The Vanishing Year (24 page)

CHAPTER
24

By the time we get to the house, evening has fallen, quiet and thick. The sky is blue-gray, clouds covering the stars, and in the country, so much emptier than twilight in the city. Henry lets us in and the air smells freshly laundered, clean and safe. The innocence of dryer sheets.

The kitchen contains a cold spread: cheese and hummus, fresh vegetables so crisp I find myself looking around for Penny, who couldn't have left more than moments ago. There's no one, of course. It wasn't that long ago that I found this sort of convenient arrangement of our lives to be charming, like a party card trick. A sleight of hand here, a simple misdirection there, and
Voilà, here's your dinner.
Now, it crawls under my skin and festers there, like a chigger, and the whole thing makes me itch.

Henry makes me tea, chamomile, lightly sweetened with honey that he insists on serving me in bed, against my protest. It's barely eight o'clock for God's sake. My head feels so heavy and I want to do nothing but sleep.

“You must be exhausted. Please, let me take care of you.” He pulls the covers up to my lap, fluffs my pillows. His hair
is flopping down on his forehead and he's changed into a dark oxford shirt and khaki shorts. He looks relaxed, nurturing, his eyebrows pulled together in concern. He keeps kissing me, my forehead, my hands, my cheeks.
As you are woman, so be lovely.

He brings me a hot washcloth for my headache. He brushes my hair, kneads my back, his thumbs working the tender muscles between my shoulder blades. I let him. His hands guide me back down to the bed, lying on my back, and his fingers work the buttons on my blouse. I close my eyes and let him remove my clothes until the breeze blows in, chilling my skin where he's kissed it. His fingers trace circles around my belly, my thighs, my breasts, and I let him. They find me open and wet between my legs and I let him.

I feel loosely disconnected, lubricated at the joints, floating above the bed, watching now-naked Henry make love to me, slow, insistent, loving. His face flickers in the light of a candle I don't remember lighting, and it embodies one word:
rapture.

I don't come. I feel numb and weightless, like I've had too much to drink. Or like I've taken something. A thought pops in my head but flitters out before I can catch it. Henry shudders and bucks, his soft yelps in my ear remind me of a caged puppy, and he whispers things I can't quite hear.

Except one.
My most precious thing.
He says it again and again until I fall asleep, hard, like falling off a cliff.

•  •  •

I dream of Evelyn, her teeth bared, red and bloody. She screeches,
What have you done?
She comes at me, hands clawed out to attack my neck, my throat. I can feel her nails on my neck, my collarbone, scratching, and she shrieks like a banshee, her hair wild. Her hatred is so real, so palpable, that I wake up wrapped in sheets soaked with sweat. Henry isn't in bed.

It's two a.m. I roam the house and find him sitting in the kitchen, sipping bourbon. He leads me back upstairs, changes the sheets, and tucks me in. I sink into the freshly made bed. I'm quite sure I can't handle even one more little thing. ­Henry's quiet care is such a relief. He brings me orange juice,
For strength,
he whispers, and I drink it gratefully, chugging it in large, heaving gulps.

“Have you heard from Yates?” I ask. “Did they find him? Can we go home?”

He shakes his head and I flop back against the pillows, exhausted. I'm asleep in no time, a thick, wool sleep, heavy and dense. The kind where when you wake up, you don't know if it's morning or night and the numbers on the clock swim around, bumping into each other.

I don't have any dreams.

•  •  •

I wake sometime later, could have been hours, could have been days. I'm feverish and chattering. Henry, bedside, tucks thick, patterned quilts around me, murmuring about germs and summer colds. Fluffing pillows, clucking and puttering around the room, like a nursemaid. Picking random objects up and moving them for no other reason than to have something to do.

I push myself up on my elbows, watching him. “Have they found him?”

Henry shakes his head. “Just worry about getting better.” He kisses my forehead, his hand cupping the back of my neck. He brings me more tea, toast, and Penny's buttery, flaky scones. I wonder when she made them and feel a sharp beat of unexplained hatred. I leave them all on the tray untouched. On the nightstand, he sets down a tall tumbler of orange juice. “You have to stay hydrated or you'll only get more sick.”

I chug it down and fall back to sleep, the kind of thick
sleep you fall in and out of quickly, dreamless. He wakes me every few hours to drink, until I shove the glass away. I can't remember Henry ever taking care of me sick. Prior to today, I wouldn't have imagined it.

“I can't drink any more orange juice. Henry, I think we need to go back to the city.”

“We will. We will. As soon as I know it's safe.” He pushes my hair off my forehead, which is slick with sweat.

“Yates should have called by now. Did she call?” I try to get out of bed, but my vision swims. I have a fever and I thunk back onto the bed.

“It's the flu. Your fever was up to 104.” Henry speaks in hushed tones, like we're in hospice. “I've called the doctor and had something delivered. It's an antiviral. It will help but it might make you vomit.” He's asking my permission in the way Henry asks permission, which is to not ask at all. He's
telling
me permission. He brings me two small pale pink tablets and a large glass of water. I chug them down.

I pull the blankets in against my face. I imagine the sheet getting sucked into my mouth, cutting off my oxygen. I hear Henry's footsteps on the floor, the quiet creak of the door, and only when I'm sure I'm alone, do I drift off to sleep.

When I wake up, the bedside table holds a full glass of juice and a note.
Be back soon, Henry.
On the chaise longue he'd laid out my clothes, a gentle nudge to get up. Get dressed. A purple T-shirt and a pair of white shorts, like maybe today we would just go hiking.
Hiking
.

I dump the juice in the toilet and get dressed under self-protest. I have to fight every movement to not crawl back under the blankets. I'm so cold. But underneath some layer of hopelessness flames primal anger, a spark off a flint. Everyone seems content to just let Jared come to me. Yates seemed blasé about it, Henry was no help. If no one is going to help me, I'm going to have to help myself.

If I could reach Cash, he'd surely do some investigating. I need help. Joanie's death, Caroline's threat, Jared, the vanishing Mick, it's all related somehow, I just can't find the link. Every single thing is connected, my whole body vibrates, that's how confident I am. I'm right, that Jared and Mick and Joanie's death are connected, that it's somehow my fault. That I killed my sister. I have a sudden thought: If I find the missing Mick, I can unravel this whole thing.

I make my way downstairs to the kitchen, looking for my phone. My blood is pumping now, thumping through my veins in a steady rhythm.
Find Mick. Find Mick.
A drumbeat of redemption with a touch of revenge. I still feel foggy and weak from the fever and my stomach turns with nausea from the antivirals, but the anger perches right under my skin and could easily fan to full flame.

I search the kitchen, the sitting room, and the sunroom, pulling out drawers and cabinets along the way. No phone. I head back upstairs and sift through the drawers in our dressers, suitcases, pants pockets. No phone.

It was right on the bedside table when I fell asleep, I was sure of it. It has to be somewhere. I have an idea: Henry's office.

In Henry's office I yank open desk drawers and flip through files. In the closet, I find file boxes and dig through them, finding nothing notable, save for a small padlock key that I slip in my pocket.

On the bookshelf my eyes settle on the picture of me in the woods, that day on a picnic. I realize I'm wearing the same shirt I have on. I pick up the picture and study it, and my hand goes to my collar, feeling along the ribbed edge of the crew neck. I touch the shirt in the picture, a smooth hem in a deep
V.
A hint of cleavage, a shadowy swell of breast.

It's not the same shirt.

I only have one, purchased as a gift from my darling hus
band, in a color I've never liked. I study the picture closer. The same uneven eyebrows, the slight widow's peak at my hairline, my dark hair newly grown, shiny and soft to my shoulders. The mole at my left ear.
My left ear.
My hand flies to my face, gently tapping the mole near my
right
ear.

The woman in the picture is not me.

CHAPTER
25

I fish the key out of my pocket and slide it into the padlock. The locked room. The room filled with files and personal effects that Henry wanted protected when he rented the place out. The room I've never seen.

With the picture tucked under my arm, I turn the key and the lock pops open. It takes me a minute to dislodge the latch, and the door gives with a stutter catch. The room is pitch-black, and it's only three o'clock in the afternoon. I realize there are room-darkening shades on the windows. I flip on the light.

On the far wall, file boxes are stacked five across, four high, identical and unlabeled. The wall on the left contains large crates. The wall on the right is covered by a large sheet.

The room smells musty, unused. I pull the picture out and examine it again, tilting it one way then the other in the light. There are subtle differences: she has a chipped front tooth, barely noticeable. She has a red, slivery scar across her collarbone. Had I not been looking for something, I wouldn't have seen it. My hands shake.

I pull down the top box, anchor it on the floor and lift the
lid. Files. I flip through them.
Tara taxes. Tara student loans 2007.
I pull down the next box. More files. Then the next. Until all the boxes are scattered around me. What am I looking for? I don't know. There's only one explanation for the picture, I just need proof.
Bingo. Wedding pictures.
I flip open the album and fan the pages. Tara in an ivory fishtail gown, her hair pulled back in a chignon, smiling a smile I recognize as my own, the same smile I've given to Henry. A secret smile. A lover's smile. Lips half-parted, turned up on one side.

I turn the pages with my thumb, one after the other. A wedding with no guests. A lavish dinner spread, a glistening plate of scallops, Tara's mouth opened goofily to eat one. I hate scallops.

Through my husband's old wedding photos, I learn that my dead sister liked seafood.

A first dance, an intimate restaurant, a single violinist.
Oh Joanie, why were you so isolated from the world?
Did she have friends? Did her parents want to come? Where was this wedding? I examine the pages, twice front to back then back to front. Looking for clues, but finding nothing. She looked so happy, so gloriously, no-strings-attached happy. The way dogs and toddlers are happy. With abandon.

I set the book down. Move to the large crates and unfold the flaps. Inside, neatly folded, are clothes. Piles of slacks, blouses, dresses. Fabric so fine, you wanted to bury your face in it. I look at the labels. Versace. Donna Karan. Silk, velvet, cashmere, varying shades of purple.

I think of all the clothing he's given me, eggplant, violet, lavender. A color I abhorred my whole life.
Tara's
favorite color. He didn't buy me new clothes, he gave me her clothes. My mouth tastes like copper and I suck air through my teeth. I can't catch my breath. I've been nothing more than a fucking Barbie doll.

I stand up, cross the room, and rip the sheet off the wall.
Underneath, a hundred little pictures flutter. A corkboard, mounted to the wall, is pinned with pictures, articles, scribbled notes, sheets of loose leaf, random pieces of paper. One side of the board is labeled
Tara
in thick Magic Marker, the other side is labeled
Hilary
. The blood thunders in my ears.

Pictures of me at the flower shop. Lace skirts and fishnet stockings and combat boots as I arrived at work, or stiletto heels as I left for the night. Lydia and me laughing, holding our sides, sharing a cigarette.

The pictures of Tara are wide-ranging. Early shots show her with long flowing hair, younger, freer, with pink cheeks and loose, open smiles. Later, she is guarded, as though she was holding a secret, thin lipped and a bashful look away. More enigmatic. In some cases, all the more beautiful. Her eyes are darker, hooded.

I tug down a newspaper article, pulling the paper through the pushpin and ripping the top.

September 5, 2011: A woman, 25, was killed in a hit-and-run at the corner of 32nd and 6th. The victim is identified as Tara Joan Whittaker . . .

I smooth the article out with my hand, leaving ink smudges across the paper. There it is. Confirmation. Proof. Tara and Joanie were the same person. I lurch forward, grab a box with both hands, and heave. I feel like I'm going to be sick, the nausea rolls through me. I put the box aside.

Tacked to the board is a thick, ecru card. I pull it down and examine it. The front simply says
Hal.
Inside, eerily familiar handwriting loops around a just as familiar poetic verse:

As you are woman, so be lovely:

As you are lovely, so be various,

Merciful as constant, constant as various.

So be mine, as I yours for ever.

I turn the card over. On the back is another verse:

Lovely I am, merciful I shall prove:

Woman I am, constant as various,

Not marble-hearted but your own true love.

Give me an equal kiss, as I kiss you.

A laugh-sob gets caught in my throat. This was Tara, subtly telling Henry,
I know you.
I see through you. He'd never gotten it, of course. For all Henry's intellectual prowess, I should have known he would never indulge in something as frivolous as poetry. My sister, with her mystery novels, her introversion, and her crippling agoraphobia . . . she may have been timid, but she would never be mistaken for stupid.
Not marble-hearted but your own true love.
Galatea telling Pygmalion that she is more than his creation; she's her own living, breathing soul.
Give me an equal kiss.
Is Henry capable of considering a woman his equal? Clever girl.

There's a picture pinned, Tara and Henry in front of the Eiffel Tower, and I flip it over.
TJ and Hal. Honeymoon 2008.
She's wearing a black dress with a large silver rose pinned to the collar. Black-and-white-striped skirt. I recognize it. I wore it in France, right down to the brooch. My mouth tastes like pennies and my hands shake.

All these pictures, her wide, happy smiles. Free of anxiety. Certainly, outside in public. In crowds. Not agoraphobic then, all dated 2008, 2009. A few from 2010. Nothing from 2011. Like she'd simply disappeared in the year between 2010 and 2011. Even if she'd struggled with anxiety, as Mrs. Bascio suggested, she wasn't home-bound. She was functioning.
Oh, Joanie, what did he do to you?
I feel it then, the pressure
of what being
Henry Whittaker's wife
would eventually do to me, and it's as heavy as a house, perched right on my chest.

I pull down the other articles on my side of the corkboard. Small, typeset blotter notes from the trial. Witnesses and defendants. Jared Pritchett and Michael Flannery. It's right there in black and white.

It suddenly occurs to me that I'm in danger. In what way, exactly, I'm not certain. I cannot be found in this room. I push my hand against my forehead. I need to leave this place. How? I pin the articles back to the board, restack the boxes, close up the crates. I take one last look around at this . . . shrine. It's been right under my nose the whole time, like he'd wanted me to find it. I feel the sob catch in my chest. My whole life is a lie. This whole room is a lie.

I back out of the door, slam the padlock back together, and rush to Henry's office. I slide the keys back into the box in his closet, and I hope I remember the right one. I realize I left the picture in his secret room. No time.

I race to the front door. I need to leave. Call for help. Something. I try to imagine explaining all this to Yates. She'll lock me up, straightjacket and all.

I realize I have no car.
Thinkthinkthinkthink.
I'll walk to the corner store. And then what? Call who? Is there even an “Information” to call anymore? I think of Trisha, with her chipmunk cheek grin and her shiny, excited eyes. I imagine clawing at her to call the police, gasping and panicked. It'd be the most exciting thing to happen in Fishing Lake since the Italian witch lived up the hill.

I turn the handle on the front door and pull. It's locked. I flip the dead bolt, try again. Locked. The door doesn't budge. My heart is starting to pound. Bad things are going to happen, I can feel it. The panic crawls up my spine and wraps around my neck and I can feel the back of my head starting to sweat, big fat drops dripping down my neck. My life, un
raveling at my feet, and I'm left stumbling and tripping over the threads. I turn the dead bolt and the door lock and give a swift tug. Nothing moves. The fear rises up, choking and tearing at my throat until I can't breathe and I cough a sob against my forearm.

The door is locked from the outside. I'm locked in. I rest my forehead against the glass and take deep breaths, trying to calm down. Windows. That's all. Windows. You can't really lock a person in a whole house. I don't care if I have to rappel the wall. The claustrophobia is setting in fast and I can't catch my breath. In. Out. In. Out.

“Going somewhere?”

I whip around and there stands Henry, tall, familiar-­looking Henry, with his vacation smile and tousled hair, a soft, fraternity boy curl falling down onto his forehead. His head cocked to the side, his eyes marblelike, little rat beads of eyes. I push my back up against the door, the knob digging into the small of my back.

In his left hand, he's holding a gun.