When I'm Gone: A Novel (29 page)

CHAPTER 32

Luke tossed the plastic bag into the backseat of the car and ducked into the passenger seat. Annie already had the car running and backed out of her parking spot as soon as he closed the door, her unbraced hand crossing over her damaged one as she turned the wheel. Could Brian really be in jail?

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Luke asked, turning his body to face Annie until the seat belt pressed against his neck. He felt impatient; he wanted to get answers quickly, but sitting in the car together reminded Luke of their road trip and how close he felt to her on that drive home.

“I turned Brian in,” she said calmly, as if it wasn’t the bravest thing she’d ever done. “I’ve been compiling evidence against him for weeks now. I was going to use it if he ever hurt me again”—she held up her wrist—“but then Terry called and asked Brian about finding an experienced lawyer. I knew he was behind your arrest as soon as I saw his face. So, I put it all together, got my own lawyer, and went down to the police station first thing this morning.”

“And they believed you?” Luke asked. It seemed pretty far-fetched after twenty years on the force.

“It wasn’t that simple.” She shook her head, eyes fixed on the road. “They brought Brian in for questioning, and I gave them permission to search the house. Once they found the pills, I mean, the evidence tags were still on some of them,
then
they started to take me seriously. In the end, it was Brian who got you off.”

“He seemed pretty set on sending me away for a long time when he came to see me last night.”

“Oh God. He came to gloat? Did he hurt you?” She shot him a quick glance, checking him over with her eyes.

“No. I’m fine.” Luke pushed his hands farther under the hem of his untucked shirt. Self-inflicted wounds were far more embarrassing to explain. “He didn’t admit to anything openly, just implied it.”

“Well, he screwed up on the denial game during the interrogation. My lawyer was listening in, and he said that once they presented him with the evidence, Brian didn’t try to avoid the possession claim. His excuse was that the drugs weren’t for him. He’d borrowed them to set you up because”—she hesitated, embarrassed—“because you were sleeping with his wife.” Annie flicked on the turn signal and glanced an extra three times down the road to make sure it was empty. Luke chuckled despite Annie’s discomfort.

“Hmm. I’m guessing his fellow officers didn’t seem to find this a good excuse for stealing evidence.” Brian had been so sure that his time on the force would save him. Luke was relieved to see that his coworkers despised crime from any perpetrator.

“Nope. And this is serious stuff. He’s in big trouble.” She shook her head as she spoke, almost as though she were delivering bad news. “There’s so much evidence against him, no way he’ll be getting out anytime soon.” Her words turned up a little at the end, sounding almost boastful, but her eyes were moist. “At least I hope not.”

“You are so brave.” Luke looked at her with new eyes. Annie saved him. She was the reason for his freedom and why Brian was behind bars. After all these years of abuse, it took having to save someone else to motivate her to leave. Why was saving herself never enough? She was stronger than he’d ever been—she stood up to her abuser, freed herself. She was his hero. “I’ll help you. You’ll never have to face him alone. I promise.”

A blush crawled up the side of her face he could see, her lips twisted to the side hiding a smile. It felt so right having her back in his life.

“You know that letter Natalie sent me?”

“The one you told me I could never read right after you waved it in front of my face?”

“Yup,” she chirped.

“Nope, never heard of it,” Luke teased, feeling lighter than he had in nine months. It was gone, his obsessive desire to read any and all of Natalie’s letters. If he never saw another flash of blue when he collected the daily mail, he’d be okay.

“Do you want to know what it said? ’Cause there’s a lot about you in there.” She took another right turn onto the street with the shopping center with Kroger and a semidecent Chinese place he used to sneak Natalie egg rolls from. They were getting close to the hospital.

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“I want to tell you.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as they pulled into the hospital parking lot.

“Then I want to hear it.”

The parking lot was nearly empty. Annie found a spot on the right side of the large, boxy structure, shut off the engine, and then turned to face him.

“She told me lots of things about the kids, about life, stuff that was only meaningful to the two of us. But at the end she told me two things.” She held up one finger on her braced hand. “One—that I deserved more than the life I was living.” Her gaze lingered on her brace, and she dropped her hand. “And, two”—another finger went up—“that I should be your friend. Not just a casual friend either. Close friends. Best friends.”

Luke covered Annie’s hand, and her fingers tightened around his. He dared to look her in the eyes. They were nearly transparent, like the sea glass Alex Kerks kept in his office when Luke’s dad still worked for him. Alex’s glass was cloudy, but Annie’s eyes were crystal, shining with tears.

“Soooo,” he dragged out the word playfully, “you’re saying Natalie forced you to be my friend?”

“No.” She smacked his arm, and he faked a flinch. “At first I thought she wanted me to look after you. Then, after our trip to Pentwater, I realized she wanted us to be friends because”—she paused and bit her lip—“I needed you too.”

The admission hung in the air, and Luke inhaled it like oxygen. All this time he’d been feeling guilty, selfish even, for feeling like he needed Annie. To know their relationship was symbiotic, that Natalie had recognized that fact long before either of them knew it was a possibility, almost made him forgive her for all the secrets she’d hoarded.

Luke sniffed. “I should really get in there.” He pointed to the five-story brick structure. “You want to come in?”

“I can’t actually.” She fiddled with the key chain dangling from the ignition. “Will is watching Clayton, and I promised I’d relieve him so he could get to cross-country practice.”

“Oh, that works,” Luke said, wanting to tell Annie about Jessie being Neal’s daughter and how he wanted her by his side the first time he met the man, but Annie jumped back in before he could say anything more.

“So, here’s the thing.” She turned her body toward Luke. “I care about you . . . a lot. And if you feel even a little bit of the same in return, then us, together”—she gestured back and forth between them—“could be
great
.” She bit the inside of her cheek, turning her hopeful smile into a smirk. Luke knew she was right. He could definitely fall in love with Annie.

“But?” he added, knowing it was coming.

“But”—her smile faltered—“I’m not ready to be with someone right now. I don’t think you are either.”

“I’m not looking to rush into anything.” Luke licked his lips, hoping what he said next wouldn’t scare her away. “But I don’t think you should stay away either. Haven’t we spent enough time apart?”

Annie picked at the leather stitching on her steering wheel. “Oh, you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon.” She pointed a long finger at him. “Now don’t be getting cocky. It’s the kids I find irresistible, not you.”

“You forget—I can tell when you’re lying.”

Annie tried to hold back a snicker, but failed. Luke promised himself he’d give her more reasons to snicker, giggle, or outright laugh. Then he saw his opening. “Tomorrow is Clayton’s birthday party. I’m not sure if everyone still feels up to it—it depends upon what happens with Jessie—but we will at least have cake. Would you want to come?”

“Actually, Terry already invited me before this mess.” She gestured at the air, frowning. She was trying to cover up her sadness, but Luke could still see it. “I told her no.”

He nodded, working very hard to be understanding. She was in mourning. It was different than his, but valid nonetheless. “Okay. Just text me if you change your mind.”

“I’ll let you know. Matt is flying in from DC for the weekend.”

“He is? That’s great news. He hasn’t been home for . . .”

“Over a year,” she said, finishing his sentence. “When he left for college, he told me he’d wouldn’t come back if Brian still lived there. I never told you.” Her eyes grew damp, nose quivered, about to break down. She threw a hand over her mouth like she was trying not to throw up. “I was too ashamed. I chose Brian over my own son. That’s messed up.”

“Hey.” Luke forgot the invisible line he was trying to respect and reached out to squeeze Annie’s shoulder. “I’ve been obsessing about letters from my dead wife. I think I win the award for ‘most messed up person’ in this car.”

“This is a strange competition.”

“Well, we aren’t exactly a normal pair, are we?”

“No.” Annie placed her cheek against Luke’s hand. “We’re not.”

They sat in silence for a second, the light pressure of her cheek against his fingers making it nearly impossible for Luke to remove his hand from her shoulder voluntarily. It only lasted a moment, a few strings of breaths inhaled and exhaled before she sighed, sat up, and broke the spell.

The familiar comfort of her company was proving harder to leave than he expected. With one last squeeze, he forced himself to release her shoulder and reach through to the backseat for his belongings. Reemerging through the space between the seats, he passed inches from Annie’s cheek. The scratches he’d wanted to kiss three weeks earlier were healed, leaving only faint white lines along her cheekbones and above her eyebrow.

Before he could stop himself, Luke leaned in and pressed his lips to her cheek. It was only for a moment, not long enough to notice the texture of her skin or scent of her shampoo, but it was enough. He sat back, unlatched his seat belt, and opened the car door. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” She waved, and Luke pushed the door shut.

Luke walked with broad, sure steps toward the entrance to the hospital. Maybe he had been wrong when he told Natalie he could never love again. What he should’ve said was he couldn’t love anyone the same way he loved her.

He entered the lobby through the front sliding doors with a dead cell phone and no idea where Jessie might be. A friendly-looking woman with a plump face sat behind the information desk. She’d know where Luke should go, but what would he find when he got there? What would he say to Neal? His child was lying in bed, terminally ill. This might not be the right time for a confrontation. He’d play dumb—for Jessie’s sake he’d pretend he’d never heard of Dr. Neal Townsend, that he wasn’t the reason Luke’s daughter was buried in some shallow grave somewhere.

CHAPTER 33

The info desk lady turned out to be just as helpful as she looked. Jessie was on the fourth floor in room 482. After a short elevator ride and some helpful nurses directing the way, Luke stared at the maroon plaque with white lettering:
482
. This was the room. He’d hoped to hear voices on the other side of the door, maybe May’s bubbly laugh or Terry’s monotone, letting him know he’d found the right place.

Instead, there was nothing but the soft whir of an automatic blood-pressure machine, the chugging of a hulking piece of machinery in the corner, and silence. He’d just have to be brave and go in, not knowing what he might walk into. Luke grasped the cold brushed-nickel handle and forced the door open wide into a tidy, neatly furnished hospital room with one bed. In the bed was what seemed to be a sleeping, swollen version of the Jessie he knew. Her skin was stretched so taut, Luke was afraid to touch her in case any gentle pressure in the wrong spot could make her explode.

In a chair at the end of the bed sat Dr. Neal, eyes closed, hands pressed together. His lips moved ever so slightly, maybe praying. Neal looked a lot like his faculty picture from the Eastern Michigan University website—neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, full head of graying hair. Dark circles under his eyes, skin a sallow color almost like he was as ill as his daughter. Luke wanted to hate him, but at that moment he couldn’t see Neal as the man who’d given his child to a mentally unstable adoptive mother who hurt her, maybe killed her. He didn’t even see a man who’d planned and carried out a complex and at times painful plan as Natalie’s confidant and companion. He saw a father with a sick child. Any confrontation with Neal would wait until Jessie was well.

With Jessie asleep and May and Terry nowhere to be seen, Luke started to back out of the room, hoping someone at the nurses’ station could help him locate the pair. He took one step back and then another until he bumped hard into the wall. Luke flinched, muffling a gasp, his elbow throbbing. Ignoring the shot of pain, Luke reached for the door handle.

“Ahem.” Neal cleared his voice across the room and rubbed his eyes. “Hello?”

Luke swore silently. Small talk with the man he’d been consumed with for the past several months would be difficult. But, standing in the same room with him meant there was no turning back now. All he could hope for was Terry and May to show up and provide a diversion.

“Hi, uh, you must be Jessie’s dad.” Luke dropped his bag by the door and forced his feet to move him back into the hospital room. “I’m Luke Richardson.”

“Oh, yes.” Neal sat up in his chair and smoothed his hair. “You called 9-1-1, correct? Your mother just took May down to the cafeteria for a snack.”

“My mother?” It was strange to hear anyone labeled as his mother, much less Terry. “Oh, you mean Terry.” Luke took two more steps toward Neal. “She’s my wife’s mother. Was my wife’s mother . . . she’s my mother-in-law.” Forming coherent sentences was turning out to be a problem. Whether it was from the lack of sleep, the emotional trauma of the past twenty-four hours, or the pure fact of who Neal really was, Luke knew he must seem out of it.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Luke. I’m Neal.” He half stood and reached a hand out. Luke took it and gave one firm pump and then backed away, wondering how long he had to stay in the room with an unconscious Jessie and friendly Dr. Neal. “Please, take a seat.” Luke glanced around the room. A flimsy gray chair sat on the other side of Jessie’s bed. Neal jumped out of his chair and shifted over to Jessie’s bedside.

Luke sat in the chair, still unnervingly warm from Neal’s body heat. From this angle Jessie’s condition came into focus. He couldn’t even count the tubes and machines running in and out of her body. It was almost worse than seeing her passed out on the floor in his home. Now the reality of her illness was painfully obvious.

“So, how is she doing?” Luke felt stupid asking. Clearly she wasn’t doing great.

Neal rubbed his temples. “Not well.” The answer hitched in his throat. “She needs a transplant. She has a few weeks, maybe a month. I never thought . . . I never thought it could happen this fast.”

“I’m so sorry.” Luke struggled to continue. Neal, who’d already lost his wife, could now lose his only child. “She’s a wonderful young woman. I . . . my children . . . we all have come to care for Jessie.” Then Luke found himself saying the sentence he’d heard more times than he could count. Perhaps the least helpful sentence he’d ever heard. “If there is
anything
I can do to help, please, let me know.”

When Natalie’s school acquaintances or the administrative assistant at work said those words, they always sounded em
pty, like a halfhearted attempt to care. Now he knew—it’s what you say when there’s nothing you can do to help besides
want
to.

Luke expected to hear an approximation of the answer he always gave in return, something like “I’ll let you know” or “We’re okay for now, thanks,” but Neal didn’t say . . . anything. He just nodded and rubbed his beard, like he was thinking of some errand for Luke to run.

“Luke, I . . . uh . . . I wasn’t supposed to tell you this way.”

There was heaviness to his words that made Luke feel like he always did in Pentwater when he could see thunder and rain clouds developing offshore over Lake Michigan. Something was coming; he could see it, hear it, feel it in the air. He had few choices; he could take shelter, or he could meet the storm head-on.

“Neal.” Luke stopped him. “I know.”

“Hmm?” He sat up slowly, like a man just woken up from a deep sleep.

“I
know
.” He gave Neal a meaningful look, but he didn’t seem to catch on so Luke continued. “The letters—I know you sent them. I know you were Natalie’s teacher. I know about Maranatha House. I know about . . .” He didn’t want to have to say the name—he hadn’t said it out loud since finding the scrapbook—but he’d already said too much to go back. “I know about Mallory.”

“You know about Mallory?” Neal glanced at Jessie like he wanted to make sure she was still asleep. He tangled his fingers into the neatly tucked sheet on the corner of her mattress. “How did you find out?”

The pity that had been keeping Luke calm and understanding was starting to dissolve. Even with the letters, the order from the florist, even the giant scrapbook detailing the life and death of his first child, Natalie’s deception didn’t become real until Neal confirmed it with that simple question.

“Not from Natalie, that’s for sure,” Luke said gruffly, the bitterness starting to escape. “I found a letter from your old boss, Ms. Stephani. It made things pretty clear.”

Neal released the sheet and spread his fingers wide, smoothing the wrinkles on the bed. “Ah, yes, Christina and her conscience. Natalie told me about that letter, but I didn’t know she’d kept it.”

“Well, she did, and I found it. So, what about you, Neal? And your wife? From what I can tell, without you two, my daughter would still be alive.” Luke’s anger, the anger he worked so hard at tamping down, was building.

“All right, I deserve that.” Neal nodded with his whole body and then looked up, meeting Luke’s gaze. “You’re right: we made a lousy choice. Eva Witling was a very ill woman, and we didn’t see that. But to be fair, doctors, nurses, detectives, friends, family—no one suspected. No one.”

“Fine,” Luke acquiesced. “Fine; you didn’t know. But now that we are revealing secrets, maybe you should tell me a little more about your relationship with my wife.”

“I loved her,” he answered simply. The words burned Luke’s ears.

Defeated, the anger left him. He thought he’d want to hit Neal, or at least scream at him, but at that moment of admission, Luke was relieved to finally know the truth.

“How long?” he managed to ask, trying to calculate how many years she’d been living a double life.

“It’s not like that.”

“Do
not
lie to me, please,” Luke begged, suddenly exhausted and feeling more ready to go home and go to bed than to argue. “It’s obvious you two had a secret relationship. So, how long?”

“Twenty-three years.”

“She was
fourteen
,” Luke half whispered, half yelled, forcing his voice down in case Jessie could hear them through her medication. He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. How had pedophile pastor never crossed his mind? “I think I should leave.”

“No, for God’s sake, no, that’s not what I meant.” Neal put up his hands in defense and then tapped his forehead as if his hands could summon the right words to say. “I was Natalie’s pastor, her professor, and eventually her friend, but I was
never
her lover. And you’re wrong. I hadn’t seen Natalie for years,
years
, until she found me at Eastern. This was her idea, not mine.”

“Well then, pastor”—he said the title like an accusation—“maybe you can tell me the one thing I can’t figure out: Why did Natalie lie to me?” Luke’s eyes clouded with tears, and his throat was so tight he could force out only one more question. “Why did she have you send those letters instead of just telling me the truth?”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen . . .”

“Yes, I know, this wasn’t a part of your plan. But it
is
happening like this. Why all the smoke and mirrors? Was it guilt? Was she afraid of me?” This thought was the most painful, and after her letter about the day his mother died, how that one slap had kept her from contacting him for those six years, maybe she thought it was safer to tell the truth when she was dead.

“She had her reasons.” Neal shook his head and then slapped his hands on his thighs before standing up. “I’m not
supposed
to be the one who tells you these things, but Natalie couldn’t have known any of this”—Neal gestured to Jessie asleep in her hospital bed—“was going to happen. I knew I’d see you here eventually, so I brought this in case . . . in case I found a way to tell you.” He walked over to the nightstand and pulled open one of the drawers. It opened with a quiet whoosh, and Neal pulled out a blue envelope and offered it to Luke. “The answers are in here.”

The envelope had Luke’s name on it, as always, and the back flap read: “The End.” It didn’t feel like as many pages as he expected, one maybe two. Opening it he knew why. It was another typed letter, two pages single-spaced.

“Did you type this for her?” Luke asked, wondering how to trust a letter written by someone other than Natalie.

Neal nodded. “I did. She was too weak, and she wanted to tell you everything. I just typed what she said, Luke, I swear.” There had been a few typed letters. Neal must’ve typed those too.

“This one was going to be delivered on the one-year anniversary of her death. She thought one year would be enough to prepare you . . .” Neal stopped himself. “But when your mother-in-law called me about Jessie, that you were headed to the hospital with her, I knew the time line would have to change. Just read it.”

Luke didn’t like the idea of doing anything at Neal’s bidding, but he’d waited long enough for the truth. He wasn’t going to wait longer out of sheer spite. He looked back at the page full of neat, black lettering and read.

THE END

Dear Luke,

Well, this is it. My final good-bye. It’s becoming clear that my time is close, so I’m going to tell you what I’ve been dying to say (no pun intended) for our whole marriage because you have the right to know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was going to let my secret die with me, and by the time I changed my mind and decided you had a right to know, I knew my death was only a matter of months away. I didn’t want to poison the last few memories of me with anger. I guess I’m a coward, but I hope one day you’ll understand why I didn’t tell you sooner. So, here it goes, my secret.

I had a baby, Luke. Our baby. I was nearly fifteen years old when she was born. I only saw her once. Hours upon hours of pain, months upon months of regret and embarrassment, all that ended when I looked on our daughter’s face. She was so beautiful, but had so much hair I thought she might be a mutant. I looked right in her eyes and told her how much I loved her and that her daddy loved her too. I told her we were too young to raise her and that you were so far away. I kissed her twice, once for you and once for me. Then I passed our little girl off to Mrs. Townsend at Maranatha House, the maternity home and adoption agency where I stayed. I prayed she’d be happy and safe. I kept that little girl in my heart every day after that, praying she’d found a new home with wonderful parents who would love her and raise her in a way I wasn’t equipped to.

Okay, so why didn’t I tell you about her when we met at the University of Michigan? That’s a fair question. My reasoning was—she was five and had a new mom and dad, we couldn’t get her back, and who knows what you’d think about being a dad. You said you didn’t want kids, afraid you’d be like your dad. To be honest, I was a little afraid too after what happened in the shed. By the time I was sure of who you were and who you weren’t, we were married. When I got pregnant with Will, I made a plan. I would tell you the whole story after his delivery.

Then I got some horrible news. I found out that when our daughter was only three years old, she “disappeared” from her home and was presumed dead. Remember the Mallory Witling case I was so obsessed about? That was our Mallory.

She didn’t live far from us, actually. Just over in Lansing. I had no idea that the pigtailed little girl from the news who’d gone missing from her home during my senior year of high school was our daughter. She’d been reported missing by her parents, who woke up one morning to an empty toddler bed, a pool of blood on her pillow, and no sign of Mallory.

A hunt for the little girl ensued; the whole town pulled together to look for her. But as the investigation went on, Mr. Witling soon brought up concerns about his wife, about her behavior with their first child, who’d died only four years earlier. After exhuming Mallory’s sister’s body, it became clear that Mark Witling was right. His wife, Eva Witling, suffered from a psychological disorder called Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She had been making her daughter sick, probably with poison, slowly, to get attention from hospital staff, friends, and family.