Since She Went Away (22 page)

On Sunday night, after the laundry and the cleaning were done, Jenna didn’t feel like reading. She’d finished her latest romantic adventure and wasn’t quite ready to start a new one. She faced another week of work and liked the idea of giving her brain even more of a rest than a romance novel could provide. So she turned on the TV, making a conscious choice to avoid any channel that carried anything resembling news. She didn’t want to come across some weekend host offering their half-baked opinions on Celia’s affairs or Jenna’s lies about them.

She settled on a nature show, something about hippos wallowing in the middle of Africa. But just like with the romance novels, she found herself tearing up when they showed a mother hippo with one of her calves.
What’s wrong with me?

And then Jared came into the room, throwing himself into a chair. He propped his feet up on an overstuffed ottoman and stared at the screen.

She saw his presence as a peace offering, a gesture of reconciliation.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Hippos.”

“Cool.”

“Do you want to change it? I’m not really paying attention.”

He held out his hand and she tossed him the remote.

“But no news,” she said. “I don’t want to see my face or hear my name.”

“Neither do I,” Jared said. And then he laughed. “I mean on the TV.”

“Nice.”

He flipped around carefully, skipping the channels that might show news or crime stories. Jenna watched him and tried to sound casual.

“I Googled Tabitha yesterday,” she said. “Just curious.”

“There’s nothing there, right?”

“No. But that’s not so unusual. She’s young.”

“Did you Google me?” he asked.

“Yes. For comparison. And Syd and Mike.”

“And?” he asked.

“You all came up for something. But not Tabitha.”

“Weird, huh?”

“Yeah. A little. I tried her dad as well. Also nothing, but there are a lot of Edward Burkes. Do you know her mom’s name?”

“I don’t. I never asked.”

“But they’re separated, is that it?”

“It seems that way.”

“And her mom still lives in Florida? Is that where you said she was from?”

“Mom, do you know that my answers to these questions aren’t going to change? I said I don’t know anything about her mom.”

“I hear you.”

Jared didn’t seem to want to say more, and she felt relieved. He surfed some more and then settled on a show about the life of JFK.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

“Sure. Just don’t expect a happy ending.”

“I know what happens,” he said.

Together they watched, and Jenna felt somewhat normal again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

D
uring lunch, Sally came into the break room and informed Jenna she had a phone call.

“Here?” Jenna asked. “Did they say who it was?”

“No, but it’s a guy. He sounds kind of formal. Maybe it’s Manuel, the waiter from Saturday night. I could tell he liked you.”

“He was what, seventeen? And gay?”

“He had to be twenty-one. He served us margaritas. Line three for your mystery call.”

Jenna stepped into the records room. Jared would have called on the cell or texted if he had a problem. So would the school. She picked up and pushed the flashing light. “Hello?”

“Hi, Jenna. It’s Ian.”

She would have recognized the voice even without his identification. It took her a moment to answer. “Oh, hi. Is something wrong?”

She assumed there had been a break in Celia’s case, something Ian needed to let her know about.

“No, nothing’s wrong. And I would have called your cell or something, but I don’t have it. I just knew where you worked and figured you’d be there on a Monday afternoon.”

“I’m here. I’m pretty much always here.”

“And I don’t want to take up a lot of your time. I just wanted to tell you I’m glad we talked on Friday. You were right at lunch that day when you said I should have spoken to you sooner and given you a chance to say whatever you needed to say.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Jenna kept her voice low. Even though she’d pulled the door to the records room closed behind her, coworkers and patients passed by talking and laughing. “I wasn’t up nights worrying about that. In the big picture, how I feel or what we talk about isn’t the most important thing.”

“But maybe it is in a way. It helped me, talking to you. Sure, Ursula and I have a bond and a relationship to Celia. But it’s nice to talk to another adult who knows her as well as you do.”

Jenna remembered the feel of his hand against hers, both in the restaurant and then in her kitchen. Had he really been caressing her skin with his thumb that night? Or had she imagined it, like a foolish schoolgirl? Either way, the memory of the touch made every nerve end in her body tingle. And as soon as she realized that, she told herself to make it stop.

“I wish we could talk about the good things,” Ian said. “All we’ve talked about is this awful stuff. This stuff that has blindsided us. When Celia disappeared, it felt like I’d been hit by a truck. And now this news of the affair . . . it feels like I got hit by another truck.”

“Or kicked in the balls?”

Jenna cringed. Had she said too much?

Ian laughed a little. “Right.”

Ian never seemed like the kind of person who needed sympathy, but what else could she say to him? “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s good. Let’s just make sure the next time we talk, we focus on something else. Maybe we can involve Ursula like we talked about. She’s at an age when she’s going to want to know what her mom was like as a teenager. Who better to tell her, right?”

“You know, Ian, I haven’t stopped thinking Celia can tell Ursula herself. I—”

But she stopped herself. She wasn’t sure if she believed the words coming out of her own mouth. And she didn’t want to sound completely fake.

“It’s okay, Jenna,” Ian said. “We all know where we stand.”

A silence settled over the call, so Jenna broke it by giving him her cell number. “Call me or text me if you want to share those good memories with Ursula. Or anybody else. I think you’re right. It would be a good thing.”

“Sure.” He paused. Jenna heard someone talking in the hallway. Then Ian said, “It’s been good reconnecting with you, Jenna. It’s, well, it’s a part of the past that had been shut off for a while.”

“You’re right,” she said. When she hung up the phone, her hand was shaking.

•   •   •

She walked out with Sally at the end of the day, both of them moving slowly, tired from a busy Monday.

“So, who was your mysterious caller today?” Sally asked.

“Oh.” Mention of the call made her feel guilty, even though she wasn’t sure why. She’d spent the day thinking about Ian a lot. The two times their hands touched, the desire to reconnect and share old memories. Wasn’t that a perfectly normal thing to do when someone . . . “Just a friend.”

“‘Just a friend’? Just a man friend? Why so defensive? Do you say that about me? ‘Oh, that’s Sally, she’s just a friend.’”

They stopped by Sally’s car, a black Jetta. Sally leaned back against the trunk as if she had all the time in the world.

“It’s Ian.” Sally didn’t react. “Celia’s husband.”

“Oh, I get it.” A knowing look spread across Sally’s face. “You’re worried what it looks like if you two start buddying up.”

“We’re not buddying up. We’re old friends too.”

“I thought he was such a stick-in-the-mud. Didn’t you always refer to him as Mr. Uptight or something like that?”

“He is like that now, but he wasn’t always. In high school he could be funny. He partied like anyone else at times. He has a warmer side.”

“So did Celia, apparently. I saw that stuff on the news over the weekend.” Sally studied Jenna, waiting to see if she wanted to talk. When she didn’t say anything, Sally said, “I’m sorry you got dragged through the mud again.”

“It’s fine. I just didn’t know my best friend as well as I thought I did.”

“Hey, who knows anyone as well as they think they do? Derrick, my oldest, he called me over the weekend. His whole family is converting to Catholicism. The whole family.”

Jenna was only half paying attention. She saw her conversation and contact with Ian through Sally’s eyes, through the eyes of anyone else in town. No, it might not look right, even if they were old friends. Even when things with Marty were at their worst, their most unfulfilling, she never cheated. Not that she had a lot of choices as the stay-at-home mother of a four-year-old boy. But how far she’d come, how much more confidence she possessed about her own place in the world.

“Do you have time for a drink?” Sally asked.

Jenna came back to the conversation. “A drink? No, I should get home. Jared and I had a rough patch over the weekend. I feel like I should be there. And his girlfriend dumped him.”

“No way. That little bitch. And after she mounted him that way? Got him all stirred up?” Sally offered a sympathetic smile. “Those poor boys. They never talk about their feelings, but when they get hurt, look out. There’s a well of emotion just waiting to come out.”

“I know. He was really into this girl, I think. It’s a long story.”

“Maybe that’s what’s going on with your gentleman caller,” Sally said.

“What do you mean?”

“Celia’s husband. He’s hurting. His heart’s broken. The disappearance. The affair. Hell, the guy’s been crushed. He probably sees you as someone he can open up to. An old friend, right?”

Sally’s logical explanation disappointed her a little. Disappointed because it made sense.

“Maybe,” Jenna said. “You’re probably right.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

W
hen she came in the door, Jared was at the kitchen table, doing his homework. He had books and papers spread all over and headphones covering his ears. He slipped them off when he saw her and offered a small smile.

He still looked as if someone had run over his puppy.

“How’s it going?” she asked, trying not to sound falsely chipper.

“I’m fine.”

“I thought I’d make spaghetti. Are you hungry?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“Clear your stuff and I’ll get it going.”

He ate quickly and didn’t say much. Jenna wanted to give him his space, let him lick his wounds over being dumped by Tabitha. Jared was more outgoing than Marty, better able to express himself and open up. It was likely a consequence of growing up with a single mom. She edged toward bringing up the elephant in the room rather than ignoring it, but before she said anything, Jared spoke up.

“So Celia was really having an affair before she disappeared?” he asked.

“It looks that way.”

“And she kept it hidden from everybody?”

“People usually hide affairs.” Jenna pushed the food around on her plate. At least he was talking. Not what she wanted to talk about, but at least the boy was talking. “For all I know, she has friends who knew. Just because we were close for a lot of years doesn’t mean I knew everything about her.”

“Yeah.” He nodded as though he were listening to music. He wasn’t. The headphones were off. Jenna could tell he was absorbing the knowledge about Celia, processing it, learning some things about the adult world. “And this weird, random guy shows up trying to pawn her earring?”

“He’s a suspect,” Jenna said. “Or he might be. We went to high school with him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was a total oddball back then. Just thinking about the way he used to creep around the school in his army jacket makes my skin crawl. Even after all these years. I need to call Detective Poole and see if they’ve learned anything.”

“I guess it takes a lot of trust to be in a relationship.”

“It does.” She twirled spaghetti on her plate. “Do you think you trusted Tabitha that much?”

He grew defensive. “She didn’t betray my trust.”

“I didn’t say she did.” They ate in silence for a few minutes. “Who am I to talk? I don’t think I’ve ever trusted a man that much in a relationship. Not your dad. Not anybody else.”

Jared looked up, his face showing surprise. And not just at the content of the revelation, but also the raw nature of it. They were moving into that territory where parent and child found themselves standing on the same level for a short time, sharing the same view. It could be invigorating and unnerving for both parties.

“I just thought Tabitha and I would go on and be together. For a while. And you know what the really frustrating part is?”

“What?”

“I don’t know
why
she did it. I don’t know if I did something wrong or what it was.”

“I doubt it was you. And I’m not just saying that because I’m your mom. When I talked to her the other day in the parking lot, I could tell she cared about you a great deal. That’s why she brought that book back to me. She wanted me to tell you that. She cared.”

“Really?”

“Really. I suspect it’s her dad. Or something else we don’t know about. Has she been back in school?”

“No. No one’s seen her. They think she’s gone. Moved away.”

“Are they looking into it?”

“I asked Mrs. Timmons. You know, the counselor. The one who looks like a hippie? She said they have to file some reports when a kid stops coming to school. They’re doing that with the proper authorities.” He shrugged, trying to put away all his awful feelings with one gesture. Jenna knew it wouldn’t work. Nothing was ever that easy.

Jared took a second serving, and Jenna poured some wine for herself while he ate. She offered him ice cream for dessert, but he shook his head, saying he might eat some later.

“Can I ask you something else?” he said.

“Sure.”

“I always thought Ian was kind of cold and, you know, had a stick up his ass. Like, way up. Not mean or anything. Just . . . distant.”

Jenna tensed at the mention of Ian’s name. Her hand tingled where his thumb had rubbed. In that very room, at that very table.

“He can seem that way,” she said. “But he’s not. He’s just serious about work. He has a lot of responsibility at the foundry.”