by Heidi Pitlor
A current moved through her lungs. “Everyone needs a mother.”
“Childhood. Your childhood, one word,” he said, and he hooked a finger through one of hers. She pulled away and said, “Water.”
“Breath,” he said. “Breath, come on, your turn.”
“Life,” she replied.
He ran his finger down the soft inside of her forearm. She allowed herself to take in the sensation of being touched by someone she hardly knew, then pulled back again. “I said ‘water’ because I grew up on an island, Martha’s Vineyard.”
“Isolation?”
“Only in the winter. Absolute chaos in the summer. Tourist central.”
“Skin,” he said, lifting her hand to kiss her palm. “Salt.” He turned to face her and curved his hand behind her neck and pulled her toward him. “Wait,” he said against her forehead.
“I do not understand you,” she said as she shoved him away. “What do you want from me?” She straightened her shirt. She glanced behind him and saw a plane descending, its red taillight blinking. She heard a faraway cough.
When in her other life had she finally lost her desire for the next moment and then the next? It seemed to have happened slowly, not in one sudden blow, but over thousands of ordinary minutes, in the tiniest of choices meant to lead her toward a well-defined future, the sort that had been chosen and lived by so many other people.
Jamie’s watch read 2:06. “I’m leaving now,” she said, although she was weighted, still not entirely ready to move. He nodded as if he knew exactly what she meant, even when she did not.
Chapter 25
At seven o’clock the next morning, Janine still had not returned. When Lovell went next door, Stephen told him that she had left their house about an hour earlier. “She said she was going back home. She told me she called you to say she was sleeping here last night.” Lovell was not sure whether to thank him for befriending Janine or accuse him of essentially taking her away—for months, really—and now losing her. “Listen, I’ll come over as soon as we hear anything from her,” Stephen promised.
Back at home, Ethan had been watching TV for an hour now, but Lovell could not bear the silence that would come if he turned the thing off. He tried to sit and watch for a while but found himself staring at the clock. He finally called his mother, and she showed up soon after.
“Lovell,” she said when he opened the front door for her.
“Janine should have her own cell.” He led his mother inside the house. Janine shared a phone with Ethan, and it had been his turn this week.
“Let’s think this through.” Joanne set her brown shoulder bag on the table, went to him, and wrapped her hard arms around him. He let himself be held like this for as long as he could stand before gently backing away.
“I need to be doing more right now, something useful. I have to do something to help find her,” Lovell said.
He called Janine’s friend Stuart, but Stuart’s mother answered and said that he was at his father’s house. “And anyway, those two kids haven’t hung out in a long time.” Lovell tried the family across town, the Woodsons, whom Janine sometimes babysat for, but the mother knew nothing. He reluctantly tried Leah—Janine had been talking to her about interning at her company next month. “You don’t know where she is?” Leah asked. “Jesus, Lovell.”
“You think I’m not concerned? You don’t think I’m a wreck right now?” He tried to regroup: “Maybe she went to her school for some reason.”
“Will you keep me posted?” Leah asked. “I’m really worried.”
“I am too,” he snapped.
Ten o’clock came and Ethan had fallen asleep on the couch. Lovell left his mother with Ethan at the house while he drove around the neighborhood and other streets nearby, through the center of town, scanning the sidewalks for Janine. The winter sky was a dim slate color. The town appeared fairly abandoned on this cold day. A couple of women dressed in snow jackets chatted with each other as they headed into the post office, but no one else could be seen. Lovell scanned the empty parking spaces, the stores, which appeared empty as well. People were at work, of course. Children were in school. He drove around her school and Ethan’s, back through town, around a few other neighborhoods, trying to imagine where else she might be, switching the radio from news to classical to rap, then finally just turning it off.
At eleven, Lovell decided to call the police, though he guessed that it was too soon to file a report. A gruff-voiced dispatcher answered. “Hang in there, dear. Don’t worry. We’ll file anyway. One of the guys will be there soon.”
A squad car arrived minutes later with its lights flashing. The new chief, Russ Evans, and a young officer stood with Lovell on the front porch and helped him fill out the intake. The young guy, probably new, stood like a soldier, his back rod-straight, his head at attention. Lovell guessed that on the way here, Russ had provided at least a cursory history of the family.
Lovell explained that there had been a disagreement between him and his daughter. “She can get pretty overheated,” he said. “And I—I mean, sometimes it’s not easy. Anyway, she’s stayed with the neighbors before, so I didn’t think that much of it.”
A woman who he thought might live down the street walked past, pushing a double stroller, glancing over at them.
“She mention anything about a favorite hangout with friends, some place she liked to go or anything?” Russ said.
Lovell grew warm. “We’ve been staying pretty close to home these days.”
“Any guesses at all where she might have gone?”
Here were these questions again. He shook his head. “I called everyone who might know. I checked everywhere I could think of. I really can’t imagine where she might be.” He felt his face grow damp.
Russ seemed to understand or at least sympathize and clapped a hand around Lovell’s arm. “Hard age.” Lovell tried not to wince. It was unbearable to be touched by any of them right now.
“We’re on it, Mr. Hall,” the other officer said with the voice of someone young trying to sound older.
“Thank you,” Lovell said. They said their good-byes and he stepped back inside. He turned to face his mother and Ethan, who were now standing by the small side table in the hallway. Ethan looked up at him, expectant.
“She’ll come back. She’ll be fine,” Lovell said.
“You swear?”
“How about you and me go drive around town and look for her?” his mother said to Ethan. “It can’t hurt, right? I’ll buy you an ice cream, if you’d like.”
“Good idea,” Lovell said, grateful for this unexpected sensitivity, and he went for Ethan’s coat. He watched while they headed out the door.
Leah showed up at the house soon after. “I can’t work. I’m too upset. I still cannot believe that this happened and that I’m even standing here right now,” she said.
He told himself to ignore the whiff of judgment that had always emanated from this person and her family, now that he thought about it.
The two made their way to the kitchen table, where they pretended to read the paper. Leah, a solid, long-faced woman who looked nothing like her sister, managed a venture capital fund that invested primarily in women-run companies. “My parents are coming over soon,” she said after a while. “I hope you don’t mind. They’re really concerned too.”
“That’s fine,” Lovell said. “It’s still cold out there? Still snowing?” he asked, although he could see through the window that it was.
“It’s freezing,” she said.
“Janine doesn’t even have a coat on.”
Leah glared at him.
“She took off before I could give her one.”
Leah just shook her head and checked her watch. “You have any wine or liquor? I don’t care if it’s too early to drink.”
He half smiled, but she remained stony. He said, “I’ll go find something.”
His mother and Ethan eventually returned and peeled off their coats. “No luck,”
his mother said.
“You OK?” Lovell asked Ethan.
“I guess so,” he said, and he went upstairs.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, the doorbell rang. Hannah’s parents stood holding hands on the front porch. “Lovell,” Donovan said, and he promptly hid his face in his hands.
Lydia stepped past the two men into the house and gathered Ethan in her arms. She was a petite woman with a hushed contralto voice. Beneath her nut-brown coat, Lovell saw her double strand of pearls around her neck. Her style had not changed over the years. Her eyes were swollen now, and mascara dotted across one eyelid.
She gave Joanne a careful hug and squeezed Lovell’s forearm. Lydia had always seemed unsure of what role she should assume with him. Mother? Friend? Peer?
A linebacker-size Irishman with a shock of white-blond hair, Donovan gave Ethan a bear hug, then stood back and wiped at his nose. “Remember,” he said, “that fortune favors the brave. We’ll get through this, we will.”
THE PHONE RANG that afternoon, as they were tidying up the kitchen. It was a girl, and at first Lovell wondered whether she was calling for Janine. But then she introduced herself as Melissa Michaels, the victim advocate who had been assigned to him and his family. He walked the receiver upstairs to his bedroom and took a seat on his bed facing the window. He gathered a long breath before they began.
“I’m sorry for all that’s happened to you, Mr. Hall,” she said.
“Thank you.” Did she know about Janine?
“So I need to tell you that there’s been an arrest. The police picked up a man named James Trobec, who’s wanted for two other murders.”
“They found Hannah?”
“No, well, no, not yet.” She paused for too long a moment. “So this man, he’s Caucasian and he’s from Somerville. He was working part-time at his brother’s auto shop in East Cambridge and taking one class—Mechanical Engineering—at UMass Boston.”
Lovell’s mind spun. “What’s the connection to Hannah?”
“I talked to a detective in Boston Homicide who’s overseeing the case, and he said that the other two cases were women who fit profiles like Hannah’s. They went missing for a while, and then some—this sort of evidence turned up, just, like, pieces of it. So they’re considering him a possible suspect for Hannah too. Detective Ronson—that’s the man who’s got the case—he sent me the report.” She cleared her throat. “This guy is forty-three and he has a wife and a young child. And they arrested him up near Bar Harbor late last night. He was picked up on speeding and a probable DUI.” Lovell heard the sound of a page turning. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But, well, they don’t know any more about Hannah, right? We still don’t have a match on those things, those bones that turned up?”
“That’s all the report says. I can try to find out more. Do you want me to call the detective and ask him?”
“All right.”
“Are you sure you’re OK, Mr. Hall?”
What was he expected to say? “Did they ever find her car?”
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t say here.”
“How is it possible for them to know so little? When will the DNA results come in?” he asked.
“I don’t see anything in the report about that. I’ll be sure to ask Detective Ronson.”
Lovell stared out the window at the leafless trees motionless against the ice-blue sky. It had stopped snowing. Every single update that had come over the past three months had been an empty bombshell. “Can I talk to this detective?” Lovell finally said. “You have his number?”
“I’m supposed to be your primary contact, Mr. Hall.”
“Just this one time. Please. Think of how this is for me.”
New snow coated the backyard and had been blown by the wind into feathered patterns. The earth was beautiful and atrocious.
“HOW ARE YOU holding up?” Ronson asked that evening. He had some sort of an accent, maybe faded Irish.
“Fine,” Lovell said. “I have some questions for you, if that’s all right.”
“Fire away.”
“Melissa said this guy’s wanted for a couple other similar things?”
“Yep.”
“How were the women similar?”
“Ages, looks, circumstances. The first one was up in Maine, around Old Orchard. One of the others was in Southie too. You didn’t see anything about Nikki Andrews a few years back? There was a good amount of press. Nice-looking lady. Nowhere near as much airtime as your wife, but the story got out there.”
Lovell flinched. “I guess I don’t watch the news all that much.”
“Smart man,” Ronson said. “So, what else have you got for me?”
“Are you absolutely sure that Hannah wasn’t kidnapped and taken somewhere? Isn’t that beach the place where all that mob stuff happened, where those bodies were found?”
“Yeah, it used to be one of Whitey’s spots.”
Lovell thought a moment. He would have to continue to be transparent throughout this process. “Did Detective Duncan tell you about our—that talk? The argument I had with Hannah on that last night?”
“He did,” Ronson said. “It was good of you to come forward. I’m sure it was no easy thing to do. But I’d chalk the whole thing up to bad timing, Mr. Hall. Being angry at you didn’t make her get in that car and drive to Southie and meet that guy, assuming that’s what happened, of course.”
“Right,” Lovell said. A whole lot of assumptions were being made.
“You know, aside from this case, Southie isn’t what it used to be. My niece just spent half a million on a condo—excuse me, loft—there. Carson’s been cleaned up over the past few years.”
“Huh,” Lovell said. He had managed to sound both provincial and elitist.
“Anyway, her reason for going there might be the sort of thing that I call an irrelevant unknown. It seems like it should be a big part of the case, but once we’ve got enough evidence, we can set the question aside. It’s just not important for the purposes of the prosecution. Don’t beat yourself up over it.” Ronson’s tone changed. “So what else can I do for you?” It was a Boston accent. How had Lovell missed it? Maybe Ronson had masked it earlier. Maybe he himself lived in South Boston.
“The evidence. I guess that’s my next question,” Lovell said. “How much longer until you’ll get the DNA identification on those bones?” He hated saying the words.
“How long has it been? Hold on a sec.” Lovell heard the sound of typing. “Mid-November, mid-December? You should hear anytime now.”
Chapter 26
But Hannah had loved: Baby Janine, her smell, vanilla and bananas, her miniature toes, her light furry hair, so much of it so soon. And as a toddler, her botched words (“Mum mum” for everything and everyone), her plush legs and stomach, her poreless skin, that she chewed grass and rocks and dandelions. The older Janine, her photographic memory, her unwittingly poetic observations about the world and her endless questions about the sky and her needing to have exactly the same three songs sung to her—“Hush, Little Baby,” “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” and a short song that Hannah had made up about buttercups—before sleep each night. And Ethan as a baby, bigger and slower, but just as warm and easy to soothe, a deeper voice than Janine’s, his blocky fists, his stubbier toes, his full-body wails and thrashing protests against any discomfort. As a toddler, he was happy to sit in the corner of a room stacking anything plastic, and then, remembering her, he would stumble to Hannah and lie across her lap for just a second, then return to playing. His wispy brown hair, his light eyes the same color as hers, his long, gangly legs even when he was as young as three and four, and as a child, his sweet gibberish at bedtime, his names for her—Me, Mima. And before her babies: Sophie, her perfume that smelled of ginger, the low-cut silk shirts that she wore even to the office, her unabashed femininity, her deep belly laugh. Of course Lovell was attracted to her. Who wasn’t? The girls at the shop and their optimism, the way they barely touched t
he flowers, afraid to snip off too much stem, to lose even one petal—and when had she, Hannah, grown so careless? She hardly noticed the stems or the petals anymore. And earlier, much earlier, Doug of course, and there were smaller loves, and loves from a distance, and the love of her family, her mother’s heels clicking down the hallway on her way from kissing Hannah good night; her father pretending to lose at thumb wrestling and the little motorboat called Shy One—after a Yeats poem—that he kept at Wasque. Leah and how she used to dress Hannah in her clothes and doted on her as a mother would. Grandfather clocks, Burdick’s honey caramel truffles, antique glass perfume bottles, the smell of huckleberry, cantaloupe, jasmine. Emily Dickinson and her white clothing, her agoraphobia, her slant rhymes. Fenway Park at twilight, the Green Monster, the greasy hot dogs, and the watery beer. Mexico, Tunisia—Tunis and its colors, its bleached light, Lovell’s body against hers when she felt as if she might not make it. She still loved flowers. She did. Orchids, gerbera daisies, cornflowers and ranunculus and snapdragons and sweet peas and waxflowers. She still loved how just handing flowers to any decent human being made the person smile—hadn’t she said this to Lovell just the other week? And Lovell, this man, her husband: there were corners and moments, slivers and sometimes more, safety and comfort and ease and acceptance and family and loyalty, and these were all things to love.
“Childhood,” Hannah said to Jamie. “Yours now. One word.”
The grandfather glanced over at them.
“Oh, yawn, here we go.” Jamie grabbed the stick from her and whacked it against the sand.
“Mine,” she said. “I was surrounded by beaches. My family loved me. And adolescence—I think it’s all about the other kids, you know, whether they see you or don’t. The girls who are invisible have the hardest time. People are at their most superficial at fifteen, right? Nothing matters but appearance. I didn’t have too much to complain about.”
“Do you now?”
She shrugged, her eyes on the sand.
“But doesn’t it feel good not to know? For the first time in your life, not to know what is going to happen right now? And now? And now?”