“Guess I’d better see what your mother wants, huh?”
“Guess you’d better,” Jenny agreed.
“Wish me luck,” he said.
“Luck,” she offered him dourly.
He found Jo at her desk in her office bent over papers. The room was walled with law books and smelled of leather bindings. Jo looked up as he came in. Her eyes seemed big and startled, but as soon as she took off her thick glasses, they resumed their usual deceptively languid calm.
“We were worried about Anne.”
“My fault,” Cork said. “She was helping me with some things.”
“What things?”
“Am I under oath, counselor?”
“I’m just wondering if this was a mutual plan or one of Annie’s spur-of-the-moment inspirations.”
“Why don’t you ask Annie? She’ll tell you the truth.”
“I’m asking you. Because if it was something you knew about, I wish you’d have checked with me first.”
“There’s no court order dictating I have to do that.”
“Maybe there should be.”
She pushed away from the desk, stood, and turned her back to Cork. She stared out the window at the backyard, where the snow flew around the trunk of the maple tree and piled up against the lilac hedge. Her hands were clasped tightly behind her.
“I think it’s time we began discussing a divorce.”
“Annie was just telling me how she prays for us to get back together.”
“Cork, we have to help them see things as they are.”
“If I always knew how things are, I suppose I’d do that.”
She turned back. “You know, it’s funny. Last year I could have sworn a divorce was exactly what you wanted.”
“I never said that.”
“No,” she agreed. “But you also didn’t object when I asked you to leave the house.” She faced the window again, studying the storm outside.
“It was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” When she didn’t reply, he walked slowly to her desk, then carefully came around and stood beside her. “Maybe it’s time you and I stopped thinking so much about what we want and thought a little more about the kids.”
She swung around angrily and threw her glasses on the desk. “You think I don’t worry about them? I work long hours to make sure the bills are paid and Annie gets her braces and Jenny might not have to work her way through college. I don’t get any help from you on that.”
“I wasn’t talking about finances,” he countered coldly. He walked away and stood staring at the rows of legal books, tomes that attempted to spell out justice, something he no longer believed in. He fought against the hopeless, cornered feeling they gave him.
“Look, we can’t go on the way we’ve been going,” Jo said. “It’s not good for anybody, especially the children.”
“And a divorce would be better?”
“Cleaner.”
“Like antiseptic.”
“It’s what’s best for everybody. I think deep down you know that, Cork.”
They were both quiet. The wind rattled the window, and from beyond the door came the sound of the television in the living room.
Cork put his hands deep in his pockets and balled them uselessly into fists. “Fine.”
“When?” Jo pressed him.
“Whenever you want.”
She put her glasses back on and looked down at the papers on her desk. “After Christmas will be fine. You’ll want to get yourself an attorney. I can give you some recommendations if you’d like.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” he replied.
There was a knock at the door. Rose peaked in. “Dinner’s ready,” she said, looking them both over tentatively.
“I’ve been invited,” Cork told Jo.
“All right,” Jo agreed, not happily.
Near the end of dinner, the telephone rang. Rose answered it. She held the phone against her ample bosom and said, “It’s for you, Cork. It’s Darla LeBeau.”
“Darla?” Cork got up from the table and took the phone. “Hi, Darla. What’s up?” He listened and his face grew serious. “I’m sure it’s nothing. He’s a responsible boy.” He listened again. “Look, how about if I come over? No, it’s no trouble.”
“What’s no trouble?” Rose asked as soon as he hung up.
“Paul LeBeau went off this afternoon to deliver his newspapers and hasn’t come back. He’s been gone almost five hours.”
“You don’t think he’s still out there in the snow somewhere?” Rose asked.
“I don’t think so,” Cork said. “Even if he was struggling, he could easily knock on a door. Anybody in Aurora would let him in. Darla’s afraid Joe John’s come back and taken him.”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t think Joe John would do something like that. Do you, Cork?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“He’d kidnap his own son?” Rose looked astonished.
“Jesus, Aunt Rose, it happens all the time,” Jenny said.
“Don’t swear,” Anne told her sister.
“Jesus Christ.” Jenny smiled cruelly.
“Jenny!” Rose said.
“Jenny’s right,” Cork broke in. “Most common form of kidnapping. The truth is, if a kid’s going to be taken, I’d rather he was grabbed by someone who’s doing it out of love.”
“That’s not love, Cork,” Jo said.
“It might be to Joe John.” Cork started for the kitchen.
“You don’t mind going?” Rose asked.
“No,” he said over his shoulder. And it was absolutely true. It had been a long time since anyone needed him this way, and if felt pretty damn good.
5
Darla opened the door even before Cork had a chance to knock. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, and tears had left a trail through her face powder down both cheeks.
“It’s Joe John, Cork,” she said. “I know it’s Joe John.”
Darla worked at the casino in public relations and was still dressed for the office in a dark blue blazer and skirt, a cream-colored blouse. There was gold around her neck and on her wrists.
Cork stepped in out of the cold and wiped melting snowflakes from his face. “What makes you think so, Darla?”
“Because it’s just like him to drop off the face of the earth for two months, then pull this kind of stunt. It’s just the kind of thing he’d do on a drunk.” She took his coat and brushed the snow onto a mat in the hallway, then hung the coat in the closet there. Cork slipped off his boots and left them on the mat.
He’d known Darla LeBeau since high school, when she was a cheerleader with long blonde hair, nice legs, and a lot for a boy to notice under her sweater. In her sophomore year, she began going steady with Joe John LeBeau. Joe John was a fullblooded Anishinaabe bussed in from the Iron Lake Reservation ten miles outside Aurora. Dating someone from the reservation would have caused Darla a lot of trouble, but Joe John was different. Joe John was a celebrity, a basketball player of amazing ability. The St. Paul Pioneer Press had dubbed him the next Jim Thorpe, and he’d been heavily recruited by colleges all over the Midwest. He accepted a basketball scholarship to Indiana, but just before he was to begin his second year, as he was crossing a street in Bloomington, an old woman who failed to stop her big Cadillac at a red light ran him down. His right leg was shattered from his ankle bone to his hip, and although it was reconstructed, he always walked with a limp after that. With no hope of playing basketball again, he came home to Aurora. Shortly after that, he and Darla were married.
“You probably should have called the sheriff, Darla.”
“I didn’t want to get Joe John in trouble. I just want Paul home safely.”
“Have you tried calling Paul’s friends?”
“I’ve called everywhere I can think. His friends, my folks, the neighbors. I even called Pizza Hut because sometimes he’ll play video games there after he’s finished his routes.”
“Nobody saw him?”
“Nobody. I’ve got coffee. Want some?”
“Thanks.”
He followed Darla to the kitchen.
“You’re sure he went to deliver his papers?” Cork asked.
“He left a note on the refrigerator telling me where he was going. He’s so good that way.”