“Thank you. I’ll be okay.” Marin blew out a breath. “It’s her loss.”
Charlotte could still see the hurt on Marin’s face a week later. Sure, she’d tried to shrug it off, but Charlotte could tell just how deeplyNancy’s rejection had cut her. It was a harsh reminder, as she headed to her weekly Sunday lunch with her dad, that people still could and did lose family members by coming out to them.
How would her dad react when and if Charlotte told him she was in love with a woman? She honestly didn’t know, and that was terrifying. For the first time since her mom’s disappearance, she and her dad were back on solid ground with each other. Was she willing to risk losing him if she told him the truth?
It was a question for another time, though, because today she had a different difficult topic to discuss with him. “I got in touch with Bev,” she told him as they waited for their entrées to arrive.
He smiled. “Oh yeah? How’s she doing?”
“Really good. She’s living up near Burlington these days.”
“Ah.” He gave Charlotte a curious look. “Did she have any insight for you? I know you were hoping she’d be able to shed some light on your mom’s disappearance.”
“Yes and no.” She fidgeted with her water glass. “She said she thought Mom seemed depressed before she disappeared, that she’d lost interest in some of the activities she used to enjoy. Did you notice that too?”
He was quiet for a long time, staring out the window beside them. “I’m not sure,” he answered finally. “Certainly, she was distant in those final months, but I assumed it was because of the affair. I thought she was just unhappy withme.”
“Did she mention wanting to go on vacation, maybe somewhere tropical?”
He shook his head, his expression wistful. “We never really talked about vacations. Maybe we should have. I’m sorry, Charlotte. Why do you ask?”
“Bev mentioned that Mom wanted to get away, somewhere tropical. Probably doesn’t mean anything.” Charlotte swallowed her disappointment. How could she accept that she might never know what had happened?
More than that, how could she accept that there was a possibility—perhaps even a strong one—that her mom had simply left her behind to start a new life somewhere? Charlotte didn’t know how to make peace with that.
And hadn’t she more or less done the same thing, leaving town after high school and cutting ties with everyone in Middleton? What if her constant need to wander and start over in new places was actually a trait she’d gotten from her mom? Tears burned her eyes.
“You know.” Her dad interrupted her introspective spiral, tapping a hand against the table. “Idoremember her mentioning a tropical vacation. It was something she threw in my face during an argument. She said something about how she’d always wanted to visit a tropical island, and I’d never taken her.” He looked chagrined.
That backed up what Bev had said, but did it mean anything?
“If you’re thinking she moved to a tropical island without telling us ... I don’t buy it.” He shook his head. “You were just a child. She wouldn’t have left you.”
“People do unpredictable things when they’re depressed.”
“Anything’s possible, I suppose, but the woman I knew and loved would never have abandoned her daughter.” He placed a hand on hers.
“Well, she’s not here, so whatever happened, shedidabandon me.” Charlotte swallowed, hard. “And Bev’s tropical-island theory aligns with you saying that one of her bags was missing.”
“Yes.” He looked thoughtful. “But it was a small bag, so if that’s what she did, she didn’t take much with her.”
“I found a PI who specializes in finding people who’ve run away. He says it’s a long shot that he’d be able to find her after all this time, but ... I think I’m going to let him try.”
He nodded. “I support that. I’ll even help pay if you need it. As you know, the PIs I hired never found anything, but I never asked them to treat her as someone who’d voluntarily run off.”
The waiter arrived with their lunch, and her dad shifted the conversation to the spring semester, talking about classes and students, atopic that was always one of his favorites and one Charlotte tended to dislike. Now that she was dating Marin, though, she found that her attitude toward the university had changed. She loved hearing about Marin’s students and classes. Maybe it was time to let go of childhood resentments.
So she asked a few tentative questions, trying to sound interested in the answers, and in the process, she discovered that shewasinterested. He told her about a young woman he’d been mentoring who was the first woman in her family to attend college.
“That’s wonderful, Dad.”
“I’m really proud of her.” He looked across the table at Charlotte. “I’m proud of you, too, you know? I respect how you’ve chased your dreams wherever they take you, and everything you’re doing in your search for your mom. I know she’d be proud of you too.”
Charlotte blinked rapidly against the tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“What else is new with you? Are you seeing anyone?”
She thought of Marin, and a smile immediately bloomed. “Yeah, I am, actually.”
