Henry smiles, teasing me. “Let’s get you home.”
I lean on Henry and he leads me out. I remember saying earlier that it would be good for us to walk. The spring air is cold on my arms and the night is black and quiet, the kind of quiet that seems to absorb sound. Our footsteps are silent. I occasionally laugh and it sounds muted, like coughing into a pillow.
I concentrate on walking straight as to not give away my level of drunkenness. I’m reminded of the countless nights stumbling home, my arm linked through Lydia’s as we leaned on each other. We’d whisper and giggle and bump hips as we walked, her hair in my face smelling of cherry candy and cigarettes.
I lean close to Henry and wrap my hands around his arm. His bicep bumps and flexes under his cotton shirt. I nuzzle his neck and he smells like the ocean, fresh and salty.
At home, I peel my dress off and lie on the bed, the fan moving the air across my skin. Henry runs the bath, the pipes creaking and groaning under the floor. The water rushes up the wall, all around me, until it sounds like it’s coming from inside my head. He calls my name from the bathroom.
“I’ll be right there,” I whisper, and then I giggle because I know I’m lying. I wave in his direction, the diamond on my left hand catching the dim light and throwing prisms on the wall. I fan my fingers in front of me and study the ring, a solitary glittering stone, the size of a marble.
If I squint my eyes, it looks like there are two of them.
CHAPTER 14
Washington Square Park, desolate and gray in the winter months, is lush with life come April. Aging beatniks loaf on the grass, retirees challenge children to a competitive game of chess, mothers sit on park benches with their e-readers, rocking baby carriages with one foot. NYU students take to the park in droves, studying the human condition for psychology, sociology, and film classes. The park bursts with budding cherry trees and barely contained hope.
It is Monday. Vacation Henry is back to Work Henry, buttoned up and pressed, heavy on the starch. I’m back to reality. My credit card is still not functional and Henry has promised to call the bank. He’s left me a hundred dollars in cash on the counter for daily expenses, which feels both extravagant and oppressive. I could surely ask him for more, I reason. But for what?
I’ve called Yates twice, who tells me nothing. She sighs into the phone, a tap tap tap of her acrylic nails on a keyboard coming through the line. She talks a good game. Tells me all the things they’ve done, but that everything is inconclusive. Penny has an alibi, and besides, what on earth could her motive be? The hazard pay? Henry wasn’t a fan of that joke. Henry has changed the apartment locks; we are safely sequestered in our tower again. I should feel more relieved than I do.
Away from Fishing Lake, with nothing else to think about the burglary being “inconclusive and all,” the idea of finding Caroline has trumped all else. Cash sits on a bench, in the middle to discourage company, and is heavily involved in a paperback. His forehead is ridged in concentration, his heavy bottom lip protruding out, curling back against his chin as he works at a hangnail on his thumb with his teeth. I peek at the cover before he sees me. As I Lay Dying. When he sees me, he stashes the book under his left thigh and scoots over, patting the boards next to him. I sit, my purse primly on my lap, a good foot between us.
“Faulkner?” I can’t help but tease. He shrugs.
“You’re so surprised? Because why? My muscular physique?” His eyebrows waggle Groucho style and I laugh. He’s flirting with me. I sit up straight and he clears his throat, holding out a manila file folder in my direction. “So. Because you dragged me all the way to the Village, for some unknown godforsaken reason, I brought you this.” He hands me the folder and I open it.
“You live in the village,” I remind him with a smirk.
A picture of Caroline Reeves glosses under my fingertips. She is making another playful face into the camera, her lip curled in mock anger, her eyes twinkling, her mouth curved up in a half-smile, a pronounced double V on the bridge of her wrinkled nose. Someone else’s hand rests on her shoulder. In the background glitters a Ferris wheel.
Underneath the picture are two typed pages of information. She has a family. She lives in Danbury, Connecticut. I do the math: She had me when she was seventeen. A fresh stab of rejection lands right under my sternum. I’d expected, somehow, my birth mother to still be wallowing in her thirty-year-old decision, pale and gaunt with greasy hair and a listless expression. But she’s not; she’s moved on and, judging by her fun-loving online presence, quite happily.
Cash rubs his knees with his palms and looks around. His posture inches forward like he’s going to get up.
“Wait,” I say. I open my mouth to ask how he got all this information, but instead I hear myself say, “Will you come with me?”