning Linda’s choice to remain single. The thought of it would get her through: the tiny printing, the way his Os were squares instead of circles. The way he seemed to desperately need it.
Linda’s niece, Melanie, pulled Linda around the store, trying to locate the candy aisle. Linda laughed at Mel’s pure focus and determination and let herself be pulled along.
She saw the face out of the corner of her eye as they passed the bulletin board. She gave up letting Mel think she was stronger and stopped short. She turned and allowed herself to be pulled, as though caught in a rip current, toward the missing child poster.
The face in the photograph. It was Gloria. A couple of years younger, just a baby, but Linda recognized the tight black curls, the soft brown eyes, the scar at her hairline that she’d glimpsed a few times when Gloria was running towards her with the other kids, begging for candy.
The name on the poster was Jessica Mahoney. Missing since June 19, 1981, from the town of Marford, Alberta. Abducted by her father, John Mahoney.
Linda ripped the poster from the board—her first instinct to protect him from anyone else seeing it—folded it with shaking hands and jammed it into her purse. She reached out to touch the wall to steady herself, black spots circling before her eyes.
Melanie pressed a chocolate bar into her hand. Her voice—“Please, Auntie? Auntie?”—broke through Linda’s barrier of shock slowly and steadily, like a police siren approaching from a distance.
It wasn’t unusual, in that time and place, for the kids to run around on their own outside, from toddlers on up, in and out of each other’s backyards. Everyone assumed that someone was always watching, and for the most part, someone was. Neighbours sat on their front steps drinking Sanka, making grocery lists, folding laundry, swapping recipes.
But there were pockets of time in which the kettle whistled inside one house, and a baby woke crying in another, and the neighbour at the end of the street became engrossed in an article in Woman’s Weekly, and the children weren’t supervised at all for a moment, a few minutes, sometimes half an hour.
In one of these pockets of time, Gloria Miller disappeared.
There had been a brief downpour, but the sun was shining again when the cab bringing Linda home from the airport turned the corner onto Allan Court. Everyone who wasn’t at work was out in the street. Some were walking around yelling Gloria’s name. Others were just standing in their driveways, wringing their hands and whispering. The Chens still had their umbrella open above their heads. Mrs. Bergdahl had a cane, and she used it to separate the bushes in front of John’s house, bending to look between the branches. Joe Malik from number 22 asked John if they should call the police, and Linda held her breath, the missing child poster, now face down at the bottom of the suitcase at her feet, flashing through her mind. “No,” John snapped. Then, evening out his voice, he added, “No, Joe, not yet. I’m sure she’s just hiding on me.”
Linda put her suitcase inside her front door and joined the search. At the end of Allan Court, she turned right onto Bell Street. Three houses up, she saw the Kowalskis’ doghouse through their chain-link fence, the open gate. A perfect hiding spot for a little girl who knew she might be in trouble.
Linda saw the toe of Gloria’s red running shoe sticking out. She looked back towards Allan Court. John was disappearing around the corner, his fists clenched at his sides.
Gloria had the dog in there with her. It was a chocolate lab, only half-grown, and it rested its head against Gloria’s stomach while she ran her thumb along the patch of fur between its eyes.
“Gloria?”
“I like dogs a lot, a lot, a lot. But we can’t have one because we move so much.”
Linda’s chest clenched.
“Is Daddy mad at me?”
Here was a question she knew how to handle. She let her breath out and answered in the steady voice she used at work.
“No, Gloria. No, of course he’s not mad,” she said. “But he is worried. How about I buy you a Popsicle and take you home?” She pulled the dog from Gloria’s lap. Gloria slid out of the doghouse and took Linda’s hand.
Linda turned away from Allan Court. She could see the bus stop that could take them to the police station, the sun flashing off the peeling metal sign. Linda put her hand in her pocket, checking for coins.
Gloria’s bottom lip shook. Fat teardrops slid through the dirt on her face.
Linda stopped, looked both ways. No sign of a bus.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
“But I want to see my daddy.” Gloria’s voice was still quiet, but the crying was escalating. Soon, she would be wailing.
Linda realized she was holding her hand too tightly. She loosened her grip. “I know you do.”
Linda looked up and down the street again. Still no bus.
Maybe someone on Allan Court had already called the police to report Gloria missing. Maybe they were already on their way.
She started walking again. They passed the bus stop, turned right at the next street, and walked into the corner store. Distracted by a freezer full of Popsicles to choose from, Gloria stopped crying. She stood on tiptoe, peering at the rainbow of choices, her tiny fingers leaving sweaty streaks on the glass.
The Popsicle melted quickly as they walked. Purple liquid dripped down Gloria’s arms and chin, onto her already filthy T-shirt, the toes of her new red runners, and even onto the sidewalk. Gloria giggled, stopping to look at the purple spots on the sidewalk behind them. Linda stopped too and looked down at Gloria—at Jessica—her wild black curls shining in the sunlight, the scar obvious on her forehead.
“Anyone can follow the purple trail and find us now,” the little girl said.
When Gloria saw John, she burst into tears and ran to him, jumped into his arms, pressing her sticky purple face into his shoulder. There was no police car. He closed his eyes with relief, and when he opened them, he looked right at Linda. He mouthed, “Thank you.” Linda tried to smile, but the scene was making her dizzy. She turned and walked into her house.
Linda looked at the envelope for a long time that night, trying to imagine what the letter might say. She almost opened it many times, turning it over, holding it up to the light. She wanted to believe the best, that he had somehow rescued his daughter from a terrible situation, a terrible mother. His love for her was so clear, and he cared for her so well. Was this the first letter, or did he send them regularly? Were his intentions good, letting her family—her mother—know that she was safe, perhaps including a recent photograph of her? Or was he being cruel? She lost a tooth today and you weren’t here to be the Tooth Fairy.
Linda sits on her front step watching John hustle Gloria into the car. It’s the first day of school, and for the first time in her career, Linda has called in sick.
“First day of kindergarten!” John calls. “I’m taking her for a donut before school.”
“Donut, donut, donut!” Gloria chants. She’s wearing a red corduroy dress and shiny Mary Janes, a yellow plastic lunchbox dangling from her hand.
She climbs into the back and John pulls the car onto the street. He rolls down the window and says, “I can’t thank you enough for finding Gloria the other day.”
Finding Gloria. The words hit Linda’s heart like a stone.
“Oh,” she says, swiping her hand as though to rid the air of the memory. “Of course. Anytime.”
“Maybe I can thank you properly later.” He looks her up and down, and the memories of that night rush into Linda’s mind: the taste of alcohol as his tongue pushed her lips apart, her dizzy, drunken acceptance.
“Maybe you can,” she replies, almost meaning it. Then, to Gloria, “No more running away, kiddo.” Gloria giggles and pushes her hair off her face just enough for Linda to see the scar.
When the car turns onto Bell and disappears, Linda gets up and goes inside. She takes the envelope off the fridge, sits down at her kitchen table, picks up a pen with red ink and writes in the top left-hand corner:
John Mahoney
49 Allan Court
Vickerton, Ont.
She walks out the front door and up the street to the red mailbox on the corner. She looks at the envelope, worn and stained, smooths it against her leg.
The mailbox squeaks when she opens it. She holds the letter with one finger against the metal panel, then lets it go, watching as it slides into the darkness. She releases the handle and the door clangs shut, a sound that will startle her out of nightmares for years. She whispers one word: Hurry. Then she turns and walks back to her house to make another cup of tea.
Shannon Hancock’s stories have appeared in several literary journals, including The Antigonish Review. She was the winner of Black Fox Literary Magazine’s “Secrets Unraveled” contest and received an Honourable Mention in the 2022 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest. She lives in the Greater Toronto Area with her wife and two sons.
Website: shannonhancock.ca
