In Between Days

by Andrew Porter

  “Why not?”

  “Elson.”

  “What?”

  She pauses then and stares at him. All around them the room is filled with sunlight, unbelievable amounts of it, a soft amber light that casts them both in a hazy glow.

  “Elson,” she says, softer now, staring at him earnestly. “Just call your wife, okay?”

  And so he does. Standing in the shaded cool of Lorna’s back veranda, he pulls out his cigarettes and lights one, then reaches for the phone in his pocket. In the distance, he can see a group of workers cutting down tree branches at the edge of her narrow back alley and, beneath them, a group of kids on bikes, watching. The simple pleasure of a simple task, he thinks. The simple pleasure of doing a simple job that has a simple end. How he longs to be back at the office right now, or off on a site, doing just that. A simple task with a simple end. How he longs for the days when that was all he had to contend with. He looks back at Lorna, who is watching him now through the sliding glass doors, then looks back at his phone. Finally, finding Cadence’s number in his directory, he pushes SEND, bracing himself, knowing that whatever she has to tell him will not be good, but when she answers the phone, her voice is surprisingly calm, almost groggy, as if she’d just woken up.

  “Elson,” she says. “Jesus Christ.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “It’s a long story,” he says. “A story for another day, okay?”

  “Another day?”

  “Yes.”

  She pauses for a moment and, to his surprise, doesn’t persist. “You know what?” she says finally. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t even care right now. You’re not going to believe this, Elson. You’re not going to fucking believe this.”

  “What?”

  “He found her.”

  “Who?”

  “Richard. I just spoke to him on the phone, and he’s on his way to get her right now.”

  “Chloe?”

  “Yes, of course, Chloe.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Cotulla.”

  “Cotulla, Texas?”

  “Yes. And don’t ask me why she’s in Cotulla, Texas, because I have no idea. And I don’t care, Elson. Honestly. I don’t care right now. All I know is she’s coming home.”

  And at this moment he can’t bring himself to do anything but stand there, gaping out at the yard, the enormous weight of everything he’s been carrying these past three weeks peeling off him like layers of skin, almost not believing it at first, and then feeling a strange sort of elation, a dizzying calm, like nothing he’s ever felt before. He can hear Cadence’s voice on the other end of the line, saying something about the police detectives, the Beckwith boy, exoneration, but he is no longer listening to her. He is staring back at Lorna, who is watching him through the sliding glass doors. He waves to her, smiles, then gives her the thumbs-up.

  A moment later, she comes up to the door and opens it, then mouths, What? What is it?

  Putting his hand over the receiver, he smiles at her and winks. “Good news,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Good news,” he says again. “Good fucking news.”

  9

  THE DIRECTIONS RICHARD had found on the Internet had taken him west to San Antonio, then south along Interstate 35 toward Laredo. Chloe had told him to take exit 68, the first exit before Cotulla, and then to pull over at the first gas station he saw. It would be a small off-white building on the right, she’d said, and she’d be waiting out front.

  Now that he’s here, however, she’s nowhere in sight, and he’s beginning to wonder whether he maybe made a wrong turn somewhere or whether he’d maybe gotten the directions wrong. He’d been so excited, after all, when she’d first called, so overcome with joy, that he’d barely processed what she’d said. It was very possible that he’d written down the exit number wrong or maybe mixed up the numbers, written down 68 when she’d actually said 86. He picks up his phone again and dials the number of the cell phone Chloe was using, but there’s no answer. He stares at the building in front of him, a tiny white mini-mart attached to a gas station, and wonders if she’s simply inside, using the bathroom.

  On the ride down, he’d tried her phone again several times, even though she’d told him not to, even though she’d told him she was throwing it away as soon as they hung up. She hadn’t told him why she couldn’t talk on it or why she even had a temporary cell phone to begin with. In fact, she’d told him very little at all, only that she was in trouble right now and that she needed his help. He’d asked her if she was safe, and she’d told him she was, at least for now, but then she’d urged him to hurry up. There was a desperate kind of panic in her voice, something he’d never heard before, and the longer he’d tried to keep her on the line, the more antsy she’d become. I have to hang up now, Richard, she’d finally said, and then the line had gone dead. It had struck him as strange that she’d never mentioned Raja’s name, that she’d used the singular “I” instead of the plural “we,” and he wondered then if he was even with her or if he was in fact the very thing she was scared of.

  In the end, it had taken him almost five hours to get here, and though he’d sped the entire way and rarely hit traffic, it had still been a long and arduous trip, the endless series of small Texas towns with names like Buda and Kyle, the flat barren fields that surrounded the road, the occasional exits advertising historic locations or sometimes bars, the occasional roadside food stands selling fresh empanadas or barbecued ribs. Eventually, feeling frustrated and bored, he had called up his mother and told her the news. Even though Chloe had warned him against this, even though she’d begged him not to, he’d felt a sudden need to throw her a bone, to give her something. Earlier that day, when he’d first pulled out of Houston, he’d listened to the message she’d left him on his phone, a message filled with such stern admonishments, such violent disapproval, such profound disappointment, that he’d had to put the phone aside and stop listening. They had stung him, the words that she’d said, and he realized then that he’d gone too far, that he’d kept her in the dark far too long. When he called her back a few hours later, however, her voice was much calmer, and when he told her the news, when he told her where he was going and who he was picking up, she had simply grown silent, and then a few seconds later, he’d heard her weeping, weeping so loudly he’d had to pull the phone away from his ear.

  “Are you joking with me, Richard?” she’d said finally. “Please tell me you’re not.”

  “Why would I joke about something like this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But just promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  There was another long silence, and then his mother began to cry again.

  Eventually, she’d come back on and asked whether or not he knew if Chloe was still with Raja, and when he told her he didn’t, she’d started talking about the police investigation again and some detective she’d talked to earlier that day and how the charges were now being dropped. It was very important that he told them this, she said. It was very important that this information was conveyed.

  “The charges are being dropped?” he’d asked, a little dumbfounded.

  “Yes.”

  “Against both of them?”

  “No, just against Chloe. Maybe Raja, too, but definitely Chloe.”

  “Jesus.”

  He’d wanted to ask her more then, but he could tell that she was getting emotional and didn’t want to get her any more worked up than she already was. So instead he just told her not to tell anyone, especially not the police, and when she suggested contacting the authorities down in Cotulla, he told her that he didn’t think that was such a good idea. She wants to keep things quiet, he’d said. And I think we should respect that. His mother had grown silent on the other end of the line, but then finally agreed.

  “Just promise me you’ll b
ring her home,” she’d said finally.

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Promise me, Richard.”

  “I promise.”

  “And Richard,” she said. “About what I said on that message.”

  “It’s fine, Mom.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s not.”

  “Mom,” he said, and he could hear her sniffling again now. “Mom, you know, seriously, it’s fine.”

  And then he’d hung up and turned on the radio and tried to block out everything else for a while, tried to forget the very reason he was driving to Cotulla, Texas, in the first place.

  Now, staring across the street, he can see a tiny barn covered in flowering vines and wisteria, and beyond it a long stretch of lonely field peppered with loquat trees and live oaks. Above him, in the sky, the sun is starting to lower. He stares back at the mini-mart and checks his watch, then decides to get out, feeling for the first time a sense of panic, a growing uncertainty, realizing that he’s either made a wrong turn somewhere or else something has gone terribly wrong. Either way, he feels a sudden sense of urgency now, a surge of adrenaline, and as he gets out of the car and starts toward the mini-mart, as he reaches the door and thrusts it open, he enters the building so quickly that the man behind the counter almost spills his drink.

  “Hello?” says the man, a little startled.

  Richard stares at him, a short Mexican man with weathered skin and a fading hairline and a small, serpentine tattoo at the base of his neck.

  “Can I help you?” the man continues.

  “My sister,” Richard blurts.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Has anyone been here?”

  The man stares at him, perplexed.

  “I’m looking for my sister and I’m wondering if she’s been here.”

  “Just now?”

  “No, a while ago. Maybe a few hours,” he says. “She said she was calling me from across the street. Did you see anyone over there?”

  The man stares across the road and squints, then looks back at Richard. “Blond hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “About this tall?” The man raises his hand above his head.

  Richard nods.

  “Drinking beer?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “She was here this morning. Bought some cigarettes, beer. Then she sat out there for about an hour. Then she left.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  The man shrugs. “Got in a truck. That’s all I know. But earlier she was asking me about buses. Guess she didn’t need one.”

  “A truck?” Richard says, suddenly panicked. “What type of truck?”

  “White truck,” the man says, then, extending his arms, adds, “Big.”

  “Do you know when that was?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  Richard stares at him. “And did you see who was driving?”

  “The truck?”

  “Yes.”

  The man shakes his head. “Didn’t see.” Then he looks at Richard. “Do you think that’s her?”

  “I don’t know,” Richard says. “Maybe.” Then feeling his stomach tighten, he looks through the window down the road. “Are there any other gas stations around here, you know, on this road?”

  The man shakes his head. “Just us,” he says, smiling at him plaintively. “Are you okay?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re sweating.”

  But Richard is already turning around now, already heading out the door and back to the van.

  Sitting in the front seat, he rolls down the window and lights a cigarette, wondering what to do now, wondering what he will tell his mother, and then wondering if the girl the man had described was actually Chloe or somebody else. And, if it was Chloe, where was she now? Who had picked her up? And where were they going? Suddenly he feels foolish for ever believing that it would all be this easy, for ever believing there wouldn’t be a catch. And then he begins to wonder if it had all been a trick from the start, a setup, an elaborate charade to throw them all off.

  Shifting into gear, he pulls out of the mini-mart parking lot and starts back toward the highway, realizing that sooner or later—at some point between now and the moment he pulls into his mother’s driveway back in Houston—he’ll have to tell her the news. He’ll have to sit there and listen to her as she questions him, as she breaks down, as she asks him why he hadn’t just let her call the cops in Cotulla as she’d initially suggested, why he’d insisted that she trust him. And he’ll have to tell her then that he doesn’t have a good answer for her, that he doesn’t even know where his sister is at this moment. He’ll have to acknowledge that on a very fundamental level he has failed her.

  And the thought of this conversation now is almost as upsetting to him as the very real possibility that Chloe herself has just vanished for good, just disappeared into nothing. And he wonders then how a person could do that, just disappear like that, just cancel out everything else in their life—their family, their friends, their future—just give it all up, for what? A boy? A romantic idea about love? And he thinks then about all of the times he has done this before, all of the times he has protected his sister, covered for her, defended her in front of their parents. All of the times he had picked her up at parties in high school when she was too drunk to drive, all of the times he had written her fake notes to get out of class, all of the times he had rewritten her papers for her, all of the times he had lied for her, misled their parents deliberately, just to keep her out of trouble. And what had it gotten her now? What had he given her but a false sense of entitlement, a false sense of security, a naïve belief that where there were actions there were not always consequences.

  It is this that he’s thinking about as he pulls onto the highway and later as the phone on the seat beside him begins to ring. He’s so overcome with frustration at this moment, though, so overwhelmed with dread, that he just lets it ring, believing at first it’s his mother, or perhaps his father, calling to get a report, but when the caller calls back, he realizes, against all logic, that it might in fact be Chloe and quickly picks up.

  “Chlo?”

  “Richard,” says a voice he recognizes immediately as Michelson’s. “I’m so glad I caught you. I was afraid that something might have happened when you didn’t show up at our meeting.”

  “Our meeting?”

  “Yes, our workshop. You were the only one who didn’t show. You and your friend …”

  “Brandon.”

  “Right, Brandon. Well, I’m so glad I caught you because I have some fabulous news.”

  “I can’t really talk right now,” Richard says, suddenly feeling sick.

  “This will only take a minute, Richard,” Michelson continues, and then he goes on to talk about something—a conversation he’d had with someone earlier that day, a space that has just opened up at Michigan, financial aid—but it all begins to blur now, the thought of Chloe filling his head, the absurdity of talking to Michelson at a moment like this.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Michelson says. “It’s already a done deal. You’re in. You just need to send them that stuff. Have you mailed it off yet?”

  “I have to go,” Richard says.

  “Richard, are you hearing me?”

  “My sister’s gone,” Richard says then, his mind growing numb.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “She’s gone,” he says. “She might even be dead.”

  “Dead? What are you talking about, Richard?”

  But before Michelson can continue, he hangs up the phone and turns it to mute, then floors the pedal of his mother’s minivan, weaving through traffic so recklessly that he no longer feels like a person who’s connected to the road, the earth. He no longer feels connected to anything. And as the sun in the distance begins to fade along the horizon, turning daytime into night, he braces himself, remembering the last thing his sister said to him before she hung up, the last words that came out of her mouth. I
can’t wait to see you, Richie, she’d said. You have no idea. And then she’d said, Look, Richie, I have to hang up now, okay? And then there’d been a loud sound in the background, a horn, and then the line had gone dead.

  10

  AT THE EDGE of the kitchen sink, Cadence pours herself another cup of coffee and stares out at the backyard where Elson, even at this late hour, is still working on the yard. Bathed in the artificial glow of the backyard floodlights, he is laying down sod, smoothing it out with a roller, then soaking it with water. He’d come over earlier that evening with a bottle of champagne tucked beneath his arms, fresh flowers, a cake. Then he’d gone out to his car and carried in several patches of fresh sod, which he’d proceeded to set down on the deck. He wanted to cover up the bare spots at the back of the yard, he’d said, wanted to make everything look nice for Chloe. This was long overdue, he’d said. This was a problem that needed to be fixed. And as she stares at him now, she wonders what it was about men and lawns. It was like they saw the health of their lawn as some sort of outward reflection of their own ability to provide, their manliness. Or at least that had always been the case with Elson. If the lawn was in trouble, he’d spend the entire weekend just working on it, fretting over it, wondering if he had burned it with chemicals, watered it too profusely, cut it too short. And it would almost seem comical at this moment—the sight of him now—it would almost seem endearing, if it weren’t for the fact that it had been almost eight hours now since she’d last heard from Richard.

  Staring at the clock above the counter, she tries again to do the math. Five hours to Cotulla and five hours back. Even with traffic, they should have been back by ten at the latest. And now, with the hour hand moving closer to one—one in the morning—she can only assume that something is wrong. Earlier she had stood out in the yard with Elson as he lay down the sod, talking about what they would do, how they would celebrate, agreeing that they would not even mention what she’d done, how she’d worried them. There would be no accusations tonight, no reprimands. Tonight would be a night for celebration, nothing more. And they would all be together again, at least for tonight, and though she didn’t take this to mean what Elson took it to mean—a new beginning, a new start—she’d still felt giddy at the thought of it. A momentary reprieve from what had otherwise been a very dark time in their lives, a momentary vacation before they had to get down to the business of dealing with the aftermath, the fallout: the civil suit, the inevitable interrogations, the media. But for tonight, at least, they’d keep all of these things far from their minds. Tonight, they would simply welcome back their daughter.