The Parent Trap

by Lee McKenzie

  “I’m sure. I’ll call as soon as we know anything. Just hang tight, okay?”

  “Sure,” Sarah said, with absolutely no conviction whatsoever.

  For a minute or two after the call ended, they stood and stared at each other. Now what? Should he stay? Better question, would she let him? He hoped so. He’d hate to go home and wait alone.

  The dog tore through the kitchen and jumped against the sliding door to the deck, his front paws going at the glass like a windmill. That could only mean one thing.

  “Oh, Petey. That girl promised to look after you.”

  “Why don’t you take him out while I...I mean, if you like, I could fix us both something to eat.”

  She pulled a leash from a basket by the door and clipped it to the dog’s collar before she replied. “I don’t have much here. I’d planned to pick up Casey at the soccer field and grab a bite before we came home.”

  “I can fix something at my place and you can join me after Petey’s taken care of business.”

  She hesitated.

  “Come on, Sarah. You have to eat something.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to leave this little guy on his own, he’s already spent all day in his crate, and if Casey comes home...”

  “Fair enough.” He crouched down and scratched the energetic little mutt behind the ears. “I’ll fix something at my place and bring it back here.”

  Her nod was less than enthusiastic.

  He stood his ground. “I know I’m not your favorite person in the world right now, but our girls are out there, somewhere, and it seems pretty certain they’re together. Waiting to hear they’re okay isn’t going to be easy. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wait alone.”

  “I don’t, either. I’m sorry. I just never thought something like this could happen, not with Casey. She’s a good kid.”

  Unlike his kid who was, at best, a handful. He reached out, touched Sarah’s shoulder, wished there was something he could do other than offer to make a meal, knowing he was lucky if she let him do that much for her. On the positive side, she didn’t pull away, at least not right away, and not until the dog reminded her that the situation was now a code red.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Petey.” She unlatched the door and slid it open. “Let’s go.”

  Jon followed her outside and down the stairs to her backyard. “I’ll be back in ten.”

  He managed to make it back in fifteen minutes, balancing a plate of sandwiches—bacon, tomato and avocado—in one hand, a bag of potato chips tucked under his arm, and the fingers of his other hand curled around the tops of two bottles of sparkling water. While at home, he had tried calling Kate again and his call went straight to voice mail, just as before. Where was she, and better question, why had she turned off her phone? Sarah told the RCMP constable that Casey’s phone rang half a dozen times before going to voice mail. That meant Casey’s phone was on and she wasn’t picking up, and Kate’s phone was off. None of this made sense, and he was going to make himself crazy trying to figure it out.

  “Thank you for doing this,” Sarah said, far more graciously than he deserved. “There are glasses and plates in the cupboard next to the microwave. Napkins in the drawer right below it.” She peeked at her phone, clearly willing there to be a text message from her daughter. He knew that’s what she was doing because he’d been doing the same thing. “Come on, Petey. Let’s get you some dinner, too.”

  A well-understood word in the dog’s vocabulary, judging by the way he danced on his hind legs. While Sarah scooped kibble into his dish, Jon plated sandwiches, poured drinks, dumped chips into a bowl.

  “Would you like to eat in here?” he asked.

  “No, let’s sit in the living room.” She tucked her phone into the back pocket of her jeans, picked up a plate and a glass, and led the way. “The sandwiches look delicious.”

  “I hope you like bacon.”

  “Everybody likes bacon.” For the first time since this afternoon, she gave him a genuine smile as she settled onto one end of the sofa.

  Kate didn’t, now that she’d become a vegetarian, and now he wished he hadn’t let it bother him so much. He sat on the other end of the sofa, and they both set their phones on the coffee table, checking for missed calls or messages as they did.

  “The bread is great,” Sarah said. “Did you bake it?”

  He set his sandwich on the plate and gulped some water. “I did.”

  Sarah nodded. “I thought so. Kate told me you’re a great cook and that you bake awesome bread.”

  “She said that?”

  “She did. One afternoon while she was at the store.”

  Interesting. It seemed everything she said within earshot of him was subtly tinged with sarcasm or mild disdain. If she could be positive when he wasn’t around, maybe there was hope for their father-daughter relationship after all. He would work on it, he decided. As soon as she came home.

  He picked up his sandwich again. “Did she say anything about her mother?”

  The way Sarah quickly lowered her gaze as she thoughtfully nibbled a potato chip said it all.

  “What did she say?” He needed to know and wished he could have sounded more casual. It’s not as if Kate would ever volunteer anything, and he hadn’t figured out how to get her to talk about her feelings.

  “Not much. Just that she moved to Europe last year, and even though they talk almost every day, it’s not the same as having her here.”

  Her tone was matter-of-fact and nonjudgmental, and he was grateful for that.

  “Even when we all lived in Vancouver, she was away a lot so I don’t think proximity is the big issue. Most of Kate’s resentment stems from the promises her mother makes but doesn’t follow through with.”

  “What kinds of promises?”

  “She said she’d be over for Kate’s middle school graduation last June, then had to cancel when something came up at the last minute. To make up for it, Kate was supposed to spend two weeks with her in Italy at the end of July. That fell through, too.”

  “Poor kid.” Sarah sounded genuinely understanding. “She must have been awfully disappointed.”

  Disappointment didn’t even come close. “She was devastated. I know she understands her mother’s personal commitments, but it’s not easy for her. I’ve tried to convince Georgette to make more time for Kate, but there’s no talking to her. You can be sure she’ll have something to say to me, though, if she hears about this.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell her?”

  Wasn’t planning on it. He must have shaken his head, because Sarah’s eyes went round with surprise.

  “Really?” It wasn’t so much a question as an accusation.

  “You don’t know Kate’s mother.”

  “Well, what if—” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to.

  “What if the situation was reversed?” he asked. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  “Yes, it was. If Kate went missing on her mother’s watch, how would you feel if she didn’t tell you?”

  He stared into his glass, watching the bubbles rise to the surface and escape. Sarah was right. If the tables were turned, he would want to know what was happening. He’d be furious, sick with worry, and he would place the blame, all of it, squarely on Georgette. He sighed and picked up his phone.

  Time to face the music.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SARAH GATHERED NAPKINS, empty plates and glasses and carried them into the kitchen, leaving Jonathan to make his call in private. A call he was obviously reluctant to make, and she couldn’t fault the poor man for that. Although his ex was an absentee mom who was either unwilling or unable to be there for her daughter, she had a right to know the girl was missing.

  She could hear Jonathan’s
voice from the foyer.

  “Georgette, please, just listen to me. Serenity Bay is a safe place and Kate isn’t alone.”

  There was a pause, during which she told herself she shouldn’t eavesdrop. She did anyway.

  “The girl who lives next door is with her. Her name is—”

  “I don’t care what her name is!”

  Jonathan must have moved closer to the kitchen or accidentally switched to speaker because now she could hear both sides of the conversation.

  “How do you know this girl isn’t having a negative influence on Kate?”

  Because my daughter is not a runaway, Sarah wanted to yell back.

  “Because...” Jonathan said. “Look, Kate’s been having a bit of a tough time with everything and you—”

  “Don’t try to pin this on me. You’re the one who pulled her out of her old school, moved her away from her friends, from civilization.”

  Sarah had heard enough. She turned on the kitchen tap, filled the coffeemaker and left the water running for no reason other than to drown out Jonathan’s conversation with his ex. Calling her had been the right thing to do, but now she understood his hesitation. By the sound of things, Georgette Ogilvie wasn’t accepting any responsibility for Kate’s behavior. But to try to pin this on Casey? And to blame Jonathan, who, although somewhat misguided in his approach to discipline, was doing his darnedest to make a home and a good life for his daughter? While taking none of the responsibility? That was completely unreasonable.

  As though sensing her frustration, Petey roused himself from his post-dinner nap, trotted across the kitchen and nudged Sarah’s ankle. She picked him up and hugged him close.

  “I know. You want to know where she is, too. She was supposed to take you for a walk, maybe play a game of fetch in the backyard.”

  The little mutt gazed at her, and she could see her concern reflected in his dark eyes, then his pink sandpaper tongue popped out and he gave her nose a swipe, and he was all but grinning at her.

  She rested her cheek against the top of his head, fighting back tears. Puppy kisses, Casey called them. “Thank you, Petey. I needed that.”

  * * *

  JONATHAN STOOD IN the kitchen doorway, listening to Sarah’s conversation with the dog, wondering why the tap was running, thinking he could use a kiss himself, and not the canine variety.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  She swung around to face him. Her tears, while perfectly understandable, whittled away at his already eroded sense of self-worth. Calling Georgette had been the right thing to do, but he still wished he hadn’t.

  Sarah set the dog on the floor, turned off the tap, tore a strip of paper towel from a dispenser and used it to dry her eyes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” He wanted to hold her, offer comfort, get some in return. Something held him back.

  “How did it go?”

  “As expected.” But he didn’t want to rehash Georgette’s accusations, the threat of her calling her lawyer. What was a lawyer going to do? “I finally told her that I have to keep the phone free so I don’t miss Kate if she tries to call, and that I’ll call her as soon as we hear from them.”

  “And we will hear from them. I know we will.”

  He knew she needed to believe that. So did he.

  Sarah took mugs out of a cupboard and filled them with coffee. She handed one to him, apparently remembering he took it black.

  “Let’s take these into the living room,” she said after stirring sugar and cream into hers. She pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket and checked it on the way.

  They sat again, on either end of the sofa, coffee mugs in hand, phones on the coffee table within easy reach.

  “Thank you for making dinner,” she said. “Again.”

  “No problem.”

  “So where did you learn to cook?”

  He resisted the urge to tell her that making a sandwich wasn’t exactly cooking.

  “I guess my mother taught me, although I don’t actually remember being taught. It was just the two of us, so I had to learn to be self-sufficient when she was at work.”

  “Where was your father?”

  For a long time, that had been the million-dollar question. “He moved out when I was eight. For quite a few years my mother never talked about it, but around the time I graduated from high school she told me he’d left her for another woman.”

  “All those years and she never said anything?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Did you see him, talk to him?”

  Jon shook his head. “Not once. He and his new wife moved to the east coast, had a couple of kids—”

  “So you have siblings.”

  “No. Parents and siblings are the people you grow up with. My father and his new family are strangers.” And it was strange to be talking about them now because he usually didn’t think about them at all.

  “But you have your mother, and she taught you how to cook.”

  “I do have my mother.” She’d also taught him the importance of having a home and a family. “She always said the kitchen is the heart of a home.”

  Sarah laughed. “My kitchen is definitely not the heart of my home. Not even close.”

  “I’ve never seen a cleaner or better organized kitchen than yours,” he said. More like the heart of a display home, though. Beautiful cabinets, a nearly empty fridge and a pristine stove that didn’t see a lot of action aside from keeping take-out pizza warm and burning slice-and-bake cookies. “But I’d have to say you are the heart of your home.”

  “Nice save,” she said. “I wish I loved to cook but the simple fact is that I don’t. I grew up in a home where food preparation took up a huge amount of everyone’s time, especially my mom’s. When I left for college, I swore I wouldn’t eat another bowl of granola as long as I lived, let alone make it from scratch.”

  “Fair enough,” Jon said.

  “Luckily, Casey’s happy with cereal and frozen waffles, and the deli makes a great breakfast wrap with scrambled eggs.”

  “Breakfast takeout?”

  She shrugged. “When it comes to cooking, I’m more than happy to let someone else do the work.”

  She was one of the most capable, take-charge people he’d ever met, with maternal instincts that more than made up for a lack of culinary skills.

  “What was it like growing up in Ucluelet?” he asked. “It’s sure a beautiful part of the world.”

  “It is, and I can appreciate that now. It’s also remote, and back then, especially when I was a teenager, all I could think about was getting away and living in the city.”

  “Vancouver?”

  She pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Vancouver, New York, Paris...” She shrugged. “I had big dreams in those days.”

  “Those cities are a long way from Serenity Bay. Well, not Vancouver, but still worlds apart.”

  “I know. And I’ve still never been to Paris, but I hope to go someday.”

  Jon’s memory flashed to a recent photograph of Georgette and Xavier posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. She had emailed it to Kate, who had inadvertently, or maybe not so inadvertently, left it open on her laptop where he couldn’t help but see it. To him, Paris now had little appeal.

  “So what made a woman with big-city aspirations decide to make her home and livelihood in a quiet little place like Serenity Bay?” He knew she’d come here with her husband, but after he died she could have gone anywhere.

  “It’s not a terribly long story. After high school I went to Vancouver to study business administration at the University of British Columbia, and that’s where I met my husband, Jim. He finished his MBA at the same time I earned my degree. Within two weeks
he had been offered a job with a developer. He proposed and I accepted, and a week later we were married and moved into an apartment above the pharmacy on Hemlock Street.”

  Huh. He’d have never pegged her as someone who’d do something so out of character. Then again, love made people do impulsive things.

  “You’ve certainly been successful here. Happy, too, I hope.”

  She appeared to give that some thought. “You know, not many people ask about the happiness factor. Everyone focuses on the success. But there was a time when I was neither. Jim was one of those larger-than-life people who loved being the center of attention. He basically swept me off my feet. Not that it was hard to dazzle a girl who’d grown up next door to the wilderness, raised entirely on organics and completely off the grid.”

  Off the grid? That piqued his interest, but he was more interested in hearing about her marriage and what had happened to her husband.

  She checked her phone again before she continued. “After six months, Jim had landed a promotion. He was playing the stock market, too, and his investments were doing well, so we bought a house, decided to start a family. We also bought a boat and he loved to spend time on it on the weekends, but that always turned into a party. I assumed it would stop after Casey was born, but it didn’t.”

  He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about this.”

  She gave him a faint smile. “It helps pass the time. I’m afraid that if I don’t keep talking, I’m going to lose my mind.”

  He could relate. He was barely keeping it together himself, and she was very easy to listen to. He didn’t let go of her hand, and she didn’t seem to notice.

  “If something’s happened to her, to either of them—”

  “They’re going to be fine.” They had to be. “You were telling me about your early days in Serenity Bay.”

  “Right. Jim was always wanting to spend time with friends, coworkers, basically anyone who was into partying. After Casey was born, she was the center of my world. So sweet and smart, I couldn’t bear to leave her with a sitter. At some point I realized Jim and I had become strangers. Living under the same roof was the only thing we had in common. Then one night...it was late and he hadn’t come home after work...an RCMP officer showed up at the door. And I knew. Even before he told me, I knew. He’d crashed his car into a rock cut on the Sunshine Coast Highway, and he wasn’t coming home. He was drunk, of course, but he was alone in the car and no other vehicles involved, thank the heavens for that.”