Since She Went Away

by David Bell

  But he took the chance. He wanted to know. Wanted to know her.

  As his mom always said, “You have to live with whatever consequences you create.” He understood that all too well.

  But Tabitha didn’t storm off. Her features softened, and she slid her hand along the inside of his thigh, creeping ever closer to the bulge growing against the fabric of his jeans.

  “My parents,” she said. She shook her head and leaned in close, kissing him once and then twice. “Shit. It’s so complicated. . . .”

  “Your mom? Is something—?”

  “Shhhh,” she said.

  And then they were kissing more, her hand on top of the bulge. And Jared had no trouble forgetting everything except her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sun was slipping away as Jenna drove home. They lived at the eastern edge of the central time zone, which meant it started to get dark by four thirty. Jared usually remembered to flip the porch light on for her, but it was out when Jenna pulled into the driveway. Was the bulb dead or was he not home? He was supposed to be home.

  Jenna’s hand shook as she reached out. The front doorknob turned and opened without her key, and she stepped into the darkened living room. The door shouldn’t be unlocked, even if he was home.

  No answer. Unlocked door.

  “Jared?”

  Jenna tried not to smother him, tried not to let Celia’s disappearance color the way she treated her son, but she couldn’t help it. She worried about him more. The day after Celia disappeared, Jenna called a locksmith—every door received a dead bolt and a chain. Everybody in town probably did the same thing. A wave of suspicion swept through Hawks Mill once Celia was kidnapped. There was a palpable edge, a tension that seemed to grow between everyone, pushing them back, making them scared. No one felt the same about the town or the people in it.

  On the day after Celia disappeared, Jenna found an old baseball bat in the garage, one that Jared used in grade school, and she’d slept with it next to her bed ever since. She carried pepper spray on her key chain and kept one in the drawer of her bedside table. She checked in with him more, texted him more.

  But she hadn’t heard from him after school. He never responded to the text she sent from the barn. She took deep breaths, told herself to be cool.

  All was quiet inside the house. No music, no TV. She turned on a lamp, which cast a faint halo of yellow light on the space. The house looked neat and orderly, just the way she liked it. The place wasn’t much, about fifteen hundred square feet, and it still needed work. But it was hers, slowly being paid for by her job as a nurse. Didn’t this make her an adult: a job, a house, a kid? It wasn’t bad for a single working mom, right?

  How did having a missing and possibly murdered friend fit into the picture?

  She went down the hallway to his bedroom, stepping lightly, the floorboards creaking under her feet. He could have fallen asleep. She remembered her own teenage years, the endless naps, the sleeping in on weekends. Was that one of the worst things time took away? The ability to sleep long, lazy hours?

  Faint light seeped through the bottom of his bedroom door. She knocked lightly.

  Did something rustle? Did she hear a voice?

  “Jared?”

  She pushed the door open. A quick scrambling, two bodies moving away from each other like repelled magnets. It took Jenna a moment. Jared was on the bed, his hands fumbling with his belt. And was that . . . ? A girl? Was there really a girl in Jared’s room?

  “Jesus, Mom. Don’t you knock anymore?”

  Jenna was paralyzed by both shock and embarrassment. Embarrassment for herself more than for the kids. After all, they were just being kids. She’d done the same things when she was fifteen. But as the bumbling adult walking in on them, she felt more the fool. Could she not have imagined Jared might have a girl in their house after school?

  “Oh, shit, honey,” she said, her words rushed. “I didn’t know.”

  The girl—the beautiful girl—was straightening her shirt, smoothing it back down over her jeans. Jenna did the only thing she could do—she stepped back, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Jenna wandered out to the kitchen in something of a daze. A girlfriend? How did she not know? She turned on the light above the sink. The darkened window gave back her own reflection. She’d never given him rules about having girls in the house. She’d never given him many rules about anything, so she had no reason to be angry. Not about that. She was a little pissed he hadn’t returned her text or locked the front door, but she knew her worries were her own problem, letting the dog and pony show at the barn get inside her head. Jared was fifteen. He didn’t have to stay in constant contact with his frazzled mother.

  Jenna opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of beer, which seemed essential after the day she’d had. She popped the cap and took a long drink, feeling the pleasant burn as it ran down her throat.

  She stared at the bottle. A couple of beers or glasses of wine became the norm after Celia disappeared. Sometimes more than a couple. She needed them. Every night she needed them.

  That’s when she heard Jared’s door open followed by footsteps coming down the hallway.

  “Mom? I’m walking Tabitha home.”

  Jenna turned and saw Jared’s head peeking into the kitchen. She recognized the look on his face. He wanted to rush out of the house, make a break before she could say or do anything else. No way, she thought. She wasn’t going to let everybody go their separate ways on that crazy note of embarrassment.

  “Come on in here,” Jenna said, making a waving gesture with her hand.

  “Mom,” Jared said, teeth gritted.

  “I want to meet . . . did you say Tabitha? Come on.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jared asked.

  “Tabitha?” Jenna called. “Can you come here for a minute?”

  Jared looked as if someone had just dropped a ton of bricks on his shoulders. He possessed the teenager’s ability to overexaggerate even the slightest indignity.

  Jenna walked to the hallway and saw the girl making her way toward her. Jenna’s quick first impression in the bedroom had been correct—the girl was beautiful. Bright green eyes and a long neck. She’d pulled on a winter coat, a little too big and two seasons out of style even to Jenna’s eyes, but it wasn’t zipped yet, and Jenna saw the slender, shapely figure that almost every teenage girl seemed to be blessed with. Once upon a time, Jenna had that body too, and she cursed herself daily for not appreciating hers when it was in full bloom.

  Jenna held out her hand. “I’m Jenna Barton. Jared’s mom.”

  “Hi.” The girl took her hand in a limp shake. Her skin was warm, a little sweaty.

  “I’m sorry I walked in that way,” Jenna said. “I had a long day, and I wasn’t thinking. You’re welcome here anytime.”

  The girl smiled, but the look seemed forced, as though she didn’t want to show her teeth. Jenna couldn’t tell if she was shy or embarrassed or both. Up close, Jenna saw that the girl’s haircut looked unprofessional, as if someone just trimmed the edges straight across every once in a while. Maybe she even cut it herself. And her clothes weren’t anything special either. Knockoff jeans and a fading top, the sneakers, once white, scuffed and dirty. A kid without a lot of money, which made her beauty all the more impressive. It wasn’t enhanced by the clothes or the haircut or orthodontry. She was the real deal, a stunner.

  “What did you say your last name was?” Jenna asked.

  “Tabitha Burke.”

  The girl didn’t look up and meet Jenna’s eye. But there was something about her face, and not just its youthful beauty. Something about the shape, the set of the eyes looked familiar.

  “Burke,” Jenna said, leaning against the hallway wall. “Are you related to Tommy Burke? He manages that electrical supply company out on the bypass.”

  Tab
itha shook her head. “No.”

  “Mom, Tabitha doesn’t have relatives here. She’s new to town. Don’t start asking her about everyone you went to high school with.”

  “I was just asking about the Burkes I know.”

  “We have to get going, okay? I’m walking Tabitha home.”

  “Do you want me to drive you? It’s dark and cold.”

  “I’ve got this, Mom. Okay?”

  “Are you sure? I mean—” Jenna stopped herself. Life had to go on. They couldn’t hide inside all the time.

  “Mom.”

  And Jenna knew he was right. She needed to back off and let him walk the girl home if that was what he wanted to do. It was early, and there’d be a lot of cars and people out despite the darkness. She sighed, letting go. She tried very hard to let go.

  “Okay,” Jenna said. The girl, Tabitha, still looked sullen and stiff, her eyes fixed on the floor as though Jenna’s shoes were fascinating. But Jenna couldn’t shake the sense she’d seen the girl before. And recently. Maybe she’d been a patient at Family Medicine. Jenna couldn’t ask about that, couldn’t run the risk of violating the girl’s privacy. Walking in on her dry-humping her son was enough humiliation for one night. And if the girl had the guts to come back, to stick around after that inauspicious beginning, then Jenna would admire her. “Well, I’m sure your mom appreciates the fact that you have someone to walk you home in the dark.”

  Jared’s eyes rolled to the ceiling and back, as if Jenna had just offered the queen or the pope a hit from a joint.

  Tabitha raised her head a little, her cold green eyes meeting Jenna’s. “My mother . . . ,” she said, her voice flat.

  “You mother? Is something . . . ?” Jenna lifted her hand to her mouth. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Did she pass away?”

  If there’d been a hole to crawl in, Jenna would have jumped in with both feet. And pulled the top shut behind her. First catching them in the bedroom and then that comment. It made cursing at Becky seem like a minor miscue. She’d made the ridiculous mistake of assuming that everyone else’s life was better than hers, that she could be a single mom but Tabitha’s family was perfectly intact.

  “Not that,” the girl said. She held Jenna’s gaze. “It’s kind of an unusual situation, I guess. I live with my dad. Here. My mom . . . moved away. She’s—she’s had some problems.”

  Jenna waited. The girl seemed on the brink of adding something else, but she stopped herself. Jenna decided not to prod. She’d already trodden uncomfortable ground. She didn’t need to pry into her parents’ marital troubles.

  “I see,” Jenna said, trying to sound neutral.

  “We’re going, Mom.” Jared reached out and gently guided Tabitha toward the door. “Tabitha’s late.”

  The two of them walked side by side, but Tabitha turned back and looked at Jenna again. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said, her voice still flat and cool. “It’s messed up when these things happen. When people just disappear.”

  And then they were gone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They walked side by side through the dark, close but not holding hands. Jared wanted to reach out, to fold Tabitha’s hand into his, but she walked with her head down, her eyes fixed on the ground as though she was afraid she might trip. And they never held hands in public. She didn’t want someone to see and tell her dad. So Jared didn’t push it.

  And Tabitha did this at times, slipped away into someplace in her mind and acted as if the rest of the world, including him, didn’t exist. Jared wanted to chalk it up to the embarrassment of his mom walking in, and then her slip of the tongue about Tabitha’s mom, but he suspected something more. He’d seen her withdraw that way on an almost daily basis, and whenever he’d ask what was wrong, she’d simply say, “I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry about my mom,” he said. “She really is pretty mellow, but sometimes she says stuff. It’s kind of like if there’s an embarrassing situation, she feels the need to acknowledge it or talk about it more instead of just letting it go away.”

  Tabitha kept walking, eyes down. In the street beside them, cars zipped by, the headlights catching their figures in the glow and making Jared squint. He couldn’t wait to get his license, to no longer have to be dependent on walking across town in the cold or rain. Or taking rides from his mom or his friends’ parents.

  “She was probably a little shocked to see a girl in my room,” he said. “It’s never really happened. I mean, I’ve been with girls and stuff, just not in my room.”

  Tabitha looked up, turning to face him. But she still didn’t say anything.

  “Is that okay? Should I have not said that?”

  “No, you’re lucky,” she said.

  “Lucky?” He didn’t understand what she meant. Lucky? Because he hadn’t had a lot of girls in his room? “You mean because I have a mom looking out for me?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer right away, but then she said, “Yes, that.”

  “Will your dad be pissed that you’re late? I know you’re supposed to be home before it gets dark.”

  Tabitha spoke but barely moved her lips. “I don’t know.”

  The nature of their relationship—if he was even allowed to call it that—had always seemed strange to Jared. They spent a lot of time together but only in the most narrow, limited way. Tabitha’s father insisted she come home right after school every day, which meant they rushed out of the building carrying their books. Only a couple of times—including today—had Tabitha defied her father and done something else. Mostly the two of them ate lunch together and talked all through study hall in the cafeteria, to the point that Jared’s best friends—Mike and Syd—had taken to shaking their heads at him for being so quickly and completely in love.

  Tabitha texted him from time to time outside of school, but she never called, and the messages stopped in the early evening, long before either one of them would have been going to bed.

  They crossed Washington Street, lights glowing in all the houses. Through some of the windows, Jared saw families sitting down to dinner together or watching TV, like some kind of sickeningly perfect Norman Rockwell scene. He’d never had that in his life, at least not in the ten years since his dad left. But how many kids did? Half of his friends’ parents were divorced, and he’d been in enough homes and around enough families to see the strain and tensions that simmered in even the most normal places.

  A few blocks later, the houses started to change. He and his mom lived in what she called a “working-class neighborhood,” which as far as he could tell meant they were surrounded by store clerks and mechanics and men and women who worked in factories. They all took good care of their yards and kept a careful eye on their kids. Occasionally somebody threw a party, and there’d be loud music and whooping and hollering and beer cans in the yard the next morning. But the beer cans always got picked up, usually by the homeowners themselves, tired and looking hungover, sweating out their booze as they tossed the empties into an orange recycling bin.

  The few blocks around Washington Street were nicer. The homes were older and bigger, made out of brick with wide front porches and bay windows. Those houses had beautifully cared for yards as well, but the people who lived there didn’t do the work. They paid someone else to cut and trim and weed and plant. Jared knew a few kids from school who lived there, the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers and executives.

  But across Washington, as they headed into Tabitha’s neighborhood, the houses looked different from the way they did anywhere else. They were small and dirty, the yards filled with toys and trash. The cars in the street were dented and damaged, leaking oil and hoisted on blocks. People sat on their porches a lot over there when the weather was nice, but Jared didn’t get the sense it was because they were looking out for anybody else. Those people gave off a boredom that bordered on desperation, a thick, palpable sense of being lost
and adrift. He couldn’t imagine what else they did with their time, if anything.

  And with a woman kidnapped in the town, they probably grew more scared, more withdrawn and suspicious.

  Tabitha’s house was two blocks ahead on a little side street called Nutwood. He’d walked her home nearly every day for the past three weeks, but not once had he so much as set foot in her yard. At her insistence, they always said their good-byes at the corner, and while she’d once pointed her house out to him—four doors down on the left, a boxy little structure with a cramped porch and a loose shutter—he’d never come any closer than that. He should have known the cave comment would hurt her feelings. Even compared to the modest house he shared with his mom, Tabitha’s looked small and dingy. Was it simple embarrassment that kept her from letting him get any closer?

  Once again, they stopped at the corner. Fewer cars went by, and the ones that did pass made their presence known through their apparent lack of mufflers. The houses on Nutwood looked darker too. Most of the shades and curtains were drawn, smothering any light that might have escaped.

  “Oh, shit,” Tabitha said.

  “What?”

  She turned toward Jared, placing both of her hands on his chest and giving him a hard shove that sent him stumbling back on his heels. “Go,” she said, her voice cutting through the dark like a laser. “Just go.”

  But Jared stepped forward again, closer to her. “What is it?”

  She turned and started hustling down the street toward her house, moving away from him quickly for the second time that afternoon. Jared looked in the direction she hurried, and on the porch of the fourth house on the left, a man stood, pacing back and forth, the red glow from a cigarette burning in the darkness.

  Jared couldn’t make out the man’s features. He looked broad, even a little heavy through his chest and stomach. And he paced like a panther Jared had once seen in the Louisville Zoo, a desperate-looking animal that simply moved from one end of its cage to the other. The animal depressed Jared, even as a child, because the big cat seemed so eager to run, to charge, to hunt, but it couldn’t.