The Forgotten Hours(35)

Jack’s email had read, in its entirety:

Katie Gregory! Good to hear from you! Call me any time on 2129956732.

She sat in the living room, the air smoky from her attempt at making a fire, drinking a bottle of wine she’d picked up at the discount liquor store. The first glass had gone down quickly, and even though she felt queasy, she filled her second glass to the brim. So they were neighbors—this news was both unsettling and a thrill. She’d been right, after all; they had probably been circling each other from a distance for the past few years. Finishing that second glass of wine did not make her feel more courageous, so she picked up her phone and dialed anyway.

“Benson,” he said.

“Jack!” Katie said, then hesitated, trying to get control of her voice. “Hi. It’s Katie. Katie Gregory?”

“Whoa,” he said. She could hear that he had not expected it to be her. “Christ, you surprised me. How’ve you been?”

“Um, okay,” she answered, realizing instantly that this call was a terrible mistake. To ask How have you been? when the last time they spoke was before her father was sent to prison was like asking a man who was about to be strung up on a tree what he’d miss in life. It was mortifying, utterly inadequate. “And you? How are you?”

“I’m fine. I’m good. Busy, you know.” A pause. “Damn, Katie. Wow. This is hard.”

“I . . . well, yeah. I’m at the cabin again, at Eagle Lake.”

“Oh shit,” he said.

“My dad’s getting, um, released soon. I’m cleaning up, going through things. And I . . . I was . . .” She stopped, uncertain how to phrase her question about the letter, about his testimony. The beginnings of a headache crept along the bone above her eyes, pressing down on the delicate nerves.

“Katie, look, I never felt great about how we said goodbye. And I never got to tell you how bad I felt, you know? About the whole fucking shitshow.”

There was something comforting about his cursing, as though he were still a teenager and not a man. It took her back to when she too had been careless and unconstrained, when words would pop out of her mouth instead of stewing inside her. She got up and walked to the window. Now that she was actually talking to Jack, her obsession with what had happened between the three of them that night seemed misplaced. How had they influenced what had happened? But she couldn’t shake the feeling that Lulu had done something, said something, decided to take back control by wreaking havoc.

“So where’re you, Katie?” Jack asked.

“I said—I’m at the cabin,” Katie answered. “At Eagle Lake.”

There was a noise on the other end of the line, like a door slamming. “No, I meant where do you live?”

“Manhattan.”

“No kidding . . .” There was static, a brief lapse in the phone connection. “So do I.”

“Look. I found all this stuff,” she tried again, but they were cut off by more static.

There was a distant honking sound and the screech of brakes. He was in his car, driving. “Katie, I—can I call you right back? I’m headed to a showing. The traffic’s insane. Is that okay? This is your cell, right? I’ll be like ten minutes.”

“Sure, yeah,” she said. “Call me.”

But her phone did not ring again that night. She waited an hour before trying him again. Voice mail clicked on instantly. Furious, she checked his number and punched each digit in again, more carefully this time. No answer.





16

She was in bed the next morning when her phone buzzed on the covers beside her; the movement woke her, but only slightly, like the touch of a mosquito on a warm shoulder—only enough for her to emerge momentarily and then be dragged under again.

The sheets were saturated with the smell of what some chemist in a lab somewhere considered to be the essence of wildflowers. Deep, deep in the static-filled gray of sleep, she opened her eyes every now and then to question where she was, to breathe in and register the strange competing smells, before being pulled again into an uneasy yet irresistible sleep. It took her a long time to open her eyes and realize that she was in the bunk room at Eagle Lake again. The residue of the late-night sleeping pill she had taken after trying Jack again and again coursed through her body, and she struggled to understand that the day had begun without her. Making an immense effort, she uncovered her bare legs, and the cold air hit her like the slap of a rattled parent. The next time the phone buzzed, her eyes opened wide, and she stared at the slats on the bottom of the top bunk. The mattress above her was stained with years of children’s accidents.

She’d missed a call from Zev, but when she tried to call him back a few minutes later, it went straight to voice mail, as though his phone had run out of juice. Briefly, she thought about calling her old friend Radha, who knew a few bits and pieces of what had happened. It was strange that no one, not even her father, knew what she was up to. Katie badly wanted to escape her own mind, put into words what she had set in motion by coming here. But she also knew that she wouldn’t be able to explain this to Radha or anyone else without risking their pity—or even worse, much worse, the greed of their prurient curiosity. She did not think she could tolerate that, so she waited to see if Jack would call her back.

The sight of the yogurt and bread she had bought yesterday repelled her, but she downed two cups of black coffee—she’d forgotten to buy milk. Thankfully, David would be there soon. Goose bumps spread over her legs and arms as she opened the front door and stood on the lintel, looking out and yawning widely. Across the gravel driveway and beyond the stand of pines was an undulating meadow, unkempt and woodsy, and then the Big House, grand in size but modest in design. Three stories, shingled, with dark-green window frames and a red roof. From here she could see the back porch—the new owners had done something with the stone patio—and into the kitchen. That was where her grandmother had slaved over her apple crumbles and shepherd’s pie. Grumpy had complained about all the maintenance on the house even though they had all known he loved it. John used to spend hours perched on ladders helping his father-in-law clear out a gutter or crouched down by some worn tread, paintbrush in hand. There had always been something that needed fixing.