Mommy Said Goodbye

by Janice Kay Johnson

  The player pulled back his foot as if he were going to boot the ball, then deftly tapped it to a teammate who had come up at a run. A huge, booming kick rocketed toward the corner of the goal.

  Brett flung himself sideways. The ball deflected off his fingertips and fell to the ground in front of the goal. Players from both sides scrambled for it. Brett, in another headlong dive, came up with it.

  Groans from the other side mingled with exultant cheers from the Salmon Creek rooting section.

  “Yes!” Craig said, under his breath.

  Robin laughed up at him, her face alight. “He was brilliant!”

  Bemused, Craig saw his son nonchalantly kick the ball, which soared over the heads of the other boys and rolled nearly to the other goal. “He was, wasn’t he?”

  Salmon Creek won, 2–1. The boys lined up to slap hands with the opposing players, then ran off, grimy and triumphant. Brett paused by his dad to exchange high fives, then joined the others to grab juice and brownies.

  Robin had melted away, Craig realized. He saw her helping distribute brownies, congratulating boys and talking to other parents.

  Nobody spoke to Craig as small family groups broke away and headed for the parking lot, but almost every parent called, “Great stop!” or “You did a heck of a job,” to Brett. Craig was satisfied.

  Brett joined him, water bottle in his hand and soccer ball at his feet. “Wow, I didn’t think I was going to be able to stop that one!”

  “I never had a doubt,” Craig lied, then grinned when Brett made a rude face. “Yeah, okay. Maybe one or two.”

  “I mean, they had me. It was just luck.”

  Craig stopped walking. “Not luck,” he said seriously. “You were good. I saw your focus.”

  “I really like playing goal.” Brett’s expression and voice were both eager in a way Craig hadn’t seen in a long while. “I mean, it’s cool to score goals, but I like the pressure of it all coming down to you. The ball’s coming at you, and you’ve got, like, this tunnel vision. What a trip!”

  Craig had felt that way about flying when he discovered it. He remembered his early flights, that sense of being in a bubble, in which nothing existed but him, the controls, the clouds streaming past, the checkerboard landscape below. It all came down to him. There was an adrenaline rush you didn’t get in everyday life.

  He slapped his son on the back. “I know what you mean.”

  When they reached the car, Craig asked, “Are you still planning to go home with Malcolm?”

  “Yeah.” Brett tried to sound as if it was no big deal, but he failed to hide his pleasure. “I’m just going to grab my stuff.”

  “Do I need to pick you up tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know.” Brett tossed his soccer ball and the bottle on the floor and reached for his duffel bag. “I guess I’ll call you. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  A horn beeped, and Craig turned to see Robin’s car stopped behind his. Malcolm jumped out and jogged over to thrust a scrap of paper at Craig. “Mom says to give you our phone number.”

  “Thanks.” Craig smiled at the boy, then waved toward Robin.

  A hand waved back from inside the car.

  “See ya, Dad.” Brett loped off next to his new buddy.

  Craig got in his car, but didn’t reach immediately to put the key in the ignition. He was alone. It was the strangest feeling. Both kids were off with friends, both spending the night. He hadn’t spent a night alone at home since the early days after Julie’s disappearance, when the cops were putting intense heat on him and his father had taken the kids a few times to spare them.

  Here was the chance single parents rarely had, and he was going to let it go to waste. Well, not entirely—maybe he’d rent a DVD on the way home, something he wouldn’t let the kids watch. After all, the TV would be all his for a change.

  He grunted in wry amusement. That was sad.

  Craig stopped at the grocery store in Salmon Creek and picked up the makings for a meal neither Brett nor Abby liked. Another small pleasure, which was the best life had to offer these days. The bigger pleasures—here, he tried hard not to picture Robin McKinnon—were not for him.

  His decent mood suffered a jolt when he was half a block from home. A blue sedan sat at the curb in front of his house. No rack of lights or insignia on the door, but he knew a police car when he saw one. Two people sat in this one.

  Waiting.

  Craig drove past them without turning his head. He went straight into the garage and closed the door behind him, popped the trunk and unloaded his groceries. He was grimly putting them away when the doorbell rang.

  He knew better than to ignore it. An innocent man cooperated. Welcomed an investigation.

  On the doorstep were a man and a woman he didn’t know. The man looked Hispanic, with dark hair and the age-old eyes cops sometimes had. Craig’s fleeting impression of the woman was that she had to be a good deal younger. Short and big-breasted, she wore dark hair in a bun so severe she’d never need Botox. Not flattering. Neither was a mannish outfit of blazer, slacks and white button-down shirt that made her look stocky.

  He imagined how pleased she’d be to know that he’d made even that quick assessment.

  “Yes?”

  To his surprise, it was the woman who answered, her voice quick and aggressive. “Mr. Lofgren, I’m Officer Caldwell.”

  “Detective Diaz,” the man said.

  She continued, “We’d appreciate a few minutes of your time.”

  Caldwell? Craig took a second look. God help him, she was nothing but a feminine version of her old man. He should have recognized the eyes right away. Even if he’d missed that distinctive deep blue, the contempt in them should have tipped him off.

  Silently, he stood back. They walked past him single file, Caldwell’s gaze sweeping over him, Diaz’s assessing him more thoughtfully.

  He led them into the living room, saying with reluctant civility, “Have a seat.” He’d hoped, prayed things might be different now, but he could see on Caldwell’s face that nothing had changed.

  She sat, back stiff, gaze hostile. “Detective Diaz and I will be handling your wife’s case now. We’ve read the reports. Now we want to hear exactly what happened from you.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve told this story?”

  “To us?” Her eyes challenged him. “Never.”

  God. She wanted him to recite the facts yet again. She thought she could trip him up. And he had to oblige.

  “I had a fight with my wife.” To himself, he sounded flat, unemotional. “We yelled, something we didn’t usually do.”

  “Who started it?” Diaz asked.

  “Julie did. She claimed to have had a bad day. Just little things. You know.” He shrugged.

  “No.” Brows raised, Caldwell looked around his living room, as if it represented an alien world. “Your ‘little thing’ might not be mine. What made her day bad?”

  He unclenched his teeth. “The dry cleaners didn’t have my uniform ready. Abby had been home with a cold, driving her crazy, she said. Julie’d started dinner and then discovered she didn’t have a can of tomato paste.” He wanted to stare her in the face and say, Are those “little things” in your world, too? But a man under investigation didn’t try to get a rise out of the cop questioning him.

  Expressionless now, she nodded.

  Because he had to, Craig continued. “She was angry that I was flying out the next day. Julie’d become increasingly unhappy with my schedule, although I was an airline pilot when we met. It did leave her alone for days on end with the kids.”

  “It’s my understanding that Julie was president of the parent-teacher group.” Officer Caldwell pretended to flip through her notes. “Room mother for both children’s elementary classes. She had them involved in a number of activities and seemed willing to drive even when it wasn’t her turn.” She looked up. “The last is a quote, by the way. From another mother.”

  Craig said nothing.r />
  “I’m a little confused. This doesn’t sound like a woman who minds being left alone for days on end with her kids.”

  He hadn’t understood her himself. He didn’t know how to explain a chameleon to someone who’d never seen one.

  “That was the part people saw. Julie had once told me she didn’t want children.” She’d actually announced the fact a couple of months after their wedding, when she’d somehow transformed into a career woman instead of the relaxed artist he’d first known. She seemed to have forgotten their talks about starting a family. But he had loved her, or so he believed, and he chose to hope she would change her mind, that she was just going through a phase.

  A phase. The gap between that mild description of changing life stages and the reality of Julie’s new selves was so vast, it was almost funny.

  He pulled himself back to the present. “A couple of years later, she got pregnant by accident. After that, she…changed. She became supermom. Only, recently the role had started eroding. She still put on the public face, but she got moody, told me she felt stifled. That night,” he frowned into space, remembering her desperation, “she told me she didn’t know if she could stand being a single parent for even another day.” His mouth twisted. “I yelled back that it was time she grew up. She threw something at me.”

  “Something?” the Hispanic officer asked.

  “A figurine. A stoneware cat she’d bought at a crafts show. It shattered.”

  “And what did you do then?” Caldwell asked, aggressively seizing back the reins of command.

  “I walked out. Literally. Took a few laps of the block, cooled off, then went back in the house. I checked on the kids, talked to both of them, made light of their mom and me yelling like two-year-olds. My bedroom door was shut. I slept in the guest room.”

  “In the morning?”

  “I had to leave early. At four a.m. I sneaked into the bedroom, showered and dressed. Julie never stirred, although I suspected she was awake. Usually I kissed her before I left. That morning…” His jaw muscles spasmed. “I didn’t.”

  They waited, pencils poised above notebooks.

  Craig continued, “I drove to the airport, getting into heavy fog. Checked in, but the place had been shut down. Eventually I got word my flight had been canceled. I thought, good, maybe Julie would feel better if she went shopping, had dinner with a friend. I got home about eleven. Julie wasn’t there.”

  The van, her pride and joy, had been in the garage, so he’d been surprised by the deathly silence in the house. The air had seemed heavy, thick. He’d called her name and gotten no answer. Her purse was on the kitchen counter, car keys lying beside it. Okay, she was upstairs, sulking.

  Knowing they needed to talk, he’d climbed the stairs. The bedroom was empty, the bed made. The bathroom door stood ajar. With increasing puzzlement, he stuck his head in, thinking she’d be in front of the mirror putting on makeup, or taking a hot sudsy bath, although he didn’t smell the bath oils she liked to use. The bathroom, too, was quiet, deserted.

  He heard himself calling again, “Julie? Julie, where are you?” Abby’s room—maybe she’d stayed home again today, even if she’d seemed better last night. But no. Her bed, too, was made. Julie had insisted the kids keep their rooms neat. Brett’s bedroom was a little sloppier, the comforter askew as though he’d just yanked it in place, obeying the letter of the law.

  Craig checked the guest room, the kids’ bathroom. Downstairs again, he headed for the kitchen and the back door. Julie wasn’t much of a gardener, but she did tend baskets and pots of annuals. She wasn’t there, either, and when he checked the soil beneath a geranium, it was dry and crumbly.

  He still felt nothing but puzzlement and irritation. She didn’t have the car or her purse, so she had to be around somewhere. Having coffee with a neighbor. Maybe, he remembered thinking with a twinge of hope that shamed him, she was having an affair and would leave him. The woman who was his wife had become a stranger to him, and an unhappy one. If not for the kids, he would have wanted out, but he hated the idea of being a weekend father, of disrupting Abby’s and Brett’s lives.

  He changed and went for a jog, then made himself a sandwich and read the morning Times. Still no Julie.

  “I waited until the kids got home,” he told the cops. “I figured she would have told them her plans for the day. When they didn’t know, I started knocking on neighbors’ doors, then calling Julie’s friends. A couple of hours later, I called 911, even though I still thought she’d walk in the door any minute. I was…annoyed, considering I was supposed to be on my way to Paris, that she’d let the kids come home to an empty house.”

  Sergeant Caldwell’s look-alike daughter said, “The investigating officer wrote that you didn’t seem as distraught as he would have expected.”

  “That’s because I thought this was a continuation of our fight. There was no sign of a break-in. Nothing like that. She’d told me she couldn’t take another day. I wondered if she was having an affair. She knew Brett had my father’s phone number and would call him. I thought she was making a point. Saying to me, ‘You didn’t listen.’”

  “You claimed to have no idea where she would have gone.”

  He didn’t back down. “I have no idea.”

  “There was no money missing from bank accounts.”

  It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway. “She’d made no unusual withdrawals. She might have been socking away a hundred bucks here and there, but she couldn’t have left with more than a thousand.”

  Caldwell’s daughter was looking at him with open dislike. “You mean, when she disappeared.”

  His eyes felt grainy, but he didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.

  She flipped closed her notebook. “I take it that’s your theory. Your thirty-eight-year-old wife just…left you. And her children. Without taking a change of underwear, her toothbrush or her purse.”

  He knew she’d stuck in Julie’s age to emphasize how unlikely it was that she had truly changed. Julie hadn’t been young enough to be flighty, was the implication.

  His voice became ragged, despite his best attempt. “She told Brett she’d be leaving soon. It doesn’t seem likely she’d say that, then just happen to get abducted by a stranger two days later.”

  Officer Caldwell said, “On the other hand, if Julie was afraid of her husband, she might have felt a need to say goodbye. In case.”

  Craig surged to his feet, rage and despair near blinding him. “You’ve made up your mind. Just like your father. You’re not going to try to find her, are you?”

  Diaz rose, too. “Mr. Lofgren…”

  Craig didn’t look away from the woman’s eyes, the color of the North Sea from the air. “Don’t waste my time. Use your goddamn wiretaps and anything you want, but if you’re not going to listen to me, stay out of my house.”

  “Mr. Lofgren.” Diaz stepped forward, blocking Craig’s view of Caldwell. “You have to understand how this looks to us.”

  Craig returned his stare. “Oh. I understand. It looks like I killed her. Without bloodshed, without witnesses, without reason.”

  “She wanted a divorce. That’s a reason for too many men.”

  “I wanted a divorce!” With shock, Craig heard himself say something he’d never admitted to anyone else. His knees sagged, and he sat back down. Dully, he said, “I didn’t ask her for one because of the kids. But I wouldn’t have been angry if she’d wanted out.”

  From beyond Diaz, his partner said, “Unless she intended to take your children. The children you wanted and that you insist she didn’t.”

  Craig braced his elbows on his knees and didn’t look up. “Half the kids’ friends have divorced parents. We’d have coped, like everyone else does.”

  “But,” Officer Caldwell said, “as things turned out, you didn’t have to.”

  That’s when he knew there’d be no end to his torment.

  “No.” He shoved himself to his feet again and looked at them without emotion. �
�I didn’t have to.”

  They left after informing him that they would be interviewing neighbors and friends again.

  “And your children, of course.”

  Caldwell made the addendum offhandedly. Craig’s fury ignited again, deep in his belly. She didn’t give a damn what she did to Abby or Brett. She was like a Pentagon general, far from the battlefield, dismissing “necessary” casualties. She didn’t have to see the blood.

  At the door, Craig said, “You may interview each of them once. If you ask anything out of line, if you upset them, you’re not coming near us again without walking a gauntlet of lawyers.”

  She turned back, this absurdly young cop, her expression smug. “Are you threatening us, Mr. Lofgren?”

  “I have been cooperative for a year and a half. Neither your father—he was your father, wasn’t he, and not an uncle?”

  Her smugness died. “He was my father.”

  “Neither he nor you have made any sincere attempt to find out what happened to my wife. Was that a threat? No.” He looked at her with all the disappointment and anger that had festered for the year and a half. “It was a suggestion that you do your job.”

  With that, he closed the door in their faces and locked it.

  Craig pictured his son’s face as he’d said goodbye, relaxed and happy. Damn it, happy, for the first time in so long. With despair, Craig rubbed his face. He couldn’t even protect his children. What kind of man was he, who had to drive two towns over to buy toilet paper so he didn’t meet anyone he knew? Who couldn’t even give his kids a basic sense of security?

  He’d gone into the kitchen and flipped open the phone book yellow pages to “Private Investigators” when one of the last things Officer Caldwell had said hit him.

  They’d be interviewing neighbors and friends.

  Caldwell and Diaz would be talking to Robin McKinnon. Who had seen Brett’s pain-filled writing.

  Ryan says I’m like my dad. He thinks I’m a murderer, so maybe I’ll be one.

  Under pressure, would she interpret Brett’s words as an admission that he thought his father might really have killed his mother?