At Hannah’s insistence, we did adopt a cat from the ASPCA. He wasn’t a kitten, but he wasn’t full-grown either. He was gray-striped with small, delicate white feet. The cat really took to Hannah, following her around the house and sleeping on her bed at night, curled in a tight gray coil of fur. Hannah named him Sunshine. When I asked why, she shrugged and said, “He looks like a storm cloud, but that’s not a very happy name.” The cat seemed to be helping, at least with Hannah.
Leah was different, too, but not as much. She had always been more headstrong than Hannah. She resisted me in almost every way, simply to assert her independence. I couldn’t tell if her changes came from being parented from one perspective rather than two, or if she would have developed that way anyway. She was obstinate for the sake of being so, rather than for any real reason. Assertive to a fault, Leah fought discipline in a way that pliable Hannah never did. I roamed message boards at night, looking for disciplinary answers, when a year ago I would have bounced ideas off of Greg. Reward charts, time-outs, time-ins, and then more complicated, reverse reward charts, reverse time-outs, reverse time-ins, the suggestions made my head spin. When had raising a child gotten so complex? Or had it always been, but the complexity was divided in half, and therefore manageable?
One of those nights when I was scrolling through websites looking for help with potty training my stubborn Leah, my cell phone rang. Looking at the display, I noted a San Diego exchange, and for one crazy minute, I thought Greg. I immediately amended the thought. Will. I let it go to voicemail. My memories of our night together were precious to me. After I got back, I had considered calling him a few times, especially after a few glasses of wine in those quiet, lonely hours late at night. I didn’t do it, in part because I didn’t want to know the real Will. The Will in my mind was too perfect for any real flesh and blood human. I didn’t want more heartbreak in my life. For that reason, I also avoided Drew. Although, I convinced myself that I wasn’t actually avoiding Drew. Our conversations take hours. And with everything I have to do, I don’t have the time right now. I’ll call tomorrow.
I picked up my phone and dialed my voicemail. Hi, Claire. It’s Will Pierce. From San Diego. I hope you remember me. Anyway… uh… I was wondering how you were doing. I think of you. Call me sometime. Hope you’re well. Bye now.
I smiled. Nice. If nothing else, it was nice to have a man thinking of me.
I had a nine o’clock appointment the next day with Detective Reynolds. We had migrated to monthly meetings; he would come for coffee. Nothing ever changed. He assured me the case wasn’t closed, and every once in a while, he’d call with a question about something he needed to follow up on from the file. But the investigation was all re-examination of old information. I looked forward to his visits, though, in part because they allowed me to hold a tether to my old life, but also because I genuinely enjoyed his company. He knew my situation and was endlessly sympathetic, unlike my former acquaintances from the neighborhood, church, or library.
People weren’t deliberately cruel. They just didn’t know what to say to me, so instead chose silence, avoidance of me entirely, or worse, pretending nothing had happened. Yes, I often thought Greg dying would have been easier.
My brain swam with too many thoughts. I took a shot of whiskey and went to bed. I woke up in the same position I fell asleep in.
Detective Reynolds sat at the breakfast table, drinking coffee. He always brought my favorite Boston Cream doughnuts. I didn’t need the calories, since my grieving diet seemed to be ending. I filled out my clothes a little more and blamed the nightly bottles of wine. In my defense, some nights, I only drank half of a bottle.
“So, no more hunting trips planned?” he asked, half-smiling. He hadn’t been surprised by my trek to San Diego, nor by the fact that I had failed to tell him about it until after I returned. He had, however, informed me that he had already checked out a Thai place across from Omni due to my last hunch, and they didn’t find any record of Greg going there, and no one remembers seeing him. But the last time we knew of Greg being in San Diego was last May, almost a full year ago. So unless Greg did something particularly memorable, which I doubted, it seemed unlikely anyone would remember him.
“No.” I spun the coffee mug in my hands. “I think I’m done for now. I need to be home. I need to stay focused on my kids. And…”
Detective Reynolds made no move to fill the silence. I loved that about him.
“And I’m not sure there’s anything to find,” I added. “Well, what’s this month’s theory?”