Closer Than You Know

by Brad Parks

  I didn’t need to consult lunar charts to know April 9 was before May 18. The possibility of getting Alex more than a month sooner overwhelmed any other rational thought I might have had. I was now practically leaping out of my chair.

  “I’ll do it,” I said quickly.

  “Now, now, hang on a moment,” my ever-slow-talking lawyer said. “I want us to think this through. I know it’s nice not having to worry about those assault charges, but the drug charges are much more serious. We’d be looking at four weeks to prepare your defense. That’s not much time. My granddaddy always said it’s better to do things right than to do them right away.”

  He was a man with all the time in the world. April or May or June made no difference to him. He couldn’t understand there was a clock ticking inside of me, and that each second was another explosion. I would never get these months of Alex’s life back. They were so precious. I had read the baby books. They all stressed how critical every phase of development was, especially during that first year. Every month mattered. Every day mattered.

  And maybe it was stupid of me to rush to trial. But unlike Mr. Honeywell—and the prosecutor, and the judge, and everyone else—I still believed in my own innocence. Which is what motivated my next utterances.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll take the deal.”

  Mr. Honeywell looked at me for an extra-long beat.

  “Okay. April ninth it is,” he said, then nodded in the direction of the prosecutor’s desk.

  What followed was a lengthy discussion about the appropriate bond for my drug charges. In the end, Mr. Honeywell got the Commonwealth to agree to $40,000. I’d get credit for the $20,000 that had already been secured, but someone would still have to come up with ten percent of the other $20,000.

  I knew Teddy didn’t have that much. Neither did Ben—assuming he hadn’t already fled north, taking me up on my Get Out of Marriage Free card.

  After that was settled, the judge announced the end of General District Court’s broadcast day. As soon as he stood up, the camera at the courthouse began panning to the right, taking the judge out of the frame. I kept watching the screen as the view became the clerk’s desk, then the wall, then the prosecutor’s desk.

  By the time the camera came to a rest, it was pointed back at the gallery, which was empty for all but one man.

  It was Marcus Peterson. I felt this immediate—and strong—rush of gratitude toward him and this unexpected kindness. Just a glimpse of him was like spying a rose bush growing in a weedy vacant lot.

  “Marcus!” I called out. “Thank you! Thank you for coming! You’re the best!”

  Marcus gave no indication he had heard me. It was possible the feed going to the courthouse had already been cut off.

  “All right, Barrick, come on,” a guard said. “Let’s go.”

  “But it’s Marcus,” I said, as if the man cared.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  By then, the screen was already blank.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was still warmed at the memory of seeing my friend two hours later when that same guard approached me in the dormitory.

  “Come on, Barrick,” he said. “Get your stuff.”

  “I made bail?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  Marcus. It had to be. Marcus never flaunted it, but there was a modest amount of money running through his family—enough that he wasn’t scraping along like the rest of us.

  I hurriedly collected my bras and underwear, rolling them into a ball, then signed for my jeans and sweatshirt. After changing quickly and trying to make my hair look presentable, I went out into the waiting room.

  And sure enough, there he was. When we first met five years earlier, I was twenty-six and Marcus was thirty-four, which made me think of him as being maybe half a generation older. But once we became friends I had never felt like we were different ages. Whether I was a little bit of an old soul or he was young at heart, we just clicked. I don’t think we’ve ever had a bad conversation or an awkward moment.

  Once Ben came into the picture, he swore Marcus’s generosity toward me was motivated by feelings for me that were considerably stronger than friendship. Ben pointed out that Marcus always seemed to be magically available anytime I expressed a desire to hang out.

  I swore, with equal conviction, that was nonsense. Marcus put me on a little bit of a pedestal, yes. But he was just a sweetheart of a guy and nothing more. And here he was, proving it again.

  “Hey, you,” Marcus said softly.

  Marcus was medium height and build, with dirty-blond hair and blue eyes. He was now thirty-nine but had a boyishness about him that made him look a decade younger.

  “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you,” I said, crossing the room toward him.

  We hugged. He was a good hugger, the kind who didn’t hold back. Ben always took our hugs as yet another sign of Marcus’s feelings toward me, but I think I had finally convinced my husband how ridiculous that was. Marcus had never indicated the slightest unhappiness about his marriage; and, unlike Warren Plotz, Marcus had never hit on me, not even when we went out drinking together.

  He was so asexual toward me that when I first met him, I wondered if he was gay. I mean, sure, he wore a wedding ring, but that’s no longer a sure sign of heterosexuality. And when he referred to “Kelly,” I knew that could sometimes be a man’s name. It wasn’t until I met Kelly that I stopped wondering.

  “I have been so worried about you,” he said, still hugging me.

  “Thanks,” I said. I let go. He clung for an extra moment or two, then released me.

  I took in a deep breath and let it go sharply. “Marcus, this is really amazing of you, but I don’t . . . I don’t know when I’ll be able to repay you.”

  “You don’t have to. I didn’t work with a bail bondsman. I posted the whole twenty thousand, so I get it back as soon as you show up in court.”

  “Oh my God, Marcus, that’s . . . that’s amazing.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he said, shaking his head slightly, like he had done nothing more consequential than lending me a pen. “You’ve just got to do me one favor: You can’t breathe a word about this to Kelly, okay?”

  “Uhh, okay.”

  I didn’t want to make an issue out of it—not after he had so gallantly saved me from six weeks of bad sleep and worse food—but he had never asked me to keep anything from his wife before. They were the kind of couple who shared a Facebook account and knew each other’s email passwords. As far as I knew, they didn’t have secrets.

  “It’s just that, I sold some stock my grandparents left me and—”

  “Oh my God, Marcus, you can’t—”

  “Take it easy. It’s not a big deal, really. I think the stock is about to take a dive. It’s safer sitting in a bond at the courthouse than it is in the market. After this is over, I’ll tell Kelly I decided to sell. It’ll be fine. This is really just a brief, no-interest loan.”

  “Okay,” I said warily. It was selfish of me, but I had bigger things to worry about than a white lie to Marcus’s wife. Then I added: “Thank you.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  We left the building, walking out into a fog-socked day that felt metaphorically appropriate for someone whose future was as hazy as mine.

  Sensing I needed some small talk, Marcus yammered at me during the short drive back to Desper Hollow Road.

  When we arrived, Ben’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Was he at the mattress store? Or was he already in Philadelphia?

  Marcus came to a stop.

  “You want to get takeout or something?” he asked. “Kelly’s working late tonight, so I don’t really need to be anywhere.”

  “Thanks, but no. I’ve got”—I eyed the place where Ben usually parked his car—“some stuff
to take care of.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  I grabbed my grubby little ball of underwear from where I had left it on the floor and looked him in the eye. “Thanks again for doing this.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said, then cracked a little bit of a grin. “Like, seriously, don’t mention it.”

  “Okay, okay, got it,” I said.

  We hugged one last time, then I got out, giving him a little wave before I hurried up the steps and to my front door.

  Once inside, it didn’t take more than three seconds before I knew something was off.

  This wasn’t like a few days earlier, when the entire place had been tossed. It was much more subtle. There was a small extra amount of negative space in my house. Something was missing, even if I couldn’t tell immediately what was gone.

  The furniture was where it should have been. The TV was in the same spot. The entertainment center was . . .

  That was it. The entertainment center.

  There was a hole in the place where Ben’s vinyl records should have been.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  For a moment, or two, or three, I didn’t move.

  Our entertainment center was made of black laminate over particleboard, an IKEA special that was already beginning to sag under the weight of time. Those records were ordinarily a nice distraction from the shoddiness of the piece, a splash of polychromatic cheer, all those spines creating a bright mosaic of vertical lines.

  Now it was just a black hole, like someone had punched out a tooth.

  I quickly inventoried the rest of the house. In the kitchen, the first thing I noticed was that the Vitamix was gone. The super-strength juicer had been our Christmas present to each other, part of our promise to eat healthier now that we had a baby. Even though we went for one that had been reconditioned, and was therefore cheaper than a new one, it was still expensive.

  Really? I thought, indignantly. You’re going to leave me and take one of the only nice things we own?

  I went upstairs next. Sure enough, his half of our closet was emptier than it used to be. Though, strangely, his nicer clothes—his professor duds—were still there. Only his casual clothing was absent.

  His dresser was also a curiosity. Most of the socks and underwear were gone. So were his older jeans, the ones that I always joked came from his hip-hop phase, along with most of his T-shirts. Only the ones he wore while mowing the lawn or painting remained.

  It was like he had packed for a long trip. But it was a trip whose destination made no sense. If he was running off to join Professor Kremer at Temple, why didn’t he take his blazers, his slacks?

  Had he fled or not?

  Oddly, the thing that made me think he might still be around was that he hadn’t bothered to leave a note. Surely, he would have done that—some last words for the woman he had shared five mostly good years with—if only to be polite.

  But he hadn’t written me, because he wasn’t really gone. Not knowing I had been bailed out, he had probably spent time before his shift at the mattress store going around to consignment shops and selling everything we had of value—the records, the Vitamix—in an attempt to get me out of jail. That’s why he hadn’t taken his professor clothes. The hip-hop jeans must have had extra value as collector’s items that a white girl like me wasn’t aware of.

  Ben was right now at work, desperately trying to wrap up one or two more sales, counting his pennies on his way to the bail amount he needed to raise.

  Or he had sold everything for gas money and taken off.

  Either way, I had to know. The store was only a few minutes away. Before long, I was pulling into the narrow parking lot that fronted the strip mall containing Mattress Marketplace.

  I walked through the glass doors into a large showroom, then approached a skinny young man, a few years younger than me, sitting alone at a desk. He stood when he saw me.

  “Welcome to Mattress Marketplace,” he said. “Do you want to just have a look around or can I—”

  “Hi. I’m actually looking for Ben Barrick.”

  “He’s not here right now. But I’d be happy to help you. Are you hoping for something on the firm side or—”

  “I’m not a customer,” I said. “I’m his wife.”

  The kid did a poor job hiding his surprise. He wasn’t expecting a white woman.

  “Uhh,” he hummed.

  “Is he in back?” I asked, walking in that direction, like I knew where I was going.

  “He’s . . . he’s not here,” he said.

  “Is he on break or something?”

  The kid was just staring at me. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Didn’t he . . . didn’t he tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Ben quit on Saturday morning. He just came in, said he was done, and took off.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I forget how I replied, or if I said anything at all. I just know my exit from the store was probably less than graceful.

  The hundred-foot wave of emotions crashing on top of me—embarrassment, shame, fury—made it difficult to remember more basic functions, like walking and breathing.

  I tottered out to my car, barely able to get the keys in the ignition. I just had to get out of that parking lot, away from that skinny kid and his perplexed stare.

  Ben really was gone.

  For as much as I tried to trick myself into believing I was a confident woman who had managed to survive her rotten childhood, there was always, lurking somewhere inside me, a little girl who had been abandoned by the two people who were supposed to love her most.

  That little girl had always expected this day to come. That little girl knew there was nothing permanent about love, or the people who claimed to have it for her. It lasted only as long as it was convenient for them. It had been true for my parents, and for all the foster parents who had come and gone.

  And now it was true for Ben too.

  My soon-to-be ex-husband hadn’t even bothered sleeping on the decision to leave me, nor had he taken more than perhaps an hour to come to it. He left the jail at, what, ten o’clock on Saturday morning? Ten thirty? He then either went straight to the mattress place and quit, or he had made it his last stop on the way out of town after hastily collecting his stuff. It’s a wonder I hadn’t seen tire marks as he laid rubber to get out of the driveway.

  Except, of course, this wasn’t some kind of rushed choice. He had probably been looking for an escape hatch since the sheriff’s raid. Or maybe longer—like from when he first saw the pale-skinned baby he had obviously not fathered.

  The moment I offered him a way out, he hadn’t just walked through it. He had sprinted.

  I had to put him out of my mind. Mourning his departure or letting it incapacitate me wouldn’t do me any good. Shocking as it was, Ben was now a person in my past, another wound that would slowly heal over. I was returning to my natural state: on my own, with no one else I could depend on.

  But I wasn’t alone. For whatever the Commonwealth of Virginia might soon have to say about it, there was Alex. I was still his mother.

  Alex needed me to stay strong for him, to spare him from the same kind of childhood I had, from the system. I wasn’t going to abandon him the way my parents abandoned me.

  April 9 was coming. Forget Ben. Forget Warren Plotz and Diamond Trucking. Alex—and the trial that would allow me to win him back—had to be my focus.

  I wondered if Teddy had been able to make any headway over the weekend on that picture I had sent him.

  He would just be coming home from work. I called him. No answer.

  The turn for Desper Hollow was coming up, but I already knew I wasn’t taking it. I was going to Teddy’s place. Maybe together we could figure out who that scar-headed man from the video really was.

  Teddy’s rental
was a large, gruesomely asymmetrical Victorian on the wrong side of town that loomed over the street below it, looking like the Crazy Man’s house in a B-grade horror flick.

  I parked on the street and climbed the concrete steps next to the sidewalk, then the wooden steps that led to the porch. Teddy always told me I could just walk right in, that the other guys knew I was his sister and wouldn’t care. But I always felt weird doing that, so I rang the bell.

  After a short wait, one of his roommates, the one who worked at the Sheriff’s Office, came to the door, looking a lot less official in jeans and bare feet than he did in his deputy’s uniform.

  “Hey,” he said, opening the door wide so I could come in.

  “Hey, thanks,” I said, giving him a quick smile before I went up the stairs toward Teddy’s room on the third floor.

  But he stopped me before I could get that far. “If you’re looking for Teddy, he’s not here,” he said. “You just missed him.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Did he tell you where he was going by any chance?”

  “No. He was with that chick.”

  “What chick?” I asked. My twenty-three-year-old brother clearly didn’t need to clear his dating life with me, but I wasn’t aware he had a new girlfriend.

  “You know, the one he used to date.”

  I immediately felt sick.

  “Wendy?” I said, the name bringing a curl to my lips.

  “I think that’s her name, yeah. Dark hair, about yea high,” he said, holding up his hand to roughly my height. “Hot as hell, but also a hot mess?”

  “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “She’s been staying here the last few days,” he said. “They left here maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago.”

  He must have seen my shoulders drop, because he added: “It’s none of my business, but . . . she’s bad news, isn’t she?”

  “The worst.”

  “I just . . . well, whatever. Like I said, none of my business,” he said. “If he comes back, you want me to tell him you were here?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “Don’t bother.”