“Every time a piece of news comes in about Caitlin. It could be just a scrap. A girl would get assaulted across town, and you’d want to know who did it. Or there’d be an abduction attempt an hour away, and you’d be on the phone to the police telling them to check it out. Ryan humors you, doesn’t he? He always takes your calls, right?”
“He came out today as soon as he could.”
“I love and miss Caitlin as much as you—”
“No one said you didn’t.”
“I know. And I do appreciate that.” She rubbed her palms together, as though scraping something off them. “You asked me once why the church meant so much to me. You acted confounded by the fact that I wanted to go and spend my time there, as though just nurturing my faith wasn’t reason enough. I know you think people who talk that way—who say things like ‘nurturing my faith’—are beneath you, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Is there?”
I didn’t respond.
“I went to the church because your unreasonable hope didn’t leave room for anything else in our life together. I was squeezed out. And while you may not have questioned my love for Caitlin, you did question how invested I was in keeping her memory alive. You thought that if I didn’t pore over every missing-persons case in the country, or if at some point I wanted to stop spending my weekends organizing search parties, that I just didn’t care enough. That I was deluded or out of touch. But that’s not the case. I just chose to go on. It’s a little selfish, I admit, but I chose to go on with my life rather than to spend all my time as the poor, unfortunate woman who lost her daughter. And the church helps me do that.”
She paused. I still didn’t say anything. But I noticed a different kind of look on her face, a newfound relief or ease. She was unburdening herself.
“I didn’t want you to get rid of Frosty because he bothered me. I know you think that, but it’s not the case. I wanted you to get rid of him for you. I thought maybe if you did it, you’d be able to move on. It was a last-ditch attempt, I guess. I thought it might have worked. The last few days seemed better, and this morning at the church—”
“What do you mean by ‘last-ditch’?”
She looked down at her hands. “Chris and I have been talking. He’s been counseling me. Ordinarily, he doesn’t encourage people to divorce—Well, I guess if we had children to consider . . . But we think—I think—it would be for the best. It seems inevitable in a way. This happens to a lot of couples who lose a child.”
She looked up at me for a quick moment, her eyes full of tears. Then she stood and walked into what used to be our bedroom.
“Hold on.” I scrambled along behind her. The evidence was all over the bedroom. Two suitcases open and full of clothes. The closet door thrown wide and nearly empty.
Abby stood in the middle of the room, chewing on a fingernail.
“You’re really doing it?” I asked.
“One of us has to, Tom.”
I pointed behind me, toward the stairs and the lower level of the house. “Is there something else going on here? Is this about—?” I couldn’t say his name. It tasted like ash in my mouth. “Him?”
Abby looked at me, her eyes full of pity. “Oh, Tom. If it were only that simple.”
“If you’re fucking another man, it is simple. If you’re not the person I thought you were, the person you claim to be—”
“Don’t be crude,” she said. “Chris is helping me. There might be a job at the church, something to get me started. They have a place I can stay, in their retreat housing. It’s temporary, of course. I talked to someone at Fields, someone in the School of Ed. I think I’d like to go back to teaching. It wouldn’t take me long to get recertified here. And there are jobs. Maybe working with children again, teaching them, would fulfill me in some way my life isn’t fulfilling me right now. I wouldn’t expect you to leave this house. You’ve always liked living here, and I know you think one of us should always be here in case Caitlin . . . if she ever came back.”
We were quiet then. I sat on the edge of the bed, letting my body weight sink into the mattress. Abby came over and bent down. She planted a kiss on the top of my head. I reached up and took her hand. We clasped tightly for a moment; then she slipped loose.
“I know you think this is my fault,” I said.
“It’s no one’s fault. Not really.”
“I don’t mean us,” I said. “I mean Caitlin. I know you think I let her get away with too much, that she shouldn’t have been allowed to walk the dog in the park alone. She was too young, and Frosty . . . Frosty was too big . . .”
“That’s all over, Tom.”
“I just wanted her to run toward life and not be afraid of it. You know, my family, growing up—it was awful, so smothering. It was like living without oxygen.”
“I know, Tom.”
But I wasn’t sure she did. Abby’s parents were frighteningly normal: upper middle class and traditional. A little repressed, a little concerned with appearances, but next to my family they looked like royalty. I don’t know if Abby ever really understood what it was like to come from a family like mine, even though she often said she did.
“I didn’t want her to be tied to us,” I said. “Like we held her back.”