No Bad Deed

by Heather Chavez

  “Like I said, in the house.”

  “Was the porch light on?” Realizing it was starting to sound like an interrogation, not wanting to upset Audrey, I added, “Just tell me what you remember.”

  “I don’t think the light was on. She didn’t have candy. The house before gave out regular candy bars, not the small ones. If we’re getting ice cream, can I still have my Halloween candy when I get home?”

  Because we both knew the answer would be no, I ignored the question. “What else do you remember?”

  “I don’t know.” Audrey started to fidget. “What time are we going to get ice cream?”

  I tried to read whether this was the typical impatience of a six-year-old or something else. But too much rested on her answers to stop asking my questions. “Do you remember what the woman looked like?”

  At first, though I could tell Audrey remembered, she didn’t answer. Why?

  Then she said, “Her hair was gray.”

  Gray? Not what I was expecting.

  “Was the woman’s hair short or long?”

  “Long. And her face was gray too. Except for the black marks on her forehead. I think it was supposed to look like she was broken.”

  So she was in costume. A sudden thought chilled me, If she was even a she.

  “Was the woman big?”

  Audrey looked confused, and I realized to her, all adults were big. So I rephrased the question, “Was she as tall as Daddy?”

  “I don’t think so. Daddy’s tall.”

  “Did she go to the haunted house with you and Daddy?”

  Audrey squirmed in her seat, turning away from me and toward the window. “I don’t remember. That’s when I saw Savannah.” She looked at me again. “Did I tell you she was a cat too?”

  “Yes, you did. She was brown and didn’t have a tiara, I think you said.”

  “She was brown.” Audrey began reciting other details about Savannah’s costume—her whiskers were apparently drawn on with her mom’s eyeliner—before expanding her description to other costumes she had seen the night before.

  Suddenly, I was certain: my questions were making Audrey uncomfortable. Did she sense what might have happened even as I tried to hide it from her? Or had she seen something she couldn’t quite remember but also couldn’t fully forget?

  “Did something happen you don’t want to tell me?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You don’t seem okay. You seem sad.”

  Of course she was sad.

  Audrey’s voice was small when she answered, “I don’t like that Daddy left me.”

  My heart broke, and I leaned into the back seat to kiss the top of my daughter’s head. “I don’t like it either.”

  My daughter’s face filled with the light of sudden clarity. “I know! Why don’t we just call Daddy and ask him where he was after I saw Savannah?”

  I squeezed her hand, and then told her another truth that nevertheless felt like a lie. “I don’t think Daddy’s available right now.”

  “Can we call him later then?”

  “We can try.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Audrey said. “Daddy will call us. He always does when he goes away.”

  I thought, Not this time. But I said, “I bet you’re right. Daddy loves you very much.” The last part, at least, wasn’t a lie.

  18

  Parked outside the high school, I opened the glove box and pulled out the envelope—large, tan, and unsealed. I propped it on my lap so it rested against the steering wheel.

  Every choice I had made since Sam’s disappearance I had immediately doubted.

  If I had spent more time questioning those moms, they might have remembered more. They might have offered the phone numbers I’d forgotten to request.

  If I had been home instead of confronting Ozzy that first night, I would have been there when Carver took Sam’s car. The police could have arrested him then.

  Then there were the other choices I had made before Sam went missing. The late nights. The missed connections.

  But this latest choice—whether to open the envelope—seemed straightforward. Of course I should open it. Knowledge was always better than ignorance. Wasn’t it?

  I tossed the envelope on the passenger seat, took out my phone, and dialed. My father answered on the first ring.

  “Cassie?” The excitement in his voice chipped at my heart a little.

  “Hi, Red.” It had been a long time since I had called him Dad.

  “How’ve you been, sweetheart?”

  How to summarize six years of life in less than thirty seconds? “The clinic’s doing well, and the kids are pretty amazing.”

  “They would be.” Neither of us pointed out how long it had been since our last conversation. We both knew how long it had been, and we both remembered how that last call had ended. “Leo must be huge by now. And Audrey—she’s okay?”

  “She’s okay,” I confirmed. “Leo just got his permit.”

  He chuckled, a familiar rumbling. “Teaching you to drive . . . scariest months of my life.”

  My father wasn’t exaggerating. In my teens, I had been a reckless driver. Back then, I had been reckless in most things.

  “I got better once I had kids.”

  He sighed at that. “I’m sure you’re a great mom.”

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them.”

  It wasn’t meant as a judgment, but an uncomfortable silence followed. Then: “I should’ve been tested.” It was the closest my father had ever come to an apology. “But you know how I hate needles.” Apology ruined.

  Audrey had been born without bile ducts in her liver, a condition known as biliary atresia. Not that we knew anything was wrong for the first few weeks. She had seemed to have that singular attribute every parent wishes for a child: perfect health. All toes and fingers had been accounted for, and even the flakes of cradle cap disappeared quickly, leaving behind pink skin and, except for the occasional robust demand for a bottle, a sunny personality.

  Then her pink skin had started to yellow, and she had gotten crankier. At the doctor’s appointment, I had known what I would hear: our daughter needed a transplant. Audrey now carried a piece of Sam’s liver inside her.

  “There was no need,” I said. “Sam was a match, and Audrey’s fine.”

  “Still, I should’ve been there for you, and for my granddaughter.” Since he had never met Audrey, it was strange hearing him call her that. Not bad strange. Just strange. “Is everything okay, Cassie?”

  I stared at the envelope. “I’ve had better weeks.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  When Audrey had been a newborn, my father had asked this same question. When I had said yes, there was, he had changed his mind about the offer. After all these years, I should have been able to forgive him, but I had never been much good at that. Anger was easier and felt less like weakness. A throwback to my brawling days, I guessed.

  When I didn’t respond, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  In the quiet car, speaking to a man who had become almost a stranger to me, it was safe to say the words aloud. “I think Sam’s left me.”

  “I’ll get a flight.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I can be there tonight, tomorrow at the latest.”

  “No,” I said, more firmly this time.

  “Why’d you call, sweetheart?”

  “I told you. Sam’s gone.”

  His voice was gentle as he prodded, “But why me? We haven’t talked since Audrey was a baby.”

  There it was. I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. “When I was a child, did I have panic attacks?”

  “Are you having them now?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  I briefly described the sensations I’d experienced when Carver had thrown that woman over the embankment. The darkening vision and arrhythmia. The nightmares that had followed. The way the air around me even now felt as if it had weight, grinding me into the groun
d and making each breath a chore.

  Little things like that.

  A few seconds passed, no longer, before he answered, “Never.” But the hesitation, however slight, made me wonder if he was keeping something from me.

  “It felt—familiar.”

  No hesitation this time. “You were a colicky baby, a stubborn toddler, and living through your teen years nearly killed me,” he said. “But you also had—have—the most generous heart of anyone I’ve met and a smile that knocks me back every time I see it.” He paused. “I miss that smile.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, but, fortunately, my father let me off the hook. “As a baby, you were prone to earaches,” he continued. “You had bronchitis when you were about Audrey’s age, and you’ve broken both your right arm and your left ankle. That doesn’t include the sprains. Several of those too.” The chuckle again, warm and deep. “Oh—and a preschool classmate stabbed you near the eye with a pencil.

  “But no, no panic attacks. Still, it’s understandable why they’d be starting now.”

  “Thanks, Red,” I said. “I—it was good talking to you.”

  I had already moved to disconnect, my finger hovering above the icon, when I heard his voice again.

  “Wait.”

  I lifted the phone back to my ear.

  “Earlier, you mentioned you’d do anything for your children. So you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That I’ll be there on the first flight that has an open seat.”

  Then he was gone.

  I sat there for a couple of minutes, clutching my phone and eyeing the envelope that rested on the passenger seat. Nope, still not ready to open it. But there was something else equally as uncomfortable that I could do.

  I hadn’t written down the number, but that didn’t matter. I had memorized it the moment I had seen it in Sam’s phone records.

  Uncertain what I would say, I dialed anyway. Part of me hoped for voicemail, a greeting that included an identification. That’s all I really needed. I could wait to find out the rest. If someone actually answered, I might be forced to share a sliver of truth. I wasn’t sure I could do that, or if I could handle a stranger sharing her truth with me. Because, ever since talking to Ozzy, I feared it was a her.

  On the third ring, the call connected, and my fear was confirmed. A woman answered.

  “Hello.” She was out of breath. I tried not to ponder why.

  I introduced myself and awaited her response. Would she recognize my name? And if she did, would she pretend not to?

  She replied with a single word, “Yes.” The woman recognized my name but didn’t offer hers in return.

  I wasn’t sure what to say next. What was the protocol when speaking with a woman you suspected was sleeping with your husband? I settled on, “Do you have a daughter named Hannah?”

  “I don’t have kids, but I mentor a girl named Hannah.”

  Sunlight flooded the car’s interior, but it was an illusion. The air was frigid. “Can we meet?” I asked.

  In my head, I had a list of what I expected her to say. Yes. No. Go to hell. What she actually said wasn’t on that list. Not even close.

  The woman with the unfamiliar number and unrecognizable voice sighed, deeply, then said, “We’ve already met.”

  19

  We’ve already met.

  When I asked the woman to explain, she gave me her address and said she would be home in half an hour. When I pushed, she said, “Later.” Then she hung up.

  That wasn’t at all how I’d expected that call to go.

  I stared at the envelope for two minutes, then, with twenty-eight more minutes to kill, I got out of the car.

  Santa Rosa High’s hallways were nearly empty at that hour. Though this was Sam and Leo’s domain, it wasn’t a place I had visited more than a couple of times, and I paused as the leg of the T-shaped hall ended at a wall. A “Go, Panthers!” banner was hanging there, one of its corners curling inward, having pulled free of its tape. I tried to fix it, but the tape would no longer hold, and my hands came away spotted with orange glitter.

  I forced myself forward, turning right. My sneakers squeaked as they led me to the door marked Administration. Before I entered, I adjusted the envelope tucked under my left arm. I hadn’t been able to open it, but neither had I been able to leave it behind. It felt like an unnecessary weight now.

  Behind the counter sat a blonde wearing a green sweater and an expression of annoyance. It was directed at her computer screen, but she swiveled to share it with me.

  I hadn’t thought about what I might say, beyond asking for Sam. When I mentioned his name, the woman’s expression shifted. I couldn’t quite read all it contained, but the edge of hostility was unmistakable.

  “Are you one of the parents?” she asked.

  I felt suddenly reluctant to introduce myself, so instead I repeated, “One of the parents?”

  Cranky Blonde didn’t clarify but motioned toward the envelope I held. “Is that for Mr. Diggs?”

  I moved the envelope from underneath my arm and clasped it to my chest. Some of the glitter had transferred from my hands to the paper. She waited for me to speak, but I pressed my lips shut. Cranky Blonde seemed the type who liked to fill silences.

  True to my opinion of her, only a few seconds ticked by before she said, “If you’re one of the parents, you really should talk to Mr. Diggs. He’s handling the situation.”

  She wrinkled her nose as she spit out the last word.

  Before I could ask what she meant by “situation,” a man with a long neck and an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball emerged from one of the offices. He was in the middle of shrugging into his coat when he stopped in front of me.

  He smiled, his eyes dropping to the ring finger of my left hand before landing on my face. “Did I hear you needed to speak with me?” he asked, extending his hand. His palm was slick, but I suspected my own was too. “I’m Charles Diggs, the principal here, but you can call me Chuck.”

  “Cassie Larkin.”

  His smile slipped, for no longer than a heartbeat, before he replaced it. The office attendant’s reaction was less subtle. Behind me, she snorted.

  “My husband is a teacher here, though I suspect you’ve already made that connection.” I gestured toward the blonde behind the counter. “Your office attendant mentioned there’s a situation involving Sam?”

  “Hmm.” Chuck Diggs nibbled on his fingernail and screwed up his eyebrows, as if trying to remember something I knew he already had. He shot a less-than-friendly look at the office attendant. “I can’t discuss personnel matters, but it was a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Larkin.”

  He moved to leave, but I blocked his path. “Have you seen Sam today?”

  “No, I’m sorry. But we have so many on staff, I can’t keep track of all of their schedules. Have a great weekend, Mrs. Larkin.”

  He bid a quick goodbye to the woman—apparently, her name was Pam and not Cranky Blonde—before he stepped around me and out the door.

  “So you’re his wife and you don’t know.”

  I turned toward the office attendant, the taint of hostility I had noticed earlier still there, but now mingled with something else. Pity? What did it mean that I kept getting that reaction?

  “Know what?”

  “I can tell you Sam didn’t come in today. I just can’t tell you why.”

  “He’s been sick, I know that.”

  She snorted again. “He hasn’t been to work in weeks.”

  My mind stumbled on that. Weeks? So it wasn’t the flu that had kept Sam from his classroom the past couple of days. My first thought, Why hadn’t Sam told me? My second, Why hadn’t Leo?

  I flashed to what she had said a few minutes earlier. “Is this the thing with the students?”

  My question was vague, but the woman behind the desk grasped at the excuse to tell me more, and to destroy illusions she believed I held.

  “Wives don’t always know,” she sa
id.

  I guessed then that a relationship had ended badly for this woman, and rather than find kinship with me over shared grief, she hated me for what she perceived as my ignorance.

  But I couldn’t argue with her preconception. I didn’t know. If she hated me for blindly standing by Sam, I would play to that. “The students are lying.”

  I expected outrage but got confusion. “You’ve talked to his students? I wasn’t aware any of them had officially come forward.”

  I swore to myself before changing stories. “Of course I haven’t spoken directly with any students. I only meant the rumors aren’t true.”

  “It’s more than rumor, Mrs. Larkin.” She stood and hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “People sometimes do stupid stuff, even teachers as respected as your husband.” The word respected sounded like an insult.

  “You’ve wanted to tell me something ever since you heard my name. So tell me.”

  Spots of red blossomed on her cheeks. “I don’t want to get involved,” she said, though she remained rooted to her spot behind her desk.

  “Yes, you do.”

  She wielded her next words as if she hoped they would do damage. “Sam has . . . a reputation.”

  “Define reputation.”

  “He’s a bit of a flirt.”

  Sam had always been friendly, and on occasion, the dimpled smile had been misconstrued as something more. In my experience, this had always been a mistake in perception, not intent. But maybe this woman was right, and I had misread earlier warnings.

  “You’re claiming he’s friendlier than he should be with colleagues.”

  The blonde’s mouth settled into a grim line. “Not with staff. With his students.”

  When it came to Sam, my faith had been shaken lately, but cold certainty filled me now. “You’re lying.”

  She hadn’t expected that. The twin stains of red on her cheeks darkened. “In the past, I wouldn’t have thought such a thing was possible either, but a couple of weeks ago in the parking lot, I heard two parents talking. They said he has favorites, and they’re usually pretty girls.” Pam puffed up her chest, her voice raising to emphasize her point. “They said one girl who’s got a one-point-something GPA got an A in his class.”