A Necessary End (22 page)

Y
es?” The kid on the doorstep—there's no other word for him, he's gangly, with raggedy clothes and dark hair that needs combing—is looking agog at Michael. You'd think he'd never seen a baby before. “Can I help you?” My intonation is really saying, “Get off my doorstep.” I hold Michael a little tighter, even though I could kick this guy's skinny ass, easily.

“That's him, huh?” the kid says.

“Excuse me?” Michael and I have just woken up from our nap, and I'm still a little fuzzy, but my chest starts tingling. I've got a bad feeling.

“Leah's baby. My baby, I guess.” His mouth turns down in a gruesome expression, like the word hurts, and then his lips peel back in a huge grin. “Shit, that's so funny!” He actually laughs.

If I weren't so tense, I'd want to laugh, too. There's something about this kid—Trevor—that's infectious. Well, I hope he's not literally infectious. He does look awfully pale. Am I supposed to invite him in? The last thing I need is both of Michael's biological parents darkening my house.

“Leah's not home,” I say. I glance down at Michael in my arms. He's looking at Trevor with fascination, maybe because Trevor is looking back with equal fascination. They're an oddly matched set. I guess it's true that newborns resemble their fathers more. But Trevor doesn't much resemble Gabe. Trevor is no John Stamos. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark eyebrows, but he's so skinny he's concave. How did he land a knockout like Leah? He must have one hell of a personality.

“I actually wanted to talk to you first. Adrienne, right?” I nod. “And your husband's . . .” He pauses. “Don't tell me, I can get this. Grant, right?”

“Gabe.”

“Shit.” He looks genuinely disappointed. “I thought I was getting better with names. Faces, though, I'm good with those. I, like, never forget a face. I definitely won't forget yours! You look like you could be Leah's mom. That's so rad.”

Her older sister, I want to say. “You wanted to talk to me?” I bounce Michael up and down in my arms, but he seems perfectly content. He likes Trevor, probably because of how expressive Trevor's face is and all his broad physical gestures. Trevor is what my mother would have called a “character”; I might preface that with the word “cartoon.” But he does have a weird kinetic appeal.

“Can I come in?” He holds his arms up, as if to show he's clean, I can search him. There's an army duffel over his shoulder that has all sorts of pictures scrawled on it. He sees me looking. “Leah did those. She's wicked talented. She's doing a mural for this little critter, right?” He leans in slightly toward Michael and goes, “Boo!” Michael lets out a happy gurgle. “That is one lucky critter.”

“Why's that?” I say sharply.

“Because Leah's talented, and she made him, so he'll probably be talented, too. And because you obviously love him a lot, and you live here.” He eyeballs our cul-de-sac. “I mean, I wouldn't, like, live here, it's just not me, but it looks like a nice place to grow up. All loving and whatnot.”

“So you just wanted to see where he's going to grow up? That's why you're here?”

“Can't I come in?” His hands are still in the air, like this whole conversation has been a stick-up. I finally nod.

He follows me in. “Take your shoes off,” I say, testing for compliance, and he immediately unlaces his boots—Doc Martens–type, like Leah's—and leaves them by the door. “Germs,” I explain.

“I getcha,” he says. “I'll wash my hands, okay?” He strips off his jacket and has a black band T-shirt underneath, like the kind Gabe's brother used to wear. His jeans are tighter than in the old days, but there are the same artsy slashes through them. Goth fashion has made few advances.

At the kitchen sink, he lathers with dish detergent up to his elbows. You'd think he was going into surgery. He's funny, this one.

I spread a blanket out on the floor and put Michael down on his stomach for tummy time, facing away from the couch where Trevor will sit. I don't need Michael watching Trevor any more, getting too attached. Michael stretches his arms out and tries to lift his head. It doesn't work, but you can see he's making progress.

“What's dude doing?” Trevor says, sitting at the other end of the red velvet couch.

“It's called tummy time.”

Trevor chortles. “Tummy time! That's awesome.”

“Does Leah know you're here?”

“Here's the thing. I've been miserable since she's been gone. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't play video games. It sucks, man. Woman, I mean.” He smiles at me. He sure doesn't look like a depressed person. “So I'm here to surprise her.”

“And then what?”

“And then she comes back with me. It'll be, like, a done deal when she hears that I can't live without her. Yeah, she's got this California bug or whatever, but she knows we belong together.”

It's almost too good to be true. With Trevor's help, Leah could
be out of here way sooner than a year. But I'm waiting for the catch.

“I know you like having her around,” he says. “I know she's been, like, giving him milk, and it's not like you can just buy breast milk on eBay. Or maybe you can. You can find action figures from, like, the nineteen sixties on there, who says you can't buy some chick's breast milk?”

“You already signed away your parental rights,” I say.

“Yeah, I know. What would I want them for?”

I look down at Michael, not wanting him to overhear his father's disinterest.

“No offense to the little dude,” Trevor adds. “He's pretty cute. He looks like a spider monkey or something. But I'm not going to be somebody's dad. That's, like, wackadoodle time.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty. Listen, I just need a place to crash until I can convince her. We won't fuck on your couch or anything.” He looks over at Michael. “Sorry. We won't
make love
.” Trevor sounds like there are air quotes in every other sentence. “If we've got to do it, we'll go out to my car.”

“You drove here from Rhode Island?” I stand up and pull back the curtains from the window. There's a busted-looking Lincoln that's probably older than Trevor, with some sort of graffiti picture on the side. “Let me guess,” I say. “Leah tagged your car.”

“I asked her to. She's got mad talent.”

I stare at him, hard. I've got to figure out if he's for real. “So you broke up with Leah because she got pregnant—”

“No, I told her I couldn't be a dad. She got mad and broke up with me. She said if I couldn't get my shit together, I could fuck off.” His eyes flicker to Michael. “Sorry. I got to work on my language. I'm not used to having a kid around.”

“But you didn't want to be with her while she was pregnant.”

“Because she was mean! She was always trying to convince me we could be parents together, and when I said no, I'm not, like, dad
material, she'd get
pissed
. Like, scary pissed. I never knew before what hormones could do. When I see a pregnant woman coming now, I jump out of the way.” I have to laugh. “No, seriously.”

Michael gurgles, like he's laughing along with us. He's trying to turn his head to see us better. I squat down and spin him around. He should get to be a part of this conversation, especially since it's going so well. Trevor could be the answer to everything.

“So you and Leah have been talking on the phone,” I say.

“Yeah. She sent me a selfie. She's looking hot again already.”

“Hot enough for you to jump in your car and drive thousands of miles?”

He grins. “Leah's worth it. We were amazing together. Everyone could see it. It's like, we just took a detour for a while and now we need to get back on the road.”

“The road to Rhode Island,” I say. “Because you can't live in California.”

“I've got five brothers and sisters. I'm in school.”

“Isn't the semester still going?”

“I turned in all my papers early. I started driving here as soon as I finished my last final. I've got to get her back, Abigail.”

“Adrienne.”

“Sorry. But I remember Gabe.”

I wonder what Gabe will make of Trevor. I wonder what he'll make of what I'm about to say. “You can't stay in her room. You have to sleep on the couch.” He nods, suddenly alert, waiting for the rest of my terms. He's perceptive enough to know there's more. “You've got to stay out of everyone's way. Michael wakes up early, so you've got to get up early. You need to clean up after yourself.” He continues to nod. “I don't know what Leah's told you, but she doesn't really touch Michael.” If you don't count whatever she's doing behind our backs. It occurs to me that Trevor might know. He could be valuable in more ways than one. “I wouldn't think you'd need to touch Michael either, since you're not here for him, right?” Another nod. “So just respect the boundaries, okay? I'm going to help you get Leah back.”

He smiles. “Yeah? That's awesome!”

“People in love should be together. That's how I've always felt.” I turn on the TV. It's time for Summer Jackson, which means it's also time for Trevor's next test. Can I still go about my business with his being here? Is he capable of shutting his mouth?

Summer catches all the viewers up on Joy Ellison's story—thirty-one-year-old woman disappeared from Denver, estranged husband didn't report her missing for five months, with no mention yet of a secret or untoward past—and then says, “Tonight I'm bringing you an exclusive scoop: Brad Ellison had a girlfriend in Arizona, and we have her, live!”

“Damn,” Trevor exclaims. “That news anchor is hot!” Summer is looking particularly fetching in a white suit that offsets her caramel coloring.

“She's not a news anchor,” I say. “She's a former prosecutor. She covers missing-persons cases.”

“But first,” Summer says, “we've learned that in February 2011, when Joy and Brad Ellison had been married only two years, he was arrested on a domestic violence charge. Now, remember, Colorado has mandatory arrest laws. That means that if the police go out on a domestic violence call, an arrest will be made. The victim cannot drop charges; only the state can decide whether to press charges. In this case, they did not press charges. We have tried to obtain a comment from the district attorney's office, but they have not yet responded.”

“So this show is, like, educational?” Trevor asks.

“Not exactly,” I say. “Shh.” He does.

“We have also learned,” Summer continues, “that Joy had several hospitalizations during the course of her marriage to Brad Ellison. When my producers contacted Brad about this, he stated that ‘Joy could be clumsy.'” Summer raises an eyebrow slightly before going on. “She went to a different ER each time and always gave the same reason: ‘accidental slip and fall.'” If she raised her eyebrow any higher, she'd be a circus performer. “We happen to have Granger Hill with
us tonight, who is a psychiatrist with a specialty in domestic violence, as well as a longtime victims' rights advocate.”

“So the husband did it?” Trevor says. “He killed her?”

“Sure looks that way,” I say.

Summer and Granger engage in some speculation as to why the different emergency rooms, whether Joy could have been ashamed or coerced into lying to protect her abuser, and if women can lose the ability to have children after an attack (as Summer had previously reported that Joy was infertile). They manage never to say Brad Ellison's name, which might be how they can avoid defamation charges. I'm always amazed how Summer's show rides that edge, and that I've never heard of any lawsuits against her from wrongly accused boyfriends, husbands, and fathers. But then, she is a lawyer herself.

I never knew about the domestic violence in Joy's past. What else did she keep secret? Summer might find out for me.

After a commercial break, Summer does a split screen with the Arizona girlfriend. She's peroxided and heavily made up, and she's clearly pissed at Brad Ellison. “I didn't even know he was married until he told me he was going on your show,” she says. Summer gives a knowing nod. Nothing these men do surprises her. “I threw his ass out, you better believe that.”

“Were you together at the time of Joy's disappearance? In November or December?”

“He was practically living at my house, with me and my daughter.” The girlfriend shakes her head angrily. “I can't believe I trusted him! He's such a liar.”

“During that time, did he work consistently?”

The girlfriend snorts. “Are you kidding?”

“I'll take that as a no.”

“He had his own apartment. This crummy little studio. But he kept most of his crap at my place. And he had a gun, did you know that?”

“He has a gun permit on file.”

“Honestly, I think he did it.” The girlfriend is fuming. Summer is realizing that she's got a somewhat unreliable witness here, and it's time to wrap up the interview.

“Just one last question. Was there any unaccounted-for time in November or December?” The girlfriend looks confused. “Did he leave your home for a few days at a time? Were there periods of time when you couldn't reach him around the holidays?”

“Oh. Yeah. There was a time when he didn't come over for three straight nights. I was like, What's the deal? Are you screwing around on me? He was like, No, I'd never do that. He said he was just working late and he was tired, so he wanted to stay home.”

“Have the police asked you about his whereabouts?” Summer loves when she can scoop even the police.

The girlfriend shakes her head. “But I'm going to call and tell them.”