Learning to Swim

by Sara J. Henry

  Most of it I could have predicted, from the emails I’d found, from talking to Gina, from the dates of Paul’s birth and their marriage, from what Elise had said and not said about Madeleine—but mostly from Paul’s and Philippe’s reactions. Yes, people deal differently with loss, but who doesn’t occasionally say, Mama used to … or When Madeleine and I …

  Madeleine had, it seemed, targeted Philippe, although he didn’t say that. Maybe he didn’t even realize it. He had met her at a party; she was gorgeous and charming and by the end of the night they were together. Three months later she was pregnant, by accident, he thought (yeah, right). So they got married, and things seemed fine until Paul was born. Madeleine had no interest in the baby. Philippe thought at first it was postpartum depression, but her attitude toward Paul never changed, and Elise had taken over Paul’s care. Madeleine had played the corporate wife, hosting parties and chaired community events, but in the last couple of years she’d gradually done less and less and had seemed increasingly discontent. She spent a lot of time shopping and lunching with people he never met; she suggested selling the house and buying one in a fancier neighborhood. She spent more time in Florida and began to go on trips with friends or alone. She started spending hours in internet chat rooms. They argued frequently; she refused marriage counseling.

  “She couldn’t bond with Paul,” he said. “But I knew she’d had a terrible childhood, and she’d done her best to look out for Claude. I knew she’d lost a baby when she was very young. I thought she would work it out.”

  And then one day she was gone.

  “I didn’t want her to come back,” Philippe said, his voice toneless, staring at the floor. “I was relieved she was gone. I thought she’d gone off to make a point, so I’d give in to whatever she wanted next. I thought she’d taken Paul just to annoy me, and that she’d send him back as soon as she got tired of him—which I thought would be very quickly. And that she wanted to embarrass me by having me raise a fuss. So I didn’t report her missing. And we lost the time when they could have been found.”

  I could have pointed out that Madeleine was almost certainly dead by the time the police would have investigated. I could have cited the statistics I’d found, that three-fourths of kidnap victims are killed within three hours. I could have pointed out that the kidnappers clearly never had any intention of returning Paul.

  But none of it would have helped. Philippe was carrying an enormous amount of guilt, which he’d have to work through at his own pace.

  We held each other. I rubbed his back, as I had that night in the kitchen, and tried to ignore the painful knot in my throat. As much as I would have loved to have believed in a fairy-tale ending, Philippe and me together—the computer-loving bicycle-riding girl happily ever after with the handsome executive, raising the child they loved—it was just that, a fairy tale. At least for now. We both had things to deal with. Philippe blamed himself for his wife’s death. I had kept his son when he may have been able to help the police find the kidnappers, and I had dabbled with those emails, which Philippe still didn’t know.

  And there were kidnappers and murderers out there who knew that Paul could identify them.

  The next morning, while Paul was playing in his room, I went up to Philippe’s study.

  “Philippe, I need to go back to Lake Placid.” My eyes were hot. I hadn’t slept much.

  He nodded, as if he had been expecting this. His eyes held so much pain that I almost tried to convince myself that we could keep on. But I knew we couldn’t. We couldn’t ignore the attraction between us, but neither could we act on it.

  I would stay through the weekend, and Philippe would bring Paul to Lake Placid to visit the weekend after next. It was heartrending to tell Paul, and he cried as I’d expected and threw his arms around me, but I remained determinedly, falsely cheerful. That afternoon we carried out the other part of our plan—surprising Paul with a black Lab mix puppy from the Humane Society. Child and puppy both were ecstatic. “You must take good care of your dog,” I told him, and he promised. He named the puppy Bear, following the logic, I suppose, that had led me to name my dog Tiger. We made a trek to PetSmart, and selected a collar and leash, dog bed, and toys we thought a puppy named Bear would enjoy.

  I knew I had to tell Jameson I was leaving, but I waited until the last minute. I left a message at the police station after what I supposed were his normal work hours, but he called back an hour later.

  “You’re going back to Lake Placid.”

  “Yes, tomorrow.”

  “I want to take you to lunch.”

  I laughed harshly. I couldn’t help it. “I don’t like going to lunch with you. In fact, I don’t like being around you.” My nerves were raw. I couldn’t stop myself.

  Silence. “Can you stop by on your way out of town?”

  “Is this an official request?” I asked.

  “Can you stop by on your way out of town? Eleven thirty.”

  I took a deep breath. “Eleven,” I said, and hung up.

  My leave-taking with Philippe was deliberately brief, and then he went off to work and I drove Paul to school. Paul clung to me before getting in the car, but I didn’t let myself break down. “Hey, I’ll see you soon,” I said, tweaking his nose gently, smearing his tears away with my thumb. “Less than two weeks. And then you and Bear and Papa will come see me, and I will see how much Bear has grown and how much you have taught him.” I drove him to school, and he snuffled most of the way. As he got out and ran in the school door, I tried not to think, This is the last time. But the pain I felt was so intense it took my breath away. When I took the booster seat out of my backseat and set it in the back of the garage, tears ran down my face.

  It didn’t take long to finish packing and load everything in my car. I lingered over coffee with Elise, and then it was time to go. She hugged me hard, as she had the day I had met her, and like that day, could not speak. This time I couldn’t either. She handed me a large bag of pastries, her parting gift.

  Jameson was waiting for me in the station’s parking lot. “Why not just meet in your office?” I said. He shook his head. I wasn’t up to arguing, so I followed him to the restaurant. Tiger likes hanging out in the car, and it was cool enough that she’d be comfortable with the windows partly opened. We sat in silence at an outdoor table until our food arrived.

  “So is there a problem with me going home?” I asked, bluntly.

  “No. No problem.” Jameson buttered a bit of bread and popped it in his mouth.

  I began mechanically to eat my salad. “There’s nothing I haven’t told you.”

  “Isn’t there?” he asked.

  “No. I’ve told you everything. And I wish you would say what you mean. Is it me you suspect? Or Philippe?”

  A cool level gaze. “I suspect everyone. I can’t afford not to.”

  I turned my attention back to my salad. It was good, with different types of greens, bits of nuts and rich cheese, and a tangy dressing.

  “So why did you decide to leave?” he asked.

  I looked off at the skyline. He didn’t need to know that Philippe and I had stepped close to the romantic involvement he’d always suspected. “Paul is settled in school; he needs to make the break from me. Philippe and Elise can take care of everything he needs. I need to get back to my life.”

  “Your work, your house, your friends.”

  “Yes.” I speared another forkful of salad.

  “It’s not over yet, you know,” he said. I narrowed my eyes as he spoke. “It won’t be over until we catch the kidnappers.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t want them caught?” I dropped my fork and stood without realizing I was going to do it. My voice was shrill. “Of course I do. I think about it all the time. I think about what they did to Paul. I think about how they almost drowned him. I think about the fact that they are still out there and someday I may turn around and there they’ll be. Every face I see I wonder: Is that one of them?
I dream about them, for God’s sake.”

  Tears were blinding me, and I groped behind me to move my chair, but Jameson was faster. He pulled my chair out and threw money on the table, and took my arm and guided me out onto the sidewalk. We walked several blocks. I blinked tears away and sucked in enough air to calm myself. When we stopped we were at a fenced corner overlooking a park below.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, without looking at him.

  “Don’t be,” he said. Surprised, I turned toward him. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and, instead of handing it to me as I expected, stepped forward and quickly, gently wiped the tears from my cheeks. Then he tucked the handkerchief in my hand and stepped back, so swiftly I could have thought I’d imagined it.

  I was staring at him. “You’ve always acted … you’ve always treated me like a criminal. Or an idiot.”

  A crooked smile. “A child had been kidnapped, a woman killed. You were a suspect, Troy. You were a suspect living with the victim and another suspect. What I thought personally didn’t and couldn’t enter into it.”

  He had never used my first name before. He leaned forward against the fence, looking sideways at me. His shirt was rumpled as usual. He was just an inch or two taller than me, his hair disheveled. As usual.

  He had used the past tense. “So now I’m not a suspect.”

  “Unofficially, no. Not now.”

  “Mmm.”

  “We’re still looking. We’ll keep looking.”

  “What was she like—Madeleine?” I asked suddenly.

  He didn’t ask why I wanted to know. “You’ve read the emails. You talked to her friend. She was exactly like what you think she was like.”

  After a moment I spoke into the silence, saying what I hadn’t been able to say to Philippe. “I’ve always thought if I’d taken Paul to the police right away, maybe you would have caught them by now. But I didn’t … didn’t think that he could handle the police or foster care at that point. Or maybe I just didn’t want to give him up. So I didn’t. And now I think that was a really awful mistake.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” he said. “You’ll never know.”

  We stood there a full minute longer, leaning on the fence, looking at the view, feeling the breeze on our faces. He hadn’t said anything I didn’t already know and hadn’t tried to comfort me. But I felt better. I pushed away from the fence.

  “You know where to find me,” I said. He looked at me. I had disliked this man; he’d been rude and accusatory. But his eyes held a compassion I hadn’t expected, and something else I couldn’t read.

  We both seemed to be waiting for something, and in the end I was the one who moved. I stepped forward, almost without volition, and brushed his cheek with my lips, and then I was gone, heading down the street toward my car. If I walked away quickly enough, we could both pretend it hadn’t happened.

  By the time I reached Lake Placid, I knew what I was going to do. I cleaned the house thoroughly—the guys either hadn’t noticed or cared how grungy it had gotten. I found a roommate to replace Ben, who had moved in with his new girlfriend; produced a special summer section for the newspaper; and wrote a batch of press releases for some quick cash. Paul and Philippe came down with Bear for their weekend, and we picnicked with Baker and her family and Holly and John and their kids.

  Parting was only slightly awkward. Paul was sleepy from playing and didn’t protest, although he clung to me after I settled him in his seat. Philippe kissed me lightly, just before he got in the car. “See you soon,” he said in my ear.

  Three nights later the phone rang, when I was almost asleep.

  “Hello, it’s Alan,” a voice said. At my long pause, he added, “Jameson, Alan Jameson.”

  “God, I’m sorry.” Now I was completely awake. “I didn’t know your name.”

  He gave a short laugh. “You thought my first name was Detective, right?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Okay.” I sat up in bed. My heart was thumping audibly. “Paul and Philippe came down this weekend; Paul seems to be doing fine.” Silence. I went on: “Do you … I mean, how are things?”

  “Things are fine. I wanted to check on you.”

  “I’m fine.” This was awkward. I plunged on. “Look—”

  “Troy,” he said, cutting me off. “I just wanted to see if you were all right. And to remind you that you can call me. You have my numbers?”

  “Yes.” The card was in my wallet, where I’d put it the day he’d given it to me.

  “All right, then. Good night.”

  “Good night,” I whispered, and hung up.

  Jesus. I wasn’t sure if I was praying or cursing. Every encounter I had with this man confused me in one way or another.

  The next day I left for Burlington.

  I HAD DELAYED THE SEARCH FOR PAUL’S KIDNAPPERS. I HAD kept Madeleine’s emails to myself. And it was possible that I had somehow led the kidnappers back to Ottawa.

  I had to do what I could to make things right.

  What could I do? Baker asked me. All I had were some details from Paul, the sketches, and a Craigslist response suggesting the men had lived in Burlington. All of which the police had as well.

  “I can try,” I said. The police couldn’t devote full time to this case, and they couldn’t be as motivated as I was. How much investigating would the Montreal or Ottawa police do in Vermont? How hard would the Burlington police work to solve a crime from Québec, with one victim recovered and the other dead?

  Baker didn’t try to talk me out of it. She knew it was something I had to do.

  Philippe and I emailed daily and talked often. Paul chattered about his puppy and what had happened at school, speaking English except when he got excited. Philippe had found discrepancies in several work files compared to older hard copies, and had brought in an outside firm to do an audit and, as promised, a computer firm to set up company-wide security. No more incidents had occurred, so whoever had tried to run me over and made the phone call to the school was presumably gone. It seemed to have been a one-time thing—maybe to scare me off. In a way it had.

  I didn’t tell Philippe I was going to Burlington. Or Simon.

  Thomas, surprisingly, was supportive. We hadn’t spoken since I returned from Ottawa, but he called one evening and asked how things were going. When I told him I was coming to Burlington, he said, “You should stay here.”

  “Tommy—” I started.

  “It’s okay,” he said, cutting me off. Since we had broken things off we hadn’t talked, and staying at his place seemed strange even for me. But it would be easier and cheaper than anything else, and I could bring Tiger. We could talk about it when I got there. If nothing else, he could keep Tiger and I could find a cheap room to rent.

  I drove up on a Wednesday, late in the afternoon. The bright sun and crisp air seemed incongruous with thoughts of kidnapping and murder. I drove south and took the bridge across, because the ferry was expensive if you drove on—more than thirty bucks round-trip. I tried not to think about the what-ifs: What if I hadn’t had that play to review back in May? Then I would have planned to stay in Burlington the entire weekend, would have taken my dog, wouldn’t have taken the ferry. And Paul would have drowned.

  I was there almost too quickly, pulling up to Thomas’s apartment. He must have heard my car, and came out to meet me. Tiger greeted him eagerly, and he petted her absentmindedly before reaching in the back of the Subaru for my bags.

  I made a halfhearted attempt to stop him. But I was tired, and didn’t want to start a discussion on the street, so I let him take the bags and followed him in.

  “You can use my study,” he said, pushing the door open with his foot. “I’ve set up the futon for you.” Thomas lived in the front half of a spacious old home that had been divided into two, like many of the old homes near the university that had been carved into apartments. He had the best part of the house, with a big front porch. I stow
ed my bags in a corner of the study, where the futon couch was already unfolded into a bed, and in the living room sank into an easy chair.

  “Would you like some tea?” Thomas asked. I nodded, and started to get up. “No, no,” he said. “I’ll get it.” He disappeared, and Tiger ambled after him.

  It felt good just to sit, and I shut my eyes. I felt drained. In a few minutes Thomas was back with a steaming pot of tea, two mugs, and a plate of cheese and crackers and apple slices. “I thought you might be hungry,” he said.

  I hadn’t thought about eating, but I drank the tea and ate most of the food. Thomas turned the television to what seemed to be the second part of some Jane Austen adaptation. The English accents were heavy, and I had trouble following it.

  I became aware that Thomas was speaking. “Troy,” he was saying. “Troy!” I opened my eyes. “You’re falling asleep. I’ve taken Tiger out. Why don’t you go to bed?”

  I looked at the clock on his mantel: only 9:10, but I didn’t protest. So much for having a heart-to-heart. I crawled between the sheets on the futon. They were crisp, and smelled new. I slept hard, with no dreams for the first time in a long time.

  I awoke feeling logy; it was tough to drag myself out of bed. The apartment was still. Thomas had left for work, and had left a note and spare key on the kitchen table. I ate some crunchy earthy type of cereal I found on the shelf, putting the box back exactly as I’d found it, because Thomas liked things just so. Then I walked Tiger briskly around the block and took a quick shower.

  Time to get started.

  What did I know? That there were two men, French Canadian, and roughly what they looked like. The Craigslist email suggested they had been seen in a bar near the university and that one of them might be named Jock, or more likely Jacques. They had stayed in two different apartments, at least one a basement apartment. And had kept a small boy no one knew about.

  I drove to the post office on Elmwood Street and rented a post office box for the minimum six months, in my real name but also listing “Terry Charles” so I could get mail in both names. Next I headed for RadioShack, where I bought a prepaid TracFone, feeling like a kid playing spy.