The Mystery of Hollow Places(55)

This is it. My chance to ask the big question, the all-consuming, zero-room-for-anything-else-until-the-mystery-is-solved question, which I always thought would be a simple one: Why did you leave Sugarbrook? But what comes out surprises me: “So why couldn’t you be better?”

She reaches for her glass, stares into it but doesn’t drink. “I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I want to give you what you need, Imogene, but there just isn’t an easy answer. Sometimes it’s chemicals, or shitty memories. Life wasn’t easy with my mom . . . even before she left. And sometimes it just is. On and off my whole life, it’s been that way. Before you came along, I guess I was miserable. Part of it was Mom’s death. But I hadn’t even really known her. . . .” Here, she looks up at me through her eyelashes, then quickly away. “And it didn’t start with her. Then time went by and there wasn’t even sadness.

“You know how another patient put it? She said this feeling inside her was . . . it was anti-feeling. Like a black hole in space, and everything—happiness, anger, hope, meaning—it would all get sucked in, tipped over the event horizon, and she couldn’t feel any of it. That’s the way it was for me. I walked around like everyone else, and had this wonderful opportunity at the museum, and came home to this brilliant guy who loved me and was nothing but sweet. Your father tried so hard. But I felt . . . empty. If I could’ve filled that space up with anything, I would’ve. If somebody had turned to me and said, ‘It’s easy, just pour some dry cement in there and you’ll be a normal human girl,’ I would’ve done it like that.” She snaps her fingers. “But I couldn’t. And your father couldn’t do it for me. Then . . . then I was pregnant, and it all happened so fast. I was only twenty-one, and we weren’t even seriously talking marriage! But I thought . . .”

“I would fix you?” I finish the sentence, and she doesn’t deny it. “Maybe you should’ve gotten a dog or something. Eased into it.”

Her thin mouth twists.

What did I expect from the elusive Sidonie Faye? One single, perfect answer to all the questions I’ve ever had, all the mother-daughter days I’ve missed, all the nights I’ve stayed up wondering if I was cursed like my mom and her mom before her, if I was doomed to turn into a woman who could be lonely wherever she went?

Those sorts of answers exist, I suppose. But only in stories.

“So. You left us in the middle of the night and never came back. Never called. Never sent a Valentine’s Day card. Not even now that you’re blissfully happy and married and in freaking art class.”

Her swollen knuckles are white around her juice glass. “I was terrified. I knew you’d hate me. I was afraid to hear I’d ruined your life.”

“My life was fine. We were just fine without you. Almost like nothing was missing,” I lie, assembling one arched eyebrow and a slight sneer into Jessa’s trademark mask of icy disinterest, usually reserved for enemies.

“I hoped you would be okay,” Sidonie answers in a small voice, looking down through the curtain of her hair. All at once, it’s like she’s the kid and I’m the grown-up.

I like it that way. I want to keep control while I have it—it’s better than letting in the old rotten-tooth pain. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t come so you could apologize. I already knew pretty much everything before I came. There are just a couple questions I have, and then I’m leaving.” Might as well go for the big one right off, though by now I don’t expect to get much out of it. With a deep breath, I ask, “When was the last time you spoke with my dad?”

“About a week ago, I guess? No. Exactly a week ago, actually.”

I can feel every muscle in my body seize up and stiffen, my heart leading the charge. “Seriously? You’re telling me you spoke with him?”

She hesitates, chewing on her thumbnail and its chipped blue polish. “Not directly. But I thought you knew. I thought that was why you came to see me. Imogene, what’s going on here?”

“Just, please tell me what he said.”

“It was a message he left on our machine. Last Thursday. Todd was already gone—he had an early department meeting. I got out of the bathroom and saw the machine blinking, so . . .” She chomps on her nail again. “I hadn’t heard from him in so long. He used to send letters, and sometimes they got to me, but I never wrote back. Then, there his voice was, coming out of the speakers. He said he wanted us to meet.”

“On Valentine’s Day,” I finish.

“Yes, I guess it was. He told me he needed to see me and he’d be waiting for me by the water. That was it.” She shrugs helplessly.

“So what did you do about it?”

“What could I do? He didn’t leave a number. And I couldn’t leave my husband to traipse around every body of water in Massachusetts.”

I’m not so much listening to her excuses as digging through Dad’s message. By the water? Did he mean the Charles River in Boston? It’s not far from Good Shepherd Hospital. Or did he mean . . .

“Do you think he could be talking about Victory Island?”

“Oh my god.” Her eyes are hazel moons. “I haven’t thought about that place in almost twenty years. We only went once, you know? We stumbled onto it on a long drive and stayed the night in this hotel down by the shore. This silly little tourist trap, the cheapest place on the beach I bet. The room was such a laugh. It had this Hawaiian theme. But as soon as we walked into the lobby, I knew it was the right place to be.”