Chapter Forty-two
Harry was out picking up Chinese food for dinner when Jane’s phone rang. She was in her kitchen, her head in the refrigerator looking for an open bottle of wine. The phone was in her handbag, which was on the counter. She dug it out in time to see the name LAURA REEVE right before the screen went dark.
“Drat!” She pressed the button to call back.
“Jane? Is that you?”
“It is. Sorry I missed your call. My cell phone was in the bottom of my bag.”
Laura laughed appreciatively. “Yet another reason to be glad I don’t have one.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment. Finally, Jane spoke up. “Thank you so much for agreeing to see Maggie and me at your house on Tuesday,” Jane said. “I was sorry to intrude, especially with such unhappy news.”
“You haven’t heard anything?”
“I would have called you immediately. Or the police would have. I know you reached out to Detective Alvarez.”
“Yes. Thank you for making it happen.” There was a catch in Laura’s voice, and the phone went silent again while she fought for control. “I am so sorry to call you.” Laura was crying now. “I didn’t know who to talk to. Poor Maggie has so much on her plate. I didn’t want to add my troubles to hers any more than I already do.”
“It’s okay. I’m here.” Jane found her way to her darkening living room and sat down in her chair.
Laura was still crying. Jane waited, keeping her breath even so no sound would travel down the line.
“I’m sorry.” Laura blew her nose.
“Don’t be.”
“I’m so scared. And I miss Megan so much. How can I miss someone so much I haven’t seen in seven years?”
“I haven’t seen my son in almost eleven years,” Jane said. The words were difficult. It wasn’t a topic Jane raised with strangers. It had been torturous even to tell Harry about it, and he certainly deserved to know.
“Oh!” Laura sounded surprised. Estrangement from one’s children wasn’t a common condition. “Is he—”
“He’s alive,” Jane said. “And living in San Francisco.”
“And why do you not—?”
“I wish I could say I knew why,” Jane answered, though she did, of course, have inklings. Ideas that had formed on sleepless nights.
“I wish I didn’t know why,” Laura said. “But I know all too well.” She drew a sharp breath and began. “I was never a strong person. My brother was my parents’ favorite, particularly my father’s, and after my mother died, all balance was lost. It’s funny really, how my father groomed my brother to be a banker or a lawyer and he ended up as the weed-smoking proprietor of a glass sculpture shop. My father must be twirling in his grave.”
When she spoke again, her voice was steadier. “No one had any ambitions for me, and I had none for myself. I did okay in college, which is a good place for dreamy, introspective teenagers, but I was utterly lost when I got out. Daddy introduced me to Edwin, and he took an immediate interest in me. He was older, a successful attorney, which is how Daddy knew him. His firm represented the business. Edwin knew exactly what he wanted out of life, and it was the path of least resistance to have his vision of the future become mine as well.”
“It’s so easy to adopt someone else’s certainty as our own,” Jane commented.
“Isn’t it? Anyway, we married, bought a house in Cambridge. Megan came along in less than a year. I see now how overwhelmed I was, caring for a baby, alone in the house all day. I should have asked Edwin if I could hire some help. Or I should have gone out more. They have all those mothers’ groups now. Maybe they had them then. I didn’t think to look. I was ashamed I couldn’t handle it and determined to keep it all together on my own.”
The thought of Laura Reeve, alone, in a big cold house with a baby was depressing. Surely everyone who knew her—her husband, father, brother—should have realized she was struggling. But apparently no one did.
“It was never a happy marriage,” Laura was saying, “though I suppose I had no basis to compare it. Edwin wanted a sparkling younger woman to have on his arm and make conversation with clients and friends. Perhaps he thought I’d grow into the role or I could will myself to do it, but neither was true. He started staying out in the evenings, either at work or doing the social part of his job, which became more demanding when he became a partner. That made my lonely days even longer.
“I understand now it wasn’t his fault, though it’s taken a lot of therapy to get there. I was an adult. I could have done something, but instead I slid down and down. I never made an effort to make friends in Cambridge. Never called on old college or high school friends, though I knew there were some in the area. Never joined a church, never volunteered, never took a class. It was easy to use my baby as an excuse, but it was my failing. I became dull and a hopeless screwup, and Edwin left me for another woman who was much more interesting.”
Laura could have been describing Jane’s life, though Jane had never been without ambition. The question had been why she’d been willing to subvert it to the role her husband’s job defined, the role of faculty wife, for so long. But when Francis had left her, Jane had been saved by the bridge group, who had sat with her, cried with her, made her laugh, and helped her figure out how to dig her way out of the debt he left behind. Like Laura, Jane had been left by herself with a child, but she hadn’t been alone.
“We didn’t divorce right away,” Laura said. “His lady friend was also married, so she needed to disentangle. Edwin took an apartment on Beacon Hill, and I stayed in the house in Cambridge. He was always a good father. Even after he moved out, he came and went as he wanted.
“When Megan went off to kindergarten, I began to drink, in the mornings, when she was gone. I had always found comfort in alcohol, and looking back both my parents were probably alcoholics, though I didn’t see it at the time. And certainly the voracity with which my brother attacked drug-taking should have been a warning. All I know is, less than six months earlier, the idea of drinking in the morning would have shocked me, but by the time I started, it seemed like the most obvious thing to do in the world.
“The drinking was bad, though not as bad as it would get, but then my mental health started to slip. Packages started showing up at the house, dozens of them, addressed to me and charged to a credit card Edwin paid. They were all things I liked, clothes and household goods, but I couldn’t remember ordering any of them. I didn’t know what blackouts were then.
“The bills prompted Edwin to sue for divorce, so there would be a formal financial arrangement and he’d no longer be responsible for my debts. That resulted in a court-approved custody arrangement too. He had Megan Wednesday nights and weekends. Ellen had moved into his apartment by then. She was divorced, too, and they married soon after.”
“Andy Bromfield told me Megan had a stepmother.”
“Ellen was a good person. She raised my daughter well.”
They were both silent for a moment, then Laura picked up the tale. “Once we were divorced, and I was drinking, things started going very wrong. I couldn’t manage the household. Food would rot in the refrigerator, stuff I couldn’t even remember buying. I tried so hard, but I would forget to pick up Megan in the afternoons, stranding her at ballet or scouts. I put an erasable calendar up on the refrigerator and made a schedule every week, but somehow I still missed stuff, and then I would get these calls wondering where I was. When we’d get home I would check and the appointment would be right there on the schedule, clear as day. In my befuddled state, I hadn’t seen it. Or hadn’t understood what it said. Or something. The other parents were so helpful, covering for me, but they began to question my fitness, as well they should have.
“One day I got a call from the school. Megan was terribly sick, and I needed to pick her up. When I got there, Megan was in the bathroom in the nurse’s office, vomiting. The school nurse held out a plastic baggie containing a turkey sandwich, the one I’d packed in Megan’s lunch that morning. The meat was blue with mold and smelled disgusting. Megan had eaten a few bites. She was such an obedient child. But then she’d burst into tears in the lunchroom, and one of the teachers brought her to the nurse’s office along with the remains of the sandwich.
“The nurse could tell I’d been drinking. She’d already called Edwin. He stormed in from his office and took Megan to his apartment. He went back to court and got full custody on the basis that I was unfit. The day after the hearing, my brother took me to rehab for the first time.”
In her fully dark living room, with the glow of her cell phone surrounding her chin and cheek, Jane wished this conversation had taken place in person. She could have made some gesture of encouragement, leaned across and patted Laura’s hand. But to say something aloud, she judged, might end the call.
Finally, Laura found the courage to go on. When she spoke, the words rushed out of her. “I intended to work to regain custody. I vowed I would fight to get my daughter back. When I saw her during my periods of sobriety, I promised we would live together again. But I could never keep it together long enough to get through any sort of court process. By high school I’d given up promising Megan she could live with me. She was happy at Edwin and Ellen’s house. It was her home.” Laura began to cry again, but she kept talking. “I never saw her room, never even saw photos of it, but I pictured it with posters of bands on the walls and stuffed animals on the bed. We met in coffee shops on Beacon Hill where she lived or in Cambridge near her school. I was always uncomfortable there. I had never adapted to the city. I promised her instead of living together we’d go on fabulous vacations, or outings. But those didn’t happen either.
“When Megan graduated from law school, she told me she didn’t want to see me anymore. Studying for the bar was all-consuming and she couldn’t deal with it and deal with me, emotionally. I understood, I really did. There had been so many broken promises, so many disappointments. Megan told me every time she watched me drive away that she worried I would die from drunk driving or alcohol poisoning or my body would give out. She couldn’t do it anymore.
“I acquiesced. Staying away was the one thing I could do right for my daughter.” A ragged sob came through Jane’s phone. “But I always believed . . .” Laura sobbed again. “I always believed I would see my baby again. I dreamed I would dance at her wedding and sing to her children. I never, ever let myself believe it was really the end.”
“It isn’t the end,” Jane said with more conviction than she felt, because this woman needed to hold on to hope for a few more days or hours, however long it took until the call from Detective Alvarez inevitably came.
“Thank you for caring about my Megan.” Laura choked the words out.
“It isn’t the end,” Jane repeated. She needed to believe it herself.