Don't Look for Me(17)

“So do I.”

“We went to the diner to talk about it and you ordered a sandwich, Dad. And fries and a soda and you … you ate it … all of it!”

He knew what she was implying. She could tell from the silence. For the first three days, neither of them had been able to get down any real food. They’d gotten by on coffee and a few bites of toast, crackers. Walking through cornfields with strangers, hoping to find her mother, then hoping not to as the hours turned to days, making it more likely that if she was found, she would be found dead.

The credit card charge had come through on day four—taking two days to post. The note and clothing were found next. And her father’s appetite suddenly returned, like magic. Fear had transformed into resignation. And then acceptance.

“I have to find her, Dad. Even if she wrote that note and doesn’t want to be found. Even if that note was forged and…”

“Stop! I know what you’re thinking. That’s why I didn’t tell you about the report. I knew you’d go down that road and it’s wrong, Nic. Think about what the note said. How would anyone know those things about her? She wasn’t herself, Nicole. She was upset and nervous, but the words—that was how she felt. Only she could know that.”

“Then I’ll find her safe and sound and make her come home. Maybe the truck…”

He wouldn’t let her finish.

“I just can’t stop thinking about how you used to be. When you were a little girl, full of spitfire, and then a big girl and then a young woman with everything in front of her…”

Nic felt tears coming. Not now.

“Dad—stop!”

But he didn’t stop. “And you loved your life. You loved school and running and your friends…” He was crying and laughing now, at the same time. “I used to get so worried about all you girls, meeting up with boys at the mall, and now … Oh God, Nic … now I would give anything to be worried about you having fun with your friends. I would give anything to see you go to college, or just to see you smile again, not back in Hastings chasing after dead ends.”

He was full-on now, crying into the phone, making her cry.

“Dad…” She didn’t know what to say to him. How to make this better for him. It was hard enough to get through each day herself. She couldn’t carry her father’s anguish as well.

“I know I’m not supposed to say these things to you,” he said, catching his breath. “They told me not to, that it would make you feel worse. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I just need you to know that even if you don’t remember what it felt like when you were happy, that I do. I do! And I will hold those memories until you’re ready to take them back. Until you’re done running away—and that’s all this is, looking for your mother when she doesn’t want to be found.”

The therapy speak was unbearable. She recognized every theme—the holding of memories, the holding of feelings, the running away. Each of them was another layer of mental sedation, wrapped around her and Evan and their father, keeping them from crashing into one another. Keeping them cocooned and preserved, until—what, exactly?

“I’m not running away…”

“Your mother wasn’t happy.” He said this like it was some kind of revelation.

“I know that.”

“Do you? Do you know how unhappy she was? She was in agony. Unrelenting agony.”

I know.

“I know, Dad.”

“And that agony was spreading into all of us. Into you, especially. It was so hard to watch…”

“Dad—stop!” What was he even saying right now? He kept going.

“And I know you blame yourself for that day, for not bringing your sister to her playdate and not answering your phone—but it was your mother behind the wheel…”

Nic closed her eyes, listening carefully to words that somehow had a harsher tone this time.

“… it was your mother who was left to wonder about how fast she hit the brakes and turned the wheel, and whether she was driving as slow as she could have, knowing you kids were home alone and hearing the ice cream truck … You were a teenager, Nic. A busy teenager and it wasn’t your job to babysit your sister. That’s how she saw it. And she knew what other people thought about her.”

“Is that what you thought?” Nic asked him now. It sounded as though he was rendering a judgment. A guilty verdict. Is this what her own father thought about her mother? And if it was, how much of this toxic waste had seeped into conversations meant to provide comfort and support the way a husband should?

“Nic?”

“I’m here,” Nic answered. She wanted to say more, ask more. But she didn’t know where to begin. She was too tired, head on fire now after the tears, stomach still churning.

Was this how she also felt about her mother? Did she blame her more than she even blamed herself? Did it feel good to blame her, so she could be let off the hook?

Maybe that’s what people did when something like this happened. A child run over in the driveway. A child drowned in the pool outside. A child who’d choked on a toy. That could never happen to me, to my child, because I would never be so careless the way she was. That’s why it happened. If there was fault, then there could also be prevention, the illusion of control to make life bearable.