In Between Days (39 page)

There she’d remained for the past half hour, ignoring his desperate pleas to come out, to talk about it, to forgive him for asking. Meanwhile, his voice mail was filling up with messages, messages from Cadence, he was sure, messages filled with vitriolic bile and accusations, messages wondering where he was and how he could have so callously ignored the situation at hand. And the truth was he didn’t have an answer for her, which is why he hadn’t answered her calls. All he knew now was that his responsibilities seemed to lie elsewhere, with Lorna and with the baby she was carrying, and that leaving Lorna now, after what she’d just told him, would be far, far worse in the end. Maybe even irreparable.
That it would border on unforgivable. And so he’d rationalized it in his mind, told himself that he was doing the right thing, though even at this moment he isn’t sure.

Outside on the back veranda, Lorna is sitting down now, nodding solemnly and gripping the phone tightly with her hand. Only minutes before, the phone had rung loudly, and she had come rushing out of her bedroom door, passing him without making eye contact, then slamming the sliding glass patio door behind her. Staring at her now, he wonders who she’s told, whether she’s told her mother and what this might mean. Given her Catholic upbringing, and given the fact that she had looked at him with such scorn earlier when he’d asked her if it was his, he can only assume that she’s decided to keep it. And though he’d initially felt a kind of terror at this thought—a sobering realization that any type of future with Cadence would now be dashed—he now feels only sadness, sadness and guilt. He knows what this will mean, of course, knows what it will mean for Cadence and for the kids, knows what it will mean for any type of future plans he might have had. Whatever he might have been imagining that morning as he sat with Cadence out by the pool, whatever he might have fantasized about the night before as he lay beside her in the bed, all of that is gone now. Any hope for a second chance, a fresh start, all of that is gone.

On top of that, he has to consider the more practical matters at hand—the financial and emotional costs of raising yet another child, especially at such a late stage in his life, of saving up for college, of paying for child care, of rationing off what remained of his meager assets. And of course there is also the matter of Chloe and the guilt he now feels for ignoring her situation, for putting Lorna before her. There was virtually nothing in his life he would have ever put before Chloe, and yet here he is now, doing just that. How can he reconcile these two types of guilt, these two responsibilities? It seems like some type of cruel test that he is being given, one of those impossible conundrums that one faced in Greek mythology. No matter what he does, no matter what he says, he’ll be disappointing someone. And yet, hasn’t it always been this way? Hasn’t he always been the fall guy when things went wrong? And hasn’t it always been because of matters beyond his control? More and more, he is beginning to feel like an animal caught in a trap, and more and more he is beginning to realize that the only logical way out of this situation is
to compartmentalize it, to deal first with Lorna, then later with Cadence. The cops, after all, will still be waiting there after Cadence is done talking to them, whereas Lorna surely won’t.

Leaning back now at the kitchen table, he watches Lorna as she finally turns off her phone and flips it shut. She looks at him with something like dismay, then slowly opens the door and enters.

“What’s going on?” he says as she walks past him, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, she goes over to the fridge and opens the door, then begins to pour herself some juice.

“Who was on the phone?”

Carrying her glass over to the table now, she sits down. “Your wife.”

“Cadence?” he says, staring at her. “How did she get your number?”

“That’s a good question,” she says, staring at him.

“It wasn’t me.”

“Well, then she must have called my work.”

“She knows where you work?”

“I told her,” she says. “You know, that night at the hospital.” She looks at him. “Anyway, she seemed pretty upset.”

“Did you tell her I was here?”

“No, but she wants you to call her right away.”

He looks at her. “Did she say why?”

“She said something about Mexico. I don’t know. She was kind of hysterical.”

“Mexico?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Something like that.”

He stares at her, trying to figure out what this means. Mexico? What the hell is in Mexico? Is Cadence finally losing her mind?

“You know, she’s a nice woman,” Lorna says after a moment. “Your wife. You’re lucky to have her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. You’re lucky to have her.”

“What makes you think I
have
her?”

“I think you’ve always had her,” Lorna says vaguely. “Even when you thought you didn’t.”

Elson shrugs, wondering if this is yet another test.

“So are you going to call her now or what?”

“Are you still mad at me?”

Lorna looks at him and sips her drink. “Just call her, Elson.”

“I’ll call her in a minute, but first I want to talk about this, okay?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“On the contrary,” he says. “I think there’s a fucking lot to talk about.”

Lorna reaches for the magazine in front of her then and begins to page through it. “I haven’t decided anything yet,” she says finally, without looking up. “I just wanted to let you know, okay? That’s all this is.”

“And what if I told you I wanted you to keep it?”

“Then I’d say you were lying.”

“I’m not.”

“Elson,” she says, her eyes softer now. “Look, I appreciate what you’re doing, okay? I get it. You’re trying to do the right thing. I understand that. But it’s not that simple, okay? I mean, it’s not like I expect you to marry me or something.”

“Why not?”

“Elson.”

“What?”

She pauses then and stares at him. All around them the room is filled with sunlight, unbelievable amounts of it, a soft amber light that casts them both in a hazy glow.

“Elson,” she says, softer now, staring at him earnestly. “Just call your wife, okay?”

And so he does. Standing in the shaded cool of Lorna’s back veranda, he pulls out his cigarettes and lights one, then reaches for the phone in his pocket. In the distance, he can see a group of workers cutting down tree branches at the edge of her narrow back alley and, beneath them, a group of kids on bikes, watching. The simple pleasure of a simple task, he thinks. The simple pleasure of doing a simple job that has a simple end. How he longs to be back at the office right now, or off on a site, doing just that. A simple task with a simple end. How he longs for the days when that was all he had to contend with. He looks back at Lorna, who is watching him now through the sliding glass doors, then looks back at his phone. Finally, finding Cadence’s number in his directory, he pushes
SEND
, bracing himself, knowing that whatever she has to tell him will not be good, but when she answers the phone, her voice is surprisingly calm, almost groggy, as if she’d just woken up.

“Elson,” she says. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“It’s a long story,” he says. “A story for another day, okay?”

“Another day?”

“Yes.”

She pauses for a moment and, to his surprise, doesn’t persist. “You know what?” she says finally. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t even care right now. You’re not going to believe this, Elson. You’re not going to fucking believe this.”

“What?”

“He found her.”

“Who?”

“Richard. I just spoke to him on the phone, and he’s on his way to get her right now.”

“Chloe?”

“Yes, of course, Chloe.”

“Where is she?”

“Cotulla.”

“Cotulla, Texas?”

“Yes. And don’t ask me why she’s in Cotulla, Texas, because I have no idea. And I don’t care, Elson. Honestly. I don’t care right now. All I know is she’s coming home.”

And at this moment he can’t bring himself to do anything but stand there, gaping out at the yard, the enormous weight of everything he’s been carrying these past three weeks peeling off him like layers of skin, almost not believing it at first, and then feeling a strange sort of elation, a dizzying calm, like nothing he’s ever felt before. He can hear Cadence’s voice on the other end of the line, saying something about the police detectives, the Beckwith boy, exoneration, but he is no longer listening to her. He is staring back at Lorna, who is watching him through the sliding glass doors. He waves to her, smiles, then gives her the thumbs-up.

A moment later, she comes up to the door and opens it, then mouths,
What? What is it?

Putting his hand over the receiver, he smiles at her and winks. “Good news,” he says.

“What?”

“Good news,” he says again. “Good fucking news.”

THE DIRECTIONS RICHARD
had found on the Internet had taken him west to San Antonio, then south along Interstate 35 toward Laredo. Chloe had told him to take exit 68, the first exit before Cotulla, and then to pull over at the first gas station he saw. It would be a small off-white building on the right, she’d said, and she’d be waiting out front.

Now that he’s here, however, she’s nowhere in sight, and he’s beginning to wonder whether he maybe made a wrong turn somewhere or whether he’d maybe gotten the directions wrong. He’d been so excited, after all, when she’d first called, so overcome with joy, that he’d barely processed what she’d said. It was very possible that he’d written down the exit number wrong or maybe mixed up the numbers, written down 68 when she’d actually said 86. He picks up his phone again and dials the number of the cell phone Chloe was using, but there’s no answer. He stares at the building in front of him, a tiny white mini-mart attached to a gas station, and wonders if she’s simply inside, using the bathroom.

On the ride down, he’d tried her phone again several times, even though she’d told him not to, even though she’d told him she was throwing it away as soon as they hung up. She hadn’t told him why she couldn’t talk on it or why she even had a temporary cell phone to begin with. In fact, she’d told him very little at all, only that she was in trouble right now and that she needed his help. He’d asked her if she was safe, and she’d told him she was, at least for now, but then she’d urged him to hurry up. There was a desperate kind of panic in her voice, something he’d never heard before, and the longer he’d tried to keep her on the line, the more antsy she’d become.
I have to hang up now, Richard
, she’d finally said, and then the line had gone dead. It had struck him as strange that she’d never
mentioned Raja’s name, that she’d used the singular “I” instead of the plural “we,” and he wondered then if he was even with her or if he was in fact the very thing she was scared of.

In the end, it had taken him almost five hours to get here, and though he’d sped the entire way and rarely hit traffic, it had still been a long and arduous trip, the endless series of small Texas towns with names like Buda and Kyle, the flat barren fields that surrounded the road, the occasional exits advertising historic locations or sometimes bars, the occasional roadside food stands selling fresh empanadas or barbecued ribs. Eventually, feeling frustrated and bored, he had called up his mother and told her the news. Even though Chloe had warned him against this, even though she’d begged him not to, he’d felt a sudden need to throw her a bone, to give her something. Earlier that day, when he’d first pulled out of Houston, he’d listened to the message she’d left him on his phone, a message filled with such stern admonishments, such violent disapproval, such profound disappointment, that he’d had to put the phone aside and stop listening. They had stung him, the words that she’d said, and he realized then that he’d gone too far, that he’d kept her in the dark far too long. When he called her back a few hours later, however, her voice was much calmer, and when he told her the news, when he told her where he was going and who he was picking up, she had simply grown silent, and then a few seconds later, he’d heard her weeping, weeping so loudly he’d had to pull the phone away from his ear.

“Are you joking with me, Richard?” she’d said finally. “Please tell me you’re not.”

“Why would I joke about something like this?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But just promise me.”

“I promise.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

There was another long silence, and then his mother began to cry again.

Eventually, she’d come back on and asked whether or not he knew if Chloe was still with Raja, and when he told her he didn’t, she’d started talking about the police investigation again and some detective she’d talked to earlier that day and how the charges were now being dropped. It was very important that he told them this, she said. It was very important that this information was conveyed.

“The charges are being dropped?” he’d asked, a little dumbfounded.

“Yes.”

“Against both of them?”

“No, just against Chloe. Maybe Raja, too, but definitely Chloe.”

“Jesus.”

He’d wanted to ask her more then, but he could tell that she was getting emotional and didn’t want to get her any more worked up than she already was. So instead he just told her not to tell anyone, especially not the police, and when she suggested contacting the authorities down in Cotulla, he told her that he didn’t think that was such a good idea.
She wants to keep things quiet
, he’d said.
And I think we should respect that
. His mother had grown silent on the other end of the line, but then finally agreed.

“Just promise me you’ll bring her home,” she’d said finally.

“That’s the plan.”

“Promise me, Richard.”

“I promise.”

“And Richard,” she said. “About what I said on that message.”

“It’s fine, Mom.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

“Mom,” he said, and he could hear her sniffling again now. “Mom, you know, seriously, it’s fine.”