I went out to the coat rack near our living room door to dig in my pocket. Sure enough, the bracelet was still there—and there was that inscription: To J.M. Always, Tex.
“Um, hi.” When I looked up from the bracelet, there was Sandy wrapped in a towel, black hair wet and brushed back smoothly from her face. Standing there like that, she was even more striking than I’d realized. Truly beautiful. Her mother must have been, too. “Could I, um, borrow something to wear? I think I need to wash my clothes. If that’s okay.”
“Of course.” I jumped to my feet. Clothes: something tangible and straightforward. Simple. That was something I could help with. “Come to my room and we’ll see what might work.”
Sandy looked like any other affluent Ridgedale teenager in my expensive jeans and T-shirt as we drove to the public library in search of Ridgedale High School yearbooks. A yearbook seemed like our best chance—maybe our only chance—to figure out the actual names that corresponded with the nicknames mentioned in Jenna’s journal. It was a long shot, but it was the only one we had.
And I wanted something more before confronting Steve. I had promised Sandy I would ask him about Jenna’s necklace, and I was still planning on it. But I’d be implicitly accusing him of something. And while I was willing to stick my neck out for Sandy in that way, part of me was hoping I wouldn’t have to. That we’d figure out who those boys were in Jenna’s journal. That we’d find them, now grown men, and that they would somehow lead us to her without me having to ask Steve a thing.
Sandy and I sat down at a long table in the back with the yearbooks the librarian had collected for me. The room was crowded with mothers and young children waiting for story time. I caught Sandy watching them with a mix of amazement and longing that I knew too well myself. Maybe even a little anger because I knew that, too. Is that the kind of childhood other kids get? Yes, I thought. Yes, they do. And after raising Ella, I knew that much was true.
“Why don’t you start with these?” I said, handing Sandy the earlier and more likely irrelevant years. “Look for anything that mentions any of the nicknames. Here.” I pointed to a spot under one senior’s name in The Ridgedale Record Class of 1994. “Some of them put their nicknames right with their pictures.”
But no one else seemed to have a nickname listed anywhere. My plan was starting to feel decidedly hopeless until I reached the team pictures at the back of the book—runners, hockey players, football players. Each had a formal group shot with several candids under it. The formal portraits had only players’ full names, but the candids had nicknames, lots of them.
My eyes slid over the wrestling team and then swimming and then the varsity football players. No Captain, no Tex, and no Two-Six. I moved on to basketball, searching the faces of the assorted teenage boys, the skinny, acne-spotted ones and the ones who looked like they got all the girls. There were buzz cuts and mullets and one or two Mohawks. Aside from the snug, dated shorts and all that hair, they were the same kind of boys who could have been found in any current yearbook, in any town, anywhere in the country.
I looked down at a blurry, overexposed candid beneath the basketball team photo. It was impossible to make out the figures clearly—their faces fuzzy and indistinct—but there were two boys, close up against each other; one was shorter, clean-cut, with a square jaw and a flattop, and had his hand on the shoulder of a taller boy with longish hair and maybe a handsome face. In the background, a few feet away, was a much bigger guy, his back to the other two, shooting a basket. And beneath it a caption: Tex showing up Two-Six and the Captain. Even though the boys’ faces in the candid weren’t clear enough to compare to the group photo, their numbers were clear as day.
My heart was pounding as I scanned the team photo. And there they were, standing in a row, right above their names:
The Captain, Number 7, was Thomas Price. The boy Jenna had loved so much and who had brutalized her so.
Two-Six, Number 26, was Simon Barton. The one boy who hadn’t made it out of the woods that night alive.
And Tex, Number 15, was Steve Carlson. The boy whose love had scared Jenna most of all.
Barbara
The doctors were back. They had work to do, and they wanted space to do it. But Barbara wasn’t going anywhere. She was sure the final blow would come the second she left Hannah alone. That her daughter would slip away for good and there would only be Barbara to blame.
Or so Steve would think, apparently. Because he was already punishing her. He’d barely spoken to her since he’d rushed from the house to find Hannah. Had hardly looked at Barbara since she’d arrived at the hospital four hours earlier to find him standing gray-faced and soaking wet at Hannah’s bedside.
How easy it must have been for him to make the whole thing Barbara’s fault. Never mind his sins of omission.
Barbara had since learned the details of what had happened, prying them from a distant Steve one by one. Hannah had been in the water when he finally found her at the creek, flat on her back, her filmy light blue nightgown floating around her like a cloud. Steve actually said that, “like a cloud,” describing it for Barbara as if seeing it all over again. Her eyes had been closed and she’d been dead white. In fact, Steve had been sure his daughter was dead when he’d leaped into the creek—with superhuman agility, one of the other officers had said—to rescue her.
Luckily, Hannah had gotten wedged up against some rocks on the side of the bank; otherwise, they might not have found her in time. Hypothermia was her official diagnosis, and she hadn’t regained consciousness yet. Time would tell the extent of the damage, the doctors said. In the meantime, they were warming her slowly and saying their prayers. It was all they could do.
The only thing that mattered now was that Hannah got better. But it was hard not to think about what else the doctors had quickly discovered upon examination: She’d delivered a baby recently. There would be a DNA test—assuming Hannah didn’t wake up and confess—but Barbara and Steve didn’t need that to know the truth: That baby had been Hannah’s, not Sandy’s.
“I don’t think she was trying to kill herself,” Steve had said straight off. Like he wanted to keep anyone from even hinting at suicide.
“Then what was she doing in the water, Steve?” Barbara had pressed anyway. Because how blind was he going to be?
“Maybe she wanted to be close to her—to the baby.”
“Well, isn’t that romantic?” Barbara had said. “Too bad that didn’t occur to Hannah before she dumped her out there.”
Barbara was supposed to be worried, frantic. She wasn’t supposed to be angry at Hannah. But she was. She was furious.
“For Christ’s sake, Barb,” Steve had snapped. “Let it go.”
How was Barbara supposed to “let it go” when it made no sense? When had it happened, and with whom? How had Hannah hidden some boy so completely—and her pregnancy? It was true that many people had not known Barbara was pregnant right up until the end. Carrying small was probably genetic. And those stupid sweatshirts. How convenient for Hannah, that that was the way she’d always dressed. It was as though she’d been planning it from the start.
“You two should take a walk, get some coffee,” said the older, gray-haired doctor with the big clunky glasses. Barbara had been told several times that this utterly underwhelming man was head of the ER, but she was having a hard time believing it. “It’s important that you take care of yourselves. Stay fresh. Hannah will need you once she wakes up. Right now she’s stable, I can assure you of that.”
“Sorry,” Barbara said, but like she wasn’t very sorry at all. She was gripping the arms of the chair she’d been glued to since she’d arrived. “But I’m not leaving.”
“Really, Ms. Carlson, it would be much better for Hannah if you and your husband could give us some space,” the gray-haired doctor repeated. “Just five minutes or so and you can come right back.”
They were going to do something they thought Steve and Barbara shouldn’t see, change the colostomy bag
, move around Hannah’s floppy arms and legs. Something that made their daughter seem much worse off. The doctors had been optimistic but vague. What did “recover” and “regain functioning” mean? That Hannah would be 100 percent back to who she had been? Whoever that even was. In any case, the doctors needed her body temperature up before they would venture guesses.
“Come on,” Steve said to Barbara. His voice was hoarse. He’d been screaming—one of the officers at the scene had told her that, too—screaming Hannah’s name. “Let’s get out of their way for a minute. I could use some coffee.” He put a businesslike hand on Barbara’s shoulder. That was how he’d been the whole time at the hospital: all business.
“Okay, fine,” she said, for Steve’s sake, though, not for the doctors’. “But only for a minute.”
She followed Steve in silence down the hall toward the elevators. Instead of pressing the button for floor two (and the cafeteria), Steve pressed G for the ground floor.
“I thought you wanted coffee?”
Steve was avoiding eye contact. “Let’s take a walk instead.”
And so Barbara followed Steve off the elevator without arguing, even if the last thing in the world she wanted to do was take a walk. Her doing what Steve wanted was a peace offering, though she hardly felt like it was her responsibility to be holding out olive branches.
The hospital doors snapped open and they walked into the bright sunshine. It was warm for mid-March, the sky an unearthly blue that felt so terribly wrong under the circumstances. Steve was walking a bit ahead, more briskly now, as though trying to avoid her potential objections. And he was headed for those awful benches facing an inset patch of grass. It was a peaceful space for quiet contemplation. As far as Barbara was concerned, it was just like the dismal hospital chapel: too funereal.
“They said five minutes, Steve,” Barbara called after him. Anywhere but those benches. “I don’t want to go far.”
“We won’t,” he said. But he didn’t slow down, didn’t look back at her.
We have to talk, he’d said hours earlier. Before the river, before his wet clothes, before Hannah and all those doctors. Barbara had managed to completely erase it from her memory, until now. There was nothing good about Steve saying We have to talk. Barbara knew that from personal experience.
It had been unseasonably warm that night, more like August than June. There was only a week until graduation, and just when Barbara and Steve were about to start a life together, all of a sudden he was pulling away.
More and more Barbara had caught Steve looking at Jenna. Worse, he was trying to hide it less and less. Almost like he wanted Barbara to get so mad that she’d break up with him. It wasn’t just his looking at Jenna that was the problem either. It was the way he was looking—love, that was the look on his face. Which proved how not about Jenna his distance was. Because there was nothing to love about Jenna Mendelson. She was a whore, plain and simple. And now poor Steve was another one of the stupid boys who’d fallen for her wares.
Ignoring his wandering eye had seemed to be working until that night, when Steve had said he wanted to “talk” to Barbara. What teenage boy ever wanted to “talk” to his girlfriend about anything other than breaking up? But that wasn’t happening. Barbara was sure of that much.
“Hi there,” she called sweetly as she climbed into Steve’s beat-up Chevy truck.
“Hey,” he’d said, already unhappy.
Barbara was going to ignore that, too. She’d ignore everything if she had to. Steve was trying to sabotage what they had because he was scared, and Barbara wasn’t having it. They were perfect for each other. And they were going to be together, especially now. Steve would snap out of it once she told him. He was a good guy. He would do the right thing.
Barbara leaned over to kiss Steve in the driver’s seat. She’d worn an extra-short skirt and one of her tighter T-shirts for the occasion, and they both rode up on purpose when Barbara tipped herself over. Steve hesitated but turned and kissed her quickly, more like a lip bump.
“I know I said I didn’t want to go to the woods tonight,” Barbara said. “But it’s the last party, so let’s go!”
“Yeah, maybe.” Steve rubbed at his forehead with his thumb as he stared down at the steering wheel. “I think we should talk first, though.” He shifted in his seat. He wasn’t really going to do this, was he? Break up with her on this night, of all nights? Barbara had to head him off at the pass. Otherwise, they’d be stuck knowing forever what he’d really wanted.
“Okay, Steve, but there’s something I have to tell you, too.” Barbara turned to look out the open window toward her parents’ big, beautiful house, which would someday be their big, beautiful house. “Can I go first?”
“Okay,” Steve said after a long pause. Then he reached over and squeezed Barbara’s knee in a weird “let’s be friends” way. “Shoot.”
Something in him had already switched off, Barbara could feel it. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be flipped back on. It would be, she was sure of it. She forced a smile, even though her throat felt raw. She hadn’t pictured it this way. But she refused to be sad. What did a perfect moment matter compared to a lifetime of happiness?
Barbara swallowed hard and smiled. “I’m pregnant!” she squealed, grabbing Steve’s hands and pressing them hard against her flat belly, ignoring the way the color had left his face. “Isn’t it amazing, Steve? Six weeks. I know we wanted to wait until we got married. But we can get married right now, there’s nothing stopping us. I don’t need a big wedding. I don’t even need to be a bride. I just want to be your wife.”
Steve stopped near that clutch of awful benches, motioning for Barbara to have a seat—across from him. Not next to him, where he could wrap an arm around her. No, facing her. Barbara perched on the edge of her bench, watching Steve stare down at his hands clasped in front of him, as if he was trying to decide where to begin.
“Wait, you don’t actually think this is my fault, do you?” Barbara asked, her voice rising. That couldn’t be what this was about, but it bore stating. Because Barbara refused to be made responsible for Hannah’s insane choices. “I have done everything right, Steve. I have given my life for my children.”
“I don’t blame you for what’s happened. No, of course not,” he said, though he sounded like he was considering it for the first time. “We made mistakes with Hannah, that’s obvious now. But that’s on both of us.”
So he wasn’t letting her off the hook, he was putting himself on there with her? “What about the father? Are we going to find out who he is? Isn’t it statutory rape?”
Steve shook his head. “Hannah would have been sixteen.”
Barbara crossed her arms and blew out a breath. “But you’ll keep on trying to find him. Right?”
When Steve looked at her, his eyes were glassy. “Of course I will.”
“Good,” Barbara said. “Because crime or not, he’s accountable.”
Steve was nodding, but his attention had slipped away again. Barbara sensed it. He was thinking about something else entirely.
“How long have you known she was back?” he asked finally.
Barbara should have prepared better for this moment. She’d known it would come. But all she’d wanted to do was forget the whole sordid mess. A mess, mind you, that she had no hand in creating.
“Who was back, Steve?” Barbara held herself tight, resisting the way her body had begun to tremble. “And before you answer—is this really what you want to talk about, with your daughter upstairs in a hospital bed?”
Steve didn’t blink. “Tell me what happened between you and Jenna, Barbara. I need to know all of it or I won’t be able to help you.”
And there it was: the truth. This was what he thought of her.
“Help me?” She laughed icily. “Why would I need your help, Steve? What are you suggesting?”
“I know you were at Blondie’s. Jenna’s daughter came to see me. She told me that there was some blond woman with her
mother during her last shift. They recognized your picture at Blondie’s, Barbara. You were with her the last time anybody saw her.”
“Yeah, and so what? I talked to Jenna, Steve.” Barbara could feel her temper rising. “I wanted to know why she was back. I wanted to make sure she understood.”
“Understood what?”
And he looked so worried. Unbelievable. Was he still this pathetic after all these years? It was infuriating. Barbara was so angry, her cheeks were burning. So angry that she could have spit—at Steve. How dare he sit there and make her explain herself when all she’d done was protect them.
“I asked her to leave us alone, Steve.” Barbara fluttered her eyelashes and smiled viciously. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. We’re a family, that’s what I said. A happy family. I told Jenna she couldn’t just come back here after all these years and ruin that.”
Steve was supposed to say that Jenna never could have done that anyway. He was supposed to tell Barbara that he loved her and the kids far too much for anyone to threaten what they had. Not even Jenna. But he didn’t say that. Steve was not a man who lied.
“Barbara, whatever happened, I’m sure you didn’t mean to—”
“‘Mean to’?” Barbara snapped. “‘Mean to’ what, Steve?”
“Barbara, please just tell me what happened.”
“Jenna happened, Steve. That’s what happened.” Barbara stood calmly. She took a breath, steadied herself. Because she wasn’t going to give him—to give Jenna—the satisfaction of getting upset. “If you want to know the truth, our nice talk inside the bar did turn a lot less nice in the parking lot. And you want to know why?”
“Yes, Barbara,” Steve said. “I want to know everything.”
“Jenna said she wasn’t agreeing to anything until she talked to you,” Barbara said. “She’s been here for months, trying to work up the courage. Pathetic.”
But that’s all Barbara was telling Steve. She wasn’t about to recount how Jenna had then started talking all this nonsense about what Steve had done the night Simon Barton died. Barbara hadn’t listened to her lies, because that’s what all of it was: lies. Barbara remembered that night—when she was still blissfully, stupidly unaware of just how many pregnancies never made it past week twelve. She’d been the one riding home in Steve’s truck after he spoke with the police. He told her all about what had happened with Simon. He’d been standing there when it happened. They’d been stupid and drunk and horsing around. To this day, Steve felt awful about it.
Where They Found Her: A Novel Page 26
