The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Uncle Jeff came into the light, the container floor shifting with his weight, tipping away from Bel and Rachel.

His mouth dropped open when he spotted Charlie there, on his knees.

“Charlie?” He hurried over to his little brother. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Canada? What the fuck is going on here?” he said again, eyes catching on the chain attached to Charlie’s ankle, gaze shifting around the makeshift room.

“Oh my God, am I glad to see you,” Charlie cried, a hand snaking over his brother’s shoulder, eyes hooking onto his. “You have to help me, Jeff. Rachel locked me in here, it’s been two weeks. She’s crazy. Filled Bel’s head full of lies. They want to leave me here. You have to help me.”

“Why would Rachel …,” Jeff began, eyeing Bel and Rachel, standing together, out of Charlie’s reach.

“Rachel has the key to the cuff,” Charlie said, a growl in his throat, blinking out a tear. “You need to get it, Jeff. Get the key and unlock me.”

Jeff straightened up, standing over his brother. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand, just get the key.” Charlie pushed up to his feet, chain rattling. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his brother, fingers gripping on again.

“Rachel,” Jeff said, looking over at her, his eyes crossing sides. “Is that true? Why would you—”

“Stop asking her questions,” Charlie barked, guiding his brother forward, his head floating over his shoulder, voice in his ear. “Just get the key. It’s in her hand.”

Jeff took a step forward, into the middle. “Look, I don’t know what’s happened here, but I’m sure we can work it out. We’re a family, aren’t we?”

“Jeff, don’t,” Rachel said, an edge to her voice, a warning.

“I’m sorry, Rachel.” Jeff blinked at her. “But I’m going to need that key.”

Rachel stepped back, Bel with her, foot nudging into the cascade of clothes.

“How did you find us here?” Bel asked him, stalling for time.

Jeff’s eyes fell on her instead, lines easing, like he thought they were safe there.

“You and Rachel never came back to dinner, so Sherry stayed behind to clear up and me and Carter followed Yordan back to Grandpa’s house to see where everyone had gone. We saw the mess. Books all over the floor. We thought someone had broken in. Grandpa was upset, so Yordan went to settle him into bed, and me and Carter started tidying. I saw the note on the coffee table. Help. My name is Rachel Price,” he recited, a quick look at her. “It mentioned the red truck here. So I drove right over. Left Carter to clear up the mess. What the fuck is going on?”

Bel shuffled back, a lump beneath her heel. She lifted her shoe. A flash of color against the blacks and grays Rachel had worn during her imprisonment here. Pink. A tiny pink sock, frilly at the edge. The other sock, her other sock. The one in her mom’s nightstand, and the one here, a complete pair. Rachel must have had both when Grandpa grabbed her, managed to take one with her when he let her go. Bel picked it up, just as soft, just as small. How was it possible she was ever this small?

“What did the rest of the note say?” Rachel stared Jeff down. “What did it say, Jeff? Help. My name is Rachel Price …”

Jeff coughed into his fist.

“Say it,” Rachel said, voice gentle, eyes anything but. “I am being kept by …”

“… by Patrick Price,” Jeff said shakily, losing his way, feet dragging to a stop. “In a red truck on Price logging yard.”

Rachel smiled. It twisted at the edges, turned cruel. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

The color drained from Jeff’s face, lip tucked behind his teeth.

“What?” Bel looked up.

Jeff shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I don’t—”

“But you do, don’t you? You know.” Rachel pushed back, taking a step toward him now. “I’ve seen the way you look at us. You know. Does Sherry know too? How long have you known, Jeff? From the very start? How could you do that to me?”

“No!” Jeff waved his hands, voice tight and jittery. “I never knew, I swear to you, Rachel. It was only when you came back, only when I saw the similarities.”

“But you said nothing,” Rachel growled.

“What are you talking about?” Bel asked them both.

“It doesn’t matter!” Charlie shouted. “Jeff, the key!”

“I’m not giving you this key, Jeff.” Rachel’s voice was dark and deep, chin sharpened to a point. “You’ve taken enough from me.”

“Please,” Jeff begged her, blinking away tears.

“You owe me. You know you do.”

“What are you going to do?” Jeff asked, the tears winning, breaking down his face. “Please don’t take her away from us.”

“You took her away from me,” Rachel cried.

“Who are you talking about?” Bel’s eyes darted between them, her mom and her uncle, dancing around another secret, another land mine. And there was only one name that fit there, in that space, ready to explode. “Carter?”

Rachel closed her eyes.

Jeff hid his face in his hands.

Bel looked down at the tiny pink sock, dangling between her fingers.

A baby sock. Here. But it didn’t belong to Bel, it never had.

Bel emptied out, an outward breath that didn’t end until it was all gone, a rasp at the back of her throat.

She staggered, hitting the wall of the container, clutching the sock against her empty chest.

Rachel reached for her. “Bel, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell her first.”

Bel tried to speak, but she couldn’t speak because she couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t see for all the smoke.

“What are you talking about?” Charlie barked. “Jeff?”

Her mom touched her hand and her breath came back, tearing down her throat, filling her, a different shape again. A different person. A sister.

She cried, shrinking against the wall, looking up at her mom.

“You were pregnant when you disappeared. You had a baby in here.”

Bel handed her the tiny pink sock.

“Carter’s your baby.”

Rachel pressed her eyes together, twin tears from each eye, racing down her face. “Yes,” she said quietly.

Bel wiped her face on her sleeve. “How?”

“I was four and a half months pregnant when Pat locked me in here. I hadn’t told anyone. Especially not him.” She didn’t need to say Charlie’s name. “It was another reason we had to get away from him, start a new life, before he killed me. I wasn’t showing much, but I started wearing baggy clothes, just in case. Julian even thought I was losing weight.” She sniffed. “I didn’t want that baby to be born into this family. We had to get to our new home. Our family of three. But then I was in here.”

She glanced behind her, checking Jeff hadn’t moved. Hands on his face, stretching his eyes down, showing the red exposed parts of the socket.

“I told your grandpa I was pregnant that first day. Don’t think he believed me. Not until several weeks in, when I started to show. He still wouldn’t let me go. Asked me to write down the supplies I’d need. Said he’d be here for the birth, that we could do it together. We had everything ready. Diapers. Clothes.” She stroked her thumb over the little pink sock. “He wasn’t here when I went into labor. I delivered her myself. Thought I was going to die, but there she was, screaming up at me. Perfect. Mine. The only world she knew was the one inside this container. But she had me and I had her, not alone anymore. We were doing OK. I didn’t let Pat hold her, wouldn’t let him near.” Her breath shuddered. “I only had her for two weeks. Hadn’t even named her yet. Pat came in with some scales, said we needed to weigh her, check she was healthy. I only let him close for one second, and he took her, where I couldn’t reach her.” She glanced at the chain. “I screamed but he wouldn’t give her back, said he couldn’t let his granddaughter grow up in a place like this, it wasn’t fair. That she would go to a good home, she’d be taken care of, he promised. He took her. Closed the door. And I never saw my baby again.”

Bel took her mom’s hand, hot and sticky, the sock between them.

“I’m sorry.”

Help. My name is Rachel Price. We are being kept by Patrick Price in a red truck on Price logging yard. Because Rachel wasn’t always alone, for just two weeks, for one message in one book. Her and her baby.

Carter was Rachel’s daughter, but she was someone else too. Not Bel’s cousin, but her little sister. My baby. Bel and Carter, Carter and Bel. And somehow, it was the most shocking thing, this final truth, and also not at all, not even a little bit. Her sister.

“I asked about her every time Pat dropped off food. You too.” Rachel sniffed. “My girls. Pat wouldn’t tell me where the baby went. Just that she was with a good family. I assumed he meant she’d gone into foster care, that she’d been adopted. That’s what I was looking for, when I got out last summer. Spent months trying to find records, a baby who’d been born in New Hampshire on the first of July, 2008. I had to find my other daughter, before I came home for you. I didn’t even think.” She glanced at Jeff, hands only covering his mouth now. “And then I saw a photo of Carter on Sherry’s Facebook. Dancing, smiling. I knew right away, that she had to be my baby girl. The ages matched, and her face … I checked, I scrolled through Sherry’s albums, to photos of Carter as a baby, just a few weeks old. It was her. My girl. Still wearing the clothes Pat had bought for me. That’s when I started planning my reappearance. To come home, for both of you. And what I would do to the Price family, this family who took everything from me.”

“I didn’t know,” Jeff cried, mouth uncovered now. “You have to believe me, Rachel, we didn’t know she was yours. Dad told me he knew someone who worked at a women’s shelter, that there was a woman, six months pregnant, who didn’t want the baby, but couldn’t go to an adoption agency because she was undocumented, would get deported. So Dad thought of us. We’d been trying to have a baby for more than ten years. Dad and his friend thought this would be the best thing for everyone. Dad told us the baby was due in July, that the parents looked enough like us that no one would be able to tell, same skin color, similar hair. Sherry would have to pretend to be pregnant, so nobody would ask questions, as none of this was legal. We were desperate, Rachel. Sherry wanted a baby so much. We said yes. Sherry started wearing maternity clothes, we bought bumps online, changed the size every couple weeks. Dad told us when the baby was born, that it was a girl, that she was healthy. He said the mother needed a couple of weeks with her, for everything to settle, and then she’d be ours. We laid low, hardly left the house. Charlie was in jail awaiting trial. Bel was living with us, but she was too young to understand. Then Dad brought the baby around, in the middle of the night. And we fell in love instantly. Bel too.”

Another dark family secret she’d lived through, that she’d been too small to hold on to, to remember. A birth that never happened, and a baby that appeared from nowhere.

“We told everyone she’d been born July tenth. A home birth, because Sherry didn’t like hospitals, or needles. We registered her, named her, promised to give this baby the best life we could. We were careful. Sherry never let a doctor near her with a needle, no blood tests, nothing that could risk exposing she wasn’t ours. If I’m honest, I almost started to forget, that Sherry hadn’t given birth to her that night in July. She felt so much like part of the family, looked it too. I thought it was just wishful thinking.”

He coughed into his hand.

“Then you came back, Rachel. And it was the way you looked at her, the way you were with her. The similarities. Carter looks like a Price, but she also looks like you, not in the obvious ways, but it’s there, in her smile. The way you’re both always fiddling, always moving somehow. I just had this bad feeling, when I saw you two together. I tried telling Sherry. She told me I was being ridiculous, that it wasn’t possible. I think I knew, after that dinner party, for the documentary. I was almost sure.”

Bel straightened up, her back against the wall of the container, the foam insulation pressing in like fingers.

“That’s what you were asking Grandpa that night.” She narrowed her eyes at her uncle. “What the microphone caught you saying. You weren’t asking about Rachel. You were asking him about Carter. Where was she? Where did they find her? Because Grandpa knew where Carter came from, who her mother really was, but he couldn’t remember. He can’t remember any of this. I asked you about that conversation. You lied to my face.” Her voice found its strength, carrying her forward.

“I’m sorry, Bel. I was protecting my daughter.”

“Except she’s not your daughter! She’s your niece too! My sister!”

Charlie shifted, the chain dancing behind him. “Is she mine, Rachel?”

“Of course she’s yours,” Rachel spat. “Except she’ll never be yours.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie.” Jeff faced his brother. “I didn’t know she was your daughter. Dad lied to us, all of us.”

“Don’t apologize to him!” Rachel hissed, the fire back in her eyes, now the ghosts were gone. “If you think your dad is a monster, Jeff, take a good hard look at your brother. All of this is because of him. Pat only kept me in here because Charlie asked him to kill me. Pat convinced himself he was saving me, from him. Charlie wanted me dead, which means Carter would have died too. That’s your family, Jeff.”

Jeff did what Rachel said, turned around, took a good hard look at his brother. So did Bel, and Charlie Price was a different shape now, not the man she ever knew. He was no family of hers. She had a mom, and a sister, and that was all she ever needed.

“Please,” Charlie whispered, underlit by the flashlight, upward shadows he cast on himself, silver pooling in his eyes. “Help me, Jeff.”

Jeff coughed into his hand. Turned back. Blinked. “I have to let him go, Rachel. Please give me the key.”

Jeff had chosen, and he’d chosen wrong.

“Uncle Jeff—” Bel began.

“No, Jeff,” Rachel said darkly, eyes hardening, standing her ground. “I’m choosing to believe you. That you didn’t know. That you thought you were giving an unwanted baby a home, that you’re a good person. You don’t always have to listen to him. You can choose.”

“Please, help me,” Charlie choked.

“I have to let him go,” Jeff cried, eyes flickering, torn in two. “I have to. He’s my brother. My family.”

He chose wrong again.

“No!” Bel held out her arm.

Jeff pushed it away.

“No, Jeff.” Rachel backed up until she was against the wall. “You can choose!”

“Please give me the key, Rachel.” He reached out toward her, no chain to keep him back.

“No,” she whispered, a shift behind her eyes, but it wasn’t fear.

Rachel stepped forward to meet him, elbow to his chest.

Before Jeff could grab her arm, she pulled it back and swung, launching the key out the doorway, into the dark night.

It disappeared and Bel held her breath. Heard the tiny clink as it landed, somewhere out there, in the metal maze.

“Noooo!” Charlie howled, kicking out at the boxes of food, the flashlight falling over, a silver streak along the floor, throwing them all into shadow. “You bitch! Find it, Jeff. Find it!”

Jeff stared out into the night, mouth open and shut, chewing the air.

“I’ll never find it. It’s pitch-black out there, junk everywhere.”

“Jeff!”

“I tried, Charlie,” he sniffed.

Silence, just the chorus of their breaths, and a ringing in Bel’s ears.

“Forget the key.” Charlie straightened up, hand on his brother’s shoulder, reeling him back in. “Go find a handsaw. There must be hundreds of saws out there. Find something to get me out of this chain, Jeff. Now!”

He shouted that last word, piercing the night, bringing Jeff back to life. Rachel too, arms locking at her sides.

Jeff looked at Charlie, eye to eye, brother to brother. He picked up the flashlight, their faces distorted, eyes glowing white. Jeff turned, pointed it out the open doorway.

“OK,” he said, walking through.

Rachel whipped around, found Bel’s eyes in the dark.

Then she found her hand, held it tight.

“Bel, run!”