He didn’t come back for almost two hours, and I didn’t speak to him when he entered. The nurses were making their usual checks and the neurologist had been in while he was gone, but nothing had changed and there was nothing to say to Cal.
“I told them you didn’t want to talk to them,” he finally said after inspecting Meghan’s respirator number and settling into his chair. His constant attention to the numbers on the respirator grated on my nerves. He wasn’t a doctor, or a nurse, he had no training. He just had to look like he was doing something, some outward appearance of control, some useless male trait.
I simply nodded at his statement. I imagined he wanted me to thank him, but I would have been happy to tell them that myself. I didn’t need a buffer.
“I’ll be back in a while,” I said, feeling generous in giving him that much information, and went downstairs to the chapel. As I knew would happen eventually, there was a couple in there, clinging to each other, their heads nestled in each other’s necks. They turned grief-ravaged faces toward me as I stepped inside, hope burning brightly in the woman’s eyes before she saw I wasn’t anyone of importance in her life.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, backing out and turning toward the cafeteria. The doors were propped open and I scanned the tables carefully, looking for Dr. Kimball and the detectives before I entered. It was long past the lunch hour and there were only a few people sitting at tables, grouped loosely around the coffee machines.
I wove my way through the tables and got myself a bottled water from the cooler, then found a table behind a low wall topped with anemic-looking pothos, and scrolled through the missed calls on my phone. One from an art dealer I’d done some work for a few months ago, and two from Charles Mingus. I hit the call button, and as before he picked up himself.
“Charles Mingus.”
“Hello, Mr. Mingus, this is Chloe Tobias.”
“Oh, I tried you earlier. Thanks for calling me back,” he said, but his voice was guarded.
“I’ve had my cell phone off. Why were you calling me?” I asked. I should have called Marshall when I saw that Mingus had called, should have found out about their appointment before I talked to him. I steeled myself for the inevitable conversation about who would be taking care of the bills.
“Have you heard from Marshall?”
“No,” I said cautiously. “I’ve been at the hospital. Should I have? Did your appointment go all right?”
“He didn’t show up,” he said. “Calls to your home and his cell phone have gone unanswered—”
“I’ll call you right back,” I said and hung up on him while he was still speaking and hit the speed dial for home. No answer. I left a message, then dialed Marshall’s cell. Straight to voice mail. I left a message for him there too, and then sat at the table with the phone clutched in my hand, wondering where the hell my son was.
I called Mingus back. He answered the phone coolly. Who could blame him? I didn’t like being hung up on either.
“I didn’t get him either,” I said by way of greeting.
“Do you have any idea why he would miss our appointment?” he asked.
“The only thing I can imagine is that he’s scared,” I said.
“I’ve been a criminal lawyer for a long time. Clients missing appointments comes with the territory, but Marshall doesn’t strike me as the type to just blow it off. Do you think your son would flee?”
“Flee? Of course not. Where would he go?” I asked. It was true. My family was gone, his father’s family might as well be. He had friends at school, but I couldn’t imagine he would hop in the car and go back to college, or, if I were honest with myself, that he would leave Ada while she was still in town. I wondered if her parents had arrived yet, or if she were still too afraid, or stubborn, to call them.
“Mrs. Tobias,” Mingus started hesitantly, “I am in a bit of a quandary on what to do here.”
“Well, as I said, I imagine he’s scared. He probably took the boat out to fish, clear his head. I’m sure he’ll call one of us soon,” I said, but I felt no real certainty of that. More likely I would go home to find him staring at the television, ignoring the phones ringing around him, trying to forget how much trouble he was in, as if it might go away. Which only underscored Cal’s misgivings about Marshall’s maturity level.
“Besides,” I said, “he wouldn’t leave while Ada’s still here.”
“And that’s what concerns me. Ada Sparks was bailed out by Marshall last night.”
“What? That’s impossible. I dropped him off last night. He was at home,” I protested, but even as I did a cold pit grew in my stomach. Of course he did. He said he had money in his account, and I left him alone, with his car, with time. Of course he did. I groaned, and Mingus was silent.
“I don’t have a great feeling about this, Mrs. Tobias. There’s nothing to panic about yet; Marshall isn’t due in court for almost two weeks, and there’s no reason for me to tell anyone anything at this time. But, I suggest you do what you can to find him and get him back here, or we’re looking at some pretty serious charges compounding already serious charges.”
“I’m sure he’s just hiding out at home. He’s probably got her there and they’re just trying to figure out what to do about her parents,” I said, seeing it as I was saying it. Of course that’s what they were doing. He thought he loved her, he rescued her, and now they were comforting each other. “I’ll go home, get this figured out, and will have him call you as soon as I can.”
“Great. Now, was there a reason that you called me earlier?”
“Oh, yes, I—my husband has spoken to a couple of detectives here at the hospital. I don’t want to talk to anyone without a lawyer with me.”
“I can certainly recommend someone.”
“Yes, I would appreciate that.”
“Hang on a sec...”
I could hear the sound of computer keys being rapidly pecked.
“Ready?”
I quickly pulled a napkin from the silver dispenser and fumbled a pen out of my purse. “Go ahead.”
He gave me the office and cell number for Tessa Barker, a lawyer, he said, who would be particularly sympathetic to my concerns as a mother.
“I don’t need someone motherly,” I said. “I need someone tough.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be an issue,” he said. “Let me know if she doesn’t work out and I’ll give you another number, but I think you’ll like her.”
From the tone of his voice, I thought that perhaps it was Mingus who liked Tessa Barker, but I promised to call her, and to have Marshall call as soon as I found him.
A woman with two teenagers in tow sat down in the booth behind me and started explaining, in a cracking voice, what a stroke was. I didn’t hear whether it was the children’s father or an older relative, and didn’t stick around to find out. I was discovering that if I stayed in any one place for too long in the hospital, misery was sure to find me, and I had enough of my own to deal with.
I tucked the phone number into my jeans and left the cafeteria, cracking the door of the chapel and peeking in. The couple was gone and the pews were again empty. I sighed as I flopped down into one and stared at the dove. He offered no answers, what with his mouth being full of olive branch, and I finally dialed Tessa Barker.
Unlike Charles Mingus, she had a secretary, who informed me that Ms. Barker was in court, but that she was happy to take a message. I left my name and cell and Mingus’s name, and hung up feeling empty.
There was only one thing left to do. Find Marshall. Like Mingus, I didn’t have a good feeling about it.
MARSHALL
Luckily, Grandmother Tobias didn’t feel the need to hover while he made his fake phone call. He and Ada walked out to the backyard while his grandmother cleaned the breakfast dishes. He could see her peering at them through the window over the sink and he made a great show of opening his cell phone.
He turned it on and it immediately began to beep with messages. He pi
cked them up, and, as expected, they were from his mother and Mingus, escalating in concern levels. In Mingus’s last one he told him in no uncertain terms how he felt about wasting his time, and Marshall felt guilt course through him. He deleted it and pretended to dial a number.
He mimed speaking into the phone for his grandmother, even giving a few sullen head shakes before faking a laugh and then mouthing I love you too for her benefit. Ada leaned on her crutches and grinned at his superb acting skills. She held her hand out and went through the same routine, though she skipped the head shaking and made the call much shorter.
When she handed it back to him, her fingers brushed his and he ached to touch her. She looked like hell: a tragic day on the boat, a night in a hospital, almost three days in jail, and then another night sleeping in a car would drain anyone’s good looks, but he still desired her more strongly than anything he’d ever felt before.
He shut the phone off before it could start ringing and slipped it in his pocket while Ada thumped around the garden, fondling tomatoes and caressing the sunflowers. He watched her, with the sunlight filtering through the sharp-leaved oaks to scatter across her hair and face. It didn’t matter that she looked like hell, she still sparkled, glowed.
A cloud passed across the sun, and when she turned to him she was in shadow, no warm halo around her, and he saw how tired she looked. He took one of her crutches, wrapping his arm around her waist, and helped her inside.
His grandmother was sitting at the dining table, watching them through the windows, a leather-bound Bible open in front of her and a glass of orange juice in her hand. She appraised them as he helped Ada in the door.
“Get ahold of your folks?” she asked.
“I talked to Mom,” Marshall said. “She wants us to come home tomorrow.”
“That all she said?”
“She said to give you her best,” Marshall said hesitantly. He wasn’t sure what his mother would have said. But his grandmother nodded and turned her attention to Ada.
“And you?”
“My parents trust Marshall and his family. They’re happy I’m meeting you,” Ada said. Marshall nearly believed her.
“Well,” Grandmother Tobias said. “I guess we’re all right then. Why don’t you two get cleaned up and we’ll get to know each other.”
“Do you have any bandages?” Marshall asked. “I’d like to help Ada with her knees.”
She looked at Ada’s dirty, bloodied bandages and narrowed her eyes. “There’s some things under the cabinet. But you need to remember whose house you’re in now. I don’t know what all your daddy’s taught you, but you’ll behave yourselves in my home.”
Marshall was speechless, his mouth gaped open and he took a quick glance at Ada. Her face was bright red and she stared at the floor, all the light gone out of her.
“I was just going to help—” Marshall protested.
“No. I’m fine,” Ada said, raising her head and looking straight at him. “I’m fine. She’s right. I can do it myself. You shouldn’t be . . . touching me that closely.” She turned to Grandmother Tobias. “I respect your home.”
“No room for whores and fornicators in my house.”
Marshall gasped, but Ada reached out and put a hand on his arm. “She’s right. We’re in her home, and we’ll respect that. She’s right, Marshall, we’re here for a reason. Listen to your grandmother.”
“I—” He didn’t know what to say.
“Do you know Jesus, girl?” Grandmother Tobias asked, looking pleased.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ada said softly.
“Well, but you don’t have to talk to her like that,” Marshall said. But his words went unheard by the two women. They gazed levelly at each other until Ada gently removed her second crutch from his grasp and made her way down the hall to the bathroom.
“Why don’t you have a seat, son,” Grandmother Tobias said, closing her Bible. He looked down the hall where Ada had disappeared and then out at the garden before sitting down. “Now why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”
“I just—I wanted to meet you,” he said desperately. “I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy that I have this family that I don’t even know about.”
She fixed him with that look again, and he could almost feel himself wither. He’d not encountered this particular brand of faith before. He’d always found it easy to ask questions before, questions about their God, their rituals, their history. But there was something too forbidding in this big woman.
Almost every religious person he’d encountered had been so ready to talk to him, eager to explain their side, nearly frantic to prove their openness to his inquiries. He had the feeling that if he began questioning his grandmother she would, instead, want him to prove his worthiness to her.
“So you came here to get to know me,” she repeated. She looked down the hallway and seemed to make up her mind about something. “Well, that’s nice. I wish your folks would come sometime. I’d like to meet that sister of yours. How is she doing? She a smart girl? Good in school like your mama was?”
Marshall’s mouth dried up. Meghan was smart. She was smart enough to skip a grade, but his parents hadn’t wanted her to have an even harder time than she already had. He thought about her on the boat. Before the . . . thing. She hadn’t been all giggly like he’d thought. She’d been so serious. She’d been asking Ada questions, about her diet and about school.
And for the first time, she’d asked him about the things they were passing in the boat, letting him show off for Ada, letting him be a big brother. They hadn’t spent much time alone together. She was always so spoiled by his parents. He’d thought that maybe she’d been too protected. They’d both been so intent on her. And he’d never seen anything that made him think she was as sick as they’d said.
They had felt like a family out there on the water.
“Yeah, she’s smart,” he said. “She’s, uh, she’s real smart.” He finished in a whisper.
She narrowed her eyes at him again, then slapped her hand on the table, making him jump. “Your daddy was a helluva fisherman. Did he at least teach you that?”
“Yeah, I can fish.”
“Why don’t you get little Squaw Broken Knees out of the bathroom, and I’ll take you up to the river, see what you got.”
“I don’t know—”
“Sure you do,” she said, rising. “You want to get to know me? You want to know about your daddy? Then we got to do some fishin’.”
Twelve
I CHECKED on Meghan and told Cal I was going home for some clothes and other things. He asked me to pick up a few items for him, and I said that I would. We were polite now.
He would wait for Meghan to die and would walk Marshall to jail. I would wait for Meghan to open her eyes and would fight to keep our son from having his life ruined by a horrible mistake. Our sides had been chosen and declared out loud, and there was nothing left to fight about.
I drove home as quickly as I could, and was almost sorry for it when I pulled into the drive. Marshall’s car was gone. I didn’t know what to think. I was almost relieved, because I did not want to see Ada. I had been almost successful at putting her out of my mind throughout this.
Enough of my heart and mind were occupied with my own two children that I could barely remember what the girl looked like. And I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to see her, and, perhaps the way Cal felt about Marshall, I wouldn’t know what I would do if I did.
The house was quiet. I walked through the kitchen as silently as I could, as if sneaking through my own home. A cabinet door was hanging open and I closed it, then made my way through the downstairs. As expected, nothing.
Upstairs was a different matter. Not for what I found, but for what I didn’t find. The suitcase that Marshall had so cavalierly dropped on the floor was gone. Ada’s, in Meghan’s room, was gone. My closet had been riffled through. A tracksuit was gone, a couple of pairs of shoes.
I knew the house was empt
y, but I checked my studio and office on the third floor, and then went downstairs and out to Cal’s workshop, where I found nothing.
They were gone.
I walked back inside and stared at the two photos on our old, noisy refrigerator. Meghan’s school photo, and one of Marshall, taken right before his high school graduation. He was in a purple gown and cap, and he was grinning as if his life had just started.
“Who are you?” I whispered to it.
I waited for an answer, searching his face, but the glossy surface showed me nothing but a happy young man. I jerked my head up at a sound and strained to isolate where it was coming from. It was a car, and it was coming down our road.
“Oh, God, please,” I said out loud, my hand on my heart. I stepped out the kitchen door and waited for it to turn into our drive, but it wasn’t Marshall’s car. It was an unmarked police car, the darkly tinted windows obscuring the occupants. Marshall and Ada could be in there.
I didn’t know whether to hope for that or not. From what Mingus had said, neither of them were in trouble unless they didn’t show for a court appearance. And I didn’t imagine they’d just drop them off at our home if they had been picked up.
But when the car came to a halt, the same detectives from the hospital stepped out. I backed up into my kitchen and pulled the screen door closed, slipping the hook into the eye to hold it, the silvered crosshatch of the screening like a confessional.
But I had nothing to confess. They couldn’t force me to talk to them. And they couldn’t come in without a warrant. I felt rather like some superstitious medieval, certain that unless I invited the vampire across my threshold, it could not hurt me. The screen door that had once represented all my unhappy thoughts about my marriage had turned into my safety.
Hernandez and Rhoades—that was how I thought of them, like a country music duo, and I’d never been a fan—squinted up the height of the house, then said things too low for me to hear before walking toward the door.
Matters of Faith Page 14