by Jean Stone
She sucked in another breath and quickly wished she hadn’t. That was pot, all right. No mistaking it.
“Sorry,” the woman’s voice said when she came back on the line, “but Elizabeth Barnes was released last month on good behavior.”
“After you left me,” Joe was saying, “I couldn’t stand it any longer. I lost everything. I had to find my son.”
Faye had opted not to sit, but instead remained at the bank of windows, watching the sun do its day’s-end stretch over the canyon as it seeped through the twisting juniper trees and the rich dark pines, illuminating the red, high-desert floor.
She could have challenged Joe’s words about her leaving him. She could have reminded him that he had pushed her away with his philandering with Rita Blair and all the other women who’d come and gone before and after. She could have said that he did not “lose everything,” that she had only kept the Vineyard house and he’d taken the rest. What he’d really “lost” had been his family. As she had, too.
She could have said those things, but what would be the point? Joe would still be Joe and they still would be divorced and Greg would remain the only common thread left between their lives.
“So you found him,” she said. “And he welcomed you so quickly?”
Joe laughed. “Not so quickly. I bought a house here in Sedona. It took two years before he said ‘hello.’ ”
Faye felt a smile of some gratification pass her lips.
“Our boy has done okay,” he added.
“With a little of his daddy’s help, I suspect,” she replied, and for some reason hoped her words were not laced with sarcasm, because she’d not wanted them to be.
“No,” he said, and that surprised her. “Greg did this on his own, with his partner, Mike. Neither one had a pot to piss in, but they wanted a restaurant, so they worked their butts off. I guess he picked up a thing or two from his old man after all.”
He might have added “and from his old lady,” but as much as he’d say he wasn’t, Joe was a chauvinist at heart. It was their generation; old traditions too often died too hard.
She wanted to ask how he felt about Greg being gay. She would not have expected he’d take it so well. Perhaps “losing everything” had altered his attitude.
“And what about you?” Faye asked. “Do you live out here, too?”
“Part-time. Part-time in Boston. Semi-retired from the business. Not completely, though.”
Maybe he’d softened, but apparently he still needed to boss someone around, be a man, tough as nails.
“And you?” he asked. “How is your business?”
“Okay,” she answered. “Fine.”
“And your sister?”
“Claire is fine, too.” She wouldn’t tell him otherwise; he and Claire narrowly escaped killing each other on more than one occasion.
“And your health?” he asked.
She did not, would not pause. “Fine.”
In the distance she heard the low howl of a coyote. It was followed by another, this one closer, then another.
“Choir time,” Joe said, hoisting himself from the dust-colored sofa and walking to where Faye stood. “Every night at sunset, the coyotes sing to one another all through the canyon.”
They stood beside one another; they listened. The music was, indeed, a chorus of nature, of highs and lows and in-betweens, a melody of life. Beneath the chorus, too close to her, Faye heard Joe’s breath as well.
“He blames himself, you know,” Joe said, and he needed no other words.
“Yes,” Faye replied. How could she not know that?
And then the door behind them opened, and her son—their son—stood there.
It was one of those rare moments frozen by time and space and emotions not yet ready to be felt, a tableau of life on hold while thoughts made themselves ready to be thought, while voices waited to know what words to speak.
“Mom?” Greg said at last, and Faye felt instantly ashamed that she had not gone first.
She moved toward him.
He set two grocery bags on the Spanish tile in the foyer.
She stopped about a yard in front of him. Was he taller than before? No, he was not taller, but he was fuller, “filled out” her mother might have said, if she had known him, if she’d not died three months before Greg had been born. Died because her daughter married a rogue of an Irishman, Faye had often mused with great mother-daughter guilt.
Stepping closer, Faye lifted a hand and touched the high cheekbone of his face. She looked into his aqua eyes that were lidded with dark lashes. Her handsome son still resembled her sister, Claire.
“Greg,” she whispered, as the music of the coyotes resonated in the background. “Can you forgive me?”
He stood there for a moment, his eyes scanning her face, their color turning bright, brighter, from the pools of water rising in them.
And then he touched her shoulders and Faye began to cry, and she was overcome with weakness and the need to just be in the comfort of her only living child.
TWENTY-THREE
The morning of the road race dawned sunny and cool—a perfect day for running, a perfect day for thinking about other things than sickness and missing children.
Hannah, of course, could not, would not go. What would be the point? To hand out paper numbers? To serve juice and cookies at the end?
She’d been awake most of the night. She’d had her chemo treatment—her last and, hopefully, her final. It had depleted her, yet it was difficult to sleep. How could anyone have slept when all the children were not safe at home and the husband had stopped speaking to most everyone?
Sipping her tea, Hannah looked out the kitchen window at the dew that kissed the grass. She closed her eyes and heard the foghorn in the distance on the sound. She thought about her life and how sick she was of it.
Happy, smiling Hannah. She was sick of that façade as well. There was, after all, only one thing that made her smile these days, only one thing that had made her genuinely smile for nearly two years now.
Before thinking much more, Hannah brought her mug over to the sink, rinsed it out with quiet, deliberate tidiness, then slipped her warm-up jacket over her pink fleece sweats, and quietly left the house.
She took the truck because it was the last vehicle in the driveway. As she headed toward Beach Road, Hannah was aware that her smile had returned, that it grew wider with each curve and turn that brought her closer to the place where the race would start: the gazebo at Oak Bluffs.
“I’m here,” she’d say to John Arthur, “such as I am.”
And he would grin and direct her to the table where she could check the runners in, where he would lean close to her while showing her the paperwork, where she would pick up on his chemistry and know that if he would have her, she would succumb to him that day.
The consequences would not matter. Life was in shambles anyway.
She wedged the truck into a small spot, surprised at how many cars already lined the streets. She checked her wig in the rearview mirror, inhaled a breath for courage, and went out to meet her fate.
Weaving through the crowd attired in T-shirts and shorts, Hannah began to make her way to the registration tables, to the area where banners hung from the gazebo: A–H, I–O, P–Z. Her eyes moved quickly from left to right and back again, in search of the one familiar face that mattered.
“Hannah!” a voice called out. She turned quickly, but it was only David Metzger, a fellow church parishoner, the one whose wife headed up the bake sale. “How are you feeling? You’re not running, are you?”
She shook her head. “No, but John Arthur thought I might be able to help out. Have you seen him?”
Metzger scanned the crowd and shook his head. “Nope. Not yet.”
“Well,” Hannah said, “good luck. Have a good run.”
“Hannah!” It was Mary McCarthy. “Gosh, it’s good to see you!”
“Hey!” Hannah called back. “Have you seen John Arthur?”
But Mary simply shrugged and waved and darted off, a paper sign printed with a large number 34 flapping on her back.
She recognized Barbara and Jen and Melissa from school; apparently John Arthur had encouraged others to take up running, too. She tried not to feel jealous or insecure. She held her head up high and approached the folding tables, where she spotted Laura Carter, the school nurse. As always, Laura was in charge.
“Laura,” Hannah asked bravely, “have you seen John Arthur?”
Laura gestured for her to wait a second while she checked another name off a computer sheet. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t expect he’ll be here.”
No?
“Oh?” Hannah asked, hoping she’d concealed her disappointment. “Is something wrong?”
Laura checked off another name, handed out another paper sign. She turned to Hannah. “I guess you haven’t heard. He took another job in Taunton. He resigned last week.”
Hannah stood but didn’t speak. Around her, more people gathered in a line.
“A through H over here,” Laura called out to the crowd.
And Hannah kept on standing, wondering what she should do next and if she should just laugh with short sarcasm and thank her guardian angel for stepping in before Hannah had screwed up her life beyond repair.
• • •
Doc kept Katie in the hospital for a week. Rita went to see her every day; Joleen, who wrestled with the constant fear of being recognized, visited her daughter after dark—a time that grew later as each day drifted more closely toward summer.
Rita had meant to call Hannah, to tell her about Katie. But facing a last round of chemo, surely Hannah had other things on her mind. Rita decided there was no harm in waiting.
As for Faye, Rita had driven to the Geissel house three times during the week: no car was in the driveway, no signs of life were visible. It seemed apparent that the woman had returned to Boston, to her other life.
But Rita had no other life, this was it. Which was why, on Monday, after visiting with Katie, listening to the baby’s heartbeat (“It’s getting stronger, don’t you think?” the excited, expectant mother asked) and reassuring Katie that yes, everything would be fine, Rita had stopped by the supermarket to buy ingredients for carrot cupcakes for tonight and for the penuche she’d been meaning to send to Sheriff Talbott and Sam Oliver in New York. Maybe she’d coerce Mindy into doing the baking.
Juggling the bags as she let herself in her kitchen door, Rita reminded herself again that she had to call Hannah and tell her they’d be meeting in Katie’s hospital room until Doc released her. She should also, she supposed, call Faye, just in case. She would leave a message for propriety’s sake.
Propriety, she thought, setting the grocery bags on the counter. Under the circumstances, how utterly absurd.
“Doc is discharging Katie,” Mindy said as she greeted Rita in the kitchen. “Joleen called. She asked if you can pick her up.”
Mindy spoke as if she were bosom buddies with the rock star and her former-rock-star mom. Tabloid journalism again. TV “News” Magazines. Still, something didn’t seem quite right. “Wait a minute,” Rita said. “Joleen called and actually told you?”
With a twelve-year-old’s smirk, Mindy said, “Well, she sort of thought that I was you.”
Putting her hands on her hips, Rita feigned anger. “And what the heck made her think that?”
The smirk disappeared. Mindy averted her eyes. “Well, I sort of told her.”
Rita shook her head. “And I’ll bet you sort of told her I’d be glad to get Katie and bring her home, right?”
“She’s ready now. Doc saw her right after you left, and told Katie she could go.” Mindy moved to the grocery bags and began to empty them.
“Then that’s settled,” Rita said. “You’ll have to make the carrot cupcakes for the meeting tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But don’t ever do that again, okay?”
The girl hesitated, then nodded. “I didn’t mean to, Rita. It just sort of happened.”
“Well, I hope it won’t happen again.”
Mindy smiled. “Sorry. Oh, and before I forget, Joleen asked if you’d stop by the store and pick up frozen peas.”
“Frozen peas?”
“Yeah. The kind in a bag. She said Katie will need them.”
With a sigh, Rita went into the other room. The thought of driving back to the hospital, stopping at the store, then delivering the patient to West Chop wasn’t very appealing. But Katie would be excited and Joleen was depending on Rita and … and Rita realized she’d better call Hannah before she forgot again. Hannah and Faye. She’d better tell them they’d be meeting at Joleen’s.
• • •
Rita called Hannah first because it seemed easier. But the voice on the other end did not sound like her. More like an old woman.
“Hannah? It’s me, Rita.”
Hannah paused so long that Rita briefly wondered if she’d called the wrong number.
“Oh, Rita,” the reply finally came. “I didn’t recognize your voice.”
Rita didn’t say “ditto.” She quickly filled her in on the near-miscarriage, the hospital stay, the fact that Katie now was confined to bed. “Joleen is going to let us hold our group meetings at her house. Is that okay with you?”
Again, a hesitation. Then Hannah slowly said, “I can’t go, Rita. I’m not feeling well.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is there anything I … we … can do to help?”
“No. No.” Hannah stopped talking. Maybe she was crying.
“Hannah? What’s wrong?” Had she had some bad news? Had her cancer spread? Had something happened with her mother?
“Riley ran away,” Hannah’s words sputtered out. “I don’t want to leave the house again, in case the police find out something. In case she comes home.”
Rita was relieved. It wasn’t the cancer, it was only … Riley? The fourteen-year-old?
Hannah spilled the rest.
After listening carefully, Rita wondered if she could apply for a psychologist’s license—no schooling required, just a few years on the Vineyard.
“Have you written any of this in your journal?”
“I bought a new notebook. I haven’t opened it.”
The “Facilitator’s Brochure” hadn’t mentioned what Rita should do if the participants wouldn’t participate. “It might help you feel better.”
Hannah, however, didn’t reply.
Rita thought for a moment, then said, “Joleen doesn’t live too far from you, Hannah. I’ll pick you up at six-forty-five. If anything happens, I can have you home in two minutes.”
“Oh, Rita, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. And you will. Besides, good news never comes until you’re not home.”
“But, Rita …”
“Six-forty-five. No argument. And wear the purple hat.” The last comment raised a small chuckle out of poor Hannah. Rita quickly hung up, then grabbed her keys and left to pick Katie up at the hospital. She wondered if, while she was out, she should have “Rita’s Island Shuttle” painted on the side of her van.
TWENTY-FOUR
Rita was probably right, good news wouldn’t come if Hannah just sat and waited. Today was the eighth day Riley had been gone—eight days and not a word except from the police who reported that the girl vanished once she’d reached the mainland. No taxi or shuttle drivers recalled seeing Riley, no people in Shuckers or Fishmonger’s restaurants reported seeing a teenager with a backpack who was traveling alone.
It didn’t make sense because it wasn’t summer yet and tourists were still sparse. It didn’t make sense because surely Riley would not have known where she was going, she would have had to ask directions to … where? San Antonio?
Or was it possible someone had picked Riley up?
Hannah stayed at the table next to the phone, her thoughts whirling together with no beginning and no end, or none that made sense. She no longer had John Arthur to think
about, to distract her from real issues that needed her attention. It was right, she knew, but it was not comfortable.
She looked at the new spiral-bound notebook that sat on the counter. It was the same kind of notebook she used in planning her lessons: The kids wouldn’t read it if they thought it was schoolwork.
She turned back the cover and stared at the blank, white sheet. She glanced again at the phone that stood mute on the wall. Then, with a sigh, Hannah picked up a pen. And without further thought, she began to write.
Mother, she wrote, because now was the time, I hate you. I hate what you did. I know you were angry because what McNally did would hurt me, but I hate it that you pulled apart our lives. I hate it that you made me run away from everything and everyone I once loved. Including you.
A muscle seemed to squeeze around Hannah’s heart. She fought off the discomfort and she kept writing.
Things turned out okay for me. I married Evan. She hesitated; she thought about the recent smell of pot and wondered what it would mean for the future. Then she reminded herself that it didn’t matter. Less and less seemed to matter every day.
I have three children, each one different from the next. Riley, the oldest, looks like you, though I’ve never told anyone. She’s fourteen now. But maybe you know that already.
You’d think that with all I now have, I wouldn’t hate you still.
But I was so embarrassed and ashamed. And I was so helpless, the way I am right now. I hate you because my daughter has run away and I’m afraid she’s gone to find you and I don’t know what will happen if she does.
I can only say that if you upset her or make her cry, I will personally want to kill you, the way you killed McNally. What with the breast cancer I have, there’s probably not much for me to lose.
Hannah rested her pen on the edge of the notebook. She reread the entry and wondered if she should share it at the meeting tonight. It wasn’t as if she could send it to her mother. She didn’t, after all, have a clue where Betty Barnes was now.
