“Yeah, well, don’t tell the kids what’s going on yet. I hope it’s nothing. Maybe there’s still a chance there’s an explanation.”
“Of course. Of course there is,” I say. Jesus, God, what am I saying? I’m a monster. I place my hand on his shoulder and to my surprise, he grips it tight and hangs his head. I think it’s the first time I have even come close to touching him in a couple of years. My instinct is to pull away, but I see he’s crying.
“Tell me if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m so sorry, Ray. I’m sure it will turn out to be nothing. I’m sure...” Before I finish my barbaric, heartless sentence, he lets go and flicks away a tear.
“Yeah, thanks,” he says, putting his macho mask back on and walking to his car. I close the front door and try to breathe. I rest my forehead on the door a moment, my mind reeling. Then I slide down the wall and sit on the floor... and weep.
Chapter Four
Regan
By Saturday evening, the whole town has heard about Tia. I drive over wet roads on my way to the community center. Hallie has been rehearsingBeauty and the Beastfor weeks, and although she is playing Mrs. Potts and not Belle, she’s no less enthusiastic about her theatrical debut. She sings the familiar lyrics, warming up her voice in the back seat. I think about the Belle snow globe Jack bought her for Christmas a few years ago and how he’d have given anything to be here for her special night. Then I shake the thoughts away quickly because when the darkness starts to push in, I lose myself in despair, and I can’t let that happen tonight.
I sit at a red light and when it turns green, there is still a man in the crosswalk, walking as slowly as humanly possible. He has his hands in his pockets and then he looks over and I feel like he’s looking right at me—like he might pull out a gunand shoot. I panic and lay on my horn. The man startles and leaps back with a gasp.
Then he bangs on the hood of my car with his fist as he passes.
“What’s your problem, psycho?” he yells, and I remember Jack always telling me never to honk at anyone. You can’t get away with it anymore, he used to say. Everybody in the country has a gun and they’ll shoot you for a lesser offense than honking these days. I instantly regret it. I didn’t think. Hallie is in the back and she looks scared, and that was stupid of me. He yells something else and then hurries across the street, away from me. As it turns out, I’m the scary one—the threat. Because I see it’s someone I know. It’s Dave Wilfers, and I know his wife. She said he’s still recovering from back surgery, which is probably why he’s walking so slowly, and now I watch him disappear through the door of a used bookstore with a copy of a Dickens novel under his arm for God’s sake. Jesus. I almost put him back into a spinal fusion procedure and he was just trying to go to the Victorian Era Literature lecture at the Reading Nook... not, in fact, trying to shoot me in my car. Shit.
“Sorry, sweetie,” I say. Hallie just blinks at me from the back seat. “Let’s hear your opening lines again,” I say and watch her mood reluctantly shift as she refocuses on rehearsing her role.
I’ve been careful and meticulous with how I manage whatever is happening to me. Grief. The doctor prescribed a slew of meds after Jack’s funeral. I didn’t want to take any of it. I thought I could cope. I’d been working as an English Lit professor at a small college west of town for a long time, but since his death, I couldn’t focus, I canceled classes all the time, I snapped at annoying students; it was clear I wasn’tcapable of keeping a job. And then I had a moment that went very public when a student recorded it on his phone. A sophomore was giving a presentation on French playwright Alexandre Dumas and pronounced his last name “Dumbass” the whole time. I don’t know what came over me. I threw my coffee mug at the presentation screen, where it made a gash and sprayed brown liquid all over the front row of students. I screamed, “Who’s the fucking dumbass?” and I tore up the notes in his hand and threw the pieces at the class. Something came over me and I just saw red. Maybe before Jack’s death, I would have simply laughed at something like that, but I am different now.
I’m not proud of it, of course, but after someone put it up as an Instagram reel within five minutes, my career was over, and now I live off Jack’s life insurance and try very hard not to have violent episodes like that. It takes a careful balance of medication, but I do it for Hallie. I work full-time on not losing my mind solely for her. I don’t always succeed.
I read all the time about how to get off benzos. Sometimes I think I can do it, but most days, stopping them seems more horrifying than I ever imagined. A doctor was interviewed in some online thing I was reading, and he talked about how he used to visit patients in the hospital who had been on benzos long-term and were being medically supervised as they were weaned off them. He said the thing he remembers most from that time is the wailing down the corridors—patients would stay in the fetal position howling and sobbing all day. “It’s the grief,” he said.
Every day it’s the grief. Right now, driving Jack’s Suburban out of necessity, since the tragedy with Ally and my car, only makes it worse. I sigh, try to shake it off for a moment. AllI get are moments free of it. The grief. I adjust the rearview mirror and smile at Hallie encouragingly as she sings and gesticulates each lyric. Driving Jack’s car feels somehow strange and wrong even after all this time, and I found the most peculiar thing—a small key taped inside the back of his glove compartment. I was looking for the registration so I could get it updated in order to drive, and there it was. Now it’s on my key chain and I have racked my brain trying to think what it opens, what it means. I honestly feel like I could go crazy with all the unanswered questions.
In general, I don’t let myself think too long about the what-ifs in life: What if he didn’t make that business trip that ended up being his last? What if on the night of the explosion, I had volunteered to go to the store instead of Ally? What if Hallie wanted to come with me? The kids were complaining about wanting sparklers and she might have asked to tag along. Stop. I have to stop. There is no earthly reason for someone to want me dead. I don’t have any enemies I can conceive of. There have to be a billion white BMWs in a ten-mile radius of the party. It must have been meant for someone else. That’s all that makes sense. The police have no other explanation, so this is all I can repeat to myself when I need to find a calm headspace.
I drop Hallie at the door so she can get into costume, and after I finally find a parking space in the crowded theater lot, I join the other parents in the lobby. Everyone is standing around in small circles, chatting to one another and drinking wine out of plastic cups from the refreshment stand. I see Sasha and Chloe come through the front door and shake the rain out of their coats. I wave them over and pick up twopaper cups of red wine from the concession table, then hand one to her.
“Thank you.” She smiles. “You wanna go in and pick out our seats?” she asks Chloe, who clasps her hands together excitedly and nods before disappearing into the theater.
“She’s over the moon to see this,” Sasha says.
“Oh, good. Hallie is excited you guys could come.” Chloe is a few years younger than Hal and adores her, so I know she really is thrilled, and Hallie likes to show off for her and soak in the admiration.
“I guess Roxie and Dez aren’t coming. God, did they tell the kids yet, about Tia? Or I guess maybe they’re waiting to see if she turns up before worrying them?” Sasha asks.
“God, no. The kids don’t know. Shit, it’s all so weird. Like, where could she vanish to? They say her phone is off—not traceable or pinging off any towers. I think that’s the most alarming thing I’ve heard so far. Doesn’t sound good.”
“All of it’s so odd. Scary,” Sasha says, and then the lobby lights blink, indicating that folks should take their seats. Once inside, we sit in the dark as the stage comes to life, with the narrator standing under a spotlight. He starts the show with “Once upon a time.” What’s that kid’s name? Jamie, I think. Hallie can’t stand him—says he cheats off her math tests from the desk behind her and steals her Fruit Roll-Ups from her bag. I should talk to his mother about that.
The music booms suddenly and my hand instinctively flies to my mouth. Sasha squeezes my knee and smiles to console me. Everything makes me startle now. It’s embarrassing. I imagine every building blowing up into thin air, the bomber lurking somewhere in plain sight everywhere I go. I take adeep breath and try to focus on the show. I told Andi I’d record some of it for Dez to watch since he wanted to come, so I push Record on my phone camera and capture Hallie’s opening song. She stumbles on a couple lyrics early on and looks offstage at the pianist, who nods at her to keep going, but other than that she delivers all those lines she practiced in the living room for weeks perfectly, and I feel pride swell in my chest followed by a tight fist of pain—a longing for Jack.
At intermission, I look over the video I took; it’s dark and muffled as one would expect, but Dez will still like to see it. He’s in Drama with Hallie and they love making up little plays together, so it’s a shame he couldn’t come.
“I told Andi I’d document the occasion. Should we take a photo for Andi and Dez?” I ask Chloe. She nods vigorously and the three of us squeeze into a selfie, Sasha and I holding up our plastic wine cups and smiling at the camera, and Chloe giving a peace sign. I send it off to Andi, telling her we wished she could make it. I can imagine she’s trying to help Ray keep it together for the kids, or maybe the police are questioning them about Tia. It’s always the spouse, isn’t it? God, that’s awful of me. We don’t even know if this is anything to really worry about yet.
Sasha gets up and takes Chloe out to use the restroom, and I’m about to stand to see what the refreshment stand has when I get a text back from Andi.
WTF, Regan?
I reply back with three question marks and an exclamation point because what the hell does she mean?
Jack behind you. WTF?Andi’s next text reads. I shake myhead and scoff instinctively at the nonsense I just read, but then I feel suddenly breathless. What does she mean? So I look at the photo I sent her and my heart stops cold. I gasp and hold my throat and stare at my phone screen. A man with sandy hair, a black jacket and a dark wooly hat, looking very inconspicuous with his eyes cast to the ground, is sitting a few rows behind me. The photo is dark, but there is no doubt that it’s him. It’s Jack.
