The Courage Tree

CHAPTER THREE

Joe had never seen Paula quite so vicious on the tennis court. He dove to return her serve, missing the ball and nearly tripping over his own feet in the process.

Paula must finally be pulling out of her period of mourning, he thought, as he sent the ball back over the net to her. Six weeks ago, he’d accompanied her to Florida for her mother’s funeral, staying with her in her childhood home, trying to comfort her when she seemed inconsolable. Her mother had been her last living relative, and Paula’s pain over her death had been fierce and was only now beginning to lift. It was a particular sort of pain Joe knew and understood all too well.

Or maybe Paula just seemed more aggressive today because his heart was not on this tennis court in Reston, but rather at Ayr Creek, where Sophie would be babbling excitedly to Janine about her weekend at camp. He wanted to hear all about it. Despite the fact that he had strongly objected to her going, he hoped she’d had a wonderful, healthy time. He had no desire to have his grave misgivings about the trip proven correct.

Paula let out a whoop as she sent the final ball over the net, far out of his reach. He didn’t even bother attempting to return it. Instead, he bent over, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath from the wild ride she’d just taken him on.

“Congratulations,” he called across the net. This was the first time she had beaten him so decisively. He straightened up, walked toward the net, and shook her hand.

“A hollow victory,” Paula said, pulling the clasp out of her dark hair and letting it fall across her shoulders. She tossed it back from her face with a shake of her head.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, as they walked on opposite sides of the net toward the benches.

“Because you weren’t paying a bit of attention to the game.”

“Well, my focus might have been a little off, but you won fair and square.”

Paula sat down on the bench and mopped her face with a towel. “You’re still worried about Sophie, huh?”

“Not worried, really.” He slipped his racquet into its case. “If anything had gone wrong at the camp, we would have heard. I’m just really curious to see how she made out. This is the first time she’s ever done anything like this.”

“The first time she’s been able to,” Paula reminded him, and he knew where she was headed with her train of thought.

“Right,” he said. He sat down and took a long drink from his water bottle.

“But you still can’t admit that it’s that herbal treatment that’s made the difference, can you?”

“Oh, I’m willing to concede that it might be,” he said. “But everyone says—everyone except the doctor in charge of the study—”

“Schaefer,” she said. “And I know what you’re going to say. That everyone else thinks her improvement is just a temporary effect of the herbs.”

He guessed he was beginning to sound like a broken record. “Right. So who would you believe?” he asked. “Sophie’s type of kidney disease has been around a long time, with bona fide researchers looking at it from every angle. Should I believe them, or some alternative doctor who appeared out of nowhere with his bag of weeds?”

“But she’s doing so much better,” Paula argued.

“I’ll admit that those IVs she gets have made her feel better. That doesn’t mean she is better.”

“Are you going over to Ayr Creek to see her tonight?”

“Uh-huh. Want to come?”

Paula nodded. “If that’s okay with you,” she said. “Unless you want to spend the time alone with her and Janine.”

He appreciated her consideration, but he also knew how much she cared about Sophie.

“No, I’d like you to—”

They both turned toward the small parking lot at the sound of a car door slamming shut. The tennis court was surrounded by trees, and Joe stood up to try to peer through the branches. A woman was running from the parking lot toward the tennis court.

He frowned. “That looks like Janine,” he said.

“Joe!” the woman shouted as she pulled open the chain-link door of the court, and he could see her clearly then—clearly enough to see the fear in her face.

He froze where he was standing. Sophie. Something was very wrong. Paula stood up next to him, clutching his arm as Janine ran toward them.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, finding his voice as he took a step toward her. “Is Sophie all right?”

Janine glanced at Paula, then back at Joe again. “She’s late returning from camp.” Janine was winded. “She’s riding with another girl and one of the leaders. I’ve been waiting at Meadowlark Gardens for her, but she hasn’t shown up yet.”

“What time was she supposed to get back?” he asked.

“Three.”

Joe looked at his watch. It was six-thirty. “She’s three and a half hours late?”

“Yes.”

“We need to call the police and—”

“They already know,” Janine said. Tendrils of her strawberry-blond hair were matted to her damp forehead. “They want everyone to come to Meadowlark Gardens to try to sort out what might have happened.”

“Damn it!” Joe punched the fence with the side of his fist, and he saw Janine flinch. “I knew she shouldn’t have gone on this trip!”

Paula rested her hand on his arm. “Not now, Joe,” she said softly. “We’ll follow you,” she said to Janine. “Where in the parking lot should we meet?”

“In the front, close to Beulah Road,” Janine said. She turned away from them and headed back to the gate at a run. “You’ll see the leader’s white van.”

Scooping their equipment into their arms, Joe and Paula ran down the court after her.

“Maybe she’ll have arrived by the time we get there,” Paula said as they got into Joe’s car. Paula was always like that—rational and optimistic. She’d been Joe’s co-worker at the accounting firm for the past four years. Co-worker and closest friend. Sometimes he didn’t know what he’d do without her to keep him sane. Right now, though, even Paula could not quiet his anger.

He pounded the steering wheel with both hands. “I should have taken Janine to court over this idiotic study,” he muttered. “I never should have allowed my daughter to be a guinea pig.”

“The study really doesn’t have anything to do with Sophie returning late from—”

“It has everything to do with it,” he snapped. “If she hadn’t been feeling better, she never would have gone.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Joey.” Paula’s voice was calm. “Don’t you think it’s even a little bit terrific that she’s feeling so much better?”

“The disease is still there, Paula,” he said. “It’s still raging. Still killing her.”

Those words shut her up as she fell silent next to him. This had been the major area of disagreement between them in recent weeks, and he knew she was tired of the argument.

Sophie’d had an entire cadre of nationally renowned physicians treating her over the last three years. When Janine had told him that she planned to enroll Sophie in the alternative medicine study, Joe had asked those doctors to dissuade her. One of them told Joe, far too bluntly, that Sophie was going to die, anyway, so it mattered little what sort of treatment she received now. The other doctors, however, spent hours talking with Janine, on the phone and in person, but she wouldn’t budge on her plan to subject Sophie to Schaefer’s snake oil.

Joe had even gone to see Schaefer himself, determined to try to understand exactly how he thought his Herbalina could help. Schaefer was a nerdy little man, unable to make eye contact, and seeing him had done nothing to ease Joe’s discomfort about the study. Even Schaefer’s voice was weak and hesitant. But he told Joe he was “almost certain” that he was onto something that would help children like Sophie. That was his reply to each one of Joe’s questions. Johnny One-note.

In early April, Sophie’s primary nephrologist contacted Janine to tell her about a new study at Johns Hopkins, one using a more conventional approach to treat Sophie’s illness. Joe had pleaded with Janine to allow Sophie that chance, but she seemed positively driven in this. She refused to let Sophie suffer any longer if she could find a way to give her some relief, she’d said, and she’d found support for her intentions from an unlikely source.

“It’s the gardener’s fault,” he muttered, as he turned the car onto Route 7.

“What?” Paula asked.

“The gardener at Ayr Creek. You know, Lucas Trowell. The guy Janine’s parents think is a pedophile?” He could picture the thin, bespectacled gardener pruning the azaleas or mulching the trees at Ayr Creek. The few times Joe had seen him there, Lucas had looked up from his task to stare at him. Not glance at him, but literally stare, as though Joe were a member of a species the gardener had never seen before. There was definitely something odd about that man.

“How on earth is this his fault?” Paula asked.

“He told her the study sounded like a great idea. He told Janine it made sense to him. He’s a gardener, for Pete’s sake. And probably certifiable, too. He lives in a damned tree house. I can’t believe she would listen to him instead of to Sophie’s doctors.”

He and Janine’s parents had joined forces to try to dissuade Janine from putting Sophie in the study, and again from sending her away this weekend, but they had failed on both counts. Janine seemed to be under the spell of a lunatic doctor and a persuasive gardener.

“I can relate to how Janine must feel, though,” Paula said, in her most careful, not-wanting-to-upset-him voice. “She’s concerned about quality of life for Sophie right now. The way I was about my mom before she died.”

“Well, I think she’s lost her mind.” He honked his horn at a driver who pulled in front of him, cutting him off from Janine. “She never had most of her mind to begin with.”

“Look, Joey.” Paula adjusted the chest strap of her seat belt so that she could turn to face him. “You’re angry and upset, and it makes sense that you’re trying to find someone to blame, but the truth is, if Sophie is late getting back from camp, it isn’t the fault of the study, or Schaefer, or the pedophile gardener, or Janine, or—”

“It is Janine’s fault,” Joe interrupted as he passed the car ahead of him, pulling up behind Janine again. “Sophie should never have gone on this trip. She’s never been away from us. Even during all her hospital stays, she’s had one of us with her. Janine completely disregarded my wishes. I don’t get it, either. For the past few years, we’ve agreed on how to handle things with Sophie. And now…”

“You mean, she’s gone along with everything you wanted to do.”

He glanced at her. “What are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying that Janine hasn’t dared to think for herself since Sophie got sick, when you and her parents pinned the blame on her.”

“I never overtly blamed her for it,” he said, although he knew the argument was weak and that Paula could see through him. “Even though I do think there’s a good chance that Sophie’s problem was the result of Janine’s stint as GI Jane.”

“Oh, Joe, there’s no record of other Desert Storm soldiers producing kids with kidney disease. Just because Janine—”

“Let’s not talk about this, okay?”

“You always say that when you’re about to lose an argument, you know that?”

He barely heard her. They were parked at a too long stoplight on Route 7, and he could see the back of Janine’s head in the car in front of him. She was brushing the hair from her face…or maybe wiping tears from her eyes, and he softened. If he was in her car right now, he would touch her. Hold her hand, perhaps. It had been a long time since they’d had any physical contact. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want it.

“How can I be so angry with her and want to jump her bones at the same time?” Joe asked.

Paula was quiet for a moment. “You’re still in love with her,” she stated.

He kept his eyes on the road. How did Paula know that? He’d never told her. Except for this last comment, which he knew to be inappropriate in both content and timing, he’d said nothing positive about Janine in months. How did women always manage to know what you were thinking?

“What makes you say that?” He turned off Route 7 onto Beulah Road, following closely on Janine’s bumper.

“Jumping her bones is just guy talk for the fact that you love her.”

“I can’t love her. I’m too angry with her.”

“Love and anger can exist at the same time,” Paula said. “I should know.” Paula had been divorced for five years from a man who had swindled her out of her savings. Only recently had she stopped talking about him with longing.

“I don’t know how I feel about her anymore,” he said. “I just think…we used to be a team. We used to be in sync—at least when it came to Sophie.”

He knew it was his fault that their marriage ended. He’d been stupid and angry, and if he could make it up to Janine somehow, he would. He wanted her back. The three of them were meant to be a family.

“Look, Joe,” Paula interrupted his thoughts. “Janine needs support right now. You guys need each other. So put the anger aside and just be a dad for now. Okay?”

She was right, and he nodded. “I’ll try,” he said.

The parking lot at Meadowlark Gardens was nearly empty, except for the bustle of activity in the corner nearest the road. Joe followed Janine’s car across the lot and parked between the white van and a police car. Scanning the small group of people, he tried to find a skinny, little red-haired girl among them, hoping Sophie had arrived safely during Janine’s trip to Reston.

But Sophie was not there, and Joe and Paula got out of the car and followed Janine into the circle of people.

“Any news?” Janine asked a tall woman, who shook her head, then looked at Joe.

“You’re Sophie’s dad?” The woman reached her hand toward him and he shook it quickly, as if he didn’t want to touch her for too long. He was angry with her, too. Angry with anyone even remotely responsible for putting Sophie in harm’s way.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m Gloria Moss. Sophie’s troop leader.”

“What’s going on?” He heard the impatient, officious tone to his voice and felt Paula’s steadying hand on his arm once again.

“Sergeant Loomis just arrived,” Gloria said, pointing in the direction of a large black man in uniform. He was talking with a young male officer, who used his hands as he spoke, cutting the air with them, while the big man listened.

Gloria introduced Joe, Paula and Janine to Holly’s parents, Rebecca and Steve Kraft, who had apparently arrived only minutes earlier in a large, midnight-blue Suburban. Everyone had questions for one another, but no one had the answers, and they stood waiting uncertainly by the white van, while the sergeant spoke to someone on the phone. Joe wanted to walk over to him and tell him to hurry up and do something, but he knew that was not going to help.

A Honda sped into the parking lot, giving all of them a hope-filled start until they realized that the car was silver. It came to a stop near the fence, and a young woman jumped out.

“I’m Charlotte,” she called as she ran toward them. “Alison’s roommate. Did anyone hear from her yet?

“No,” Janine said. “You haven’t heard anything, either?”

Charlotte shook her head. She looked about twenty years old, with shoulder-length blond hair and tiny glasses perched atop her button nose. Within seconds, Joe knew she was the sort of young woman who could make any event into a disaster.

“This is terrible,” she said repeatedly. “Alison would never be this late without a good reason. We’re supposed to go out tonight.”

“Well, the police are working on it,” Gloria said, although she looked uncertain as she glanced in the direction of the sergeant and young officer. Gloria wore her tension and worry in her face. She couldn’t have been more than his and Janine’s age, thirty-five, Joe thought, yet her forehead was creased with deep horizontal lines and her mouth was tight, her lips narrow.

Janine, on the other hand, carried her worry as she always did, with a calm resolve that made her face impassive and hard to read. How often he’d seen that face across Sophie’s hospital bed or while waiting for news from one doctor or another. She would fall apart later, he knew, when she was alone. But for now, there was little outward sign of the anguish he knew she was feeling.

Holly’s parents were another matter altogether. Steve and Rebecca Kraft wore wide, optimistic smiles, as though they dealt with this sort of thing all the time and refused to let it get them down. They were an older couple, somewhere in their mid-forties, he guessed, with the look of well-aged hippies. Steve wore his graying hair in a pony tail; Rebecca’s mousy-brown hair fell to her shoulders from a center part. Two of their seven children were with them—one a young boy, barely a toddler, the other a sour-looking six-year-old named Treat. “Everything will work out all right,” Rebecca said to Joe and Janine as she bounced the toddler in her arms. “It always does. We’ve been through this sort of thing so many times, we’re used to it.”

Their optimism was catching. Or at least Joe tried to catch it as he listened to them tell tales about their older children’s misadventures. He felt like the young, green father next to Steve’s and Rebecca’s soothing voices of experience.

Finally, Sergeant Loomis approached them, gathering them together with a sweep of his big arms. Joe stood between Janine and Paula in front of the white van, listening to Loomis’s deep, booming voice.

“The police agencies between here and the Scout camp have been alerted to notify us of any accidents along that route,” he said. “So far, there are no reports of any accidents involving a car like Ms. Dunn’s. Of course, it’s possible that they are simply lost.”

“She has the best sense of direction,” Charlotte offered. “Whenever we’re in Georgetown or D.C., she’s the one who can find her way around when the rest of us are totally lost. Except she also likes to take shortcuts, and sometimes they turn out to be more like longcuts.”

“They’re four hours late,” Joe said. The words gave reality to the facts, and he licked his dry lips. “That’s pretty damned lost if that’s what happened.”

“Now, it’s possible they just stopped to rest or to eat somewhere,” Sergeant Loomis suggested. “Maybe they got sidetracked by an event or an attraction of some sort and didn’t realize everyone would be worried by their late arrival.”

“Alison would’ve called me if she was going to be late,” Charlotte said. She was literally wringing her hands, and Joe couldn’t take his eyes off the way her knuckles whitened, then pinked up again, each time she passed one hand over the other. “Something is very, very wrong.”

“I’m guessing it’s one of those two options,” Sergeant Loomis seemed deaf to Charlotte’s remarks. “But we do need to entertain other possibilities.”

“Weren’t some hikers murdered in that area recently?” Charlotte asked, and everyone turned to look at her in a horrified silence.

“Let’s not expect the worst, okay?” Loomis said, in a firm, kind voice.

“Is she right, though?” Gloria asked. “Was someone recently murdered near the camp?”

“Not recently, and not really near the camp,” Loomis said. “It was last fall on the Appalachian Trail. A couple of women were found. And it’s not worth thinking about.”

At least not yet. Joe could hear the unspoken phrase at the end of the sergeant’s sentence.

“Is there a chance Alison Dunn might have taken off with the two girls?” Loomis looked from Gloria to Charlotte and back again. “I’m not saying that’s what happened, but we need to look at every possibility.”

“That’s crazy,” Charlotte actually laughed. “Why would she? Alison would never do anything like that.”

“Was she acting at all out of the ordinary as she was getting ready to give the two girls a ride?” Loomis asked Gloria.

Gloria shook her head. “No, and that just wouldn’t make sense, Officer. Alison’s very responsible. I know she has the reputation of being a little bit…ditzy…but that’s just her fun-loving side. She would never do what you’re suggesting.”

Joe could hear Janine breathing next to him. Long, ragged-sounding breaths, and every few seconds or so, her gaze would leave the sergeant and turn in the direction of the parking lot entrance. He didn’t blame her. He, too, expected Alison and his daughter to arrive any moment and put an end to this silly exercise in worry. The light was just beginning to fade, edging toward dusk. Soon it would be dark.