Mother of All Secrets(20)

“You can use present tense, Ms. Donnelly. We don’t know that she’s dead.” This felt like a line that Detective Sherer had used before and enjoyed deploying.

“Oh, I know. I just mean before she disappeared.” I tried to recover, though I realized my use of past tense there really was a bad look. “Anyway, I don’t really understand. I’m sure her husband saw her shortly before she disappeared, right? Like, that night? So it’s not like I would have been the last one to see her, even if I had seen her another time between Friday the twenty-fifth and when she disappeared.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Right.”

“Her husband was traveling for work and was just back that night. He did see her, but their interaction was brief. So we need you to help us figure something out.”

“Sure, of course. I mean, I’ll try.”

“Isabel’s Google Calendar had ‘drinks with Jenn D.’ slotted for Thursday at seven p.m., Thursday the first, that is. Ultimately, this was the night she disappeared, at around ten thirty p.m. Did you have plans and she didn’t show up? Or did she cancel? Knowing this is very important for establishing our timeline.”

“No. No. I mean, that’s so weird. We never had plans. Like I said, I really didn’t know her well.” Man, I could not speak in the present tense to save my life. “We’ve never hung out outside of the moms’ group meetings. Definitely never just the two of us.” What the hell? was flying through my head on repeat.

Blaylock tipped closer to the edge of the couch. “Then, do you have any idea why she would have these plans logged in her phone? Is it possible that you had plans and you simply forgot? It would be totally understandable. You’ve got a lot going on.” She smiled and gestured gently to my bomb site of an apartment. She genuinely seemed like she was trying to be helpful. I wondered if she was a mom, too, and could empathize with my messy home and malfunctioning brain.

My brow was furrowed. Lately when I was aware that I was doing that, I quickly reminded myself to unfurrow because I could see the wrinkles taking up a permanent home on my face. In this case, I couldn’t maintain a relaxed expression for anything. Did I have plans with Isabel the night she disappeared? I really and truly didn’t think so. But my mind also did not feel like my own these days. Between the lack of sleep, thinking only about the baby, and admittedly drinking too much wine as my only method of relaxing, forgetting plans with a friend didn’t seem too far outside the realm of possibility. I had actually just stood up my best friend from college, Jules, a few weeks ago, thinking our plans were for Friday when they were actually for Thursday. I was in a near-constant cycle of receiving Amazon packages that I had little recollection of having ordered. But it seemed crazy that I wouldn’t remember making plans with Isabel, since it would have been our first “date,” so to speak.

“Could it have been a different Jenn D.?” I offered hopefully. “Like a Jen with one n?”

“Well, you’re the only Jennifer in her contacts,” Blaylock said. “And it was your spelling. Two n’s. And, given that your friendship is what we call ‘active,’ it seems most plausible that she was talking about you.”

“Right. Well, I don’t know. I mean, that’s really weird.” I knew I sounded like a broken record. “I don’t think I had plans with her. But in any event, I definitely didn’t see her that Thursday.”

“And you’re sure.” Sherer looked dubious.

“Yes. I am.”

I heard Clara whimper from the bedroom. Great. She’d been sleeping for roughly fifteen minutes.

“One more question,” Sherer said. “In your moms’ group meetings, did Isabel seem well? Did she seem to be managing okay?”

“Definitely,” I said, my voice sounding anything but definite. “I mean, she seemed overwhelmed at times, but, well, we all do. She was handling everything very well, I think. She seemed very organized. She seemed a little . . . intense? But like, she was on top of it. If that makes sense.” It was the best I could do to describe Isabel. Some kind of ineffable sadness clung to her, but it wasn’t like she ever forgot diapers.

Clings to her. Clings. Present tense, Jenn.

“Okay.” Sherer looked disappointed and skeptical at the same time.

Clara let out another cry.

“Well,” he said, “it sounds like you’re about to have your hands full here. Glad we could catch you during a free minute.” Yeah. I was thrilled to have spent my few free minutes of Clara’s nap being rattled by detectives, too. “By the way, what happened to your hand?” With his head, Sherer gestured toward my right hand, which had about a dozen tiny scratches covering my knuckles and fingers. I hadn’t even noticed them until he’d pointed it out.

“Um . . . I have no idea, actually. Weird. It doesn’t hurt or anything, though.”

“Well, that’s good,” Blaylock said kindly. “Might be from the baby’s fingernails. Sometimes they can be sharper than you realize!”

I silently added that to the list of things I was doing incorrectly: not keeping Clara’s nails short enough. If that’s even where the scratches were from. I truly didn’t know.

Sherer hoisted himself to his feet, Blaylock rising lightly with him. “If you think of anything,” he said, “anything that might help us reconcile this . . . misunderstanding about the drinks date, please give us a call. Either of us.” He handed me a card, and she did the same.