Evidence of Life

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Chapter 11

  Before she left, Abby called Charlie and was relieved when he agreed to take Miss Havisham and Delilah off her hands for the nominal sum she named. She’d have given the horses to him, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  He offered to keep an eye on her place, and Abby thanked him again and paused, long enough that Charlie was prompted to ask if there was something wrong.

  “Just—you haven’t seen anyone over here, have you? Any strangers, I mean.”

  “No one except Jake, and I don’t think he goes inside. He just looks in on the horses now and then. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason. I’m sure it’s nothing.” Because it was nothing, she told herself. A bedroom window cracked open, a couple of lights left on. Charlie might not say it was probable that she’d left these things untended herself, but he would think it, and he’d be right. She thanked him a third time for his trouble, for all that he’d already done, and she was grateful when he didn’t question her further. She didn’t want to tell him she was going back to the Hill Country. He might have asked what her plan was, what did she hope to find this time that would be any different than the last time she was there, and she wouldn’t have known what to say. She had no real plan. The only thing she knew for sure was that the answers she was looking for weren’t here.

  * * *

  At the western edge of Houston, when the city’s skyline wasn’t more than a gilded smudge in the BMW’s rearview mirror, it occurred to her that she could go anywhere: California. Hawaii. Farther, she thought: Japan. Kuala Lumpur. Who could stop her? Who was left to wonder where she was? She was like a kite, floating untethered.

  It was dark when she saw the sign for Griff’s Café outside Sealy, and her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since the toast her mother had made for breakfast, and she’d thrown most of that out to the squirrels. She could stop at the restaurant and make herself eat a decent meal or go on, find a gas station and a candy bar. As unwilling as she was, as nervous as it made her, she took the exit.

  The bell over the restaurant door jingled loudly when it shut behind Abby, and she paused. There wasn’t much of a crowd. Two rough-faced men sitting over mugs of coffee at the counter turned idle stares toward her, and she made herself smile as if she had spent her entire life walking alone into places like this at night.

  She slid into a booth along the wall and made a lengthy production of setting her purse down beside her, stowing her keys. A husband and his wife and three misbehaving children were stuffed into a booth near the door. There wasn’t a waitress in sight, but a man’s voice and woman’s big-booming laugh drifted through the order pickup window behind the counter. Smoke mixed with steam wafted through the opening, too, along with the smell of old grease. Abby wrinkled her nose. Whatever appetite she’d had deserted her.

  “Eat your spaghetti,” the mother near the door told her children, “all of you, finish up or no dessert.”

  “Oh, man,” the older boy said.

  “It tastes like trash,” the other one said.

  Abby closed her eyes. She’d delivered the same lecture, how many times? Hadn’t she? Her memories of her children, her family, were they real?

  A noise at her elbow made her jump.

  The waitress grimaced. “Sorry,” she said, and her brow furrowed. “You okay, hon?”

  Abby touched her fingertips to her face, blinking back tears. The waitress set a glass of water on the table and produced a paper napkin that Abby used to blow her nose. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” she said into the napkin. Her cheeks felt warm. She had so little control, it was a risk being out in public.

  “Man trouble, I bet.”

  Abby smiled.

  The waitress—Peg, according to the tag pinned to the white-cuffed pocket of her pink uniform—rolled her eyes. She could deliver a sermon on the subject. She was older, in her sixties at least, but she still had a rollicking gleam in her eyes. Her longish red hair was faded and streaked with gray at the temples, and she wore it tied up in an outrageous pink chiffon bow. Rhinestones dangled from her ears. A profusion of rainbow-colored plastic bracelets cuffed one wrist.

  Nick would have said Peg wasn’t ready to hang it up yet. He’d have teased her and charmed her until she laughed her big, sassy laugh. He’d have left her a huge tip, and if Abby had made a comment, he’d have said something about how hard Peg worked, that tip money was the only real money women like her could ever earn. He was generous that way.

  “I knew it,” Peg said, “the second I laid eyes on you. I told Griff, he’s my cook, I told him there’s a woman with heartache on her mind.” Peg leaned down and wiped a spot on Abby’s table with the corner of her apron. “I said she’s either going to him or runnin’ from him. Guaranteed.” Peg’s glance narrowed. “Am I right?”

  “Honestly, anyone who knows me wouldn’t believe I’m here.”

  “They don’t approve.”

  “They wouldn’t. No.” Abby realized Peg still believed they were talking about a man.

  She ordered a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and a cup of coffee, leaded, she said when Peg asked. While she waited, she didn’t know what to do with her hands. She thought how she’d never liked seeing people eat alone. They made her sad.

  When Peg brought her sandwich, Abby could only eat half.

  “Box that up for you?” Peg asked.

  “No, thanks,” Abby said.

  “Well, how about dessert? The chocolate pie is real good. Griff doesn’t make the pies. My sis does.” She grinned widely. “Hon, there’s nothin’ like a dose of chocolate to rev up your spirits, keep you awake on the road.” She scooped Abby’s plate and utensils onto the tray she balanced on her hip. “You going far?”

  Abby glanced at her. The Canary Islands, Madagascar, Hong Kong, Belize, the names lined up in her mind. “The Hill Country,” she said. “Bandera,” she added.

  “Figures,” Peg said.

  Abby raised her brows.

  “Your man’s a hunter? Right? Gone off to the deer lease and you’ve had it up to here.” Peg passed the flat of her palm through the air above her head.

  Before she could think about what she was doing, Abby reached inside her purse, pulled out a snapshot and handed it to Peg. “Have you ever seen them?” she asked.

  Peg studied the photograph. “Gorgeous family,” she said. “Yours?”

  Abby nodded. “My husband and my daughter drove this way last April. They might have stopped here.”

  “They were going to Bandera?”

  “They were headed in that direction the weekend it flooded. They’ve never been found.” Abby slipped the picture back into her purse. “The police think there was an accident, that they drowned.”

  “Oh, hon, oh, how awful. I’m so sorry. My aunt and uncle have a place out thataway. They lost near everything, but they’re alive, thank you, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Peg shifted the tray against her hip, and the cutlery clanked as if in frustration. She gestured. “I thought I saw two kids in the picture.”

  “My oldest, Jake, is in college, at A&M. He had to study that weekend.”

  “Well, thank God, huh? Most of ’em jump at the chance to cut school.”

  Abby smiled and asked for her check.

  Peg thumbed through her pad. “So are you goin’ to visit friends in Bandera?”

  Abby said, “Not exactly,” and was instantly regretful that she’d left herself open to more questions.

  But Peg only said, “Shoot, I can’t find your check. Must of left it in the kitchen. Back in a sec.”

  While she waited, Abby used her napkin to mop up the widening puddle of water under her tea glass. What would she do if Peg asked more questions? Would she pull out the matchbook, rattle on about the surveillance tape, say she’d caught her s
on in a web of lies about a cheating scheme and felt sicker than ever with the suspicion that he was keeping something worse from her? Would she tell Peg about the flood’s survivors? The ones like Patsy Doggett? Her husband Lloyd had given her up for dead. But Patsy wasn’t dead. She had somehow managed to get out of her truck and swim or somehow make her way to her sister’s. Patsy Doggett was alive today, against all the odds. A woman in her eighties...

  Abby looked up as Peg emerged from the kitchen and headed toward her, grim-faced and intent, and she wished she’d dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table and left when she’d had the chance.

  “Listen here,” Peg began. “I’m not one to get involved in other folks’ business, but I got one of my feelin’s about you and I’m kinda worried.”

  “Oh, no, please don’t—”

  “You’re thinking of hunting for your family yourself, aren’t you? But hon, what if you was to find ’em—dead and all?” She added this last baldly, even defiantly, as if to awaken Abby to the cold reality of the possibility—the probability—that faced her. “What then?” Peg demanded.

  Abby pulled her wallet from her purse. “I should get going.”

  Peg touched her hand. “I’ll be praying for you.”

  “Thank you,” Abby said.

  “Don’t you worry none about the bill.” She wadded Abby’s check in her hand. “Dinner’s on the house.”

  “Oh, no,” Abby said. “I couldn’t.”

  “Sure you can.” Peg turned away, then turned back. “You know, I can call my aunt, tell ’em to keep an eye out. What kind of car was it?”

  “Jeep. Jeep Cherokee.” Abby shouldered her purse.

  “I’m gonna write that down. You know the license? You have a cell number?” Peg set her tray on the table, and Abby followed her to the cash register. It felt wrong giving her phone number to a woman she’d only just met, but what if Peg’s aunt did know something? Or what if Peg mentioned Abby’s family to someone—other diners, travelers—who knew something? There were stranger coincidences.

  When Abby thanked Peg for her kindness, she came around the counter and hugged Abby as if she couldn’t help it. Then Abby went outside and sat behind the wheel of Nick’s BMW, blowing into the cold cup of her hands, thinking Peg could have just let her go with her prayer. But she hadn’t. She had taken Abby’s information as if she felt finding Abby’s family was possible.

  It was a sign.

  It had to be.

  * * *

  Somewhere west of San Antonio, Abby’s cell phone rang. It was her mother.

  “Where are you?” she said as Abby pulled over. “You said you were going home.”

  “Oh, Mama, I’m sorry.” Abby sensed her mother poised to drive to the rescue again. “I just went through San Antonio.”

  “San Antonio? Abby, what are you doing?”

  “Going to Bandera, then I—” She paused. “People are going to forget, Mama, and I can’t let that happen. One way or another, I have to bring Nick and Lindsey home.”

  “I understand, honey, I do, but I worry about you out there alone, driving around in the dark.”

  Abby didn’t say anything.

  “I’m not sure what you can do by yourself.”

  Abby wasn’t sure either. She could have said she would be closer to them there, that somehow it felt imperative to go there.

  “Abby?”

  “Mama, the law firm wants to buy out Nick’s partnership. They’re going to ask the court to appoint an administrator.”

  “What?”

  “Joe called me and said they have to move on, that he’s sorry.” Abby pushed strands of hair behind her ear. “He said he’d see to it that Jake’s college fund was secure.”

  “When did he call? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “First, they had that awful memorial; now they want to just let Nick go. They want me to say he’s dead, Mama. He gave them over twenty years, and they can’t give him seven months?” Abby rolled down the window. The sudden inrush of chilly air took away her breath, the threat of tears.

  “It’s business, honey,” her mother said. “The firm has to deal with practicalities.”

  “I’m not being practical, am I?”

  “I suppose my concern is that you’re delaying—never mind.” She interrupted herself. “You have to find your own way through this, I know.”

  “I don’t know how you’ve done it, living all these years alone. You’re so much stronger than me, Mama.”

  “Don’t forget you’re my daughter,” Abby’s mother said. “And don’t forget, I’m right here.”

  Abby said she knew, that she was grateful.

  “Jake is here, honey,” her mama said, after a pause. “I’ll put him on.”

  No, Abby thought. She knew he’d be upset with her, but she was surprised to hear Jake sounding almost cheerful.

  He’d come to his gramma’s to study, he said, and to tell her and Abby that he wasn’t going to be expelled for cheating. Instead he’d been put on probation. “They cut me some slack because of the situation,” he said. “It’s not that I like trading on that,” he was quick to add, “but if it saves the semester—” He paused, waiting for a reaction, but Abby didn’t have one ready. “Look, I know what I did was crap—”

  “You can’t let what’s happened to us ruin your future, Jake.”

  “I’m not a little kid. I know what I’m doing. I know what I have to do.”

  Abby didn’t answer. She traced a pattern on the steering wheel.

  “Mom?” Jake finally said. “What are you doing?”

  That question again. It was like the flavor of the month.

  “I’m going to Bandera,” Abby said.

  “But you told Gramma you were going home. Now you’re going to the Hill Country. I don’t get it.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Mom? Are you there?” Jake’s voice cracked.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Are you still going?”

  “I have to, Jake.”

  He said nothing for a moment, then, “You know how you always tell me not to ask the question if I don’t want the answer?”

  “Yes?” Silence. Her pulse resonant in her ears. “Jake?”

  “Come home, Mom, that’s all. You should just come home.”

  * * *

  Near Seguin, Abby stopped for gas. No one else was around, and slowly she became aware of the lateness of the hour and her surroundings, that she was alone in the middle of nowhere. A chilly breeze grazed her neck; she pushed her hands deeper into her sweater pockets. She wondered if Nick might have stopped here last spring. She wondered what he would say if he were to walk out of the woods that pressed in on her from all sides and find her pumping her own gas alone in the middle of the night.

  He wouldn’t believe it, she thought. Of everyone, he would be the most surprised.

  The gas pump clicked off. She holstered the nozzle and thought about the possibility of turning around, of going home, and she knew that she couldn’t. She had to find out the truth.

  Chapter 12

  The lobby of the Riverbend Lodge was empty, but the office door was open and a light was on. Abby peeped inside and saw an old man slumped in a chair asleep in front of a flickering television screen with the sound turned low. She was reluctant to wake him and tried first by clearing her throat. No response. She tapped the desk bell, cringing at the tinny sound, but almost at once that brought a loud snort. Pretty soon the man came shuffling through the door, scouring his face, blinking at her.

  Abby apologized and said she hadn’t planned to stop here, that she was on her way to a friend’s house and had gotten tired. All of which was untrue. This was most certainly her intended destination. Why else had she carried a book of
matches from this place around with her since last August? She asked about a room. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying. Will that be a problem?”

  The old man looked curiously at her, obviously trying to make sense of the discrepancies in her story. “No,” he said after a moment. “I guess not.” In between taking down Abby’s information and swiping her debit card, he said he was sorry Abby had caught him napping. “I’m covering for my son. He owns the motel, him and his wife do, but she’s in the hospital. Emergency surgery.” He patted his midsection. “Female trouble. Come on her real sudden-like this afternoon.”

  Abby took the key he handed her and said she hoped everything would be okay. Do you know anyone named Sondra? She might have been a guest. She might have been with someone named Nick. The questions hovered in Abby’s mind. The answers to them were all she wanted to know. The old man waited, fingers balanced on the desk. Abby noticed their tremor; she noticed his frailty, that his skin was chalky, his face lined with worry and fatigue.

  They talked about the flood, and he told Abby the motel had had a foot of water. “It was a mess,” he said, “but I’m not complaining. Some folks lost everything. Next to that, it’d be a sin for me to whine about a little water.”

  They said good-night, and she went around back to the room he’d given her and sat on the bed with her navy canvas tote beside her—the tote she’d packed that morning at her mother’s, her going-home bag. The edge of the mattress was brick hard under her and sank toward the middle like a half-done cake. It smelled sanitized, she thought, wrinkling her nose; it reminded her of the color green. Latrine green, with shades of mold and air-conditioned-damp underneath.

  The room’s furnishings and décor were styled to resemble someone’s idea of the Old West, very 1950s, very Hollywood with all the real hardship and deprivation worn slick off it. Sets from episodes of the Lone Ranger or maybe Gunsmoke came to mind. Only in Bandera, Abby thought. Cowboy Capital of the World. She pulled up her hands, pointed her index fingers at the floral curtained window and said, “Reach for the sky,” then lay back. The ceiling overhead had a large yellow stain to the left of center. Dark shadows encroached on it from the corners, making a pattern like a herd of horses or a range of mountains with clefts formed by deep gorges. Abby shoved the tote onto the floor and lay down, pulling her knees up against the weight of dread that had settled in her stomach.