They walked back to Mary Bliss’s house hand in hand. It had rained sometime earlier, and steam still rose up off the cooling pavement. She could smell wet earth and flowers, and off in the distance she heard the fleeting hoot of a train whistle. It was only a little past midnight, but most of the lights of Fair Oaks were dimmed. The town had gone to bed.
“It’s a nice place,” Matt said, stopping to admire a neat white brick cottage on the corner of Mary Bliss’s street. “I can see why you like it so much. How long have you been here?”
“Eighteen years,” Mary Bliss said. “We bought the house when we were newlyweds and spent years fixing it up. How long have you been in the Oaks?”
“Seven, eight months,” Matt said. “It’s not like here. It’s just a bunch of houses. Not a community, like Fair Oaks. I would have preferred to buy a house over here, but I couldn’t find one in my price range.”
“We could never afford our house now,” Mary Bliss agreed.
“Parker managed to take out a whopping new mortgage on your house. Somebody must have thought it was worth that.”
Mary Bliss felt her face warm. “I still can’t believe any of this has happened. I can’t believe he was capable of any of this. It’s all like a really vivid bad dream.”
“You had no idea he was planning any of it? The marriage wasn’t in trouble?”
“I was blind and stupid,” Mary Bliss said, her voice dull. “Running around, worrying about Charlie and Katharine’s marriage, and Randy and Nancye’s. I was obsessed with divorce. You know, I even plotted a map, of all the marriages in the neighborhood that had broken up. I didn’t have a clue in the world that my own marriage was dissolving.”
“He was a sneaky bastard,” Matt said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
“Who else can I blame?” she said lightly.
They had arrived at Mary Bliss’s doorstep. They walked up onto the porch, and Matt pulled her into the shadows and kissed her. She kissed him back, long and deep. Full of regrets, she pulled away. From the corner of her eye she saw a flicker of movement. Heard the faint hiss of water running.
Across the street, Randy Bowden stood in his front yard, a hose trained on his shrubbery. He was staring in her direction. Mary Bliss waved. He turned away, pretending not to notice her.
“I can’t ask you in,” Mary Bliss told Matt. “Erin had a fit when I told her I was going out tonight. She called me awful names. She says my mother-in-law told her Parker really isn’t dead. Erin says Meemaw told her her daddy is living on a beach somewhere, with a girlfriend and a boat. And that he’s going to send for her.”
“Is that right?” Matt asked, his interest piqued. “Do you think the old lady is telling the truth?”
“I don’t know,” Mary Bliss said. “She’s gotten kind of senile. She claims the CIA is sending her coded messages through the fillings in her molars.”
“Was Parker close to his mother?”
“Very,” Mary Bliss said. “The only decent thing he did before he took off was to pay up her nursing home bill in advance.”
“Meemaw won’t tell you anything?”
“Not a word,” Mary Bliss said, sighing.
He kissed her again, briefly. “Can I call you?”
She sighed again. “Better not. I’ve got to patch things up with my daughter. I can’t stand living like this, with her hating me.”
“You could call me.”
“Maybe.”
She went inside and locked the front door behind her. The house was quiet. Erin’s room was empty. It was past curfew.
Enough, Mary Bliss thought. She dialed Jessica’s house. The phone rang several times before a sleepy female voice picked up.
“Jessica? It’s Mrs. McGowan. Is Erin there?”
The teenager yawned loudly. “No, Mrs. Mac.”
“Was she there earlier?”
The girl hesitated.
“Jessica, I really need to know where Erin is,” Mary Bliss said. “It’s after midnight and I’m worried about her.” She paused. “We had a bad fight. She ran off and I haven’t seen her since.”
“She came over around eight,” Jessica said finally. “But I had a date tonight, so she left.”
“Where was she going? Was she planning on coming back to spend the night with you again?”
“No,” Jessica said. “My mom kinda kicked her out. She told Erin she can’t stay here anymore until you guys make up.”
“Your mom is a smart lady,” Mary Bliss said gratefully. “Tell her I said thank you for putting up with us. Do you have any idea where Erin might have gone?”
Mary Bliss peered out the window at the Bowdens’ house. All the lights were out.
“Could she be with Josh?”
“Josh? I don’t know.”
“Another girlfriend’s house, maybe?”
“She didn’t say,” Jessica said. “Most of the kids we hang out with went down to the beach this weekend. The only reason I didn’t go was that I had to work today.”
“All right,” Mary Bliss said. “Thanks.”
“Wait. Mrs. Mac?”
“I’m still here. What is it?”
“Sometimes, Erin stays with her grandmother.”
“Meemaw?” Mary Bliss was stunned. “You think she spends the night in the nursing home with Meemaw? In her room?”
“She sneaks in through the window,” Jessica said. “She says she sleeps in a chair, and then she leaves in the morning, before the nurses come in to give her grandmother her medicine.”
“Good heavens,” Mary Bliss said.