Since She Went Away

by David Bell

  Ian started to say something, but then he just nodded, almost like admitting defeat.

  “Jesus, Ian. Celia said she thought someone was following her. You know what? I thought she was just being paranoid, seeing shadows that weren’t there. But she wasn’t crazy, was she? She was being followed.”

  Jenna was up, grabbing her coat and heading for the door.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Jared felt as if he was on a wild-goose chase, walking through the streets of Hawks Mill hoping he’d come across Ursula. All he knew from Bobby was that she’d left the party early, possibly heading home. But she could be anywhere in town—another party, a friend’s house, a restaurant, a store. Jared didn’t have a car, didn’t have any easy way to find her.

  And once he did find her, then what?

  He wanted to ask her about her insistence that he do the interview as well as the information Reena revealed on TV.

  Ursula and her family lived six blocks east of downtown in a neighborhood called Teakwood, on the opposite side of the heart of Hawks Mill from where Natalie’s father lived. As Jared walked away from downtown, the houses were newer, built mostly after World War II, and the streets felt more suburban, like something you’d see in a movie about kids who were rich but not too rich. Jared didn’t know, but he suspected Ursula’s family could afford to live someplace more expensive, out in one of the fancier suburbs where the doctors and lawyers—new money, his mom called it—lived with their three-car garages and giant swing sets. But Jared knew Celia’s family lived in Teakwood when she was growing up. She must have felt comfortable there.

  Jared thought about turning around. The more he walked, the farther he knew he had to walk back to his house as the night grew colder. He thought about calling his mom for a ride, but then he remembered: She was already at Ursula’s house. Maybe she’d even started back home.

  At least that seemed to be her plan.

  He started checking the cars that passed. If he saw his mom driving by, heading for home, he’d wave his arms, flag her down, and get out of the cold. But it was dark, and the headlight beams glowed bright, almost blinding him.

  And then he saw a figure up ahead.

  He thought he recognized the size of the body, the gentle rolling bounce of her hips.

  Was it Ursula? The girl was two blocks ahead of him, walking slowly in and out of the glow of the streetlights. He quickened his pace and saw he’d catch up to her easily. He tried to land gently, to make sure his footfalls didn’t startle her in the dark. As he came closer, though, she slowed down, and he saw it was Ursula. She came to a stop next to a bench and slumped down. For a moment she stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the pavement, and then her body shook as she started to cry, her hands rising to her face to brush the tears away.

  Jared felt like an intruder.

  She was sobbing, her body shaking. Jared thought about walking away, turning around and leaving her to her private moment. But he stood still under a streetlight, and Ursula looked over and saw him, her face coated with tears.

  He couldn’t leave then. Not unless he wanted to act like a completely heartless bastard.

  So he moved forward. He expected Ursula to stand up and leave or tell him to get lost, but she didn’t. He came alongside her and said the idiotic thing everybody says to someone who is horribly upset.

  “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t answer with sarcasm. She shook her head as her breathing started to return to normal. Jared’s hands were jammed in the pockets of his coat. He brought one out and gently, cautiously, placed it on Ursula’s shoulder. He felt like a man testing a stove to see how hot it was.

  “Is there something I can do?” he asked.

  Ursula wiped at her face with both hands.

  “I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m sick of all these fucking people. And this fucking town.”

  “Do you want me to at least walk you the rest of the way home?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Did something happen at the party?” he asked.

  She looked up. “You were at Kirk’s house?” Even through her tears, she managed to convey the appropriate amount of shock and dismay at the fact that Jared attended a party given by one of her friends.

  “I was. Just for a minute. I saw Bobby.”

  Something flashed in her eyes at the mention of Bobby’s name. But she said, “I had to get out of there.”

  “It seemed kind of lame.”

  “Not because of the party,” she said. “Other stuff.”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  “No, you don’t.” She paused, sniffling. “Or maybe you do.”

  “I’m not sure what I know,” he said.

  Ursula stood up. She straightened her coat and wiped at her face one more time. Her breathing seemed to have calmed, and she wasn’t crying anymore. She didn’t say anything to Jared but just started walking, so he followed along. If she wanted him gone, she could tell him so.

  But she didn’t.

  They walked side by side on the sidewalk, their arms occasionally brushing. Jared didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t seem right to not say anything. “I didn’t go on TV tonight.”

  “So?”

  “Reena revealed something really personal about me. And my mom.”

  “I don’t care anymore, Jared. I really don’t.”

  She seemed like the Ursula of the last few years, the one who acted as if someone had just slammed one of her fingers in a car door. Her behavior emboldened Jared to push.

  “For some reason, Reena knew the stuff I’d told you. The stuff about me making my mom late the night your mom disappeared. You must have told her, Ursula. Why did you do that to us after you wanted me to go on the show?”

  Ursula stopped. Fifty feet away was the street she lived on. A right turn and she’d be home. She looked back at Jared.

  “You don’t understand any of this,” she said.

  “I know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Get lost,” she said.

  “I’m going with you. I’m pretty sure my mom is over there asking your dad these very same questions. And it’s too cold to walk home.”

  “Your mom is at our house? Talking to Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck this,” she said. And kept on walking.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Jenna reached her car and pulled the door open. She climbed in, tossing her purse into the backseat. When she started the engine, the lights came on, adding illumination to the Walterses’ front yard. Ian dashed from the house, coatless, and came across the lawn before she could pull away.

  He gestured for her to roll down the window.

  Jenna thought about backing away, dropping the car into gear and leaving Ian standing there in his own driveway watching her go. She tried to process what he’d just told her—what she’d guessed at and been correct: that Ian used Henry Allen’s employees to follow Celia.

  Jenna pressed the switch and powered the window down.

  “Did he follow her?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “Goddammit, Ian. William Rose. The guy they suspect of killing Celia. Is he the one who followed her? Tell me you have something to say about this that makes sense.”

  “I don’t know who followed her,” he said. “I don’t know if it was William Rose.”

  “What did the police think when you first told them about this?”

  “What do you think they thought? It was unpleasant.”

  “Unpleasant? Ian. What did they think?”

  “They didn’t like the way it made me look.”

  Jenna pressed the button, starting the window up.

  “Wait,” Ian said, his hand against the glass.

  Jenna stopped the upward progress of the window. But she didn’t mo
ve it any lower.

  “Can I get in the car and talk to you?” he asked. “It’s cold, and I feel like you need to hear this.”

  Jenna didn’t answer right away. She checked the clock on the console. It was getting later.

  “Or you can come back into the house,” Ian said. “I’m okay with either one.”

  Jenna undid the locks. “Get in,” she said. “But I don’t want any evasions.”

  “Have I been evading?” he said. “I’ve been telling you everything. I’m trying to tell you more.”

  He moved around the front of the car, his body passing through the cone of the still-glowing headlights. He opened the door and settled into the passenger seat. He rubbed his hands together once he was sitting, and Jenna reached forward and turned up the heat.

  “Okay,” she said. “Tell me why I shouldn’t be completely outraged about this.”

  She waited for Ian to start. She saw him in profile. She would have sworn there was more gray at his temples than the day in the Landings, as if even more layers of strain had been piled on top of him in the matter of a week.

  “When Jenna cheated on me the first time,” he said, “we tried to keep it between the two of us. We didn’t want anyone to know. And we really, really didn’t want Ursula to know.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “She was only twelve at the time. Not that her age really mattered, but we both felt strongly that she shouldn’t find out.” When he looked at Jenna, his eyes were wide and pleading. She saw the remnants of the long-ago hurt inflicted by Celia, and it tempered her anger. She’d been wounded too. Deceived by Celia. Not like him, but she understood the feeling. “I felt strongly Ursula shouldn’t know. I couldn’t imagine our daughter, my daughter, looking at her mother with that kind of contempt or disappointment. Could you?”

  “No. I get that.” Jenna was listening, taking in his story.

  “Best-laid plans. Ursula found out. She heard us arguing one night when we thought she was asleep. Looking back, it seems foolish to think we could have kept it from her when there were just the three of us living together. She could feel and see the strain. She could hear the fights. We thought about sending her to live with Celia’s mom for a while, so she wouldn’t find out, but how would we explain that to anyone?”

  The engine hummed beneath their words, a soft rumbling bass line.

  “So Ursula found out?” Jenna said. “And?”

  “It was bad. It was really bad. You know what Ursula’s like. She’s so . . .” He snapped his fingers in the air, searching for the right word.

  “Hard,” Jenna said.

  “Yes, that’s it. But she hadn’t always been quite like that. You know it.”

  “She’s always had a temper.”

  “Oh, Jenna. The coffee table thing was over ten years ago. They were practically babies.”

  “Okay. I hear you. I can’t imagine what it would be like to learn that about your mother. It could change a person.”

  “Right. She became hard. Difficult. It was like she’d grown an exoskeleton around her body. An armor. Not just normal teenage stuff. Quite frankly, and I say this with all the love in my heart for her, but if she wasn’t my daughter . . .”

  He left the thought unfinished, but Jenna knew what he meant to say. If she wasn’t my daughter, I wouldn’t like her at all.

  “You two always seemed pretty tight,” Jenna said. “You and Ursula.”

  “You mean she knew how to get whatever she wanted from me?” Ian smiled as he said it.

  “Lots of daughters can do that with their fathers.”

  “I guess I’m a softie. Maybe that happened because she’s an only child. Who knows?”

  “I’ve noticed the change in her over the last few years,” Jenna said.

  “All teenagers get a little mouthy and a little standoffish. It’s a difficult time. But it became more than that with Ursula. She was openly contemptuous with both of us, and she really turned on Celia. She was furious at her. Barely spoke to her. She really shut her out. I caught some of it too, but not as much.” He rubbed his chin, his face lit up by the dashboard display. “I never understood why she held it against me. I was as much a victim of the affair as she was.”

  “God, Ian. Don’t be a martyr. You’re her parent. You were in the cross fire.”

  “I guess so.” He continued to rub his chin. His face grew more somber. “When I suspected it was happening again, this last time, I didn’t know what to do. I saw our lives just unraveling. It was like tugging on a loose thread and then everything coming apart. I had to stop it. Or try to contain it at least.”

  “So you spied on your wife.”

  “I’m not proud of it.” His face turned more serious. He wore a look of wincing, searing pain. “I have to live with this, Jenna. No matter what happened to Celia, I have to live with the fact that I may very well have put her in grave danger. It keeps me up at night just thinking about it. I feel sick. Physically sick. And sick of myself.” He let out a long, slow breath. “I have to live with that the rest of my life. I just want you to understand it. I wasn’t making some rash, heartless decision.”

  Jenna wanted to be mad but couldn’t. Even in high school, she’d never heard Ian so open, so vulnerable. And she could relate to the desire to protect her family at almost any cost.

  “Like I said, I don’t know if it was actually William Rose or someone else who Henry Allen found to keep an eye on Celia. I certainly wouldn’t have gone along with it if I knew a madman was going to be involved. Never in a million years.”

  Jenna couldn’t decide if she felt better or worse knowing what she knew. The knowledge that Ian had invited a possible connection between Celia and her killer sat like a heavy stone in her gut.

  She leaned back, letting her head rest against the seat. “And whoever followed her didn’t bring you evidence of an affair?”

  “No. How do I even know how good a spy he was? Maybe he just wanted to take someone’s money.”

  Jenna couldn’t sort through it. The blowing heat made the car feel close and confined. It was getting late, and her eyes felt tired.

  “I have to go,” she said. “I have to get home to Jared.”

  Ian shifted in his seat. Jenna thought he was getting ready to leave, reaching for the door handle. But he kept talking.

  “None of us are perfect here, Jenna. We’ve all made mistakes.”

  Jenna wasn’t sure what else she could say to him, wasn’t sure how to offer support. She reached out and patted him on the shoulder, a gesture that felt both weak and ineffectual. But she wasn’t sure there was anything else she could do.

  He leaned over, and they hugged. It too felt awkward, and Jenna made sure not to hold on too tight or too long. Sally was right. There couldn’t be anything else between them. Not even the remnants of a teenage fantasy.

  She moved back, still disgusted by his revelations. “Let’s talk another time. Just let me know if you need anything.”

  And then someone knocked against the window on Ian’s side of the car.

  Jenna jumped. Ian turned and looked through the glass. It was Ursula, her mouth open, her face emanating disgust.

  “Jesus, Dad,” she said, her voice muffled by the glass but still audible. “Fuck you.”

  “Honey, wait.”

  He was opening the door, letting the cold air of night into the car.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  When they came in sight of the house and saw his mom’s car parked in the driveway, Ursula quickened her pace. She moved so quickly Jared couldn’t keep up, even though he started jogging to make up the gap.

  He could tell the car was running. The lights were on and a faint trail of exhaust puffed out of the back. He saw people inside, sitting in the front seat, their bodies silhouetted in the glow from the console display. His mom. And? Ur
sula’s dad?

  Ursula stopped when she came alongside the car. She stared in the passenger window for a moment, and then she stepped forward and beat against the glass with the side of her fist. Then the door was opening, and Ursula’s dad was stepping out into the cold just as Jared arrived.

  “Jesus, Dad,” Ursula said, her voice becoming thin and brittle in the cold. She sounded like a little girl. “First Mom. And now you?”

  “Ursula . . .”

  Her dad held his hands out in front of him, trying to get her to calm down and listen. Jared couldn’t tell what she’d seen in the car that set her off.

  “And you’re doing it with her,” Ursula said, the words coming out of her mouth like spittle.

  “We were just talking.”

  “You were fucking kissing her.”

  “No, I wasn’t. Ursula, calm down.”

  Ursula stormed off toward the front of the house with her dad following along, calling her name. Jared watched as they went through the front door and inside.

  When they were gone, he looked into the car, through the still-open passenger door.

  “Mom?” he said.

  “Get in.”

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “It’s fine. Come on, it’s cold.”

  Jared got in and closed the door. The car felt warm, mercifully warm, and he held his hands up to the vents as his mom backed out of the driveway. When they were in the street and moving away, she asked, “What the hell are you doing running around at night? After I called the police and told you to stay inside?”

  “I went to find Ursula. I wanted to see why she was saying those things.”

  “And? Do you think that gets you off the hook?”

  “She just acted like it was more complicated than I could understand.” He pictured her sitting there on that bench, wiping the tears off her face. He felt awful for her. Even Ursula, tough-minded, sharp-tongued Ursula, broke down sometimes and lost her shit. “She was crying. I think there was something else going on. I went to a party at Kirk Embry’s house. That’s where Ursula was. Bobby Allen was there too. They both said kind of the same thing, even though they weren’t together when I saw them. They both said they were leaving. Like they both were thinking of getting out of town for good.”