apart—not just pulled them apart, but destroyed them—had been enough of a cautionary tale.
Claire said, “Grandma Ginny has dementia. She’s forgotten how to be mean.”
“Do you remember what she said to me at Dad’s funeral?”
Claire shook her head.
“‘You’re fat again. I guess that means you’re not taking drugs.’”
Claire took in Lydia’s shape, leaving the obvious question unspoken.
“Seventeen and a half years sober.”
“Good for you.” There was a catch in her voice. She was crying. Lydia suddenly realized that despite the designer outfit, her sister looked like hell. Her dress had obviously been slept in. She had a cut on her cheek. A black bruise was under her ear. Her nose was bright red. The rain had soaked her through. She was shivering from the cold.
“Claire—”
“I have to go.” Claire started walking toward her car. “Take care of yourself, Pepper.”
She left before Lydia could think of a reason for her not to.
III
The sheriff arrested me today. He said that I was interfering with his investigation. My defense—that I could not interfere with something that did not exist—left him unmoved.
Years ago, to help raise money for the local humane shelter, I volunteered myself to be pretend-arrested at the county fair. While you and your little sister were playing skee ball (Pepper was grounded for mouthing off to a teacher) all of us villains were held in a roped-off part of the fair while we waited for our significant others to bail us out.
This time, as with the pretend-time, your mother bailed me out.
“Sam,” she said, “you can’t keep doing this.”
When she’s anxious, your mother twists her new wedding ring around her finger, and every time I see this I can’t help but feel she is trying to twist it off.
Have I ever told you just how much I love your mother? She is the most remarkable woman I have ever known. Your grandmother thought she was a gold-digger, though there was hardly a scrap of silver in my pocket when we first met. Everything she said and did delighted me. I loved the books she read. I loved the way her mind worked. I loved that she looked at me and saw something that I had only ever glimpsed in myself.
I would’ve given up without her—not on you, never on you, but on myself. I suppose I can tell you this now, but I wasn’t a very good student. I wasn’t smart enough to just get by. I wasn’t focused enough in class. I rarely passed exams. I skipped assignments. I was constantly on academic probation. Not that your grandmother would ever know, but at the time, I was thinking of doing what you were later accused of doing: selling all my belongings, sticking out my thumb, and hitchhiking to California to be with the other hippies who had dropped out and tuned in.
Everything changed when I met your mother. She made me want things that I had never dreamed of wanting: a steady job, a reliable car, a mortgage, a family. You figured out a long time ago that you got your wanderlust from me. I want you to know that this is what happens when you meet the person you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with: That restless feeling dissolves like butter.
I think what breaks my heart the most is that you will never learn that for yourself.
I want you to know that your mother has not forgotten you. Not a morning passes that she does not wake up thinking about you. She marks your birthdays in her own way. Every March 4, the anniversary of your disappearance, she walks the same path you might have walked when you left the Manhattan Cafe that night. She leaves a nightlight burning in your old room. She refuses to sell the house on Boulevard, because, despite her protests, she still holds out the slim hope that one day, you might come walking back up the sidewalk and find your way home.
“I want to feel normal again,” she once told me. “Maybe if I pretend I am long enough, it might actually happen.”
Your mother is one of the strongest, smartest women I have ever met, but losing you cleaved her in two. The vibrant, caustic, witty, contrary woman I married splintered off into silence. She would tell you she gave in to mourning you for too long, let the pity and self-hate drag her into that black pit that I still crawl around in. If she did, her stay