Over Her Dead Body(69)

“Great,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but it didn’t matter; my brother knew I was not his wife’s number one fan—there was no reason to try to hide it. Of course I didn’t know that Charlie had lied to her, and that her real motivation for coming had nothing to do with finding Mom. Which in retrospect was probably a good thing, given that I was out of whiskey and the anticipation of high drama might have sent me into a tailspin.

I sipped my coffee, then made a face. If French roast was the new Bloody Mary, it was going to need some sprucing up. “Is there any sugar?”

“Look in the pantry.”

I put my cup down and walked into the pantry. The “secret door” was open a crack—it didn’t close all the way anymore; we must have worn out the hinges during our countless games of hide-and-go-seek. My favorite trick was to tuck under Mom’s desk, then, when I heard Charlie coming, creep into the pantry, then run back to Mom’s study and scare my brother from behind. I still tease him about how he would scream like six-year-old Drew Barrymore in E.T., poor guy.

I didn’t want my coffee to get cold—it was dull enough piping hot—so I quickly scanned the pantry shelves. Mom didn’t bake, but she must have kept some sugar lying around somewhere. My eyes combed over jars of pickled things, two kinds of rice, three kinds of jam, every kind of bean. The pantry was jam-packed, but no damn sugar. I was about to go back into the kitchen when I was struck by something odd. Not something I saw, but rather, something I didn’t see.

And I got chills all over. Because I knew where Mom was.





CHAPTER 59




* * *



CHARLIE


“I got Theo, go ahead and take Zander inside,” I told my wife as I leaned over and unclipped our eighteen-month-old from his car seat. He looked a little scared, and even though it had only been two days (Jesus, has it only been two days?), I had a rush of panic that he didn’t remember me.

“Hey, Theo,” I said as I picked him up. “It’s me, Daddy!”

And then he smiled, and everything was right in the world.

Rain was pitter-pattering all around us, so I put a palm over my son’s head as I shut the car door with my hip, then ran with him into the house. My mother’s house was not remotely childproof with its jagged edges and haphazard up-and-downs, and Theo was walking now, so I sat him on the parlor table to pull off my sweatshirt, which was damp from the rain.

“Daddy’s all wet!” I said brightly as I tossed the sweatshirt on a chair, then squeezed his diaper. “Oop! And so is Theo! Let’s get you changed.” As I grabbed the diaper bag and started up the stairs to my bedroom, I thought about how much our lives had changed since we’d had Theo. He wasn’t planned, and when we got the news that Marcela was pregnant with kid number two, my emotions were mixed. Zander had (finally!) started school, and we had a predictable rhythm to our lives—up at seven, school by eight, T-ball from three to four, games on Saturday, sleep in on Sunday. It was manageable. We didn’t have help, but Marcela and I took turns and each had much-needed “me” time. But a second kid on a different and constantly changing schedule meant we would both be on duty all the time. If one was shuttling, the other would have to stay with the baby—there would be no more disappearing into the bar or the band. But, despite the strain Theo’s arrival put on our schedules, I couldn’t imagine our lives without him. He was our Buddha baby—gentle and smiley with wide, curious eyes. Yes, he had turned our lives upside down, but what was so great about right side up?

I set Theo on the bed (in the middle so he wouldn’t roll off!) and pulled off his pants. His diaper had leaked a little, but we always kept a spare outfit in the diaper bag. That bag was like a small apartment, it had everything—clothes, snacks, toys, books, baby shampoo, changing pad, socks, sippy cups, and of course, diapers. The spare clothes were on the bottom, so I had to empty the whole bag to get to them. They make diaper bags with lots of perfectly placed pockets, but my wife preferred fashion over function, so good thing I had the whole bed.

“I got this,” my wife said curtly as she walked in and saw the mess. “Go be with your sister.”

I attributed my wife’s testiness to the long drive. OK, and having just been told the millions of dollars she’d thought she was imminently getting wasn’t coming. I knew I shouldn’t have told her we got the money. But I thought, after the initial sting, she would accept that things were going back to normal and my lie would simply fade away. But turns out my wife had her own powder keg of secrets, and my Stupid Lie had lit the fuse.

I jogged down the stairs. I had drunk a cup of coffee already, but it had been a long night and I was ready for another. When I stepped into the kitchen, I saw Winnie’s cup on the counter by the pot, but there was no sign of her.

“Win?”

“In here,” she called out from inside the pantry.

“What are you doing in there?”

“I need you to help me reach something,” she said, waving me inside.

“You still looking for the sugar?” I asked as I joined her in the little storeroom.

“Nope. But I did find something else,” she said, pointing to the empty shelf in front of her.

“Where?”

“Right in front of you.”