He looked grim. “I’m the husband who brought down a stalker on you when I wasn’t even around to defend you,” he said. “I was the one who hired Virginia to come help you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You didn’t break Tracy out of the hospital. And you couldn’t anticipate Virginia would vanish. She was so solid the first time she was here! If you’d asked me, I’d have said she’d be the last person to skip out on a job.”
“Skip out? I just hope she’s alive.”
I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. My brain had heard “missing” and simply categorized Virginia as “lost.” Like Robin’s still-missing keys, or Sophie’s stuffed lamb. It had never fully registered with me that Virginia might well be dead. I’m an idiot, I thought. But after a second of considering the awful possibility, I said, “I can’t see why someone would kill Tracy and leave her body, yet haul Virginia’s away. If you’ve got one dead woman, what’s another one?”
“Valid point. You think she’s still alive?”
I nodded. “That’s what I want to believe. And we don’t have any evidence to the contrary.”
Robin’s face didn’t lighten. “I wish we knew something, anything, for sure. Tell me how John is doing.” We hadn’t talked much after my second stint at the hospital. I had run out of conversation.
I shook my head. “The same. Mother won’t talk about it or leave the hospital. Every night I keep the phone by the bed in case she calls me with bad news.”
I was losing the happy buzz of the bear claw and the croissant. Since I’d been thinking about his keys, maybe there was an update. “You find your key ring yet?”
“Nope. I searched my car this morning. By the way, Sam just called on the landline,” Robin said. He put the newspaper down on the counter and looked at me directly.
Apparently, we were about to get even more serious. “This early? What did he have to say?”
“He wants you to call him back.”
Sam Clerrick, the library director, had been my boss for years. Sam was not tremendously likable, or witty, or exciting. He didn’t much enjoy talking to actual people. But he was an efficient director and a fair boss. I had exceeded the maternity leave the county policy allowed, by many weeks. I was guiltily aware I had an obligation to give Sam a return date, since he was not obliged to hold my job for me any longer and I was fortunate he hadn’t fired me. I didn’t want to decide right now … but I’d procrastinated long enough. I covered my face with my hands and groaned.
My husband regarded me without much sympathy. “Roe, you’ve had your mind made up for weeks, and you know it. Don’t make another crisis out of this.”
“I was there for so long.” Even to my own ears, I sounded whiny. “I’ll miss everyone.” The staff, the patrons.…
“But you also want to be home with Sophie, and we can afford that. The income from your investments is more than your salary’s ever been. I’m doing well. You can’t stay at home with Sophie and go in to work at the library.”
I stared down at my empty cup. There was no advice written in the bottom. “You’re right,” I said. “I can’t sit on the fence any longer.” Before I could think of a reason to put it off yet again, I called Sam. My friend Lizanne answered the phone. “You’ve reached the library,” she said in her sweet voice. “Office of Sam Clerrick.”
“Lizanne,” I said. “How are you?”
“Hi, Roe. I’m fine, the kids are fine, and the divorce is final,” Lizanne said. “We need to have lunch if you can detach your little barnacle for an hour.” (Sophie was the little barnacle. In fact, she was attached to me at the moment. I was multitasking.)
“So you and Bubba are both free as birds, huh?”
“Bubba has already been on the wing,” she said dryly. “I saw him out with Teresa Stanton.”
“Shut your mouth!” I said. Teresa, a terrifying and impeccably groomed woman, was the ex-wife of another lawyer, Bryan Pascoe. “Keeping it in the legal family, huh?”
Lizanne laughed, but then she grew serious. “How’s your stepdad? I’ve been so sad about him. He’s such a sweetie.”
“I haven’t talked to Mother this morning,” I said. “She’s at the hospital all the time, and Avery, John David, and Melinda are taking turns. I go when I can get a couple of hours free.”
“John David calls me when he can. I feel so bad for him. First he loses his wife, now maybe his dad. Being a single father isn’t any easier than being a single mom.” Lizanne knew all about that. Bubba had not exactly been a hands-on father even when they’d been together.
Lizanne had just told me in a delicate way that she was dating John David Queensland. This was new information. Two separate circles were intersecting, like a diagram. I drew breath to ask her how long this had been going on, but Lizanne said, “I see Sam’s free now, Roe. I’ll put you through.”
My conversation with Sam was terse and unsentimental. If anything, Sam was put out at the prospect of having to interview and hire another librarian.
And that was that. I was unemployed. After I hung up, I waited for the regret to flood me.
To my surprise, I felt fine. It wasn’t likely we would have another baby; I wanted to watch Sophie grow and change, day by day. I didn’t want to drop her off at a babysitter’s house or a child-care center every day. I didn’t want to be exhausted when I picked her up. I didn’t want to resent Robin because he worked from home and could see more of Sophie than I did.
I blessed Jane Engle (my fairy godmother) yet again, for giving me the financial freedom to make this choice.
I felt at loose ends, though I was following the same general routine I had since I’d had the baby. Somehow, it felt different now that it was the way things were going to be. Robin kissed me and went to work in his office, carrying a good sweater from his closet to replace the saggy baggy one he wore while he wrote. After I finished with Sophie, I put the doughnuts away. (They wouldn’t survive the day; Phillip would descend on them when he got home.) I took the monitor with me into the bathroom while I showered and Sophie was playing in her crib … if you can call watching rotating rabbits “playing.”
Just as I finished drying my hair, Avery called. “Dad’s a little better,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “I persuaded your mom to go home to get in bed for a while. If she can sleep and shower and eat, she’ll feel better. John David had to go to work, and I have to check in at my office. Melinda’s got the kids. I wondered…”
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said.
“Thanks, Roe.”
I finished dressing and went to talk to Robin, Sophie in my arms.