Between Lost and Found

by Shelly Stratton

  Maybe I’m not, she now thought. Maybe Sam’s right.

  She’d felt more certain about what she’d wanted back in Mammoth Falls, but the second her flight touched down and the gravity of what she was about to do hit her with the same force she experienced from the plane’s landing—an unease started to rise within her. Things started to feel fuzzy again.

  Her time away had been a little over a week in her life, and it had been an extreme week, fraught with high emotions and distressing loss. Understandably, she had made a few poor and rash decisions while she was out there. Maybe a week from now or even a month from now, she would feel completely different than how she felt today. She would want to marry Mark again. She would realize that her life wasn’t that bad. In fact, she had been perfectly content with the life she’d had before her grandfather had thrown in that monkey wrench and made the well-oiled machine that was “Janelle Marshall’s existence” go haywire.

  But then she thought about the expression on Sam’s face as they sat on her porch this morning.

  Had it only been this morning?

  She remembered the look he had given her when she told him she didn’t know if she was brave enough to do this, to grab the wheel and steer in a new direction. She saw no judgment or pity in his eyes. He looked at her like he was waiting for something, like there was some inside joke that he knew the answer to, but she hadn’t figured out yet.

  What do you know that I don’t, Sam?

  Janelle pursed her lips. She tucked her phone back into her purse and rose to her feet as the last of the passengers exited the plane—knowing she’d have to figure this out herself.

  As she stepped out of the airport checkpoint a few minutes later, she adjusted the Stetson on her curly head. It was the same cowboy hat that had once hung on Pops’s wall back at his cabin in Mammoth Falls. She now wore it in honor of him, though it drew more than a few curious stares from people as she passed. She didn’t care; they could stare all they wanted. Janelle came to a halt and looked around her, feeling as if she was some interstellar astronaut setting foot on another planet in another galaxy.

  Though it was after eight p.m., Reagan National’s main concourse was filled with the steady drumbeat of noise and traffic. The clamor, the chaos, and the energy were definitely signs that she was home, but having left the sleepy, quiet town of Mammoth Falls only six hours ago, being home was more overwhelming than welcoming.

  It was warm today—the pilot had announced on landing that it was a balmy seventy-two degrees outside—so many of the flyers were dressed in t-shirts and shorts, though a few were also in business suits and military fatigues. She spotted a man flipping through an issue of GQ. Beside him was a woman holding up a blue “I heart DC” t-shirt to a redheaded boy with freckles who rolled his eyes to the hot halogen lights overhead.

  “No, I don’t wanna wear it, Mom!” the kid shouted, shoving the t-shirt away.

  Flyers with short layovers stood in a line five deep at the TGI Friday’s where pop music blasted. The driver of a conveyance car with two elderly women sitting on the back loudly beeped his horn as the car zoomed past a row of designer luggage shops and clothing stores.

  “Pardon us! Excuse us!” screamed a couple as they dashed off the automated conveyor belt to the flight check-in desk, dragging several bags and suitcases behind them.

  Janelle quickly stepped aside and came to a halt along the wall, tugging her suitcase against her. “Sorry,” she murmured to their retreating backs.

  More people continued to walk by, all staring at their phones, laughing with each other, or running to catch their flights.

  She hadn’t realized that she had been strolling aimlessly, not keeping pace with the current of bodies surging around her. It had taken less than two weeks and she had already lost the rhythm of the city that whispered in your ear, “Hurry, hurry! Move, move!”

  It was best to get out of the way until she got her bearings again.

  She looked around and spotted a ladies’ room a few feet away. She fled to it and disappeared into one of the metal stalls while a cleaning woman mopped the floors at the other end, muttering to herself about adults who couldn’t manage the task of peeing inside a toilet bowl.

  Janelle emerged a few minutes later and quickly washed her hands. She wiped them on one of the dangling paper towels. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. She wouldn’t even try to convince herself that her fraught nerves were from all the hubbub around her. It was a lot more than that. She raised her eyes and stared at her reflection in the wall of mirrors.

  You look scared, she thought. You look absolutely terrified, girl.

  She was. But she would do this. She had to do it.

  Janelle gazed at her reflection a few seconds longer, then threw her bag strap over her shoulder. She headed out of the bathroom, pointing herself in the direction of the corridor leading to the metro trains, leading toward home.

  The car slowed to a stop at the end of the cul-de-sac, pulling into one of the few open spaces along the curb.

  “Is this you?” the cab driver asked as he leaned to the side and gazed at Janelle in the reflection of the rearview mirror, raising his bushy brows.

  She turned and tiredly gazed out the window. Was this her?

  It certainly looked like her. Her sporty red BMW was parked in the two-car driveway. Mark’s Mercedes was parked in front of her car. Her eyes scanned the towering colonial with the four Ionic columns under the portico and neatly trimmed hedges along the front. Janelle could envision her old self walking in fashionable heels from the brick mailbox up the slate walkway bordered by newly bloomed daffodils. A designer handbag would be dangling at her elbow as she chattered on the phone about their housewarming party, fretting over the buffet table and wine selection.

  Envisioning herself back then was like seeing a ghost—the ghost of a woman who no longer existed.

  Janelle turned from the passenger window. She watched as the driver climbed out of the car, leaving his keys in the ignition as he went to the rear and opened the trunk.

  This isn’t me, she finally realized, accepting this truth as she listened to the driver remove her suitcase and set it on the asphalt near her driveway. How could she have tried to convince herself differently?

  She exhaled a deep breath and opened her car door.

  This isn’t me—and I have to tell Mark that.

  A minute later and with an overwhelming sense of trepidation, she stood in front of their red French doors, digging in her purse for her keys. She undid the lock and took one step into their darkened foyer when a shrill beep pierced the silence, making her clap her hand over her ears.

  “Shit!” she shouted.

  She had forgotten about the alarm system. They had installed it only days before the housewarming party. What was the deactivation code?

  She tossed her bag to the floor and left her suitcase in the doorway as she ran toward the flashing wall panel and began to frantically punch in numbers on the dial pad, but the beeps became louder and faster.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” she yelled, typing more numbers.

  Was it 2-3-6-4 or 3-2-4-6? What was the blasted code?

  Over the shrill beeps she heard the frantic thud of footsteps. Mark’s silhouette appeared at the top of the staircase.

  “Hold it right there!” he bellowed, flipping on the lights along the staircase and foyer. She could see he was barefoot and wearing only his t-shirt and boxer briefs. He held the putter she had given him for his birthday high above his head, like it was a baseball bat. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Janelle jumped back from the wall panel and held up her hands in surrender. “I was just trying to turn off the alarm!”

  “Janelle?” He gawked at her. He dropped the putter to his side and stumbled down the steps toward her. “What . . . what are you doing here? You didn’t tell me you were coming home today.”

  “I wanted to surprise . . .” She paused, realizing she’d hav
e to keep shouting to be heard above the beeping. “Can you turn off the alarm, please?”

  “Mark? Mark, what’s going on?” a woman yelled.

  Janelle paused as Mark ran past her and entered in the alarm code. “Wait. Is someone upstairs?”

  The foyer finally fell silent, and Mark turned toward her, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He looked anxious, and not just because of the alarm that still left her ears ringing. He sat the putter near the front door. He seemed to be evading her gaze.

  “Is someone upstairs?” she repeated more slowly.

  “Jay, I . . . I really wished you would’ve called first.”

  “Is everything okay?” the woman shouted again, and this time the voice was recognizable. “Are you all right, Mark? It wasn’t a burglar, was it?”

  Janelle looked up and saw Shana standing at the top of their staircase wearing a midriff-baring tank top, boy-cut shorts, and a silky little pink robe that was so feminine it looked like it should be covered with lace and bows.

  When Shana saw Janelle standing in the doorway, she halted in her steps. She grabbed for the handrail, as if to keep herself from stumbling forward.

  “Oh,” she uttered, quickly closing the panels of her robe. “Oh, I . . . I didn’t know you were here,” she said, as if Janelle were a houseguest who had arrived early to a party they were having.

  Janelle stared, struck speechless. She suddenly remembered the black sedan near the driveway. It had looked vaguely familiar but she had glanced at it and quickly forgotten it, too focused on the monumental task at hand. Perhaps she should have paid better attention.

  “I . . . I can explain,” Mark began quietly. He paused and cleared his throat anxiously. “Look, I didn’t know you were coming home. We hadn’t spoken in . . . in days, and you weren’t returning my emails. I didn’t know what was going on with us so I . . . so I . . .” His words faded.

  “So you had sex with Shana,” she finished for him.

  He blinked and stared at her mutely.

  Well, I’ll be damned, she thought.

  Janelle slowly shook her head in exasperation. A giggle bubbled in her throat. It sounded like a hiccup, but then another came after it, then another. The next thing she knew she was doubled over with laughter right there in the center of the foyer, holding onto the door frame to keep from falling to her knees.

  Mark looked at her uneasily. So did Shana, who still stood at the top of the staircase, pivoting from foot to foot like she wasn’t sure what she should do next.

  “Jay, are . . . are you all right?” he asked.

  She continued to laugh. Tears were running down her cheeks. Her stomach was starting to ache. But she couldn’t stop laughing.

  “I know this has to be . . . quite . . . quite a surprise. Very shocking for you, after all you’ve been through,” he continued in a measured voice, like he was talking to a crazy person. He placed a hand tentatively on her shoulder. “If you need to sit down, I can explain—”

  “All this time. All this time, I’ve been agonizing over what I was going to say to you and what I was going to do—and I run in on this?” Janelle’s laughter finally tapered off. She wiped the last tears from her eyes and gazed at the couple again. “I’ve been trying to work up the balls to tell you the truth and this whole time you’ve been . . . been cheating on me? You . . . you made it seem like I was being paranoid . . . like I accusing you of something you didn’t do, when this whole time . . .”

  She couldn’t finish. She gritted her teeth and sniffed, feeling a mix of pain and disappointment. She reached down for the cowboy hat that had fallen off of her head and turned toward the open door in disgust.

  “Jay, please . . . please don’t walk out. Not like this,” he begged, grabbing her forearm. “Let me ex—”

  “Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me, damn it!” she shouted, punching his shoulder.

  “Oww!” Mark instantly let go of her arm. He actually looked surprised, maybe even offended by her punch. He rubbed his shoulder absently. “Look, Jay, Shana and I only became well . . . intimate within the past few days, after you basically refused to talk to me! You—”

  “Actually, sweetheart,” Shana said as she held up her finger and strolled down the flight of stairs, “there was that one time in the wine closet a month ago when we—”

  “Shana!” he snapped. “I don’t need your input. I have it covered, okay?”

  Shana immediately fell silent. She lowered her eyes.

  Janelle shook her head. “I should’ve known, though. You’ve got that weird Oedipal complex going on with your mother. Of course you’d end up screwing a woman just like her!”

  “Hey!” Mark and Shana cried in unison.

  “Don’t bring my mother into this!” he shouted, making Janelle roll her eyes. She grabbed the handle of her carry-on bag and headed to the door again.

  “Look! Look, Janelle, I admit that I’m not perfect! I’m a human being. I make mistakes! I wasn’t trying to hurt you!”

  At that, she paused. She turned back around to face him.

  “I . . . I fell in love with someone else,” he said softly, silhouetted from the light behind him in the foyer. “I didn’t expect it to happen but . . . it happened.” He threw up his hand. “I’m sorry and I mean that. I didn’t want to hurt you,” he repeated. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  Janelle gazed at him, seeing him for the first time for the man he really was. She had tried to make him her rock when he was just as frail as she was. Try as she might at that moment, she couldn’t stay angry at him.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you, either,” she whispered. “That’s why I agonized about telling you the truth.”

  “The . . . the truth about what?”

  She sighed. “I cheated on you, too.”

  His mouth fell open. So did Shana’s. “W-what?” he sputtered. “While I was in Mammoth Falls, I . . . I slept with another man.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you!” He squinted. “Are you saying all of this make me jealous? To just to get back at me for what—”

  “No, I’m not. It’s true, Mark! His name is Sam . . . Sam Adler, and he’s amazing,” she said, even as Mark continued to shake his head in denial. “He’s unlike any other guy I’ve ever met. I care about him. I think . . . I think I even fell in love him,” she said, letting the words settle in.

  “What? Wait! Wait just one goddamn minute!” Mark barked. “You’re telling me that you had sex with some guy you met in . . . in fucking South Dakota a week ago? Now you’re in love with him?”

  She nodded and gave a sad smile. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t sound crazy—it is crazy, Janelle!”

  “Maybe . . . but it happened—just like what happened with you and Shana, right? That’s why I know I shouldn’t be too angry at you. It’d make me a hypocrite. I was wrong. We were both wrong, but maybe it’s meant to be this way. Maybe we weren’t meant to be. It’s okay to admit that . . . even if hurts to do it.”

  This is not my life, she thought sadly, looking through doorway and around the foyer. This may still be Mark’s life, but it isn’t mine anymore.

  She would handle the messy disassembly of her old life tomorrow or the day after. But tonight she would spend her time coming to terms with the fact that she was free to start a new path. This life was over.

  Janelle pushed her tote bag strap up her shoulder. “Good-bye, Mark.”

  “Wait! Wait!” he shouted, grabbing her arm again. “I can’t let you go like this, Jay! Your grandfather disappearing . . . you finding me and Shana together . . . You’re obviously having some . . . some mental breakdown! I mean you had sex with a total stranger!” he squeaked. “Now you say you’re in love with him? The Janelle Marshall I know would never do something like that!”

  “Because you never knew me,” she said softly, “the real me—and you never will.”

  He stared at her dazedly.

&nb
sp; “Just let her go, Mark!” Shana called out to him, sounding annoyed.

  Finally, ever so slowly, he released Janelle’s arm, and she shut the door behind herself, closing it in his face. She stood under the portico gazing around her. She was terrified and exhilarated all at the same time. It was like she had just gone over the crest of a roller coaster and taken the plunge to the tracks below, only to realize the drop wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be.

  The chartered car had left and the neighborhood was quiet save for the incessant chirp of crickets and trill of frogs in a nearby development’s pond. She glanced at the driveway. She couldn’t leave in her BMW. Mark was blocking her in with his Mercedes. She’d have to go back inside and ask him to move it and there was no way . . . no way she was going to do that. Not after her big exit!

  She slowly walked down the slate pathway, loudly dragging her suitcase behind her. It got stuck in the cracks between each paver and she had to yank it a few times before she finally reached the sidewalk.

  “Where am I going to go? What am I going to do?” she mumbled.

  “How about New Orleans? Ever seen the French Quarter?” she had asked Sam that morning as they sat in her grandfather’s rocking chair on his porch.

  “Too hot. How about Chicago?”

  “Too cold.”

  Janelle removed her cell phone from her tote bag to first get an Uber to take her to a nearby hotel. Then she would call Sam and tell him that she could meet him wherever, whenever. Chicago, Los Angeles, the Bahamas. As soon as he was available, she’d meet him. She was officially free now!

  She pressed the button to turn on her cell, nervous and giddy as she did it.

  When she did, she frowned. Her screen showed that she had seven voice mails and a dozen text messages.

  “What the . . .” she mumbled, then jumped when her phone began to ring. She almost dropped it. She saw the number on the screen and quickly pressed the green button to answer.

  “Sam?” she nearly shouted.