Lenworth drove to Coney Island, the very place he had intended to take Opal that morning, and by the time he arrived, the boardwalk was crowded with a hodgepodge of bodies—most in clothes better suited for another, smaller body—and the amusement park had taken on the traits of a never-ending carnival. He didn’t like it like this—raucous and crowded—but preferred it in the morning when the boardwalk shops were still asleep and the smell of hotdogs, fried potatoes, fried dough, and grilled meat didn’t hang in the air like clouds too weighted to move. In fact, he preferred that it remain a relic of another time, with just the façade of historic buildings and his imagination filling in the costumes reminiscent of that long-ago time. In the early mornings, the sun highlighting aged brick walls and old neon signs, the amusement park felt a little bit like an abandoned town, a historical site recreated for exhibition only. The boy engineer buried deep within him could sit for hours and stare at the parachute jump, the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone and imagine it being built, one steel post and one wooden plank at a time. From bare earth to a looping track, he could see it all going up, sweaty men layering the planks at equal distances apart, hammering and stomping to test a beam’s strength. He imagined a life that could have been—he as an engineer, building his own landmark, putting a semi-permanent mark on the earth.
Instead, he gave up that dream for the priesthood, a desperate bid at the time to save himself and his family from disgrace.
He left the carnival atmosphere behind and walked past the historic parachute jump, and beyond to the quieter residential side, which the crowds largely avoided. He wasn’t sure exactly why he had come here then, whether he truly thought Opal would have come to a place that was his sanctuary. Yes, he had taken her there for birthday breakfasts—tea by the sea—but would she have come on her own? Was he simply stalling, holding off his inevitable demise?
Indeed he was. There he didn’t have to pretend that Opal was missing, didn’t have to pretend that Plum hadn’t come back to claim what was rightfully hers, didn’t have to pretend that Opal wasn’t a permanent reminder of what he had done.
Just off the ramp at West Twentieth Street, a film crew was setting up lights and moving police cars in random spots along the curb. The scene was set to reflect a hurried arrival, haphazard parking by officers running toward an emergency. And it occurred to him that what he was doing—strolling along the boardwalk just after reporting his daughter missing—was suspicious in itself. If the police asked, how would he account for his day without appearing to be a father nonchalant about his missing daughter? Which random stranger would recall seeing him, a priest in a black shirt and white clerical collar strolling along the boardwalk in the early afternoon? Not a hurried or anxious man, searching frantically for a missing girl. He couldn’t make himself look frantic, not when he knew that Opal was with Plum, not when he knew that Plum wouldn’t harm Opal, not after so many years of longing and waiting. Still, he returned to the car, two blocks away from the water, on Mermaid Avenue near a Catholic church.
He didn’t want to return home and wait, with Pauline lurking in the shadows, her questions coming at him as sharp as a finger jabbing his chest. Who is Plum? What did she want with you? Is Opal with her? Is she Opal’s mother? Where was she all this time? What kind of lying, conniving priest are you?
The thought slipped so quickly and quietly into place that he almost missed it. Plum was the one for whom he should be searching, whose life he should be turning inside out, whose secrets he should uproot. Not Opal’s. There was a chance he could salvage his life. He slowed the car and turned around, certain there was a library nearby or a community center, someplace where he could search for records or, at the very least, find a telephone directory.
He didn’t have to drive for long, for there, near the Catholic Church, was the Coney Island library. In the library, he did what he should have done all these years. He opened a telephone directory and searched for Plum Valentine, a name so unique that he found it and her Flatbush address almost immediately. Why hadn’t he thought of looking for her first before involving the church committee? Contained a scandal before it bloomed into something bigger?
He headed back the way he had come, at full speed now, zipping around vehicles, ready to press the horn at the slightest provocation. The wind whipped through the open window, tossing around exhaust fumes, the smell of gasoline, the odor of rotting garbage that came from a passing truck. But he left the windows down, letting the whoosh of wind break the silence in the car and stir up the thoughts in his head.