She had stood at the sink last night, the evening breeze carrying the scent of star jasmine, and dried the plate that Leila had made for her at day care. Leila’s tiny handprint was surrounded by colorful scribbles; one of the staff had lettered her name and “I Love Grandma” around the rim.
This, Shay had thought, setting the plate down carefully on the counter, this is precious. This is what I have.
Now she waited for her daughter to call back so she could tell her about Taylor’s body. Another difficult task, and Shay would get through it, but she would not feel sorry. Not about Paul, not about Colleen. Let Colleen sit in that echoing mansion, with no one for company but her husk of a husband and a son who had finally found a way to leave her.
COLLEEN WAS ALREADY looking up flights before it occurred to her to tell Andy. His response: “Have you told Paul yet?”
He said he’d finish with the airlines and line up a car for her. A hotel would have been a challenge, but in the last months, more housing had been completed and more man camps erected—and besides, over his last few visits to investigate Hunter-Cole, Andy had forged a relationship with the manager of the Hyatt with generous amounts of cash.
Colleen went up the stairs slowly, her hand on the polished railing. The television was off. Music was playing. She cleared her throat, self-conscious. The “media room” was an oversize landing at the top of the stairs, big enough for a sectional sofa, a few tables, an entertainment wall with a television in the middle of it. When they bought the house, Colleen envisioned Paul and his friends as teenagers, drinking sodas and joking around, playing foosball and video games. Needless to say, that had never happened.
Paul was hunched over his laptop. Elizabeth was stretched out on the chaise, one hand resting on her stomach, her feet in the fuzzy slipper socks that Colleen had given her. Seeing that she was wearing the socks buoyed Colleen a little, despite everything.
“Paul.”
They both startled, Paul twisting around and Elizabeth scrambling to sit up, as though they’d been caught doing something wrong. Paul’s expression quickly turned to annoyance, which he did his best to cover up. “Sorry. Didn’t hear you.”
“Listen, honey.” She took a breath. “They’ve found Taylor’s body. Shay will be able to take him home now.”
For a second, his face was completely bereft of expression. He blinked, then put his hand on the edge of the coffee table, as if for support. “When? How?”
“I don’t know any details. I’m assuming it’s the thaw, like they predicted . . . he probably just washed up somewhere.”
“You haven’t talked to her?” His voice sharper now.
“No, honey, I . . . she just texted me. Dad’s trying to get me a flight now.”
“I’m going.” He went back to his laptop and began typing furiously.
“Paul, that’s not a good idea.” The tightening of the chest, the girding for an argument. When he’d been younger, she had learned to physically steel herself—for the tantrum of a five-year-old, the stomping of a nine-year-old, the slamming doors of a thirteen-year-old. Now he just typed faster.
“You’ve been doing so well,” Colleen tried. “You’ve got As in your classes. There’s a test Friday, right? You can’t risk jeopardizing those grades, or you might not get your core classes in the fall.”
“I’m fine,” he said tightly. “It’s under control.”
It was true that Paul seemed to have gotten through the worst of it. His torso had healed, a shiny knotted scar the only evidence of the infection that kept him in the hospital for three days, and he’d been to the half dozen therapy sessions Andy and Colleen had asked him to attend. Their own counselor had suggested they take his lead and not bring up anything from the past unless he initiated the conversation. Give him time to process and heal, while dealing with the new realities of his life, was the idea.
Who knew what this could bring up for him, how far back it would set him?
Colleen was trying to find another objection, when she glanced at Elizabeth. The girl’s expression stopped her. She was staring at Paul with her eyes narrowed and a calculating frown on her face. “Honey,” she said softly, putting her hand on his arm. “Please. Don’t go. I need you here.”
His fingers went still on the keys. He took a breath and let it out slowly. Then he stopped typing and took Elizabeth’s hand between his.
He wouldn’t be going. That much was clear.
But Colleen had lost anyway. Paul no longer belonged to her.
IT WAS FOUR o’clock in the morning when they pulled out of the driveway, Andy at the wheel. Neither of them spoke on the way to the airport.
Colleen had seen Vicki exactly once since returning home, in the cleaning products aisle at Target, and Vicki had turned on her heel and walked away, pretending not to see her. Colleen wasn’t sure if she and Andy were still doing whatever they had been doing. She wasn’t sure what they had been doing, for that matter. Her name no longer came up in conversation, and Andy had been waging his war on Hunter-Cole alone.
When he leaned across the seat in the departure lane at the airport, his kiss barely brushed her cheek. “Text when you land,” he said. She got out of the car without answering.
The plane touched down in Lawton at one thirty in the afternoon. Unlike last time, Colleen had fallen asleep and had missed the descent with its bird’s-eye view of the rolling hills, the rigs.
Andy had navigated the terse conversations with Lisa Weyant, and Colleen was grateful for that. She’d rather spend the night on the bench in the gas station parking lot than in their guest room, but Andy said all the right things. It was so good of the Weyants to offer, but perhaps it would be best if Colleen were to stay at the hotel where she could be near Shay. There were no more objections after that, no exhortations to come for a home-cooked meal.
They were a long way from a cozy relationship with their future daughter-in-law’s family, but now wasn’t the time to work on that. Especially given the nature of the trip. In the calculus of blame, it was their daughter who had knocked over the first domino.
Colleen had no idea if Shay blamed the Weyants. Shay had ignored her calls and letters. Not that there had been many. For every time Colleen actually wrote an email, put pen to paper, dialed Shay’s number, there were a dozen times that she couldn’t face the challenge, that she didn’t feel strong enough.
She filed off the plane along with the men in their work boots and faded T-shirts. Waited in line for her suitcase. Walked to the rental car counter with only her dread for company.
thirty-seven
THE CONNECTING FLIGHT was delayed, and Shay spent the time in the air trying to distract herself. Robert and Brittany, at a joyless dinner to celebrate her birthday three weeks earlier, had given her the newest iPad, smaller and lighter and faster than the one they’d given her two years ago. Robert downloaded a few games and showed her how to play them, and Shay popped bubbles on a spinning disk by tapping with her finger and wordlessly willed the women sitting on either side of her to keep their eyes on their Redbooks and leave her alone.
When they landed, she had half a dozen texts. One was from Brittany: I love you mom call me when you get there
The rest were from Colleen:
1:52 I arrived. Will check in and meet yr flight
3:11 Saw yr flight delayed will check on app
4:44 Coroners office says they will stay open late for you
5:01 Says you’re on the ground I am here. Have car
Shay shoved the phone back into her handbag, harder than necessary. She had told Andy everything she knew, that Chief Weyant would have someone meet her at the morgue, that there were papers she would need to sign before Taylor could be released. That since Taylor’s death had been ruled an accident, and the coroner had stated the cause of death was drowning, she was free to take him home for burial.
She hadn’t been prepared when Andy told her that Colleen was planning to come out. Andy’s voice on the phone was
reassuring, smooth, probably good for the lawyer business. When he explained that he had already contacted a mortuary firm and arranged transport to one in California, she knew that he meant that all the expenses had been covered, and she couldn’t find the words to tell him not to let Colleen come.
While she was talking to Andy, she felt that there was a certain dignity to the proceedings. But the minute Colleen got involved, it stirred up the bitter resentment she’d been nursing since that night at the hospital. Shay knew it was irrational. Or maybe displaced was the right word. But still, why did Colleen have to barge into everything like she was in charge? Even if she was trying to be helpful, even if she and Andy were the ones paying for it—that wasn’t her child lying on some cold steel table.
Shay spotted her suitcase on the luggage truck. She pushed her way through the crowd of passengers and yanked it off herself. No one stopped her. She had to watch herself, had to keep her temper under control. She knew the source of her simmering rage, but knowing didn’t make it go away.
She stared at the cinder-block airport terminal. Inside that building was Colleen. Shay wasn’t ready. She stood, hidden in the shadow of the plane, and called Brittany, but she didn’t pick up.
Slowly, Shay put the phone away and walked toward the terminal, dragging the old suitcase behind her. The terminal was busy; another flight would soon be leaving, and the men were lined up, impatient to get home. They carried paper cups and duffel bags and stared at their phones and iPads. They paid her no attention as she walked past.
It took a moment for Shay to recognize Colleen. The last time she’d seen her, in the halls of the police station, she’d had her hair pulled back in an indifferent half ponytail. Her clothes had been slept in. Her lips were colorless and chapped, her eyes sunken, her jowls trembling.
The intervening months had brought Colleen back to life. Her hair was colored a rich chestnut with lighter highlights and cut shorter. She had on makeup: eyeliner and lipstick and foundation that evened out her skin tone. She was wearing a coral pink short-sleeved sweater with a scooped neckline that showed off her long, elegant neck, ivory capri pants, and the same unlaced canvas sneakers that Brittany wore, the ones with the little rectangular patch that Shay had teased her daughter about: fifty dollars for a label? Her bag looked a lot like the one she’d lugged around during the week they’d spent together, except a lighter shade of brown. She looked, Shay thought unkindly, like a magazine ad for a feminine product: competent, happy, even a trifle smug.
Well, to be fair, Colleen didn’t look all that happy right now. Her brow was creased, and she searched the arriving passengers anxiously, twisting her hands on her purse strap. When Colleen saw her, a wealth of emotions passed over her expression before she smoothed it into a bland greeting: dread, guilt . . . and longing.
She rushed toward Shay with her arms outstretched. Shay wasn’t sure if Colleen was going to grab her hand or hug her or what. In all of that terrible week that they had spent together, they had never hugged. They had touched only when it was made necessary by their close proximity. Even the terrible night, when Shay was being led to the police car, Colleen had stood apart, consumed by her relief at having Paul, and maybe that was forgivable, but Shay had ridden in that car alone. Shay had been alone when the policeman asked her if she was having thoughts of hurting herself or others.
Colleen settled for an in-between gesture: she reached for both of Shay’s hands, then stood there clutching them. Her hands were cold. “Shay, I don’t even know how to begin to tell you . . .” she said, and then stopped. Shyly, almost, she stepped forward, closing the distance between them, but at the last minute Shay pulled her hands away and twisted out of Colleen’s grip. She seized the handle of her suitcase and dragged it between them. A barrier—an emergency one.
“You didn’t have to come,” she mumbled. She knew how she sounded and she knew she couldn’t stop. Not yet. “Tell Andy thanks for the flights, the hotel—everything. We’d better go, right?”
She made a show of looking at her wrist, though she hadn’t worn a watch in years.
“Yes,” Colleen said softly. “Of course. We don’t want to keep them waiting.”
After that Colleen didn’t try so hard. She led Shay out to the parking lot to a dirty white car. It had a crack in the windshield and smelled of cigarettes. Grime was crusted in the console. “This is a rental?” Shay said, not bothering to hide her disgust. “Hope you didn’t pay much for it.”
She stole glances at Colleen as they drove toward downtown. Her face was pinched and tense. Good—that felt like a small victory. If Colleen was a smoker, she’d be wanting one now. As for herself, Shay had stayed off them completely since going back to California. She thought it would be hard to quit, but it wasn’t. The idea of smoking held no more appeal than eating cardboard. She wasn’t drinking much, either, and Brittany had to remind her to eat when she stopped by. Shay’s only coping indulgence was Mack: seeing him whenever he could get away, taking him to bed without preamble, fucking him as hard as she could and crying after, his sweet bewildered face hovering over her in concern. But even that had died down. She hadn’t bothered to let Mack know about Taylor.
“Here?” Shay snorted. They were back at the police station. Behind the brick-and-glass box was a building Shay had taken for the utility plant: pale cinder block with a ramp leading up to the entrance.
Colleen parked and waited for Shay to get out of the car before she did. They walked together toward the entrance, Shay keeping some distance between them. A dozen yards from the ramp, she stopped.
“I don’t think I want you there,” she said, but then it hit her, and she suddenly had trouble breathing. Inside this building were the poor tattered remains that were all that was left of her beloved, her best loved. She would gather him in her arms if she could, she wouldn’t mind the condition of the body, she had already endured the worst. Except, what then?
Tomorrow she would fly home, and in the plane would be a sealed casket packed in a plain brown box provided by the airline. It had been explained to her by the man from the mortuary Andy had made arrangements with. He had been patient, repeating himself several times until Robert gently took the phone from Shay and wrote everything down neatly on a sheet torn from the grocery list pad on the fridge. So yes. She knew the logistics.
But that wasn’t what made the terrible hole inside her. What, then? After he was transferred to the casket Brittany and Robert were picking out today, after the service, after he was lowered into the plot next to her mother—it had been purchased long ago by her father, but he ended up being buried with his second wife—after the stone was laid and the flowers placed there and everyone had gone home and Shay finally took off the black dress and Brittany and Robert took Leila home—what then?
“Oh, God,” she said, stumbling against Colleen. And Colleen caught her.
INSIDE WAS AN officer Shay vaguely recognized. “I made sure they waited,” he said. “I talked to your son-in-law. The papers are all ready. You only have to go as far as this front office. Tomorrow everything’s going to be taken care of for you, you can get back on the plane and then on the other end the other company is going to handle it from there.”
It took only about ten minutes. The staff, one woman and one man, didn’t meet her eyes as they guided her through where to sign. The officer stood beside her. Colleen stood against the wall, clutching her purse like her life depended on it, a strange little grimace on her face. When Shay pushed back her chair, finished at last, she realized that Colleen was trying not to cry.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly on the way back to the car. She let Colleen open the passenger door for her.
“You must be tired,” Colleen said falteringly. “Coming all that way.”
Shay shrugged.
“I was thinking . . . would you like to have dinner? We could go somewhere quiet, where we could talk.”
“Like Swann’s?” Shay barked out a harsh laugh. “That would be gre
at. We’ll invite Kristine to sit down with us after her shift.”
“No, no, that isn’t—” Shay could see how uncomfortable she was making Colleen, but it was too hard to care. “I just thought, somewhere that we could take our time. I mean it wouldn’t even have to be, we could stay in the room, get room service.”
“Which room, mine or yours? Since you guys got two. What did that cost, anyway? What’s my tab up to?” She had heard that the cost of transporting a body could run as high as five thousand dollars, a figure that made her mouth go dry. Robert was trying to deal with the insurance company, to see what might be covered, and Shay had backed completely away from the details.
Maybe that was what was making her feel guilty: between Andy and Robert, the two of them were handling everything. Shay was used to taking care of herself. She’d been on her own since she was eighteen. Sometimes she screwed up, but she was usually as proud of surviving the mistakes as she was of her successes.
She turned away from Colleen, suddenly stiff. She had pushed too far. She was—at least the fragile part of her that still experienced normal feelings, that still participated in the world around her even while the rest of her drowned in grief—sorry for what she was doing.
And grateful. Yes. She could still do gratitude, though it was a rusty tool, degraded from lack of use.
She watched the town go by outside her window. There . . . the gas station where she’d left Colleen on the curb. In the concrete planters were marigolds and petunias. An old man in a greasy white apron tied over his jeans stood outside, washing the windows with Windex and crumpled newspaper. Shay knew that trick—best way to clean glass with no smears. There, on the left, was the lumberyard. The shack in the middle had been demolished, and in its place was a sign announcing COMING SOON LUXURY 1- AND 2-BEDROOM APARTMENTS ALL THE AMENITIES LEASING THIS FALL. It was hard to believe that an apartment complex would go up in the next six months—around Fairhaven, there were half-finished projects that had been abandoned after the housing crash, weeds growing up between the lots.
The Missing Place Page 30
