Mother May I(56)

My mouth was dry. I swallowed anyway, looking at his arms, his shoulders. If this man wanted to put me in a trunk, he could, with little trouble, and I was tall and fit. Lexie looked to be a tiny thing. I forgot sometimes how strong men were, because on television, hundred-pound actresses fended off huge men with well-placed kicks, and because no man had ever laid harsh hands on me. Trey at fifty could still pick me up and swing me around, easily, while I laughed and kissed him. Sometimes, when I was feeling playful and romantic, I’d start wrestling him in bed. He’d let me pin him; he liked the way my hair tumbled in a tent around his face. I never once thought about how, if he wanted to, Trey could flip me and hold me down. He could hurt me. I’d be helpless. Those thoughts belonged to my mom. I never had to think of that. It was not a thing he’d ever do.

I couldn’t fully imagine Marshall grabbing me either, pushing and folding and quelling me. He wouldn’t. He was Marshall, so tied to Betsy in my mind that I sometimes forgot he had his own body. But he did, and it was tall and ropy with muscle. My soft-spoken friend rode around inside a beast that could twist my body into any shape, if he chose to, and my body could not stop his.

I understood this, but I was not afraid. His body was my beast tonight. He would unleash it and let it do things that were wrong and frightening and illegal. For me. To save my son.

“Thank you.” My voice trembled. My words were woefully inadequate.

He rolled past that with typical Marshall pragmatism, saying, “Get everything you can from Trey. Not just what happened. Any facts or locations or objects he associates with Lexie Pine.”

I nodded. It was hard to keep my gaze on his face. I wanted to keep looking at his shoulders, his arms, these weapons being sent into the world on my behalf. “I’ll tell you anything he says that could help. He’ll be home soon. I need to go in.” I did, but I had to ask him, one more time, “Can you really find her?”

He glanced over, and I could see his conflict written on his face. He wanted to reassure me, but he didn’t want to lie. “Yeah, I can find her. Gabrielle will be looking, too, online.” God, I loved his certainty. But then he added, “The trick is getting it done before tomorrow morning. And we’re assuming that Lexie Pine’s mother intends to keep her deal with you and show up at Funtime.”

“She will.” Now I was the one who sounded certain. The mother and I had connected; I’d felt truth in her proposal. She would trade Robert for Trey. I also believed she’d trade Robert for her own child, though Lexie was a middle-aged woman now, and an angry and damaged addict. She would trade because Lexie was still her baby. Any mother would.

“Okay, then. Good luck.” He meant with Trey.

“Good luck,” I echoed. Sweet God, this thread we were following to get to Robert felt as fine as gossamer. If any of us went wrong, in any tiny thing, for even a moment, it would break. We would lose. We’d lose my son. I couldn’t think like that, though. I had to keep pushing forward.

I unbuckled my seat belt, but I was still loath to leave him. Marshall loved the law, but he was in this with me, law be damned. I was swamped in gratefulness. On impulse I leaned across and grabbed him in an awkward, sideways hug. He stiffened, surprised, but then he hugged me back.

He felt as sure and solid as an edifice. I didn’t want to let go. But we had separate work to do now. I got out and hurried up the walk, inside. I didn’t want to watch him drive away.

Exactly seven more minutes passed. I watched them happen, one by one. The little winding clock hung by the mantel had never ticked so loud or so slowly, and then I heard the garage door rising. Trey was home.

I wasn’t sure what I would do when I saw him. I owed him a story. He owed me one, too, much older.

I was afraid of who he would find when he came through the door. Some version of Betsy, furious and bold enough to say so? A stranger, locked down and cold? But I heard his dear, familiar voice call out my name, and I remembered who I was. I remembered how well I knew him; I loved my husband. I was the outermost ring around our family bull’s-eye, and I would be gentle and only myself as he walked blindly in to find his son gone and the hardest conversation of our marriage locked and loaded, waiting for him. Even before my mind could make this feeling into words, I was up and running for the side door, and then I was in his arms. The smell of him was safety, it was comfort.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, smiling down at me, though his eyes looked sad and very tired. I could see how deeply Spencer’s death had shaken him. Well, Spence had been family. Problematic family, and not much liked at times, but loved and soaked in history. He was already grieving, and I was here to grieve him more.

“Trey,” I said, and my grave tone was enough to make his smile falter. “It’s worse than you think. Spence was only the start. I have a lot to tell you.”

I felt how still he became, his whole body pausing, even his breath. He didn’t panic or clot the air up with a thousand questions, though. Trey, in a crisis, got quiet and decisive. He said, “Okay. Tell me.”

I led him to the great-room couch and sat him down, and I started at the beginning. It was easier than I’d thought. I’d had practice, telling this story to Marshall and Gabrielle. He didn’t interrupt me until I got to the part where Robert went missing, and then he started asking, “What? What?” Once he was past the shock, he got even quieter, reaching to grip my hands. His were shaking. I told him about my long conversation with the mother. The party, the pills. He was thinking, hard, but I saw no realizations or dawning understanding cross his face. Perhaps he was stuck on the idea of a lawsuit, just as we’d been.