“How’s that going?”
I shrugged, then said, “What do you think happened, Rolly?”
“How many times you asked me this, Terry?”
“I just wish this could end for Cyn, that she could get some sort of answers. I think that’s what she thought the TV show would do.” I paused. “The thing is, you knew Clayton. You went fishing with him. You had a handle on the type of person he was.”
“And Patricia.”
“They seem like the types to just walk out on their daughter?”
“No. My guess is, what I’ve always believed in my heart, is that they were murdered. You know, like I told the show, a serial killer or something.”
I nodded slowly in agreement, although the police had never put much stock in that theory. There was nothing about the disappearance of Cynthia’s family that was consistent with anything else they had on their books. “Here’s the thing,” I said. “If some kind of serial killer did come to their house, took them away, and killed them, why not Cynthia? Why did he leave her behind?”
Rolly had no answer for me. “Can I ask you something?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“Why do you think our fabulously engineered gym teacher would put a note in your box, then go back a minute later and take it out again?”
“What?”
“Just remember, Terry, you’re a married man.”
6
After Rolly finished telling me what he had observed while sitting on the far side of the staff room, supposedly reading a newspaper, he had some good news for me. Sylvia, the theater arts teacher, was doing an early morning rehearsal the following day for the school’s big annual production, which this year was Damn Yankees. Half the kids from my creative writing class were involved, so my first-period class was effectively wiped out. With that many missing, those who were still obliged to show up would not.
So the next morning, as Grace picked at her toast and jam, I said, “Guess who’s walking you to school today?”
Her face lit up. “You are? Really?”
“Yeah. I already told your mom. I don’t have to be in first thing today, so it’s okay.”
“Are you really going to walk with me, like, right next to me?”
I could hear Cynthia coming down the stairs, so I put an index finger to my lips and Grace immediately went quiet.
“So, Pumpkin, your dad’s walking you today,” she said. Pumpkin. It had been Cynthia’s own mother’s pet name for her. “That okay with you?”
“Sure!”
Cynthia raised an eyebrow. “Well, I see. You don’t like my company.”
“Mom,” said Grace.
Her mother smiled. If she was actually offended, she showed no signs of it. Grace, less sure than I, backtracked. “It’s just fun to walk with Dad for a change.”
“What are you looking at?” Cynthia asked me. I had the newspaper open to the real estate ads. Once a week the paper had a special section filled with houses for sale.
“Oh, nothing.”
“No, what? You thinking of moving?”
“I don’t want to move,” Grace said.
“Nobody’s moving,” I said. “Just, sometimes, I think we could use a place with a little more space.”
“How could we get a place with more space-hey, that rhymes-without moving?” Grace asked.
“Okay,” I said. “So we’d have to move to get more space.”
“Unless we added on,” Cynthia said.
“Oh!” Grace said, overcome with a brain wave. “We could build an observatory!”
Cynthia let loose with a laugh, then said, “I was thinking more along the lines of another bathroom.”
“No, no,” Grace said, not giving up yet. “You could make a room with a hole in the ceiling so you could see the stars when it was dark out and I could get a bigger telescope to look straight up instead of out the window, which totally sucks.”
“Don’t say ‘sucks,’” Cynthia said, but she was smiling.
“Okay,” she said. “Did I commit a fox pass?”
Around our house, that was the deliberately dumb pronunciation of faux pas. It had been an in-joke between Cynthia and me for so long, Grace had genuinely come to believe this was how you described a social misstep.
“No, honey, that’s not a fox pass,” I said. “That’s just a word we don’t want to hear.”
Switching gears, Grace asked, “Where’s my note?”
“What note?” her mother asked.
“About the trip,” she said. “You were supposed to do a note.”
“Honey, you never said anything about any note for any trip,” Cynthia said. “You can’t spring these things on us at the last minute.”
“What’s it for?” I asked.
“We’re supposed to visit the fire station today, and we can’t go if we don’t have a note giving us permission.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about this soon-”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll bang off a note.”
I ran upstairs to what would be our third bedroom, but was a combined sewing room and office. Tucked into the corner was a desk where Cynthia and I shared a computer and I did my marking and lesson planning. Also sitting on the desk was my old Royal typewriter from university days, which I still used for short notes since my handwriting is terrible, and I find it easier to roll a piece of paper into a typewriter than turn on the computer, open up Word, create and write a document, print it out, etc.
So I typed a short note to Grace’s teacher giving our daughter permission to leave school grounds to tour the fire station. I only hoped the fact that the “e” key looked more like a “c” didn’t create any confusion, especially when my daughter’s name came out looking like “Gracc.”
I came back downstairs and handed Grace the note, folded, and told her to tuck it into her backpack so she wouldn’t lose it.
At the door, Cynthia said to me, “Make sure you see her go into the building.” Grace, out of earshot, was in the driveway, twirling around like a ballerina on crack.
“What if they play outside for a while first?” I said. “They see some guy like me loitering around the schoolyard, aren’t they going to call the cops?”
“If I saw you out there, I’d arrest you in a minute,” Cynthia said. “Just get her to the schoolyard then. That’s all.” She pulled me closer to her. “So when exactly do you have to be to school?”
“Not till start of second period.”
“So you’ve got almost an hour,” she said, and she gave me a look that I did not get to see quite as often as I like.
“Yes,” I said very evenly. “You are correct, Mrs. Archer. Did you have something in mind?”
“Perhaps I do, Mr. Archer.” Cynthia gave me a smile and kissed me very lightly on the lips.
“Won’t Grace seem suspicious when I tell her we have to run the whole way to school?”
“Just go,” she said, and ushered me out the door.
“So what’s the plan?” Grace asked as we started off down the sidewalk, next to each other.
“Plan?” I said. “There’s no plan.”
“I mean, how far are you going to walk me?”
“I thought I’d go right in with you, maybe sit in class with you for an hour or so.”
“Dad, don’t joke.”
“Who says I’m joking? I’d like to sit in class with you. See if you’re doing your work properly.”
“You wouldn’t even fit in the desk,” Grace pointed out.
“I could sit on top of it,” I said. “I’m not particular.”
“Mom seemed kind of happy today,” Grace said.
“Of course she did,” I said. “Mom’s happy lots of times.” Grace gave me a look to suggest that I was not being totally honest here. “Your mom has a lot on her mind these days. This hasn’t been an easy time for her.”
“Because it’s been twenty-five years,” Grace said. Just like that.
“Yeah,” I said.