“Is it Marcy?” Laura asked.
“Is what Marcy?”
“When you take Dad’s truck at night, are you going to see Marcy?”
Justin cracked his neck. He kept his eyes on the water. Laura glanced between him and the road, but he never turned. Wind pushed small waves away from the causeway. The motion put Laura in the mind of a mason smoothing cement with a trowel.
She said, “If it’s her, I can live with that. I won’t say anything. If you’re going to see someone else, I need to know.”
“I’m not visiting Dwight, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, good. Very good. That’s very good to hear.”
“Griff told you?”
“No,” she said. “No, he hasn’t said anything.”
“Then how’d you know?”
The truth was she had no idea how she’d known, or for how long. She just did. She must have known when she’d forbidden Eric from stashing the pistol in the truck, and now she realized she’d been afraid Justin would take the truck out tonight while Cecil and Eric were at the marina, but her knowledge ended there. And yet if she didn’t explain herself, he’d blame Griff. She said, “I touched the hood of the truck one night when I came home from Marine Lab. It was still hot.”
“Clever,” he said, as if proud.
“So, Marcy?”
“I want to, but haven’t yet. I’m worried it’ll be weird. Now that, you know, she knows.”
“Is that why you wanted Dad to teach you how to drive on the bridge?”
“You should start a detective agency.”
“Lots of practice,” she said.
“You’re not mad?”
“I’m supposed to tell you not to see her. I’m supposed to say she’s part of a life that’s gone now and you’ll find someone better, but here’s what I’m going to say: Don’t take Dad’s truck.”
“Why not?”
“It stalls.”
Justin kept watching the water. It was grayer the closer they got to the city.
“You can take my car,” Laura said.
“I can?”
“Just promise to wear your seat belt and not to speed,” Laura said.
“That’s really cool of you, Mom. I promise.”
She was nauseated again, feeling like things were moving too fast and she was making one crucial mistake after another, ruining everything. The exit for Marine Lab came up, and she had to stop herself from taking it. How nice it would have been to introduce Justin to Alice. But Laura didn’t know who was volunteering, and the thought of seeing Rudy or Paul was too much. And it suddenly felt important to deliver Justin to his appointment with Letty, important for Laura to prove, if only to herself, that she could still pass as a responsible mother.
“And Justin?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t go tonight,” she said. “Just stay in your room and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Please, honey. I’m serious. Please?”
33
WITH THE WEEK OF RAIN AND THE NIGHT COMING ON, THE mosquitoes were too bad for them to eat outside. They hadn’t specifically planned to have supper at the picnic table in the backyard, but each had come to suspect that’s what they’d do, so moving into the kitchen was a letdown. Laura took in the glass dish of pork chops, and then the bowls of rice and peas, and the little tub of nondairy butter. Justin carried their plates and silverware, and Griff grabbed the salt and pepper shakers and the stack of paper napkins and the loaf of bread. Eric brought in their glasses, the pitcher of sweet tea. Everyone moved efficiently, in a swift and fluid unison, holding the door open for one another, making sure Rainbow stayed out of the way, then going out to retrieve what had been left behind: the saucer of sliced and salted tomatoes, the jars of mustard and pickle spears, the container of potato salad. The sky was clear, a variegated dark frosted with stars. A breeze laced through the tallow limbs like a ribbon. All of the weather had moved up into the Hill Country by now, but seated at the table, everyone felt as though they were still trying to outrun a fast-approaching storm.
Supper was a solemn affair. The kitchen was hot from the stove and oven. The round wood table was tacky to the touch. There was the scraping of utensils on plates, the clinking of glasses being lifted and lowered, and the quiet sounds of chewing and swallowing, but not much talk. Justin cut his meat with the edge of his fork instead of a knife, the way he always had, and dipped each bite in a dollop of mustard dusted with black pepper. Griff refused to eat any peas. As usual, he spent most of the meal waiting for his parents to force the vegetables on him. Neither of them did, though Eric had been considering it. He thought it was the right thing to do, the responsible thing, and he didn’t want the obligation to fall to Laura, but more than that, he didn’t want to introduce any additional tension to the table. The clock on the wall read a quarter to seven. It ticked loudly. In just a few hours, his father would be parked outside the house.
Laura pushed food around her plate, made it into a mound, covered it with buttered potato bread. She couldn’t eat. The light hanging over the table burned too bright, too hot, too close. Her hands had stopped shaking, but her mind and memory were churning. If she’d had her Moleskine, she would have written: My head feels like a dryer running with bricks in it. She wanted to flee, wanted to pile everyone and anything they could fit into the car and truck and caravan out of Texas. Eric asked Justin to pass the pork chops. He stabbed one with his fork and dropped it onto his plate. He wanted Laura to see how much the meal meant to him. She looked piqued and scared and he wanted her to feel some peace before he left with his father.
Griff just wanted supper to end. He’d already finished his food, but was trying not to leave the table first. He hadn’t thought the meal would feel this momentous, and yet the whole time his parents had been so withdrawn, so conspicuous when they glanced around the table, that he’d been bracing for them to say they were divorcing or Papaw was dying or the case against Dwight Buford was being tossed out. He was still trying to convince himself that they would return to themselves after the Shrimporee, but they weren’t making it easy: His mother was hiding her food and his father wouldn’t stop eating. Griff started sweating. He’d gotten sunburned helping Fiona and her mother, so at the table his skin felt hot and a size too small. He needed to shower—what did it matter if he left the table first? They’d all done it plenty of times—and so he was about to push back his chair when his brother wiped his mouth with his napkin and cleared his throat.
“Letty thinks I’m making progress,” Justin said. “She thinks we’re all doing a good job.”
Immediately, Eric saw Laura’s eyes welling. He saw that she would weep not only because Letty thought they were on the right path, but because Justin had said it in front of everyone. Because he’d acknowledged that there was something to acknowledge and they could no longer pretend otherwise. Because they couldn’t snuff out this new life with silence, and they couldn’t call back who they’d been by avoiding who they were now. Laura cocked her head like a small bird and she was smiling, trying not to cry, but tears were already on her lashes. He expected her to wipe them away. She didn’t. Then she was reaching for Justin’s hand, and then, on her other side, for Griff’s. For a long and devastating moment, Eric was left out, utterly disconnected from his wife and sons. His stomach dropped and nothing in the world felt right and he saw that this was his future. Then Griff extended his hand, and then Justin did, and Eric took them, and they were all touching and moored together. It was almost too much, too good. Eric closed his eyes first, then Griff, then Justin, and finally Laura. They listened to their own breathing, and to each other’s, and they felt the warmth of their clasped hands, the same blood coursing through their veins.
Then, one by one, they surrendered to circumstance and began to pray, to give thanks for the beautiful luck of their lives and to beg desperately for forgiveness.
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34
LAURA DIDN’T NEED HELP CLEARING THE TABLE, BUT WHILE Griff and Eric watched television in the living room, Justin lingered in the kitchen. He could have situated himself on the couch, could have retired to his room and closed the door, could have lifted Sasha from her tank and worn her around his neck like an amulet to ward off everyone. But he’d chosen to stay with his mother. He returned the mustard and pickles to the refrigerator. He stacked dishes on the counter and toweled them off once she’d washed them. In the window above the sink, Laura watched his reflection. He looked content, concerned only with the task of drying the dishes. She washed the plates and glasses and flatware as thoroughly—as slowly—as she could.
She scrubbed the glass dish that had held the pork chops, rinsed it and handed it to Justin. He wiped it down until it squeaked. Laura was still reveling in what he’d said at the table. She wanted to know the social worker’s exact words and what had triggered them, but she also thought it possible that Letty hadn’t said anything of the sort. She might have even said the exact opposite.
Justin said, “Thanks for letting me drive home this afternoon.”
“It was a test,” she said.
“A test?”
“The good news is you passed. The bad news is you’re now my personal chauffeur. It’s a lifetime appointment that doesn’t pay worth a damn.”
Did she see a little smile in his reflection in the window? She thought so. She wished they’d dirtied more dishes. Behind her, the sounds of channels being flipped.
“And,” he said, “thanks for what you said, you know, about the other thing.”
“Just be careful,” she said.
“I was thinking I could tell you when I might go over there, and that way you wouldn’t worry.”
“When did you get so sweet?”
Justin shrugged. And then he moved in a way that despite the soapy scent of the suds and the dishwater, Laura smelled him like she hadn’t in years. It was staggering, profoundly and purely him, a scent without a trace of his father or her, the one she’d sought out so many times in the clothes hanging in his closet. With it, a kaleidoscope of memory: how they’d both laughed after she’d poured salt in his drink, how it had, for years, seemed she’d done something unassailably right; how, as a child, he used to sing along to the radio in the car, though he knew none of the lyrics; how the old weather girl from Channel 3 held weekly contests for weather drawings and he’d once won with a picture of an elephant sailing a boat toward a beach and how he had, for months after, wanted to marry the woman and how that tickled Laura and filled her with benevolent jealousy.
“Do you remember wanting to marry the weather girl?” Laura asked.
“Annette Maldonado,” he said. “She broke my heart when she took the other job.”
And then Laura was remembering that as well. Two years ago, two years into Justin being gone, Annette had announced she was moving to the bigger market in San Antonio. She cried during her final seven-day forecast and the morning anchors hugged her while confetti fell from above. Laura had cried, too.
Justin said, “I used to watch it after we came home from throwing the paper route.”
“We were probably watching at the same time.”
“That’s why I put it on Channel 3. I knew it was the one y’all watched. Well, and because of Annette.”
“I used to go into your room and smell your clothes,” Laura said. “Daddy did, too. When we got your postcard, I held every speck of it up to my nose hoping to find your smell on it.”
“What postcard?”
She looked at his reflection in the window again, thinking he might be smiling at the joke, thinking they’d crossed into a new phase of their relationship where they would playfully rib each other, but his face was expressionless, his eyes focused intently on the glass he was drying. In the living room, Griff and Eric were still surfing channels. Laura was suddenly afraid they were listening. Doubt quickened and pulsed through her veins. Her temples swelled. She said, “The one from California. With the arrowheads. The one that said Don’t Stop Looking.”
“Someone else must have sent it.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, hearing how ridiculous it sounded, how pitiable. Then, trying to sound upbeat, trying to stay cool, like self-control could make the difference, she said, “The handwriting looked exactly like yours. I had it on the fridge for years. I only took it down when you got home, so it wouldn’t upset you. It was postmarked in Bakersfield, California.”
“I wouldn’t have been upset,” he said. “But I didn’t send it. I’ve never been to California.”
She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. In the sink, beneath the suds, her hands shook.
“I was in the Bluff the whole time,” Justin said. “That’s always right where I was.”
CECIL REMOVED HIS WEDDING RING AND WRISTWATCH AND stashed them in the medicine cabinet above his bathroom sink. If things went sideways, he didn’t want to give the law a crack at the gold. How many pieces of jewelry had he bought from booking agents over the years, rings and necklaces and watches that had gone straight into their pockets instead of into inmate possession bags? He took a blood pressure pill with water cupped in his palm and put the bottle in his pocket so he wouldn’t forget it. Then he went into the front room, clicked the lamp on, and sat on the couch to wait.
He wore a dark shirt and jeans, though only his boots were true black. He didn’t want a constable to pull him over at three in the morning and ask why he was dressed like a cat burglar. There were, Cecil knew, an infinite number of ways the night could go wrong and only one way for it to go right, but he didn’t mind the odds. He would feel at peace with whatever befell him so long as it happened after he’d done what needed doing. The thought that kept surfacing in his mind was this: It’s been a good run. It’s been more than enough. Connie and Eric and the boys, they were beyond what he’d deserved. If it turned out that tonight was the end, if this was the vanishing point his whole existence had been building toward, then who could say he’d gotten a bad bargain? Not a soul. Not one goddamn soul.
GRIFF DECIDED AGAINST SHOWERING. HE JUST WANTED TO GET out of the house, to get away from his family. His father and Justin were in the living room watching a preseason Cowboys game, and his mother was flitting between her bedroom and the garage. He had overheard Justin deny having sent the postcard, so he assumed she was rummaging through her plastic bins in hopes of proving him wrong. Everything about the night felt unpredictable, like they’d spun off axis and were floating into uncertain lives. When they’d clasped hands and bowed their heads at the table—something they’d never done as a family, not even while Justin was gone—he’d been so shocked that the moment seemed to last an hour. It was like witnessing a car accident and not immediately knowing if he’d been involved.
In his room, he called Fiona. He said, “I think everyone’s been replaced by aliens. Meet me at the Teepee?”
“You know who would say that? An alien pretending not to be an alien. An alien trying to lure me to the Teepee and feast on my brains. Thanks, but no.”
“Seriously,” he said. “We just prayed, all of us together, at the table. We held hands and closed our eyes and prayed.”
“Interesting,” she said. Then, after a silence in which she seemed to be assessing the veracity of his claims, she said, “Come to my house instead. The last time you went to the Teepee it didn’t work out so well.”
ERIC COULD SENSE THAT JUSTIN WAS ABOUT TO GO TO HIS ROOM, so he said, “Thanks for telling us about Letty, bud. That was good to hear.”
“She wanted me to make sure everyone knew. I think because of the Shrimporee thing tomorrow.”
On the television, the Cowboys were getting thumped by the Steelers. Eric couldn’t pay attention to the game, but left it on because Justin liked football now. He hoped to keep him in the living room. Griff had gone to call Fiona; Laura had been rummaging in the garage for the last hour and was showering now. Eric couldn’t
hold a thought in his head. His mind was a dry field that had been touched by a lit match. He only knew it wouldn’t be long before Cecil came to collect him and these might be his last moments with Justin, and he needed them to count. For four years, he’d wished he’d said something meaningful to his son before he disappeared. Wished his last words had imparted some wisdom or the depth of his love, wished they’d been sturdy enough to endure and bring comfort when Justin needed it most. Now that he had the opportunity, now that he was faced with the possibility of being torn away from his son again, he could think of nothing worthwhile to say.
The football game was such a blowout that both teams had removed their starters. The Cowboys had the ball and the second-string quarterback threw an interception that one of the Steelers returned for a fifty-yard gain.
“It’s too depressing,” Justin said. “I’m going to bed.”
“I’m sorry,” Eric said.
“It’s okay. The preseason doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’m just so sorry, bud,” Eric said, a knot in his throat. “I wish it were different. I’m sorry it played out like this.”
FOR MOST OF HER TIME IN THE BATHROOM, LAURA SAT ON THE closed toilet staring in disbelief at the California postcard. The door was locked and the shower was running, but she stayed in her clothes. The postcard had been in her dresser drawer since she’d swiped it from the fridge that first night. What she’d been looking for in the garage was samples of his handwriting, of Griff’s and Eric’s, too. If Justin hadn’t sent the postcard—and she could see now that his T’s were more slanted and his O’s weren’t as round—then she’d hoped his father or brother had. But their handwriting resembled what was on the card less than Justin’s did. And there was the issue of the California postmark. She had to assume it had come from a stranger, the parents of another missing child or a nut-job taunting her family in a way she didn’t understand. All Laura knew was that Justin hadn’t sent it, and for no good reason, the revelation set her adrift. Her son was home now, safe in his room, but the night felt even more perilous than before. In the shower, she tried to give in and cry. No tears would come. She couldn’t even figure how to do that.
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