Lie, Lie Again(39)
As much as she wanted to scroll through the pictures right there in the middle of the driveway, she needed to do this in private.
Once inside, she took Hugh’s camera and linked it to her laptop with the cord that had been tucked in the case. Download all items? it asked.
“But of course. I’d love to,” she said aloud as she clicked yes.
And just like that, his entire collection of photos started their voyage to her laptop. A dialogue box popped up, alerting her that thirty minutes remained. “No rush,” she said to the screen. “I have all day.” She opened a new tab and typed Patrick Sharp into the search bar. In seconds, she had his phone number and email address, and she typed them both into the notes section of her phone.
Of course Jonathan would find a way to wreak havoc on her home life. Bad things always came in threes. First her wrist, then Hugh, and now Jonathan selling her home. She wished a Wreck Center actually existed. Shattering something—or someone, for that matter—would be quite satisfying right now.
But she would be fine. It’s about being three steps ahead at all times, she thought. It was that simple. Nothing could break her. She was a survivor. Her dad had made damn sure of that. Tears made her vision blur, but she squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to let them fall.
Sylvia’s knees rested on the stained blue corduroy sofa as she stared out the living room window counting cars, telling herself the fifth one would be her dad’s car. And then the tenth, the fifteenth . . . the thirtieth. But theirs wasn’t a busy street. The thirtieth car never came. And her dad’s dented blue Chevy never did either. She waited until the streetlights flickered on. Fear ate at her little body as she wondered what had happened.
She counted to fifty, just like he’d told her to. Usually when they played hide-and-seek, she counted only to twenty, but today, he’d said fifty was better. She skipped from her small room to the tiny family area, calling, “I’ll find you, Daddy!” after those fifty seconds. But he wasn’t in any of his usual hiding places.
After shouting for him, she cautiously stuck her head outside to look in the tiny garage. His car wasn’t there anymore. She wasn’t supposed to leave the apartment, so why would he drive to a hiding spot?
She thought and thought. Her dad had to run errands a lot. Maybe someone had called him and needed him right away, and he’d left, forgetting all about the game. She decided that must’ve been what happened, so she crept onto the sofa to wait. When it started to get dark, her stomach ached with fear. She picked up the phone to call the number her mom had made her memorize after the divorce. It was the pager number she used at the hospital where she was a nurse. She wasn’t supposed to call it except in an emergency.
She tapped the buttons for her dad’s phone number followed by the tic-tac-toe sign, then hung up, just like she’d practiced, and climbed back onto the sofa. She pressed her hands and face to the glass, straining to see in the darkness. There were no neighbors to run to, because she didn’t know the neighbors. This wasn’t her home. It was the apartment her dad had moved into after the divorce. Her mom hated it. “It’s in a shitty part of town,” she’d said. The side of her mouth would twitch up in disgust, instantly injecting anxiety into Sylvia’s veins.
By the time her mom called back, Sylvia could speak only in sobs. Her mom said so many bad words, it made her cry even harder. She hadn’t meant to make her mom angry. Her mom told her to stay put and she’d be there as soon as she could. Sylvia was too scared to leave the sofa. She desperately wanted Grizzly, the bear her dad had won for her at a carnival, but worry kept her rooted to the spot on the saggy sofa. She counted six tiny brown holes on the corduroy cushion.
The sky had grown black by the time she heard the pounding on the door and her mother’s voice. She ran for the door, asking who it was even though she knew it was her mom. When she unlocked the bolt, her mother charged in, grabbing her and checking for injuries. Sylvia melted in her mother’s arms. But too soon, her mom released her to stalk toward her dad’s room. A wild cry emerged from her, and Sylvia peeked in from behind. The closet door was wide open, and nothing remained but a few plastic hangers. He was gone.
“Did he say anything? Try to remember, Sylvia. What did he say? Where did he go?”
“We were playing hide-and-seek. I looked and looked, but I never found him,” Sylvia sobbed.
Her mom pulled her into her arms. “It will be all right now,” she said.
Everything else was a haze. She couldn’t remember packing her things. The only memory that stayed was hugging Grizzly to her chest on the ride back home. Her dad’s face was now a blurry memory. She didn’t try to sharpen the image in her mind. Blurry was better.
She stood and moved to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and some buttered toast. Her laptop had dinged, alerting her that the pictures were loaded, but she wasn’t prepared to look at them just yet. It’d be best to do it with a little something in her belly. It felt like hours had passed since the blueberry muffin. As she reached the bread box, she remembered she didn’t have any bread. Why had she run from the grocery store like a maniac? She should’ve stayed to finish the job. So what if Embry was pregnant? It didn’t affect her in the least. She pulled some crackers from the pantry. Funny that she had saltines but no bread. She should probably offer them to Embry. Poor thing had looked rather green this morning. As she nibbled a cracker in the middle of the kitchen, an idea struck.