by Lisa Tuttle
I'd felt during the day that Laura was withdrawing from me, from both of us and our fantastical ideas about her missing daughter, but there was nothing else to do to pass the time as we waited but talk, and, inevitably, perhaps, as we talked we were drawn closer. As the night drew on I felt her relaxing a little more. Although we didn't touch, we were sitting very close on the groundsheet, and I could feel her body heat.
From talk about travel and restaurants and movies and books and politics and culture we soon moved on to more personal details. It was easier to talk intimately in the dark, and somehow especially in the open air. It felt as if we were floating in space, detached from the rest of the world and from our ordinary lives: It became possible to say almost anything to each other.
As she told me about her life both before and after Peri's disappearance I got the sense of someone fragile and lonely, someone who had made herself strong and self-sufficient not because it came naturally, but because it was necessary. Peri had needed her, and she'd been determined to live up to that need. Afraid of failure, she had not allowed herself any weaknesses or dependencies; she'd never let herself entirely trust anyone.
“So, no boyfriends?”
“I've dated from time to time. But Peri always came first, and by the time she was grown-up, I guess I was too much out of practice. There's never been anyone serious . . . I haven't been in love since before she was born.” The anti-midge candles had all been blown out by the wind, and by now I could barely see her, but I felt it when she turned toward me. “You don't have any children.”
“Not that I know of, anyway.”
She gave a soft snort. “Men!”
“Women,” I countered. “You never have to wonder if a baby's yours. A man has to take a woman's word for it.”
“Not now. Now all you need is a few skin cells to find out for sure. I couldn't believe it when those billboards started going up all over in English and Spanish. Who'd have thought there were so many men worried about paternity?”
“Billboards?”
“You must have seen them, they're everywhere. Not here—in the States. Well, certainly in Texas.”
“I haven't been back in ten years.”
She gasped. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“Don't you have family?”
“My mom's come over here a few times; she loves it. I keep in touch with my sister by e-mail.”
“Why'd you come in the first place?”
“I told you about Amy.”
“Yes, but if she was your first case . . . How could you just up and go? What made you decide to do it? Didn't you have a job? A girlfriend?”
“I did have a girlfriend.” I hesitated. “It's a long story.”
She laughed softly. “A long story would be perfect right now.”
So I told her about Jenny, how I'd felt, how she'd changed me, changed my life; how special our relationship had been, until it became just ordinary, but how I'd gone on loving her anyway. It was easy to be honest, to open my heart like that in the dark; it was intimate and safe.
“And then one day she left me—she just moved out without a word of explanation. I couldn't see the point of staying on in Dallas without her—I'd been wanting to leave for ages anyway, and I was fed up with my job, so when my grandmother died, and I found out she'd left me a lot of money—”
“Wait, hang on. What do you mean? Jenny left you? You just let her go?”
“She didn't give me a choice.” I felt the old bitterness, which should have been long dead and buried, surge up like sickness.
“But how did she leave you? What went wrong?”
“You really want the whole story?”
“Of course.”
25. Jenny
I had no idea anything was wrong on the day Jenny left me.
She wasn't in when I got home from work, so I checked the calendar that hung on the wall above the phone. There, written in her rounded hand, was “Weaving Circle,” so I knew not to wait for her for dinner. I shuttled something from the freezer to the microwave and ate it, with a beer, in front of the television. A little later, Rear Window was on one of the cable channels, and I watched that with my ear half-cocked for the sound of her key in the lock.
At eleven o'clock, when she still wasn't home, I started to worry.
By midnight I was nearly frantic, imagining her unconscious, trapped in the wreckage of her car in a pileup on one of the highways, imagining her dead. For the first time in my life, I phoned city hospitals, asking if anyone of Jenny's name or description had been brought in.
Jenny regularly met up with other weavers, women she had met through craft fairs and classes; but that was a part of her life that didn't involve me, and I knew little about it. I had no idea where the “weaving circle” took place. I had met a few of the women, but most of them weren't even names to me.
The one I did remember was Pamela Schule, with a husband known as Deet. We'd been to dinner at their house in Carrollton, and they'd come to us in return; one of Jenny's attempts to broaden our social horizons. It hadn't taken, but I found D. T. Schule listed in the phone book, rang the number, and woke ol' Deet out of a sound sleep at a quarter past twelve. He passed me to his wife, who sounded sleepy and bewildered. No, there hadn't been a weaving circle Wednesday night. They only met once a month, and the last time was just two weeks ago. Yes, she'd seen Jenny then; she hadn't said anything about plans for tonight. Or—she corrected herself deliberately—she should say last night.
I kept her awake a little longer to get the names and phone numbers of the other weavers out of her, even though this was starting to feel like a false lead, one deliberately planted by Jenny.
What was going on? Was she having an affair? Had she fallen asleep in another man's bed?
Jenny kept a journal, a habit she'd maintained since high school. It was personal, which I'd always respected. But I felt no scruples. If she was betraying me, I had a right to know. I stalked into the bedroom, straight to her bedside table, and pulled open the drawer where she kept the journal.
It was gone. In fact, except for a clip-on book light and a box of cherry-flavored cough drops, the drawer was empty. She had taken not only her journal, but her jewelry, the soft blue rabbit she'd had since infancy, silver-framed pictures of her parents and sister, her autographed copy of A Wrinkle in Time, photograph albums, a wooden bowl, a silken patchwork cushion . . . her underwear drawer was practically empty. I opened the closet and saw the big gaps among her remaining clothes.
I rushed into the spare bedroom, Jenny's weaving room. The big wooden loom still stood there among the baskets of yarns and strips of cloth, but the rug she'd been working on was gone.
She'd left me.
I was stunned. I could hardly believe it, in spite of the evidence staring me in the face. It wasn't like Jenny to slip away quietly. She'd always been a fighter. And straightforward: If there was something she didn't like, she'd tell me. “Shape up, Buster, or I walk!” She hadn't given me a chance. And no explanation, not even a “Dear John” letter stuck to the avocado-green surface of the refrigerator with a pineapple-shaped magnet. That would have been bad enough. This sudden vanishing was impossible to accept.
I called in sick the next morning and drove to the place Jenny worked instead.
She wasn't there. They told me she had resigned more than a week earlier; she hadn't even come in yesterday; Tuesday had been her last day at work. She'd planned this. And, unlike my father, who had left everything—except money—behind, Jenny had carefully packed her most precious belongings. I wondered how many trips she'd made between apartment and car, while I, in blissful ignorance, was out at work.
The honest, loving Jenny I'd known was beginning to seem like a fantasy. What happened to make her change?
None of our friends knew anything about it. They all seemed as shocked and mystified as I was. Of course, these were our friends, mostly couples, and she might have known she couldn't expect them to kee
p her secret from me. Apart from the weavers, Jenny had one close woman friend, Deborah. I had nothing against her, but I'd always felt she didn't like me, and I found out I was right when I called her.
“Yes, I know where she is, and no, I'm not going to tell you. It was her decision to leave, and I respect that decision.”
“Deborah, all I want to do is talk to her. I think I deserve an explanation. I'm worried.”
“Tough.”
She hung up on me. I didn't bother to phone back.
There was only one other person I could think of who would know where Jenny went: her sister Maddy. Jenny had always been close to her sister. I couldn't imagine her not telling Maddy where she was going; in fact, it seemed most likely that when Jenny needed somewhere to run, that's where she would go.
I didn't call first; I wasn't going to risk alerting Jenny that I was on her trail. As soon as I'd managed to square things at work, which took a few more days, I left Dallas late one evening to make the drive to San Antonio.
It was a long way to go, but I liked long-distance driving, especially at night. Traffic was light, and I enjoyed the silence, speed, and freedom of being on the move, steadily covering the vast distances of Texas. I liked the anonymity of being alone in my car. I could go anywhere. No one was expecting me; no one in the world knew where I was. I'd shucked all my usual responsibilities with the simple, ordinary action of climbing in behind the wheel. There was no reason why I ever had to stop. I could just keep driving, let the road take me to new places and a new life.
I stopped in Waco to fill up with fuel and coffee, but by the time I got to Austin I was flagging. It was almost two o'clock in the morning, and I hadn't slept well since Jenny had left. More caffeine wasn't the answer; I needed to rest. I took the next farm road exit off the interstate, then pulled off that road as soon as I found a place to park. I reclined the seat and crashed out.
Sun on my face, gathering heat, and birdsong all woke me. I drove on to San Marcos, where I got breakfast and cleaned myself up in the restroom before the last leg of the journey.
I'd been to Maddy's house once before, with Jenny. It had been built in the early 1980s, in a suburb on the outer western rim of the city, convenient to the Air Force base where Maddy's husband worked.
I drove slowly through the quiet streets lined with practically identical houses and was reminded of the neighborhood in Minneapolis where I'd found my father. Acid churned in my stomach. I couldn't live in a place like this; it would kill me.
On the way out of Dallas I'd talked myself into believing I'd get Jenny back. I loved her, and she loved me; that was all that really mattered. We could change the things that didn't work. The heady exhilaration of driving away from the city had convinced me. Maybe when I picked up Jenny we'd keep going on to Mexico. To hell with everything else. I had my credit card. Why shouldn't we live on the beach for a while, swim, make love, go fishing, improve our conversational Spanish, drink too much, and learn to scuba dive?
But now, peering at the house numbers, trying to remember if there was anything to mark out Maddy's from all the rest, I thought of Jenny's wish for a house, her desire to settle down. What if this was what she wanted, what her sister had, this middle-class suburban life-in-death, with a couple of kids and life on the treadmill of getting and spending until death?
I didn't want to live like that—I wouldn't—and she knew it. Maybe that was why she'd run away.
Then I saw the birdhouse like a little castle, perched high on a pole in the front yard. She'd given one just like it to Jenny one Christmas, even though we had no yard to put it in.
Maddy was only four years older than Jenny, but it might have been ten from the way she'd let herself go since having kids. She wore loose, unflattering clothes in a vain attempt to disguise her extra weight, and she'd stopped bothering with makeup. Her short hair was speckled with grey, and there was a deep line between her heavy eyebrows.
Those eyebrows drew together at the sight of me on her porch; she looked almost pained. “Ian?” She sounded uncertain.
“Hi, Maddy. I'm looking for Jenny.” I looked down at the tiny, dark-haired child who clutched her leg and peered up at me, and guessed this must be Adam, who had been a tiny baby the last time I'd seen him. I waggled my fingers at him. “Hi, guy.”
“She's not here.”
“May I come in?”
She sighed. “Adam, please, Mommy needs to move.” The little boy clutched her harder, then abruptly let go and ran away into the house. “She isn't here,” she said again, but stepped back and allowed me to enter.
“May I use your bathroom?”
She gestured. “End of the hall.”
The bathtub was littered with bright plastic toys, and most of the counter beside the sink was taken up with a changing mat, baby wipes, Vaseline, and other infant paraphernalia. There were some grown-up things in the cupboard, but I didn't spot Jenny's toiletries bag or makeup kit anywhere. After I'd used the toilet I peeked into the other rooms: one was a nursery, another a small child's bedroom, the third was the master bedroom. They didn't seem to be entertaining any overnight guests at the moment.
Maddy was in the big, family-room-style kitchen, in a rocking chair with a baby in her arms. The sound of its suckling seemed very loud in the quiet room, and I looked away, embarrassed.
“Make yourself some coffee if you like,” she said. “The machine's right next to the microwave. Coffee's in the blue canister; filters in the drawer underneath.”
“Thanks.” I didn't need any more coffee, with my stomach as acid as it was, but I was glad to have an excuse to do something besides look at her. Adam had disappeared, and I couldn't think of the baby's name. The silence in the room grew heavier.
“Do you know where Jenny is?”
She didn't say anything. I looked at her and saw she had bent to nuzzle the baby's downy head.
“Come on,” I said. “I'm really worried about her. She took off without a word to anyone, no explanation, no forwarding address. I have to find her.”
“I'm sure she'll get in touch with you when she's ready.”
I frowned. “‘Ready'? What did she tell you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Really? She didn't say why she was leaving me like that?”
“No.” She stared at me.
“And you didn't ask?”
“She said she didn't want to talk about it.”
“Didn't that seem strange to you? Aren't you worried?”
“Jenny doesn't have to justify what she does to me.”
“Or me?” I held her gaze. She looked uncomfortable, but lifted her chin defiantly.
“You're not her husband.”
“Not legally. But, come on. I sure wouldn't have left her like that.”
The eyebrows drew together. She tried to hide her face by bending over her baby again. “I can't get involved in this. It's between you and Jenny.”
“It ought to be. But you know where she is. I don't.”
“She's my sister. If she doesn't want you to know, I have to respect her choice.”
The coffee was starting to perk, but I walked away from it, toward Maddy. “I think she does want me to know. I think she wants me to find her. I think that's what this is all about. Did you know, when I was a kid, my father left us? I spent years looking for him, and I finally found him. It's a big thing in my life. Jenny knows that. If she really wanted to leave, if she thought it was over, she'd have told me to my face. She would not have done it this way.”
There was the faint sound of bare feet slapping against the floor. Adam streaked into the room, took one wide-eyed look at me, and streaked out again.
“Come on, Maddy, give me a break, please. If Jenny wants me out of her life, all she has to do is say so. She doesn't have to hide from me like this. I'm not a psycho. I've never hit a woman in my life. She's not hiding 'cause she's scared—this is a game, a test, or something. She wants me to prove I really love her by findin
g her. I'm sure of that. Did she tell you not to tell me where she was?”
“She didn't have to.” Maddy was looking thoughtful, and I knew my argument had gotten to her. “But if I tell you where she is, doesn't that spoil the test? I mean, isn't it kind of like cheating?”
I gave her a wide-eyed stare. “You might give me a clue, at least point me in the right direction. I'm assuming Jenny hasn't left Texas, but it's still a big ol' state. I could spend years looking for her—but that would kind of ruin the point, too, wouldn't it?”
“I'm not going to give you her phone number,” Maddy decided. “And I don't have her street address. She's got a PO box in Austin. You can write to her.”
My heart soared. I remembered Jenny saying, “Dell's hiring.”
“I hope I'm not going to regret this,” Maddy said with a doubtful look.
“You won't, unless you hate me. Because I want the best for her, and I'm going to get her back. I'm going to be a part of her life forever.”
When she smiled, Maddy looked younger, prettier, more like her little sister. “Invite me to your wedding?”
I gave her a warm smile back. The irritation caused by her assumption that Jenny was just like her was such a small, swift wave, I could pretend I didn't feel it. “You bet.”
I headed for the door.
“Are you going already? You didn't even drink your coffee.”
“I've got a long drive ahead of me,” I said. “I'll come back with Jenny, next time.”
It took about an hour and a half to drive to Austin. The zip code identified the post office, which was in a neighborhood near the university, an area of mature trees and old houses, some of them recently expensively remodeled by upwardly mobile yuppie owners, others shabby and run-down, overflowing with impoverished students.
I arrived at midday and parked in the small lot and settled down to watch the customers come and go. All I had to do was wait, and she would come. But all too soon, my bladder forced me to go in search of a toilet. Before returning I paid a visit to a convenience store and bought a selection of snacks and drinks, including an extralarge ice tea in a lidded cup. When I finished the drink, I'd use the cup to relieve myself; that way, I wouldn't risk missing Jenny.
