“I guess this means Kristin isn’t back,” he said softly. “Do you want me to stay home?”
Clara shook her head. “What good would that do? Save your vacation days for something happy.”
He frowned. “I don’t like this. You know they’re going to be knocking on the door as soon as they see a light on.”
“No comment.” Clara smiled weakly. “Did that sound stern enough? I’ve been practicing in my head.”
His expression didn’t change. “It’s not that I don’t have faith that Kristin and the twins are fine. I do. It’s just that the questions people are asking … I’m worried they’re going to dredge up bad memories for you.”
She didn’t blame him for bringing it up—he’d worked so hard to help her move past all that—but she had somehow hoped he wouldn’t. “I can handle it,” she told him, her eyes begging him to leave well enough alone. But what if that sounded like an admission that there was something to handle? “I mean, they won’t,” she rushed to add, her voice firmer. “But if they do, I can handle it.”
He brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “But Thomas. How are you even going to get him to school without him wondering what the hell is going on?”
“We can sneak out the back, through Natalie’s yard. Thomas will think it’s an adventure.” She only hoped the chaos outside wouldn’t be mirrored at the preschool.
“He’s going to catch wind of it, you know. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll still be asking after Aaron and Abby.”
“We’ll tell him they’ve gone on a trip.” Clara squeezed his fingers. They had a pact never to lie to the kids. Benny had caught his own parents in a lie at a young age, and it still bothered him. “Best as anyone can tell, that’s true.”
It occurred to her now that Benny had never made her promise to tell him only the truth. She supposed that part went without saying. He was right: It was sad that lying to kids was up for debate. Funny how it was their innocence that so often could complicate the truth.
And their questions. Thomas was doing a fine job of picking that up from Hallie, so Clara had a feeling she was in for it.
Benny pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the lips. “Divorce is an ugly thing,” he murmured. “Let’s never get one.”
Oh, Benny. Somehow she could still be taken aback by his sweetness, even though he’d been exactly this way ever since she’d met him. If she was going to keep her vow of honesty, she’d never be able to tell the kids when they headed off to college that nothing good ever came of a frat party. Clara had been leaning against the wall of a crowded fraternity kitchen, killing time in line for keg beer she didn’t really want while the friend who’d dragged her there ignored her (quite predictably, it turned out), when she’d heard a chorus of enthusiastic greetings from the brothers—“Benny boy! Hey, Benny’s here!”—and turned expecting to see a jazz musician or an old-timey baseball player. And there he was. Benny Tiffin. Dimpled, blue eyed, and soon to be hers.
“Done.”
“Done!” The clarity of the tiny voice startled them both, and they looked down at the pillow between them to find Maddie’s blue eyes open wide, her jack-o’-lantern grin glistening with drool. All three burst out laughing.
“She’s so good at talking, she wakes up doing it now!” Benny beamed. Maddie wasn’t really talking much on her own yet, but she was on the brink of a successful career as a mimic.
As Clara carried the baby down the hall to the changing table, she heard the shower come on full blast. She closed her eyes and breathed in the normalcy of the morning here inside, trying to pretend that nothing outside was different. Sometimes when it was just the four of them, warm and safe, she’d get this overwhelming urge to lock the doors and keep them here, where everyone was accounted for and together. She knew this time with the kids was limited, that one day not many years from now they’d spend more of their hours away from her than with her, and think of her less and less when they were apart. She wasn’t about to let their earliest childhood get away from her unappreciated. Every time Thomas ran to her, arms outstretched, yelling “Mommy!” at the end of his preschool day, something in her heart would click back into place, and she’d realize for the millionth time, with an awe that never quite dimmed, the fierce depth of her love and the maternal fear that came imprinted, like it or not, on the other side of her most precious coins.
Downstairs, she occupied Maddie with some dry cereal in her high chair, turned the wall-mounted TV in the family room to the local news—traffic and weather, over and over, until the top of the hour—and set to work on a ham-and-cheese omelet big enough to share, trying to ignore the anxiety building in the pit of her stomach as the morning anchors droned on.
Benny’s footsteps thudded down the stairs, and as he leaned over her shoulder to inspect the contents of the pan, the masculine smell of his aftershave and the dampness of his hair cooling her cheek momentarily eased the lump in her throat.
“There’s something very twenty-first-century America about waiting for the local news to give you updates on your neighbor, isn’t there?” she asked, forcing a lightness into her voice as he plunked the baby monitor they still used for Thomas onto the counter.
“And to think we thought we left all the excitement behind in Cincinnati.” It was the second time back in Cincinnati had come up that morning, and it was two times too many.
Benny popped slices of bread into the toaster, humming “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and did a cereal juggling act for Maddie, catching her airborne O’s in his mouth as she giggled.
“Your phone rang upstairs,” he said, clearing his throat. “It was an unfamiliar number, so I answered—on the off chance that it was Kristin.”
Clara whipped around, spatula in hand, only to catch Benny’s shoulder, leaving a smear of melted cheddar on his dress shirt. “Shit! Sorry.”
“Usually I wait until my first clients come in to start being cheesy.” She rolled her eyes, though she suspected Benny knew his lame jokes had brought her back from the brink of fury or exhaustion or tears or loneliness more times than she could count. He crossed to the sink to wet a dish towel and started dabbing at the mess.
“So who called?”
“The police.” He seemed to be trying very hard to keep his voice casual, even as her heart kicked into high alert. “Someone on behalf of Detective Bryant. He wants you to stop by the station later this morning. I guess they have some follow-up questions.”
She flicked off the burner and busied herself dividing the om elet into two larger pieces and two smaller ones as the blood pounded in her ears. At one point during her career-driven days, she’d considered going to the doctor for what she thought were anxiety attacks. They’d subsided, though, and she’d never known if they were truly beyond what most people experienced as ordinary trepidation. The once familiar sensation rising within her felt foreign now, and she concentrated on breathing normally.
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” Benny said, in a tone that almost succeeded in being convincing.
She was about to answer when Benny jumped for the remote on the counter. “Go time,” he said, gesturing toward the TV. He turned up the volume as Clara set their plates on the counter and slid unsteadily onto a stool.
WOMAN AND CHILDREN STILL MISSING FROM YELLOW SPRINGS flashed on the screen in block letters as the anchors recapped the details, again sharing the family photo and description of the van. “Our own Stacy Sanders is live outside the house where Kristin and her children live. Stacy, what can you tell us?”