When I'm Gone: A Novel (21 page)

“Sorry about the misunderstanding.” Luke put out his hand, and Andy shook it briefly.

“I’m sorry for the stuff I said about your dad,” he mumbled back. Luke was more sorry that, at the moment, Andy had been right.

“Yeah, well, we both were saying things we didn’t really mean.” Andy nodded and followed Annie out the door.

Alone in the front room, Luke took one last look around. The house was only a shadow of the home he’d grown up in, but paint and wallpaper wasn’t strong enough to disguise the film of evil still clinging to the hallway where his sister died. Luke shook off the memory. It was just a house.

As Annie and Andy filled the awkward exit with small talk on the front porch, Luke counted the steps from the kitchen to the door. Twelve. When he’d walked out of the house with the CPS agent twenty-two years earlier, it had been nearly double, twenty-three. Back then he cried as he was escorted into the waiting car. Today he felt relief.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Annie said, staring at the ground as she walked across the lawn while Andy locked up. “I’ve never seen that side of you.”

“I . . . I didn’t plan it,” Luke said, coming up beside her. “And I think I could say the same thing of you, stepping between me and Andy. That was . . . bold.” Not a word he’d usually use to describe Annie. A few months ago she couldn’t get a word out when that bartender was coming on to her. Today, she was strong and stood up to both Luke and Andy.

“I know.” Annie stopped at the curb to look both ways. Luke wanted to laugh because the road was visibly empty, plus the speed Nazi, Mr. Slattery, strictly enforced the ten-miles-per-hour speed limit. If he still lived there, he’d call the police if anyone edged above twelve. But Luke wasn’t ready to make jokes, so he paused and pretended to look up and down Winter Lane. “Once you two started arguing, it was obvious Andy knew more than he was telling us. Something snapped. I didn’t expect his story, though, did you? About Natalie’s pastor helping Andy and his girlfriend? Then the picture of the girl who looked creepily like Andy.”

“I still don’t know what to believe.” Luke’s foot hit asphalt as Andy’s car beeped open in the background. There was something about his story that struck a nerve. It wasn’t Nancy hiding away at Maranatha or Andy keeping the whole thing a secret from his wife or even Natalie helping them in a difficult situation. Luke pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Annie. “I’ll be right back,” he said and took off across the street without looking before she could respond.

Andy was already buckled in his seat, window up. He’d barely clicked the gearshift into reverse when Luke reached his door. Luke beat against the glass with an open palm. The music was loud inside the car, so it took three attempts to get Andy’s attention. Noticing Luke on the other side of the window, Andy rolled the window down with a whir, letting out a gush of cool, conditioned air.

“Uh, did you forget something?” Andy asked, holding the wheel tightly, the gold band on his left hand catching the light.

“I had one more question.” Luke took a few deep breaths, still worn out from running. Andy didn’t look eager to wait, so Luke blew out his last breath and leaned into the car window. “The pastor you mentioned, the one Natalie referred you to . . .” Andy nodded. “What was his name?”

“Uh, that was a long time ago. Natalie contacted him when we were looking for Jill. His name was”—Andy scratched the top of his bare head—“Townsend, I think.”

Luke let out a breath and cracked a very brief smile. He was being silly, thinking Andy and Natalie had some big adoption scheme going on. Stupid.

“Yeah, that was it,” Andy added, rolling up the window. “Pastor Neal Townsend, but Natalie always called him Pastor Neal.”

CHAPTER 21

Luke pushed the power button on the side of his phone and put it back in the front pocket of his jeans. He wouldn’t check the profile again. There were only so many times he could look at the few snippets of information he had tracked down on the Internet. He’d searched Pastor Neal Townsend, Dr. Neal Townsend, Dr. Townsend, and the all-too-familiar: Dr. Neal. All searches brought him back to the same man—the man in Natalie’s contacts list.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of online info about the former pastor turned college professor. A grainy photo on the Eastern Michigan University website, a brief and seemingly outdated bio of Dr. Neal Townsend, and the words “associate professor” underneath. Luke had even pushed the boundaries on crazy and paid for a background check, but the guy was a saint. Not even a traffic ticket.

The mystery of Maranatha House was all but over. This Neal still bothered Luke though. He couldn’t put his finger on
why
, but it did.

Luke scanned the sandwich shop for Felicity. They were meeting for dinner and a movie, and he was so nervous he’d ended up getting there early. This was their third official date, not counting the cinnamon rolls in her office. It wasn’t until halfway through their second date that Luke felt comfortable being alone with Felicity. Sure, he spent plenty of time with Annie, but that was . . . different.

Luke and Annie had already been through the “getting to know you” phase and the “seeing you at your worst” phase of friendship. He could be in the same room with Annie for an hour without feeling the need to say a word. At the same time, there were a few nights when they spent the entire evening texting about almost nothing. She was his main accomplice in the hunt for Neal’s digital footprint, which was nearly nonexistent; his association with Maranatha House must have been in the pre-Internet days. They’d been in touch constantly, even though there hadn’t been a reason to see one another since the visit to Pentwater, which was probably for the best. The new job at Tanglewood was nearly a sure thing. A dream house had been selected in Virginia and a realtor hired in Michigan. Luke hoped the move would wait until after the kids got back in a few weeks.

Even while ignoring the impending move, Luke was thankful for the distraction of Annie’s friendship. The few letters of Natalie’s he’d received recently were shorter than ever. Her handwriting was sloppy and light, as if she didn’t have enough energy to press the pen down on the page. Those letters used to be the highlight of his week. Now they were only a reminder of how she slowly faded away from him and turned into a shell of her former self. Exactly the fear she’d written about on her first day of chemo.

Today’s letter was dated from the end of October. She’d caught a cold from one of the kids, and it nearly killed her. She came home to the hospital bed in the front room, knowing they’d set the stage for her death. That day she wrote six sentences.

DAY 294

Dear Luke,

I’m finally home from the hospital. Thought I might never see these walls again. It feels right that I’ll leave this world surrounded by those I love. You are doing such a good job taking care of us all. I know now I should’ve told you the truth a long time ago. Now it might be too late.

Love,

Natalie

She mentioned her secret more and more the closer she got to her death. If it wasn’t about Will and Andy, Luke was certain the mysterious Dr. Neal was involved in this big secret somehow. Annie almost had him convinced that no matter what Natalie had been hiding, it didn’t matter anymore.

Felicity yanked open the heavy glass door into the sandwich shop, stunning as always. Today her unruly curls were somehow tamed and flowed out in curly rivulets from under a paisley scarf. The blue in the scarf headband matched her eyelet sundress.

“Hey there!” She waved. Luke pushed his chair out and stood. Felicity crossed the room and put her arm around his shoulders, went to her toes, and kissed his cheek.

“You look nice.” Luke tried to remember all the right things to say to your date.

“You too.” She pulled back and looked him over, smiling broadly. He wasn’t sure how jeans and a polo could constitute “looking nice.” He had put on some cologne, so maybe her olfactory senses were overriding her sense of sight. “You ready to order?” she asked. “The movie starts at eight, so we only have an hour.”

“Yeah, I’m ready. Actually, I’m starving. What’s good here?” Luke asked, glancing up at the counter, where a sign suspended from the ceiling read
O
RDER
H
ERE
. As he squinted to get a better view of the menu, Felicity slipped her petite hand into his, interlacing their fingers. His pulse raced, and he still wasn’t sure if it was from excitement or dread.

A group of teenagers poured in through the door, and Felicity tugged him forward, into line just ahead of the horde. Like it or not, he had to make some choices soon. Kisses on the cheek and playful handholding wouldn’t suffice forever. Soon Felicity would want a real relationship, and Luke needed to decide if he was ready to put the letters and his suspicions down and pick up a new phase in his life.

Half an hour later they were sitting across from each other, both with half-empty cups of pop and empty sandwich wrappers. Luke found it easy to banter back and forth with Felicity. As Luke sucked up his last bit of Diet Coke, the real questions started.

“So, the paternity test. Is it back yet?” She asked it so simply, Luke wished he had a simple answer as well. She didn’t know about Andy or Maranatha or Pentwater.

“I have the test.”

“What?” She leaned over her cup, mouth hanging open a little. “Did I know this and I have the worst memory? Or did it just come?”

“Got it a few days ago. Sorry, I wanted Will to know first. We opened it together on FaceTime.” The phone in his pocket buzzed against his thigh. He put his hand over it, hoping to muffle the sound.

Felicity didn’t notice. She took a sip of her drink and placed the cup down gently. She held the liquid in her mouth for a second before swallowing.

“Sooooo.” She twisted her lips up to one side in a half smile. “Can I know the results?”

The phone buzzed again. The irregular notifications must mean texts. If it was an emergency, Terry would definitely call. Luke tried to refocus.

“Oh, yeah, it’s what we thought. He’s my kid, 99.999 percent sure.” The phone buzzed again, and Luke swore mentally.

“Well, that’s wonderful. Do you think he’s ready to accept the results?”

“Definitely. I think he always knew it, deep down. I guess I’ll be able to gauge things better when he comes home next month—” Another buzz cut him off midsentence, and Felicity leaned on her elbows like she always did at her desk during their meetings. Usually she was about to suggest something he might find uncomfortable.

“Luke, you want to check that? I really don’t mind. It could be your mother-in-law.” She swatted at a stiff strand of hair that had wrestled loose from the scarf and was flapping against her eyebrow.

“It’s okay. Terry doesn’t know how to text and Will’s phone is on the fritz, so the only person who texts me is . . .” Annie. He finished the sentence in his head. It had to be Annie texting him. He yanked the phone out of his pocket, his shoulders tightening with anxiety. Usually he would assume the text was a smart comment about finally getting out of the dark ages of technology or a picture of a cat sleeping in a cup, but she knew he was on a date. If it was Annie, then there had to be a reason she was texting so frantically.

The screen was so full of message notifications he had to scroll down to see them all. The first one said:
Call me.

He traced his finger down the screen to read the next one:
I need your help. ASAP.

What did that mean? Annie almost never asked for help, even when it meant using a stepladder to reach stuff on the top shelf in the pantry rather than asking him or Will to grab it for her. The next message made the hairs on his neck stand on end:
I’m scared.

That simple sentence made so many memories come flooding back to him. Blood on the carpet, his mother crying and holding her stomach, his father throwing an empty bottle on the kitchen floor and walking out the front door without bothering to close it.

“I’m scared,” his mother said, reaching out her hand to fourteen-year-old Luke. Her blonde hair was streaked with bloody highlights where she’d run her fingers through it. It was bad. Worse than he’d ever seen. Where was all the blood coming from? He searched her body for a gaping wound but didn’t find any. She grabbed her stomach as another pain hit her. “The baby is coming.”

“What?” Luke knelt beside her, counting the bruises. “But it’s too early.”

“She’s coming.” His mother moaned, a tear falling down her cheek, washing away a streak of blood. Horror settled on Luke’s shoulders. The baby wasn’t due for another two and a half months. If she came now . . . what should he do? He lunged for the keys in the bowl on the counter.

“I can drive you to the hospital; I know I can.”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “Too dangerous.”

“Tell no one” had always been the family motto when it came to his father’s drunken fits, but the first name that came to his mind now was Natalie. Her parents were sane enough. They’d know what to do to help.

“I’ll get Mrs. Egart. She can help. She’s had babies. I can’t do this; I can’t . . .”

His mother’s face hardened, eyes like steel. “No. Not her.” Pain broke through her mask, and she let out a gasp. “No one can help now.”

“Luke. Luke? Everything okay?” Felicity pulled him back to reality. Luke read through the messages again.

A busboy walked past their table. “You finished? I can take your garbage.”

“Thank you,” Felicity replied without taking her eyes off Luke or the phone.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Luke blinked up at him. “No. We’re fine. Thank you.” Which must have been the magic words because the busboy finally backed away.

“What’s going on?” Felicity asked, staring at his phone as if she could make out the words on his screen if she looked hard enough.

He didn’t know how to answer her. The scared protector inside him wanted to leave the table, run to his car, speed to Annie’s house, and pound on the door until someone answered. If there was blood or bruises or anything short of a completely healthy Annie standing behind that door, he didn’t know what he’d do. Probably something he’d regret in the morning.

“I . . . I’m sorry, but I think I need to go.” Luke put his phone in his pocket and checked to make sure his keys were easily accessible.

“Oh no, are the kids okay?” Felicity grabbed her purse and put it over her shoulder like she was planning on joining him.

He shook his head. “It’s not the kids. It’s a friend. She’s . . . she needs help.”

Felicity stilled and cocked her head. “A friend?”

Already standing, Luke realized his mistake seconds too late. “Yes, sorry, Natalie’s best friend. She said it’s an emergency. She wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t something serious.”

“Okay.” Felicity put her purse back up on her shoulder, sounding a little suspicious, but Luke didn’t have time to worry about perceptions. He took a step away from the table, feeling guilty.

“Thank you for meeting me here.” He gestured to the restaurant and her chair. “I’ve had a wonderful time. I’m sorry, but I swear this is life or death. Rain check on the movie?”

Felicity nodded, another clump of hair breaking free, by her ear this time. “It’s okay; it’ll be in theaters for a long time,” she said in a way that made Luke think she might never cash in that rain check.

“My treat next time, no arguments.”

“Oh, you mean a number three off the value menu?”

“Well, maybe not quite that fancy.” Luke tried to smile back, but his hand was already in his pocket, grasping at the phone.

“Drive safe.”

“You too.” Luke gave a little wave and headed out the door.