Since She Went Away(4)

“Didn’t you say you don’t really know your half brothers?” Tabitha tapped the glass with the end of her finger.

“I visited a couple of years ago. Dad paid for the plane ticket, so I went.” Jared’s first plane ride. He loved the window seat, looking out and watching the huge patches of nothingness beneath the wings. So much room in the country, so many places to go. “It was weird. It felt like I was staying with strangers. I mean, his new wife is okay. Shelly. And the kids are good kids. I guess. But how much can you get to know people in a week? Dad . . . I barely remember him, and he doesn’t know me at all.”

Tabitha nodded. She placed the frame back in the exact spot she found it, as though she were handling a precious work of art.

Jared waited, hoping she’d signal a willingness to talk more about her own family. He didn’t want to press or push if she didn’t offer any signs, even though he wanted to ask almost as much as he wanted to do anything else. Almost. There were other things he wanted to do with Tabitha more.

But he didn’t know where Tabitha’s mother was. On the few occasions the subject came up, Tabitha was evasive, suggesting only that her parents were separated, and her mother lived in another part of the country. Tabitha didn’t seem to have much contact with her mother, if any. He wondered if her mother had problems, emotional or something else.

Jared knew only that Tabitha lived with her dad in Hawks Mill. Beyond that . . . not much. And most of his inquiries in those first few days they walked home from school together or hung out in study hall were met with some variation of the standard I’m fine. Since then, he’d kind of let the subject go, hoping that over time she’d open up more. But weren’t relationships supposed to work the other way? Wasn’t the guy supposed to be closed off and the girl the one who always wanted to talk about her feelings?

“I heard something about your mom today,” Tabitha said. She still stared at the photo of Jared’s dad and brothers, a photo Jared put out only because his mom said it would be a nice gesture. He didn’t know who the gesture was for, since his dad was never coming back, but he did it to appease his mom.

“Oh.” Jared tensed. The muscles in his stomach tightened as though bracing for a blow. She could mean only one thing. “People say a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, some kids at school told me something about her friend disappearing. Is that true? I didn’t know if it was just some weird gossip or exaggeration.”

Jared hesitated before answering. Okay, he had to admit, Tabitha wasn’t the only one holding things back. He hadn’t mentioned much to her about his mom at all, except to say she worked as a nurse and she was pretty easy to get along with. He left out the part about Celia, knowing he’d have to tell Tabitha someday but hoping they’d know each other better when they went down that rabbit hole. A shared love for Dean Koontz was a much better icebreaker than, So, my mom’s best friend disappeared without a trace and is probably dead. . . .

“It’s true, yeah.”

Tabitha turned around to face him when he started speaking, leaning back against his desk and folding her arms under the gentle curve of her breasts. She didn’t say anything but seemed to be listening with a particularly sharp focus, as though every word that came out of Jared’s mouth mattered a great deal to her.

“It’s kind of weird to talk about,” he said. “Are you sure you want to hear about it?”

Tabitha nodded.

“Okay. My mom’s been friends with Celia ever since they were in high school. I’ve known Celia my whole life. Back in early November, they were supposed to go out together. They were meeting near Caldwell Park. Do you know where that is?”

Tabitha looked confused. “I don’t know where anything is yet.”

“It’s not far. They were meeting late at night, almost like they were sneaking out. I don’t know why. I think they were trying to recreate some of the wild times they had in high school. But Celia didn’t show up. At first Mom just assumed she’d changed her plans or something. Celia’s married and has a kid.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “Maybe you know her? Ursula Walters? She’s in our grade.”

“There’s a girl named Ursula in a couple of my classes.”

“She’s kind of a pain in the ass,” Jared said.

“She seems like a bully to me.”

“Really? Why?”

Tabitha lifted one shoulder, a halfhearted shrug. “She just strikes me as the kind of person who thinks she should always get what she wants. I’ve known other people like that.”

Jared waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “I’ve known Ursula since I was a kid. My mom thinks maybe Celia wasn’t around for her enough. You know, Celia and Ursula’s dad, Ian, were kind of wrapped up in their own thing too much instead of paying attention to Ursula. But that’s another story. Anyway, Mom texted Celia and called her, never got an answer. She called Celia’s husband. And then they called the cops, but they couldn’t find her.” Jared straightened up, scooting forward on the bed. “Wait a minute—have you really not heard about any of this? I mean, not until today?”

“No,” she said. “I just moved to town. I don’t know many people.”

“But it’s a national story. Or it was for a month or so, until they didn’t find Celia and everybody decided to move on to some other kidnapping or plane crash or whatever. It was on CNN every night. That weird lady on the crime show? The one with the gray, poofy hair, Reena Huffman? She practically moved here.” He almost smiled at the strangeness of the blank look on Tabitha’s face. He didn’t think it was possible not to have heard of Celia’s case, given how much it played on the news. “Have you never heard of the Diamond Mom?”