The Things We Wish Were True (4 page)

JENCEY

Their days had settled into a routine, every day much the same as the one before it. Jencey had taken to going on walks after dinner, leaving the girls to play cards with her mother on the screened-in porch as the day ended and the first lightning bugs began to emerge. The girls loved the time with her mother. She watched the three of them, hunched over their cards at the rickety little table they’d set up on the porch. Pilar liked winning. Zara liked being included. Her mother, for her part, just seemed ecstatic to have the girls with her in any capacity and patiently reexplained the rules of rummy and spades and crazy eights night after night.

Every night Jencey told herself she’d stay and play with them, yet every night by the time dinner was over and another day was gotten through, she felt the pull to escape the confines of home and family, the magnet in her chest tugging her back to the streets of her youth. She wandered those streets looking for the childhood she’d forgotten, the good parts from before the hearts started showing up.

She’d been desperate to forget this place when she’d left at eighteen. Now she forced herself to remember, if only in an effort to forget the more recent past. She quizzed herself as she walked: Didn’t that house used to be gray? Was that the house that always smelled like curry? What was the name of the girl who lived in that yellow house, the one who was so crazy about horses? Was that the house that was always decorated so outlandishly for Halloween? She wondered if the same people still lived there, if the woman still sat on the porch dressed as a witch, scaring kids.

She would find out in October if she was still there. But she couldn’t still be here by then. She would dry up and blow away like the leaves, crunchy and brown and lifeless. She had to find a way out. She’d told herself this was just a visit, a stopping-off place en route to somewhere else. But where? She had no idea. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have a plan. Even when she’d run from here, she’d had a plan of what to do, forming it as she and her father drove north.

It took her more than a week to work up the courage to find out if the hideaway was still there. She took the path around the neighborhood lake, telling herself she didn’t have to veer from it, coaxing herself along with internal promises that chances were the little offshoot path wouldn’t be there any longer. It had been so long ago. Things had changed; progress had happened even there, in the neighborhood that time seemed to have forgotten. Her path along the lake was nothing more than a walk like any other night, she reasoned. And yet her eyes were already betraying her, scanning the landscape for the path with a kind of hope. She needed, she realized, to get back to it.

Walking along, she felt like a time traveler. With each step, she was closer to the young girl she’d once been. It came back to her a little more, the feeling that the future was something to be run toward, that good things were possible. There, on that dirt path, she was younger, brighter, more innocent. She didn’t know that life could end with the arrival of black SUVs containing agents in dark suits and sunglasses, that someone you loved could lie to you so completely, that everything you worked for could go up in smoke as surely as if someone had struck a match and set it all on fire.

As she stepped off the beaten path onto the less-traveled one that was right where she remembered, she felt special again. She was the girl who could do anything. She was the sophomore nominated to homecoming court, then improbably elected queen. The girl who still didn’t know that the next day the hearts would start arriving. This path was her looking glass, her wardrobe, her yellow brick road.

She pushed through brush and brambles, her shins and ankles brushing up against prickles with barely registered pain. She kept her eyes peeled around every corner as she wound her way deeper into the woods. When doubts about her safety began playing in her mind, she banished them, letting herself enter fully into her memories of past visits, of what it was to be here, of whom she used to meet there and the things they used to say to each other. There were the dreams and the whispers, the fights and the surrenders, the truths and the lies. She had been herself then, with him, but was that self a shadow of her actual self or the more realized version? Did life add to or take away from who we are at sixteen?

The path took her to the little ring of trees waiting there for her like old friends, their branches waving her over as if they’d been waiting all these years for her inevitable return. The breeze through their branches sounded like a sigh of relief. She slipped through the leaves to enter into a world apart, the place of shelter she’d run to so many times before. Their world, they claimed, hers and Everett’s. It existed just for them, and no matter what happened, they could always get back to it, hide inside it. She turned around, hugging herself as she looked up at the bit of sky visible from the center, the leaves otherwise blocking the visibility out or in.

That is what they’d loved about it, how utterly hidden they’d felt. At a time when they’d had no space of their own, this had been exactly what they needed: a place to slip from sight, to hole up and disappear together. In that space they could—and did—do anything they wanted. She’d lied to her parents so many times. She was going to Bryte’s, to the movies, to a party, to the library. But she came here. This place was the one place she’d always, always felt safe. Until she didn’t feel safe anywhere.

She shivered in the gathering dark, sensibility returning as she reached for her phone in her pocket just to be sure. She held it up to check the reception and thought of the news report she’d seen on the television her mother kept on in the kitchen all day. There was an interview with the lead detective on the case of a young girl who’d disappeared nearby. She’d started watching it with the concern of a parent before realizing the girls were there, both watching the same thing, their eyes round with horror. Pilar had looked at her as though she was uncertain why their mother had brought them to a place where little girls could disappear. She’d snapped the TV off despite her mother’s protests that the weather report was up next.

Now standing in the woods with darkness coming on fast, she thought about how far she’d ventured from earshot. No one could hear her if she screamed. Anyone could be in these woods. She wrapped her arms around herself and listened for danger. But all she could hear was wind, birds, and the rustle of the branches. What had happened before was over; she had nothing to be afraid of anymore. She forced herself to stand there a few seconds longer, and then she let herself leave, her steps out of the woods quicker than her steps in.

She returned home to find her mother alone on the porch, waiting for her but trying not to look like she was. Jencey folded her arms across her chest and waited for whatever she was going to say. She saw the concern her mother was unable to mask. Jencey held back from saying what she wanted to say, which was,
I love you, and I’m sorry I stayed gone so long.

“Are you OK?” her mother asked. In the light from the bare bulb hanging from the rickety ceiling fan, she could see that her mother’s eyes had filled with tears. She blinked them away, but it was too late.

Jencey waved her hand in the air, reassuringly. “We’re OK.”

“Well, you know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need. The girls could even enroll in school.” She smiled. “I hear the schools around here are good.” The sentence seemed to have a question mark attached to the end of it, as if she were asking Jencey if what she’d heard was accurate. “I don’t know much about the schools anymore, now that I don’t have kids that age. Of course I guess they could’ve gone downhill. They’re always changing things around. Seems like something’s in the news every day about it.”

“I’m sure the schools are fine, Mom. Bryte wouldn’t have moved here if they weren’t top-notch.” She thought of the way Bryte looked at her son, like she was watching a continual miracle. “Trust me,” she added with a laugh.

“So you’ve seen Bryte?” her mom asked, trying—and failing—to sound casual.

“Yep,” she answered.

“That must be nice for you girls, together again,” her mom pressed.

“Sure,” she said. “We’ve talked some, at the pool.” Anxious to change the subject, she added, “The girls sure do enjoy having the pool. It’s made these three weeks go by fast.”

Her mother ignored Jencey’s attempt at a segue. “And it isn’t strange? With her married to Everett now?” Jencey thought of serious, intent Everett, begging her not to leave as if he could change anything that had happened, as if her father wasn’t already at the wheel of the car and her things weren’t already packed. For a while, even Everett hadn’t known where she’d gone, because he could have inadvertently let on where she was to the wrong person, a person who’d been growing increasingly bold and dangerous. She’d only had to look at Everett to confirm that.

“It’s fine, Mom. We’ve all grown up. Things change.” The way she said it, it sounded so simple.

Her mother was silent, thinking this over. Jencey rested her head against the knotty wood and listened to the crickets, cicadas, and tree frogs croaking out a summer serenade. In their previous neighborhood, there hadn’t been the sounds of nature, at least not that she could recall. They’d drowned out those noises with their sound system, their waterfall, their man-made ambience. Standing there listening, she thought that perhaps in attempting to give them everything, she and Arch had cheated their girls. She heard a shriek from inside the house, followed by a belly laugh.

“They seem good,” her mom said.

“They are,” she replied a little too quickly. “We all are.”

Her mother sniffed the air, and Jencey wondered what scent she was detecting. Her father’s pipe smoke? The charcoal grill down the street? The jasmine in the hanging basket or the magnolia tree in the yard or the gardenias in her garden? Maybe it was the baby shampoo her youngest daughter still used, innocence bottled. She didn’t ask, though.

“I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble here now,” her mother said.

“No, no, I don’t think so,” Jencey agreed.

“I’m glad you came back here,” her mother added, her voice tentative, almost cautious. “I think it was time.” Jencey sensed her mother’s discomfort around her; she felt it, too. They were relearning each other, having become basically strangers in their years apart. They no longer knew how to be around each other, so their conversations were awkward, infused with a strange tension that Jencey hoped would go away with time.

Her mother stood and began gathering the playing cards, still strewn about on the table. Jencey moved to help her, her hand falling on the ace of spades. Her mother rested her own hand on Jencey’s. There were age spots on the back of her mother’s hand that hadn’t been there when she’d left.

They stood there for just a moment like that, not speaking, their eyes locked in what Jencey assumed was her mother’s version of a promise. She would keep her safe. They would be OK. All the things a parent tells a child. Jencey knew this because she was a parent now. She knew the urge to protect, and she also knew that even when you couldn’t protect your child, you would still vow that you would.

LANCE

Lance needed to find a babysitter or he was going to lose his job. He had to stop depending on that neighbor lady, Zell. She was like a fairy godmother, showing up just when he was about to explode, taking the kids to the pool so he could work for a few hours without interruption.

He grabbed the bag that held the kids’ pool things—sunscreen and towels neatly rolled, a box of snack crackers, some change for the drink machine. He had not put this bag together; Zell had. He wondered if he could hire her to come over and create this same degree of organization in every aspect of his life. Maybe this was why Debra had liked her. Now that she was gone, he remembered how often Debra used to mention Zell, back when he didn’t pay attention because he took everything for granted. He’d barely listened to his wife then. He wasn’t sure what role Zell had played in Debra’s life, and of course, he couldn’t ask Debra now.

“Lilah,” he called, “let’s go!” He wanted the kids gone. He wanted the house quiet. He’d promised himself he would not work today. He would take a true break. Watch sports—it didn’t matter which sport, anything on ESPN would do—drink beer, sit around in his boxers. He would not be Dad today. He would not hop up to solve anyone’s problems. He would sit for longer than a five-minute stretch. At lunch, he would make a big, messy hoagie sandwich and devour it on the couch. He would not use a plate. He would burp and fart and not have to apologize for it because he would be no one’s role model for a good couple of hours. He had fantasized about this time nearly as much as he used to fantasize about sex.

Who was he kidding? He still fantasized about sex. When he wasn’t too damn tired to do so. But he did not fantasize about Debra. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. It just seemed wrong. The women he fantasized about now were always faceless.

The kids materialized from wherever they’d been keeping themselves, their faces as drawn as if he were sending them off to do math problems all day. “You guys ready?” he asked, clapping his hands together, ignoring his children’s obvious displeasure.

Lilah and Alec nodded glumly.

“OK, well, Zell said to come on over whenever you were ready!” He opened the door, a blast of hot air hitting him in the face as he did. On the heels of the early spring came the unrelenting heat and humidity of summer, something he’d never gotten used to and would not mind leaving behind if he got the chance to return to Ohio, something he’d been discussing with his sister lately. She thought it would be a good idea, considering the circumstances, and he didn’t entirely disagree.

“Have fun, guys!” he said, waving them in the direction of Zell’s house.

Obediently they trotted out the door. As Lilah passed him, he looped the bag over her capable shoulders, ignoring the way they slumped forward. This had been awful for the kids, too. Their summer vacation had probably not felt like a vacation at all. He tried not to think too much about their feelings. Because what could he do about it? What could he change? Debra was gone, and he was holding things together without her. He was doing the best he could. It had become his mantra.

He closed the door behind them and paused to take in the quiet house, inhaling the silence like a drug. He stood utterly still, just breathing. Usually when Zell took the kids, he increased his pace, scurried around doing laundry and dishes and paying bills and squeezing in work wherever he could. He worked when he should be eating, sleeping, showering. Taking this time for himself felt decadent, wasteful, as luxurious as that spa Debra had convinced him to go to with her years ago. It felt . . . selfish. But he wouldn’t think about that now. He would enjoy this.

He watched from the kitchen door as Zell ushered Lilah and Alec into her car. He stayed just out of sight as the car’s engine whirred into motion and the lights came on. He stood frozen in place until the car—and his children—were gone, feeling guilt wash over him as he thought of Alec’s words upon hearing that it would be Zell—and not Lance—who would be taking them to the pool today. “You never have fun with us anymore, Dad.”

He’d told his son to quit whining, and yet, the kid had a point. Lance never had fun anymore. Period. He cast a longing glance at the TV and at the fridge with the six-pack of beer inside, bought for just this occasion. Then with a sigh of surrender, he headed upstairs to change into his swim trunks.

But he was taking the beer with him.