by Sylvia True
“Stop.” He stands to hold her, but she takes a step backward, as if he’s about to strike. “Please don’t blame yourself. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I put you in that pain.”
“What if I would have talked more about myself in group? What if I would have told them what was really going on? I’m so caught up in appearances.” Please God, do anything you want to me, just don’t let Alicia be hurt.
“We can what-if ourselves to death. It’s not going to change anything.” He sits.
She begins to pace again. “I blame you. But I have a part in this too. I’ve been so ashamed of you, of us. So frightened of everything, of people finding out you might be gay, of the children learning.” She shakes her head. I’ll be okay with anything if she’s okay.
“Hannah, I’m not gay.”
She doesn’t reply. She keeps pacing, from the portrait of the children back to the light switch on the other wall.
“Hannah, did you hear me? I’m not gay.”
She stops and looks at him. “How do you know?” He can be gay if Alicia is all right.
“I love you. I love making love to you. What I’ve done with other men isn’t about you. It’s a compulsion. Something I have to keep working out.”
“But will you? Work it out?”
“Yes,” he says without a beat or pause.
“And then?” She would give up her husband for her daughter.
“I don’t know. Maybe we can move past this. Maybe we can’t.”
“I hate the maybes.” She’s moving again. “Maybe they will find Alicia. Maybe they won’t. I need something more solid.”
“I love you. You’re a wonderful, kind mother.”
“I’m going to call the station again.” She veers off her path, eyeing her phone on the glass coffee table.
“They’ll call us the minute they know anything.”
“I have to do something.”
Adam stands. He puts an arm around her. “Let’s go for a walk around the block.”
“What if she comes home?”
“Your mother is here.”
“I can’t leave the house.” She wants to scream, kick the wall, smash the lamp.
“Okay, then we’ll stay here. We’ll pace together.”
“If they find Alicia, I’m going to call Bridget and Lizzy and Gail and tell them I’m sorry. Tell them I want to keep meeting with them. That I’ll talk to them, work through all this mess inside of me. I’ll volunteer more at Sam and Alicia’s school. I’ll spend more time with my mother. I’ll—”
Adam wraps his arms around her. “Shush,” he says. “They’ll find her.”
“You don’t know that.”
He holds her tighter. “They’ll find her,” he says again.
Her weight shifts into his. She believes him. She has to.
Lizzy
Lizzy and Greg have stayed in their respective rooms for the past few hours. She’s cried, tried to rest, checked e-mails, thought about calling Kathryn, and even made a feeble attempt at meditation. But the knots in her stomach and her heart and lungs remain.
She feels like a prisoner, and then she thinks about a speaker who came to the high school a few months ago. He was wrongly incarcerated for seventeen years, until DNA proved his innocence. To Lizzy it seemed the worst of all fates, but he wasn’t bitter. With his long white hair, he stood in front of an auditorium filled with teenagers, who were mesmerized as he told them that he decided that this was his journey, and he would use what he learned to help others. He didn’t allow resentment and bitterness to win.
Neither will Lizzy.
She e-mails Valerian. If you are still looking for volunteers, I would love to spend time helping. I am available immediately.
Next she e-mails Joe. Now that I understand my situation, I will take your advice and stay out for the remainder of the year. I will return in August.
She signs onto the banking site where they have their mortgage and pays the next three months.
Valerian replies. We would love to have you. Although we cannot pay anything, we are happy to provide room and board. She wasn’t expecting to get paid.
She cancels the phone, Internet, and cable. As her students would say, she gets unplugged.
Finally, she packs a bag with light clothes and a few toiletries.
Without Internet, Greg’s central line has been shut off. He will go into a rage when he realizes it. It’s not him. It’s his addiction. She understands this. She also understands that it’s time to leave.
The alarm clock next to her bed reads 8:43.
She should feel sad, maybe scared, but she doesn’t. Instead she feels as if she knows exactly what to do, as if this was meant to be all along, and finally the turmoil inside of her is gone. She imagines a rock garden with a serene pool of water. Strange after all of this, after the nights of hoping Greg would make love to her, after the humiliation of sitting in Joe’s office, after this morning’s financial blow, she is neither ashamed nor disappointed.
She pauses at Greg’s study door and holds up a hand, about to knock, but then lets it fall. His addiction owns him. There’s no point in saying anything.
She switches on the front porch light and carries her one bag to the car. As she backs out of the driveway, she pauses to look at the home she’s leaving. It’s just a big yellow box. It’s amazing she’s lived in it for eighteen years and can’t think of a thing she’ll miss except for the blueberry bushes in the backyard.
She parks at the bus station and leaves the key under the driver’s seat. Greg can pick up the car if he wants it. Eventually she’ll write to him and let him know where it is. She buys a one-way ticket to Logan Airport and gets off at Terminal A, just a short walk from the Hilton.
At the hotel reception desk, she’s tempted to take a suite but decides a double is more practical, and there’s no need to waste money. No need to be like … But she stops the thought. Let go of the bitterness.
Her room overlooks the control tower that pulsates with red and white bursts of light. She unpacks a couple of things. When she puts her toothbrush and toothpaste on the countertop next to the sink, the room feels officially hers for the night.
And then her fingers begin to tingle a little. At first the sensation is stronger in her left hand, and she thinks it might be a sign that she’s having a heart attack. But soon the sensation is in her other hand as well. The decision to leave Greg had come relatively easily, and she had naively expected the blush of confidence to last. On the ride to the airport, she imagined the peaceful solitude of an anonymous, temperature-controlled, sterile room. She did not plan for her nerves to suddenly kick in and her head to feel as if it were stuck in the static between radio stations. Electrical disturbances pulse like jagged peaks of interference.
She leaves her room and takes the elevator to the lobby, where she finds the hotel lounge. A few people dotted throughout scrutinize their phones or iPads. Lizzy has a moment of panic. What if she needs to get in touch with someone? What if someone needs to get in touch with her? But after a moment, sadness replaces the unease. There is no one that important.
She asks the waitress for a cranberry juice and vodka. The first few sips taste cool and refreshing. The static lessens. A couple walks in, and although the woman touches the man’s arm as he leads her to a table, there is something terse about her, and Lizzy wonders if she’s a hooker, and if the man is a sex addict.
She orders a BLT and another drink.
A man who appears fifty-something, with dark, hooded eyes, nods at her. She pretends to look for something in her purse, then stares at the round table. A few moments later, she glances up. He’s paying the bartender. Of course she didn’t want him to come and talk to her—what would she say? But she feels let down. He’s wearing a gray suit that has an expensive way of hanging. It seems he’s about to leave, but then he turns to look at her. She’s caught watching him and lowers her head, giving him time to walk out in privacy.
Inst
ead he approaches her table.
“Carlos.” He extends a hand.
“Hi.” She shakes his hand quickly, not wanting to seem eager or over-personal.
“May I?” He points to the chair across from her.
“Sure.” Her smile is as quick as her handshake. “I’m Lizzy.”
“On your way to somewhere?” he asks.
“Yes. And you?” She finishes her drink. Two is her limit, three will give her a migraine, although at the moment she doesn’t care.
“Back home.” His short gray hair, spiked with gel, reminds her of a hedgehog.
“And where is that?” she asks, playing with the stirrer in her glass.
“Madrid,” he says. “May I buy you another?” He glances at her drink.
“Yes. Why not?”
He raises his hand. “A whiskey for me, and another for the lady. Whatever it is she would prefer.”
“The same,” Lizzy tells the waitress.
“So, you did not say where you are going to.” He has sleepy eyes, no wedding ring, and just enough of a belly to suggest he’s not into any sort of extreme workouts.
“Peru. The jungle.” She likes the way it sounds. The waitress comes with their drinks, and Lizzy feels herself relax.
“For pleasure? Research?” he asks.
“To help build a school.”
“You are a … what do you call them … someone who does missionary work?” He leans toward her. She smells whiskey.
“No. Not really. I just want to do something useful for once.” She smiles more openly.
“You do not seem like a woman who has spent a useless life.”
She laughs. “No, I guess not. Maybe change is a better word.”
“Ah.” He swirls his drink. His gaze is pleasant.
For a moment she considers telling the truth, then decides that would ruin a perfectly genteel drink. “I just don’t want life to pass me by and regret never having done the things I wanted to do.”
“So you are the type for adventure?”
She sips her cranberry and vodka and contemplates the question for a second or two. “I guess so,” she says.
“And you do this alone?” he asks.
“Yes.” She wonders if it’s unwise to tell a single man she is by herself. But what the hell? She needs to stop being so guarded.
“I do not know of many people who would just go off to the jungle. I think you must be brave.”
“I’m not exactly doing it out of bravery—more like running away.” Why keep pretending? She has to put that part of her life behind her.
“I see,” he says, eyebrows raised.
She finishes her drink, liking that he didn’t come right out and ask. If she tried to get up right now, she would probably stagger.
“I’m running from a bad marriage,” she admits.
He nods. “I am sorry.”
“I probably shouldn’t have said that. It’s the drinks.”
“Sometimes it is easier to tell a perfect stranger, no?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Are you married?”
“I was once, yes. But for me too it was not so good.” He tilts his head from side to side. “I traveled too much. She was bored. There was no more fire.”
He looks at her empty glass. “Would you like another?”
“No, I better not. I have a lot to do in the morning.”
The waitress comes to the table. Lizzy takes out her credit card. “I’d like to get this.”
“Thank you,” Carlos says.
It’s nice he doesn’t make a fuss, that he accepts her willingness to pay.
After she signs the receipt, they stand and shake hands again. This time she allows herself to enjoy his grip.
“I admire what you are going to do. I wish you luck and happiness.”
“I wish you the same.” Funny how she really feels that. She doesn’t feel that for Greg. For a second, guilt washes over her, and the bristling under her skin returns.
She waits for Carlos to leave the bar first, but he waits for her. They smile awkwardly at each other and walk to the lobby together.
“You are at this hotel too?” he asks as they stand next to the elevator.
“Yes.” She glances around, hoping there will be more people.
No one else comes. They get in and watch the numbers climb. It will be uncomfortable to have to say good-bye again. The elevator stops on the ninth floor and dings as the doors open.
“It was nice—” he begins as he takes a step toward the hallway.
“Wait,” she says.
He looks at her and smiles. The doors close. He walks to her and kisses her. She doesn’t hold back.
The elevator stops on the eleventh floor, and she leads him to her room. Inside, she closes the curtains most of the way. The blinking lights from the control tower flash steadily, rhythmically, comfortably. Carlos holds her shoulders, kisses her mouth, then her neck. Her lips brush against his cheek. There is a shy scent of expensive cologne.
He takes the clip out of her hair, then runs his hands through it. He tells her she is beautiful, and as the light pulses, she unbuttons her blouse. She believes him. They undress. He is gentle and confident. There is no hesitancy, no performance anxiety. The flow is natural, easy. The intimate touch of a man was something she had written out of her life plan.
She is grateful that he doesn’t linger afterward. It is a luxury to be naked and feel no shame, to hog the whole bed, to stretch diagonally. After a few moments, she realizes she is submerged in silence. The ties to Greg are broken. She is simply not the kind of woman to have sex with someone else and then return to her husband.
She imagines the sounds of monkeys squalling as the sun sets on the Amazon River.
The static is gone. Sleep comes tenderly.
Hannah
Adam made peppermint tea, tried to get Hannah to watch TV, and suggested a drive, but all she can do is pace in the living room and make silent bargains with God. She’d give up anything. Her house, his sobriety.
Minutes feel like endless, horrific hours. If there is a hell, this is what it feels like. She desperately tries to push aside images of Alicia getting into some stranger’s car. Adam’s phone rings. Hannah stops pacing midstep.
“Yes,” he says. He stands motionless, next to the coffee table.
She places a hand on her chest as she watches him.
“This is Mr. Jenkins.” The left side of his mouth nudges downward. The creases on his brow grow deeper. The room has no air.
Finally, he lets out a long, audible sigh of relief.
“She’s okay,” he says to Hannah.
She hurries to his side, grabs his arm, and listens with him. He brushes his lips on the top of her head, and even in the midst of this crisis, she understands that he is grateful she has allowed this light kiss.
“She’s being taken by ambulance to Newton-Wellesley Hospital,” a man’s voice states.
“We can be there in ten minutes,” Adam says.
Hannah races outside, not bothering to grab her purse. Just as she’s about to get into Adam’s car, she dashes back into the house.
“They found her,” she shouts to Sam and her mother, who are in the den. “We’re going to meet her at the hospital.”
Sam bolts up. “Can I come?”
“No, honey. You stay with Nana. We’ll be home soon.”
In the car, Hannah taps her feet on the floor. They took this exact same route when she was in labor with Alicia. Adam parks and they jog toward the bright red neon emergency room lights.
Hannah barrels through the swinging doors. A nurse in pink scrubs with her hands on her hips stands in Hannah’s path.
“My daughter, Alicia Jenkins. Which room?”
The nurse doesn’t stop Hannah; instead she turns and leads the way to a curtained-off area. Alicia is there. On the bed, eyes open. Alive. Hannah races to her daughter, kisses her forehead, and caresses her hair, as a doctor pats Alicia’s shoulder.
“Everything looks good,” the doctor tells Hannah. “We’re just giving her some fluids. It was a hot night, and she might be dehydrated.”
“When can we take her home?” Hannah asks.
“Soon, I imagine. But there are a couple of routine interviews for a case like this.” The doctor smiles at Alicia. “You seem like a strong girl. Think you can answer a few questions?”
Alicia nods.
The doctor walks to the opening in the curtain. “I’ll be back to check on her again.”
Adam moves closer to the bed. He holds the metal rail.
“I have never, ever been so happy to see anyone,” Hannah says. Her heart is slowing, and she can finally catch her breath. There is no blood, no bruises, no bandages. Alicia’s skin is pale and clammy, but her blue eyes are clear, and Hannah feels as if her sanity has been miraculously restored.
“We were very worried,” Adam says sternly.
Hannah glances at him and shakes her head just enough to show him this isn’t the time to be angry.
“We’re just so glad you’re okay. How are you feeling?” Hannah asks.
“Scared,” she whispers. Her lips are cracked and dry. She probably hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in hours.
Hannah tucks the stiff white sheet around Alicia. “No need to be frightened anymore. Soon you’ll be home, safe and sound.”
“Where were you?” Adam asks.
Hannah looks across the bed. She tilts her head, trying to ask Adam what he’s doing, speaking so harshly. Then she glances at his hands gripping the bedrail. His knuckles are white.
“At the mall,” Alicia whispers.
“How did you get there?” Adam asks.
“I walked,” she murmurs.
“Adam,” Hannah says, “we’ll get to the details later. Let’s just get her home and get a good meal into her.” When she kisses Alicia’s forehead again, she gets a whiff of something that reminds her of sour milk. It’s the way her children smell when they’re sweaty and exhausted.
“You walked from school?” Adam asks.
“Yes.”
“Let’s not do this now,” Hannah says firmly.
“Can we leave?” Alicia asks.
“In a few minutes,” Hannah replies, as a man and a woman enter.