The Forgotten Girl

by David Bell

  “Most men are, right?”

  Pauline smirked, but her look told Jason she wasn’t going to be easily swayed by his attempt to make a joke. She was too smart for that. Working for Peter Shaw all those years guaranteed she wouldn’t be a pushover.

  Jason tried a different tactic.

  “I guess when I heard the news, I just wanted to be out here. You know, to be someplace that I associate with Logan. I thought maybe Mr. Shaw would feel the same way.”

  “You’ve met the man, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you thought he’d want to share his feelings with someone else?”

  All Pauline needed to do was say “checkmate” and Jason’s defeat would be complete. He had nothing else to fall back on but the truth.

  “Look, I’m just trying to make sense of all of this,” he said. “I don’t understand how Logan could be gone for so long, and we all thought he was alive, and we find out today that he was dead. It’s not sinking in for me. And I know Mr. Shaw might have some insights about it. I’ve heard he got letters from Logan.”

  Pauline raised her eyebrows at the mention of the letters. “He did get letters.”

  “Can I just come in and try to talk to him?” Jason asked.

  Pauline dropped the hand off her hip and took a step back. “You can come in and wait here. I’ll have to see if Mr. Shaw is even awake.”

  * * *

  Jason waited in the foyer. Even though everything looked and smelled clean and shiny, Jason could tell that the decor—the wallpaper, the sconces and lamps—hadn’t been changed since the last time he’d been in the house. He chalked it up to the lack of a woman’s touch. Mr. Shaw could easily find someone to keep everything clean and repaired, but was he likely to call a decorator and insist on an update to his house’s style?

  Only one photo sat on top of the credenza, and it hadn’t been there all those years ago when Jason last visited. It was Logan’s senior portrait. Jason wanted to pick it up but didn’t. He stared into the smiling, somewhat cocky face of his oldest friend, who wore a striped tie and a blue jacket. He was tanned from the summer, his cheek dimpled. He looked like someone who had everything he wanted, and it seemed absurd to think he would run away never to return.

  “You can come back, Jason,” Pauline said. She noticed that Jason was staring at the photo. “Would you like a minute?”

  “When did this get put out?” Jason asked. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  “Mr. Shaw asked me to frame it and put it there after . . . about a month after you all graduated.”

  “It looks good in this spot,” Jason said.

  “I’ve never seen Mr. Shaw take a moment to notice it,” Pauline said. “He always came in through the garage.”

  * * *

  Jason followed Pauline down a hallway toward a back bedroom. The house was silent. Hushed. Their feet made no noise as they moved across the plush carpet, and the slightly sour odor of disinfectant tickled Jason’s nose. Pauline stopped outside the door to a bedroom, and she turned back to Jason and said, “He has trouble speaking. His voice is a whisper if it’s anything. And sometimes he doesn’t talk at all.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think he can talk all the time. He just doesn’t feel like it on some days. He uses the disease as an excuse.”

  She stepped across the threshold, and Jason followed. Peter Shaw sat in a wheelchair in the center of the room. A hospital bed stood off to the side, and a large, flat-screen TV played with the volume down. Jason felt pity at the sight of the man. He would have recognized the face and head anywhere. They looked the same. Somewhat drawn and more wrinkled, but basically the same. Peter Shaw had never really looked young, but it was his body that gave Jason pause. The man Jason remembered, the man Jason feared and respected, used to be thick through the upper body and shoulders. He walked with an assertive gait, chest out, as though he were always about to barrel through an obstacle. The version of Peter Shaw that sat before him in the wheelchair was withered, as though strong winds had been battering him, chipping away at the substance of his body. He must have weighed fifty pounds less than he did the last time Jason saw him. His clothes hung on him like loose, draped fabric, and Jason could tell by the way the man’s knees rested together in the wheelchair that he had little control over his legs.

  Pauline stood next to the wheelchair and spoke, the volume of her voice raised just a bit. “Mr. Shaw? Do you remember Jason Danvers?”

  The man turned his head slowly. He wore the slightly stunned look of the fading elderly, one that said any interaction or response required a great deal of effort. He glanced at Pauline but didn’t speak.

  “Jason Danvers?” Pauline said. “Logan’s best friend from growing up?”

  Mr. Shaw still made no response. He turned away from Pauline and focused on the TV screen. A cable news show played, and the host was gesturing toward the camera, a large pen held in his hand like an extra finger.

  Pauline turned to Jason. “Here, take a seat.” She pulled a chair away from the wall and placed it near the wheelchair. “I’ll be back in a little bit, Mr. Shaw,” Pauline said. “The nurse will be here in an hour, and then I’m going home.” Again, the man made no response. As Pauline passed Jason on her way out of the room, she said, “That might be all you get.”

  “Thank you,” Jason said.

  When she was gone, he sat down. Mr. Shaw may have been disabled and fading, but he looked clean. His face was shaved, his remaining wisps of hair combed into place. He wore a yellow button-down shirt and pressed slacks. The only apparent concession to his illness was the navy blue house slippers he wore on his feet. The room felt sterilized and cold, like a hospital or nursing home, and the tools and implements of sickness were all around. Bottles of pills, a large plastic water bottle with a long straw, boxes of tissues, and two bouquets of flowers and some greeting cards.

  The man acted like Jason wasn’t there. The TV played with closed-captioning on, and Jason wondered if Pauline arranged for that so she wouldn’t have to hear the news show’s bickering and haranguing.

  “Mr. Shaw? Do you remember me?”

  The man turned his head in Jason’s direction. He seemed to be seeing him for the first time since Jason entered the room. “Yes,” he said.

  The feeble sound surprised Jason. Peter Shaw had possessed a booming voice years ago. He spoke so infrequently that when he did, the sound often made Jason jump. But the noise that came out of the man’s mouth in that little room barely qualified as a whisper. It sounded more like a gasp, a labored exhalation. The only thing pleasing about it to Jason was that the man admitted he remembered him.

  “I’m sorry about Logan,” Jason said.

  At the sound of those words, the old man turned his head away. Jason saw tears beginning to fill Mr. Shaw’s eyes and wanted to look away, toward the television or the wall or anyplace else. He asked himself why he had come—to inflict additional pain on a sick and lonely old man?

  Mr. Shaw said something else in that faint whisper. Jason didn’t understand. He leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

  The old man repeated it, and this time Jason understood.

  “Not true,” he said.

  “Not true?” Jason asked. “You mean . . .” He thought he understood. “Are you saying it’s not true that Logan is dead?”

  Mr. Shaw moved his head up and down.

  Before he could stop himself, Jason said, “But the police—” Then he cut his own words off. Why argue?

  But Mr. Shaw repeated his statement, his voice growing a little stronger. “Not true,” he said. “Logan isn’t gone.”

  Jason remembered what Pauline said. There was no way to tell what the old man understood and what he didn’t, that he might be sneaky, pretending to be confused when he really wasn’t. But what would he gain by pre
tending to Jason that he didn’t comprehend that the body found in the woods belonged to his son? That dental records proved that Logan likely died on the night of his high school graduation? Mr. Shaw’s behavior seemed more like willful denial than dementia, so Jason decided to move in a different direction.

  “I heard that Logan has been sending you letters and cards over the years,” Jason said. He spoke of Logan in the present tense. Has instead of had. That wasn’t simply for Mr. Shaw’s benefit. Jason wasn’t sure he could speak about Logan in the past tense yet. He didn’t know if he ever could. “I was wondering if I could see those letters. Do you have them handy?”

  Mr. Shaw shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

  “No, I can’t see them? Or no, there aren’t any letters in the first place?” Jason asked.

  “No,” Mr. Shaw said. “No means no.”

  “I was hoping if I saw the letters, I might understand where Logan’s been all these years,” he said. “I thought you wanted your lawyer, Colton Rivers, to find him so he could make sure he gets what’s coming to him in the will.”

  Mr. Shaw shook his head. He tried to say something else, but the words didn’t seem to come. He waved his right hand around in the air as though punctuating the words that refused to form. Jason even leaned closer, but no sound emerged. A stream of spittle crept out of the corner of Mr. Shaw’s mouth. Jason leaned over, grabbed a tissue, and dabbed the mess away.

  “Did Logan’s mom get letters from him?” Jason asked.

  Something, likely the mention of Logan’s mother, snapped the man’s posture into a more rigid position. He suddenly possessed an energy and strength that he hadn’t displayed during the rest of Jason’s visit.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “She didn’t?”

  “Not important,” the old man said.

  “Are you saying Mrs. Shaw isn’t important?”

  Whatever will had infused the man’s spine with iron for those few moments drained out of him just as quickly. He slumped lower in the wheelchair, and his head sat heavier on his shoulders. His eyes grew unfocused in such a way that Jason thought he was on the verge of falling asleep.

  “So he didn’t send any letters to his mother?” Jason asked, unable to let the matter go.

  Mr. Shaw turned to Jason, his eyes a little less glassy. “No letters for her,” he said.

  But the old man looked spent. Jason could only imagine the morning and afternoon he had been through. The police showed up and informed him that his son was really dead. Then Jason, someone he hadn’t seen in twenty-seven years, showed up and started asking more questions. Jason felt ashamed of himself for pushing the old man at all, even as he realized he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. He needed to know something. Anything.

  “Did the police ask to see those letters?” Jason asked.

  “She left,” Mr. Shaw said.

  “Who did? Who left?”

  The old man struggled to make sounds again. He shook his head.

  “Mrs. Shaw?” Jason asked. “Logan’s mother? She left?”

  “Yes.”

  “She left before Logan did,” Jason said. “Long before.”

  The old man remained silent.

  “Did the police see those letters that Logan sent?” Jason asked.

  “Never cared,” Mr. Shaw said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Never cared,” he whispered. His voice seemed to be fading. Jason leaned in. “His mother. Never cared.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I didn’t really know her that well. She wasn’t around much.”

  “Never.”

  Pauline appeared in the doorway. Jason felt like he’d been caught doing something wrong, pushing the old man too hard and bringing up unpleasant memories of the past. Jason knew a little about aging parents—and he understood that the past might be all the old man had to remember.

  “Maybe Mr. Shaw needs to get some rest,” Pauline said.

  “Of course.” Jason stood up. He reached out to shake Mr. Shaw’s hand and felt the man’s papery skin. Mr. Shaw’s grip still retained some strength, a surprising amount. “Thank you,” Jason said. “I’m sorry if I kept you too long.”

  Mr. Shaw held on to Jason’s hand a beat longer than would have been normal. They locked eyes.

  “Never cared,” the old man said again.

  And then Pauline was there, gently guiding Jason out of the room.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Pauline walked with Jason out to the front of the house. When they reached the foyer, she tapped Jason on the arm and pointed toward the kitchen. Jason didn’t ask any questions. He followed her, and Pauline said, “Just sit tight here a second.”

  He still didn’t ask any questions. He looked around the room. It was immaculately clean and out-of-date like the rest of the house. A gold fleur-de-lis pattern covered the wallpaper, and in the corner sat a shelving unit covered with decorative plates that Jason felt certain Mr. Shaw hadn’t chosen. The appliances did look new. They were all stainless steel and gleaming in the late afternoon sunshine. Jason imagined that Pauline spent a good deal of her time polishing them, whether they ever became dirty or not.

  It took a good twenty minutes for Pauline to return to the kitchen, and Jason had waited so long he worried that she’d forgotten he was still in the house. She breezed back into the room, wiping her hands with a paper towel, and apologized for the delay.

  “He needed to be put in bed and changed,” she said. “He naps a lot.”

  “I see.”

  “He’s not incontinent, you know,” she said as though she wanted to defend Mr. Shaw. “He knows he has to go. He just can’t walk to the bathroom. That’s why he has to wear diapers.” She seemed to be waiting for some response, and when Jason didn’t say anything, she added, “He has a catheter as well. It makes him prone to infections.”

  “I’m sorry if I kept him awake or disturbed him,” Jason said. “He seems to not understand what happened to Logan. Or is he . . . being stubborn?”

  “Who knows?” Pauline said. “He never thought that boy was dead. Never.”

  “I have to admit I didn’t think he was dead either,” Jason said. “Maybe I’m a bigger fool. I don’t have old age or an illness as an excuse.”

  “You have the same excuse as him,” she said. “You loved Logan. You didn’t want to believe he was gone.”

  “You sound like you thought he was dead all along.”

  Pauline threw her paper towel away and then came over and sat across from Jason. She folded her hands and rested them on the table. “I’m not really paid to have an opinion around here,” she said. “Unless it’s a question about getting a stain out of the carpet or who to call if the gutter falls down. You know what I’m saying?”

  “You were expected to be seen and not heard?”

  “Mmm-hmm. But just because I didn’t express my opinions doesn’t mean I didn’t have them.” Her eyes narrowed, as though she were sifting through distant memories. “I didn’t really know what to think when Logan didn’t come home that night. He’d just graduated from high school. I know some kids take trips when that happens. Not my kids, but kids like Logan do. They go to Florida or Myrtle Beach or wherever. And he was always talking about leaving town and living somewhere else. I think he used to say that just to irritate his father. The man may not say much, but he does love his son. He wanted him here, in Ednaville. He’s been alone a long time.”

  “So you thought Logan just ran off?”

  “I did. For a time, I figured he was out of town somewhere, living the high life. He’d come back someday when he ran out of money or got tired of fending for himself. It would be like the Bible. You know, the Prodigal Son? His father would welcome him back with open arms.”

  “And kill the fatted calf?”

  “Ex
actly. You paid attention in Sunday school, didn’t you?”

  “Rarely, but I remember that one. I’ve had experience with someone coming back home after a long absence.”

  “I see. Well, then Logan never showed up. Never called. Nothing. I know they sent an investigator out there a couple of times. Hell, once Mr. Shaw even got on a plane and flew out there to follow up on some lead. It ended up being nothing. If you ask me, that was just someone stealing money right out of Mr. Shaw’s pockets. At some point, I think something broke inside of him. Maybe it just hurt him too much to get his hopes up all those times and have them dashed. He stopped mentioning Logan at all. But I knew they weren’t ever going to find that boy.”

  “How did you know that?” Jason asked. “You said, for a time you thought he’d come back. What changed?”

  Pauline stood up. She walked over to a built-in desk. She upended a penholder that sat on its neatly organized top and a small, silver key fell out. She fitted the key into a lock in the desk drawer, slid it open, and brought out a small bundle of what appeared to be letters. She came back to the table and dropped them in front of Jason.

  “Are these what you came to see?” she asked.

  The bundle contained six or seven envelopes, which were tattered as though they’d been ripped open quickly. Everything was held tightly in place by a rubber band.

  “These are the cards from Logan?” Jason asked.

  “Not all of them. The police took most, but I held a few back. I couldn’t stand the thought of Mr. Shaw losing everything he thought came from his son.”

  “You’re not worried about getting into trouble?”

  “Please.”

  “I’m the one who told Detective Olsen about them.”

  “I don’t think they really care too much what I do. I think they’re more interested in playing Sherlock Holmes with their dead body in the woods, you know? So I thought I’d let you see them.”