“Why not? Explain. Haven’t I earned that?”
“Earned that? This isn’t about recognition or achievement. It’s not like you’re back at college and you’ve passed some test.”
Does anyone ever fight reasonably? Perhaps. But I’ve never met that person. It would have been reasonable for me to respond by reminding him that we were lovers or we were dating or, maybe, that I had a particularly vested interest in the status of the investigation. A reasonable person wouldn’t have risked her life by antagonizing him. But the combination of my love for my mother and the fact he had lied to me trumped all of that. I was almost delirious. “You fucked me last night without my permission,” I hissed.
“We’re back there now, are we? Are you going to play the consent card? Claim I raped you? Or is this really about why I didn’t tell you that I saw your mother two days before she died? Pick one and let’s begin there,” he said, exasperated.
“All right, why did you lie to me?”
“Because it’s an ongoing investigation and you’re not a cop. I told the people who are involved. But you and me? We’re not partners in this, Lianna. It was—and I am being brutally honest here—none of your business.”
“Why? Because you were fucking her, too? Did you have some kinky sleep sex club? Was ‘bakery’ a creepy euphemism for fucking?”
“Why are you using that word?”
“Because it’s violent and nasty. Because I’m really pissed off. And because you lied to me.”
He went to me, his arms extended, and I batted them down. He tried again and I pushed him away. “Stay away from me,” I ordered. “Don’t touch me.”
He stretched out his arms, palms open. “I’m unarmed,” he said, trying to dial down my rage.
“Tell me why you lied.”
“I just did. Because it’s not your concern.”
“That’s not what I mean. Why did you see her the Wednesday before she disappeared?”
“Because she called me and wanted to talk.”
“Why?”
“Fine. You win. Your father was about to go on a business trip, and your mother was frightened. She was afraid that what did happen might happen.”
“So you met her at the bakery.”
“Yup.”
“How many times have you really seen her the last few years?”
He turned around and went to his bedroom. I was unsure whether to follow him, but he was gone only a moment. When he returned, he tossed the pocket calendar onto the kitchen counter beside me. “Just that one time. But if you don’t believe me, thumb through it. Have a ball.”
“Are you bluffing?”
“Only way you’ll ever know is if you read it. Go ahead.”
And so I did, while he resumed making the coffee. My mother’s name appeared but once. When I put the datebook down, he said to me, “Shall we now turn our attention to what happened last night?”
“What did my mom say when you met that Wednesday?”
He took a deep breath and he told me. He shared with me her anxieties that without my father beside her, she would rise and she would roam. She might feel for a body with her fingers or legs, find none, and leave the bedroom. She would leave the house. She insisted that she hadn’t had any incidents in years, but then Warren had always been in bed beside her.
“When she was done, I advised her to tell your father to stay home,” he said. “I told her he should cancel the trip. I reminded her that we’re never cured. Exhibit A? What I did to you last night. I said she should say to him, pure and simple, ‘Don’t go.’ But either she convinced herself that she was worried for naught or she decided she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to give up that conference.”
“Which?”
“No idea. But if you made me guess, I would pick the latter. In any case, I don’t believe she ever asked him to stay home. I don’t know that for sure, but your father is on the record that she never asked.”
I watched the coffee drip and listened to the machine’s gurgle. “I think I should go,” I said.
“You don’t want to talk about last night?”
“No. Not now.”
“Can I call you?”
I shook my head. I pulled on my boots. I went home.