Long Bright River: A Novel (25 page)

I stumble just a little on my way out the door. Truman catches me around the waist and keeps his arm there as we walk down the sidewalk toward the car. I am aware of his strength, of his hand on my side. I tense the muscles there. I am aware of the very faint scent of what I imagine to be his laundry detergent. This is the closest I’ve ever been to Truman, and it’s not unpleasant. In fact, it’s nice. Very nice to have another person holding me up. I put my arm around him, too, and I lean my head against his.

He’s parked on the street, a block away from Duke’s. He brings me around to the passenger’s side and I stand in front of the passenger-side door, facing him as he double-clicks a button on his key. The car beeps twice. The noise echoes through the quiet street.

He leans past me to squeeze the door handle. I don’t move.

—Mick, he says, I’m gonna open that door for you.

I look at his face. And suddenly I understand something new about the world, and about Truman and me. It seems so obvious in this moment that I laugh, just briefly: he’s been here this whole time, right next to me for nearly a decade. How have I never noticed? Truman is breathing in time with my breath. Quickly now. Both of us.

I kiss him on the cheek.

—Mick, says Truman. He puts a hand on my shoulder.

I put a hand on his face, as I imagined him, earlier, doing to me.

—Hey, says Truman. But he doesn’t move away.

I kiss him on the mouth. He stays there, just for a moment. Responsive. But then he pulls back.

—No, says Truman. Mickey, that’s not right.

He takes a couple of steps backward, puts some space between us.

—That’s not right, Mick, he says again.

—It is, I say. It is right.

He sets his jaw. Look, he says. I’m seeing somebody.

—Who? I say, without thinking.

But I know the answer before he says it. I think of the portrait on Truman’s end table, a happy family. His beautiful girls. His beautiful wife. I think of Truman’s mother, skeptical when she opened the door for me.
Protective,
Truman said.

Truman hesitates.

—It’s Sheila, Mickey, he says at last. We’re getting back together. We’re trying to make it work.

On the ride home, we’re both silent. I say nothing, even when I get out of the car.

Bethany watches me as I enter the apartment, her eyes appraising. I try very hard not to get too close to her, but I’m certain, when I pay her, that she can smell what’s on my breath.

I wake up feeling more ashamed than I’ve ever been in my life. Memories return to me, first slowly and then quickly. I put my hands over my face.

—No, I say. No, no, no, no, no.

Thomas, who has apparently crept into my room in the night, wakes up at the foot of the bed. What, Mom? he says.

I look down at him.

—I forgot something, I say.

Bethany, as usual, is late. While I wait for her, I allow myself to indulge in a particularly delicious fantasy: Maybe I’ll fire her on the spot when she walks in the door. I’m on suspension now, anyway, and therefore not actually in need of her services at the moment. But two things prevent me from acting on this impulse: The first is that I have to go retrieve my car in Juniata today, and I’d rather not explain to Thomas how it got there in the first place. The second is that, presuming I get my job back, I’ll need childcare—and finding a second person, quickly, with Bethany’s flexible schedule sounds daunting, if not impossible.

So when she arrives, at last, I pretend to be leaving for work. And she actually apologizes, for the first time in our acquaintance, for her tardiness. She hasn’t done her makeup today, for once, and she looks very young without it.

I am caught off guard by her sincerity.

—Well, I say. That’s all right. Don’t worry.

—Thomas can watch one show today, I add. You can decide when.

It turns out that a taxi from my apartment in Bensalem to Juniata costs $38.02, not including tip. A fact I never needed to know.

After the taxi drops me off, I get into my car and drive.

The day is mine, I realize, to do with what I wish. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had this luxury. It’s been a very long time since I felt so aimless, no work, no child to watch, no self-assigned mission.

I cruise through Kensington, through the 24th. Off duty, I can afford to notice things about it that I never do at work: the way certain small and empty lots have been converted by neighbors into improvised playgrounds, old donated slides rusting in a corner, haphazard basketball hoops mounted to chain-link fences. The secondhand appliance stores that set their wares out on the sidewalk, dented and dismayed-looking washing machines and refrigerators, upright soldiers in a line.

I’m not in my cruiser, for once, and the women I pass don’t even glance at me. A young boy on a three-wheeler pulls up next to me, at a light, and then eclipses me when it turns.

I have the sudden urge to see my old house in Port Richmond, and I drive toward it. It belongs, now, to a preppy young man in his twenties (or, more accurately, to his parents, according to the paperwork I signed). Then I drive toward Fishtown, where I drive past Gee’s house, the house I grew up in. Today, it looks uninhabited. Dark inside.

It’s time to head home. But, driving past Bomber Coffee, I decide impulsively to stop in. I’m out of uniform today, and when I walk in, no one blinks. Briefly, I let myself imagine a different life for me and Thomas: coming here on the weekends to read the newspaper. Having the time to teach him everything he’s curious about, to give him a light and peaceful existence, to serve him a fat five-dollar muffin from the glass case in front of me, or the fresh fruit and yogurt in a blue ceramic bowl that the
boy at the counter is now handing to a customer. I imagine being friendly with this boy, with all the people who work here. I imagine going to other restaurants, too, on my days off, lots of them, sitting for hours at them. Bringing a sketchbook, maybe, and sketching my surroundings. I used to like to draw.

I’m standing in line, formulating my order, when someone calls my name from behind.

—Mickey? someone says. A woman. Is that you?

Immediately, I tense. I do not like the feeling of being caught unaware. Being watched when I’m unprepared to be looked at.

Turning in place, I see that the voice has come from Lila’s mother, Lauren Spright. Today she’s wearing a loose knit cap and a sweatshirt with stars all over it.

—Hey! says Lauren. It’s so good to see you. I’ve been wondering how you were, since.

She pauses, thinking of how to phrase it. Since the party, she says.

—Oh, I say. I shift my weight back and forth. Put my hands into the pockets of my pants. Yes, I’m sorry about that, I say. It was a scene.

—How’s Thomas doing? Lauren says.

—He’s fine, I say, too quickly.
None of your business,
I want to say. But I sense in Lauren something genuine: hers is not a superficial or prurient concern.

—I’m glad, says Lauren. Meaning it.

—Hey, she says. Do you guys want to come over to our place sometime? Lila talks about Thomas every day. It would be nice to get them together again.

—Help you? says the boy behind the counter, impatiently. I did not realize I had reached the front of the line.

—All right, I say to Lauren. Yes. That would be great.

Lauren is retreating, letting me order. I’ll call you, she says.

Coffee in hand, I drive south on Frankford, and then north on Delaware Ave. Then, surprising myself, I turn into the parking lot that borders the
pier that Simon and I used to go to. The waterfront has changed since those days: SugarHouse Casino now looms to the south. New parking lots have sprung up nearby, and new condo buildings look out on the river.

But our pier is unchanged: still decrepit, trash-strewn, largely abandoned. The same stand of trees, bared by the winter, still obscures the water from view.

I park and get out of my car. I walk between leafless trees, push aside branches, step over weeds. On the wooden pier, I put my hands on my hips. I think of Simon. I think of myself, sitting here, eighteen years old, half a lifetime ago. I think about what kind of man, what kind of person, would work so hard to win the affections of a child. Because that’s what I was, in the end.

By one p.m., I’m tired, and probably hungover, and starting to feel sick. I’ll let Bethany go early. Give her the afternoon off. I pull out of the parking lot, merge onto 95, and drive north.

When I open the door to the apartment, it’s quiet. Thomas still, occasionally, takes an afternoon nap around this time of day, though that’s rarer and rarer.

I take off my jacket and hang it on a hook. I eye the kitchen as I pass it. It’s littered with dishes from breakfast and lunch, and Bethany is nowhere to be found. I take a deep breath. Let it out. This is another conversation I’ve been meaning to have with her:
If you could tidy up throughout the day . . .

Then I tell myself, Choose your battles.

I walk down the hallway. Thomas’s door is closed. If he’s sleeping, I don’t want to wake him up.

The bathroom door is closed too. I stand outside it for a moment, listening. Thirty seconds go by, and I hear no running water, no sounds from inside.

Finally, gently, I knock on it.

—
Bethany?
I whisper.

I try the door handle, at last, and open it a crack.

—
Bethany?
I repeat.

Finally, I open the door wide. No one is inside.

I spin around. Open the door across the hallway. Thomas’s room. His bed is unmade, but empty.

I call out, now. Hello? I say. Thomas? Bethany?

The apartment is still silent.

I run into my own bedroom, and then turn and run back to the front of the apartment, looking frantically for a note, for any clue to where they might be.

Bethany’s car was in the driveway. And it’s too cold out for them to have gone for a walk, I think—not that Bethany was ever one for walking, even when it was nice out.

I run outside, then down the back stairs, not bothering with a jacket. I leap over the landing and do a U-turn at the base of the stairs, running fast around the house. The wind bites through my sweater.

I look inside Bethany’s car as I pass it. But it, too, is empty. The booster seat I bought for Thomas, I notice, is still not installed.

I pound on Mrs. Mahon’s front door. Then I ring the doorbell, too.

I think wild and horrible thoughts. I imagine the body of my own son, splayed out, lifeless, a version of the many victims I have seen in my years on the job. Somehow, I have only ever seen one child after death, a little girl, six years old, hit by a car on Spring Garden. I wept. Her image has never left my mind.

I ring the doorbell again.

Mrs. Mahon answers, finally, blinking through her large glasses, wearing a brown fuzzy bathrobe and slippers.

—Are you all right, Mickey? she says, taking in my expression.

—I can’t find Thomas, I say. I left him with his babysitter this morning and now they’re gone. There’s no note.

Mrs. Mahon’s face goes pale. Oh no, she says. Oh no, I haven’t seen them today.

She peers out the front door. Her car is still here, isn’t it? she says.

But I’m already gone, rounding the house again, running back up to
the apartment, where I grab my phone and call Bethany—no answer—and then text her.

Where are you,
I say.
Please call me. I’m home.

It’s then that the words of Connor McClatchie arrive in my mind like a fire alarm.
You’ve got a son,
he said to me.
Thomas, right?

It takes me ten seconds to consider my options.

At the end of it, I call 911.

I have never before interacted with Bensalem’s police force. They are small, but very professional. Within minutes, the house is a crime scene. Two patrol officers arrive first, a young man and an older woman, and they interview me quickly.

Downstairs, Mrs. Mahon is being interviewed separately.

It feels strange to be working with a police department outside of Philadelphia. It seems reasonable to me that being an officer myself would be helpful to me in this moment, and yet I can think of no one right now on whom I might call. Every connection I have—Mike DiPaolo, Ahearn, Simon, even Truman now—feels lost to me, for different reasons. Even my own family is lost to me. I can think of no one at all to call, and in an instant, the depths of my solitude are made real to me. The world closes in around me, one notch tighter, one notch tighter, until my breathing turns shallow and quick.

—Easy, says the female officer kindly, noticing this. Easy. Deep breaths.

I have never, in all my life, been on this side of an interview. I do as she instructs.

—What do you know about this babysitter? the female officer asks.

—Her name is Bethany Sarnow, I say. I believe she’s twenty-one years old. She does makeup in her spare time. Occasionally she takes classes at CCP. Online, I think.

The officer nods. Okay, she says. Do you know her home address?

I blank. No, I say. I don’t, actually.

I pay Bethany in cash. Under the table. Twice a month.

—Okay, says the officer. How about any of her friends or family members? Anyone you can think of to contact?

Again, I shake my head. Berating myself. I had exactly one reference for Bethany, her instructor at the makeup academy, and even she, if I am being honest with myself, had sounded lukewarm.

—I’m worried about something, I say, my throat catching. Something in particular.

—What’s that? says the officer. Her partner, the young man, has joined her now, after taking a cursory look through the apartment. I know what it must look like to him: shoddy, run-down, messy. Not the kind of place one has guests to.

—My sister is missing too, I say. At least, I don’t know where she is. And there are people who know that I’m looking for her and may not be happy about it. And also, I’m a patrol officer in the 24th District of the PPD, but I’m under investigation right now. But it’s due to a misunderstanding. Or maybe foul play.

The officers exchange a quick look, but it doesn’t escape me. I’ve been in their shoes. I know what I sound like.

—No, no, I say. It’s not like that. I’m an officer. I’m a cop. But I’m on suspension right now, because.

I trail off. Stop talking, I think. Just stop talking. I hear Truman, too, saying it in my ear.

—Because? says the young man. He scratches his nose.

—Never mind, I say. It’s not important. I’m just worried about a possible abduction.

The female officer shifts again. What gives you reason to believe your son might have been abducted? she says. Is there anyone in particular who concerns you?

—Yes, I say. Connor McClatchie. But there are other possibilities too.

The male officer walks down the hallway to radio to Dispatch. I can’t
hear exactly what he’s saying. The female officer continues to interrogate me, and slowly, more and more people arrive on the scene.

Just then, a terrible pounding begins on the door.

Through its glass window, I see Mrs. Mahon’s face, her hair wild, her expression unreadable.

—Let me in, she is saying through the door.