“And what if he’s not back today? When do we call the police?” said Liston.
And then, “He might get in trouble. It might affect Ada. What if they say he’s incompetent?
“It’s a sin,” said Liston. “An honest sin.”
After Liston hung up she began to move around the kitchen, opening cabinets. Ada held her breath. She didn’t think she could emerge, just yet—Liston would know she had heard everything. She decided to wait until Liston went upstairs again, or into a different room, at which point she could make a quick exit and pretend she had been someplace else.
Ada sat down on the closed lid of the toilet. Incompetent, Liston had said. It was the word she had used about David. It contrasted with every understanding of her father that Ada had. She put her face into her hands. And at that moment Liston opened the bathroom door, and shouted in surprise.
She clutched her heart and doubled over. “Ada!” she said. “What on earth.”
“I’m really sorry,” said Ada, not knowing what else to say.
“Are you all right?” Liston asked her, and she nodded.
Liston put her hand to her chin, as if in thought. She was wearing a blue terry robe that looked perhaps a decade old.
“Did you hear me talking on the phone?” she asked Ada, and Ada had the urge to lie, but could not do it. Liston would have known. She nodded once more.
Liston took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said. She opened and closed her mouth, as if deciding whether to say more, and then gestured with her head that Ada should follow her into the kitchen, which she did.
“How’d you sleep?” she asked, and Ada said that the bed was very comfortable, and that she had slept excellently, though it wasn’t true.
“Are you hungry?” Liston asked, and she nodded. On the kitchen counter was a line of boxed cereals, with a gallon of whole milk at the end. “Bowls there, spoons there,” Liston said, pointing.
What David called cereal was hot and eaten with brown sugar. Ada had never before had cold cereal, and she inspected her options carefully, searching for the one that David would be least likely to bring into the house. At last she chose one called Smacks because of the happy frog on the box, one arm extended skyward, proudly presenting its bounty.
While she ate she waited for Liston to speak. She had settled down at the kitchen table, where her papers were still spread out from the night before, and was working out some problem with her pen, as if solving it would help her answer the larger question facing them. Handwritten code blossomed across the page. At that moment a great longing came over Ada for David and for their home. Every so often Liston looked up at her and smiled, but she did not speak: as if waiting for Ada to confess something, some information she had previously kept to herself. But Ada had none.
“Are you going to church today?” Ada asked. She knew that Liston was an active member of the parish just over the bridge, and often on Sundays she had seen Liston marching there and back again with her boys, who were always dressed in ill-fitting khakis, button-down shirts, loose ties, scuffed and poorly knotted shoes. It occurred to her that day that Liston was not dressed for it; she did not wish to be the cause of any change in plans.
“We’ll skip it today,” said Liston, smiling. “The boys will be thrilled.”
She put her pen down then and looked out the window. She spoke without shifting her gaze.
“What have you noticed, Ada?” she said.
“What do you mean?” Ada asked. She hated this: the feeling of being asked to betray David.
“About your dad,” said Liston. “Has he been acting differently? Has he said anything strange?”
“I think he’s just under a lot of stress,” Ada said, and Liston nodded noncommittally.
Both of them were silent, and then both spoke at the same time. Ada said, “I think he’ll be all right.” And Liston said, “Honey. I think we should call the police.”
Ada thought of David’s mistrust of law enforcement; his vehement disapproval of the meddlesome State; his passionate dedication to privacy. And then she decided that whatever fear he had of the police, hers was greater of losing him.
“All right,” she said, and immediately felt unfathomably disloyal, treacherous. She lowered her head.
Ada disliked the two police officers who arrived later that afternoon. She couldn’t help it; her well had been poisoned by David’s mistrust of authority. One was tall and thin; the other short and thin. Both had mustaches.
“And the last time you saw him was?” asked the tall one, Officer Gagnon.
“And has he been acting unusual?” he asked.
“And do you have any idea where he might be?” he asked.
He seemed bored. Both accepted Liston’s offer of coffee, and then sipped it loudly.
“You’re the daughter?” asked the shorter one, finally, and Ada said yes. “And how do you two know each other?” he asked, gesturing back and forth between Liston and her with his pen.
Liston explained, and the two of them looked at each other.
“We’ll have to get social services in here,” said Officer Gagnon. “Since there’s no relation.”
“Really? Are you sure?” said Liston. “I’ve known her since she was born.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” said Gagnon. “Just procedure. They’ll be over soon.”
It was then, for the first time, that Ada let her imagination run its terrifying course. She was an impressionable child, and she thought of what ruins might await her: she had read too much Dickens. Did workhouses still exist?
Before they left, Matty came into the kitchen—the suddenness and quietness of his appearance gave Ada the impression that he had been eavesdropping on them from someplace nearby—and looked shyly at the officers.
“Hey, big guy,” said Gagnon, on his way out.
“Hey,” said Matty, softly, but the door was already closed.
There was little to say for quite some time. Ada sat still at the kitchen table, pretending to read a newspaper, until at last Liston said that it must be close to dinnertime, and stood up, and went to the cupboards. She opened them one at a time, looked inside them beseechingly. At last she pulled down a blue box of spaghetti and some canned tomato sauce and opened both, started a pot of water.
“Are you all right?” Liston asked Ada at one point, and Ada nodded. But the truth was, of course, that she was not—would not be until David had returned. If he returns at all, she thought, and put her chin in her hands to keep it from trembling.
She stood up from the table abruptly. She had never cried in front of Liston before, and she didn’t wish to now.