“Yes,” I said.
She nodded, thinking about it. “I guess that does kinda make sense,” she said. I had no idea what she meant by that. “That girl, I swear.”
“I like Patty,” I said. “She’s a good kid.”
“Clearly you need more than a year to get to know her,” Carol Swain said. “The time and energy I’ve put into that child, and what does she do? Cause me nothing but grief, that’s what.” She sighed. “The cops came to see me today. Jennings? She said she’d been talking to you. She told me you were the last one to see Patty.”
“It seems that way,” I admitted.
“She tell you where she was running off to?” she asked, taking a pull on the beer.
“No. If I knew that, I’d have told the police. I’d tell you.”
“It’s not like she hasn’t run off before. A day here, maybe two. But when she didn’t show for work, that seemed strange. She doesn’t give a flying fuck about a lot of things, but she always turned up for work, even if she didn’t manage to get there on time, even if she’d gotten hammered the night before. Where I work, if you’re late, they dock you. Even if you’ve got a good excuse. Like if you’re sick, or hung-over, or something.”
“Patty hasn’t called you.”
“Nope.”
“Are you worried?”
“Aren’t you? About your daughter?”
“Yes. Very.”
“There you go. You and I don’t look like we’d have much in common, but there’s something right there.” She took another drink. “Maybe we have more in common than you think.”
“Maybe,” I said, not really thinking about it. “I wanted to talk to you because I thought if you had some idea what might have happened to Patty, it might be the same thing that’s happened to Sydney.”
“I can tell you this much,” she said, flopping down onto the couch. “I’ll bet it’s something bad.”
I set aside some discarded newspapers and took a chair opposite her. “What do you mean?”
“My girl, sometimes she doesn’t always do the smartest things.”
“What do you mean?” I asked again.
“Anything the other kids are into, Patty’s into it a year sooner. All I ever wanted was the best for her. I wanted her so badly to begin with. She was my little gift from God, you know? I didn’t think I’d ever even have a baby, and then when my prayers were finally answered, I went and screwed it all up.”
“Screwed it up how?” I said.
“Maybe, if Ronald had hung in-”
“Ronald?”
“My husband,” she said. “If he’d hung in to be a father to her, maybe that would have made some difference. You know how hard it is to raise a child alone?”
Susanne and I had been working independently the last five years, but we were still able to count on each other where Syd was concerned.
“It’s hard enough for two,” I said. “It’s a heavy load for one.”
“And trying to make a living, and run a house.” She made a grand gesture with her arms, as though keeping this place running efficiently were on a par with maintaining a Hilton. Then she set her beer down on the coffee table, but it caught the edge, and hit the floor. Carol was like lightning, righting the bottle before she’d lost much of it.
“Shit,” she said.
I sat and looked at her.
She leaned back against the couch, caught me staring, and misinterpreted. “I’m not much now,” she said. “But I had my day.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking how much you look like Patty.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Although I have to say, she seems to favor her father some, too.”
“Do you have any idea where the girls might be?” I asked.
Carol shook her head. “I told the police everything I could think of. I wish the hell I knew. I’m hoping maybe she just met some guy, she’s run off with him for a week or something, and she’ll come on back. Knocked up, probably, but at least she’ll be back.”
“Is that what you think’s happened?”
She put the beer down and studied me. “I don’t know.” She kept looking at me, examining my features.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’re a good-looking man,” she said. “Even with your nose all broke.”
I couldn’t think of any way to respond to that. So I said nothing.
“What, you can’t say thanks?” she said.
“It just seems an odd thing to say,” I said, honestly.
“You probably think I’m coming on to you or something,” she said.
“I don’t know what to think,” I said. I felt numb.
She snorted. “That’s rich. Believe me, I’m not. I was just noticing, that’s all. It’s the first time I’ve really gotten a good look at you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I came into where you worked once to see you. This would be a good ten years ago.” I was selling cars at a Toyota dealership back then. “You were one of the top salesmen, right?”
I had no idea where this was going. “So we have met? You said a moment ago that we hadn’t, but-did I sell you a car? I’m usually pretty good with faces, but I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
“No no, you didn’t sell me a car. I came into the showroom, saw you at your desk, and once I had a look at you, I decided to get out before I changed my mind and went over and talked to you. I guess I lost my nerve.”
“Mrs. Swain, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t expect you would,” she said. “I didn’t want to make any trouble for you at the time. But boy, you know, I really just wanted to say hello, that’s all. I just wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“For being Patty’s father,” she said.
THIRTY-SIX
S YDNEY, AGE FOUR:
I am tucking her into bed. She usually asks for a story, but for some reason, not tonight. I’ve put in a long day, and think maybe I’ve caught a break here, because one story is not usually enough to satisfy Syd. If you pick one too short, she’ll demand a second. If you pick one too long she’ll insist you keep reading to the end, and there’s not a chance she’s going to nod off before you’re done. The trick was to find one that was just right. A book that Goldilocks would like.
But I haven’t caught a break after all. Sydney has something on her mind.
“Why is there just me?” she asks as I pull the covers up to her neck.
“What do you mean, why is there just you?” I say. “You don’t see me here? Your mother’s coming up in a minute. There’s your friends, and-”
“I mean in our family. Why is there just me? Why isn’t there anybody else?”
“You mean, like brothers and sisters?”
She nods.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe someday you will have a brother or a sister.” But I’m not really so sure about that. Susanne and I, things just aren’t clicking between us the way they once did. Lots of talk about money, about the future, about whether I’m going to reach for the next rung of the ladder or just stay where I am now.
“All my friends have brothers and sisters,” Syd says.
“Do they like having brothers and sisters?”
She thinks about that. “Anita hates her brother. He’s older and he snuck up behind her and put dirt in her pants.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“And Trisha says her little sister gets all the attention since she got born and she hopes she moves out.”
“I think that’s kind of unlikely.”
I hand Syd her stuffed moose. Milt. She wraps her arm around him and draws him close.
“If I had a sister, I wouldn’t hate her,” she says.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” I say.
“But I don’t think I want one,” she says, quickly reconsidering.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you and Mommy would run out of love,” she says. “There wouldn’t be enough.”
I lean in and kiss her on the forehead. “That wouldn’t be a problem. We’d just make up some more.”
She nods. I think she’s picturing the kitchen, that love is like brownies. You make up a batch whenever you feel like it.