“Fault? Junie, you’re a wonderful mother. Whatever is going on with Sarah, the doctors will figure it out. Fault is something that doesn’t matter unless she’s been harmed in some way.” She peeked at Sarah again. “That little darling does not look harmed.”
Junie sat back down and decided to ask Ruth about Ellen. “Mom, you said something to me about people saying things they normally wouldn’t after Ellen disappeared. Can you tell me about the investigation? I mean, did they have any suspects?”
Ruth turned her back to Junie, busying herself with washing the utensils that were in the sink. “Oh, Junie, that was so long ago. Let it be.”
“I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know. I never thought about it much until now, and Daddy’s death has brought it all back, and I have these questions. Unanswered questions.”
Ruth let out a breath, turned off the water, then faced Junie. She leaned against the sink, her arms crossed. “Go ahead.”
Junie saw Ruth’s jaw tighten and realized she was being selfish again. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s nothing. This is the last thing you need. I’m sorry.” She’d have to figure out another way to get the answers she needed.
“You’ll be home at the end of the week?” Brian put his suitcase in the trunk of the Lexus.
“Maybe, or next weekend at the latest,” Junie answered. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to your dad?”
Brian looked away.
Junie looked at Peter’s empty driveway. “He’ll be sad to have missed you. Maybe you should stop by his office.”
Brian kissed her and climbed into his car. “Nah, he’ll be busy. I’ll call him later. What about Sarah’s therapist appointment?”
“She said we could do a Skype visit if necessary, or we can wait until the following week.”
Junie watched the muscles in his jaw clench and unclench. The silence between them grew, like a ravine too large to traverse. She hated this new congenial relationship of theirs. There had been a time when Brian wouldn’t have left her without first passionately kissing her and hugging her so tight that she could barely breathe.
Junie turned at the sound of the front door. Sarah stood in the doorway, head down, thumb in her mouth. She walked purposefully toward Brian’s car and tried to open the door. It was locked. She tried again and again until finally Brian snapped, “Stop it, Sarah.”
Sarah didn’t stop. Again she tried to get in the car. When the door wouldn’t open, she began pounding on it with her fist.
“Sarah!” Junie reached for her arms.
Sarah let out a shriek.
“This is all I need,” Brian fumed.
Junie wrestled with Sarah, pulling her away from the side of the car. “We’ll see Daddy soon,” Junie assured her.
Sarah shook her head from side to side, then pointed to herself, then the car. She obviously wanted to leave.
“We’ll leave in a few days. We’re staying with Grandma.”
Sarah kicked at the air, struggling to be set free.
Brian mouthed the word questionnaire to Junie.
Junie held up her palm. “Not now. I’ll do it after we get home.”
“Right.” Brian started the car, his eyes fixed on the hood.
“Call me when you get there,” she hollered over Sarah’s cries.
“Right,” he said, and drove away with a screech of the tires.
Chapter Fourteen
Junie sped down the highway toward the bakery, windows down, letting the wind carry away the scratchy residue of saying goodbye to Brian. She pulled off the interstate and headed toward town. An hour fifteen, not bad. The bakery wasn’t really a quick run from Ruth’s house, but her mother knew that, and she didn’t seem to mind watching Sarah for a few hours. Besides, Junie needed a sanity check, and Shane was the best source of sanity around.
She breezed into the bakery. The smell of sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon permeated the air so thick she could taste it.
“There she is!” Shane opened his lanky arms, and Junie fell into them. “You okay, sweetie?” He kissed the top of her head.
“I’m good. Thanks for holding down the fort. Mom says hi.” Junie tossed her purse on the oak desk and snagged a thick white apron from a hook on the wall. “Mm. Is that what I think it is?”
Shane lifted the right side of his mouth in a mischievous grin, his perfect string of white teeth set off by his shock of spiky red hair. He held up a finger, went deeper into the kitchen, and came back with a beautifully presented white dish with two pieces of thick baklava in the center, chocolate drizzled over the top and across the plate in an elegant design. “When you called to say you were coming by, I figured you needed a little comfort food.”
Junie picked up one of the fluffy pastries and took a bite. The warm nuts and cinnamon blended together perfectly, and the phyllo dough fell apart in her fingers. “Heaven. Daddy would have loved this.”
She followed Shane through the narrow doorway and into the front of the cozy bakery. There were four round tables near the plate-glass windows that overlooked the street. Junie sat down at the one nearest the corner. She gazed out the window at the sign that Shane had set out on the sidewalk. She loved the draw of the sign, the way it reeled customers in off the busy street. There was something about those two words, Today’s Special, that made people take notice, and Shane was a master at choosing decadent treats to feature. Today’s special was the Chocolate Coconut Macaroon, and she knew they’d be sold out by day’s end.
They were in the slow hours, after lunch and before the hunger of the afternoon set in. They’d spent many mornings sitting at the same round table next to the window, chatting before getting to work. Shane knew about the growing tension between her and Brian. He’d talked Junie down from many ledges over the years, and more recently, he’d been on her side with regard to Sarah and not giving up until a diagnosis made sense. Shane’s nephew had been diagnosed with ADHD a few years back, and Shane swore that the medication took away his entire personality. Shane called it the R2-D2 disease, Where the meds change children into robots.
Junie was glad for the familiarity of their ritual. The tension in her jaw and shoulders relaxed.
“So tell me.” Shane put his hand atop hers. “How’s Ruth? How did Sarah do?”
“Leaving Mom felt like I was abandoning her, and it was a relief, all at once. I have all this.” She waved her hand in the air. “I have my normal chaotic life to fall back into, and Mom has…nothing. She’ll go through her life in an empty, lonely house.” Junie thought about her words and silently promised herself that once she went back home, she’d make the time to be more present for her mother, rather than blowing her off as an unnecessary interruption. “Sarah’s with Mom. Brian went home, but we’re staying for a bit longer.”
He cocked his head. “Should we worry?”
“About me and Brian?” Junie nodded, then shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think it’s just Sarah and now this.” She took a deep breath and relayed the last few days to him, tiptoeing over the flashes of memory like pebbles under bare feet. “What do you think about the memories?”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Brian is not pleased.”
“Maybe you were just replacing yourself with Ellen? Do you remember your dad tickling you on the floor? Surely you went in the shed with him.”
“No.” Junie shook her head adamantly. “My dad was not a tickler. He was a science teacher. He was loving, but not that kind of loving, you know? He showed his love by sharing his knowledge and applauding my successes, but not with physicality. And as far as his shed goes, no way.” She finished her baklava. “Got anything else?”
“More?” Shane lifted his eyebrows at her empty plate.
“No. Ideas about the memories of Ellen?”
“Nope, fresh out. What does Brian think?”
Junie thought about the way Brian had looked like a wounded animal when she’d yelled at h
im, mistaking him for her father and Sarah for Ellen. She could understand why his hurt had so quickly morphed to anger. “Brian thinks I’m trying to sabotage his relationship with Sarah. I wonder if I’m just losing my mind.”
Shane lowered his voice. “We’re not talking about Ellen here, are we?”
Junie shook her head, thankful that Shane didn’t make her spell it out.
“Well, are you?” he asked.
“Losing my mind? Probably.”
“No, are you sabotaging his relationship with Sarah?”
Junie held his gaze, her teeth clenched. “No, of course not.” She drew her eyebrows together. “At least I don’t think so.” She escaped into the kitchen.
Shane followed.
“You just lost your father, and you’re stressed about Sarah. Ellen is…revisiting you. It makes sense that you might be looking to avert attention from all of that, and maybe pushing Brian away is your scapegoat, your way to gain some space?”
Could she be driving Brian away on purpose? Was she so sick of battling with him about Sarah that she’d begun pushing him away? Maybe Shane was right. Maybe she was setting up obstacles, making it harder for Brian than it needed to be. Junie pretended to look over the daily order sheet.
“I don’t think I am, but maybe. I’m so confused.” She tossed the clipboard onto the counter and covered her face in her hands. “This thing with Ellen and losing my dad, it’s just too much. I mean, I feel like I’m dealing with losing my dad better than I’m dealing with the memories of Ellen. Or maybe I’m not dealing with losing him at all. I haven’t felt it hit me like a brick in the face, like it should hit me.” She turned her back to Shane and said quietly, “I can’t help but wonder if he was somehow tied into Ellen’s disappearance.”
“Sheesh! That’s a leap, don’t you think?” Shane leaned against the counter next to Junie. “Look, you’re exhausted. This is your dad we’re talking about. Ralph. The man who raised you, who taught you that adding detergent to your water, baking soda, and vinegar gives you a better eruption for your volcano.”
Junie laughed.
“That doesn’t sound like the same man who could’ve done something to your friend.”
Junie wanted to believe him, but there was a nagging at the back of her mind that she couldn’t shake. “You’re probably right.” She had to get the thoughts of her father untangled from her thoughts of Ellen, and the only way to do that was to figure out why she was having them.
She hugged Shane. “I think I just needed to touch base. Thank you.”
“For what?” Shane asked.
“For being here. I’m gonna go see what I can dig up.”
“I hope you mean that figuratively.”
Junie slowed her speed as she came off the highway and drove down the quiet streets toward the Gettysburg library. She pulled into the parking lot and parked beside a row of hedges. This was it. This was the last place Ellen had been seen. Junie breathed deeply, wishing she were there for some other reason: a school project for Sarah, volunteering, anything other than hunting down clues to Ellen’s disappearance.
Ivy laced the sides of the concrete steps leading to the once white building, which had grayed with age, making it look even more regal than she’d remembered. The magnolia tree out front had branched tall and wide, blocking the view of the front window. Junie stepped from her car, thinking of Ellen skipping up the walk. A shiver ran up her spine. She considered turning back, driving away, and letting go of her need to discover whatever lay beyond her memories. But she couldn’t turn her back; the pull was too strong.
Junie opened the heavy oak doors and stood in the entrance, breathing in the smell of aged wood and old books. The odor wasn’t unpleasant or musty; it was simply distinct. She walked through the wide center of the building, wondering if Ellen had known when she left the library on that fateful day that something horrible was about to happen, or had she skipped away from the prominent building with a smile and been scooped off the street by some dangerous ex-con? Why did the police assume she was abducted? Was there any proof? She could have been abducted, but something felt incomplete, like when she substituted applesauce for butter in baked goods to make them low fat. Sure, it might go undetected by most people, but she knew it wasn’t the best. Ellen’s abduction felt fraudulent somehow.
Junie sat in a cubicle, facing the library computer, feeling bad for leaving her mother with Sarah even though she didn’t seem to mind. She hadn’t really lied to her. I just have to run to the bakery. She did have to touch base with Shane, but she also wanted to get a handle on the thoughts she was having. She glanced at her watch. She’d been poring over articles for half an hour and hadn’t found much on Ellen’s disappearance. She’d have to head back soon. According to the articles, Ellen had been at the library before she disappeared, as Junie had remembered. Then there was a gap in time before she was reported missing, a full five hours between when someone saw her leaving the library and when her mother had reported her as missing.
Junie and Brian had spoken about Ellen’s disappearance only a handful of times. Talking about it made Brian angry and depressed, so Junie put away her own selfish need to talk about the memories of her best friend. She’d learned to compartmentalize her feelings for Ellen and her life with Brian. The two did not intersect often, and when they did, it was very short-lived. What she remembered from their brief conversations was that the day of Ellen’s disappearance, he went home after lacrosse practice, and then his mother sent him to look for Ellen at the library. He didn’t find her there, so he went back to the school, thinking she might be there; then he went to the park, but didn’t see her there either. He said he walked all the way back to the library, which was about a mile and a half from the park, but he decided it was getting late and she would probably be home by then, so he turned around and went home. When Ellen didn’t show up at dinnertime, her mother began to worry. Mr. Olson went looking for her after he returned home from work, taking Brian with him. Two hours later, Ellen was reported missing. Things were different back then. Unlike the couch potato youth of today, fixed to computers or glued to cell phones, back then children played outside, walked to and from friends’ houses, and played sports for fun. Kids would leave the house in the morning, pal up with their friends, and come back later in the day. It was difficult to keep track of them, but it wasn’t a time of fear. Without the Internet, pedophilia and abductions were rarely spoken of. Besides, the neighbors were pretty close-knit. Had there been anything unusual, they trusted each other to keep their children safe.
Junie thought about her childhood and how one day Ellen was there and the next day she wasn’t. Not for the first time, guilt pressed in on her for having lived for all those years, happily going through each day, while no one even knew where Ellen was, or what had happened to her. Her mother always said that life was not fair. She thought about her father and how he and her mother had been waiting to retire to do all the things they couldn’t while her father had worked. She thought about Sarah and her regression and subsequent silence, which no one could understand or accept. No, she thought, life is not fair.
Junie read through a few more articles, unearthing nothing more than a mention about neighbors and persons of interest being interviewed. She checked her watch—she wanted to talk to Mrs. Walters, the librarian, and she needed to check in with Shane—not because of the business, but because she just needed someone to lean on.
Mrs. Walters had worn only purple for as long as Junie could remember. Today was no different. Donning a light purple polyester pantsuit that buttoned up to her neck, Mrs. Walters stood behind the counter, smiling at Junie. “I wish I remembered more, Junie, but it was so long ago.”
Another dead end. “Did you see anything out of the ordinary? Hear anything when she left? A scream?”
Mrs. Walters shook her head. Her thin, sharp nose and gray, professionally set, short poufy curls made her look a bit like a poodle. “Her brother and father came looking fo
r her. You know, she was a spunky little thing. At the time, I guess I thought she was probably just playing at a friend’s house and would turn up sometime soon.” She shook her head, her eyes cast downward. “It’s a shame, a real shame. Thank goodness there weren’t any other abductions. Poor girl.”
Junie’s stomach turned. Little girls didn’t just disappear—did they? She thought of Sarah and how quickly her personality disappeared. She pushed aside the ache of missing that unique spark of her daughter and wondered where she should look next.
Chapter Fifteen
Junie pulled onto the highway, heading back toward her mother’s house. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the memories of Ellen meant something. She glanced at her cell phone, wondering why she hadn’t heard from Brian. She picked it up and speed-dialed his number. It went straight to voice mail. She called his office.
“Hi, Stacy. It’s Junie. Is Brian in?”
The young receptionist’s voice sang out in a breathy falsetto pitch. “Not yet, Mrs. Olson. He called and said he left your parents’ house late, so he’d be in later in the afternoon.”
Junie hung up the phone, wondering why her husband had lied and where he had gone. Could he have been too upset to go to work? She checked for missed calls—none. She wondered if something had happened, a car accident, maybe, then realized that she’d have been notified. Too annoyed to go back to her mother’s house, Junie decided to pay a visit to the Gettysburg police department. Maybe they could clarify who the persons of interest were in Ellen’s case, and she could get the notion of her father being involved out of her head.
Clouds moved across the sky, shading the sun and casting an ominous gray to the previously sunny day. Junie wondered if it might rain. She shivered, thinking of her father in the coffin, rain pelting the ground above him. “Okay, Junie, enough of that,” she told herself. An hour and twenty minutes later, thanks to her heavy foot, she pulled into the police station parking lot.
Where Petals Fall Page 8