One More Day (27 page)

Carrie's hand went up to her mouth. Strangled her child. Strangled others. And then, when it was clear he was going to be arrested, strangled himself.
Of course
, she thought.
Of course. That wasn't garbage or jet fuel she smelled. That was him. Him.

She closed her eyes, relieved and yet…ashamed. For all she still didn't know, all the little mistakes she kept making over and over again. Why hadn't she taken a second to lock the door? Why hadn't she scooped Ben up and carried him with her for the block-long walk to that bank?

She thought of the little girl, Raina, who said she could only see the before, not the after. Carrie could smell the before and the after, but she hadn't recognized it in time. It had been in her car all along, she realized—at the Y, at Starbucks—sweet and moldy, a blue, rotting vein. And she thought it had been the chlorine from the beach towel.

The bus had almost completed its loop, and she needed to make a decision. To get off or keep going. Her phone rang in her purse, and she fished it out.

“John,” she said.

“Have you heard?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “How did it happen? How could they, after all the work they've done?”

“Forrester left him alone for a minute, to get a pencil, I guess—and Nolan was supposed to be watching through the one-way but wasn't because he wasn't feeling well.”

“He needs to see a doctor,” Carrie said.

“What? Who?”

“Nolan.” She thought about him, the baby they'd found, the shoe at the pond. Could it be she knew the middle of things, if not the end or the beginning? She pictured herself in waiting rooms, sitting in the cracked yellow seats in hospital corridors, knowing. Could she know? Could she help?

“I have a call in to Dr. Kenney for you, speaking of doctors.”

She didn't answer. The idea of having all this happen to her and no one she could tell it to made her feel even queasier.

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I'm not sure. Is there any way you can come drive me back, maybe?”

“Sure. I'll…grab a cab.”

“I'll be…at the Hertz rental lot. Okay? Meet me there?”

He didn't ask her why. He just said fine, to wait for him there, and not to go anywhere else.

She sat in the small enclosure with the rental agents and customers, watching for John's cab through the window. She ran outside when it pulled up, and she opened the door and slid all the way across the seat, pressed against him, refusing the seat belt.

“Oh, Frog,” she said through her tears.

“It's okay,” he said. “It's all going to be okay.”

Together they drove back to the parking lot. He paid the driver, and she waited for him to open the door and get out first.

The cars around hers looked different from the last time she'd been there, but some of them could have been the same; she wasn't sure. Other than the Vespa, she hadn't really noticed. Was he still there, waiting to cause more trouble? Would he show himself in front of John?

She felt a wave of guilt for not telling John what had happened, for not warning him. She glanced in the backseat before she got in. She sniffed the air like a dog, looking for rot, fearing it, yes, but also searching for the thrill of recognition. But then they were out of the lot. Then they were on the highway. And nothing—no dark ghost or dark car—followed them anymore.

“It's really over,” he said as he pulled onto the highway.

She blinked at him like she wasn't sure what he meant. The circus? The accusations? Or them?

“Is it?”

“Of course it is. He confessed, Carrie.”

“But what else did he tell them?”

“You mean about the…murder?”

The word caught in his throat and came out strangled. It was one thing to say it about a stranger and another to say it about their son.

“No, about…me.”

“Carrie, the man was mentally ill, okay?”

“Tell me.”

“Well, nothing, really. Just a lot of crap about people who are bad mothers, who pay more attention to their phones and their coffee than they do their kids. He's also wanted in two other unsolved murders near Pittsburgh. Both young boys with pretty mothers. Forrester said he hated his own mother,” he added. “She was a model apparently. Traveled the world, left him alone.”

“It's always the mother's fault,” she said quietly.

“What? No. No, no, no. It's just—”

She waved him away. “It's all right, John. I know you didn't mean it like that. He didn't say anything else though? Because Maya Mercer told me he knew Ethan.”

“Yeah, they met in a mental health outpatient facility years ago, okay? So what does that tell you? Wait, Maya told you that? When?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“How did she know that?”

“I don't know, John. Maybe you're not the only one Forrester is feeding information to.”

John took a new route home, leaving the expressway a few exits early, trying to avoid traffic, and after they exited, there was a long stretch of strip mall that seemed to go on forever. It was the type of neighborhood that was all proximity; you could turn left or right at any point off the boulevard and find a house that would inspire longing, part of your neighborhood technically, but not part of your world, with a quiet, lumbering grace that marked nobility, remove,
other
. Carrie was separate from all those people, she knew, and always had been. Not more deserving or less, just different from everyone else.

At the corner was a car wash, flashing a neon sign. John looked at her, raising his eyes for permission, and she nodded.

Together they watched Carrie's car through the glass, watched as it was gripped by the metal clamps, moving slowly, grinding, until the first shelf of water came down. The fat foam fingers slapped the doors and roof, the hard water pounding the dust, the prints, the residue. She watched the gray spumes of water fall off the car, waited until they turned to transparent steam when they hit the cold pavement.

Outside, the conveyor spat it out, half dry. A man in a gray uniform appeared with a folded brown towel. He wiped the car steadily, in even strokes, patient in a way that reminded her of someone. He looked up at her for just a second, and she was sure, for a moment, that she was looking into the eyes of her father.

The man walked behind her car and back into the vaulted garage, disappearing behind a cloud of steam. She ran back to the viewing room, craning her neck around the train of cars going through the steam. But no one was there. The man who looked like her father was gone.

She closed her eyes.
I'll be different
, she thought suddenly.
I'll do better. I'll keep my car cleaner. I'll lock my doors. I'll work harder. I'll pay more attention. I'll be more like everyone else.
That could be her promise. Her exchange. Because after all, if Ben came back once, couldn't Ben come back again?

When she opened her eyes, John still lingered at the counter, looking at the products, paying the bill. She walked outside and watched other men, men in the same gray uniforms but who looked like no one, wiping the doors and roof and trunk with their cloths, men who could be anyone, criminals or workers, alive or dead.

The sprays of water, the grind of the conveyor belt, and above them, suddenly, the honk of geese. Carrie watched the dark dotted V traveling south, the slate clouds behind them auguring rain, change, autumn. The birds' pathway through the mist, the heavy air that hung just below the clouds, was a route known only to them. Wasn't migration of anything, living or dead, always part mystery to anyone else who happened along the way? How could she explain what she knew, that small part, to anyone, even herself?

They got back in their car and headed home.

“You know what I was thinking?” John said as he eased onto Sugarland Road. “I was thinking that when we're ready to have another child, we might try for a girl. Maybe do that thing where you spin the sperm. It would feel like a true new start.”

In the air between them, the memories of all those boyish nights in the backyard with Ben. All those Saturday afternoons of John with his own father and brother, doing the same thing.

Carrie blinked. “Really?”

“Well,” John added, “of course, she'd have to be a tomboy.”

Carrie smiled and squeezed his hand. They passed properties so large they looked like farms. Farms with barns but no crops. Places with no reason for being the way they were anymore.

“And…could we have a dog, maybe?”

“I don't think that's genetically possible.” John laughed.

“I mean in addition, Frog.” Then she added softly, “A girl and a dog.” As if testing out the sound and the weight of that sentence.

“Why not,” he said.

“The dog can be a boy.”

As they idled at the next red light, John reached in his pocket. He pulled out an air freshener in the shape of a tree and hung it on the mirror where Ben's shoe used to be. And from his other pocket, he took a fat roll of quarters and nestled them in the console.

“Just in case,” he said. “Just in case.”

1. For Carrie, one of the most frustrating recurrences is the unwillingness of her family and friends to believe that she has been visited by the dead. Have you ever had a supernatural experience? How did others react to your description of it?

2. To what extent does their faith and upbringing drive Carrie and John? Does it support or conflict with their actions and reactions?

3. How does Carrie's past influence her relationship with John and her choice of John as a husband? Do you think Ethan was a better match for her?

4. John and Carrie have very different ways of grieving their son's kidnapping. Which do you relate to more?

5. Young women who give birth in secret and are in denial about their pregnancies are frequently in the news. Do you think Carrie was in denial about her pregnancy? Or about Ethan's intentions the night she gave birth?

6. Many people return to their hometowns after college to raise their families there. In Carrie and John's case, do you think this was a mistake?

7. Carrie and her mother's relationship becomes distant during Carrie's teenage years. How does this impact the choices each of them makes? How well do they actually know each other?

8. Much of the novel is told from Carrie's point of view. To what extent, given her supernatural experiences, does this make her an unreliable narrator?

9. Does the loss of Carrie and Ethan's child foreshadow the loss of Carrie and John's? How?

10. It could be argued that there are multiple people stalking others in the book—the killer, John, the detectives, the ghosts. Discuss the themes of obsession, control, and privacy.

11. Spiritual, emotional, and intuitive advisers are sprinkled throughout this novel—from priests to therapists to psychics. What role did Dr. Kenney, Father Paul, Raina, and Carrie's grandmother each play to move the plot forward?

12. The metaphor of a clean versus dirty car bookends the novel. What other metaphors or symbols did you find throughout the book?

13. As more and more dead people seem to appear in the story, Carrie struggles to determine who may or may not be alive. Did you find yourself doing the same thing? What clues did you use to help decide who was alive and who was dead?

14. After a loved one's death, the sentiment “If I could have only one more day with them” is often expressed. How does this wish affect Carrie's time with the people who visit? How does it work against her?

15. The grief showcased in the story is also surrounded by people who could ostensibly help diminish it—the community, the congregation, two families, and a clinical therapist. But Carrie has very few friends and no grief support group. How did each group help or hurt Carrie and John? Would they have fared better if they'd chosen to lean on different types of support?

16. Does Dr. Kenney strike you as someone trying to help Carrie or trying to help John? Is there any evidence he is involved in the investigation or aiding the detectives?

17. Dr. Kenney, John, and Detective Nolan seem to believe that Carrie is losing her grip on reality and perhaps sliding into psychosis. Which
other characters grow to share that belief? Which ones grow closer to believing her? What do you believe she is experiencing?

Supernatural elements figure prominently in the plot of
One More Day
. Have you had experiences with ghosts, séances, and sixth sense? Do you believe in them?

One of the worst things about being over forty is that people's parents start dying. And so many of my friends and coworkers would say things like “Oh, my mother came to me in the form of a red cardinal” or “My mother spoke to me last night in a dream” that when my own mother passed away, I truly expected her to come back and say “hey” somehow. It's been one of the central disappointments of my life that this has never happened.

So I am both fascinated—and jealous. To be open to a whole other realm? That's just really cool to me.

My mother, interestingly, always claimed to be a witch—and she did possess a strong kind of intuition. My only personal gift seems to be that I can always tell when my kids are lying. It's useful, but let's face it: I'd rather be able to talk to my mom.

One of the central themes of the book is religion versus belief. What drew you to that material? What kind of research did it require?

I grew up in the Episcopal Church, and my kids are all baptized (by a female priest, yay!), but I'm not much of a churchgoer. So I had to dig back in to the teachings of the church, as well as take a peek at the intuitive community, which I knew even less about.

It sounds ludicrous to some, but in my mind, they are connected. Part of me believes that if I went to church more often, I'd be allowed into the intuitive realm! Guilt!

It could be argued that there are several “stalkers” in the book—as the character of Maya recognizes something in John's behavior that Carrie clearly does not. Were you making some kind of statement about men, obsession, and privacy?

I don't think of it as a statement, exactly—although social media and technology make it something I'm vitally aware of as a woman and a mom. But I've certainly known quite a few men who walk a very thin line between protecting and controlling the women in their lives. That line was interesting to me. And the media stalking people—that added a whole other layer.

Carrie and Ethan both make choices as teenagers that, while different, are chronicled in headlines every day. What made you choose that plotline as their backstory?

As a writer, I try to err on the side of empathy. To shine a light on actions that seem impossible to understand and help people see the motivations, the humanity. And to showcase how those actions can impact a person's life going forward—especially if they all remained a secret. All of that dovetailed perfectly with Carrie's loss going forward. Two losses, each compounding the other.

What are you writing next?

I'm finishing one new novel and dabbling with the outline of another. I have two other completed manuscripts I'm not sure about. I'm also
developing a TV show with a producer. And in answer to your next question—I drink a lot of coffee.