One More Day (14 page)

John had had a completely different upbringing than Carrie except for one thing: they both attended Episcopal churches. When Carrie agreed to be married in John's church, it was one of the few things that gave John's parents comfort—they had home court advantage. It had made the wedding run a little smoother and made everyone feel better about how their grandchildren would be raised. Of course, as far as Carrie could tell, John had never dated anyone too far afield of his mother's tastes. Carrie, with no country club affiliation, no father to walk her down the aisle, and a mother who worked harder than any man, was about as rebellious as John had ever gotten. And if anyone was looking for blame, it could clearly be placed on his grades—if he'd had better test scores, he wouldn't have been at a state college, and he would have met a larger cross-section of the same girls he'd known at boarding school. And they wouldn't have been quite like Carrie.

Over the years, Carrie had felt a kind of softening, an acceptance, as if they were tallying her best features: she was bright, honey-blond, and had provided a grandson, an heir to continue the family name. How bad could this pairing be?

But now, sitting alone in her son's bedroom, remembering her visit from her grandmother, Carrie questioned whether she and John even had their faith in common after all. John rarely went to church; was it possible he didn't believe? Maybe Reverend Carson would talk to him if Carrie asked. Talk to him about heaven, about resurrection, about the afterlife. Had John ever known anyone, other than Ben, who had died? If he had, would he be doubting her, doubting Ben? He would be more experienced about conjuring love. Pure love. Well, if John didn't believe her, maybe Libby would. Maybe she would try talking to Libby again. She looked up at the ceiling.
See Gran
, she thought.
I'm not alone in this. I'm not.

Carrie stood and looked out the window in her son's room. The dark orange of sunset through the trees. Beautiful down by the pond. Neil and his dog. The jogger. Couples on their nightly walk. Living their lives, getting on with it. Nature painting a gloss over anything that was wrong. But it didn't always work like that, did it? Sometimes clearing your head, breathing in the world, only made things worse. Like going to the path. Like visiting her old house, running into no one except someone who was likely dead. It hadn't made her feel any better.

A car in the driveway. Keys in the door. She wiped her eyes and headed downstairs.

“Smells good in here,” John said, glancing into the kitchen. “You made cookies?”

“Yes.”
I, not we.
She knew he wasn't ready. Not after the dog. After Ben. She would have to find a new way to convince him.

He fiddled with his phone. “I haven't gotten any alerts. Did Dr. Kenney help you draft a statement? Or Susan Clark maybe? Did she call?”

“A statement?” she asked dumbly.
And then—wait—alerts? He has a Google alert on me, on Ben?

“For the reporters. They're gone, so I assumed you spoke to them.”

“No. No, no.”

“You have to say something, Carrie. They'll come back every day until you do.”

“I gave them cookies.”

“Cookies? What?”

“You shouldn't have called him, John.”

“Wha—who?”

“Dr. Kenney.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Carrie. I had to leave, and when the vans started showing up—jeez, one guy got so close to me, I could smell his cologne! And what if Maya Mercer comes over again, upsetting you? I asked the doctor to come over so you wouldn't be alone.”

“I'm not alone!” she said.

John blinked, ran his hand across his eyes. “Honey, I—”

He stopped; he didn't need to say more. His face had fallen; he looked older, tired, pale. His hair had grown long in the back, over his ears.

Carrie knew she had to be more careful; she had to choose her words before she spoke them.

“How can I be alone with a million reporters outside?”

John looked at his hands. She was trying to lighten the mood, but sometimes he believed the mood shouldn't budge.

Husbands didn't have to testify against their wives. They both knew John would never have to get up in front of a courtroom and tell them his wife was delusional, hallucinating. That her story had never made sense to him: How could a man sneak into a car and unbuckle a child in the space of time it took for a woman to dig for a linty quarter in a dark-bottomed purse? How? He'd never asked that question of Carrie, but she'd seen it in his eyes and wanted to scream:
People crash when they change the channel on a radio! People are struck by lightning before they even see the flash! The dangerous world moves fast, John! Faster than careful mortals can keep up!
If he knew what it was like to care for a baby all day, he'd know that it wasn't easy! That sometimes people had to make choices. Sometimes people made mistakes.

And she knew that whether he had to say it or not, that every television camera, every reporter, would read it on his face. They could look at a man and know if he believed in his own wife or if he thought, as Gran would say, that she was full of
bunkum
.

Carrie sat on the edge of the sofa, fiddling with the fringe of the throw. John stood in the middle of the room like it wasn't his house.

“When they come back, I'm just going to say no comment,” she said. “Or nothing. I'll say nothing.”

“No,” John said. “That will make you seem too cold.”

He looked cold when he said this, and he never looked cold. His eyes looked darker, more brown than green. His jaw locked, like it did when he was concentrating on writing a report for work. Was that what she was now? A spreadsheet, a task?

“Well, what then?”

“That's why I sent for Dr. Kenney, to help you figure that out.”

Carrie sighed. “John, that is not why you sent for him. Susan Clark said I could say no comment, and I'll just add something warm to that, okay?”

“Like what?”

“Like ‘Thank you, but I have no comment.'”

“As long as you don't just go adding…other things.”

“Like what, John? Like cookies? Am I not allowed to give them cookies?”

“No—”

“Like the things that make you doubt my sanity?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to.”

Still standing, as if he were her superior. She stood up too.

“How is it possible, John, that you went to church every Sunday your entire life and you don't believe in heaven?”

“Carrie, really, I—”

“Really what, John?”

“There's a difference between an afterlife and…ghosts.”

“So you don't believe in ghosts? Or resurrection? How about Easter, John? Do you believe in Easter? Or just in chocolate eggs?”

“I didn't say that. I—”

“You don't.” She sighed. “You don't believe. That's what this comes down to.”

“Carrie, come on. We're not…clergy. We're not nuns. Nobody buys into everything wholesale. There's…a scale of belief.”

She blinked. A Chinese menu? Just pick and choose?

“Does that scale include not believing your wife? Calling your wife a liar?”

“Carrie,” he said with a sigh.

“How is this different from when you used to accuse me of not telling you where I was going? I'd say ‘book club,' but you'd hear ‘club.'”

“It's not the same!”

“It's exactly the same,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just admit it, John. It would be so much easier if you would just admit it.”

But he had no answer for her, no gesture of support or defeat. She walked upstairs and went into the guest room, and for the first time since they'd been married, she prepared to spend the night in a separate bed in the same house.

She brushed her teeth and put on a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. In the corner of the guest room, on the small desk, sat a crystal perfume atomizer that had been her grandmother's. She picked it up and held it to her nose. Barely there, the notes of amber, jasmine. In a few months, it might be gone altogether. She put it down next to a small calendar she'd gotten in the mail. When she was a girl, she'd crossed out every day as it ended, as if she was relieved.

She looked at the week that had passed, the numbers, the empty boxes, no
x
's through them. Wednesday, she'd seen her grandmother. Tuesday, it had been Jinx. And Monday, it had been Ben. She swallowed hard, a lump in her throat. Would there be someone else tomorrow?

John stood at the window, staring out at the small backyard. Still green, the grass. Soft enough to slide in, to fall, to roughhouse. It was almost dark, and the floodlights came on automatically, illuminating the leaves that were starting to turn. Only a few fell as he watched. He'd never stood in that spot before; he'd been out back a million times, of course, playing with his son, looking at the sunset with his wife, or grilling on the Weber balanced on the edge of the lawn. His path was practically worn on the carpet runner beneath his feet. But stand there, like a piece of sculpture, like a new piece of furniture in the room? Never.

That was why Carrie, who'd come down to the kitchen for a glass of water, approached him slowly, calling his name, then coming around and searching his eyes as if they could tell her what he was looking at. And they did, to some degree, when she saw the tears hovering.

“John?” she said.

“Look at that,” he said and sniffed.

Her eyes followed his gaze. Even from up there, above the path, in the waning twilight, she could make out bits of color and shine—blue ribbons flapping parade-happy in the breeze, red Mylar balloons, darker shapes on the ground.

“I've seen them on the highway a million times,” he said.

Carrie nodded.

“But the teddy bears,” he said. “All those little stuffed animals. What good does it do? Why do they keep bringing them?”

“Well—”

“I keep imagining them…wet. With him, you know? Because he died without any toys,” he said, almost choking on the words.

Carrie blinked, tried to focus. These were the kinds of things she'd said to John in the early weeks, months.
He doesn't have his toys. He doesn't have his juice. He doesn't have his crib mobile.
Was it more sad or less to picture a teddy bear on the silty bottom with Ben, plush paw clasped in his hand, its button eyes as flat and expressionless as fish?

She squeezed his hand. “We should donate them,” Carrie said. “To the church day care center.”

“Yes,” he said.

“We'll do it together.”

She got her coat and grabbed a roll of white garbage bags from under the kitchen sink. As they walked down to the path, the wind picked up, and the plastic edge of the bags lifted, flapping behind her. She didn't try to stop it. A year ago, she would have rerolled it, tucked it under her arm.

The shrine grew larger and shinier as they approached. So much silver. So much blue.

“They didn't know him,” he said.

“What?”

“None of these people. If they'd known him, they would have left baseballs and bats and hockey sticks.”

“Yes,” she said. She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away. “John—”

“Let's just fill the bags, okay?”

They worked side by side until it was done. The bags were full but light. They carried them back by twos in each fist. John was about to put the bags in Carrie's trunk, then thought better of it. He let them down gently in the foyer to sit overnight. The tops of the bags, ungrasped, fell open a little as he started to walk away, releasing a small plastic sigh. John turned back. He leaned down and spread each bag open further, as if offering them some air.

I tried to tell them what I'd seen. Those two men, one mean, one kind.

They came door to door, looking like they had something to sell or something to hide. They were really looking for a camera, a machine that doesn't make mistakes, doesn't lie, doesn't get confused—not a witness. Didn't expect to find a person recording events in her memory. Sorry to have disappointed you both.

They looked at my Raina outfit—my costume, I call it—and sniffed with distaste. “
You used to wear a uniform
,” I wanted to scream. “
What's the difference? You wear what needs to be worn, what makes people feel respect or comfort. You do what needs to be done, and so do I.
”

They talked to all of us, and I told them what I knew, but they didn't listen. The mean one's eyes kept growing wider, which meant I was becoming a story he would tell later to his friends.

I knew when he thought about it more, when it settled, the doubt would sink in. How did someone like me know so much? And slowly, in the middle of the night, I would cross the line between witness and suspect. I knew that the same way I know all kinds of things.

But the young one gave me his card and told me to call him if I remembered anything else. Not saw, but remembered, he said.

And as they were leaving, I gave him one of my little cards too. My mother had a real card, but I made mine on the computer at the library and cut them up carefully, lining up the edges on the paper cutter just so.

He held it in his hand for a second and smiled.

I knew he wouldn't throw it away. The other one would, but not him.

It was hard to believe, looking out the window at the news vans assembling on the street in the early morning light, the people standing around them laughing and gripping cups of coffee as if they were at some kind of festive breakfast picnic, that Carrie had once considered broadcast journalism as a career.

It had been her mother's choice, based on her having good grades in English and writing, a strong, low voice, and a face that was pretty but not overly expressive. That was what she had said anyway, but Carrie knew it had been about money. It was about Katie Couric; it was about Kelly Ripa. She'd obviously never seen how ruthless these women could be. Her mother admired anyone whose cuteness hid the edges, the ambition.

But Carrie discovered in college that she didn't like the scrutiny of the camera, the effort required to hold the planes of her face a certain way, hair perfect, a certain kind of clothes worn. She was more comfortable behind the scenes, writing, producing. So she'd majored in print journalism instead but ended up working in public relations, which her mother considered a huge comedown and Carrie considered a lifeline, since all the journalism jobs were drying up. She always thought that after Ben went into kindergarten, she could work part-time in PR, have a few clients, keep a toe in, work from home, still juggle her volunteer duties. It was a good job for a mother. But she'd never gotten that far.

And now she was sure, as she pulled the linen curtain back, she would not have liked this aspect of broadcast journalism: stalking people who'd lost their children just in case they felt like confessing to the crime. No, she would not be very good at that at all.

She hadn't heard John showering or making coffee, but he was already gone, his cup and spoon in the sink. These last few months, she'd envied him his work, that automatic focus. Always a client to take out to lunch or dinner. Sales meetings to go to, and always in sunny places. Off-site meetings that took up two days and two nights. But he used it as an excuse—to turn off, to turn away. He'd gone back to work three days after Ben was kidnapped.
Three days!
As soon as the flyers were distributed, bam, he was out the door.
Robotic
, she thought, and then, sickeningly,
like my mother.
Maybe John was actually not cool and calm and strong but detached and mechanical, in the same, precise way. Cold enough to let her sleep in the guest room, to not come in and get her, to not run after her. Didn't John of all people know that women want a man to run after them, to reel them back in?

Carrie pondered her options—staying inside, making food for when the family arrived next week. But staying home would just make her think of her son, her grandmother. She could call the school and see if they needed her to take over a shift at the library. But oh, the looks on their faces. They'd be like Libby, wondering what on earth was wrong with her, how she could go out when her son, her baby, was dead. They didn't understand that she was ready. That she had known all along and been mourning every single day. That she was prepared, and now that it was here, there was nothing left to do. Maybe her friend Chelsea, who left her Facebook messages every couple of days, wondering how she was, could meet her for lunch? She couldn't stay home. She couldn't putter around the house, listening to that swarm of people outside. No. They wanted her to leave? She'd leave.

She grabbed her purse and a cardigan sweater, took a deep breath, and opened the door. As the group ran toward her, heels clicking, equipment jangling, she looked over their heads, like she'd learned to do during presentations, and said, “Thank you, but I have no comment.” Calmly. With neither smile nor grimace. Not of one world or the other.

“Carrie, do you know what happened to your son?”

“Mrs. Morgan, do you want to share your side of the story?”

“What about the allegation that you already had planned his funeral?”

She froze in her tracks and turned back to the person who said that. A short, fit man, his hair so lacquered it glistened.

“What did you say?” she asked. The cops had probably found everything relating to the funeral—but the media?

“Did you know he was dead, Mrs. Morgan?”

Her spine tingled with electricity, a conduit moving in both directions, rooting her to the spot. Was it visible on her? A second-sight halo around her head? The others moved around her with their cameras and their microphones and their expensive heels, capturing her confusion and her silence, her shock from the current buzzing in her ears, adding them together to form fury. The man had oddly colored green eyes, like marbles, and they bore into her as if he could excavate something with them. No, he didn't know what he was saying. He meant it completely differently, like a detective. He was just digging.

She opened her car door, and a pair of bees buzzed around her suddenly, then bounced across the windshield, sounding hard and soft at the same time.

“No comment,” she said, giving them a last chance to get out of her way. As she was about to close the door, someone grabbed the handle from outside.

Maya Mercer leaned in next to the door.

“Carrie,” she said with a smile. When she put her mind to smiling, it was as wide as someone on a parade float. Everything else about her was calculated to look no-nonsense and smart, from the stylish black glasses to the spiky bob. But that smile gave her away: she'd been beautiful her whole life. She wasn't used to people saying no to her.

“I don't have anything to say,” Carrie said. “In case you don't know the meaning of the words
no comment
.”

“But if you don't speak to me,” Maya replied, “your old friends will do plenty of talking on your behalf. Is that what you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm tempted to say no comment,” Maya said.

Carrie's hands shook as she tried to insert the car key. She turned it too hard, and the engine scraped sickeningly. She turned it off, closed her eyes, took two deep breaths, and started again.

The passenger door opened, and Maya, on the other side of the car, slid inside.

“What are you doing?”

“Just drive around the corner. I need to say something to you in private, Carrie.”

Carrie backed out too quickly, nearly hitting one of the vans. She drove around the corner onto a neighboring cul-de-sac, then pulled to the curb. She turned to Maya, her eyes narrowing.

“What?”

“Look, people make mistakes when they're young. Everyone does. Even me.”

“Just stop. Please stop. I had nothing to do with my son's disappearance! Nothing!”

“I believe you.”

“You're just saying that so I'll talk to you.”

“No.” Maya sighed and took off her glasses, cleaned them on the hem of her tailored coat. “I'm saying that because I'm observant. And because I'm observant, I want to ask you, completely off the record, if you…if you are okay.”

“Okay?”

The list of people who did not think Carrie was okay was growing every day. She had almost begun believing it herself.

“If your husband has ever…hurt you.”

“What?”

“He answers your questions for you, and he tells you what to wear. When he calls you babe, it makes my—”

“Get out of the car, Maya.”

“That's how it starts, Carrie.”

“You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Don't I?” she said. She leaned over and lifted up the edge of her hair. A long thin scar snaked around the side and back of her neck. “I know exactly what I'm talking about.”

Carrie shook her head. “It's not like that. I mean, I'm sorry for whatever happened to you, but—”

Maya nodded, then opened the door. “All right, Carrie. Have it your way. But if you decide it's time to stand up for yourself, well, you have my phone number.”

Maya got out of Carrie's car and headed back to her own, parked with the other reporters. Carrie pulled out and headed for Sugarland Road. She turned left and drove too fast in the only direction she could bear to go: Away from the media. Away from her husband. Away from the pond.