“Mom? I’m home.”
Catherine Siskel opened her eyes, slowly, processing the voice, remembering. Tenley. Home. Good. She closed her eyes again, tight, trying to unstick her contacts—she must have fallen asleep here on the couch still wearing them. What a pain. Opened her eyes, tried to focus. What time is it? Dark in the living room now, even with the shades up and curtains tucked back, so hard to tell. She must have slept awhile. Didn’t really matter, though, and in truth, might be a somewhat reassuring sign. She hadn’t been sleeping well at night for—well, since Lanna, if she had to honestly calculate. Greg, she thought. He hadn’t slept well, either. With her, at least.
“Hey, honey.” Her voice came out a little croaky. She cleared her throat, tried again. “In here.”
Tenley appeared in the archway to the living room, her canvas messenger bag strapped diagonally across the buttoned cardigan. Catherine knew Tenley had probably unrolled her skirt on the way home, trying to fool her mom. Lanna had never been a problem when it came to clothes. She was always impeccable, more fashion conscious even than Catherine, who prided herself on dressing for success. What could Tenley be dressing for?
All Lanna’s clothes were still in her bedroom closet, still arranged by color and season, just the way Lanna had left them. Tenley’s clothes were arranged by last use, hangers optional. All of that ran through her brain after one look at her one remaining daughter. Will I ever see just Tenley? And not the empty space where Lanna used to be?
“Hi, Mom.”
Catherine saw Tenley’s eyes light on the empty wineglass. “Hey, honey.” Catherine ignored the girl’s silent rebuke. “Did you have fun? Where were you?”
“Why do you always have to know that?” Tenley frowned, adjusted the strap on her bag. “I’m in college. I have a job, thanks to you, right? If you want me to be self-sufficient, in the world, like Dr. Maddux says, why are you always bugging me about, like, where I am?”
“You know why, Tenley.” Catherine’s head felt like a dark fog was circling, muffling her thoughts. She knew her reaction was too harsh, heard her own unfairness, and yet couldn’t figure out how to soften it.
“You think the same thing that happened to Lanna will happen to me.” Tenley’s voice, a sarcastic singsong, mocked the reality. She ran her tongue across her front teeth, her nervous habit. “Don’t you?”
Catherine remembered Tenley’s baby teeth. When the very first one came out, tooth fairy Greg had tucked a dollar under the little girl’s pillow. Catherine remembered the braces, too, and the “braces-off” celebration. Lanna had showed Tenley how to use lipstick, her reward for making it through orthodontia. And now Lanna was gone.
“Honey, of course I don’t. That was, you know, an accident.” Of course, that was not a good answer. Accidents could happen to anyone. That’s why they were accidents. Catherine struggled to remember what a good mother would say. She used to know, but it all seemed far away. Work, that was easy. Running a city, easy. But having a daughter—two daughters, once—there was no Kennedy School for that.
“I love you, Tenner, but as long as you live here, which I hope is a long time, I simply feel more comfortable knowing where you are. When you have a daughter, you’ll understand.”
“Yeah. About that,” Tenley said.
“About what?” Catherine’s mind floundered, trying to keep up with this conversation. When you have a daughter, that was the last thing Catherine had said. “Are you—?”
“OMG, Mom.” Tenley rolled her eyes heavenward. “That’s disgusting.”
Catherine watched her blow out a breath, as if deciding whether it was worth it to continue the conversation with such an idiotic adult.
“Forgive me, dear, if I’ve ruined your life by being so dense.” Catherine had meant to gently tease, but her words came out derisive. Why were they fighting? How could she stop it? “Why don’t you just tell me what you mean?”
“I mean,” Tenley said, “I’m thinking of moving out.”
* * *
“Don’t. Even. Move.”
Bobby Land heard the words, felt them, soft and whispery in his ear. Someone—one person?—had clamped two strong hands around his, yanked them behind his back. And now he couldn’t move.
He’d been walking from the police station to the Ruggles T stop, ready to take the subway home, enjoying the last of the evening light, noticing how the shadows fell across the Vernon Street pavement, seeing a couple of seagulls, off course, he guessed, silhouetted against the twilight. Calculating f-stops in his head, thinking about how he could get a good shot of them. With the new camera he was about to buy.
He touched his jeans pocket, reassuring himself that the big fat check from that woman lawyer was still there. He could deposit it first thing in the A.M., then hustle downtown to Bromfield Camera and pick out a prime piece of camera real estate. They’d have to respect him then, right?
He stopped, staring at the random pieces of grass stabbing up through cracks in the sidewalk. He was still in mourning, deeply in mourning, for those pictures Hewlitt had destroyed.
But hey.
He started walking again, shaking it off. Funny how a little dough could help erase all the bad. There’d be other good shots, right?
“Right,” he said out loud.
And it was kind of a cool story, actually, the fight, and the destroyed memory card. Exciting and dramatic. He’d talk to Jane Ryland, she’d call, for sure, after the cop gave her his number. Maybe he’d even get on TV. He could just see it, him on TV and that blue line with his name under it: Bobby Land, eyewitness. He’d witnessed something, that was for sure.
He pictured it again, the noontime image forming in his brain. Tourists. The statue.
Yeah, he might have to testify. He planned it as he walked. That detective said he’d be showing him photos of some suspects when he came in tomorrow. So, fine, he might actually recognize someone. And if he didn’t, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He still hadn’t quite decided how much he remembered.
But then, that voice in his ear.
And now he was almost shitting his pants. Who the holy crap had come up behind him?
He could feel the person’s chest against him, actually feel them breathing. There was only one, and not that huge, but they must be doing some kind of martial arts hold or something, Bobby couldn’t fight back. How could some asshole rob him, like, not two blocks from the police station? Why would they think he had anything to rob?
He was gonna be so screwed. He couldn’t even comprehend how—
“Listen to me,” the voice was saying, all whispery and hissing. Bobby could smell cigarettes, and leather? And something else. What? But no time to think about smells. There was only time to, like, pray to whatever, that he come out of this alive.
“And listen to me good.”
And now he felt something at his side, sharp—like a … like a knife. At his side. Like the one that stabbed the guy in Curley Park. His knees buckled and the night went white and then black and his eyes were, like, on fire. What if he never saw anything again, not ever, and his mother would wonder where he was, and the cops would call and he would never—he slammed his eyes closed, kept them closed.
“I could kill you right now,” the voice went on. “I could stab your freaking eyes out, too, and then what would happen to your little career as a photographer?”
This person knew him?
“Have you talked to anyone about what you saw? Have you?”
“No.” Bobby managed to get the word out, it was true, thank crap. He hadn’t told the reporter anything. The lawyer woman hadn’t asked. He didn’t say anything to the cops either. That detective Brogan seemed, like, in a hurry to get out, and they’d set up the interview time for tomorrow morning. Would there even be a tomorrow? He opened his eyes, wide, looking for a way out. “No, nothing, no one, I promise, I haven’t talked to—”
“Lucky for you, little man,” the voice said.
Bobby opened his eyes, desperately trying to wrench himself away. They were right in the gloom, right where the streetlights didn’t reach. No one in sight. If he yelled, called for help, he could get stabbed in one second. He twisted again, frantic, then felt the threat of the blade through his thin T-shirt.
Good-bye. The thought floated into his consciousness, then settled in to stay. Good-bye.