Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,69
brain was busy wondering when she’d last seen him cry. Not in years. Not since he was a very little boy. Not even the weekend their family vanished.
“You think it doesn’t affect me?” he demanded. “Sometimes, I’m so scared. They were here, now they’re gone.”
“Oh, Jake.” She leaned forward, cupping his arms above his wrists, rubbing them.
“I wish it had been me instead of Lindsey.”
“No! Jake, honey!” Abby half knelt, pulling him awkwardly against her. She felt him shaking. “Let it out,” she told him. “Go on, it’s okay. I’m right here,” she promised.
He sagged forward, and, pushing his plate away, he lowered his head to the table and talked through sobs that grew rough and became uncontrolled. His speech was so broken Abby couldn’t get every word, but the gist of it was that he was a bad person, and he’d been a worse brother. He’d ragged on Lindsey something awful, and once, he’d left her stranded without a ride home after school because he was mad at her. He couldn’t even remember now what he’d been mad about.
Abby tightened her grasp, murmuring words of comfort through the tears that were packed like stones in her own throat. How would they survive? The pain seemed so incredible, so never-ending. When Jake quieted, she hunted around for Kleenex tissues, and realizing she hadn’t bought any, she gave him the kitchen towel. He blew his nose, mopped his face. He looked at her, and in his reddened, swollen eyes, she saw a complicated mix of apology and shame, grief and outrage.
“You can’t blame yourself, Jake.” She sat down. “You weren’t a bad brother. You were a typical brother. Maybe you did rag on Lindsey, but you never minded helping her with algebra or telling her when some new hairdo she tried didn’t flatter her. If it means anything, I always agreed, especially that time she gelled her bangs into that shelf over her eyebrows.”
Jake’s grin wobbled.
“You were typical siblings,” Abby said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.” She glanced away. She would never see now how their relationship might have developed as adults, if they would have been close, if they would have ended up friends.
“I’m not going to law school, Mom.”
She whipped her gaze back to his. “What do you mean? Dad would—”
“Fuck Dad.”
“Jake!”
“I’m sorry, Mom, but if it wasn’t for him, Lindsey would still be alive. We’d still be a family. We could have been a family without him, you know.”
Abby might have argued, but instead, she said, “What is it between you and your dad? It’s as if you’ve lost all respect for him.”
Jake looked out the window. “Want me to mow before I leave?”
“I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
He rose and took his dishes to the sink. “Nothing. We didn’t get along, that’s all. You know that.” He came and put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing gently, putting his thumbs into the sore places at the base of her neck. “Tight,” he said.
She lowered her chin, stretching, feeling the knots loosen under his touch.
“We have to accept it, Mom.” Jake’s hands stilled. “Even if they never find them or the car, we can’t keep on as if they’ll walk back in here any second.”
“When I was at Kate’s,” Abby said quietly, “I went to San Antonio to see if I could talk to Adam’s wife, Sherry.”
Jake came around Abby’s chair to look at her. “Why? What did she say?”
“She was gone. A neighbor seemed to think she and Adam left the country together.”
“So?” Jake started to unbutton his flannel shirt. “I’m going to see if I can get the mower started.”
“I showed the neighbor a picture of your dad. She thought she recognized him. She said she’d seen him at the Sandoval’s, that he was driving a yellow Corvette. Do you know anything about that?”
“Jesus, Mom.” Jake flung his shirt over the back of a chair. “No! I don’t know anything about that. I’m not keeping anything from you. I’m not,” he repeated. But he didn’t look at her. He didn’t meet her eye.
Chapter 19
Abby studied her reflection in the powder-room mirror. She looked okay, she thought, in her black jumper and white, long-sleeved blouse. Not too casual. She looked like an elementary school teacher, Nick would have said. She had always thought he meant it as a compliment, but now she wondered if he would have preferred she wear tight skirts and form-fitting sweaters. She sat on the closed toilet lid. Once she’d