Chapter 25

1:50 p.m.

Alicia was always split right down the middle about seeing her parents, and she never quite knew why. They never pressured her about grandchildren, or her lack of a career, or anything really. She’d always felt herself lucky in this way. She knew other grown women whose parents hounded them about everything. Alicia experienced none of this. But then maybe this lack of pressure signaled something worse: apathy. When she’d announced her engagement to Dan Kowalski after dating for just six months, they were thrilled. They threw a lavish engagement party at the Naperville Country Club and invited two hundred guests—some of whom Alicia couldn’t remember having ever met before. She was so young, and so caught up with being a cause célèbre, she never once stopped to question the proceedings; her father held up a glass of champagne and toasted to her, to her future, to her choice, to all hope everywhere.

But why, she wanted to ask him?

What have I done to deserve the applause of strangers and friends?

•  •  •

She took the corner of her sarong and wiped the sleep from her eyes, then went downstairs for food—her parents had stocked the fridge with berries, milk, yogurt, and croissants, as if she and Dan were going to throw a brunch. She’d fallen asleep again after the ADT salesman had left and had only just woken for the second time that day. She couldn’t remember when she’d last washed her hair, and she really had to change out of her ridiculous sarong. It had deep wrinkles around the waist and odd lumps where the fabric had gotten stretched, creased, bunched. She could hear Dan downstairs talking to Chester: “Good boy, bring that here. Good boy!”

Finally, the NyQuil fog seemed to be dissipating; she had a vague recollection of signing a contract, a vague memory of the fight with Dan in the taxi the night before.

The telephone interrupted her. “Sweetheart!” her father said in a voice that was overly cheerful, full of trepidation as if he feared actually speaking with his daughter. Alicia had a sense that her parents lived inside a double canopy of fear—fear that Alicia would return to the psychiatric treatment facility where she’d spent so much time twelve years earlier, and fear that Alicia would somehow destroy her marriage simply by being Alicia and return to live at home again. Alicia had once overheard her mother say to her father that she’d raised Alicia from birth to eighteen—through her most challenging years, was how Arlene put it—and now it was George’s turn to take the lead. As if Alicia were not an adult, more than a decade deep into her own independent life. All they wanted, they told Alicia, was for her to be happy. Alicia translated that to mean she had to keep Dan happy, and Dan would likewise keep Alicia happy, and in this way the world would go on without complication. So what if George and Arlene helped this happiness along a bit by giving gifts every now and again? A television here, a set of copper cooking pans there. Perhaps the occasional piece of furniture. The dog. And of course there was the house itself. But George and Arlene told each other that young married “kids” such as Dan and Alicia had it rough these days. Who could afford to buy a starter home? What was a starter home anymore anyway?

And Alicia and Dan, for their part, always accepted.

Alicia told her father she was fine. Dan had gone out into the yard with Chester and a tennis ball.

“Your mother and I thought we should come over later. Bring you all dinner.”

“Dad, there’s no need. Really.”

“I understand that, darling. But family ought to be together at a time like this.”

She walked to the bathroom and tried to pee quietly enough that her father wouldn’t hear. She didn’t flush. She could hear Chester suddenly start to bark like mad outside.

“We have to go to the police station in a while,” Alicia said, “and I really don’t know how long that’s going to take or what else they might need, Dad. It’s really okay. We’re really okay.”

“Alicia, there’s no need to pretend with us. It’s a very traumatic thing you’ve gone through. Very.” She recognized her father’s tone of voice as the same one he used with young girls selling Girl Scout cookies. Firm, but fair.

“I’m not pretending, Dad. I just don’t know our schedule.”

“Well, we’ll bring dinner and you all just come when you can. We can let ourselves in.” They had a key, of course. They’d always had a key.

“Dad . . .”

“Your mother’s insisting.”

From the living-room window, Alicia could see that Dan and Chester were in the front yard with that damn prepubescent reporter she’d seen earlier. One of his Doc Martens, she noted, appeared to be untied, and she had a sudden image of him tripping, cracking his forehead on the pavement. Chester was on his hind legs; Dan gripped the collar in a strong hold, so the dog barked weakly as his front paws clawed at the air. Alicia noticed a slight bulge on Chester. He always gained weight at her parents’ house. Too few walks with too many treats. The young man opened, then closed, then opened again the viewfinder on his handheld video camera.

Then she saw her husband’s face, the welcoming smile beamed directly toward the reporter. In Alicia’s experience—not that she had much of a history with crime or media—it was best to keep to yourself.

“Dad, do whatever you want, I have to go.” She clicked off the phone and watched her husband for a minute, holding Chester still in one hand, and gesturing across the whole of the street with the other.

She thought again of the contract. What had she signed, exactly? She tossed the phone onto the sofa and dashed to the dining room, saw the paper on the table, the installation scheduled for the following day. She’d written a check. For how much? She had no idea now. And where had Dan been? Walking Chester? She was sure he hadn’t even bothered to call Lauren, their dog walker. Alicia needed to call the alarm system people. She needed to call Lauren. She needed to call and tell her parents to please, please not come for dinner. If everyone could give her a minute to calm down, to breathe, she knew things would be okay.

She started with the path of least resistance, dialing Lauren’s number first. It rang and rang as she wandered into the kitchen, ate some blueberries out of the plastic container with the fridge door open. Finally, a recorded voice came on the line to say the number was no longer in use. It hadn’t occurred to Alicia that they did not know Lauren’s last name or where she lived or anything at all besides that she’d been a dependable dog walker for all of five weeks. And now, it seemed, she’d vanished.