When the phone on the kitchen wall rang, Evan answered and was engrossed in seconds. Had the twenty-five-year-old changed her mind again? But wouldn't she have used the phone number for the study? How many lines did they have and which belonged to whom? I didn't need to wonder anymore. I needed to make my exit. I went upstairs with the instant coffee in the beautiful mug and began to pack. Henderson stuck his head in and said he had called a cab; it should be here any minute. Then he was gone.
As I packed, I remembered a ride in a car with Will years ago-remembered it in the present tense, as I would a dream a few moments after dreaming it, pieces drifting back out of sequence, rearranging themselves, like a skein of geese flying into formation. It is the fifth or sixth month of our romance, and we're driving from his apartment in Georgetown to mine in Manhattan. As we cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge, he says he has something to tell me: he doesn't work for the State Department. Just ahead is a station wagon, a German shepherd in the back looking out at us; something both comic and menacing about this sudden surveillance. I even think that word, "surveillance," about the dog, because as soon as Will says this, I know what he'll say next. The State Department is his cover. He works for the CIA. He isn't supposed to tell me and he doesn't want me to tell anyone else, but he thinks I should know, given the intensity of the feeling between us. In any case, he's leaving the Agency soon, early retirement, the instant he can, next month, and it will all be behind him, though it must still be kept secret.
"I have to lie too?" I ask. "I have to tell people you worked one place, though the truth is something else?"
"That's what people do. That's the way it works. It's only for another month. After that-"
I hear him stop in the middle of the sentence and see him, although my eyes are still on the dog, swivel his head toward me for a few seconds. "I don't have to tell you any of this," he says. "And maybe I'm making a mistake doing it. But I think it's fair, because I love you, to tell you the truth."
He can feel my dismay, the amplification in my silence. It has a lot of bass and treble and prompts him to say, "Do you mean your love is contingent on where I work? You fell in love with me because of my job?"
I shake my head and say, "Of course not," but that's not what I'm thinking. I'm thinking: I fell in love with you because of your grief. Because it is so thick and complicated, it makes me forget my own.
Now, at Evan's, I zipped the canvas bag that I'd packed two days earlier in New York, that distant evening as Daniel dressed and Vicki and her siblings waited for us in the house on Waverly Street that had since become a police stake-out. Where do you look for a missing child? Who do you call? Where do you begin to begin? At the bottom of the stairs, I stepped over sleeping Flossie, whose shiny black coat brought to mind a seal prostrate on a rock. She emitted a brief, high-pitched squeal, and her front paws clenched, then fluttered-dreams of chasing squirrels. Sweet dreams.
"Sophy-" It was Evan at the kitchen door, at the other end of the great sunny room; I felt as if I were looking down a lane in a bowling alley. "Your stepdaughter's on the phone. Why don't you take it in here?"
10. Later the Same Day
I HAD NO IDEA how much Ginny knew about my behavior the night before. News on the island traveled at lightning speed, but there were different laws of physics and etiquette at work in that family. My uncertainty made my hello a bit wobbly, as if this were a call from a collection agency, and that made her hesitate. "Soph, is that you?"
"Yeah, how are you this morning?"
"Oh, God, I went to our house, it was awful, I was so-"
"Are you there now?"
"No, I couldn't stand it. I came over to talk to Ben and Emily-that's where I am now-and Ginny said I should call you about-"
"Isn't this Ginny?"
"It's Susanna."
"Oh, Boo-kins," I said without thinking, using one of Will's childhood names for her, before I remembered that she didn't like it, "it's you."
Have I mentioned that Susanna was my favorite? Of course not. I've always worked to push it out of my thoughts, my vocabulary, such an uncharitable formulation, even for a stepmother who arrived late in their lives. Instead, I've stuck to the facts. Susanna's looks and voice, identical with her sister's, though not her temperament. When Ginny was hurt or angry, she snarled and sometimes pounced. Susanna grew silent; she withdrew, did not return phone calls, moved to the side of a mountain beyond the grid, outside the reach of Pacific Bell. But now, no doubt at my "Boo-kins," and its reminder of her father, Susanna came undone, as Ginny had a day ago at the airport. I winced and said what I could in the way of comfort. I, too, felt the blow of Will's death again, but through the filter of Vicki's disappearance, it felt less urgent. So when Susanna said what she said next-"Will you come over now?"-I did not feel, as I would have earlier, that I had to go right away.
"I have an errand or two, and I'm on the West End, so it may take me a few hours to-"
"Ginny told me everything," she said softly, "and I want you to know I don't blame you."
The change in tempo caught me up short, as did the backdoor accusation. "Blame me for what?"
Henderson appeared at the kitchen door, tapping his index finger against his watch face, mouthing the words, "The cab's here."
"For what happened to Daddy. Oh, God, I just saw the time. I need to nurse the baby. Mommy rented us the yellow gambrel next to the library on Ames Street. Come as soon as you can."
When I hung up and went to say goodbye to Evan, I was effusive in my thanks and my apologies.
"Mavis will survive, and so will Betsy Schmidt," he said, "though Sue Winston may need to be hospitalized." We laughed a little and did not have to mention the real casualty of the evening. "She'll turn up," he said, to be kind, and I nodded, to be kind to myself. "Let me know what happens. And when the funeral is."
It's a long drive to the other end of the island, and I settled into the taxi and closed my eyes against the sun, against all that remained of my hangover, my shame. If I'd known where to begin looking for Vicki, I would have. But the only missing creature I had a shot at finding-or a clue as to where to begin looking-was the dog Henry. "Let's check into the motel," I said to Henderson, "and go to the newspaper office. I want to take out a big ad to say Henry's missing, run it with the picture I have in my wallet. Then I need to see my stepdaughters."
"Sounds like a good plan." But Henderson had another stop in mind before those on my agenda, although he didn't tell me until he absolutely had to, until the taxi driver slowed down as we came to the village of Twin Oaks and pulled over to the curb right across from the church. Of course Henderson had told him to do this, and of course I understood why, as soon as I noticed the parked cars lining the side street.
"Obedience school," I said.
"It's entirely voluntary, Sophy."
"I wish you'd said something at Evan's house, instead of-"
"There were a few too many conversations going on there to conduct an intervention. I intended to, but…" His voice trailed off. The driver kept the engine on but was silent, like a chauffeur who knows to wait for instructions. He must have waited here, or outside some other church on the island, a time or two before now.
"You think I don't know how badly I fucked up?" Soon the entire island would know, as soon as the driver let us off, here or at the Lighthouse Motel.
"I'm not sure that's the most useful way to think of it, Soph."
"Oh, all right, for Christ's sake, don't look so triumphant."