Hidden

by Catherine McKenzie

  “So you have someone to look after you in your old age?”

  “There’s that too.” Her pen paused. “Do you think it’s weird, me signing these instead of Zoey?”

  “Do you think she’d mind?”

  “No. She was kind of embarrassed when Brian ordered so many copies in the first place … and you should see our garage. We can’t even park in there anymore.”

  I flipped through the deckled pages. “I’d love to meet her someday.”

  “I’d like that,” she said, but there was a hesitation in her voice. I had a flash of her meeting Seth, and I felt weird.

  Cold.

  We finished our task and went to the buffet lunch. At some point, I slipped away to check our golf assignments; Tish and I were playing together, I saw with pleasure. In fact, we were a twosome in a sea of foursomes, presumably because of our low golf handicaps. Tish had listed hers as a four. Halfway into the second hole, I knew she’d lied.

  “Why’d you do it?” I asked after she’d landed on the green in eagle position.

  “What?”

  “Lie about your handicap? You clearly don’t have one.”

  She shot me a look over her collared shoulder. Her expression was hidden by the shadow cast by her cap.

  “Didn’t I tell you I suck at putting?”

  “Did you? When?”

  “The first time we met.”

  “I don’t remember you saying that.”

  “Well, I did.” She tapped the side of her head. “I have perfect recall of conversations.”

  “That must come in handy.”

  “Sure. Especially at three in the morning. You’re away.”

  I was the farthest away from the green, by a long shot. Unlike hers, my third shot wasn’t even on the green.

  You know how you think you’re good at something until you see someone who’s really good at it?

  I pulled off a tricky chip shot that was more luck than skill, but I took Tish’s “nice shot,” anyway.

  I picked up my ball as a loud horn blasted through the air.

  “Storm warning,” Tish said. “We should head for cover.”

  She was looking into the distance at a massive black thunderhead that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago.

  “I thought it never rained here?”

  Her reply was silenced by a zigzagging flash and concomitant boom.

  “What’d you say?” I yelled.

  “Run!”

  She pointed at a decrepit wood structure about five hundred yards away, a rain shelter that had been sorely neglected because it never rains in Palm Springs. Except when it does.

  A second burst of thunder clapped us to attention, and we sprinted towards the shelter, abandoning our clubs. We reached it as the rain began to fall, fast and loud, thrumming against the sloped metal roof, running off in a curtain.

  We stood there listening to it, our breaths escaping rapidly.

  “I guess there’s going to be flowers this spring,” Tish said.

  “Too bad we’re going to miss it.”

  “It is.” She watched the rain. “I did lie to you before.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Not about my golf handicap.”

  “What then?”

  “About why I didn’t tell you I was coming.”

  “Lori Chan wasn’t sick?”

  “No, she was. She is.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “I didn’t tell you I was coming because I wasn’t sure I was going to.

  Not till the last minute.”

  “Why?”

  She turned to me. “You know, if we were in a movie, this is when we’d have our first kiss. In the unexpected rain.”

  She blushed and looked at her muddied golf shoes.

  “You’re right,” I said as my heart sped up. “Tish …”

  She raised her head. We were inches apart. I could smell her sunscreen and feel the warmth of her body as the air cooled around us. Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. It took an act of will not to pull her towards me, put my mouth on hers, and finally taste this person I knew so well in some ways, and so little in others.

  She started to raise her hands, then lowered them. “I didn’t tell you I was coming because of the possibility of this.”

  I took her hands in mine. It felt like touching a lightning rod right after it’s been struck.

  “You don’t have to worry.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No.”

  She dropped her arms to her side. I let her hands slide away.

  “So I’ve been imagining it?” she asked. “There’s nothing happening between us?”

  “You haven’t been imagining it.”

  “Then I’m worried.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we shouldn’t. Because I should say no. But I don’t think I can. Not if …”

  “No, Tish. It’s okay. I mean it.”

  “How? How is it okay?”

  I looked at her and I thought about how hard it was to say things, even though it was easy to think them, to feel them.

  “Because I’m not going to ask you for anything. I’m going to keep myself from saying and doing what I want to say and do. I’m going to make that effort. So you don’t have to worry. You really don’t.”

  She let out a long slow breath that sounded like relief.

  “Is that what you want?” I asked.

  “It’s what I’ve decided too. Not because …”

  “No.”

  Her wide eyes met mine, all at once happy and sad, mirroring the feeling in my heart.

  “Did I make a mistake, coming here?” she asked.

  “I’m glad you’re here. I’ll always remember this.”

  She smiled as the rain stopped, the water still dripping from the roof.

  “Me too,” she said. “Always.”

  We sat at different tables at dinner that night. We could easily have fudged with the dinner assignments, but we didn’t. Instead, I sat with seven people I didn’t know from her office, and she sat with seven people she didn’t know from mine. I made polite conversation with the twenty-something sitting next to me. I think she might’ve been flirting with me—or maybe she was someone who always repeatedly touched the leg of the person she was speaking with—but I was too distracted to decide. My mouth answered her questions when necessary, while my brain was still half on the golf course, in the rain shelter, and what had almost happened. I couldn’t decide if the twist in my gut was guilt or regret or a combination of both.

  My eyes darted across the room to the back of Tish’s head, the white of her neck below where she’d bunched her hair into a knot, the side of her face when she turned towards the man sitting to the left of her, the right.

  I ended up behind her in the food line again, but this time it was no accident.

  “How’s your table?” she asked.

  “Deadly. Yours?”

  “A notch below a Safety Minute.” Her hand hovered over the chafing dishes. “What do you reckon? Pasta or fish?”

  The fish looked dried out, even though it was drowning in a thick white sauce. “I’m thinking pasta.”

  She nodded and helped herself to a small serving of shaped pasta in an orangey sauce. It looked like something from a can.

  I guess the consultants hadn’t specified that team building worked better surrounded by creature comforts you couldn’t regularly afford.

  “The sun and the moon and the stars,” she said.

  “I … what?”

  She nodded at the shape of the pasta on her plate. “Seth would love it,” I said.

  “Zoey used to make galaxies with hers. Did you know there’s a conjunction tonight?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Jupiter and Venus are at their closest point. They’ll be lined up in the sky in a row with the moon. It’s rare and pretty cool.”

  “How did I not know you liked astronomy?”

  She shrugged. “There’re lots of things we don’
t know about each other, right?” She paused. “Zoey and I usually watch that kind of stuff together.”

  “Will you watch tonight?”

  “I might do.”

  I waited for her to invite me to come along, to go with her and lie out in the grass somewhere and watch the heavens. But I also didn’t want her to ask. On some level, I didn’t want to have to face the choice I knew I shouldn’t be making.

  “Well, I should be getting back,” she said.

  “Right, me too. How about a drink after dinner?”

  She bit the edge of her thumb. “How about … breakfast tomorrow? Yes?”

  “Yes. Sure. That sounds good.”

  “Have a good night, Jeff.”

  “You too.”

  She turned to leave, then turned back quickly, her plate tottering on one hand. She leaned in close to my ear for the briefest moment, her breath a tickle.

  “This is hard,” she said, her lips touching my skin. Then she turned away and walked to her table without looking back.

  I would have stood there, frozen, if it wasn’t for the person behind me in line knocking into me, propelling me out of whatever dream world those five seconds had sucked me into. As it was, I don’t really remember going to my table, starting to eat, knocking back half my glass of wine in two gulps. I came to when my maybe-flirtatious dinner companion took up where she’d left off, touching my arm, saying my name once, twice, to get my attention.

  “Pardon?”

  “Did you look in your prize pack?” she said, swinging the small party-favour bag.

  “No need. We … I helped put them together. No surprises there.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You’re no fun.”

  I agreed and took another swig of wine, trying to decide if I could take one of the bottles and leave without it being remarked on.

  It was only later, in my room, after too many glasses of wine and too many speeches, that I found that my prize pack did contain a surprise, after all. When I up-ended it onto the bed, looking for the souvenir wine bottle opener we’d included to keep the party going, Zoey’s book slid out. It fell open to the inscription page, the page where Tish had written the same thing over and over. Only, somehow, she’d managed to inscribe this copy to me personally and sign it. And though the three extra words — To, Jeff, Tish — weren’t much, I held them against my chest and thought: Always.

  CHAPTER 31

  I Spy

  I awaken at noon feeling disoriented, like I don’t know where I’ve been or even where I am.

  Then, I do know.

  I’m in our bed.

  The book, the texts, all of it, are real.

  Jeff and I? Maybe not so much.

  I lie there pondering this, staring at the ceiling, until I feel like I’m going crazy. Not bothering to change out of my pyjamas, I go downstairs in search of Beth.

  She’s in the kitchen, but not alone. Tim’s here, and they’re talking like conspiratorial buddies, though they’ve never been. Beth’s always disliked him, from the first, though she’d never tell me why.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, and in their guilty looks I know.

  “Did you have a good rest, honey?” Beth replies.

  “I’m kind of hoping I’m still sleeping, to be honest.”

  She shakes her head and walks to the counter where the coffee machine sits, gurgling slightly, the pot full of the blackest coffee.

  “Don’t believe it, Claire,” Tim says. “Don’t you believe it for a second.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I know that Jeff would never—”

  “What? Betray me? How could you possibly know that?”

  “He’s my brother. I know him in my bones.”

  “Like he knew you? Like he knew me?”

  “Yes. Exactly like that.”

  “So if Jeff were here, and I were dead, and he found … He found out about us, he wouldn’t have been surprised? Devastated?”

  “Devastated, yes. Surprised, no.”

  “If you’re saying what I think you are, then fuck you. And get out of my house.”

  Beth puts her hand on my arm, pressing a warm mug into my hands. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s right.”

  “Well, then, fuck you too.”

  My knees feel weak. I sway away from Beth. She steadies me, and in an instant, Tim’s there to help her. They hold me up and sit me down, and neither of them looks like they’re going anywhere.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Tim says. “I only meant,” he glances at Beth, wishing, maybe, that she wasn’t here, then continues, “I meant that he wouldn’t have been surprised I acted that way.”

  “We both acted that way.”

  “But we had a history, and … do you want to hear this?”

  “If you know something about what Jeff thought, then yes.”

  He runs his hand over his face. “Jeff worried, sometimes, that he was your second choice. And so, what he saw confirmed it, but … you already know this, right?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Jeff told me, when we started talking again, how you’d worked things out.”

  I can’t help the hurt from creeping into my voice. “He told you?”

  “I think he needed to. But you have to listen to me. You have to believe this: when you told him that you really did choose him, he believed you.”

  I absorb this information like a dry sponge.

  “But even if that’s true, that doesn’t explain any of this. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t—”

  Beth’s arm is around my shoulders. “Of course it does, honey, and that’s why there has to be a rational explanation for all of this.”

  “There does?”

  “Yes,” Beth and Tim say together with certainty.

  I look back and forth between them until I connect the dots.

  They’re certain Jeff wouldn’t betray me because I’d betrayed him. He knew how it felt, and he was too good a person to ever make someone feel the way I’d made him feel.

  But see, I have another theory: if Jeff was going to betray me (if he did), it wouldn’t have been prevented by my actions, but caused by them. Like a chemical reaction that needs the right condition, my actions, Tim’s and mine, created the nitroglycerine, waiting, locked away until the right reagent came along.

  Then somehow, somewhere, he met Tish, and the air rushed in, and any resolve he had exploded.

  The problem with my theory, though, is that Jeff’s not here for me to test it. He’s not here for me to ask. He left me clues that point to something, something, but maybe nothing, and I already know in my clouded brain that if I don’t solve this puzzle, I will sink, I will go under, I will drown.

  So when I get away from Beth and Tim and their little co-conspiracy to make me forget, make me believe, make me dismiss for lack of evidence, I check one last thing on the computer.

  Springfield to Springfield.

  If I leave right now, I can be there by dinner.

  It’s after six. I’m in my rental car, headed towards town. The sun’s setting behind the rounded hills that surround it, and a full moon is rising to replace it.

  I’m driving. I’m actually driving. For the first time, since Jeff died, I’m driving.

  The minutes I had between flights were enough time to realize that I literally didn’t know where I was going, and that I’d be arriving too late to find Tish at her office. I had no idea where she lived or how to contact her other than through Facebook, and something told me she wouldn’t accept my friend request.

  Or maybe she would, this woman I met in a moment of crisis, this woman I tried to help, this woman who had the audacity to come into my home, talk to me, talk to my son.

  Then it struck me: maybe there was something Facebook could help me with after all. A quick check on my phone proved me right. Her husband’s a doctor, and his number’s listed in the phone book. A reverse address search later and I have their address. It’s
so easy, even in this day of suspicion and privacy, to find someone if they’re not careful.

  It’s so easy to lose someone too.

  Her address is loaded into the car’s GPS, and the woman’s voice emanating from it tells me calmly but firmly to turn right in a hundred and fifty yards, turn right, turn right, your destination is on your left.

  I pull over, too close to the curb, and my wheels skim it. A man is backing out of their driveway. His car passes mine on his way out. This must be her husband, Brian.

  The house is still all lit up, so she must be home. Perfect.

  I watch her husband’s tail lights fade. Does he know the answer to my questions? Does he have his own clues, his own suspicions? Or if I follow him, ask him, would I bring his world crashing down?

  I find this option tempting for a moment. There’s something about the power in it, but no. Dr. Brian Underhill isn’t the answer to the wreck that is my life. He’s just another person caught in the jetsam.

  When Tish opens the door, half laughing, words of dismissal on her lips, her mouth drops open. She closes it quickly, hiding her surprise. She must be good at hiding things, I think.

  “Claire? What on earth are you doing here?”

  She’s still wearing her work clothes (a black skirt, a pale yellow sweater), and her hair is tied back.

  “I came to get some answers.”

  “You … what? I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  She bites her thumb and glances over her shoulder. “Um, why don’t you … come in?”

  I follow her into the house. It’s a typical four-bedroom suburban, not that different from my own. The furniture is nicer, though; a doctor’s house.

  She takes me into the family room and motions towards the couch. “Will you take a seat? I need to check on something in the kitchen. Do you want anything?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She stares at me for a minute, then disappears. I look around the room slowly. School shots of her daughter and family vacations are on the mantelpiece. There’s an afghan over the back of a squashy chair holding a half-read book, the spine cracked, and unobtrusive art on the walls hanging over the taupe paint. With a bit of straightening, this house would be for-sale ready.