The Oysterville Sewing Circle

Addie’s cries kicked into high gear.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Caroline said, knowing the soothing, overused phrase could never penetrate the five-year-old’s uncomprehending grief. With a scowl at Flick, she said, “That’s not helpful.” Then she took the little girl’s grubby hand. “Let’s go.”

A small bell chimed as she opened the door. She turned in time to see Flick heading the opposite way at a blind, angry run toward the road. “Flick,” she called. “Get back here.”

“I want Mama,” Addie sobbed again.

Caroline let go of her hand. “Wait right here and don’t move. I need to get your brother.”

He was quicker than any six-year-old should be, darting through the half dark across the damp asphalt parking lot. Within seconds, he was shrouded in mist as he headed toward the cranberry bog behind the store. “Flick, get back here,” Caroline yelled, breaking into a run. “I swear …”

“Whoa there,” came a deep voice. A large shadow moved into view, blocking the little boy’s path.

Caroline rushed over, engulfed in a sweet flood of relief. “Thank you,” she said, grabbing for Flick’s hand.

The kid wrenched his fingers from her grip. “Lemme go!”

“Flick—”

Will Jensen hunkered down, blocking his path. He positioned his large frame close in front of the boy and looked him in the eye. “Your name’s Flick?”

The boy stood still, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. He glowered at Will, giving the stranger a suspicious side-eye.

“I’m Coach Jensen,” Will said, showing a sort of practiced ease with the kid. “You’re a fast runner, Flick,” he said. “Maybe you’ll join my team one day. I coach football and cross-country. We train every morning.”

Flick gave the briefest of nods. “Okay,” he said.

“Cool, keep us in mind. The team can always use a fast runner.”

Caroline forgot how to speak as she stared at Will. There had been a time when she’d known the precise set of his shoulders, the shape of his hands, the timbre of his voice.

Will straightened up. She sensed the moment he recognized her. His entire body stiffened, and the friendly expression on his face shifted to astonishment. Nordic blue eyes narrowed as he said, “Hey, stranger. You’re back.”

Hey, stranger.

This was the way she used to greet him at the start of every summer of their youth. She had grown up on the peninsula, with salt water running through her veins and sand dusting her feet like a cinnamon doughnut from her parents’ beachside restaurant. Will Jensen had been one of the summer visitors from the city, polished and privileged, who came to the shore each June.

You’re back.

Now the decades-old greeting wasn’t accompanied by the grins of anticipatory delight they’d shared each year as they met again. When they were kids, they used to imagine the adventures that awaited them—racing along the endless beaches with their kites, digging for razor clams while the surf eddied around their sun-browned bare feet, feeling the shy prodding of youthful attraction, watching for the mythic green flash as the sun went down over the ocean, telling stories around a beach fire made of driftwood bones.

Now she merely said, “Yep. I am.” Then she took Flick’s hand and turned toward the Bait & Switch. “Come on, let’s go find your sister.”

The entrance to the shop, where she’d left the little girl, was deserted.

Addie was missing.

“Where’d she go?” Caroline demanded, looking from side to side, then lengthening her strides as she towed Flick along with her. “Addie?” she called, ducking into the shop. A quick scan of the aisles yielded nothing. No movement was reflected in the convex security mirrors. “Have you seen a little girl?” she asked the sleepy-looking clerk at the counter. Not Mr. Espy, but an overweight youth with a game going on his phone. “She’s five years old, mixed race, like her brother.” She indicated Flick.

“Is Addie lost?” Flick asked, his gaze darting around the aisles and display racks.

The clerk shrugged his shoulders and palmed his hair out of his face. “Didn’t see nobody.”

“I left her right here by the door, like thirty seconds ago.” Caroline’s heart iced with fear. “Addie,” she called. “Adeline Maria, where are you? Help me look,” she said to the kid. “She can’t have gone far.”

Will, who had followed her into the shop, turned to his team of sweaty athletes. “Go look for her,” he ordered. “Little girl named Addie. She was here just a minute ago. Come on, look lively.”

The boys—there were about a half dozen of them—fanned out across the parking lot, calling her name.

Caroline found the clean leggings and undies in a small heap by the door. “She needed the restroom. I told her to wait. I was only gone a minute.” Her voice wavered with terror. “Oh, God—”

“We’ll find her. You check inside the store,” Will said.

She grabbed the clothes and stuffed them in her jacket pocket. “Stay with me, Flick,” she ordered. “Do not let go of my hand, you hear me?”

His sweet round face was stony, his eyes shadowed by fear. “Addie’s lost,” he said. “I didn’t mean for her to get lost.”

“She was here a minute ago,” Caroline said. “Addie! Where’d you go, sweetheart?” They went up and down the aisles, looking high and low among the stocked shelves. The store seemed no different from decades ago. They passed bins of candy and bags of marshmallows for s’mores. There were fishing supplies in abundance and a noisy chest freezer filled with bait and ice cream treats. Boxes of soup mix and Willapa Bay oyster breading and fish fry. A sign designating goods from local vendors—kettle corn, bread, eggs from Seaside Farm, milk from Smith’s Dairy. Caroline’s mother used to send her or one of her siblings to the Bait & Switch for supplies—bread, peanut butter, toilet paper, cupcake tins … With five kids in the house, they were always running out of something.

She made her way methodically along each aisle. She checked the restroom—twice. The indolent clerk pitched in, poking around the supply room in the back, to no avail.

Good God. Good fucking God, she’d only been in charge of these kids for a week and she’d already lost one of them. They had come from the urban pile of Hell’s Kitchen back in New York City, yet here in what had to be the smallest town in America, Addie had gone missing.

Caroline unzipped her pocket and fumbled for her phone. No signal. No goddamn signal.

“I need your phone,” she said, grabbing the clerk’s from the counter. “I’m calling 911.”

The guy shrugged. At the same time, Will stuck his head in the door. “Found her.”

Caroline’s legs nearly gave out. She set down the phone. “Where is she? Is she all right?”

He nodded and crooked his finger. Feeling weak with relief, she grabbed Flick and followed Will outside to Angelique’s car—her car now, Caroline supposed.

She leaned down and peered into the window. There, curled up on the back seat, was Addie, sound asleep, clutching her favorite toy, a Wonder Woman doll with long black hair. Caroline took a deep breath. “Oh, thank God. Addie.”

“One of the guys spotted her,” Will said.

Flick climbed in through the opposite door, his face stolid with contrition.

Caroline collapsed momentarily against the car, trying to remember how to breathe normally. The panicked departure, the jumbled, seemingly endless days of the drive, her terrible fears and confusion, the careening sense that her life was reeling out of control, rolled over her in a giant wave of exhaustion.

“You all right now?” asked Will.

Another echo sounded in Caroline’s head. He’d asked her that question ten years before, the night everything had fallen apart. You all right?

No, she thought. Not even close to all right. Had she done the right thing, coming here? She nodded. “Thanks for helping. Tell your guys thanks, too.”

“I will.”