I haven’t the slightest idea. “She knows about the remains of a small jet off the coast of Florida, and her dad flies. Maybe she’s assuming—”
“Or maybe she knows something.” Her eyes zero in on me. “When Brad was involved with the tramp, he was extremely careless around the children. He took phone calls in front of them, even talked about her to them.”
“That must have been awful, but—”
“But nothing, Veronica. The way Bella’s behaving . . . she’s dealing with something she doesn’t understand, and one thing little girls don’t understand is that their fathers can be complete and utter assholes.”
“Or maybe it’s exactly what the doctors say. An imaginary friend.”
“An imaginary friend who draws plane crashes?” After another long, thoughtful slurp of tea, my neighbor calmly places her mug on the table and dabs her glossed lips with her napkin. “Maybe she overheard Micah talking to that other woman.”
“No.” Memories of our last twenty-four hours together zing through my system. The cha-cha in the kitchen. The sex we had before he left. “He wouldn’t have.”
Then I think about what Shell said. I glance at Claudette, quickly assess her, and decide to trust her with a tidbit: “Except his mother admits to knowing a Gabrielle.”
Claudette raises a brow. “It’s time to delve into his secrets, if you want to get to the truth.”
I blink, and I’m back in a bungalow in Maywood at eighteen, digging through boxes of my mother’s things while she was stashed in a drawer down the road at Loyola University Medical. The musty scent of that old attic revisits me now, along with the bite of tears that welled the moment I found the paperwork—old medical records. My mother’s grandmother had been institutionalized. The doctors suspected schizophrenia.
We had a history of schizophrenia in the family, and I’d never known it.
And my mother had just taken her own life at the behest of mysterious voices who told her to do it. Learning of the family history after her death helped explain it.
Maybe learning Micah’s secrets—and I’m starting to think he had a lot of them—will help me deal with his disappearance.
The chime of the doorbell—church bells, which remind me of the day I buried my mother—jolts me from the memory.
“I’ll get that.” Claudette is halfway there by the time I think to insist on answering my own door.
“Nini,” Bella’s saying from the next room over. “That’s not nice. Tell Fendi you’re sorry.”
And a deep voice from the foyer: “Good day, ma’am. I’m Special Agent Lincoln with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this is . . .”
Clumsily, I pull myself out of my chair and stumble on the first step down the hallway.
“. . . here to discuss your husband’s accident.”
Claudette, shaking the taller one’s hand: “Come in.”
The shorter fed, as he takes my neighbor’s hand: “Veronica Cavanaugh?”
“I’m . . . it’s me. I’m Veronica Cavanaugh.” My toes are numb. My fingertips tingle. Federal agents? I stop several feet away from the two gentlemen, smartly dressed in black suits and striped ties, as if they happened by on their way to a funeral.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh.” The taller one—Lennon? Lincoln—folds his hands in front of him, perhaps when he realizes I’m not going to shake his hand. I’m too afraid of what he’s here to tell me to remember social graces. “May we come in?”
“Of course.” My voice sounds weak, more like a few pips than words.
Everything feels cloudy for the next few seconds as I lead the gentlemen, Claudette following close behind, to my kitchen.
Lincoln’s partner pulls out a chair and presents it with an abrupt palm up. “Would you like to sit down?”
Maybe I should. But I can’t seem to propel myself forward. I’m glued to my spot. Everything echoes and blurs.
“Sit.” Claudette guides me onto a barstool. “I’ll take the children outside.”
I meet her gaze, see her lips moving, but I don’t know what else she’s saying. Then suddenly, she’s gone, and the kids are gone, and Lincoln is talking with me.
I catch only a few words:
Accident.
Plane.
Debris.
Identified.
Declared.
Dead.
Chapter 14
November 18
I awaken from a fitful nap.
An hour has passed.
Or maybe a day or two.
I check the time on my phone. Just after seven at night, over twenty-four hours since my husband has been declared dead.
My call log tells me I missed a call from Shell, who must have been returning the call I made just after I heard the devastating news about Micah.
Her message: “I’m sorry I missed your call. Honey, you’ve got me worried. Call me back.”
I will. But she deserves to sleep through the rest of the night. Her world can end in the morning.
I glance at Claudette, who is busy with the dishes in my sink, and try to remember what she was wearing the last time I looked at her to determine if it’s the same day as the last time I saw her in my kitchen.
Can’t remember.
Or maybe I never paid attention.
Without a body, I can’t bury my husband, and his remains are still en route. He’ll be delivered to the same funeral home that took my mother. Lincoln and his partner have made the arrangements for me.
It’s surreal. I won’t believe Micah’s really gone until I’m holding his death certificate, until he’s officially stamped not alive. And maybe even then I won’t believe it.
If I’d known that cha-cha would be our last . . .
If I’d known, if I’d known, if I’d known . . .
A blink later, I look toward the sink, and Claudette is no longer there.
It’s dark outside.
Despite the late hour, Bella is coloring at her table, and a syndicated sitcom blares from the television set. A witty line—Actually, it’s Miss Chanandler Bong—precedes laughter.
My abdomen is still tender with yellowing bruises from weeks of IVF needles, and I’m nauseous with the drastic hormonal shifts taking place in my body now that I’ve abruptly stopped the injections.
The shift in this house is just as drastic. One minute, I was prepping for a baby with my husband, and now I’m . . .
I don’t know what I’m doing now.
I’m not decorating the nursery. I’m not shopping for onesies and tiny Chicago White Sox wind suits. I’m not doing much of anything . . . including being a mother.
“She is not, Nini.” Elizabella’s voice isn’t much more than a whisper. “She’s just sad.”
I suddenly realize I can’t remember the last time I interacted with my daughter. Judging by the plethora of wrappers littering her table and the floor around it, she’s been grabbing snacks when she’s hungry. I have vague recollections of opening a juice box or two, but beyond that . . . I swallow a sob . . . I’ve been nearly catatonic. “Bella.”
She startles a little when I call her name. Her eyes widen.
“Bella, come here.” I’m out of my chair, gravitating toward her.
Pick up the pieces.
Just like after Mama died.
Like after the miscarriage.
Bella needs me.
“Mommy.”
Her body feels smaller than ever in my embrace.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“He’s at God Land.”
That’s what they tell me.
She pecks a tiny, wet kiss onto my cheek.
I stare out over the fairway and imagine the energy of summer on the course. Early tee times. Fair play. The faint scent of cigarette smoke drifts on the air.
A split second later, I see it: the intermittent orange glow against a black felt sky. Someone puffing on a smoke.
I lock my gaze on it, and somehow I know he’s staring at us. Watching us.
Or . . . I tighten my arms around Elizabella.
Maybe it’s not me he’s looking at.
I could call the police. But I can’t prove he’s casing our house, and I don’t know what they would charge him with if they apprehended him.
Still, I hike Bella onto my hip and slink toward the sliding glass door. I turn the bolt and yank down the Roman shade to shut out the rest of the world. But then, I catch sight of the windows in the breakfast room. We live in a fishbowl. All these windows!
She wiggles. “Down.”
I let her down, when all I really want to do is keep her next to me in one of those slings I used when she was a baby.