Run Away(62)

Ash said nothing.

“Ash?”

“What?”

“Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re hearing the Truth.”

“Uh no, that’s not it.”

“Take your next right,” she said. “We’re getting close.”

The road was one lane now, with forest on either side.

“You don’t have to go back,” Ash said.

Dee Dee turned and stared out her window.

“I have some money saved,” Ash continued. “We could go somewhere. Just you and me. Buy a place. You could be Holly with me.”

She didn’t reply.

“Dee?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear me?”

“I did.”

“You don’t have to go back.”

“Shh. We’re getting close now.”





Chapter

Twenty-One



Simon called the phone number on Professor van de Beek’s bio page. After two rings, it went to voicemail. Simon left a message asking van de Beek to call him back about his daughter, Paige Greene. Simon doubled up then, sending an email to the professor with the same request.

He called both Sam and Anya, but the calls went right into voicemail, which was no surprise. Kids never talked on the phone, only texted. He should have known better. He sent them both the same text:

You okay? Wanna call me?



Sam answered right away.

All good. Nah no need.



Again, no surprise.

He started back toward New York City. He and Ingrid shared a stream or cloud or whatever, so that all his photos and documents and all her photos and documents were in the same place. Music too. They shared a service, so he told Siri to play Ingrid’s most recent playlist and sat back and listened.

The first song Ingrid had put on her playlist made him smile: “The Girl from Ipanema,” the 1964 version sung by Astrud Gilberto.

Sublime.

Simon shook his head, still in awe of the woman who had somehow, out of all the options, chosen him. Him. Whatever life had thrown at him, whatever turns he’d made or bizarre forks he’d seen in the road, that fact—that Ingrid had chosen him—always kept him balanced, made him thankful, guided him home.

The phone rang. The caller ID appeared on the car’s navigation screen.

Yvonne.

He quickly answered it.

“It’s not about Ingrid,” Yvonne said right away. “No change there.”

“What then?”

“And nothing is wrong.”

“Okay.”

“Today is the third Tuesday of the month,” she said.

He’d forgotten about Sadie Lowenstein.

“Not a big deal,” Yvonne continued. “I can call Sadie for you and postpone or I can head out myself or—”

“No, I’ll go.”

“Simon…”

“No, I want to. It’s on my way anyhow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. If something changes with Ingrid—”

“I’ll call you. Or Robert will. He’s taking over for me soon.”

“How are the kids?”

“Anya is with your neighbor. Sam is on his phone all the time, texting or whatever. He’d started dating a girl two weeks ago. Did you know that?”

Another pang, though a small one this time. “No.”

“The girlfriend wants to come down from Amherst and sit here with him, which is making him smile in spite of himself, but Sam’s told her not to yet.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“They miss you, but they don’t need you, if you know what I mean. They get what you’re doing.”

*



Sadie Lowenstein lived in a brick colonial in Yonkers, New York, just north of the Bronx. The neighborhood was no-frills and working class. Sadie had lived here for fifty-seven of her eighty-three years. She could afford better. As her financial advisor, Simon knew that better than anyone. She could get a place down in Florida for the rough winters too, a condo maybe, but she scoffed. No interest. She took two trips per year to Vegas. That was it. Other than that, she liked her old home.

Sadie still smoked and had the raspy voice to prove it. She wore an old-school housedress/muumuu. They sat in her kitchen, at the round Formica table where Sadie once sat with her husband Frank and their twin boys, Barry and Greg. They were gone from here now. Barry died of AIDS in 1992. Frank succumbed to cancer in 2004. Greg, the only one still living, had moved out to Phoenix and rarely came home to visit.

The floor was filmy linoleum. A clock above the sink had the numbers displayed with red dice, a souvenir from one of her early Vegas trips with Frank, maybe twenty years ago.

“Sit,” Sadie said. “I’ll make you some of that tea you like so much.”

The tea was a store-brand chamomile with lemon and honey. He didn’t drink tea. For Simon, tea was weak, a “coffee wannabe,” and much as he wanted tea to be something more, tea always ended up being little more than brown water.

But a decade ago—maybe more, he couldn’t remember anymore—Sadie had made him tea with this particular flavor bought at this particular store, and she’d asked him if he liked it, and he said, “Very much,” and now that tea was here, waiting for him, every time he visited.