Confessions on the 7:45(74)

“I’m—here for you. And for Graham.”

With his hand still on hers, she felt the warmth of him, but also something else.

He still loves you, Graham always complained. They’d all tried to be friends. So evolved, weren’t they? But dinners were always awkward, conversations stilted. Then Will and his wife divorced. It’s like he’s just waiting for you to find your way back to him.

She disagreed. Will’s wife, Bella, was beautiful and sweet; they’d seemed happy. Together—in that way that people were or weren’t, loving looks, casual touches. But obviously she’d been wrong. So many marriages imploded before her eyes—her parents’, her sister’s, more than half of her friends’, her own. Maybe you just weren’t supposed to be together forever. Maybe it was too much to ask.

She pulled her hand away gently, touched him on the leg. He watched her for a moment, then lowered his eyes.

Whatever there was still between them, this wasn’t the time. She wasn’t the girl she was with Will, the woman she was with Graham. She wasn’t sure who she was right now. Maybe she was just a mother; that was all she had energy for as her life fell to pieces.

He pressed his lips together, gave a tight nod of understanding, then helped her unload the car. Or maybe, she found herself thinking, as she hefted her suitcase from the car, maybe this was the moment where she found herself—not her parents’ daughter, Will’s girlfriend, Graham’s wife, Stephen and Oliver’s mom. She was all those things, or had been, would always be a mother. But now that her life was cracked, fractured beyond repair, maybe this is where Selena emerged, more herself than she had ever been.

Inside the house, Stephen clung. But Oliver kept his distance, dark eyes on Will.

“Where’s Dad?” he asked.

“Boys,” said Paulo. “Come help me with dinner. Real men know how to cook.”

He marshaled the boys into the kitchen.

Selena let her mother take her into her arms and hold on tight.

“Mom, is it okay if we stay here for a while?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. But could you find yourself when you were sleeping in your mother’s guest room? At least it wasn’t her old room from childhood; her father still lived in that house. She rarely visited.

“This is your home,” her mother said. “Wherever I am, that’s where you belong.”

You were always a mother, she guessed. No matter how old your children were. Her mom ushered her to the living room. Selena heard Paulo’s baritone, then the boys’ laughter.

“Are you hungry?” Cora asked. That was always the first rule of mothering: make sure no one’s hungry.

“Starving,” she admitted.

“I have some soup.” Cora patted Selena’s arm. “I’ll heat it up. Just sit here, try to rest.”

Will’s phone rang and he went into the other room to take the call. She tried not to listen. But she tensed just listening to the sound of his voice, even though she couldn’t understand the words. She knew that voice, quiet but dark. When he came back, his face was grim.

She let the moment expand with her breath. The last moment, she thought for no reason. The last moment where things could still turn out okay.

“Police have found the body of a young woman,” he said. “About five miles from the house. Joggers found the body off trail, back in the state park.”

The trails Graham ran, regularly, when he used to run.

Selena’s mother gasped, and Selena felt the world tip, sank into the couch.

“Is it—Geneva?”

Will looked behind him for the boys, she guessed, then lowered his voice a bit.

“The body is so disfigured that it will take some time to identify.”

Cora released a helpless, frightened noise. It was soft, but Paulo must have heard because he emerged from the kitchen.

Selena dipped her face into her hands and started to cry—for Geneva, for herself, for her boys, and for the dark road ahead of them—which just got darker.



TWENTY-NINE

Pearl

Pop had been busy. Gone a lot, leaving Pearl to set up house. She presumed he’d found another lonely woman. This time, Pearl had her mission, separate from his. But she wasn’t making much progress. After all, she wondered, how could it work? Wouldn’t her father, if she found him, want to know where she’d been all these years? Would he want to know what had happened to Stella?

Pearl had enrolled in community college, an institution that she knew was far beneath her intellectually. But she believed that your education was what you made of it. You could learn what you needed to learn anywhere. Fancy degrees from fancy schools, that was just another con—selling you the illusion of status. That’s what Pop said.

Anyway, Pop wasn’t sure that her identity would hold up to very much scrutiny. And those fancy schools, they did tend to check into your pedigree. So some of the bigger institutions, the better ones, to which she aspired, were out of reach. She’d have to settle.

“Do you imagine he cares?” asked Pop, when she brought up her concerns about her father and what questions he’d have for her if they connected. He wasn’t being cruel, just practical. An analysis of the mark—who was he? What did he want?

It was one of the rare nights that she and Pop were home together. Things had changed between them somewhat. She wasn’t an asset to the game anymore. Now that she was an adult, and looked like one, she wasn’t a lure for that vulnerable older woman looking to mother. She was a threat—someone younger, more beautiful, in the way. They lay on the couch, her head on his thigh as he twirled at the length of her hair.