Missing Pieces(13)
When the offer to write for the Messenger’s popular Dear Astrid advice column arose, it felt like a step down. She’d once covered wars and political upheavals, and now she’d be telling people how to confront a difficult neighbor or ask a girl on a date. But by then the girls were much more independent and, with college tuition looming, Sarah decided to swallow her pride and take the job. She’d be helping people, she convinced herself. And now, seven years later, here she was.
Only a handful of people knew Astrid’s true identity: Sarah’s editor, Gabe; Jack, of course; and her mother and sister. Not even Emma and Elizabeth knew. Not that it was some big secret, but it never came up. They knew their mother wrote for a newspaper but were too immersed in their own lives to pay much attention.
Sarah preferred the anonymity. Most of the letters were from regular everyday people looking for an unbiased opinion, a fresh perspective. They were often amusing, sometimes sad. Heartfelt. But some of the letters were odd. Downright disturbing. Dark, needy letters describing base desires either contemplated or completed. Some were overtly violent. So graphic that she’d have to alert the police in whatever city the letter was postmarked from.
As Sarah set up the laptop on the kitchen table, she sensed Julia’s presence. Small touches that reminded Sarah of her own mother. A vase filled with cut flowers on the table, small ceramic birds resting on the windowsill, a half-eaten chocolate cake beneath a glass cover. The kitchen was dated but clean. The linoleum floor was swept and scrubbed, and the faint scent of cinnamon and anise hung in the air, as if ingrained in the fabric of the yellow gingham curtains hanging over the window. The only thing that seemed out of place was the stack of dirty dishes soaking in the sink. Julia must have fallen before she had the chance to wash them.
A ceramic container with hand-painted roosters rested on a brown laminate countertop, and Sarah imagined Jack as a teenager, reaching into the canister for freshly baked cookies, still warm from Julia’s oven, doing his homework at the kitchen table. Sarah lifted the lid of the canister and, sure enough, it was brimming with peanut-butter cookies. Sarah’s stomach growled, and she helped herself to a cookie.
Sarah turned on the computer and waited for the system to boot up. She pulled up her email and began going through letters. There was one from a man struggling with the decision of whether to place his aging father in a nursing home and one from a teenage girl fed up with her parents’ incessant arguing. It was funny, she thought, how she managed to come up with just the right words to help complete strangers, but when it came to her own husband, sometimes nothing she said seemed to come out right.
She finished up the last of the new letters and shut her laptop when Hal shuffled into the kitchen, barefoot and bleary-eyed.
Sarah stood. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “Did the hospital call?”
“No, everything’s fine.” Hal waved his hand dismissively and Sarah lowered herself back into her chair as he sat down next to her. “I couldn’t sleep so I decided to get up. You can’t sleep, either?”
“Just catching up on a little work.” Sarah nodded toward her laptop. “Jack was showing me the pictures in the living room earlier. It was nice seeing him as a kid. I’d love a copy of the one of him with Dean.”
Hal smiled. “I know exactly which one you’re talking about. Jack, Dean and Celia would walk beans all day and then come back to the house with sunburns. Celia’s hands would be full of blisters.” Hal shook his head. “I don’t know how many times I told her to wear gloves.”
“Celia worked on the farm with Jack and Dean?” Sarah asked. Celia didn’t seem like the farmhand sort.
“She held her own. Lasted two summers longer than Dean did.”
“I would have thought Dean working on the farm was just a given,” Sarah said.
Hal laughed. “Well, now he does. I knew he’d come back to it. It’s in our blood. But at the time, Dean thought farmwork was beneath him. He worked at some restaurant in Cedar City. The rest of the time he was with that girlfriend of his. What was her name?” Hal looked up at the ceiling as if he’d find the answer there. “Kelly? Cassie? I don’t remember.”
“He wasn’t dating Celia back then?”
“No, Jack was,” Hal replied, and raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know that? I swear, after Jack came to live with us, Celia spent more time at our house than her own.”
Sarah’s stomach flipped. How could Jack have never told her that he dated Celia? She searched her memory and was certain he’d never mentioned even a high school girlfriend, let alone that his former girlfriend was now married to his cousin. Of course she had asked him about former girlfriends, but he had shrugged it off. There was no one special until I met you, he’d say, and she believed him. She had no reason not to.
Hal seemed to sense her disquiet and quickly changed the subject. “I know that Julia has a box of pictures of Jack when he was a baby. I’ll dig them out and you can take some back with you.”
“Thanks,” Sarah said, her mind still on Jack and Celia. How long had they dated? Why had they parted ways? Was it a bad breakup, and who had broken up with whom? Why hadn’t Jack told her? Sarah caught Hal looking at her with concern and she tried to shake the thoughts from her head.
“All you Quinlan men look alike,” Sarah observed, returning to the photographs. “You and Jack’s dad have the same eyes. It’s uncanny.”