“Michael!”
I run across the yard, down the gentle slope toward the water, flailing my arms as I go, as if trying to flag down a truck. Michael turns as he steps onto the dock. It’s hard to make out his features in the darkness.
But then I realize something. He’s not alone. Someone else is on the dock with him, farther out. The moon backlights her long hair.
I slow myself down and stop.
“Michael . . .”
“What’s the matter?” he asks.
I’m focused past him on the woman. Unable to see her clearly, my mind fills in the blanks. I picture Laura Bishop. She takes a few steps toward Michael. “Wait!” I call out.
Then the woman puts her hand in Michael’s and stands close enough that the light of the house can just reach her.
*
Joni says, “Mom — just stay there. Calm down.”
“What are you doing here?”
She says something to Michael too quietly for me to hear. He nods. The two of them start up the lawn, giving me a wide berth. In my rush to reach Michael, I missed seeing the vehicle in the driveway. The two of them head for Joni’s Subaru.
“Jo, honey . . .” I start after them. “What’s going on?”
“Mom, just leave it alone.”
“Leave it alone?” They must have been texting. While I was unburdening myself to Sarah, then talking to Paul. But the hospital is miles from here. Joni was already on her way, then. Of course she was. Michael never returned to her, so she came looking.
I call to him. “Please talk to her, Michael. Tell her that we did what we had to. That we need to deal with this.”
He stops, and then I stop. He stands looking at me in the semidarkness, his face glowing a bit from the house lights, like a phantom. Joni is pulling on his arm. “Michael. Leave her.”
Joni’s distance, her coldness, is painful. I don’t even know where to begin to address it, so I face her fiancé.
“We have to fix this, Michael, or it will only get worse. And we’re getting close.”
Instead of resentment, I see resignation on his young face, his squared features. “It’s okay. We can do more later. But I’ve got to go now.”
He turns and lets Joni lead him by the hand. She only releases him in order to get behind the wheel of the Subaru.
The motion-sensor light pours onto the scene. My daughter is just a shadow, sitting in the car. The sight of her prompts me to run after her. I’m feeling old feelings — the hunt for my wayward girl when she was just a teen.
Joni hits the gas and reverses the Subaru, then does a tight turn around and tears down the long driveway, out of sight.
I listen until the engine noise has completely faded. Until the chorus of crickets has returned, the occasional burp of the frog down along the water’s edge.
I know she loves me, but whatever she’s doing, whatever she knows about Michael, it’s clear she’s on his side.
In a way, I admire it. You have to side with your partner if a marriage is going to work. You have to protect them.
I wonder at the state of my own union. Paul hasn’t even texted after I hung up on him. I’m alone here, at the lake house, feeling like everything in my life has come crashing down in just a few short days.
As if I’m being punished.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Mena.
Her face floats to me out of a dozing haze. Her cheeks flushed, like she’s had a drink or two. The nervous energy she emanates.
Thoughts of her blend into memories of Maggie Lewis. Young, beautiful Maggie. Not much older than Joni. Stricken with some of the same issues, in fact. Full of guilt, like Michael.
Even like I was, at that age.
A thought occurs to me, some edge of a grand pattern, but it eludes sharper focus. Something about how humans repeat behaviors? I know it’s true. We tend to recreate our childhoods, for one thing. We also tend to attach ourselves to a mate similar to our opposite-sex parent.
Even more bizarre, we also like to create the same situations for ourselves again and again. You’ve heard the saying — insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. It’s a truism, not a real definition, but there’s no question that we can be our own worst enemy — our own greatest obstacle.
Mena. My faithful and long-time assistant. She’s only ever helped and supported me. And she’s seen everyone that’s ever come into my office. And knows about every police case I’ve ever consulted on . . .
Why am I suddenly wondering about her?
Her behavior the night we met at my office, for one thing. The way she seemed nerved up over the Bishop case. Oh, she tried to pass it off as her grief for Maggie Lewis, but I knew.
Everyone seems afraid of what happened fifteen years ago. As if the hammer that struck David Bishop delivered a blow to us all. At least, it reverberated deep into our lives.
It’s even affected Sean. Whether Michael did something consciously, unconsciously, or not at all, my son is vegetative, for God’s sake.
None of us are in our right minds, I suppose. We’re beside ourselves with shock and worry.
Poor Joni.
My daughter is protecting herself the best way she knows — she’s retrieved her fiancé and taken control. She’s not answering my text messages, and neither is Paul. Hopefully because he’s getting some rest.
It’s what I should be doing. It’s after midnight.
So I lie back again. I try to shut off my mind. To end the parade of faces and din of voices. To stop myself from reliving Michael’s outburst in the bedroom. His gut-wrenching recall of his family history, of the night his father died.
I push it all away and try to focus on my breathing. On the crickets, and the distant slopping of water against the boathouse docks.
I want my mommy back . . .
No, push it away, push it away . . .
It takes a knock at the door before I rise up from the couch to see the red-and-blue lights flashing in through my windows and feel the frantic buzzing of my phone against my leg.
PART FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
First, the phone.
It’s Paul.
“I can’t find Joni.”
“She was just here.”
“At the house?”
“She took Michael and left.”
As I’m explaining things to Paul, I’m headed for the door. The flashing lights are from a police car in my driveway. I rake fingers through my hair and shake it out. “I have to go now. Police are at the door.”
“Police?” He’s alarmed but also sounds angry.
“Everything is okay. I’ll call you back.”
I end the call and open the door to a beefy young man in a dark blue local police uniform. Another officer, female, is halfway between the entrance and the garage, shining a light around.
The male officer gives me a close look. “Ma’am? Is everything all right?”
I pull my light sweater around me tighter, though the night is still warm. Memories of Joni continue to surface. Christmas, when she was fifteen and missing. She’d run away from home and was found the next day by a New York City transit cop, passed out on the subway.
When I speak, my voice is dry, the words broken. “What happened? Did something happen to her?”