The Night Sister

“Are you sure? I remember you two being an item. You even took her out to Belmont Bridge once, I swear.”


Jason felt his face heating up. He remembered parking the car (his mom’s old Impala) at Belmont Bridge, where all the kids went to park, get a little stoned, have a few beers, and fool around. He remembered the radio playing low—probably a mixtape Amy had brought: Smashing Pumpkins, Throwing Muses, Nirvana, all those bands Jason pretended to like but didn’t. He didn’t care, though, because Amy’s hand was on his thigh, her fingers moving up, spider-crawling the way they did, moving back and forth, teasing, pretending they might not go where he most wanted them to go.

Jason swallowed hard as he looked at the black body bag being loaded into the van. “We might have gone on a date or two. To the movies or something. But it wasn’t anything big. I barely remember.”

McLellan lit up a cigarette, his face bathed in the flashing blue lights from the police cruisers in the driveway. He said no more, deciding to let it go. As far as Jason knew, he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else working the case. And Jason decided it was best to keep to himself his little trip out to the motel to see Amy the week before, too. If he told them, there would be questions, and even if it was clear he’d done nothing wrong, it still wouldn’t look good: Officer Jason Hawke, married man with a pregnant wife at home, sneaking off to see an ex-girlfriend. London was a small town, and people had long memories. Even though Amy had settled down, plenty of folks remembered her teenage Bad Girl years. Word would get around. Margot would find out. He didn’t want any of that to happen.

Now, as he drove toward the nursing home, he went over that last visit with Amy for the hundredth time, trying to recall each detail.

She’d walked him into the kitchen, poured some coffee.

“You look good,” she told him, and his face reddened. “Fit. Healthy. How’s Margot?”

“Great,” he said.

“And when’s the baby due?”

“About three weeks.”

Amy turned her coffee mug around, finger looped through the handle. Surely she didn’t call him all the way out here to ask about Margot and the baby? Maybe he should follow her lead, ask about Mark and the kids. But he couldn’t bring himself to.

“So you said you needed to talk?” he said.

“Yeah. Sorry. I don’t really know how to start. I just didn’t know who else to turn to. I feel like I need…I don’t know…a sane, rational person’s perspective. Someone who can be objective, no matter what.”

Jason laughed. “So you called me?”

Amy smiled. “You’ve always been the most rational human being I know. You take everything in. Weigh evidence carefully. You don’t let emotions get in the way of your thinking.”

He shook his head. She was so wrong. That he was sitting here in her kitchen was proof. He knew he should leave—make some excuse and go. But he couldn’t. The fact was, some small part of him had been waiting his whole life for this moment: for Amy to call him up, to say she needed him. Pathetic.

“You heard we had to put my mother in Foxcroft?” she asked.