Kiss Her Goodbye (42 page)

Of course it wasn't there.

Mom probably never knew, still doesn't know, that she lost one of her children.

She couldn't have known, because if she had, she'd have come back to comfort Cam and Pop. Or so Cam managed to convince herself for awhile, anyway, back when she still clung to faith in her mother.

That faith has long since vanished, though.

Mom is as gone as Ava is; Cam and Pop both learned to accept that years ago. They stoically moved forward together, refusing to become victims of their tragic past.

Cam no longer expects her mother to pop up in her life again, to send, say, a thinking-of-you card filled with newsy handwriting, the way Mike's mother does when they're away for the winter.

No, but she'll always be wistful—and maybe a little envious—when her mother-in-law pops up in the mailbox. Her cheerful correspondence will always trigger the familiar aftertaste of loss and futile yearning.

Marjorie Hastings didn't send a card today, and this envelope is addressed just to her son. It's legal-sized, and the only thing in it—Cam can see when she holds it up to the lamplight—is a small rectangle about the size of a check folded in half.

That's what it is, she's certain. A check.

Mike's mom, God bless her, has been sending them a little bit here and there to help out. Probably siphoning it out of her grocery money.

Mike's father doesn't believe in handouts to get grown children on their feet financially, though he can well afford it. Mike's mom never worked; Mike's father doesn't believe in that, either. The woman, according to Mike Hastings, Sr., should stay at home with the children while the man supports her.

Well, what if the woman loves her job?
Cam brazenly asked her father-in-law once, before she knew better than to get him started.
Then what? Does she have to give it up when the children come along?

The reply:
of course
.

And when she asked why, the answer was equally maddening:
Because that's the way it's supposed to be
.

She can't stand his attitude—in theory, anyway—but deep down, she can't help but think maybe he's right. Maybe that is the way it's supposed to be. It's definitely the way Cam wishes it had been for her, growing up . . . and the way it's going to be for her own child, if she and Mike can make it happen.

Don't worry, Dad,
she silently tells her father-in-law now, flipping the legal envelope forward to rest against her bulging belly as she checks the rest of the mail.
I don't love my job. Lately, I don't even like it all that much
.

With luck, Mike's promising new position in computer technology will pan out while she's on maternity leave. Then she won't have to go back to her job as associate editor at a women's magazine. She can give their child the traditional family life she never had herself, with a father who works a steady nine-to-five job, a mother who's there to dry tears and make meals and keep house . . . hell, a mother who's just
there
, period, would be a vast improvement over her own childhood.

Maybe, as a stay-at-home mom, she'll even finally be able to get back to her writing.

That's what she always wanted to be in the first place: a writer.

But you can't support yourself in the big city chasing artistic dreams. It's hard enough, she learned early on, to make it on an editorial salary. Back in her entry level days, most of Cam's co-workers had their rich fathers' money to fall back on.

Not her. Pop is an aging rocker, living off little more than social security and his fading glory days as a bar-band drummer in the Jersey Shore towns.

That's fine with Cam, though. She wouldn't trade him for a blue-blood businessman with the biggest trust fund in the world.

Nor would she trade Mike for a well-heeled Wall Street wiz with an uptown co-op: her colleagues' perception of essential ingredients in happily-ever-after.

No, Cam will take Mike Hastings any day—
and
this one-bedroom apartment they've rented for a few years now. It's not upscale by any means, but it's cozy; and lived in; and most importantly, it's home.

She looks around, drinking in the reassuring sight of the television, the stereo, the cordless phone. There's the official wedding portrait of her and Mike, snapped over two years ago but finally framed and hung just last month.

Beneath the portrait is a full bookcase with rows of vertical well-worn bindings and haphazardly, horizontally stacked newer ones as well: What to Expect When You're Expecting. The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy. The Expectant Father.

The spine on the last one isn't even cracked. Mike might be thrilled about impending paternity, but unlike Cam, he isn't much of a reader.

In the far corner of the living room, closest to their bedroom doorway: the white-draped wicker bassinet awaiting the arrival next month of its newborn occupant.

Cam feels better just looking at that.

Yes, this eight-hundred-square-foot haven she shares with Mike—and, soon, with their firstborn child—is Cam's whole world.

Too bad that world also consists of so many past-due bills; there are quite a few in today's mail. Con Ed, Verizon, Baby Gap, student loans . . .

Relieved when she reaches the bottom of the stack at last, Cam separates the envelopes from the junk mail. She idly flips through the supermarket circulars, perusing this week's bargains.

She and Pop always got by on fast food, sandwiches, and free pub fare provided to the band and the drummer's daughter, affectionately referred to as a pint-sized roadie. It wasn't until college that Cam learned to like “real food,” and she craved it once she left the dorms behind.

So she determinedly taught herself how to cook, thanks to the red-and-white-checked Betty Crocker cookbook someone gave her at her bridal shower. These days, she finds puttering in the kitchen therapeutic. She even welcomes the challenge of planning ahead, creating menus based on sale items . . .

As she turns a page of this week's D'Agostino's flier, something flutters to her lap.

Scooping it up, she sees that it's one of those blue and white check-sized fliers that arrive with the weekly circulars.

A young boy with dark hair and eyes smiles up at her beneath the headline: H
AVE
Y
OU
S
EEN
M
E
?

The answer, to Cam's utter shock, is
yes
.

Yes, she's seen him. Absolutely.

According to the flier, his name is Paul Delgado, and he disappeared on a Boy Scout hike out in the Sierra Nevadas, just six weeks earlier.

Six weeks?

But. . .

This is the same boy who had cowered, bound and gagged, in an abductor's car trunk in one of Cam's visions
almost a year ago
.

He's real.

The comprehension is so stunning, so devastating, that Cam finds herself gasping for air. . . .