Never Look Back

by Alison Gaylin

  “Tired. Very tired. Where’s Dad, honey?”

  Dr. Wu started to say something, but Eric stopped him. “Can we talk outside for a little bit?” he said. “I have a few questions.”

  “Of course,” he said. And the room cleared quickly, maybe too quickly for Robin’s liking, unsure as she was how to say what needed to be said. Verity told Renee she’d be back to check her vitals in a few. And selfishly, pathetically, Robin wished that the nurse could be the one to let Mom know that her husband was dead.

  Once Verity left, Robin’s mother gave her a weak smile. “I’m awfully thirsty.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “All that time in hell will do it to you.”

  “What a terrible dream.”

  “I don’t know,” Mom said. “Those little demons were kind of cute.”

  “Let me see if I can get you some water.” She started to stand but her mother grasped her hand with a surprising strength. “No,” she said. “Stay.”

  “Of course, Mom. I’ll do whatever you—”

  “Robbie.”

  “Yes?”

  “Daddy died. Didn’t he?”

  Robin exhaled. Gently, she brushed a lock of hair from her mother’s forehead. And then she nodded. She didn’t say anything else. Didn’t need to. Her mother was making things easy on her, just like she’d always done, ever since she was a little girl. Watching her now, struggling to hold back tears for her daughter’s sake, for my sake, Robin remembered the death of her father’s mother, her most beloved Nana. It had been sudden and unexpected and after Dad had gotten off the phone with whoever had called to tell him, he’d locked himself in his study for such a long time that Robin, then only six or seven years old, feared he might never come out. She understood now that he’d gone in there to cry. Mitchell Bloom never cried in front of anyone back then. Which left it up to Mom to explain what had happened—Mom, an only child and an orphan, whose only family besides Robin and Dad had been Nana too. But she’d held back her tears then, same as she was doing now. Nana’s gone to heaven. She’s very happy up there, because instead of visiting a few times a year, she can see you and watch over you always.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom,” Robin said.

  Two tears spilled down her mother’s cheeks—escapees. She didn’t seem to notice. “Was he buried?”

  “Yes.”

  “There was a funeral. You held a funeral.”

  “Yes.”

  “With that child rabbi . . .”

  Robin smiled a little. “The Bar Mitzvah Boy.”

  “You poor thing. Having to handle those arrangements, all alone.”

  “It went all right. Eric was a big help.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, honey.” Another tear, yet her face was calm, placid. There was a box of Kleenex on the nightstand. Robin pulled out several sheets and dabbed gently at her mother’s cheeks.

  “Were there a lot of people at the funeral?” She said it so mildly, as though she were asking about a dinner party she’d missed. It must have been residual sedatives, Renee’s true self still struggling to the surface, the slow trickle of her memory returning.

  Robin’s chest tightened. Mom. Poor Mom. “There was a big crowd,” she said. “He was very much loved.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “I’m so glad you’re with me now, Mom. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “You’ll never be without me. I’ll do everything I can to make sure of that.” She closed her eyes, struggling between sleep and waking until finally, Robin thought of something she could talk to her about.

  “Do you know who was at the funeral, Mom? CoCo.”

  “Huh?”

  “That girl who used to babysit me when I was eight? She’s . . . well she’s aged since then obviously. She said you two are friends. That you’ve kept in touch.”

  “CoCo?”

  “She calls herself Nikki now. Lives in Philly?”

  She opened her eyes. “Nicola. I forgot she ever called herself CoCo . . .”

  “Who is she?”

  “We’ve been close since . . . since we were girls . . .”

  “You have?”

  “Yes.” Her eyelids fluttered, a dreamy smile crossing her face. “Lovely Nicola. Little doll.”

  “I didn’t know you had anyone from childhood. Friends or family or—”

  “Honey, I’m sorry, but can you get me that glass of water now? I’m just so thirsty.”

  “Of course.” Robin hurried out into the hallway, past the guards. Dr. Wu wasn’t around, but Eric was.

  “Hey, how did she take it?” he said.

  “Not terribly,” Robin said. “But I think she’s still pretty drugged.”

  She hurried to the nurses’ station, where Verity handed her a cup of ice chips, explaining, “Her throat is still weak from being intubated. She can probably have water in an hour or two.”

  Robin thanked her, took the ice chips, and headed back toward her mother’s room, her pulse quickening as though she were on the verge of something life-changing, something big. Lovely Nicola. Her babysitter had been her mother’s childhood friend. She’d seemed young for that, but then again Renee had been quite young herself. And thinking back on CoCo, so thin and wan, she could have easily looked more youthful than she was. Robin headed into the room—dead quiet now, without the whoosh of the ventilator. “Mom, I was wondering,” she started.

  But Renee had fallen asleep.

  She felt movement behind her—Eric joining her at her side, as Verity made for her mother’s hospital bed, clipboard in hand.

  “You okay?” Eric said.

  “Yeah.” She watched her mother sleeping, the rise and fall of her chest. She hoped she wasn’t dreaming of hell again.

  “SHE LOOKED AS though she was coming out of it,” Eric said. “When the nurses were shooing us out and she was saying see you tomorrow, it seemed like . . . I don’t know. Like her battery finally got recharged. You know?”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” said Robin. They were at home now, just the two of them, eating an early dinner that Eric had prepared—grilled tarragon chicken, mashed sweet potato, fresh asparagus. Eric was an excellent cook. Much better than Robin, though of course that wasn’t saying much.

  “This is really delicious,” Robin said.

  Eric put his wineglass down, reached across the kitchen table, and squeezed her hand—something he used to do all the time when they were dating. I just want to make sure you’re real, he used to say. Cheesiest line ever and he knew it. They both knew it. Robin would respond, You’re just trying to get me in bed. And he’d prove her right every time.

  Robin smiled at Eric. This could work again, she thought. We could work again. But then she remembered the past year, how lonely it had been.

  She used to tell herself that it was normal, natural, this separation between the two of them. And it was, at first. After the honeymoon period, all couples reach the same fork in the road and they make a choice: they either grow apart and develop their own interests, or, like April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy, they become codependent, feeding off and fueling each other’s weaknesses until neither one of them can stand on their own.

  But Robin and Eric had gone overboard. They’d started growing apart, ever so slightly, before he’d taken the job at Anger Management, a show they’d both made fun of, but one that paid very well. He’d assured her at first that he was only doing it for the money—a short-term fix that could take care of both their student debts. And though the old, scrupulous Eric never would have considered a move like that, it was one that Robin, fresh off a stint at a trashy celebrity mag, completely understood.

  What neither of them had figured on was how Eric’s job would accelerate the growing apart until it became unnatural, unhealthy. How as the months, then years went by, the job would absorb him the way a lover would. How Eric would grow defensive of Anger Management, of creepy, cleavage-ogling, whiskey-stinking Shawn Labatoir, whom Robin couldn
’t bear to be in the same room with. But that’s what had happened. Responding to her complaints about his long hours, his dubious “scoops,” his devotion to a man they had both considered a fraud, Eric had turned argumentative, then secretive, then absent most of the time. And eventually, Robin had stopped complaining. It was easier to nod and simmer, to rely on the support of her parents instead of her husband, to glare at his Twitter feed and ply her mind with suspicions and pull even further apart. Only now did she really feel how much damage had been done—now that her father was gone and she wasn’t sure who her mother truly was—and beyond anything else she needed someone to talk to, to trust.

  Robin felt Eric watching her.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

  She looked at him, millions of dollars of thoughts running through her mind but only the strongest one escaping. “I miss you,” she said. “I miss us.”

  Eric moved closer to her. He took her in his arms as though she were made of glass and kissed her very gently.

  “Stop.”

  He let go. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Robin grabbed hold of his shirt. She pulled him to her, with a force that surprised them both. “Stop treating me like I’m going to break.”

  THEY NEVER MADE it out of the kitchen. They were rough and urgent, zippers yanked open, mouths searching, buttons popped and skittering, as though Robin and Eric had been simultaneously possessed and, in a way, they were. It had been such a long time, the space widening between them with each day, week. Month. God, had it really been that long?

  Robin felt the tile counter against her bare back, then the granite island, and then she was riding him on the hardwood floor, a need roiling within her that she hadn’t felt in years, maybe not since the first time she’d been with Eric—a longing so intense and unfillable that it bordered on pain.

  After they finished, they lay beside each other, Robin drained, fileted, the stress sapped out of her, replaced by a sense of well-being that, considering the reality of her situation, proved what simple, physically driven creatures human beings truly are.

  “Wow,” Eric said. “That was . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  More silence. But that was normal. Neither of them had ever been big sex-talkers. Not during, not after, both preferring the sound of each other’s breathing. It was good to know that in this area at least, Robin and Eric hadn’t changed since they met.

  “Eric?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “What? Of course you can.”

  “Eric . . .”

  “I don’t know what you think was going on with me, but—”

  “I’m not talking about a month ago or a week ago. I don’t care what was going on back then. Well, actually, that’s not true, I do care.” She took a breath. “But I’m willing to just . . . shut the door on everything that happened before the shooting. Okay? I won’t think about it. I won’t ask you about it. As long as I can trust you from here on in.”

  “Robin,” Eric said. “I never cheated on you.”

  She rolled over on her side and gazed at his profile, strong arms folded behind his head, eyes aimed at the ceiling. Outside the kitchen window, the sun was starting to set, casting a pink glow across the room. Eric’s blue eyes shined in it. She wanted to believe him. But.

  Eight months ago, at the height of their estrangement, three friends on three different nights had spotted Eric at Chez Chas—a Midtown restaurant with a celebrity chef and seriously dark lighting. Two had seen him entering the place, one had seen him leaving. That friend, the one who had seen him leaving, was the one who had seen him with a woman.

  Eric’s reasons for being there could have been innocent, even though he’d claimed to be working late on all three nights. The woman could have been a fellow producer. She could have been a source. But.

  When Robin had oh-so-casually mentioned Chez Chas a month after the last sighting, told him she’d heard good things about the food, Eric had gulped so hard she could see his throat moving. He’d told her he wasn’t sure if the place lived up to its rep, or even where it was located, because, he claimed, he’d never been there before.

  It’s the past. Shut the door and move forward.

  “Yes.” Eric rolled over onto his side, his gaze resting on her face. “Yes. You can trust me.”

  The door was shut. Locked. Robin put her shirt back on, slipped her purse off the back of her chair, keeping her gaze connected to his. The old, faded Polaroid was in the side pocket—the skinny young girl in the too-old-for-her halter top, flashing the “I love you” sign. Holding the gun.

  Robin pulled it out and handed it to Eric.

  He stared at the photo. Straightened up to sitting. “Who is this?” he asked.

  “My mother.”

  “Are you sure?” he said. “It’s so blurry.”

  “I’m positive.”

  He held it away at arm’s length so it caught the light. “That’s a toy gun, right? She’s trying to act like . . . I don’t know. Charlie’s Angels or whatever.”

  “I have no idea what she’s trying to do.”

  “Why are you showing me this?”

  “Because I need to tell you about a call I got four days ago. I need to tell you about a podcast producer.” She told him everything, all the way through to that morning, the notes from her father, the research she’d done.

  When she was through, Eric said, “You didn’t show Quentin Garrison that photo, did you?”

  “I only spoke to him over the phone, so no.”

  “Good.”

  She heard herself say it out loud for the first time: “Do you think my mother is April Cooper?”

  “No.” He said it in that voice of his, that power-of-positive-thinking, will-it-and-it-will-happen voice that had been driving her crazy for the last couple of years. But at this moment, she found it comforting. “Absolutely not.”

  “You’re not just saying that?”

  “It’s a toy gun. April Cooper was a crazy teenager who died in a fire more than forty years ago. I remember that stupid TV movie. She was nothing like your mother.”

  Robin looked at him. “Your mother let you watch that movie?”

  “It was a TV movie. Why wouldn’t she let me watch it?”

  Robin winced. She looked at Eric. “I think Quentin Garrison got to my dad.”

  “What?”

  “That day. It must have been that same day. My dad had his phone number written down, along with some other names . . . I found it at their house. I think Quentin Garrison asked him if my mom was April Cooper. And I’m wondering . . . what if Dad confronted her about it?”

  His eyes widened. “Did you say that to the police?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want them expending a bunch of their time and energy trying to prove it was your mother who was responsible for the shooting,” he said. “Because I want them to catch the real killer.”

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever loved him more.

  “Have you talked to Garrison? I mean . . . since the shootings?”

  Robin stared at him, all of it dawning on her . . . “I was supposed to.” She made for the counter. Unplugged her phone from the charger and clicked on her recent calls. Quentin Garrison’s number was near the top. She clicked on it. Called him again. “I was supposed to meet him at the hospital this morning,” she said. “He never showed up.”

  The call went to Quentin’s voice mail. Mailbox full, the voice said. Strange. When she turned around, Eric had grabbed her laptop off the counter and was tapping away. “What are you doing?”

  “You remember Dave Nixon?”

  “Who?”

  “We booked him to be a special guest on Anger Management about a year ago—he was part of true crime week. Shawn was trying to hop on the whole Making a Murderer thing, remember?”

  “Not really.”


  He sighed. “I might not have mentioned it to you.”

  “You might not.”

  Eric pressed on. “Dave Nixon’s wife was killed in a hit-and-run, back in the 1990s. Unsolved. We did a one-on-one interview, but we never wound up airing it.”

  “Why?”

  “Dave was unhinged. He wanted to track down his wife’s killer so that he could get revenge. He said, ‘Pain like this is a cancer. It doesn’t die until you kill what’s causing it.’”

  “Scary.”

  “Incredibly.” He cleared his throat. “I talked to Shawn and we wound up deciding not to air the interview. We realized we were feeding into this guy’s obsession, that it was dangerous. And if we encouraged him in any way, we’d be potentially responsible for a murder.” Eric’s eyes drilled into hers.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I think Quentin Garrison might be something more dangerous than a dirty journalist,” he said. “I think he might be utterly sincere in his beliefs.”

  “Like Dave Nixon,” she said.

  “Yes.” He brought the laptop to her. On the screen was a page from KAMC’s website, the words CALLS FOR SOURCES at the top. There were several short posts beneath, reporters asking “listeners and others in the know” to call various tiplines for podcasts-in-progress. “Look at the fourth one down,” Eric said.

  The post had been dated six months earlier. Robin read it aloud, the back of her neck tingling. “Every day of my life, I suffer the pain that these two killers inflicted . . .”

  Robin looked up at Eric. “Quentin Garrison sounded normal over the phone.”

  “So did Dave Nixon. And not only that, he had a good job. Just like Quentin Garrison.” He took the seat beside her. “The thing is, Robin,” he said. “Normal people go off the deep end all the time. Half the tragedies in this world are because of regular guys who lose it.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “It’s something to think about.”

  She stared at him. “Mr. Dougherty said he saw a Chevy Cruze outside my parents’ house the night of the shooting.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I saw Garrison in the cemetery parking lot after the funeral. I’m pretty sure he was driving a Chevy Cruze.”