You Were Always Mine

by Nicole Baart

  Max shrugged. What?

  Jess plucked her phone out of her pocket and waited until he did the same. Then she texted him:

  I’m sorry. Where’s Gabe?

  idk

  But you took him along, right?

  hes here somewhere

  He stuck the phone back in his pocket, clearly dismissing her. That’s it, Jess thought. He’s grounded. But as much as she wanted to blame him, she knew that this was just as much her fault as it was his. Okay, maybe it was all her fault.

  There was a long hallway behind the gym where the locker rooms and PE offices gave off the faint odor of sweaty sneakers and new rubber balls. It was off-limits during games, but Jess pushed through the double doors anyway, hoping that maybe Gabe had found a little peace and quiet in the long, empty corridor. He was nowhere to be seen. Next, she climbed the stairs to the balcony, a forgotten corner of the school that had been used for storage and was later converted into a weight room for the sports teams. Nowadays it was a vast sweep of empty, dusty space that kids used for games of tag or soccer when they could nab a kick ball from the PE storage room. Jess wasn’t surprised that Gabe wasn’t there, either. The sound of children screaming in delight was deafening.

  The bathrooms? It wasn’t like Gabe to hide out in a public restroom. His nose was hypersensitive and he particularly hated any scent that was artificial or chemical. Evan had once told Jess that the blue disk in the urinal set Gabe off. Evidently, he hated it so much that he braved touching it just so that he could drop it in the garbage can. Evan had made him wash his hands three times.

  Where, then? Jess could feel herself twisting tighter and tighter, a coiled spring that would explode into action if only she knew where to go. Where was her boy?

  Jess was standing beside the bleachers, one hand on a metal bar as she studied the crowd, when she heard a sound that didn’t match the cacophony around her. It was a whimper, an exhale, a noise so fragile she held her breath as she waited to hear it again.

  There. It was below her, beside her. It was beneath the bleachers.

  The area beneath the bleachers was also off-limits because the crisscrossing metal supports were dangerously mazelike. Adults could hardly fit through, and kids often got stuck as they rummaged beneath the benches for lost coins and dropped candy. The school had taken to roping the area off with an orange, plastic chain and threatening detentions for anyone caught in the belly of the metal beast. But someone was under there.

  Jess crouched down and squinted into the darkness, trying to make sense of the shadows and corners. Everything was angled and sharp, but near the back wall she could just make out a shape that did not fit among the brittle bones of the bleachers. A soft lump rose and fell, and guilt bathed Jess in the hot glow of shame.

  “Gabe?” she said, half crawling, half walking toward the shape. “Gabe?” Jess didn’t dare to shout, but a whisper would be drowned out by the clamor of the basketball game. Clearly whoever was crouched in the shadows couldn’t hear her, so she kept going. Jess stepped in something sticky and it glued her foot to the floor for a moment, but she pressed forward, ducking beneath and between the supports until she was close enough to call again.

  “Gabriel, honey, it’s Mommy.”

  He looked up from where his head had been resting on his knees. In the slanted light from above she could see that his cheeks were glistening. He had been crying.

  “Oh, honey.” Jess stepped over the final metal bar that separated them and gathered her son into her arms as best she could.

  “It’s loud,” he said, hiccupping around a sob. “It hurts my ears.”

  “I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  “Where were you?”

  But what could she say? “I’m sorry,” Jess said again. “I’m so, so sorry. Let’s just get you home, okay, bug?”

  Gabe had a much easier time navigating the underbelly of the bleachers, but he refused to let go of her hand. They wove through the girders together, taking much more time than if they would have traveled alone. But even though Gabe trembled every time the structure shook with cheers, he held her fingers so tightly Jess began to lose feeling in the tips.

  The only way out of the gym was to cross beneath the basketball hoop in front of the entire crowd. This time Jess didn’t wait for the game play to divert to the opposite side of the court. Instead, she scooped Gabe up in her arms, letting his long legs wrap around her waist and his head tuck tight against her shoulder. She walked out in front of what felt like the entire community, their eyes burning holes in the back of her bowed head. All the way to the car Jess could feel the click-click-click of Gabe’s tongue on the roof of his mouth, the frenetic tremble of his hands where they were laced tight around her neck.

  * * *

  July 24, 2018

  LaShonna is dead.

  Honestly, I can’t get my head around it. We were talking just a couple of weeks ago, about the baby and her birth plan and what to do next. I thought I had convinced her to talk to her mother. Place the baby in temporary custody until her release. I’ve known since the moment that I read LaShonna’s first letter that letting him go was much harder than she ever imagined it would be. It took me a while to persuade her to try, but I thought that we were almost there. The last time she called, she told me that her mother was coming to visit. She was going to ask her to keep the baby. Fourteen months. That’s all it would take.

  LaShonna stopped calling in the middle of June. And no one would give me any information because I’m not family. Today I typed her name in a search engine, hoping to find the name of a friend or relative that I could track down. Her former employer, even. Instead, I found her obituary.

  It doesn’t feel real. LaShonna is gone. And I don’t know what happened to her baby.

  Faye D.

  30, unknown, beauty school

  Chin-length, curly black hair, green eyes. Scar across the bridge of her nose.

  Best friend knows.

  DWLR/DWI, 16m, 34w

  CHAPTER 15

  BY THE TIME her father called on Sunday morning, Gabe had mostly forgiven Jessica. They were lounging in bed together, Gabe propped up on pillows and watching PBS Kids on the iPad, while Jess flipped through a magazine. It was a summer edition, something that she had picked up for the pool but never bothered to thumb through. Now the recipes for fresh fruit granitas and barbecue chicken seemed almost offensive, bright and happy, Kodachrome color when the world was dark and gray. Jess’s eyes glazed over as she absently turned the pages.

  When the phone rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin. And when she saw her father’s name appear on the screen, she almost didn’t answer.

  “It’s Grandpa!” Gabe said, eyeing her phone. He put down the iPad to reach for it.

  “I’ve got it, honey.” Jess palmed her phone and then tossed back the covers and sat up. Sticking her bare feet into slippers, she padded into the bathroom. “Good morning,” she said, after sliding the little phone icon to answer.

  “Hi, Jessica. It’s Dad.”

  “Yeah, hi Dad.”

  “Anna and I didn’t hear from you yesterday, so we went ahead and planned on you coming for lunch. I’m assuming that still works?”

  Jess had never said that it did work, but this was typical Henry. She glanced at the clock on the wall in her en suite—10:37. How could it be midmorning already? Clearly Henry and Anna were just out of church and on their way home. It was too late to politely tell them lunch didn’t work after all.

  “Sure, Dad.” Jess grabbed a clean towel from the linen closet and draped it over the hook by the shower. She could quickly wash her hair at the very least. Show up looking like she took care of herself. Jess had already started the day at a deficit—Henry and Anna knew that she and the boys had not been in church that morning. Impiety was a strike against her parenting, even if Henry and Anna would never dare to directly confront her about it. “What time would you like us to come?” Jess found herself asking. “Can I bring any
thing?”

  “Come by anytime before noon. You don’t have to bring anything at all.”

  Jess would bring a bottle of wine. That always went over well. Saying a quick good-bye, Jess tossed her phone on the bathroom counter and hollered at Gabe. “Go tell Max that we’re going to Grandpa and Anna’s house for lunch! Tell him he can hop in the shower as soon as I’m done.”

  There was an indistinct reply from the bedroom, but she heard a muffled thud as Gabe’s feet hit the floor. Then he was off running, no doubt to jump on Max and infuriate him with a rude awakening. But at least he loved his grandpa and was excited to see him.

  Jess showered quickly and then wrapped a towel around herself as she smoothed moisturizer on her cheeks. A bit of foundation and a dab of lipstick were in order, and maybe some mascara to wake up her tired eyes. When the phone rang again, Jess answered the call without looking at who it was.

  “We’ll be there soon, Dad. I’m just getting out of the shower and—”

  “Hello?” A voice that was decidedly not her father’s interrupted her train of thought.

  Jess yanked the phone away from her ear and looked at the caller ID. Deputy Mullen.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jess said, suddenly breathless. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “No worries,” the deputy assured her, but there was no humor in his voice. He got right down to business. “I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but there’s been a development that you need to know about.”

  “Development?” Jess sank to the closed lid of the toilet and leaned with her elbow against the bathroom counter. She was cold in nothing but a towel and stifled a shiver. “What do you mean? I thought . . .” She didn’t finish.

  “You know how Evan was found without any identification? Well, it was discovered this morning.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have his wallet and phone. And a file that he had been keeping notes in.”

  Jess’s heart stalled for a second and then pounded painfully back to life. Something that tasted a lot like fear turned her tongue sour. “I don’t understand. How?”

  “We got a call from the manager at the Motor Inn last night. A guest was trying to get into the room safe but it was locked. Apparently it’s been locked for weeks, because when they finally got it open, Evan’s cell phone, wallet, and a key chain were inside.”

  Jess could hardly breathe.

  “The maid who cleaned the room either never realized that it was locked or didn’t care. Nobody noticed until last night.”

  “Didn’t he check out?”

  “Apparently not. He prepaid so his absence didn’t raise any red flags.” Mullen anticipated her next question. “There was a toothbrush on the counter and some clothes on the bed. He clearly wasn’t planning on staying long, and the maid who cleaned out his room didn’t recall anything that unusual. When we interviewed her she said she’s seen far stranger things than an abandoned toothbrush and a pair of jeans hanging off the bed.”

  “The Motor Inn?” Jess said dumbly.

  “It’s a motel just outside of town,” Mullen said helpfully. “He must have been staying there.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I’m afraid I don’t know. We were hoping you could shed some light on the situation.”

  Jess thought of her suspicions that someone had been in her house. The book in Gabe’s backpack. Her growing file that cataloged every scrap of information she could collect on the people who made her skin prickle. James Rosenburg had been added to that list, and after Gabe fell asleep the night before, she had learned that he was a family lawyer near the Twin Cities. Had Evan been considering divorce? Jess had every intention of calling the Rosenburg firm on Monday to find out.

  But a dog-eared copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and Cody De Jager’s DUI conviction and a tenuous connection to a lawyer nearly two hundred miles away made Jessica only feel paranoid. Like a conspiracy theorist. Surely Deputy Mullen and his team were making real headway on Evan’s case. Instead of sharing any of the information she had gathered, Jess said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I have no idea why he would be staying in a motel in Minnesota.”

  “I thought you might say that.” He exhaled slowly. “What about his phone? Forensics is investigating, but it’s password protected. Do you happen to know what it is?”

  Jess could picture the screen of Evan’s iPhone. The family photo that he had used as wallpaper. It had been taken a few years ago when Gabe was still a chubby toddler and Max wasn’t so angsty. Max’s adult teeth had just grown in and his grin was too big for his face. Bright and beautiful and so filled with joy it was almost painful to see. He was on the cusp of all that was to come and he didn’t know that the world was about to wipe the smile right off his sweet face. Was the picture still there? Jess didn’t know whether to hope that it was or that Evan had changed it to something more mundane. Either way, her heart broke a little when she said: “EJMG1234. The first letters of all our names.”

  “Thank you,” Deputy Mullen said. “We’ll try that. Would you like me to mail you Evan’s wallet and the file? Oh, and the keys. Forensics is looking at his phone, but his personal effects are yours now.”

  “No.” Jess was seized with sudden purpose. She glanced at the clock and stood up quickly, hurrying into her bedroom to grab clothes. Gathering underwear, bra, shirt, pants, she said: “I would like to come and get them.”

  “It’s a three-hour drive.” Mullen sounded nonplussed. “It’s Sunday.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not an emergency.”

  It is to me, Jess thought, and the deputy must have read her mind because he said: “Tell you what. I’ll meet you halfway.”

  It was an offer she couldn’t refuse, and almost as soon as she had hung up, Jess’s phone pinged with an incoming text. Deputy Mullen had sent her the address of a café halfway between Auburn and Elmwood Park, the small town where Evan’s wallet had been found. Google Maps told her it would take just under an hour and a half to drive. Mullen had been generous.

  “Max, Gabe!” Jess shouted, hopping into her jeans. “Put your shoes on. We’re leaving in five!”

  Gabe stuck his head in her room. He was wearing a rumpled Minnesota Vikings T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants with holes in the knees. His hair was flattened to his head and sticking up on one side, too, but Jess decided to ignore it all. Gabe was six. He was allowed to look disheveled.

  “Time to go,” she said.

  “You’re still wet.”

  “Just my hair, bug. I’ll put it in a ponytail. Is Max up?”

  “He’s in the kitchen,” Gabe said, tilting his head to look at her sideways. “Are you happy, Mommy?”

  Jess rushed back to the bathroom and began to drag a brush through her hair. “That’s a funny question,” she called, but Gabe had followed her and was now standing in the bathroom doorway. “Why do you ask?”

  “You’re all . . . buzzy,” he finally said.

  “Do you mean excited?”

  Gabe shrugged, his soft shoulders hovering for a moment around his ears.

  “I’m going to meet a friend,” Jess improvised. “I guess I am a little buzzy.”

  “I like it when you’re happy,” Gabe said, and came to wrap his arms around her waist. He buried his face in her tummy and sighed. Jess let one hand fall to his crown. She ruffled his bed head and promised herself that she would try to be happier for him. Cheerful, at least. Didn’t he deserve that?

  Max was showered and waiting in the car when Jess finally shouldered her purse and stepped into the garage. Her coat was in her arms and she stuffed it in the backseat while she buckled in.

  “Why aren’t you wearing your coat?” Gabe asked. “It’s cold.”

  “I’m dropping you off at Grandpa and Anna’s,” Jess said, backing out of the garage. “I have a bit of a drive and I didn’t want to wear my coat the whole way.”

  “I thought
we were having lunch,” Max said. He was looking at his phone, but Jess had a small portion of his attention.

  “I have to run an errand.”

  “On Sunday?”

  Jess didn’t say anything. The less they knew, the better. “I’ll be back soon. You guys will have fun.”

  Henry and Anna had a shuffleboard table in the basement, a gleaming expanse of honey-colored wood that Gabe was completely enamored with. He loved to take the flat disks and whoosh them fast as lightning down the polished surface. It made Henry cringe a little (the shuffleboard had been a project that he and Anna worked on for the entire winter of their first year of marriage), but he didn’t stop Gabe or reprimand him at all. Jess knew that Gabe would stay busy with the board until Henry plied him with games or Anna decided to bake with him. And Max would divide his focus between whatever football game was being televised and his Snapchat account. They’d be fine while she was gone for a couple of hours.

  The only person she had to convince was her father.

  “Let me go with you,” he said when Jessica dropped off the boys. She pulled Henry into the entryway of his heritage home in downtown Auburn. There was a wraparound porch and a long sunroom that ran the entire length of the house. It was cold, but Jess didn’t want the boys to hear where she was going.

  “No,” she told her father firmly. “I’m doing this on my own. I won’t be gone long.”

  “Anna is perfectly capable of watching the boys for the afternoon.”

  “I know that, Dad.” Jess put both of her hands on her father’s arm and squeezed. “I love you, and I love your help, but I need to do this on my own.”

  Something in her look must have convinced him, because Henry pressed a hard breath between his lips and nodded once. “Fine. But call me if anything comes up. And I mean anything.”