Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
Jane turned, feeling Jake’s hand on her shoulder. He was still on the phone. Why wasn’t he sitting down?
Wonder if it’s about Curley Park?
Could she ask him?
“You’ve got to—what?” she replied. He hadn’t finished his sentence, but now Jake was listening to someone on the phone again, a concerned look on his face, eyeing the door, clearly looking for a way out of here. Well, who wasn’t?
And with what she’d been overhearing from Robyn, the evening was not even close to over. Maybe someday they’d laugh about this. At Gracie’s wedding, maybe, they could all swap teasing stories about the night she’d brought Jake to meet Melissa, and how Gracie and Lewis had kept a table full of grown-ups waiting.
The night Gracie wasn’t missing,
they could call it. The stuff of family lore.
“Sorry, Jane, I have to go.” Jake was talking to her again, his voice almost a whisper. He bent low, his face touching hers, his hair against her cheek, a moment that made her eyes involuntarily close with the intimacy.
She turned to face him, her back to Robyn, and for a moment covering Jake’s hand with hers.
“Everything all right?” she murmured. Though obviously it wasn’t.
“Yeah. I’ll call you,” he said, matching her tone. “As soon as I can. Sorry to leave you with this.” He kept his hand on her shoulder, squeezed, briefly. Gently. “Whatever it is. Is the Gracie situation okay?”
“Seems like it, from what I heard Robyn say,” Jane said. “See? She’s smiling. And she’s off the phone.”
“Love you,” he whispered.
“You, too,” she said. And everything would be fine. It would. Somehow.
The night Gracie wasn’t missing.
“Sorry, Robyn. Sorry, Melissa,” Jake was saying. Jane felt his hand leave her shoulder, felt him straighten up. He raised his cell phone in explanation. “Got a call from HQ. I’m going to have to miss dinner. I hope we can do it again before—”
At that moment, Melissa had nudged an elbow into Jane’s side. Jane turned to her sister, frowning.
What?
Melissa rolled her eyes for a fraction of a second, an expression Jane recognized from more than thirty years of interpreting Lissa’s silent communications.
“So please give my best to Gracie and Lewis when they—” Jake continued.
Melissa shot a brief but withering glance at Robyn and her phone.
Listen to this.
“They’re not coming,” Robyn said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Lewis is such an idiot.”
* * *
There’s a portrait of a happy marriage,
Jake thought. He paused, his mind already out the door, knowing DeLuca and the unconscious Bobby Land waited for him at MGH but unable to think of a way to leave after Robyn’s surprising statement. If she called her husband an idiot, that meant he and Gracie weren’t in danger. Jake had handled enough family squabbles, mediated enough he said/she saids to gauge when things were going bad. From what he saw right now, this one seemed low level. A flat tire, a missed communication, an unpredictable and self-centered mother who wanted attention. He did not envy this Lewis guy, who had to live with that and a preadolescent stepdaughter about to be relocated halfway across the country. Tough for any family to handle. But even the most complicated families often worked out their own issues. And he had to get to MGH and Bobby Land.
“Everything okay?” Jake directed his question at Robyn. “I need to—”
“Yes, I suppose.” Robyn smoothed one darkened eyebrow, then gave him a weak smile, fussing with her sweater. “I’m sorry, I’m just frazzled, I don’t mean Lewis is actually an
idiot
—” She shrugged. “The tire’s still not fixed. They said we should just go on with dinner. Make the best of it.”
“So…” Jake took a step closer to the door. Good news, have fun, adios?
“Duty calls, Jake, I understand. Now, wine for everyone.” Robyn waggled her fingers in the air, gesturing for the waiter. “Girls’ night out.”
Jake hesitated, eyeing Jane, but she waved him away, shaking her head, then mimed for him to call her. Okay, then. He was excused.
“Bye,” he said. “Again, sorry. Call me if you need anything.” And he was outta there. Poor Jane. He was semi leaving her in the lurch, with the mercurial Robyn and the officious Melissa. Not the most successful introduction to Jane’s sister. But duty
did
call. And he felt guilty for welcoming it.
Lewis is such an idiot?
Jane winced at the disrespectful and inappropriate statement. Robyn probably meant it to be funny, but it wasn’t, especially not after what she’d put them through with this on-again, off-again ordeal. It wasn’t a loving remark in any way. She wished Jake were still there, but he clearly needed to go. Was there some breaking news she was missing?
Now there were four empty places at the table, and three women who sat silent, watching the waiter pour a California red.
Robyn raised her glass, toasting. “To parenthood,” she said. “Never a dull moment. Now, where’s my menu? I’m starving.”
Ow.
Melissa had kicked her under the table. Jane could see she was trying to hide her disdain as she raised her glass as well. Jane nudged her in return, sisterly solidarity.
Jane swallowed her first sip of wine. Thinking. First, Melissa had called her, somewhat upset, saying Gracie was missing. Then she wasn’t. Then she was. Then she wasn’t, she was with Lewis and the flat tire. Now she still wasn’t, although the flat was complicated by some car problem and they wouldn’t arrive for dinner. Jane scratched her cheek with one finger. What would she do in the same situation?
“So, Robyn?” Jane didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, but they were almost family. “Would you like me to go pick up Gracie and Lewis? They could leave the car, and someone could take Lewis to get it in the morning.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Melissa said. “Why should they have to wait in some bleak garage? Poor Gracie must be—”
“Oh, thank you, Jane, but they’re fine. Lewis is always making ridiculous decisions. Probably why he’s out of a job now, right?” Robyn ignored Melissa, directed her words to Jane. “In fact, he says Gracie’s scarfed down a package of Twizzlers and an orange soda, and she’s zonked out, sleeping off her sugar high on the waiting room couch. She adores Twizzlers. She’ll do anything for them.”
She laughed. “Lewis says they’re fine. He’s probably worrying now, stalling, because he knows how unhappy I’ll be.” She took another sip, bigger, and Jane saw a frown cross her face. “And he’s right. My daughter was gone for, what, four hours? Five? I was completely—well, anyway. You can imagine. Should we order?”
Jane moved her fork back and forth across the tablecloth, twisting it between two fingers. This was the woman who’d been so upset a few hours ago. Now she sipped wine while her husband and daughter ate candy in a local garage at nine at night. Probably a good thing Melissa and Daniel would soon have Gracie for part of the year. Give the kid a little normal.
One way, then the other. Jane watched the fork make disappearing grooves on the little patch of tablecloth. Robyn was holding forth about some problem Lewis was having, chatty and blithe, as if the episode of the “missing” daughter and husband never occurred.
Something was not right about all this.
The waiter arrived, interrupting Robyn’s monologue, to take their orders. The woman was a talker. As any reporter knew, sometimes that was a good thing.
“Robyn?” Jane returned the puffy leatherette menu, then smiled, attentive and oh so friendly. “How did you and Lewis meet?”
Robyn leaned forward, eyes sparkling, taking center stage. “Well,” she began, “long story short. After the divorce…”
Long story short always meant the opposite, but Jane kept a smile on her face, as with much fluffing of hair and gesturing of hands Robyn spilled her entire history as a divorcee.
“Daniel and I just fell out of love, I guess,” she said. Then a year or so of regrouping, “a single mother doesn’t have the easiest time, but we made do.” And her foray into online dating—“Can you believe it?”—ending up with the “steady and reliable” Lewis Wilhoite. Who she’d known “for years” and reconnected with online.
“It was love at first—” Robyn paused. “How would you put it? Click!” She laughed again, a laugh Jane was relieved she didn’t have to hear every day. “We clicked, right? We clicked, get it?” she said again.
Robyn made a joke, and apparently had to repeat it.
“So funny.” Jane stabbed at her swordfish. It was no doubt delectable, but her mind was elsewhere and her appetite had vanished. She’d never met Lewis Wilhoite, but she pictured a henpecked schlub. Which probably was uncharitable. He’d been fired, apparently, for some reason, and was now unemployed. Jane could relate to that, at least. She almost laughed, which made her realize how long it had been since she laughed. Robyn was still talking.
“And we got married almost immediately, you know? He went to Wharton School of Business—you know Wharton, right, Jane? Soon he’ll find a new job, I’m sure of it. So no hard feelings, right, Melissa? And you and Danny are happy now, right?”
“Yes.” Melissa’s first comment in fifteen minutes.
This dinner was one for the advice columns.
Dear Miss Manners,
Jane mentally composed the letter.
My sister and her fiancé
invited me to dinner with his ex and her new husband and their daughter, and to meet my boyfriend, but then …
“And Daniel is wonderful, of course.” Robyn pointed to Melissa with her fork. “For you.”
“Of course.” Melissa’s voice was colder than Jane’s fish.
By the time dinner was over, with Robyn insisting on banana cream pie and espresso, there had still been no word from Lewis and Gracie.
“If she’s not worried, I
guess
I’m not worried,” Jane whispered to Melissa as they walked to the parking lot, Robyn trotting ahead.
“Nutcase,” Melissa said. “Can you believe she called her husband an idiot? I can’t believe Daniel was married to her.”
Jane held her tongue.
He obviously can pick ’em,
she had started to say, then thought better of it.
“Did Gracie ever mention—anything bad about him? To you?”
“Never,” Melissa said. “She told me she ‘adores’ him. She calls him Daddy, that’s a good sign. I met him once, he seemed, I don’t know, fine. I’m just—”
“You’ll get Gracie tomorrow,” Jane said. “You’ll shop, Daniel will arrive, you’ll go from there. All good.”
“I’ll call you.” Melissa gave her sister a peck on the cheek.
Robyn had opened the car door, and was waving at Melissa to hurry.
“Whack,” Melissa said, shaking her head. “Poor Gracie. A ditz of a mother and a dolt for a stepdad. Gracie may adore Lewis, but she’ll be much better off when she’s with us.”
* * *
“I’m calling your father. Right this minute.” Catherine Siskel sat on the floor of Lanna’s bedroom—it would always be Lanna’s bedroom—surrounded by a multicolored flood of her dead daughter’s clothing.
Tenley, her chest heaving and her eyes rimming red, stood over her, dangling the battered Teddy by one plush paw, the silly bear blue-eyed and oblivious, as if a full-blown mother-daughter combat was not under way.
I’m calling your father.
How often had she said that, to both girls, back when things were right? Greg had been the arbiter of all battles, the negotiator, the fixer, the Band-Aid, the confessor and absolver. It was one reason she—
she did
—loved him. When had he ceded the role of peacemaker? Given up on his family?
“Oh, right.” Tenley’s voice went up and down the scale, drawing out the word in a sneer. “Like he’s gonna care about me.”
“Of course he cares, you—” What word could she use to describe her own daughter? They were all hurting, still hurting, and they’d all gone to therapy, but Catherine was not sure if any of it was doing any good. Tenley seemed to become angrier and more rebellious, and Greg, well, Greg had become more and more distant. He avoided Tenley, even Catherine could see that, although whenever she could, just to keep the peace, she’d pretend everything was fine. She’d turned to her job at City Hall for solace. At least when things went wrong there, she could analyze them and fix them. It didn’t always work at home. Lately, it never worked.
“Of course he cares.” Catherine started again. “That’s exactly why I’m calling him. If you don’t want to listen to me, okay, but you are
not
moving out. That’s—”
“He’s not in charge of me. I’m eighteen and I can do what I want.”
Catherine tried to stand, maybe hug her daughter and make this all better, but her heel caught in a swirl of knit—
Lanna’s long-sleeved black sweater
—and she tripped, tumbling back to the carpeted floor.
By that time, Tenley had stormed out. Catherine heard the bedroom door slam.
She got to her knees, reached into her skirt pocket, pulled out her cell phone. Dialed.
Greg’s phone rang once, twice, where was he? She waited two more rings, only to hear the computer voice of the phone system: “The customer you have called is not available.”
Catherine stared at the cell phone in her hand. It was pushing ten at night. Where was Greg? And why was his phone off? Even if he were with some—
other woman,
her brain said the words she’d been dreading before she could stop it—he’d still get voice messages, wouldn’t he?
She tried to untangle her emotions, like her doctor suggested. Anger, definitely. Tenley was behaving like a child. Frustration, yes. She didn’t seem able to handle the situation.
But also, also, also. Worry. Catherine was worried.
“Anything in his pockets?” Jake stood at the opening of Bobby Land’s curtained emergency room cubicle. The kid’s face was a pale moon above the thin blue blanket. Jake had spent more than his share of this day at Mass General, and it looked like he’d be staying into tomorrow. DeLuca had gone for coffee. It was just 9:47. They’d need a lot of it.
The two patients they needed to question were still unconscious, D had told him, doped up and sedated while doctors waited for test results. At least John Doe No. 2 and Bobby Land were both alive, which was one good thing. Young Officer Verrio was still with John Doe 2. He’d check soon for the update on that tattoo.