The New Husband(53)

I don’t know how Ben knew exactly what to say, but he did. I’d read somewhere that kids with Asperger’s had a hard time reading people’s emotions, but Ben could read mine just fine. Maybe the label was wrong, or maybe he and I had a special connection. Either way, now wasn’t the time to figure that out, because my phone buzzed. It felt like lightning had hit my body. I tensed, then relaxed. I checked the display. It was a Talkie message from Tracy Nuts.

It read:

Hi sweetie.

My breath caught, and those tears returned, but this time they were tears of joy. I knew it in my heart, my soul, my gut—every bit of me knew with a hundred percent certainty (no, make it a thousand, a million percent) that I was chatting with my father.

Hi Daddy.

My hands shook so badly I could barely type the words.

I miss you, Bunny.

And there was one of my questions answered already, no prodding necessary on my part: What do you sometimes call me? What other nickname do you have for me besides Tracy Nuts? And the answer, since I was a little girl, was Bunny, even though I hated it and had wanted him to call me something cooler, like Bear, but he kept forgetting and called me Bunny instead. Those tears in my eyes rolled down my cheeks, and Ben, usually so in sync with me, suddenly looked really uncomfortable. I typed: Where are you?

I’m not anywhere close. Can’t tell you where I am.

Why not???

My three question marks could have been four hundred.

There are reasons. Reasons for everything.

Please tell me.

I can’t. I’m sorry.

Why? I don’t understand.

You will. In time. You’re the only one I can trust, Maggie.

Now I felt even worse about telling Ben, but I had some trust issues of my own to get over. I was sure, so sure, this was my dad, but my remaining four questions would be the final proof.

I typed, imagining what a puddle I’d be if I heard his voice: Can you call me?

Not today.

Dad, I have to make sure it’s really you. You understand.

Yes. Understood. You’re a smart girl. Always were.

I smiled because that was something my father would say.

Where were we when I slipped on some wet rocks and scraped my knee on barnacles?

My dad would remember that fall. I had screamed like I’d been stabbed, even though after we cleaned the wound it wasn’t much of anything at all.

Cranberry Island, Maine.

The response came back as fast as if he’d said it aloud. A tingle shot through my body. I showed Ben the phone and nodded.

Two right.

Three to go.





CHAPTER 29


Glen read the question and wanted to cry.

In the beginning, all he knew were tears. But at some point, he couldn’t say when, the pain, his endless suffering, became less intense as it morphed into a persistent, almost dull ache. The relentless, piercing agony of those initial days, months even, after his disappearance couldn’t have gone on forever. At some point the body and mind had to accept their fate. He had to do what humans had done for eons—adapt to survive. But what Glen was most thankful for was his capacity to endure. Otherwise, he’d have surely gone insane by now. And if he couldn’t do what was asked of him—and much was asked—everyone would suffer.

Glen had to focus for Maggie’s sake, at least until this conversation was over. There’d be plenty of time for tears later. All he had was time.

Who’s my best friend?

Right away, Glen realized this was a trick question, and his pride for Maggie surged with her cleverness. She was thinking someone might have studied her, tried to learn her habits to pull off a ruse. She was right to be cautious. Glen knew better than most that people really did study others that way. So how to answer? He could have put down Laura Abel, or even Benjamin Odell, but he knew neither would have been correct.

He imagined his daughter at school somewhere, because for once he knew the time of day. If he closed his eyes, he could see her blond hair and picture her sweet twelve-year-old smile. Then he realized, no, he had missed her birthday, so she was thirteen now, and the hole in his heart somehow managed to burrow a few inches deeper.

He eventually provided the correct answer to her question: Daisy. Maggie always went around saying Daisy was her best friend in the world.

Glen pictured them in his mind, his family, together as they once had been, before everything changed. He put them in their old house, even though he knew they were living across town now. He might have been absent all these months, going on years, but Glen knew everything about them—every soul-crushing detail.

Maggie’s next question arrived:

What was my favorite Christmas present before we got Daisy?

Before Daisy, who would be five now, Glen calculated. So it would have been a present from at least six Christmases ago. He thought a second, and soon it came to him. He lived his life over and over again in his mind. Memories were all Glen had now, so he collected, stored, and guarded them, like a starving man with dwindling rations. He’d go year by year, day by day if possible, trying to recall specific events, experiences that had once grounded him, but too often those moments were shrouded in the fog of time. Thankfully, this wasn’t one of those moments.

He remembered that Christmas morning quite vividly. Maggie was six at the time, but the way she had cried with delight made it hard to believe something so loud could come from a body so small.