Nine Years Gone (2 page)

When she saw that I had hung up the phone, Katherine gave Ashley one last push on the swing and then began walking towards me. As soon as she was close enough, she put a hand flat on my chest. “You’re not going out tonight, are you?”

“Just for a little while,” I said, thinking of a white lie quickly. “A woman called claiming to have information about Dominique Girard. Derrick gave her my number, so he must think she has something.”

Derrick Freelander handled freelancers for the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, and he had funneled stories to me before. It wasn’t too much of a stretch.

“I wish you didn’t have to go out. I’ve got plans for the two of us after Ashley goes to bed.”

“I shouldn’t be long.”

Katherine nodded and looked at our niece. We hadn’t spent much time in the playground, but already the sun had begun to sink below the horizon, scattering orange and purple streaks across the sky. Winter days never seemed long enough for everything my family wanted to do.

Katherine called Ashley, and we began to walk home together with the sun setting behind us. My wife and I owned a comfortable but small Dutch Colonial home in a swanky end of town. The breeze blew through our wood window frames as freely as it would through an old barn, and the floors felt cold on chilly days because of our exposed crawlspace, but it was home in the best senses of that word.

When we reached the house, I noticed a blue and white cardboard package propping open the storm door. I knew at a glance that it was from my wife’s favorite bakery, but I couldn’t think of a reason why someone would send us anything.

“Did I miss somebody’s birthday and not realize it?”

Katherine shot me her best faux-innocent look. “I don’t know. Better take the cupcakes inside before a jealous neighbor sees them.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” I said, bending to grab the box. I unlocked the front door and held it for my family.

“Hey, honey,” said Katherine, helping my niece remove her jacket in the front hallway. “I need you to get started on your homework before dinner.”

“But I want to see what’s in the box.”

Katherine’s eyes darted to me and then back to my niece. “Uncle Steve will show you in a little while. Go do your homework.”

She pursed her lips and then frowned. “Okay.”

While my niece traipsed to the dining room table to do her homework, I leaned into my wife. “What’s in the box?”

She snaked an arm through the crook of my elbow and winked. “Let’s go upstairs and find out.”

“Okay,” I said, not quite sure what lay in store for me. We walked side-by-side up the stairs to our master bedroom, where, lying on a stack of pillows in the center of the bed, I found a brown teddy bear.

“Open the box,” said Katherine, smiling. I cast my wife a curious look before using my keys to cut through the brown packing tape that held the box together. Inside, I found three pink and three blue cupcakes with little flags that read CONGRATULATIONS! I put my keys on the bed, my hands trembling once again, but for a completely different reason.

“Does this mean what I think it means?”

She stepped towards me and pushed the cupcakes and my keys toward the center of the bed. “Depends. Do you think it means we’re having sextuplets?”

The smile slipped off my face. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Yes. But you’re still going to be a dad.”

As soon as she said the word “dad”, any thoughts I had of my phone call disappeared. My smile returned and then stretched into a grin that crossed my entire face. I wrapped my arms around Katherine’s waist and picked her up. She squealed in delight, and I kissed her long and hard before laying her back on the bed, her head beside the teddy bear. I probably would have done a lot more than just kiss her, but she put her hands on my chest and gently pushed me away before I could start throwing off her clothes.

“Let’s hold off on that until Ashley goes to sleep. I don’t want to be interrupted.”

I looked at the teddy bear and then at my wife. “I’m going to be a dad.”

She smiled and kissed me. “Yes, you are.”

I sat down on the bed and rested my forearm on the hand-me-down end table that customarily held whatever book I was reading. As I did that, reality caught up to me. “We need so much stuff. We’re going to have to get a crib, a changing table, bottles, strollers, car seats, diapers, and I don’t even know what else. We need to start shopping. We can go tonight after dinner.”

“We have plenty of time for that, and I’m exhausted,” said Katherine. “You go help Ashley with her homework. I’m going to take a nap.”

“Sure,” I said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I hugged her once more and met Ashley downstairs. She looked up from her homework as I arrived.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked.

“Because I get to spend my evening with you.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “Do you want to do my homework?”

“No,” I said, kissing her forehead. “You’re on your own.”

Despite my telling her that she was on her own, Ashley and I spent the next half hour on her reading homework, but then we split one cupcake and took the dog outside to play for a few minutes. We started with monkey in the middle, but Simon and Ashley tired of that quickly. After that, I chased them both through piles of leaves in the backyard until Ashley fell, exhausted and giggling, on the grass. The kiddo went in at ten to six, which gave me just enough time to drive to Old Webster, the section of town that held my father’s office as well as the St. Louis Bread Company.

I ordered a cup of coffee and a pastry inside before exiting and sitting at one of the black metal tables out front. Generally speaking, I’m not a religious man, but I found myself praying that I was wrong, that the woman on the phone was somebody, anybody, but who I thought.

At six, right on time, a white Nissan parallel parked on the street beside the restaurant and a woman stepped out and waved at me. I started to say hello, but the word died on my lips before I could. She had blonde hair that fell in waves against her shoulders; smooth, tanned skin; and pale blue eyes that in high school had convinced me to learn how to play an acoustic guitar so I could sing dopey love songs. One look confirmed what I had feared.

She walked towards me and smiled, and I felt a thousand invisible spiders crawl on my skin.

“Do you recognize me?” she asked.

My breath caught in my throat before I could answer. I coughed to clear it. My heart thumped hard against my ribs. “We shouldn’t be meeting each other.”

She nodded toward the chair opposite me. “Can I sit down?”

“It would look out of place if you didn’t.”

She smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt, drawing my eyes to her hips and very shapely legs, before sitting.

“Do you recognize me?” she asked again.

A bead of sweat trickled from between my shoulder blades and down my back despite the low temperature. “You look like someone I once loved very dearly, but she’s gone now.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. I looked into her eyes, something I had done so often as a young man that they had stayed with me even in the nine years she’d been gone. For a brief moment, something dark stared back at me, something I had never seen before. And then it was gone, replaced by a dull melancholy that fed the guilt at the core of my soul.

I grabbed the wrapper from my pastry and my half-empty coffee cup. “I’m very sorry, but I have to go.”

“Please don’t.”

Her hesitant, hopeful smile stopped me flat.

“We shouldn’t be seen together,” I said. “Not here, at least.”

“You’re probably right.” She looked around quickly and then returned her gaze to me. “I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton under the name Holly Olson. Give me a call sometime tomorrow when you’re free for an hour or two. I’d like to have an actual conversation.”

We stood up at the same time, and she walked around the table to give me a hug. Instinctively, I hugged her back.

“I’ll see you soon, sweetheart,” she said, whispering into my ear. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

“I guess we do,” I said.

She kissed my cheek and then sauntered down the sidewalk toward her car. While I stood there trying to collect myself, she drove away, leaving me flummoxed. When I finally composed myself well enough to walk, I went to the street where she had parked. Exhaust hung in the air, but she was gone, leaving a familiar hollow in my gut.

Last night, I walked with a clear conscience into the Potosi Correctional Facility before Dominique Girard’s execution. No one expressed remorse for his impending death, no one stood outside those prison walls to protest his execution, and no family members or friends even visited him as he enjoyed his baked salmon and scalloped potatoes, the last meal he would ever consume.

I watched his last moments through a bulletproof window in a concrete bunker. He didn’t thrash or fight or squirm or writhe in pain, even when the guards strapped him to a table and a physician inserted the IV that would channel the lethal cocktail to his heart. Dominique died quietly and with as much dignity as the situation allowed. The police never found Tess’s body, not a single trace; despite that, the state killed him.

Cocooned in wealth and power most people can’t imagine, I believe that Dominique thought himself to be above the law, or at least outside of its reach. My friends and I showed him otherwise. I used to think we did the right thing, but since watching him die, I’ve come to realize that his punishment wasn’t my call to make. Even if it saved Tess’s life, we shouldn’t have done what we did. There are some mistakes you can’t take back, though. You simply have to live with them and face the consequences.

I drove home and met Katherine in the kitchen. Neither my wife nor I had grown up with a mother who cooked, so we rarely did, either, which meant dinner typically consisted of whatever prepared meal Straubs, the local gourmet grocery store, had on offer. As I shut the back door, Katherine stepped away from the fridge carrying a plastic bag full of salad in one hand and a plastic container of dressing in the other. Water slicked her hair, and she wore a navy blue terrycloth robe over black silk pajamas.

“I think it’s time for someone to take a bath,” said Katherine, raising her eyebrows at Ashley.

“Can I use bubbles?” she asked.

I looked at Katherine for confirmation and then I knelt in front of Ashley. “Only if you sing.”

“Okay,” she said, already running toward the staircase. It was just new-parent jitters, but I asked her to sing when she took a bubble bath so I’d always know her head was still above water. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to sing silly songs with my niece. I liked that.

I put my wallet and keys in the basket beside our back door, and Katherine put the food on the counter and darted towards me. She kissed me with an open mouth and smiled.

“How was your meeting?”

I should have told her the truth, that I had met her supposedly deceased sorority sister, a woman who, if she were spotted by the wrong person, could send me to prison for the rest of my life. Instead, I lied and justified it by saying I was protecting her. My wife deserved the truth, and one day, I knew I’d have to come clean. But not today, not when life is going so well.

“Waste of time,” I said, looking down at the floor to avoid looking her in the eye. “All the person I met knew were rumors I’ve already heard.”

She winked and then leaned close so that her breath was hot on my ear. She smelled like cinnamon.

“I know something that might cheer you up. I’m not wearing any panties,” she whispered. She pulled back and winked at me but allowed me to keep my arms around her lower back. “I just thought you might like to know.”

I wanted to react spontaneously and joyfully. I wanted to squeeze her tight and feel the weight of the day disappear. That wasn’t going to happen, though, not with my mind elsewhere. I forced myself to focus on the beautiful woman in front of me and the news she had shared with me, and I felt some of the tightness in my chest dissipate and my shoulders relax.

“That’s better,” she said, smiling. I loved that smile.

“Hey, Ashley,” I said, turning and shouting over my shoulder. “Aunt Katherine and I are awfully tired. I think when you’re done with that bath, it’ll be bedtime.”

“No, it won’t,” shouted my niece, her voice distant and high. “I haven’t even had dinner.”

“You’re terrible,” whispered Katherine into my ear before biting it playfully. When she leaned her head back, she winked at me. “I think we can wait a little while. You’re going to get laid tonight no matter what.”

“Maybe you can wait.”

Katherine kissed me gently on the lips before turning and sashaying her hips as she walked toward the fridge. “Ashley, don’t listen to your Uncle Steve. Take as much time in the bath as you want.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “And can you get some plates? Let’s use special ones for a special occasion.”

I got the plates, and we had dinner together as a family. At half after eight, we put Ashley to bed and took turns reading her a chapter from
Charlotte’s Web
, her new favorite book, before hugging her goodnight. As I left the room, I turned on the fan beside her bed and met my wife in the spare bedroom, the one farthest from Ashley’s room.

I kissed Katherine on her lips and then on the soft skin of her neck and the hollow of her throat. We undressed each other slowly and made love as soundlessly as we could, like a pair of high school kids hoping not to wake their parents. Huddling together in the quiet stillness afterwards, I found my thoughts straying back to Tess Girard. Katherine stretched beside me, her warm, bare skin pressed against my side.

“You normally just fall asleep when we’re done,” she said, tracing her index finger along the contours of my shoulder. “You’re not looking for another round, are you?”

I’m sure she winked, but I couldn’t see it in the dark. I slipped my arm around her back. “I’m thinking about some things. About life and how things worked out in ways I never expected.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

I looked up. The autumn leaves that still remained on the tree outside our window swayed in the breeze, causing patterns of shadow and moonlight to flicker across the taut skin of my wife’s back. “I never pictured my life turning out like this, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t want to lose you.”

She kissed me lightly and playfully. “You’re sweet, but you don’t need to worry. You probably don’t remember this, but I drugged you a couple of days after our wedding and inserted a GPS beacon beneath the skin on your right scapula. You couldn’t escape me if you tried.”

I squeezed her shoulder and smiled. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“I know,” she said, nodding. “I’ve been watching from a distance for years.”

“I’m glad that was you.”

Katherine walked her fingers across my arm and then laid her head against my chest. I pulled her tight against my side.

“This is nice,” she said.

“It is,” I said, enjoying the moment. Once my wife’s breath settled into an easy, slow rhythm, I swallowed back my nerves and asked the question I had wanted to ask all night. “Would you feel the same way about me if I did something wrong?”

Katherine removed her hand from my chest, rolled onto her belly, and propped herself up with her elbows. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging and staring at a water stain on the ceiling. “What if I robbed a bank?”

I looked over at her, and she smiled. “In this hypothetical scenario, did you remember to remove the dye packs so they wouldn’t explode with the rest of the money?”

“Of course,” I said, scoffing. “This isn’t amateur hour.”

She looked at me thoughtfully before nodding. “Then yes, I’d still love you.”

“How about if I committed fraud?”

I could barely see her features in the dim light, but she screwed up her face. “I guess that depends on who you defrauded. If you cheated a little old lady, that might reflect badly on you.”

That was a good point, I thought. “How about Donald Trump?”

She smiled. “In that case, we’d be just fine,” she said, laying her head on my upper chest.

I took a breath. “How about if I killed somebody?”

Her eyelashes flicked across the skin of my shoulder as she blinked. “Why are we having this conversation?”

I looked down at her but could only see the top of her head. “I’m just trying to figure out the limits of our relationship and if you’d be a good partner in crime.”

“I like to think I’m a good partner.”

“You’re the best.”

She reached an arm across my waist. “I’m spectacular in bed, too.”

“I can’t deny that.”

We stayed silent for a moment, but then Katherine shifted and looked up at me. “You’re thinking about Dominique Girard, aren’t you?”

I didn’t have to lie, so I simply nodded. “Yes.”

“You did nothing wrong. Dominique murdered his daughter. If you hadn’t testified against him, he might have hurt other people. You did what you had to so you could protect people you cared about. His death isn’t your fault. Does that answer your question?”

I swallowed and nodded. “I think so,” I said, pushing back to sit upright against the headboard. Katherine stared up at me, a bemused smile on her face. I shrugged in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “I have one more question, I guess, and it’s not even really a question, but you mentioned something about a second round.”

“Yeah,” said Katherine, shifting so she was on top of me. The moonlight filtered through her hair as she transferred her weight to my hips. “I did say something about a second round.”