One More Day (12 page)

When Carrie heard John whispering on his phone in the bathroom, she wondered, not for the first time, if he was hiding something too. Was that why he'd asked if she was having an affair? Was that why he had been so jealous at college—because he was cheating on her? Because he was, as Dr. Kenney would say, projecting? After all, except for one summer he'd spent in Europe during which they'd agreed to see other people if they wanted to, they'd been together since their freshman year of college. Was that normal? It was for a woman, maybe, but not a man. His friends had teased him, told him he needed two bachelor parties before he got married, just to deepen his experience. And the only other couple they knew who had met in college—Courtney and Justin—were divorcing over infidelity.

So she stood outside the bathroom door, listening to him running the bathwater to cover up his conversation.
Please
, she thought,
you can do better than this! When was the last time you took a bath, John?
Then her heart sank with the answer.
With Ben.
The two of them, covered in bubbles, laughing. Ben, who always laughed at everything John said or did. Ben, who on bath nights waited by the door at six o'clock like a puppy, watching for John's car. Ben, who used his hands to turn John's head back to him whenever it turned toward Carrie. Ben, who always wanted John after a long day with Carrie.
Dada
, learned months and months before
Mama
.

She could pick up only every second or third word, but a few of them were clear:
Funeral. Flowers. Danielle
. She sighed. He was only talking to Carrie's mother, but it still annoyed her, as he'd known it would. They'd already called Florida the day before and told Carrie's mother everything they knew. John had dialed the phone, then had put Carrie on. Carrie had told her mother she could stay in the guest room if she wanted and that John was arranging a hotel room nearby for his parents, even though they lived just twenty-five minutes away. Had told her yes, she could be in charge of flowers and food, because organizing things like that was Danielle's strong suit. If her mother hadn't been a real estate agent, she could have been a wedding planner, Carrie always thought. And now, a funeral planner. But she hadn't had the heart to mention to her mother, who always offered to do, to go, to fix, that it was all done. The photo boards, the menu, the playlists. She'd done it all, months ago, to keep herself busy. She'd figured she would fall apart the day she found out he was dead and be grateful she'd done it when she was feeling stronger. When she was celebrating, remembering Ben, full of hope, that was the time to pull it all together. It had all made sense. And her mother, her organized mother? She would understand. She would understand and promptly find something else to do. Picking weeds. Sweeping floors. Filling flower boxes.

But John had clearly called to tell Carrie's mother something else—something that he didn't want his wife to hear. Like that Carrie was seeing things. Communing with the dead. Or worse: lying about it all. Pretending, to throw off the trail. And the next step, she knew: If she could lie about this, couldn't she lie about everything?

She pulled on skinny white corduroys and an old blue sweater. She hadn't eaten much, and the pants slid down her hips, so she added the needlepoint belt that Libby had given her, knowing it would make her happy.

More police would be there soon enough, doing a more thorough search, combing through their house. Poking around in their bureaus, turning up their noses at their knickknacks, sniffing their soaps, making something out of nothing. She wasn't about to stick around and watch.

She went downstairs and grabbed her light, quilted coat, tiptoed out, didn't leave a note.

John wasn't the only person who could be secretive.

I don't know what I want to do with my life, and neither does she. She loved her son, but she was bored, I could tell. That's why she let him talk to other people. She was just a little tired of him talking to only her all day. Babbling, really; that's what the look on her face said. Did she even know she was lucky?

My father works so hard he has to lie down at the end of the day in a dark room, alone, no sound. And my mother works two jobs that pay the same as one. So I don't know what I want to do. I just know I don't want to do what they do.

But that woman? She didn't have to do what they do. She just had to read, play, sing, and stop for snacks along the way.

And I wonder: Does she regret that now, the snack, more than anything? That they stopped at Starbucks when they could have kept going, if she'd just had a little more willpower, a kind of firmness in her voice that allowed her to say no? Did the boy really need a cake pop that day, in the afternoon?

What kind of mom doesn't know when to say no to her child?

Upstairs, candles burned and light streamed in, dancing in color, but downstairs, in the northwest corner of Saint David's Church, it was as dark and damp as any prison. Libby, walking backward, dragging a trash bag of donations too heavy to lift, backed right into Carrie as she reached for the light switch.

Libby shrieked with surprise. “Mercy,” she said, smoothing her blouse. “You scared me half to death.”

“I'm sorry, but I thought you heard me walking down.”

“I wasn't expecting anyone, so I didn't hear anyone.”

“But…it's Wednesday,” Carrie said slowly. “I'm always here on Monday and Wednesday.”

“Carrie,” Libby said, grasping her hand, “no one expected you to come, today of all days.”

The police had clearly made a statement for the morning news. It was as if that video were reflected in Libby's eyes, illuminating them both.

“Libby, I—”

“I know, I know, you poor thing. You need to stay busy, of course. And not be alone. And what better place than here, where you can also seek comfort?”

Carrie nodded, bit her lip, and Libby wrapped her in a hug, squeezing her twice before holding her at arm's length and looking at her tenderly. Libby's face, with her slightly furrowed brow, her high pink cheekbones, and her concerned blue eyes, was like a palette of pious motherhood. A good churchgoing woman who believed.

“Libby…”

“Yes, lovey? What is it?”

“I believe Ben has been… He's been dead for a long time.”

The bag of clothes next to Libby fell over, releasing a small puff of air. Was this what John was alluding to when he'd called her and told her about Ben's death? That Carrie wasn't herself, that she seemed like she was losing her grip? Carrie looked normal enough in her simple sweater and corduroys. Libby saw the edge of the needlepoint belt beneath the sweater, calling to her with its turquoise waves and coral crabs and smiling whales. It was either a belt that went with everything or Carrie always wore Mary's belt when she was seeing Libby.

Carrie's face became streaked with tears, but she didn't look crazy or confused or manic. No, Carrie looked exactly like Carrie, just with wet cheeks.

Libby took a deep breath. Was it possible John had just misunderstood? Didn't men have trouble understanding women all the time? When she'd started going through early menopause and she'd come home one day to find dishes in the sink, papers strewn on the floor, and the dog's water bowl completely dry, she had catapulted her purse across the kitchen with a warrior's rage, screaming that no one did anything at home but her. Albert had stared at her blankly and, the next day, had called the family physician and asked for the name of a psychiatrist. That was how uncharacteristically women could act sometimes. That was how ridiculously men could respond. Was that, after all was said and done, what was going on here?

“Lovey, do you mean he's been gone so long that you gave up hope of him being alive long ago?”

Carrie breathed in the damp air. Cold and wet, it sat in her lungs, weighing on her.

“Yes,” she said finally, thinking of press conferences and judge's chambers and hands raised over Bibles. She couldn't tell anyone, apparently. No one would understand, not even Libby. “That's exactly what I meant.”

Libby pulled her back into a hug, told her the clothes could wait, and asked her if she'd like a cup of tea. She'd found out the hard way that Carrie didn't drink coffee anymore after she ran out of a church reception, sobbing at the sight of people gathered around the big silver percolator.

“Yes, I guess tea would be nice,” she said.

“Does John know you're here?”

She shook her head.

Libby went into the small kitchen to make the tea and texted John to tell him his wife was fine, safe. At least for now.

John's parents had thought he and Carrie were marrying too soon. They'd made that clear. They'd kept saying they should wait until they had more money, were more settled. And Carrie simply hadn't understood what they were talking about. How much more settled could people who'd been dating for four years be? They both had job, owned cars, had clean credit histories. Wait for more money? To a girl who had eaten ramen for an entire month when her father had left them with nothing and her mother had been unable to sell the cracked and peeling house, they had plenty of money. When Carrie started getting paychecks that covered more than her needs, she would stare at the bank statements and raise her eyes to the sky and just thank God for her good fortune. And Carrie's mother and grandmother? They probably would have been in favor of the marriage even earlier, in college. They'd loved John unconditionally, in a way John's parents couldn't quite reciprocate, and Carrie was afraid it had something to do with her more humble upbringing.

His parents had said the same thing about having a baby—that they should wait.
You haven't traveled to Europe yet. You don't own a house.
But Carrie was twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and she'd been with John for ten years! If that wasn't long enough, how long was? Occasionally they'd return from a family holiday party and Carrie would grouse that his parents didn't love her. When he asked her why she felt that way, all she could cite was one word:
cautious
. They were so cautious and polite around her. So happy in photos, so happy with other people. All those teeth! Where was that unbridled enthusiasm for Carrie? John said she was describing how dogs acted, not people. Then she asked if he was saying his parents were cats, and he laughed and said, yes, maybe. Maybe that was all it was.

After Ben was born, John's parents pressured them to move closer, to buy something in their town, not Carrie's. They even remembered that Carrie's father was buried in their church and that Carrie herself had insisted on joining that parish.

“You're here every Sunday anyway,” John's mother said. “If you lived even closer, we could pick you up on the way to services. Or if you found a carriage house on one of these charming little lanes, you could walk to church!” Her eyes shone at this possibility, as if Carrie and John could ever afford anything nearby. Carrie's mother was a Realtor: she'd taught her daughter that
charming
was just another word for
overpriced
.

John had held them at bay until Ben had gone missing, and then he'd brought it up again himself.
It's safer there. There are people all around. No one locks their doors!
But they were John's people, not Carrie's.

As she drove home from church, anticipating their arrival and how tentative they'd be, her stomach gurgled. She turned off River Road and went home the long way. This route changed her approach, bringing her to her street from the opposite end. She drove past the larger homes, the ones closer to the pond. Was one of those the house of the man with the dog? She'd thought the one he'd pointed to was smaller, like theirs. A dusty car sat in one of the driveways, a bucket nearby. Maybe that was the one. Or maybe she remembered wrong.

She turned onto her street. Three news vans littered the right-hand side of the road, their loud logos and splashy graphics assaulting her like graffiti in the quiet neighborhood.
Action News. Eyewitness News. News Now.

She drove past her house slowly, looking but trying not to look like she was looking. John's car was gone. A black sedan she didn't recognize was parked in the driveway. Great, just great.
Instead of people following me discreetly, they are doing it blatantly now! No
, she thought.
It must have to do with the search warrant.
Yes, that was it—the fingerprint technician or the DNA person, that was whose car it was. They were probably waiting for her with the warrant. At the other end of the street, she considered going farther, driving to the Marriott, staying away as long as she could.
No
, she thought, making a U-turn.
I've done nothing wrong, and I'm not going to act as if I have.
That was what Susan Clark had said:
You have nothing to hide; let them search till the cows come home. All they have now are gloves in the glove compartment and milk in the refrigerator.

She doubled back and pulled in next to the black sedan, and as she opened her door, she heard the sliding of van doors, footfalls of running feet.
Like deer
, she thought as she walked as quickly as she could up to her own door.
Just ignore them, like you ignore the animals.

“Excuse me,” they called to her. “Mrs. Morgan? Do you have any comment?” “Did you kill your son, Mrs. Morgan?” “Do you know who did?” “Would you like to tell your side of the story?” But she didn't turn. If she saw Maya Mercer near her driveway, with her big glasses and her phony empathy, it would be too much. She walked up to her front door, opened it, put one foot in, then realized, with a sharp intake of air, that she'd been holding her breath. As if she couldn't bear to inhale what they flung into the air.

She stepped into the foyer and half jumped when a man stood up in the living room.

“Dr. Kenney!” she said, her hand against her chest. “What are you doing here?”

“John called me. You had an appointment later, remember? He thought you'd need help navigating this gauntlet,” he said quietly, “and he had to go to a meeting. So I cleared my schedule. We can meet right here instead.”

“Okay, but…did he let you in? Or the officers? Are they still here, searching—?”

“No, I let him in,” a voice said from the kitchen, softened with splashes of water from the sink. Carrie thought she must be hearing things; she wiggled her finger in one ear.

The woman stepped into the living room. Motes of dust sparkled above her head in the light. Her bobbed hair, streaked with gray. Eyes that squinted down to nothing when she smiled. Carrie's lip trembled with the weight of memory. The candy hidden in Mason jars in the narrow kitchen closet. The poems decoupaged to the coffee table. The tap shoes, old and worn and used on any wooden surface she could find.

“I tried to keep him in the vestibule,” she said, smiling, “but he snake-charmed his way inside.”

She wiped her hands on two dish towels knotted together around her small waist
. Who needs an apron?
she used to say.
An apron is just a towel with strings!
How long had it been—eleven years? No. Thirteen.

“Yes,” Dr. Kenney said, “your neighbor was kind enough to answer the door.”

“My neighbor?” Carrie's quivering lip broke into a smile. “Yes, the neighbors around here are always so…helpful. They just, um, appear out of thin air whenever you need them.”

“It's good to have support.”

“Yes, so you see, I, uh, don't need you here, Doctor, truly.”

“Carrie, John told me you've been having some issues, and—”

“Doctor,” the woman said suddenly, “I'll stay right here with her. Not that she needs much mollycoddling.”

“Well…let's make another appointment then. For later today or first thing in the morning?”

“She'll check her calendar and give you a jingle, won't you, Care Bear?”

Carrie closed her eyes for a long second. No one else had ever called her that.

“Yes,” Carrie said. “I will.”

“You must promise me, Carrie,” Dr. Kenney said solemnly.

He stood up, and Carrie nodded. He'd heard this before, she knew. John saying one thing, Carrie saying another. Neither of them making complete sense.

“I'll see myself out,” he said. “No sense getting the natives restless. Nice meeting you, Mrs.—”

“Oh, just call me Gran,” she said. “Everybody else does.”

Carrie bolted the door behind him, then turned to her grandmother.

“Care Bear,” Gran said and reached out her arms.

Carrie leaned her head against her shoulder, and the memories came flooding back. Birthday parties, Thanksgivings, Christmases, and just plain Saturday mornings. She'd come over with something she'd baked, still warm from the oven, and listen to Carrie talk about her week while she swept the floor and did the dishes and let Carrie's mother sleep in.

Carrie leaned in close, inhaled her earthy, cinnamon scent. How was it possible for someone dead to smell so much like cookie crumbs?