“So our previous plans are still in effect?” Jake tried to sound like they were talking business.
“Is someone there with you?” Jane said. “You’re so funny. I can always tell. I guess that’s a good thing. Anyway, yeah, so far so fine. Melissa is freaking, but what else is new? So. We pushed the dinner reservations to eight-thirty, Brookline Taverna. Jerry’s on duty, he’s holding a table. Daniel’s still stuck in Geneva. Lewis and Gracie will get there when they can. Apparently Gracie’s jazzed about getting to stay up late. All’s well that ends well.”
“Hey. Tell her to call me,” Bobby said, pointing at the phone. “I know she’s gotta still be a reporter. She was covering the story, right? Tell her I know the whole picture. I’ll tell her everything.”
“Great,” Jake said. That one-word answer would work for Jane and Bobby, too. Clicking off the phone, he waved to Sergeant Thomason, the veteran desk clerk who’d just arrived at her longtime post behind the shoulder-high intake booth. Monday nights were always a parade of human drama: fallout from weekend domestic squabbles, battles over reneged sports bets, complaints about unfairly towed cars. “Fill out the form,” Shelley Thomason would instruct one unfortunate after another, her cigarette voice both sympathetic and dismissive. “I know, life isn’t fair.”
“You’ll tell Jane everything, huh?” Jake shook his head. Life isn’t fair, he thought. “Your call, Mr. Land. But here’s the deal. You’re gonna have to tell me everything, too. And you’re gonna have to tell me first.”
21
“Mom? I’m home.”
Catherine Siskel opened her eyes, slowly, processing the voice, remembering. Tenley. Home. Good. She closed her eyes again, tight, trying to unstick her contacts-she must have fallen asleep here on the couch still wearing them. What a pain. Opened her eyes, tried to focus. What time is it? Dark in the living room now, even with the shades up and curtains tucked back, so hard to tell. She must have slept awhile. Didn’t really matter, though, and in truth, might be a somewhat reassuring sign. She hadn’t been sleeping well at night for-well, since Lanna, if she had to honestly calculate. Greg, she thought. He hadn’t slept well, either. With her, at least.
“Hey, honey.” Her voice came out a little croaky. She cleared her throat, tried again. “In here.”
Tenley appeared in the archway to the living room, her canvas messenger bag strapped diagonally across the buttoned cardigan. Catherine knew Tenley had probably unrolled her skirt on the way home, trying to fool her mom. Lanna had never been a problem when it came to clothes. She was always impeccable, more fashion conscious even than Catherine, who prided herself on dressing for success. What could Tenley be dressing for?
All Lanna’s clothes were still in her bedroom closet, still arranged by color and season, just the way Lanna had left them. Tenley’s clothes were arranged by last use, hangers optional. All of that ran through her brain after one look at her one remaining daughter. Will I ever see just Tenley? And not the empty space where Lanna used to be?
“Hi, Mom.”
Catherine saw Tenley’s eyes light on the empty wineglass. “Hey, honey.” Catherine ignored the girl’s silent rebuke. “Did you have fun? Where were you?”
“Why do you always have to know that?” Tenley frowned, adjusted the strap on her bag. “I’m in college. I have a job, thanks to you, right? If you want me to be self-sufficient, in the world, like Dr. Maddux says, why are you always bugging me about, like, where I am?”
“You know why, Tenley.” Catherine’s head felt like a dark fog was circling, muffling her thoughts. She knew her reaction was too harsh, heard her own unfairness, and yet couldn’t figure out how to soften it.
“You think the same thing that happened to Lanna will happen to me.” Tenley’s voice, a sarcastic singsong, mocked the reality. She ran her tongue across her front teeth, her nervous habit. “Don’t you?”
Catherine remembered Tenley’s baby teeth. When the very first one came out, tooth fairy Greg had tucked a dollar under the little girl’s pillow. Catherine remembered the braces, too, and the “braces-off” celebration. Lanna had showed Tenley how to use lipstick, her reward for making it through orthodontia. And now Lanna was gone.
“Honey, of course I don’t. That was, you know, an accident.” Of course, that was not a good answer. Accidents could happen to anyone. That’s why they were accidents. Catherine struggled to remember what a good mother would say. She used to know, but it all seemed far away. Work, that was easy. Running a city, easy. But having a daughter-two daughters, once-there was no Kennedy School for that.
“I love you, Tenner, but as long as you live here, which I hope is a long time, I simply feel more comfortable knowing where you are. When you have a daughter, you’ll understand.”
“Yeah. About that,” Tenley said.
“About what?” Catherine’s mind floundered, trying to keep up with this conversation. When you have a daughter, that was the last thing Catherine had said. “Are you-?”
“OMG, Mom.” Tenley rolled her eyes heavenward. “That’s disgusting.”
Catherine watched her blow out a breath, as if deciding whether it was worth it to continue the conversation with such an idiotic adult.
“Forgive me, dear, if I’ve ruined your life by being so dense.” Catherine had meant to gently tease, but her words came out derisive. Why were they fighting? How could she stop it? “Why don’t you just tell me what you mean?”
“I mean,” Tenley said, “I’m thinking of moving out.”
“Don’t. Even. Move.”
Bobby Land heard the words, felt them, soft and whispery in his ear. Someone-one person?-had clamped two strong hands around his, yanked them behind his back. And now he couldn’t move.
He’d been walking from the police station to the Ruggles T stop, ready to take the subway home, enjoying the last of the evening light, noticing how the shadows fell across the Vernon Street pavement, seeing a couple of seagulls, off course, he guessed, silhouetted against the twilight. Calculating f-stops in his head, thinking about how he could get a good shot of them. With the new camera he was about to buy.
He touched his jeans pocket, reassuring himself that the big fat check from that woman lawyer was still there. He could deposit it first thing in the A.M., then hustle downtown to Bromfield Camera and pick out a prime piece of camera real estate. They’d have to respect him then, right?
He stopped, staring at the random pieces of grass stabbing up through cracks in the sidewalk. He was still in mourning, deeply in mourning, for those pictures Hewlitt had destroyed.
But hey.
He started walking again, shaking it off. Funny how a little dough could help erase all the bad. There’d be other good shots, right?
“Right,” he said out loud.
And it was kind of a cool story, actually, the fight, and the destroyed memory card. Exciting and dramatic. He’d talk to Jane Ryland, she’d call, for sure, after the cop gave her his number. Maybe he’d even get on TV. He could just see it, him on TV and that blue line with his name under it: Bobby Land, eyewitness. He’d witnessed something, that was for sure.
He pictured it again, the noontime image forming in his brain. Tourists. The statue.
Yeah, he might have to testify. He planned it as he walked. That detective said he’d be showing him photos of some suspects when he came in tomorrow. So, fine, he might actually recognize someone. And if he didn’t, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He still hadn’t quite decided how much he remembered.