Caitlin closed herself in the master bedroom. I didn’t bother knocking on the door or apologizing. I went back downstairs but didn’t eat or drink. I tried to look at the paper, but my eyes couldn’t focus. No way I could do the crossword puzzle. Rather than helping my daughter, I’d failed her once again. I didn’t seem able to understand what she needed from me as a father.
I replayed the scene with Caitlin. I wished I couldn’t remember it. I wished it were gone. Erased. But it played in my head on a loop. Every word. Every gesture.
The slap.
About the tenth time through, something stuck out. A phrase. It caught in my brain like a fishhook. Something Caitlin had said: Everything that happened to me, she’d said.
Not everything I did or everything we did.
Everything that happened to me.
Abby’s car turned into the driveway.
Then I heard two voices coming in the door. Abby’s and a man’s.
Pastor Chris.
He was there, the smile plastered across his face. He held out his hand. “Tom, I haven’t seen you since Caitlin’s return to us.” Us? “I want you to know I’m here in a strictly pastoral capacity,” he said. “I want to help Caitlin.”
“How is she?” Abby asked.
“She took a shower. I took that to be a good sign.”
Abby smiled. She looked pretty.
I tilted my head toward the dining room. “Can I . . . ?”
She hesitated and looked at Chris, then back at me. “I think if you have something to say, you can say it in front of Chris.”
I hesitated. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Is this something about Caitlin? You said she was okay.”
“I can go—” Chris said.
Abby cut him off. “No. Tom? Is it Caitlin?”
“She’s fine,” I said.
“Then what is it?”
I shook my head. “She said . . . she tried to talk to me . . .”
Abby came closer. “That’s good, Tom. It’s good she tried to talk to you. What did she say?”
The doorbell rang.
I looked at both of them. “You didn’t invite more church freaks, did you?”
“Tom . . .”
“I’ll see who it is,” Chris said.
“Tell them to go to hell,” I said.
Abby stayed close, still watching me. “What did she say, Tom? Is it important?”
I shook my head. “She said . . . something happened to her . . . while she was gone . . .”
“What? What happened to her?”
“We didn’t get that far. I . . . we didn’t . . .”
Chris came back, a tentative smile on his face.
“Someone’s at the door for you, Tom.”
“Who?” I asked.
“It’s a woman,” he said. “She says she’s a friend of yours, and she knows something about Caitlin. Her name is Suzanne or Susan.”
I found Susan on the porch, where she stood smoking a cigarette. She wore the same kind of clothes as the first time we’d met, except her sneakers had been replaced by muddy hiking boots. When I came outside, she turned to face me.
“Ah, Tom.”
“I didn’t know you made house calls.”
“We go wherever we’re needed.” She pointed to the two empty porch chairs, so we sat. “I apologize for the intrusion on your family life, but I’ve been thinking about you.”
“You were?”
“I saw your good news in the newspapers,” she said. “Your daughter is back. You must be a happy man.”
“It’s a complicated adjustment in a lot of ways.”
“Right.” She dropped the cigarette on the porch and ground it under her boot. “I’m sorry about this. It’s a bad habit I picked up in college and then returned to a few years ago. I do it when I’m anxious.”
“What are you anxious about today?” I asked.
She rubbed her hands together as though keeping them warm. It was a cool day, and I wished I’d worn a jacket.
“What has your daughter said about where she was?”
“Nothing.” I looked down. “She won’t talk about it. She told us not to ask her about it. Why do you want to know?”
“And so you haven’t asked her?”
“The therapist told us not to.”
“It’s best to follow the lead of the experts in these cases,” she said. “At least that’s been my experience. They know what’s best.”
“I take it you didn’t just come to talk to me about the merits of therapy,” I said.
“Like I said, I’ve been thinking about you. This story. It’s been in the papers, so it’s been in my mind. Do you still have that flower, or did you give it to the police?”
“I still have it. I should have given it to the police—”
“You probably should—”