He hoisted the basket of laundry and headed upstairs. Jake was out, he’d left without a word right after dinner. Brian was hunched over the kitchen countertop, the blue light of his laptop illuminating his haggard face.
As Frank climbed the stairs leading to the bedrooms, he heard an indistinct mewling. He followed the kitten-like sound to Natalie’s closed bedroom door.
Frank set down the basket and knocked softly.
“Nat, you okay?”
To his surprise the door swung open immediately, almost as if she was waiting for him. Her eyes were red, her cheeks blotchy. She retreated to her canopied bed and curled under a blanket, leaving the door open for him to follow.
Frank swiped away the flower-bedecked silk ribbons that descended from the bed’s canopy and perched next to her.
“Talk to me, honey.”
“I know something about Mom….” Natalie whispered.
Frank’s blood ran cold.
Twenty-three days in and now she announces this? He kept his voice even. “What do you know, Nat?”
“I’m afraid to tell you.”
“Natalie, if you know something related to your mom’s disappearance, you have to share it with me.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Natalie whispered.
“Tell me. I’ll help you figure it out.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes with fists. Grabbed a tissue from the box on the bed and blew her nose.
“There was a man. He was her, I don’t know, boyfriend? Dad doesn’t know.”
Frank felt the flush color his cheeks. “Why do you think that?”
“I saw texts! On her phone. Between her and some asshole called Will C.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t just a friend?”
“I’m not an idiot!”
“I know you’re not.”
“There’s more. I have Mom’s phone.”
“What?” Surely he had heard wrong.
“I’d seen some texts. I wanted to know. I swiped Mom’s cell, that day, you know on the day she…”
Natalie lunged under a corner of her mattress and extracted the cell.
“I turned it off so it couldn’t be, you know, traced, after. I felt so guilty about taking it. And so worried about Dad finding out about Mom and that guy, and then the longer it went on the more I didn’t know what to do.”
Natalie scooted back into a corner of the bed. Hugged her knees to her chest. Chewed on the side of her thumb.
“We have to tell your father,” Frank said gravely.
“It’s going to kill him!”
“And we have to tell the police.”
“Am I in trouble?” The girl’s anxious eyes locked on his own.
“It would have been better if you had come forward about this earlier, Nat—”
“But we can fix it, right?” Natalie interrupted. “I mean, Mom didn’t have her phone on her, so it’s not like they could have used it to find her.”
Frank’s heart ached with sympathy. The poor kid had been sitting with this painful secret all this time. Trying to protect her father, her mother, the fiction and fabric of her family. “I’ll say I just found the phone. In the laundry room.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course.”
What difference did it make at this point? What was done was done.
Frank carried the phone back down into the laundry room. “Found” it. Charged it. “Realized it was Mallory’s.” Marched up the stairs and told Brian of his discovery.
Frank handed the cell over to Brian and watched as he thumbed through her texts. Frank knew what he would see; he’d read through them first himself. Will C.’s exchanges with Mallory spoke of an intimacy built over time. Pet names. Private jokes.
Brian set the phone down. “You know the worst part?” Memory clouded his eyes. “I’m not even really surprised. Maybe I fucked it up. Maybe I never really had her. I don’t know anymore.”
“I’m so sorry.” The heft of Brian’s pain left Frank feeling hollow. Useless.
“I should call Detective Benson.”
Brian and Frank both knew what this phone call would bring.
The press had finally abated, there was fresher meat for hungry jackals. But now there would be more scandal. Newly inflamed accusations and suspicions. Further invasion of privacy.
Slicing of new wounds, infection in old ones.
In other words, another round of hell.
Natalie had seen him on the news, hands raised to shield his face from the pack of reporters shouting questions as he emerged from his neat brick colonial.
Will Crane. Forty-one years old. Separated from his wife of six years. No kids. Owner of a local nursery. Natalie remembered the first time she’d seen him, buying a Christmas tree there last December. Crane had helped them tie the tree to the top of Mom’s SUV.
Natalie needed to see him in person. She needed a real look at him, to see his face, to read his eyes. To reconcile the man from the nursery with the benign smiles and canned holiday cheer, with this monster, destroyer of her world.
As dawn broke, Natalie pressed herself into the shrubbery dividing Will Crane’s yard from his next-door neighbor’s.
The toe of her sneaker dug into the freshly turned earth at the base of the bush.
Letting the soil breathe for spring. The phrase floated through her mind; it was something her mother used to say, crouched by a flower bed, invigorated and glowing after a morning of spading the earth.
The neighborhood was quiet. A solitary light glowed over Crane’s door, the house otherwise dark and shuttered tight. Two local news vans were parked across the street, satellites atilt like the half-cocked ears of a dozing dog.
Fuck Mom. Maybe her glow was from trysts with her plant-nursery-owning lover, not from the pleasure of turned earth and vibrant buds.
Mallory had always been on Natalie, accusing her of being secretive: Who are you texting; put your phone away; not at dinner; be here with me now, please; what are you hiding?
Maybe a plan to sneak vodka into junior prom. That was the worst of Natalie’s sins. She felt virtuous in comparison to her mother.
The Adulteress. The Harlot. Strumpet. Floozy. Hussy. Whore.
Maybe I’ll fuck him. I’ll fuck Will C., she thought viciously. That’ll show her!
As if she ever could. As if he would even want her.
A Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of Crane’s house and disgorged a florid man in a navy suit and a striped silk tie. He rang the doorbell and was admitted. Other cars and news vans arrived, as if summoned. Reporters staked out positions on the sidewalk, conducted sound and battery checks. Natalie realized they had been summoned.
The guy in the navy suit opened the door. Flashes popped, cameras whirred. He spoke formally, his voice thin and unexpectedly shrill. “My client William Crane will now make a short statement. There will be no further questions or comments beyond that statement at this time.”
The air buzzed with curiosity, apprehension, titillation, a tinge of sickening dread.
The lawyer nodded back toward the shadowy recesses of the house and then there he was, Natalie’s quarry, Will Crane, tall, gray-flecked dark hair, strong hands that twisted at one another. His voice, though, rang true and steady. “I would like to set the record straight with respect to Mallory Burrows.”
Her mother’s name tumbled, familial, out of Crane’s unfamiliar lips. Natalie hadn’t known what she expected, but it wasn’t this.
“Mallory and I met a little over a year ago. We became friends. I will not comment any further on the extent of our relationship.”
What a white knight, sneered Natalie, how charming and discreet—to fuck Mallory but refuse to talk about it.
“I am completely innocent of any involvement in her disappearance. I am cooperating fully with the investigation. The police will confirm that.”
Believe me, his eyes implored, dancing from one listener to the next, believe me.
For a razor-thin second Natalie thought he looked right at her. She shrank deeper into her hiding place.
“I pray for Mallory’s safe return. And I ask that anyone, anywhere, who knows anything about her…where she is…how she is…” Crane’s voice cracked. “I love Mallory, her children love her. We need her to come home. Please help us if you can.”
Natalie reeled. It was his casual assertion of love, the presumption he knew anything about her or Jake, speaking as if he were Mallory’s family, she and Jake drafted along, lucky them, from a prior chapter, but her father disappeared into nothingness like a cheap magician’s trick.
How could a woman just disappear?
Jake wandered their house, eyes urgently searching for glimpses and hints of his mother. Not that it even looked like their house anymore, filled as it was with cardboard boxes, piles for Goodwill donation, oversized black plastic garbage bags headed for the dump.
Dad had this plan, he hadn’t even discussed it with them, had merely announced it. They were putting their house on the market, moving to Manhattan. That was it. And so it was. Today was moving day.
Jake stared down the squares and rectangles of a brighter citron marking the sun-faded hallway wall, the last of the framed family pictures recently removed and carefully swaddled in bubble wrap. He tried to remember where particular favorites had hung. Already he was forgetting.
The shifting and moving and packing of things that had long held permanent locations revealed scuff marks, loose change, old receipts and ticket stubs, the faint residue of that time Natalie colored on the wall with Sharpies. A lost sapphire earring of Mallory’s, fiery and brilliant, that Jake had slipped into his pocket. And memories. A billion memories.
Jake brushed a finger over the empty mantelpiece in the dining room, coming away with a film of gray dust that he wiped hastily on his jeans.
Jake had expected to feel sad, but what he mostly felt was guilt. He knew the likelihood of Mom ever coming back was slim to none. But still, leaving the house felt like they were all abandoning her. As if she did come back from wherever the hell she was to find her house empty, her family gone, she would think they hadn’t loved her.
“Bye, Mom,” Jake whispered.
Their new home consisted of two Upper West Side pre-war apartments knocked together. Palatial by Manhattan standards, tiny by Westport’s. Jake had his bedroom on one end, with his own separate entrance, thank god for small favors. It was only until school started again, then he was moving back downtown into the dorms.
The movers loaded in furniture and mountains of boxes. Brian ordered pizza for everyone. The cable guy miraculously showed up in the promised window. All the necessary steps to erase Jake’s old life and paint-by-numbers a new one took place with orderly progression.
That night, over too salty take-out Chinese, Brian pretended that this move was exciting, that things were returning to normal.
But while Natalie praised the moo shu and Brian shoveled in chicken with broccoli, Jake picked at his pork fried rice. The specter of the missing Mallory still hung over them. How could it ever be different?
Jake retreated to his room, pushed aside the stacks of unpacked boxes, settled on his bare mattress with his laptop. How was he going to survive until school started? He hated being around his father. He hated thinking about that prick Will Crane; the very idea that his mom had had an affair made Jake’s skin crawl. He hated worrying about Natalie. He hated this, all of it.
Jake scrolled through photos on his computer: family birthdays and vacations: Kauai, Vermont, St. Croix, Greece. Natalie mugging for the camera. Mom smiling despite the shadow in her eyes, cocky, confident Brian draping a possessive arm around her shoulders.
Jake enlarged a photo of his father and peered into the depths of his captured gaze. Brian’s temper was infrequent but powerful. Oh yes, Jake had seen that firsthand. He would never forget the night his father knocked him down for taking his mother’s side. The family’s side, really. Jake could see Brian erupting in jealousy, taking it out on Mallory before she had a chance to defend herself.
If Brian did it, Jake swore he would kill him.
Frank had been living on the Burrows family boat in its dock at the Saugatuck Harbor Yacht Club for three weeks.
When he returned home from Brian’s, Della had served him with divorce papers. She’d also changed the locks on the doors to their house and drained their joint checking account. He had been allowed to see the twins exactly once since he’d been back, Della wielding access to the girls like a bludgeon in order to get swift acquiescence to her outrageous demands.
He didn’t care about divorcing Della; that relationship was long over. But the girls. Girls needed their fathers. And he needed them.
A rush of memories came along with being on the boat, feeling its sway in the water, listening to the creak of rope, wood, and metal.
He remembered the first time Brian brought Mallory home to meet the family. It had been a long weekend, the Fourth of July. Mystic, Connecticut, was exploding with its usual patriotic fervor, bunting and flags and the parade down Main Street. Mallory had been charmed by the way the town embraced the holiday: lawn bowling and mock Civil War military exhibitions, boat races down the Mystic River, old-fashioned spelling bees for the kids.
They had taken the boat out too, of course. Had a picnic supper that Mom prepared. Watched the fireworks from the deck. Cracked open more than a few beers. Dad and Mom wholly approved of Mallory, that much was easy to see; besides, when didn’t they approve of golden boy Brian’s choices?
But Frank had to admit he’d been equally charmed. She was so beautiful. And she stood her ground with Brian, didn’t worship him the way so many of his prior girlfriends had. She seemed genuinely interested in Frank. She had asked questions, but more important, had listened to his answers.
Frank plucked a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet. A long pull of the burning liquid coursed down his throat.
He mourned Mallory. He rued the pain that held his brother, niece, and nephew in its cold, tight grip. He longed for his daughters. He grieved for lost chances, doors closed, decisions made.
He wondered if any of them would ever be happy again.
None of the various and sundry objects in the battered wooden box would appear as treasure to another’s eyes, but to Natalie each and every one of them was sacred.
She unearthed the box from its hiding place deep in her closet. Once burnished wood, now scuffed and scratched, bound with brass fittings and a neat little lock. She inserted the key and felt a rush of anticipatory pleasure as the mechanism caught and turned. The lock sprung open.
She lifted the lid of her treasure box and contemplated the wealth inside.
There was a tube of Mallory’s favorite lipstick, a deep rosy pink. A heart carved from a spectacular chunk of deep blue lapis lazuli. Filled sketchbooks, each dated and carefully labeled. A certificate proclaiming Natalie’s first-place finish in the middle school spelling bee. A colorful Menehune doll, a souvenir from a family winter holiday in Kauai. A half-smoked joint, carefully inserted into the fold of the program for her high school’s Cabaret Night (a memento from that magical evening, during which Adam Nash pulled her behind the gym in between acts, got her high, and then kissed her).
Cabaret Night. The last great memory she would ever have, she thought bitterly. The last night of promise before…
Adam Nash had averted his eyes and shuffled away when he saw her after. And who could blame him? It wasn’t like they were a thing. It had just been a kiss.
Natalie toyed with her Menehune. Long brown hair, a neon green “grass” skirt, caution-yellow bandeau, and a crowning halo of flowers. The Menehune were the leprechauns of Hawaii, they had been told on that magical vacation. On that trip, there had been laughter and affection; her family had been whole.
They’d stayed at a sweet cottage on the north end of the island with a spectacular view of the ocean and an open-air lanai where they ate their meals.
They’d played games, watched DVDs, laughed a lot. They’d hiked and kayaked. Grilled fresh local ahi, chopped pineapple salsa, and made tropical fruit slushies in the blender.
And then there had been the jellyfish.
Dad had arranged for a day of sailing and snorkeling along the magnificent Napali Coast. Their catamaran had pulled into a little cove and dropped anchor. Outfitted with a mask, flippers, and a snorkel, Natalie had been among the first to dive into the turquoise water.
In the ocean all was silence, except for the sound of Natalie’s own breath through the tube, rasping in her ears. She saw tiny bright yellow fish darting quickly, and larger, flat, iridescent blue fish that swam with lazy purpose. Long, thin fish with orange and white stripes. A sea turtle as big as her torso.
Excited to share her find with her family, Natalie raised her head above water. Voices thundered in. Kids squealing, the ripple of her mother’s laugh. Mallory was on the boat, head thrown back as one of the crew, the one with the tattoo sleeves and shaggy blond hair, held her leg in his calloused hand. He helped her strap on the unwieldy flippers, his hand too high on her thigh. Natalie had yelled, “Mom, a sea turtle!” But Mallory hadn’t heard. Disappointed, Natalie had slipped back under the water.
The sting, when it came, was alarmingly painful, utterly unexpected. A piercing in her right shoulder. She swiped at it with her left hand and pulled away what looked like sticky blue threads. Lifted her head to cry out in confusion and hurt.
“It’s a jellyfish bloom,” the tattooed guy had yelled, pointing. “Swim away.”
Disoriented, Natalie swam right into the bloom. She was stung everywhere: her right cheek, her nose, the side of her neck, her shoulder blades, her left armpit. The pain was excruciating, but also somehow exciting. Natalie had never felt more alive.
They’d pulled her onto the boat, hosed off her body, and applied medication to ease the sting. Joked about peeing on her as Natalie recoiled. Mom had wrapped a towel around her, hugged her tight, stroked her hair, murmured reassurances.
Now, in her new bedroom, in an apartment she was certain would never feel like home, Natalie swiped her palm across her skin, unconsciously tracing the path the stinging beasts had inflicted upon her that day in paradise.
The Burial Society Page 8
