The Vanishing Year (14 page)

“Why is it so goddamn spotless?” I laugh, my voice slurring on the word
spotless
so it sounds like
spa-aaaas
. He pretends not to notice.

“I had it cleaned last weekend. I had the whole house cleaned. Penny does all the rooms before I come out.”

“Penny?” I sit up straight. For some reason, this fact gets under my skin and sits there like a fat, well-fed tick. He had Penny clean the house last weekend? He'd made the trip seem spontaneous, a reaction to the break-in.

“Sure. Who else?” He tops off my glass with the last of the bottle.

“But you made it seem like this was a last-minute trip,” I protest weakly. I can't find the right words.

“What does that matter? I was thinking about surprising you. Is that a crime? Then the break-in happened and it seemed like an opportunity. Jesus, Zoe, are you always so exacting?”

“I don't know what that means.” My stomach roils.

“I just mean, you need to know every little thought and if it doesn't align with the script in your head, I'm the bad guy.”

“You're not the bad guy.” I push away from the table, roughly, and the table wobbles. “You're not a bad guy.”

I mumble something about the bathroom. I concentrate very hard, walking in a straight line, with my head up, as though I'm perfectly fine. I find the ladies' room in the dark, back corner of the restaurant. Inside I lean against the door, the room spinning and whipping around me. I feel along the wall and flip the light switch. Without warning my stomach heaves and I retch into the toilet. The tile floor is cold on my legs and I remember that I'm naked under my dress. I feel my face flame red. God, did I think I was twenty years old? I'm just a second wife living someone's second life, at thirty.

I wipe my bottom lip with the back of my hand and push
myself up to standing. The room has stopped spinning and I smooth the front of my dress down with my hands. I feel better. At least like I could walk across the room. I wash up and rinse my mouth. I slowly make my way back to the table.

“Are you all right?” Henry leans forward and takes my hand.

“I drank too much,” I say, plainly.

Henry smiles, teasing me. “Let's get you home.”

I lean on Henry and he leads me out. I remember saying earlier that it would be good for us to walk. The spring air is cold on my arms and the night is black and quiet, the kind of quiet that seems to absorb sound. Our footsteps are silent. I occasionally laugh and it sounds muted, like coughing into a pillow.

I concentrate on walking straight as to not give away my level of drunkenness. I'm reminded of the countless nights stumbling home, my arm linked through Lydia's as we leaned on each other. We'd whisper and giggle and bump hips as we walked, her hair in my face smelling of cherry candy and cigarettes.

I lean close to Henry and wrap my hands around his arm. His bicep bumps and flexes under his cotton shirt. I nuzzle his neck and he smells like the ocean, fresh and salty.

At home, I peel my dress off and lie on the bed, the fan moving the air across my skin. Henry runs the bath, the pipes creaking and groaning under the floor. The water rushes up the wall, all around me, until it sounds like it's coming from inside my head. He calls my name from the bathroom.

“I'll be right there,” I whisper, and then I giggle because I know I'm lying. I wave in his direction, the diamond on my left hand catching the dim light and throwing prisms on the wall. I fan my fingers in front of me and study the ring, a solitary glittering stone, the size of a marble.

If I squint my eyes, it looks like there are two of them.

CHAPTER
14

Washington Square Park, desolate and gray in the winter months, is lush with life come April. Aging beatniks loaf on the grass, retirees challenge children to a competitive game of chess, mothers sit on park benches with their e-readers, rocking baby carriages with one foot. NYU students take to the park in droves, studying the human condition for psychology, sociology, and film classes. The park bursts with budding cherry trees and barely contained hope.

It is Monday.
Vacation Henry
is back to
Work Henry
, buttoned up and pressed, heavy on the starch. I'm back to reality. My credit card is still not functional and Henry has promised to call the bank. He's left me a hundred dollars in cash on the counter for daily expenses, which feels both extravagant and oppressive. I could surely ask him for more, I reason. But for what?

I've called Yates twice, who tells me nothing. She sighs into the phone, a
tap tap tap
of her acrylic nails on a keyboard coming through the line. She talks a good game. Tells me all the things they've done, but that everything is inconclusive. Penny has an alibi, and besides, what on earth could
her motive be? The hazard pay? Henry wasn't a fan of that joke. Henry has changed the apartment locks; we are safely sequestered in our tower again. I should feel more relieved than I do.

Away from Fishing Lake, with nothing else to think about the burglary being “inconclusive and all,” the idea of finding Caroline has trumped all else. Cash sits on a bench, in the middle to discourage company, and is heavily involved in a paperback. His forehead is ridged in concentration, his heavy bottom lip protruding out, curling back against his chin as he works at a hangnail on his thumb with his teeth. I peek at the cover before he sees me.
As I Lay Dying.
When he sees me, he stashes the book under his left thigh and scoots over, patting the boards next to him. I sit, my purse primly on my lap, a good foot between us.

“Faulkner?” I can't help but tease. He shrugs.

“You're so surprised? Because why? My muscular physique?” His eyebrows waggle Groucho style and I laugh. He's flirting with me. I sit up straight and he clears his throat, holding out a manila file folder in my direction. “So. Because you dragged me
all the way to the Village
, for some unknown godforsaken reason, I brought you this.” He hands me the folder and I open it.

“You live in the village,” I remind him with a smirk.

A picture of Caroline Reeves glosses under my fingertips. She is making another playful face into the camera, her lip curled in mock anger, her eyes twinkling, her mouth curved up in a half-smile, a pronounced double
V
on the bridge of her wrinkled nose. Someone else's hand rests on her shoulder. In the background glitters a Ferris wheel.

Underneath the picture are two typed pages of information. She has a family. She lives in Danbury, Connecticut. I do the math: She had me when she was seventeen. A fresh stab of rejection lands right under my sternum. I'd expected,
somehow, my birth mother to still be wallowing in her thirty-­year-old decision, pale and gaunt with greasy hair and a listless expression. But she's not; she's moved on and, judging by her fun-loving online presence, quite happily.

Cash rubs his knees with his palms and looks around. His posture inches forward like he's going to get up.

“Wait,” I say. I open my mouth to ask how he got all this information, but instead I hear myself say, “Will you come with me?”

“Where?” He looks startled.

I shrug, knowing it's a bad idea. I think of driving alone and my stomach clenches. Truthfully, I'm so sick of
going alone
.

“Yeah, of course, Zoe. I'll go with you.” His voice softens and I give him a small smile. If Cash goes with me, the narrow window I have to tell Henry about Caroline closes, and I know that, but Henry would never go. By making the decision to invite Cash, I'm inadvertently making the decision to leave Henry out. My brain reasons this out, almost subconsciously. The justification follows just as fast:
Henry will have to work. Henry will be busy. Henry won't want to go.

“When?” My brain is three steps behind my mouth.

“You should call her first.” Cash looks startled that I haven't thought of that before and I feel my cheeks flush. He checks his watch, I'm sure he thinks surreptitiously, but he scoots forward, restive, crossing and uncrossing his ankle over his knee.

“Okay.” I squint at her photo again, the sun glinting off the high gloss. “I'll call her today.”

“Zoe, I don't know how to say this, but you seem like someone who can handle things. She might . . . not want to see you. It happens a
lot
. Just be prepared for that. But if she agrees to see you, give me a call. I'll go with you. I've done it before.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, a few times. People don't like to do this alone and sometimes I was the only person in their lives who knew. From that series, remember?”

“Like me,” I say softly, and that stab of guilt is back like a hot poker, reminding me that I'm a liar. I'm lying to my husband. I mouth the words to myself to see how they feel, but it's not so bad. Technically, I've always lied to him.

I stand, abruptly, and a few pages slide out of the manila folder. Cash bends to pick them up.

“I'll call you, okay?”

“Oh! Zoe, wait.” He holds out a folded up newspaper. “It ran today. It's a good spread. Take a look, give me a call. We'll talk.”

I stare at the newspaper and it takes me a minute to figure it out.
CARE.
The event seems aged and distant. I shove it clumsily under the file in my arms and force a smile.

“I'll call you, okay?” I say it again, turn and rush through the crowd. The sun suddenly seems too bright, a glaring, carnival spotlight. A man on a unicycle swerves in and out of park benches, tipping his hat for money. I glance over my shoulder and Cash is heading east, his hands in his pockets, his head tipped back, black hair glinting, as he looks at the treetops. For what, I don't know.

Before I can lose my nerve, I pull out my cell phone, flip the folder open with one hand, locate her current phone number. I dial.

“Hello.” An impatient female voice picks up and I clear my throat.

“Hi, is this Caroline?”

There is a whoosh like she's rubbed the pad of her thumb over the mouthpiece.

“That depends, are you selling me something?”

“No.”

“Then, sure, I'm Caroline.” Her voice is tired, worn thin like we're talking into two tin cans and a string. I open and close my mouth, stuck on what to say next. I feel like that children's book with the bird, asking the bulldozer,
A
re you my mother?

“Hi. My name is Zoe Whittaker. Um, do you know Evelyn Lawlor?”

“Who is this again?” She's sharp now, like broken glass.

“I'm Evelyn's daughter. Well, her adopted daughter.” I stop then because the next logical thing to say is
I'm
your
daughter,
but I can't actually say that because it sounds too hokey. Like an awful movie. So I stand there in silence and watch the park. The unicycle man is chasing a screaming towheaded boy who clings to his mother's skirt. An oversize yellow helium balloon drunkenly weaves up toward the clouds. Two men are arguing in what sounds like Polish over a chess board.

“What is your name again?” Her voice has dropped to a whisper.

“Zoe Whittaker.”

One of the men stands up and pounds the board with his fist. He turns and stalks off, his partner leans back in his chair, a satisfied grin on his face. We make eye contact.
“Wygram, eh?”
He points to his chest and shrugs his shoulders.

I realize that Caroline hasn't spoken.

“Hello?” I say.

“I'm here.”

“Would you meet with me? I'd come to you.” I feel like I'm ambushing her, but I'm panicky, I can feel my only tether slipping through my fingers like that goddamn yellow balloon. I look up and it's a speck now, so high I can barely see it.

“Can I think about it? I'll call you back in an hour.” She hangs up. No good-bye, just
click
, gone. I stare at the phone
in my hand. The Chess Man gives me a good-natured shrug and ambles away.

I wander back to the benches. I don't want to go home. The park seems as good a place as any. I'm nowhere near Henry's office building or our apartment.

When Henry and I were dating he brought me here, to Washington Square Park, on a day like this. It was warmer, maybe May. The mosquitoes had settled into New York that year like overstayed houseguests. He spread a blanket, some quilted monstrosity he nabbed from Fishing Lake. We opened it out on the grass, under the trees that dipped low to the ground, shrouding us, and we kissed.
In public.
That amazes me now, Henry kissing in public is like saying
gentle grizzly bear.
There's no fitting mental image.

I wore a navy blue dress he'd bought me, brandishing it as though it were from the Queen Mum herself. It cinched at the waist with a wide belt and an A-line skirt and reminded me of something I'd seen in an old
Life
magazine, a black-and-white ad for cream deodorant:
Are you really lovely to love?
Henry's eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. I was drunk on his love, his hands, the line of muscle from his neck down to his shoulder blade, the small scar above his eyebrow, the freckle in the hollow of his ear. I wanted to memorize him.

We'd only been dating a short time, and yet by all accounts, I was becoming a contender for a Fascinating Person (capital
F
capital
P
), one of a few women who were taming the wild beasts that were New York City's most eligible men.

“I'm going to marry you, Zoe Swanson,” he'd whispered as his fingers danced up my thigh.

“Are you now? Will you at least ask me?” I teased, biting at his bottom lip.

“I'd never give you the chance to say no.”

“Oh, bless my stars.” I toyed with his hair, my voice
a thick syrupy accent. “Who would ever say no to
Henry Whittaker
?”

“My first wife. She said no. Twice, actually.”

I sat up, pushing his hand off my leg. “Your what?”

“I was married before. You didn't know?” Henry had a way of phrasing things, just so, to delicately pass off blame. As though I should have been able to glean this information out of his inky, black silence. Blood from a stone.

“No. I'm pretty sure I'd remember that.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them. “What happened? Is there an ex–Mrs. Whittaker, slowly funneling all your money?” A thought occurred to me. “Oh my God, Henry, is there a Henry Jr.? I can't be a stepmother. I mean, I guess I
could
be, but I don't know how to be—”

He pulled my arms away from my knees and kissed my palms one at a time. His lips were soft, slightly greasy like hour-old ChapStick. “There's no Henry Jr. My wife . . . she died. In a car accident. Three years ago.”

Henry lived in the abrupt.

“What? How? What was her name? Oh God, Henry, that's terrible!” My heart had thudded in my chest.

“Her name was Tara. We were driving home from a dinner. The next thing I know we're at the hospital and the doctors are talking about life support and feeding tubes and that was it. It was over and twenty-four hours later, I was a widower. Married one minute, the next . . . not. It's so strange how life can happen that way.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, details. I'll tell you one day.” He kissed me full on the mouth, his breath coming in huffs, his hands gripping my waist as though he were drowning.
He needs me now,
I'd thought at the time. Still think. Sometimes.

But then, he never did tell me. I've broached the subject on any number of occasions. It's the wrong time. Later. I'm
tired. The excuses are endless. I have, periodically, pushed the issue. His stalwart chin, sticking out as he shakes his head, disappointed.

My phone vibrates in my hand. I somehow manage to answer it without breathing.

“Can you come Friday? I'll give you an hour.”