“I’ve always worried. And I try not to smother her because of Celia. But it’s tough. My mother stays at our house most days. Between the two of us we’re managing with Ursula.”
He put the bottle upside down in the drying rack and came over to the table where Jenna still sat. He held his hand out, as if he wanted to shake. Jenna reached up and they clasped. It seemed like an odd gesture, awkward and formal for two people who’d known each other so long. She remembered the way he’d placed his hand on hers in the restaurant, squeezing before he left.
His hand lingered longer this time, and the racing of her heart began again. He used his thumb to rub the soft skin on the back of her hand, and they were just slipping out of each other’s grip when someone called from the front of the house.
“Mom?”
It took Jenna a slow moment to respond. Then she said, “Out here.”
She kept her eyes on Ian as Jared came to the doorway. “Oh,” he said. “Hi, Ian.”
“Jared.” He moved across the room and they shook hands as well, formal and still natural. “I was just leaving. I came by to bother your mom, but I have to go.”
“Okay,” Jared said, unable to hide his confusion. He’d heard his mother complain about Ian’s aloofness many times over the years. Jared had no doubt witnessed it firsthand at the few gatherings Ian bothered to attend. To see this man in his kitchen, standing over a Stanley’s pizza, must have thrown him off balance. “I just got home.”
“Will you walk Ian out, honey?” Jenna asked.
“Sure.”
She watched them disappear toward the front of the house. And when they were out of sight she had no choice but to throw back the rest of the wine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Jared closed the door. On Ursula’s dad.
Ursula’s dad just walked out the door of their house. Right after Jared had seen Ursula in the park.
And had he really seen what he thought he saw in the kitchen? When he came through the entryway after calling out for his mom, it looked as though the two of them had been holding hands or something. Holding hands? His mom and Ursula’s dad?
Jared walked slowly to the kitchen, trying to process all of it.
And he tried to process what he’d learned at Tabitha’s house. If Tabitha wasn’t in the house, and it didn’t look as though anybody else was, where had they gone? Were they gone for good?
He smelled the pizza as he approached the kitchen. When he walked out there again, his mom was staring into space, the glass of wine in her hand empty. She must have drained it while he walked Ian to the door.
“Mom?”
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “There’s plenty.”
“I’m sorry about running out before. I just had to know what was going on.”
“Running out? Oh, yeah. You really shouldn’t do that, but I understand.”
She still looked as if her mind was somewhere else, which only added to his belief that something more was going on with Ian than met the eye. But he wasn’t sure he could ask her about it.
Jared went to the refrigerator and grabbed a can of Coke. Then he sat at the table, pulling on the metal tab, hearing the liquid pfft as it opened. He grabbed for the pizza and took a bite, his hunger surprising him. He’d spent the whole week worrying about Tabitha, and when he worried that way, which was rare, he didn’t like to eat. Maybe it was the Stanley’s, but Jared’s appetite roared back as he sat at the table across from his mom.
While he chewed, she rose and poured herself more wine.
“Do you want to hear what I found out? About Tabitha?”
“Sure,” she said. “Did you talk to her?”
“The house was dark, and no one answered. The neighbor told me he hadn’t seen them, but that maybe her dad got in an argument with some guy in a suit earlier. Bizarre, isn’t it?”
His mom stood with the bottle of wine still in her hand. “What’s her dad like? You’ve met him, haven’t you?”
“Briefly. I guess.”
She put the cork back in the wine. “You guess?”
“I mean I’ve seen him. I don’t really know him.”
“And nothing about her mom?”
“She doesn’t talk about her. Never. And I don’t push. I figure someday I’ll get the story.”
His mom closed the refrigerator again and came back to the table with her wine. She seemed more focused on him, whatever fog she’d been swimming in when he first came home having lifted.
“This is all strange. I think maybe you need to stay away from that house for now,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going on. And if she asked for space, you need to give it to her. You don’t want to come across like a weird, desperate guy.”
Her words stung. A weird, desperate guy.
“Jesus, Mom. Thanks.”