Live to Tell (16 page)

Because the nice, knowledgeable man at the nursery told you that impatiens love shade, remember?

“We’ve got plenty of that,” Elsa assured him. The new house is perched beneath a canopy of towering tree limbs, casting the entire yard in shadow most of the day. The beds themselves are sheltered by an overhang—which wouldn’t be a problem if impatiens didn’t happen to love water as much as they do shade. The weekend’s rain didn’t do them a bit of good.

As Elsa unwinds the garden hose, she hears movement in the yard next door.

“Hi there,” a female voice calls, and she reluctantly looks up.

“Hi.”

Her neighbor, a breezy, middle-aged divorcee named Meg, waves across the low boxwood hedge.

“Nice day for gardening,” Meg observes.

“Yes, it is.”

“Not a nice day for working inside, but that’s where I’m off to.”

Elsa knows that Meg is a part-time cashier at Macy’s over at the mall, and that being on her feet for hours aggravates her bunions. She mainly works there because of the employee discount, which helps her to keep her three teenagers in clothes and shoes. But her paycheck barely covers her bills, and her louse of an ex-husband is frequently late with his support payments.

Elsa knows all of this—and much, much more—because Meg loves to chat across the hedge whenever she happens to catch Elsa in the yard.

She’s a likable woman, and would probably be a good friend—if Elsa wanted, or needed, a friend.

She used to have many. As a child, as a young fashion model in New York, as half of a married couple…

Now all those people have faded away.

No they haven’t. They’ve been pushed away.

You
pushed them away
.

But it had to happen.

Friends share their lives—past and present—with each other.

Elsa has no intention of revealing her personal tragedy across the hedge, or across a lunch table, or anywhere else friends meet.

It makes for a lonely existence, but this—like everything else that’s happened to her—is Elsa’s lot.

With a wave, Meg gets into her car and drives off.

Elsa looks again at the limp impatiens bed. They’re just flowers. Summer is waning. Who cares?

I do. I don’t know why, but I care.

Feeling oddly bereft, she turns on the sprinkler.

On the driveway back at home, Lauren gets out of the car lugging the straw beach bag, heavy with wet pool towels.

“Lucy, can you hang these out on the line?” she asks her daughter, who’s helping her little sister out of the backseat. “And Sadie, you need to go straight upstairs and change out of your wet bathing suit.”

For once, nobody protests.

Good. That should give Lauren a few minutes alone to check the voice mail and make sure there aren’t any disturbing messages from—or about—Nick.

She hands the beach bag to Lucy and heads toward the house with Sadie trailing along behind her. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the sun is still shining, but it’s not as warm as it seemed earlier, on the playground. Again, Lauren notes that a fall chill seems to be in the air today.

Or maybe the chill has nothing to do with the weather.

Where are you, Nick? What’s happened to you?

Lauren unlocks the back door and opens it cautiously, expecting Chauncey to make a dash for it as usual.

He doesn’t.

“Chauncey?” Lauren opens the door all the way and listens for his jangling collar and welcoming bark.

Silence.

“Chauncey!” As she crosses the kitchen, she remembers John, the new dog walker, and wonders, fleetingly, whether he ever brought Chauncey back.

Wait a minute—yes, he did. She remembers being relieved about that when she got back from the church this morning—before she spoke to Georgia, and Marcia, and found out that—

“There he is, Mommy!”

For a split second, she thinks Sadie is talking about Nick. Then she spins around and sees her daughter pointing to Chauncey, sprawled out in a sunny patch of rug in the next room, sound asleep.

“Is he okay?” Sadie asks anxiously.

Lauren takes a few steps closer. The dog is snoring. “He’s fine. He’s just taking a nice little catnap.”

“Don’t you mean dognap?”

“Well, dognap is something different.” It’s what she’d thought, for a moment, John had done to Chauncey.

Talk about paranoid…

Why would anyone want to steal a big old mutt?

Sadie goes closer to Chauncey and leans over him, her elbows resting on her knees. “Are you okay, boy? Why are you so tired?”

“Maybe the new dog walker exercised him more than he’s used to, honey.”

“But he always gets up to see us when we come home.”

That’s true, and the thought gives Lauren pause.

Chauncey is getting old. Maybe he’s getting sick, too.

Please, no. The kids won’t be able to take it. Not anytime soon.

That thought reminds her of her more immediate concern.

Lauren turns back toward the phone, saying, “Sadie, please go up and get on some dry clothes, okay?”

Sadie hesitates, still looking at Chauncey. “Are you sure he’s all right?”

“Positive. Now go. Your lips are turning blue.”

Lauren waits until her daughter is safely out of earshot. Then she picks up the receiver and hears the beeping dial tone that indicates a message is waiting.

But it’s from Rosa, one of the managers at Magic Maids.

“Hello, Mrs. Lauren, we have three ladies for you this week and they will see you tomorrow at around ten.”

Every week, without fail, she calls to confirm the standing appointment and let Lauren know how many cleaners she’s sending. It varies from two to four, and the staff turns over constantly. Lauren always leaves a few dollars for each cleaner as a tip, for which they thank her so profusely she wishes she could afford to leave more.

She erases the message and hangs up the phone.

Okay—so, no message from Nick.

No message
about
Nick.

Should she leave another one
for
Nick?

What’s the use? If he’s checking his phone, he knows she and the kids are worried about him.

If he’s not checking his phone…

Why would he not check his phone?

Again, Lauren forces frightening thoughts from her head. Turning away from the phone, she finds herself looking again at Chauncey. It really is unlike him not to stir when someone comes home.

Frowning, Lauren stares at him…then turns abruptly away.

Pulling open a drawer, she finds the dog-eared address book where she keeps all the contact info for everyone involved in the Walsh household, from her OB-GYN to the trash collection service.

The kids tease her about not using an electronic organizer to store it all, but she’s glad she didn’t listen. It takes her about two seconds to flip to the Ds and locate the number for Dog Days…

But a full minute, at least, to bring herself to dial it.

Is there really any need to check up on John? He did the job he was supposed to do, and he was perfectly pleasant about it.

Yes, but Chauncey is acting strange, and Nick is missing, and this morning she thought she saw someone lurking in the shadows…

Yes, because you’re losing your mind.

And even if you’re not—what makes you think John has anything to do with any of those things…especially Nick?

Then again…the guy shows up here out of the blue, a stranger with her house keys, at the same time her ex-husband disappears…

Not that he disappeared from this house, or even lives here anymore…

But he’s gone and John’s around and Chauncey’s out of it and there was a shadow in the yard and it’s all either oddly coincidental…

Or ominous.

Call. You have nothing to lose.

Mind made up, Lauren dials the number. She can’t remember ever having called it before. Nick has always dealt with the service.

“Hello, Dog Days, Jeannie speaking, can I help you?”

“Hi, Jeannie. My name is Lauren Walsh and I’m over on Elm Street in Glenhaven Park.”

“Chauncey’s mom!”

Lauren hesitates. She’s not one of those overly enthusiastic dog people who signs Chauncey’s name to their family Christmas card, but now is not the time to quibble about the validity of canine offspring.

“Er…right. Chauncey’s mom,” she agrees. “Our regular dog walkers seem to be away and we had someone new—”

“John. I hope everything is going all right with him?”

Relieved that at least he’s officially employed there, she says, “Everything is going fine, but I just wanted to…you know…confirm that he works for you. I was a little taken aback to have a total stranger show up with my house keys, so…”

“I’m sorry…didn’t you get the notification?”

“Excuse me?”

“We always send an e-mail to let you know when there will be a change of staff, to make sure it’s okay with the homeowner. We sent it out last week to the address we have on file…”

Which would be Nick’s. And he either didn’t get it, or neglected to tell Lauren.

“If you didn’t receive it, Mrs. Walsh, I’m so sorry…”

“You know what? My husband must have gotten the e-mail, and forgot to mention it.” No need to tell Jeannie of Dog Days about the divorce, or that she won’t be signing Nick’s name, either, on the family Christmas card.

Lauren hangs up the phone and looks again at Chauncey.

Maybe she should go over and give him a poke—just to make sure he’s okay.

Nah—let sleeping dogs lie.

She can see him breathing from here. He’s fine. Just tired.

Who isn’t?
she thinks with a yawn—just before a bloodcurdling “Mom!” pierces the air.

The photo albums were among the first items Elsa unpacked when they moved into the house. They always are.

There are no built-in living room bookshelves here, like there were in Tampa, so Elsa made a home for the row of albums on the raised brick fireplace hearth beside her favorite chair.

Every day, she brews herself a cup of strong tea and she sits down to leaf through the pages. Some might view the ritual as self-torture. Others, as therapeutic.

For Elsa, it is both. She looks at the pictures daily because she has to. Because she can’t—won’t—let go.

Sometimes, she makes her way through the whole stack of albums, losing herself in the memories. Other days, she flips through only a few pages before she’s had enough. Sometimes, she goes through the photos chronologically; other times, randomly.

Today, it’s random.

Jeremy in his new room, Jeremy at the carnival with a helium balloon, Jeremy on the first day of school, Jeremy with Elsa…

Your son looks just like you
, people used to say, and she would smile. It was true. Jeremy, with his black hair and eyes, was the spitting image of Elsa.

He’s smiling in many of the early photographs—yet his eyes betray a hint of desolation, even then. Why didn’t Elsa notice that in person? Why can she only see it in retrospect, captured on film? Why now, when it’s too late to help him?

But you did try to help him. You just couldn’t figure out how. You didn’t get the chance.

Frustrated, she puts the album aside and carries her half-full mug into the kitchen. After pouring the lukewarm tea down the drain, she carefully rinses every trace from the white porcelain basin. The protective glaze has worn away, leaving the surface porous; vulnerable to stains, cracks, scratches.

Lost in thought, Elsa runs the tap for a long time, absently watching the water engulf imperfections that can never be washed away.

Water. Uh-oh.

Abruptly, she turns off the faucet, slips her bare feet into a pair of sandals, and steps outside.

The forgotten sprinkler rotates with a rhythmic pattering, drenching a wide swath of the front walkway. Elsa waits for it to pass, then darts over to the spigot. She turns the valve and the spray becomes a trailing dribble, then a steady drip into the flowerbed.

Even from a few yards away, she can see the results of the prolonged drenching, but she steps closer, just to be sure.

Yes.

The plants that were seemingly wilted beyond salvation have miraculously sprung back to life.

For a long time, Elsa stands staring at the rejuvenated garden, wondering whether it just might be a sign.

Her mind made up, she goes inside.

It’s time to call Mike Fantoni.

As she walks down the hall toward her room, Sadie shivers in her wet bathing suit.

Maybe she shouldn’t have insisted on going into the water one last time after the swings.

Mommy was anxious to leave the pool, but Sadie wasn’t ready yet. It wasn’t that she was having so much fun—just that she dreaded going back home.

“Can I stay here with Ryan?” she asked her mother.

“No. He’s with his friends.”

Sadie turned to her sister. “Will you stay with me?”

“No, I want to go, too.” Lucy didn’t even bother to look at her. She seemed more obsessed with her phone today than usual, checking it every two seconds.

“Why don’t you want to leave, Sadie?” Mommy asked.

“Because I want to go back into the pool,” she lied. “Pleeeeeeease.”

Mommy let her. Only for ten minutes. It was freezing cold and it wasn’t even fun. Sadie didn’t know any of the other kids her age. They were all playing together on one end of the wide steps as she splashed around, shivering, on the other.

But she figured anything was better than going home.

Now that she’s here, though, it’s not so bad. Not upstairs, anyway.

But the downstairs looks different now without all the stuff Mom gave away. Sadie isn’t comfortable there.

And Mommy said yesterday that she was going to clean out the bedrooms next.

Not my room. No way, José.

That’s what Daddy used to say whenever he was in a good mood, a long time ago.