“If it’s real—”
“We’ll discuss it again.”
I walk over and kiss her on the forehead.
She puts her hand on my cheek. “We’ll be fine.”
“We always are.”
“Yes.”
The kids have already heard the news. We had planned to tell them together that evening, at dinner, but they already knew. The Internet and their friends are faster than us.
If Rory cares, he does not show it. His hand is clasped around his phone, the lifeline to his girlfriend.
Jenna’s face is still as stone. Her eyes, normally so expressive, look right through us. She is not listening, not even here in the room with us. I do not know where she is. She does not speak until Millicent and I are done telling her what we have told her for weeks: You are safe.
I don’t think she believes us. I’m not even sure I believe us. Everything she thought was true is turning out to be wrong. Owen was never here. It was always someone else, and no one has any idea who.
I cannot blame her for shutting down. I want to do the same thing.
When we are done talking, Rory jumps up and heads for the stairs. Already texting.
Jenna keeps staring.
“Baby?” I say, reaching over to touch her hand. “You okay?”
She turns to me, her eyes focusing. “So it’s all a lie. The killer may not even be gone.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Millicent says.
“But maybe.”
I nod. “Maybe.”
A minute passed, then another.
“Okay,” she says, slipping her hand out from under mine. She stands up. “I’m going upstairs.”
“Are you feeling—”
“I’m fine.”
Millicent and I watch her go.
The rest of my evening is spent on the Internet, researching a new place for us to live. I flip between sites about weather, schools, cost of living, and the news.
It feels strange to not know what is coming next. Ever since I wrote that first letter to Josh, most of the news has not surprised me. I already knew what the letters would say and could guess how the pundits would analyze them. Not even Naomi’s body was a surprise. I didn’t know the details, but I knew it would be found.
The only thing that surprised me was the paper cuts.
Now, nothing is familiar, nothing is expected. I do not like it.
Fifty-two
I watch the story unfold on TV as if I am not involved. As if I’m just another spectator. And, because I have no power to change the course of this story, I hope. Every time I turn on the news, I hope Owen’s sister is a liar. But one night, I am outside on the back porch, watching the eleven o’clock broadcast, and this is not what Josh says.
He is in the studio tonight, wearing a jacket and tie, and his face looks like it was shaved minutes before the show started. Josh sounds like a serious reporter when he says that Jennifer Riley is coming back into the country. She wants to clear her brother’s name.
The urge to throw my phone, again, is stopped by a scraping sound on the side of the house. I get up and look.
Rory.
Only he would continue to sneak out after getting caught sneaking out.
Or rather, only he could continue to get away with sneaking out after he was caught sneaking out. I wonder how many times I’ve missed him.
He sees me just as his feet hit the ground. Rory was on his way out, not back in.
“Oh,” he says. “Hey.”
“Going out for a little night air?”
He shrugs, admitting nothing.
“Come sit down,” I say.
Instead of sitting on the porch, we go out farther into the yard. We have a picnic table with an umbrella on the far side, in between the big oak tree and the dismantled playset.
Rory says, “You don’t have a lot of room to talk about sneaking out.”
Days ago, when Owen was supposed to be gone forever, that comment might not have bothered me. I had been looking forward to talking with my son about his first girlfriend. Now, it just feels like a chore.
I point to one of the benches “Sit. Your. Ass. Down.”
He does.
“First,” I say, “you may have noticed your sister has been having a difficult time. And I am sure you, her only brother, do not want to make her feel worse?”
He shakes his head.
“Of course you don’t. So I know you won’t tell her this little theory of yours about how I’m cheating on your mother.”
“Theory?”
I stare at him.
He shakes his head again. “No. I’m not going to say anything.”
“And I know you are not about to compare me to you and the fact that you are sneaking out late at night. Because you are less than half my age. You are not even close to being an adult. You do not get to sneak out.”
He nods.
“What?” I say.
“No. I wasn’t going to compare us.”
“And I also know that if I ask you why you were sneaking out, you are not going to say it was to hang out with Daniel. Because that’s not what you’re doing, is it?”
“No.”
“You’re sneaking out to see Faith Hammond.”
“Yes.”
“Perfect. I’m glad we cleared that up.”
Rory’s phone buzzes. His eyes go back and forth, between the phone and me, but he does not look at it.
“Go ahead,” I say.
“It’s okay.”
“Don’t keep Faith waiting.”
He checks the phone and sends a text while pushing that red hair out of his eyes. Faith answers right away, and he sends another. The conversation continues, and I wait until he puts the phone down on the table. Faceup.
“Sorry,” he says.
I sigh.
I am not angry at Rory. He is just a kid who has discovered girls aren’t so bad after all. He used to say girls were “heinous and foul and, most especially, ugly.” The quote is from a book he’d read, and it always made me laugh. I would turn to Millicent and say, “You’re the one who brought them to the library every week.” If we happened to be in the kitchen, she would snap the dish towel at me. Once, she snapped it so hard it cut my arm. The wound was just superficial, barely breaking the skin, but Rory was impressed with his mother. Less so with me.
And now, he is leaving late at night to see a little blonde named Faith.
“Does she sneak out, too?” I say. “Do you meet somewhere?”
“Sometimes. But I can get up to her room, too.”
I want to ban him from doing this, put a lock on his window, and call Faith’s parents and say they are too young and it’s too dangerous. Owen is dead, and a killer is on the loose.
Except it isn’t true. I just have to pretend it is. Just like I have to pretend I don’t remember my first girlfriend.
“You have to stop,” I say. “You’ve seen the news. It’s too dangerous for both of you to be out alone at night.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“And you shouldn’t be sneaking out at all. If I told your mother, she would lock your window and put cameras all over the house.”
Rory’s eyebrows shoot up. “She doesn’t know?”
“If she did, you’d be grounded until college. And so would your girlfriend.”
“Okay. We’ll stop.”
I take a deep breath. Just because I’m angry does not mean I am irresponsible. “And since you have a girlfriend, do you have protect—”
“Dad, I know how to buy condoms.”
“Good, good. So just text her at night, okay? See her during the day?”
He nods and gets up quick, as if he is scared I might change my mind.
“One more thing,” I say. “And answer me straight.”
“Okay.”
“Are you taking any drugs?”
“No.”
“You don’t smoke pot?”
He shakes his head. “I swear I don’t.”
I let him go. Right now, I don’t have time to figure out if he is lying.