The Passenger (25 page)

“How have you been?” I asked because it was the kind of question I thought Paige, or someone who knew something of Gina's life, might ask. I also asked because I wanted to know.

“How do you think I am?”

“I guess that was a stupid question.”

“It was an especially stupid question for
you
to ask,” she said.

“I assume you came here to be alone,” I said.

“I came here to get away from my husband.”

“Why?”

“I can't manage his guilt and my own,” Gina said.

The constant edge to her tone was chipping away at all those friendly feelings I'd felt toward the woman before I knew her. She had looked kinder in the photos.

The kettle whistled. Gina jumped, startled. Her nerves might have been as raw as mine. She walked over to the stove.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked in an oddly professional tone.

“Okay.”

“Peppermint or chamomile?”

“Peppermint.”

She poured two mugs of tea, passed me my cup, and sat back down in the same spot.

“I wanted to meet you,” Gina said. “Len didn't think it was a good idea.”

“I wanted to meet you too.”

“Liar.”

I didn't know what to say to that. I sipped my tea and burned my tongue.

“Where are you going for Thanksgiving?” she asked.

For the last eight years we'd had an “orphan dinner” at Dubois'. That was always the worst day of the year for me, including Christmas and my fake birthday.

“I don't know,” I said. “You?”

“We'll be at my sister's,” Gina said.

“That sounds nice.”

No one said anything for a while. We drank our tea and I tried to look for an excuse to depart in the middle of the night.

“Do you feel guilty?” Gina asked.

“All of the time,” I said.

“Good.”

The radiator made a clanking sound, like an out-of-tune musical instrument. I could feel the heat coming into the room, but her response sent chills through me. My best guess was that Paige was the unnamed girlfriend of the dead son, the girl who broke up with Toby right before he killed himself. I stared blankly at Gina.

“It wasn't all your fault. I know that,” she said.

“Wasn't it?” I said.

What reason did Paige have to visit the cabin?

“How did you two meet?” Gina asked.

“He never told you?” I said.

“I never inquired.”

“Right.”

“So how did you meet?”

The woman in front of me had a darkness and cruelty that I hadn't seen in a long while. Being the recipient of this kind of grief and anger reminded me of things, of people, I'd just as soon have forgotten.

How
did
Paige meet Toby?

“In a bar,” I said. I could have said a party, but she might have asked whose party. I could have said class, but then I'd have been foiled by specifics.

“In a bar,” Gina repeated as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

“It's a cliché, I suppose.”

“The whole thing is a cliché.”

Her voice was as sharp as the tip of a sword. Her eyes narrowed into dark crescents as she looked at me searchingly.

“What did he see in you?”

I didn't know why she was asking that question, but it felt all too familiar. I used to ask myself what he saw in me. Later I had to ask the more important question: what did I ever see in him?

“I don't know,” I said.

“You must have amazing tits,” she said.

“What?”

Her words felt like a whiplash. I didn't know who I was supposed to be anymore.

“There's nothing else to you, besides youth. You're just a shell. You seem empty inside, as if your personality has been hijacked.”

I felt like I was being clawed from the inside out. My face flushed deep crimson and my eyes welled with tears. I went into the bedroom and began to dress. I could no longer impersonate a real human being without carving out the last chunk of my old self and leaving it behind. Everything Gina said to me was true, even though she was talking to someone else. She followed me into the bedroom and watched me dress.

“Are you leaving?” she said, as if surprised.

“Yes.”

“I said you could stay.”

“It's all right. I should go.”

I shoved all of my clothes into my bag, searched the house for anything incriminating that I might have left behind. Two words repeated over and over in my head.
Get. Out.
I took the key to the cabin off of the ring and left it on the desk. I turned and looked back at Gina as I opened the front door.

“I'm sorry about everything.”

“What are you sorry for?” she said, this time with genuine curiosity.

“I'm sorry about your son,” I said.

“My son? Why? You didn't know him.”

Was she speaking figuratively? Maybe I wasn't who I thought I was. I stepped onto the porch. My Jeep was only a few steps away. All I had to do was walk ten paces and I'd be free.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” I said as I stepped off of the porch.

“That's what you're sorry for?”

“I'm sorry for so many things,” I said.

“Are you sorry you fucked my husband?”

I tripped on the last step. Once I got my legs under me again, I turned back to Gina. Her face was as still as the stonework around her home. She saw me as her enemy, but I couldn't return the favor. I had stolen her hospitality for over three weeks. I figured I owed her, and I didn't have much to give. So I gave her all I had.

“I'm sorry I fucked your husband,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said as she stepped back inside and closed the door.

T
HE
clock in my truck read 3:05 a.m. as I pulled onto Maple Lane. I had no place I needed to be or wanted to go. I was awake now. Wide awake. I had to keep moving, keep driving. My hands needed something to grip or they'd turn into fists looking for a target to swing at. I followed the country road until it spat me out on Route 9. I turned right, heading north. Plenty of miles stretched ahead of me before I'd hit the Canadian border.

By morning, I was in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. I'd stopped just once overnight at a gas station to fuel up, use the restroom, and buy a bottle of water. I drove another two hours. When dawn broke, the glare on my windshield blinded me. I pulled into the parking lot of a small grocery store, Walt's Market. I leaned the seat all the way back, covered my eyes with my jacket, and tried to sleep.

Three quick raps on the window woke me. I pulled the jacket off my head and saw a police officer standing by the truck. He motioned for me to roll down the window. I did.

“Good morning,” he said. His eyes were hidden behind aviator sunglasses.

“Good morning,” I said as I tilted the seat upright.

“How are you doing this morning, ma'am?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“Do you know how long you've been parked here?”

The clock on the dashboard read 11:24 a.m.

“I'm sorry. I just stopped to rest my eyes.”

“I got a call from Walt. That's his store over there. Walt wanted to make sure you were okay. You've been parked here for four hours.”

“I didn't realize it was that long. I'll be on my way.”

“Where are you headed?”

“I was just taking a drive, seeing the sights.”

“You from around here?”

“No,” I said, in case he asked for ID. Where was Sonia Lubovich from again? “Indiana.”

“What brings you to New York?”

“I'm visiting an aunt in Red Hook,” I said, in case he asked for registration. The car was still registered under the name Mildred Hensen of Red Hook, New York.

I was plain fucked if he asked for proof of insurance.

“I hope you enjoy your stay,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He started to walk away, then turned back.

“Sure you got enough shut-eye?” the officer asked.

“I'm awake now,” I said.

The officer returned to his squad car. He made a right turn out of the parking lot onto Route 9. I took a left, beating a return path on the same road I'd traveled all night long.

My run-in with Gina had left my mind jumbled and confused. I felt like I was roaming unfamiliar grounds in a blackout. My only plan was the same old plan: find another mark with a vacation home and remain an uninvited guest until circumstances caused my eviction. I didn't have a plan for money, which was running dangerously low; I didn't have a plan for becoming someone else, someone who could exist in a real way in this world. I most certainly didn't have a plan for how I was going to live the next forty or so years of my life.

With the way things were going, though, a full life seemed unlikely. As I drove, even knowing the exact road I was on and where it would lead, I felt more lost than I had that first time I left anyplace, so many years ago, without any idea of what the future might hold.

I decided to take a detour to Saratoga Springs. The air outside was cold and wintry. I roamed the town for a while, pretending to be a regular tourist. I didn't turn any suspicious heads. Christmas lights were strangling street signs and dangling across roadways. When I figured out what day it was, I realized it was only five days to Thanksgiving.

I was so homesick I could have drowned in it. I fought that feeling hard because you shouldn't pine for a place that spat you out so cruelly. I had ignored my past for a long time. I'd been ignoring all of my pasts as I attempted this shadow of a life. As I strolled past the main library, homesickness overtook my whole body, and I walked inside determined to take a stroll down memory lane.

I felt that aching slice across my back the moment I sat down at the computer banks. The library was mostly vacant this time of day, so I didn't feel that constant prickly need to look over my shoulder, and yet I felt this internal thrumming, my heart beating on overdrive. I stared at the blank screen, not sure where to begin, which life to check on first, which crimes to fear the most. I began with Tanya. Headlines, photos, fragments of my life flashed across the screen.

Then I checked in on my life before that. I had mistakenly thought I'd be old news by now. I figured that was the one benefit of being declared legally dead. Now I was worse than dead. My old lives were beginning to coalesce like a primitive dot-to-dot sketch. I scanned the headlines but didn't bother reading the stories.

Who is Tanya Dubois?

Tanya Pitts Dubois, Lived 8 Years Under Assumed Name

New Leads on Melinda Lyons Murder Ten Years Later

Prosecutor Jason Lyons Says Nora Glass Is Still Alive

I thought about walking into a police station and turning myself in, begging for the mercy of the court. It seemed unlikely that they'd believe anything I'd have to say, but at least I'd be done running and I wouldn't have to worry about where I was sleeping that night. Every morning I woke up, remembered my predicament, it felt like getting a shot of adrenaline.

I scanned the library to see if anyone was looking and then I thought back a few years, trying to remember my old e-mail password. I had tried to forget it so many times in the hopes that I could never look back.

But now it was time to go back to where all the trouble began.

I remembered the login and password on the second try. I could never forget it because I could never forget him. I'd managed to ignore him for a while, that's all. It had been two years since I'd last checked this e-mail. I figured Ryan might have given up after a while, but he didn't. I found seven new messages. I was ashamed at how happy it made me, sickened that he still had some power over me. I opened the oldest message, from back in 2014, when I was still safely locked in my life with Frank.

March 3, 2014

To: Jo

From: Ryan

Where are you? Are you still alive?

I continued to read the messages he had sent while I was running, when I wasn't looking back too often, at least not to him.

August 23, 2015

To: Jo

From: Ryan

I'm going to keep writing, even if you never read a word of it. I just learned what happened to you, who you became, who you married. It's in the papers. Everyone knows you're alive.

There's something that I need to know.

Did you kill him?

R

I wanted to write back. I wanted to call him and scream and ask him if he really thought I could kill a man. But then I remembered that I had—just not
that
man. What he was really asking was how much I had changed over these ten years. I'd changed more than he could imagine. He wouldn't recognize me now.

I read the final two e-mails, dated just four weeks apart.

September 16, 2015

To: Jo

From: Ryan

Look, there's this writer coming around asking questions, I think because of the ten-year anniversary. She says she's writing a whole book on the murder of Melinda Lyons and the disappearance of Nora Glass. She came to see me. I put her off. But she's renting one of Mrs. Carlisle's extra rooms. It looks like she's staying for a while.

Here's another thing, something that might make you happy. Edie left Logan. It's over. If you're still angry about that, about what I didn't do, maybe you can let it go and write me back.

Yours, R

October 21, 2015

To: Jo

From: Ryan

Jesus, Jo. Where are you? You need to be careful. Things have changed. They know who you are and what you became. You're not dead anymore. They're looking for you.