The Night Before(44)

“How long has it been?” Kathleen asked. “She used to leave for days at a time. I never knew when she would be here, when she was coming home. She worked long hours. And she traveled. She was covering industrial chemicals, she said. Took the train to Pennsylvania, Upstate New York. Sometimes she flew. She wasn’t one to…” Kathleen couldn’t find the right words, so Rosie finished the thought.

“I know—she wasn’t one to be considerate of other people in her life. People who might worry about her or wonder where she was.”

Kathleen looked at Rosie and nodded. “I got used to it. I never worried about her.”

“It’s different,” Rosie said. “She had my car. She knew I would worry if she didn’t come home, or call, at least.”

“You’re right,” Kathleen said. “I didn’t mean to imply that she was inconsiderate. It wasn’t like that. If she thought I worried about her when she was gone, she would have let me know where she was. Things I cared about, like dishes in the sink or taking out the recycling—she never forgot those things. We were friendly, but not friends, if that makes any sense.”

It did. It made perfect sense. Laura wasn’t used to people worrying about her. Caring about her enough to worry.

“Did you know her boyfriend? The one she had right before she left?”

“Not really,” she said.

But Rosie could tell she had an opinion.

“Did she tell you what happened? Why she left New York? Left her job?”

“She just said she needed a change.” Kathleen looked back toward Laura’s room. “I came home one Sunday night and found her in there. She was sitting on her bed, staring out the window. She was sitting in the dark—no lights on anywhere in the apartment. It took me by surprise when I saw her. It was so quiet. So dark. I went to the edge of the door and knocked on the wall just outside. I didn’t want to bother her if she wanted to be alone. She had a glass of something in her hand, resting on her knee. Both feet were on the floor. Her hair was falling around her face. It was hard to tell, but I think she’d been crying.”

“I asked her what was wrong, and she just said that it was over with the guy. She never told me his name. I asked her if I could help, if she wanted to talk. She thanked me, politely, but then said she would be fine. She just needed a little time. I asked her if she wanted the door open or closed and she said closed. So I closed her door, turned on the lights, took a shower, made some food. She never came out. I thought she’d gone to bed. But she must have started packing, because the next afternoon, she was gone. The room was cleared out. She left me a check for two months’ rent and a note saying she was moving home for a while. That was it.”

Rosie stared at Laura’s roommate, picturing this scene. It was so familiar. Rosie had found her like that countless times when they were still living on Deer Hill Lane. Laura, sitting on the edge of her bed, in the dark, staring out a window.

“I tried to call her,” Kathleen said eagerly. “She didn’t answer and didn’t return the call. Like I said, we weren’t friends, so I didn’t think it was my place to do more than that.”

Rosie smiled sadly. “No—don’t feel bad. You couldn’t have done anything.”

“Still,” Kathleen said. “Now she’s missing. I wish I’d found out more that night. Maybe it would be helpful.”

Rosie got up. “Can I look in the room?” she asked.

“Of course.”

They walked from the kitchen to the living room, then to the doorway of Laura’s room. Kathleen walked past her and turned on the light.

“This is it,” she said. “Just the bed and desk.”

Rosie stood still for a moment. The room had been so full of life the last time she’d been there—before the day she moved out. It was in the spring and the windows were open. Jane Street was lined with trees and the smell of blooming leaves had been coming through on a cool gust of air. Laura had a bright orange quilt that Mason had found irresistible.

“My son was here last spring—jumping on that bed.” Rosie walked to the window and looked out at the street below. “It was May. Before she’d met him.”

Rosie tried to remember that day. “I would have remembered if she had. Laura was always different when she had a new man in her life.”

“I couldn’t say one way or another. I’m sorry. She mentioned him in passing over the summer. She wanted to bring him here for the weekend and asked me if I minded. I was leaving anyway, so I said it was fine.”

“He was married,” Rosie blurted out. “He had kids.”

“Oh,” Kathleen said. She was visibly surprised. “I had no idea. But that doesn’t seem like Laura. The few times we spoke about more than the apartment, she was very earnest—maybe that’s not the right word. But that does surprise me. Did she know?”

“What? About the wife and kids?”

“Yeah.”

“How could she not?”

“If it wasn’t on the Internet. If he was a good liar. I’ve heard a lot of stories.”

“But after months, wouldn’t she wonder why he hadn’t taken her to his apartment?”

Kathleen considered this. “Maybe he had another apartment. It just doesn’t seem like Laura, from what I could tell about her. She made some comments about your father, about his affairs—I don’t know the whole story, but wasn’t she estranged from him because of it?”