Evidence of Life

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  She set down her purse, picked up a framed photo of Jake from the collection on the credenza, turned when she sensed someone had walked in behind her. It was Nina, but Abby should have expected as much.

  “He hates this picture.” Abby fought to keep her tone civil. “His skin was so broken out when he was in junior high.”

  “I know,” Nina said.

  Of course she did. Nina knew everything. She’d taken over Abby’s job as receptionist when Abby quit to marry Nick, and twenty-odd years later, the partners were still Nina’s only family. She called them her “boys” in the same smug way she’d said, “I know,” and the thing was, she did know nearly everything about all of them. Abby wanted to slap Nina; she wanted to wipe the smirk right off her carefully made-up face. But she wanted answers more; she’d come here to make someone talk to her, and the fact was that Nina’s “boys” told her everything. If anyone at Drexler, Davidson, Wilcox and Bennett knew where the bones were buried, it was Nina.

  She came around the desk and hugged Abby, then held her at arm’s length. “Jessica told me you were here.”

  “Of course she did,” Abby said.

  “How are you?” Nina’s dark eyes searched Abby’s face.

  “Better. On some days at least. It’s hard.”

  “I can imagine.”

  No, you can’t. Abby longed to say it.

  The phone in the outer office rang. Nina started through the door, but when it stopped, her attention returned to Abby. “No one’s touched anything in here—” Yet. Nina didn’t say it, but the implication was there all the same.

  Abby sat down in Nick’s chair, feeling with her own smaller backside the round contouring of Nick’s larger sitting depression. And independently of her will, her hands recalled the curve of his hip, the flesh there that was lightly haired and how it warmed beneath her touch. The memory started an ache low in her belly, a warm, hard swell of desire that she quickly closed off.

  Light glimmered over the desk’s polished surface. So much surface. No one had touched anything? Was that a joke? A lie? Abby fingered the blotter, lifting it, shifting the edge. Did Nina expect her to believe that? Did she not remember how many times in the past she and Abby had joked about Nick’s mess? They’d shared lunch and commiserated with each other—Abby, the home wife, and Nina, the office wife. Along with the other partners’ wives, Abby had been part of Nina’s extended “family.” But now Abby felt a very unfamily-like strangeness. She felt unwelcome. And it occurred to her that, without Nick, she wasn’t one of them anymore. She didn’t belong.

  “Everything is so tidy.” Abby looked at Nina. “You must assume Nick isn’t coming back. It makes me wonder what you know that I don’t.”

  Nina’s eyes widened. She put her hand to her neck. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  Abby followed her gesture, noting the strand of pearls that curved beneath the tailored collar of Nina’s cream charmeuse blouse, noting Nina’s nails, the immaculate French-style manicure. She was like Nick’s mother, Abby thought, always immaculate. Perfectly presented. Never a hair out of place, never a snagged nylon. Nina shared something else with Louise, too: a lack of faith; and it infuriated Abby. “You’ve written Nick off, haven’t you? You and Joe and Louise. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

  “Abby—?” Nina broke off, shaking her head as if in admonishment of herself. After all, Abby was distraught, grieving. Allowances had to be made, if Abby sounded crazy, if she babbled insanely. Nina tried again. “I went through the paperwork on Nick’s desk because the sheriff Joe spoke to asked if Nick might have left some record here of where he was going. Since you don’t seem to know.”

  Abby’s jaw tightened. How good and righteous Nina was, how superior. If Nina had children, she would never let them go anywhere without knowing their precise location; Nina would never take her eyes off her children. Hooray for Nina.

  She said, “I told Joe that if Nick made a reservation at a campground, it would be on his laptop. That’s where he kept everything.”

  “He took it with him.” Abby pulled out the top right-hand desk drawer expecting Nina to stop her, half expecting to find it empty. But there were the memo pads with Nick’s name embossed on them and underneath, a jumble of what looked like advertising brochures. A few business cards, a half-used book of checks with no cover, toothpicks cased in cellophane from various restaurants. An assortment of pens, paper clips, loose staples. A tiny scrap of paper from a fortune cookie read: Protective measures will prevent costly disasters. What did it mean, costly disasters? It seemed almost prescient in hindsight. Why would Nick have kept it?

  Nina looked on solemn-faced. Maybe when Joe left for court earlier he’d called her and warned her Abby was loose in the building, and Nina should keep an eye out. Maybe Nina had been told that should Abby enter Nick’s office she should be watched and prevented from removing anything that was of a confidential nature. Lawyers were a notoriously paranoid bunch.

  Abby closed the first drawer and opened the one below it.

  Nina said, “If I’d found a single thing that would help locate your family, hon, I surely would have told that sheriff. And you, too, of course.”

  Abby smiled sweetly. “Of course.” She closed the second drawer and opened a third, thinking: the hell with you. Thinking: I have as much right as any of you do to search my husband’s desk. She dipped her glance, saw what looked to be a short stack of legal journals and rifled it. A book of matches wedged between them and the side of the drawer caught her eye. The cover was dark green with silver lettering that read Riverbend Lodge.

  In Bandera. Abby recalled seeing it. Edging the highway on the outskirts of town. Pure roadside ambience, low-ceilinged cowboy decor, damp, moldy-smelling air pouring from the A/C unit. Café-type restaurant that featured grits and eggs for breakfast and chicken-fried steak anytime. She and Nick and the kids had spent one awful night there three summers ago. They’d been on their way to Kate’s when Lindsey had spiked a sudden fever so high, she had vomited in the backseat of the car, all over Jake. Nick had pulled in at the lodge; they’d gotten a room and he’d carried Lindsey inside. When she wasn’t better within a few hours, they’d driven to San Antonio, to an emergency room, where she’d been treated for a severe case of strep throat.

  Abby took the matches out of the drawer and closed it. She waited for Nina to ask what she had in her hand, but Nina didn’t. She approached the front of the desk and perched on one corner. The ease of her movement suggested habit, suggested Nick’s desk ought to be worn on that corner, Nina had perched there so many times.

  “Hon,” she said, and Abby winced, “I know you’ve been under a terrible strain, and we are all so sorry. Of all people, you didn’t deserve this. But don’t you think—?”

  Abby toyed with the matchbook, opening the cover, glancing at it. There was a name inside, Sondra, and a phone number, jotted in Nick’s handwriting. Her stomach dropped, setting off a small explosion of apprehension. She didn’t recognize the number. She didn’t know anyone named Sondra.

  Nina cleared her throat.

  Abby opened her purse, tucked the book of matches inside. “I’m sorry?” She looked at Nina. “You were suggesting something about what I should think?”

  “Well, I’m wondering whether you might be having a bit of trouble accepting what’s happened, if you aren’t holding on to false hope. Joe says you seem to think there might have been—I hesitate to use the term—foul play.”

  Joe had called Nina. Abby had been right to think it was possible. He’d probably dialed her number before the elevator door had closed. They were treating Abby as if she were an unreasonable child, a mental case. It made her want to scream, and she gritted her teeth. She made herself breathe.

  Nina seemed oblivious; she held Abby’s gaze. “Isn’t what happened awful enough? It’s tragic that so many pe
ople lost their lives, but the sad, horrible fact is they’re gone, and holding on to the hope that the outcome is something other than that, well, it seems so hurtful. For you, I mean. I’m not the only one who feels this way,” she added when Abby didn’t answer. “Louise does, too, and she’s Nick’s mother.”

  “If you’re going to bring up the idea of a memorial service, don’t.”

  “But we’d like you to help us plan it.”

  Abby shook her head in disgust. “You’re talking about a funeral. What are you going to bury?”

  “Not a funeral, hon, a ceremony to honor Nick and Lindsey.” Nina spread her hands. “People have asked. Nick’s clients, his colleagues.”

  Sondra, Abby thought. Was she a client?

  “Louise needs closure. We all do.”

  “Closure to what? My husband and my daughter are missing. Mis-sing.” Abby repeated the word, placing heavy emphasis on each syllable.

  “So if that’s what you believe, maybe you should check with his father, given the history.”

  Abby chose to let that pass. She picked up her purse. “It was nice seeing you, Nina.”

  “I hope you aren’t angry with me. I only want to help,” Nina said.

  Abby walked past her.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Nina called after her.

  * * *

  In the parking garage, Abby sat behind the steering wheel of Nick’s BMW, fished the book of matches she’d filched from his desk out of her purse and opened the cover. It was definitely Nick’s handwriting. The 713 area code was local, one Abby associated with downtown, mostly, everything that lay inside the 610 loop. It was probably the number of a business or another law firm where someone named Sondra was employed.

  But suppose it wasn’t? Suppose it was something else? Something more personal? A new suspicion lifted from the floor of Abby’s mind, unbidden, disquieting, and it confused her. Since when had Nick ever given her a reason to doubt him, his loyalty, his love? She found her cell phone and dialed the number, and in the moment the connection was made, she caught her breath in anticipation of hearing a female voice. Instead, what she heard was the insistent beep of a fax machine.

  She pulled her cell phone away from her ear and studied the screen as if it might explain, then set it against her ear again, listening a moment longer to the shrill, rhythmic pulsing.

  So it was nothing, she thought, and she was somehow disappointed. But what had she expected? That someone named Sondra had been waiting all these weeks for her call, waiting to answer all of her questions, waiting to lead her to the very spot where Nick and Lindsey could be found warm and safe and alive? A sound broke loose from Abby’s chest; she pressed her fingertips to her eyes. Nina was wrong, she thought. It wasn’t false hope that hurt her; it was not knowing.

  Chapter 9

  “I think you have to let Louise and Nina go ahead with the service.” Abby’s mother shook that morning’s coffee grounds around the hydrangeas.

  “A lot of this thyme has died, Mama.” Abby rested on her knees nearby. “We could go to the nursery, see if we can find more. I don’t know though, at this time of year—”

  “Abby, did you hear me? It’s been five months.” Her mother came to stand beside Abby in the grass.

  She looked at her mother’s feet. “You shouldn’t be out here in your slippers, Mama. You could fall.”

  “Abigail, if it were you who had disappeared—” Abby’s mother’s voice trembled a little “—wouldn’t you want Nick and the children to do what was necessary to bring themselves to terms, to find peace? It’s what Jake needs, honey. And as much as you resist the whole notion of a service, it’s what’s done. It’s the appropriate thing. It sends a kind of signal, can you see?”

  “But we’re not religious. Where would it be?”

  “Nick was raised Baptist, wasn’t he?”

  “But he hated it, having to go every Sunday. Louise wanted us to be married in that huge Baptist church she belongs to in Dallas. Nick refused, remember?”

  “But this isn’t for Nick, is it? I mean in terms of whom it will serve. It’s for everyone who wants to show how much and how well your family was—is—loved. It would be a kindness to Louise, especially, I think, to let her have her way in this.”

  “What does Jake want?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Abby got to her feet, brushing the knees of her jeans. Jake hadn’t come home once all summer, and now classes had resumed. He and Abby seldom talked. He was wary of her now. Like everyone else, he wished she would get on with her life. Stop asking questions, stop jumping for the phone when it rang, stop deluding herself. Go home. Be normal.

  “We argued the last time he called,” Abby said.

  “About?”

  Money, Abby thought, but it would only worry her mother to hear it. She would ask how Abby was managing, which would then force Abby to admit that rather than go back to work, she’d been raiding her and Nick’s joint savings account to cover her bills. Her mother would then say how unwise it was and ask what Abby intended to do when the savings was gone. Abby didn’t know, and, probably even worse, she didn’t care. And she didn’t need anyone to tell her how dumb that was either.

  “Abby?”

  “It was nothing, Mama. He needed tires for his car. I took care of it.”

  “I know your head is full of questions, sweet. I wonder too, what happened, but given how long it’s been, I mean without any sign....”

  “I know, Mama.” How illogical it is to go on hoping.

  “I think they’ll have the service whether you agree to it or not.”

  Abby looked into thin air. “Nick wants to be cremated.” She couldn’t let herself think what Lindsey might have wanted. “There’s nothing to cremate.”

  “I know, sweet.”

  “I don’t believe they’re gone, Mama. I just can’t.”

  Her mother took Abby’s hand. “I know,” she repeated.

  * * *

  Abby sat in front of the church between Jake and her mother. Louise sat on Jake’s other side, one jeweled hand clutching his knee, the other pressing a lace-trimmed handkerchief to her nose. She was every inch the proper grieving mother and grandmother. Abby admired her for it. Louise would be rewarded as a result with the elusive closure everyone talked about. Now you can move on, they kept saying. As if Nick and Lindsey were a town or a vegetable stand, a booth at the county fair. Abby was sick of that advice: move on.

  A number of people, Joe among them, eulogized. Abby didn’t listen. Any moment Nick and Lindsey would come through the door. She felt the possibility run through her blood, cool and light, like quicksilver. She heard the collective gasp from the mourners who were gathered, heard herself say she had never lost faith. She felt the prick of tears, and, reaching into her purse for a tissue, she encountered the book of matches from Nick’s desk, the one with Sondra written inside it, in Nick’s hand. Sondra with an “o” rather than the more familiar “a.” Or had Nick gotten it wrong?

  Was she here? The possibility skittered through Abby’s mind. Suddenly she was convinced that if she were to turn, she would find the woman staring at her.

  Abby jumped when her mother touched her arm. “It’s over, sweet.”

  “Thank God,” Abby said.

  But it wasn’t over. On Abby’s way out of the church, people approached her. They pressed her hands, murmured their condolences. Several of the women bent their perfumed cheeks to Abby’s, and the combined scents were overwhelming and made it hard to breathe. Some were weeping, and they were taken aback, even disapproving to find Abby dry-eyed. It unsettled them, but that was just too bad, she thought. They were wrong to do this, to condemn her family to an eternal rest without proof, without evidence.

  She asked to be taken home, b
ut Louise and Nina insisted that Abby, together with her mother and Jake, attend a luncheon at the Metropolitan Lawyers Club in downtown Houston. Abby took one look around the private dining room and thought how Nick would hate it, the tables padded in layers of embossed white linen, the redundancy of silver and china and heavy-bottomed crystal. It would remind him of his childhood, his mother’s daily insistence on formal dining.

  Abby picked at the main course, a serving of Chicken Cordon Bleu. Beside her, her mother patted her hand. “I’m going to the ladies. Do you—?”

  Abby shook her head. “Can we go home when you come back? Have we stayed long enough?”

  “I think so. You can blame me,” her mother said. “You can say I’m tired.”

  Louise took the seat Abby’s mother vacated as if she had been waiting for the opportunity. “I’ve opened the beach house,” she said.

  “When?”

  “Last week. I couldn’t stand being in Dallas another second. You and Jake should come. A family should be together in a time like this.”

  “Maybe later this fall,” Abby said, although she doubted it. “Have you ever heard Nick mention anyone named Sondra?” she asked.