Mommy Said Goodbye

by Janice Kay Johnson

  His voice sounded raw. “I would never have hurt her.”

  “I’m…starting to believe that, too.” Robin was stunned by what she’d said, stunned to realize she meant it. She was crazy! She couldn’t know him, not really. She couldn’t know what he might do. Would do, if he was angry enough.

  But…not that, Robin thought again. Killing. Hiding the body. Lying all these months, despite the intense pressure on him. She just couldn’t believe it.

  He had gone completely still, only his eyes were fiercely alive. “Except for my father, you’re the only person ever to say that to me.”

  Captured by that glittering gaze, she whispered, “You must have friends.”

  “I had friends.” He cleared his throat. “I thought I had friends.”

  “They…abandoned you?”

  “They avoided the subject. They called less often. Started being busy.” He let out a ragged sound and then muttered a profanity. “I’m sorry. I try not to descend into self-pity.”

  “It’s okay.” She bit her lip. “It sounds as if you need to talk.”

  “Why? Why do you believe me, when no one else does?”

  Because I’m crazy? Because I have a crush on you? God help me, she thought, neither are good answers.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly, because that, too, was true. She didn’t understand. “When I called you to talk about Brett, I suppose I did think…”

  “That I’d murdered my wife.”

  After a pause, she gave a jerky nod. “What I read in the papers didn’t sound good.”

  His face looked stark. “It still doesn’t.”

  “I used to watch you with her.” She sounded so odd. Reflective, far away. “The way you’d turn even when you were down at the dugout and smile right at her, as if she were the only person in the stands. Sometimes, she didn’t even smile back. She’d keep talking, as if she didn’t see you. Or…” She swallowed. “As if she was deliberately ignoring you.”

  “Julie was a strange woman. Stranger even than…” He clamped down on whatever he’d been going to say when they both heard the bedroom door open and the voices of their sons.

  “Hey, Mom, has Brett’s dad called or…” The boys stopped in the doorway. “Oh.”

  “Hi, Dad.” Brett’s wary gaze went from his father to Robin and back. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “That,” Robin said, “is because you’re both going deaf from music played at an excessive volume.”

  “Get your stuff.” Craig pushed back from the table.

  As the boys retreated, she shook her head in mock disappointment. “You still haven’t tasted my coffee.”

  A real grin spread on his face, one that was slightly rakish, very sexy and yet also…sweet. “I can remedy that.” He lifted the cup and took a long swallow. “Manna.”

  “Seattle’s Best, actually.”

  “You could have given me instant. I’m not a connoisseur.”

  She laughed. “Next time, we can skip the coffee and go straight to talking.”

  At the front door, he turned to face her, his eyes serious. “Will there be a next time?”

  Crazy. Reckless.

  Robin ignored her inner voice. “You have to finish that thought.”

  He nodded, lines seeming to deepen and age him. “You were her friend. If I can convince you, there might be hope.”

  “Where do you think she…” Even whispering, she couldn’t finish.

  Mal and Brett had emerged, one of them bumping the other so that they both ricocheted off the walls, laughing raucously. Watching their clumsy, heavy-footed approach, she couldn’t believe they were athletes.

  They thundered out the front door.

  Craig cleared his throat. “Have you thanked Malcolm’s mother for having you?”

  Flushing, Brett turned. “Thanks, Ms. McKinnon. I had a good time.”

  “You’re very welcome.” She smiled. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”

  He made a face. “Yeah.”

  “Jeez,” Mal said in a stage whisper as they continued down the walk, “I can’t believe my mom is your teacher.”

  Craig hadn’t moved. “During practice tomorrow, if I can find somewhere for Abby to go, can we go get a cup of coffee?”

  Her heart skipped. “More coffee?”

  “It’s a good excuse.”

  She nodded. “Sure.” Her voice squeaked, and she repeated, “Sure. I want you to finish.”

  He hesitated, gave a brief nod of his own, and left, following his son. Robin stayed on the porch, watching as his dark blue Lexus pulled away from the curb.

  She was crazy.

  Crazy, scared…and exhilarated.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “ARE YOU SURE you don’t want to come to dinner tonight?” Craig asked his father. With the phone crooked between his shoulder and ear, he was checking the freezer. “I put together a lasagna last night. We have plenty.”

  “Nah, I have my Internet class tonight. I’ll be over afterward. Nine-thirty, ten.”

  “Okay.” Craig let the freezer door swing shut and leaned against the counter. “Listen, Dad. I told you the cops have been here again. They mentioned wanting to talk to Brett and Abby.”

  His father fired back, “Over my dead body.”

  “That’s the spirit. I want to be here if I have to let this happen. You tell them they’re not seeing the kids without me being present. If they try to insist, call Riordan. His number’s in the address book here in the kitchen.”

  “I can hold ’em off without the help of any attorney,” his father said.

  Craig relaxed. Thank God his father had retired up here to be near his son and grandkids. Craig didn’t know what he’d have done without him in the wake of Julie’s disappearance.

  “All right. There’ll probably be enough lasagna left over for tomorrow night….”

  “I can cook, you know. You don’t have to plan dinners.”

  Craig thought of the neatly labeled dinners stacked in the freezer. “But I feel less guilty this way.”

  “Brett and Abby are my grandchildren as much as they’re your son and daughter.”

  Surprised at his father’s anger, Craig began, “I do know that…”

  “What is it you think I should be doing instead of spending time with those kids? Hitting a goddamn little white ball into man-made lakes?”

  Craig tried again. “No…”

  “I consider myself a lucky man to be needed instead of having to fill my days however I can.”

  “Dad…”

  “Which is not to say I’ll object too much to being turned back out to pasture when you find the right woman.”

  “There won’t be any other woman until Julie’s found.”

  “Won’t there?” his father said, then, “Don’t wait up for me tonight.” Click.

  Where in hell had that come from? Craig wondered, setting down the phone. Had his father just decided it was time for him to find a girlfriend? Or had he met Robin at soccer practices and jumped to unwarranted conclusions?

  Unwarranted? Hadn’t her face jumped into his mind the minute his father said “the right woman?”

  Wanting and having were two different things. He didn’t have to remind himself of that. Under other circumstances, he’d be pursuing her.

  But as things stood, he’d meant what he said. He couldn’t let himself even think about something like that until the mystery of Julie’s disappearance was resolved. He was a married man, and one whom no woman in her right mind would consider getting involved with.

  Even one who had said she was starting to believe in his innocence.

  If he had been standing when she told him, he thought he would have crumpled to his knees. He’d almost quit hoping anyone would ever say those words. Robin McKinnon, Julie’s friend and confidante, was the last person he’d ever dreamed would utter them.

  He was torturing himself, taking her out for coffee this afternoon as if they were friends—or mor
e. But he found he was starved for conversation with someone who would actually listen, someone…impartial. His father got combative; he was incensed that those fools would think for a minute that his son would even raise his hand to a woman, never mind kill her in cold—or hot—blood.

  Dad had never liked Julie, a fact that had irritated Craig during his courtship. But Dad had also, to his credit, shut his mouth the minute the wedding took place. He had watched her with worry on his face after each of her sea changes, commenting quietly to Craig that Julie seemed…different.

  Oh, yeah. She was different.

  Craig went upstairs and packed his small bag, not having to think about what he put in or how he folded it thanks to his many years’ experience. He never took much: a change of clothes for the layover and the basic toiletries, a book or two—hanging out in bars in any country didn’t interest him.

  He zipped it closed and carried it down to the car when he realized that he had to pick Brett up at school in fifteen minutes. The night before, Craig had called Summer’s mother and asked if Abby could go home with Summer after school.

  “No problem,” he’d been assured. “The girls can do their homework together.”

  Brett was waiting at the curb when Craig pulled over. He hopped in, said, “Hi, Dad,” tossed his book bag in the back seat and grabbed the bundle of soccer gear and clothes he had put in the car the night before.

  Two blocks from the school, safe from the possibility of being seen by classmates, he wriggled out of his jeans and pulled on shorts, shin guards, socks and cleats that were caked with dirt from Saturday’s game.

  “You staying for practice?” he asked, the transformation complete.

  “Not today.” Craig’d decided it was better to mention casually what he was doing today during practice. “Robin and I are having coffee.”

  “Robin…” Understanding, closely akin to horror, transformed Brett’s face. “You mean…Ms. McKinnon?”

  Craig pretended not to notice his son’s shock. “That’s right.”

  “Why… I mean, does she want to talk to you about me?”

  “Actually, no. We were having an interesting conversation when the two of you came barreling in yesterday, and we decided to continue it.”

  “Conversation.”

  “I am capable of having one.”

  “Yeah, but… Ms. McKinnon?”

  Exasperated, Craig said, “Would you quit saying her name in that tone of voice? Is it so impossible to believe I’d want to talk to her? Or that she’d want to talk to me?”

  Brett kept stealing looks at him. “You’re not…”

  “Not what?”

  They pulled into the parking lot, gravel crunching under the tires, the car bouncing in and out of the potholes that seemed to develop during every sports season.

  “Never mind.” Brett grabbed the door handle before the car had come to stop, and leaped out as though eager to escape.

  Not seeing Robin’s car, Craig turned into a parking spot and waited. Two minutes later, she pulled in next to him. Malcolm was out of the car and hurrying across the field as quickly as his own son had.

  When Craig gestured, she got out, locked her car and got in his. “Afraid to ride in my heap of junk?”

  Backing out, he couldn’t help noticing the scrape along the side where her elderly Subaru had been keyed. Or the rust corroding the trunk. “It’s not that bad,” he said.

  She laughed. “Yeah, it is. Bless its heart, it has 216,000 miles on it. And it runs. What more can I ask?”

  Now he was going to start worrying about her car breaking down when she was by herself.

  “A new car?” he suggested in response to her—probably rhetorical—question.

  “Not unless I win the lottery. And since I never buy tickets…”

  He stopped before turning onto the road. A van was just turning in, and he saw the woman driver’s head turn in their direction. One of the other parents.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “I was hoping nobody would see us.”

  “Why? They know I talk to you.”

  “Being civil in public is not the same thing as getting in a car with me,” Craig said grimly.

  “I will not let other people tell me who I can and cannot talk to.” She gave him a severe look. “Understand?”

  “I just don’t want you to suffer because you’ve been decent to me.”

  Genuine puzzlement crinkled her brow. “Craig, people aren’t that unreasonable.”

  “Aren’t they?” Stopped at a red light, he turned his head. “I’ve had rocks thrown through the windshield of this car twice, both times wrapped in notes that told me not very nicely I deserve to hang. I’ve changed our phone number twice because of the hateful messages that filled our voice mail.” He gritted his teeth and made himself stop. “You have no idea.”

  She stared at him. “I…no. I guess I don’t. Oh, Craig…”

  “I shield the kids as well as I can. But they’re not deaf or blind. They’re well aware that their friends—assuming they have any—can never play at our house, or that neighbors don’t wave anymore. I can’t remember the last time anybody but the cops and my dad stepped inside my house. Brett isn’t reacting just to the way he’s treated at school, you know.”

  The light changed. He started forward.

  “I had no idea. I am sorry. I wouldn’t have thought people like that…”

  “Lived in a nice town?” he asked, with irony. “They live everywhere, Robin. They’re us.”

  “I wouldn’t…”

  “No.” He let out a breath. “But you’re the exception. They’re the rule.”

  Her forehead creased again. “I can’t believe that.”

  “I didn’t used to, either.” They’d reached the outskirts of town. He wished he’d thought ahead of time where he could take her.

  She gestured at an espresso stand that had sprouted a year or so before in a vacant lot. “Why don’t we just get something to go?”

  Grateful, Craig put on the turn signal. A teenager who apparently had no idea who he was cheerfully made their orders and took his money. A moment later, he turned back toward the soccer fields.

  “Why don’t I park by the river?”

  Robin nodded.

  The soccer fields were part of the city park, which also included a walking trail along the river and a picnic area. On a gray Monday afternoon like this, they had it to themselves.

  At her suggestion, they carried their steaming cups to a picnic table at the edge of a ten-foot bluff above the river. It was more of a creek in this season, meandering along a rocky bed. Fallen leaves floated slowly on the surface.

  They sat side by side on the table, their feet on the bench. It made it harder to look at her, to see her changing expressions, but easier to talk.

  They both sipped, the silence more comfortable than he had any right to expect.

  It was Robin who said finally, “Tell me what you meant about Julie. About her being strange.”

  He watched a clump of sodden brown leaves lodge briefly on a large rock, then swirl around it to continue with the current.

  “I told you we’re from Chicago. When we met, Julie was a potter. A good one. Did she ever talk about that part of her life?”

  He wasn’t surprised when Robin shook her head. His kids ate their breakfast cereal out of bowls their mother had thrown, fired and glazed, but he wasn’t sure they knew she’d made them, either. The truth was, he sometimes wondered if Julie remembered. Not that long before she’d disappeared, he’d lifted one and said, “These really are beautiful bowls,” and she’d looked at them with puzzlement before saying, in the tone of someone humoring a crazy person, “They’re nice.”

  “She was arty. Wore her hair in a braid down her back. She potted in overalls and a tank top. I don’t think she ever put on makeup. She sold her stuff at art fairs and a few galleries and took custom orders. She was natural, warm, funny.”

  He felt Robin’s gaze, but kept his own on
the river. It was easier this way to talk about a past that felt like someone else’s.

  “I fell hard. She laughed at the idea of getting married. Maybe when she was ready to have kids, she said.”

  The idea of Julie, beautiful in the way of a wild-flower, carrying his child, had made him hard. That particular marriage proposal, like most of his others, had ended in passionate lovemaking.

  “But suddenly one day she agreed. I remember being…startled. I was half teasing, and she looked at me with this serious expression and said, ‘Yes.’”

  He could see her face to this minute. She’d been cleaning up her studio and still wore those bib overalls caked with dried clay. She was wiping her hands on a rag when she answered the doorbell. Red clay streaked one delicate cheek. Dried particles flecked her pale hair.

  Yes. I’m ready.

  “She…changed that day. She was tired of potting, she said, with this irritated shrug. Next thing I knew, she’d found a job as a rep for a clothing line. The ones that go around to stores. She dressed for the job. Great suits, elegant pumps. She got her hair cut—in a chin-length bob that she styled every morning. Even on days off she kept the look. Her jeans were suddenly name brand, looked ironed. Cute shirts, this shining hair that always turned under just so.”

  “Maybe…maybe she just grew up. Or was trying to please you.”

  Craig made a sound of agreement. “I told her she didn’t have to turn into someone else for my sake. She looked at me like I was nuts.”

  What are you talking about?

  “She wanted to get married right away. I was fine with that. I’d been trying to persuade her for months. We did it and she moved in with me. She brought hardly anything. Even though my place had room, she got rid of her kiln and potting wheel and most of her pottery. I asked her to keep some of her best work. Then one day I was dragging the garbage can out to the street and checked to see why it was so heavy. It was full of shards. As if she’d stood there and smashed piece after piece.”

  With deep pain he’d recognized bits of beautiful bowls and tall, graceful vases. She’d made a teapot and set of cups, then sculpted comical faces on the sides. Those, too, had ended up in the garbage can. She’d missed the cereal bowls he and the kids used to this day, maybe because they were mixed in with the everyday functional dishes.