word, and Lionel was abandoned by all save Faye, who loved him more than ever before, out of compassion, her own loneliness, and for what he was doing to find Anne. She spoke to Mary Wells as often as she could and expressed her gratitude for John's help. They seemed to have accepted the situation gracefully. They loved their son, and they accepted hers as well. It was far more than she could say for Ward, who had never spoken to the Wells since the morning Bob had thrown him out, the day he'd broken the news to them.
And things were no longer the same between Ward and Faye either. He had actually gone to the Super Bowl with Greg despite Anne's running away. He had insisted that the police would find her eventually, and when they did he would punish her, and put her on restriction for the next ten years if that was what it took to put some sense into her. But it was as though he couldn't cope with anything more, and he left with Greg, and had a great time at the Super Bowl. He seemed surprised to learn that the police had not located Anne when he came back, and in the ensuing weeks, he began to pace the floor at night, pounce on the phone the moment it rang. He finally understood that it was serious, and the police had told them bluntly that it was possible that their daughter was dead, or that she was alive and they would never find her again. It was like losing two children at once, and Faye already knew that they would never recover from it. She had buried herself in her work to ease the pain, to no avail, spending whatever time she could with the twins when they were free. But they felt it too. Vanessa was quieter than she had ever been before, her big romance died shortly after it began, and even Valerie was more subdued. She hardly seemed to wear makeup anymore or go out. Her miniskirts were less intentionally shocking, her wardrobe hadn't grown. It was as though they all waited to hear something that they might never hear again, and as each day passed Faye grew more fearful that her youngest child was dead.
She began going to church, which she hadn't done in years, and she said nothing at all to Ward when he didn't come home at night. At first, he came home at one or two o'clock, when the bars closed, and it was easy to see where he'd been, but eventually he began to not come home at all. The first time it happened, Faye felt sure he had been killed. But when he walked in at six o'clock the next morning, tiptoeing in with the newspaper under his arm, there was a look on his face which frightened her. He wasn't drunk, he was not hung over, he offered her no explanation at all, and suddenly she remembered a name she hadn't thought of in years … Maisie Abernathie … she remembered when Ward had gone to Mexico with her for five days fourteen years before, and Faye knew obviously it wasn't the same girl, but it was the same look on his face … the same way of avoiding her eyes, and suddenly she completely withdrew from him. He came home less and less, but she was so numbed by pain and tragedy that she felt nothing anymore. She was barely hanging on to her own sanity. Her days were filled with work, her nights were filled with guilt, and in between she did whatever she could for the twins, but their entire family had fallen apart in a few brief moments.
Eventually she heard the rumors at MGM. He was involved with the star of an important daytime TV show, and according to rumor, the affair was serious. She just prayed that it didn't turn up in the columns so she wouldn't have to explain it to the girls. She had enough on her hands just then, and just when she thought she couldn't stand any more Lionel called her that night. He had gone out with John that afternoon and followed the girl John had been so sure was Anne, and he was sure of it now too. She looked drugged and completely dazed, and she was heavier than she had been before, and wrapped up in what looked like a purple sari,