Remember Me Like This (39 page)

“Someone else must have sent it.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, hearing how ridiculous it sounded, how pitiable. Then, trying to sound upbeat, trying to stay cool, like self-control could make the difference, she said, “The handwriting looked exactly like yours. I had it on the fridge for years. I only took it down when you got home, so it wouldn’t upset you. It was postmarked in Bakersfield, California.”

“I wouldn’t have been upset,” he said. “But I didn’t send it. I’ve never been to California.”

She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. In the sink, beneath the suds, her hands shook.

“I was in the Bluff the whole time,” Justin said. “That’s always right where I was.”

C
ECIL REMOVED HIS WEDDING RING AND WRISTWATCH AND
stashed them in the medicine cabinet above his bathroom sink. If things went sideways, he didn’t want to give the law a crack at the gold. How many pieces of jewelry had he bought from booking agents over the years, rings and necklaces and watches that had gone straight into their pockets instead of into inmate possession bags? He took a blood pressure pill with water cupped in his palm and put the bottle in his pocket so he wouldn’t forget it. Then he went into the front room, clicked the lamp on, and sat on the couch to wait.

He wore a dark shirt and jeans, though only his boots were true black. He didn’t want a constable to pull him over at three in the morning and ask why he was dressed like a cat burglar. There were, Cecil knew, an infinite number of ways the night could go wrong and only one way for it to go right, but he didn’t mind the odds. He would feel at peace with whatever befell him so long as it happened after he’d done what needed doing. The thought that kept surfacing in his mind was this: It’s been a good run. It’s been more than enough. Connie and Eric and the boys, they were beyond what he’d deserved. If it turned out that tonight was the end, if this was the vanishing point his whole existence had been building toward, then who could say he’d gotten a bad bargain? Not a soul. Not one goddamn soul.

G
RIFF DECIDED AGAINST SHOWERING
. H
E JUST WANTED TO GET
out of the house, to get away from his family. His father and Justin were in the living room watching a preseason Cowboys game, and his mother was flitting between her bedroom and the garage. He had overheard Justin deny having sent the postcard, so he assumed
she was rummaging through her plastic bins in hopes of proving him wrong. Everything about the night felt unpredictable, like they’d spun off axis and were floating into uncertain lives. When they’d clasped hands and bowed their heads at the table—something they’d never done as a family, not even while Justin was gone—he’d been so shocked that the moment seemed to last an hour. It was like witnessing a car accident and not immediately knowing if he’d been involved.

In his room, he called Fiona. He said, “I think everyone’s been replaced by aliens. Meet me at the Teepee?”

“You know who would say that? An alien pretending not to be an alien. An alien trying to lure me to the Teepee and feast on my brains. Thanks, but no.”

“Seriously,” he said. “We just prayed, all of us together, at the table. We held hands and closed our eyes and prayed.”

“Interesting,” she said. Then, after a silence in which she seemed to be assessing the veracity of his claims, she said, “Come to my house instead. The last time you went to the Teepee it didn’t work out so well.”

E
RIC COULD SENSE THAT
J
USTIN WAS ABOUT TO GO TO HIS ROOM
, so he said, “Thanks for telling us about Letty, bud. That was good to hear.”

“She wanted me to make sure everyone knew. I think because of the Shrimporee thing tomorrow.”

On the television, the Cowboys were getting thumped by the Steelers. Eric couldn’t pay attention to the game, but left it on because Justin liked football now. He hoped to keep him in the living room. Griff had gone to call Fiona; Laura had been rummaging in the garage for the last hour and was showering now. Eric couldn’t hold a thought in his head. His mind was a dry field that had been touched by a lit match. He only knew it wouldn’t be long before Cecil came to collect him and these might be his last moments with
Justin, and he needed them to count. For four years, he’d wished he’d said something meaningful to his son before he disappeared. Wished his last words had imparted some wisdom or the depth of his love, wished they’d been sturdy enough to endure and bring comfort when Justin needed it most. Now that he had the opportunity, now that he was faced with the possibility of being torn away from his son again, he could think of nothing worthwhile to say.

The football game was such a blowout that both teams had removed their starters. The Cowboys had the ball and the second-string quarterback threw an interception that one of the Steelers returned for a fifty-yard gain.

“It’s too depressing,” Justin said. “I’m going to bed.”

“I’m sorry,” Eric said.

“It’s okay. The preseason doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m just so sorry, bud,” Eric said, a knot in his throat. “I wish it were different. I’m sorry it played out like this.”

F
OR MOST OF HER TIME IN THE BATHROOM
, L
AURA SAT ON THE
closed toilet staring in disbelief at the California postcard. The door was locked and the shower was running, but she stayed in her clothes. The postcard had been in her dresser drawer since she’d swiped it from the fridge that first night. What she’d been looking for in the garage was samples of his handwriting, of Griff’s and Eric’s, too. If Justin hadn’t sent the postcard—and she could see now that his
T
’s were more slanted and his
O
’s weren’t as round—then she’d hoped his father or brother had. But their handwriting resembled what was on the card less than Justin’s did. And there was the issue of the California postmark. She had to assume it had come from a stranger, the parents of another missing child or a nut-job taunting her family in a way she didn’t understand. All Laura knew was that Justin hadn’t sent it, and for no good reason, the revelation set her adrift. Her son was home now, safe in his room, but the night felt even more perilous than before. In the shower, she
tried to give in and cry. No tears would come. She couldn’t even figure how to do that.

When she came out of the bathroom, Eric was changing into a black sweatshirt by the window. The shade was drawn. She said, “You’ll burn up in that.”

“It’s the only long-sleeved black shirt I have. Cecil said to wear all black.”

Laura started brushing out her hair. She said, “Did the boys go to bed?”

“Griff’s on the phone and Justin’s got Rainbow in his room.”

“I thought you might try to sleep a little. Just get whatever rest you could before he came to get you.”

“I’m too wound up,” he said. “I can barely sit still.”

Laura tugged the brush through her wet hair, pulling the tangles apart one at a time until she could comb through in a series of straight, fluid swipes.

After a while, she said, “I don’t want you to do this, and if the boys knew, they wouldn’t want it either.”

Eric didn’t respond. Laura rubbed lotion onto her legs and feet. Her hair kept falling wet and heavy over her face, so she wrapped it into a loose bun. Eric was patting his pockets the way he always did before leaving, checking for his keys and wallet. Look at us, she thought. A married couple getting ready for a date.

“There’s nothing you need to make up for,” Laura said. “There’s nothing you’ve done or haven’t done that will fix this.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t care about the past. None of us do. Whatever’s happened is behind us, and we need to get on with our lives, and I don’t want you doing something like this because you think you need to redeem yourself.”

Eric dug in his pockets, as if patting them hadn’t been enough. When he didn’t say anything, Laura said, “What if we left? What if
we put everything we could fit in the car and truck, and the four of us just got out of Texas? That’s something I keep thinking about. You’ve always wanted to go on exciting vacations, so let’s just drive until we find a place we like.”

“It doesn’t feel like enough anymore. Like you said, he’ll always be with us.”

“We could start over. The boys could start fresh and we—”

“I used to go to the dump,” Eric said. He leaned against the wall in his black shirt, not looking at her, and his voice was low, hardly more than a whisper. “Sometimes when I said I was going to hang flyers, I’d drive out there and dig through the garbage, looking for him. For his body.”

“That’s okay. We were all worried. We were all afraid of—”

“I’d follow the garbage trucks from one dumpster to the next, then out to the landfill. I wanted to get there before he was buried too deep to find. I’d shower at school so you wouldn’t smell the trash on me. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Of course,” she said. “Yes, I hear you.”

“I’m saying I thought he was dead.”

“Okay,” she said.

“I’m saying I gave up on him.”

“What happens if you don’t come home? What happens when it’s a cop knocking on the door tomorrow morning because you’ve been caught? Or worse? How do I explain that to Justin?”

“I’ll come home,” he said.

“We can’t take any more, Eric.
I
can’t take any more.”

“It’ll be done by morning.”

“I feel like it’s just starting over. I feel like I’m fixin’ to get another call that will tear my world down.”

“I’ll come home,” he said again.

“Do you know what I prayed for at the table?”

“No,” he said.

“That I’d undercooked the pork chops or the meat was bad. I prayed that you’d get so sick that you would have to spend the night in the bathroom or the hospital.”

“That’s sweet of you in a way.”

“I should have ground up a handful of my nerve pills and mixed them into your potatoes. I should have stirred them into your tea like salt.”

“You mean sugar,” he said.

“What’s the difference?” she said. “What difference does any of it make?”

G
RIFF CLIMBED THROUGH HIS WINDOW
,
WALKED DOWN
S
UNTIDE
, and once he was out of earshot, he dropped his board and started skating. He avoided the Teepee. He wasn’t worried about Baby Snot and his crew, not really, but he didn’t want to see the pool again, stripped of its coping. He hoped the property would get demolished soon, hoped the pool would be filled and paved over and he’d forget it had ever existed at all.

Fiona’s house was frigid, and loud. She had the air conditioner turned to fifty-eight degrees, and music blared from the recessed speakers in the ceiling. She wore sweatpants and a zipped-up hoodie and thick socks. Her mother’s two cats were snuggled together on the love seat, trying to keep warm. Candles burned on the wet bar and end tables. The room waved with soft, warping light. Shadows kept changing. The air smelled of candied flowers. “My parents are at the yacht club,” Fiona said. “They’re schmoozing it up at a pre-Shrimporee soiree.” Griff thought they’d stay in the front room, but Fiona started blowing out candles and lowering the stereo’s volume. Then she disappeared into the hallway and he followed.

Her bed was piled with stuffed animals, plush bears and hearts and dogs that guys had given her over the years. He’d forgotten about the collection since he’d last been in her room, and now, even more than before, he hoped the rubber duck race would still be
at the Shrimporee. It was the only game where he’d ever won anything—a stuffed flamingo, two years ago, while his parents passed out flyers—and giving her something she could add to her menagerie suddenly seemed necessary.

Fiona lay on her back on her bed, using various teddy bears like pillows; they reminded him of all the stuffed animals people had sent after Justin was found, the ones that were in Hefty bags in the garage, waiting to be donated to a children’s hospital.

She said, “So you’re a Bible-thumper now, praying before meals and all? Does that mean we have to stay chaste on the one night when George and Louise decide to vacate the premises?”

“I don’t think it means anything,” Griff said.

“Heresy is very hard to resist in a man.”

Griff walked around her room, looking at her knickknacks. Porcelain figures of babies and animals with teardrop eyes, photos in heavy frames, a trophy she’d won for selling raffle tickets, and a stein full of spare change. He’d never paid attention to these things before and, noticing them now, he tried to read what they said about a girl who dressed in all black and dyed her hair green. It seemed the kind of thing Justin would be able to do, but Griff had no idea. Fiona was still on her back on the bed. She was tossing a stuffed banana into the air. As soon as she caught it, she tossed it again. She might have been trying to hit the ceiling.

When Griff couldn’t wait any longer, he said, “Justin told my mom he didn’t send the postcard.”

She tossed the banana again, unfazed. She did it twice more, flipping it end over end, then said, “That probably wasn’t the feel-good hit of the summer.”

“After he said it, she locked herself in the bathroom.”

Fiona held the banana to her chest. Her eyes stayed on the ceiling. Every few seconds she blinked slowly. She said, “I did the best I could. With his handwriting, I mean.”

“It was perfect,” Griff said. “You did it perfectly.”

The whole scheme had been Griff’s idea. It wasn’t so much an effort to help Justin, though of course he hoped it would, but rather an effort to give his parents a reason to stay together, to stay alive. Fiona’s family was going to California for vacation, and while he worried the out-of-state postmark would send detectives in the wrong direction, the investigation seemed to have gone so dormant that the risk felt justified. Griff stole the arrowhead postcard from the rack at Sharky’s Souvenirs and gave Fiona a folder of Justin’s old school papers, full of his handwriting. They decided the message she’d write would be up to her. Her parents, in addition to visiting Hollywood and Disneyland, wanted to see Bakersfield Sound Museum and so when they drove out there, Fiona dropped the card in a curbside mailbox. When Griff saw the words she’d chosen—
Don’t Stop Looking
—his eyes had filled with tears. He’d briefly allowed himself to forget who’d sent it.