Part 50 (2/2)
”What kind of errands?”
”She didn't say. Why? Is everything okay?”
”I don't know,” Jared said. ”I don't know what to think. So you didn't see her all day yesterday?”
”No. Wait, I did see her, briefly.”
He stopped breathing, holding Tara's words, trying to listen.
”I was running out in the car with Jess,” said Tara, ”and she was walking up Bellevue. I waved to her.”
”Walking up Bellevue?”
”Yes, right here. In front of my house.” Tara pointed behind Jared, to the street lining the golf course. ”Like she does many times. She looked like she was going out for a brisk walk. But without Riot.”
”Were her hands free? Was she carrying her purse?”
”Gee, I don't remember. Why? Come to think of it, I think she was carrying something, like a dark bag, maybe a duffel. Which is why it didn't quite seem like she was exercising, more like going somewhere.”
”What was she wearing?”
”Oh, I don't know, Jared. I'm sorry. Jeans, maybe?”
Jared stared at Tara interminably. Tara became uncomfortable. ”What's wrong? Is something wrong?”
”Larissa didn't come home last night,” he said in a hollow voice. ”She's still not back. I'm afraid something terrible's happened.”
Fl.u.s.tered, Tara said nervously, ”No, no, everything seemed normal. When she called she sounded friendly, very much herself. Oh, my goodness. You think she got into some kind of accident?”
”Possibly. What time was this, when you saw her walking?”
”Not long after our phone call. Maybe 10:30? Quarter to eleven? Yes, it was probably closer to quarter to eleven, because Jess and I were going to the doctor at eleven, and I was putting her in the car. I drove past Larissa, opened the pa.s.senger window and waved to her. She waved back. I asked if she needed a ride. She said with a smile that no, she was fine. That was all. Everything seemeda””
Staggering backward, Jared had nothing more to say, nothing else to say.
At home Emily was awake, Asher still sleeping. ”Em, hold the fort, okay?” Jared said. ”I'll be right back.”
”Where are you going? You've just come back! I have volleyball practice at eleven.”
”I'll be back before then.”
”Asher has his playoff game at 11:30.”
”Way before then, Em.”
”Michelangelo goes to art cla.s.s with Mom at ten.”
”Probably today,” Jared said, ”we will have to cancel art. We'll try again next week.”
He drove slowly up Bellevue, made a right on Summit, and headed toward town. He drove up and down the local streets, drove past the hospital, drove past the library and the train station, past the diners and Maggie's Dominican Monastery. Could she be in there? Around and around he spun his wheels, circling the square of town, trying to traverse the bewilderment of the distance between himself and Larissa. What did St. Augustine say? Jared took a course on him in college; could he remember a blessed thing? Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?
The streets are spotless, broom-swept clean. Not a thing out of place. Trash cans every fifty feet as required by ordinance. Flags on the lampposts. Nothing rusted or unpainted. Windex s.h.i.+ne on all the gla.s.s in the stores, impeccable displays, cobblestones, pristine sidewalks, landscaped parks, sun s.h.i.+ning. Everything like a picture. Like their house with the Christmas lights on and snow on the evergreens.
He didn't get back in his futility until noon, having lost all track of the hours. Emily was beyond herself. Asher, less enraged and more productive, had called up one of his friends and found a ride to his playoff game. Feeling himself a failure on all fronts, Jared scooped up a shoddily dressed Michelangelo and went to the baseball grounds downtown, where he stood blankly by the chain-link fence and when the other parents clapped or booed, he clapped and booed, while Michelangelo played on the playground, and Jack and Frank and Ted kept talking to Jared about Asher's incredible pitching arm, and the Yankees' terrible pitching. He heard none of it and all of it. He didn't know how he continued to stand. Sitting in the field bleachers, in the fifth inning, with his son's game tied and the entire season on the line, Jared called Larissa's mother.
”No, I haven't heard from her,” Barbara said. ”But why is that unusual? I never hear from her. Is everything okay?”
”Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Great.”
”She did invite me for the barbecue on Monday. Do you want me to bring anything?”
”What barbecue?”
”What barbecue? The party you're having on Memorial Day. Jared! What's wrong with you today?”
Oh s.h.i.+t, the barbecue. ”That's right. Thanks so much, wonderful, can you bring some of your potato salad?”
”I always do. Tell the children I have something special for them.”
”They'll like that. Thanks, Barbara.”
”See you Monday. Three?”
”Three is great.”
When he hung up, the other team had scored four runs off Asher. Jared clapped. ”Yeah! Go, Wildcats!” Except he was standing in a sea of dismal parents, who were booing and not clapping. His own son glared at him from the pitcher's mound as if to say, what's wrong with you, Dad?
What was wrong with him indeed. What time was it?
One.
O G.o.d.
And at home, Ezra's Subaru was in the drive, and Emily was storming out the side door, fuming, ready to castigate him, and before she opened her mouth, Jared took her by the shoulders and said through his teeth because he didn't want to upset Michelangelo, who was still in the car, ”Emily, you need to look around you and see what's happening. Your mother is missing! Have you noticed this? I don't want to hear another word from you unless it's to help me, you got it? I don't want to hear about your missed games, or your cello, or your volleyball, or anything. Your. Mother. Is. Missing. You got that?” He never talked to Emily like this. He left the discipline to Larissa.
”I know,” she said sullenly but not particularly sympathetically. ”But she's going to come back, right?” Clearly she thought whatever was happening would iron itself out like most adult things, but that her volleyball practice might have to go on without her was an irrecoverable travesty. Jared held the car door open for Michelangelo, nearly closing it on his son's hand.
Ezra and Maggie were in his kitchen.
Vacantly he told them what Tara had told him. He didn't tell them that he stood in the middle of Summit, in the middle of the street and listened to the dried-up screams in his throat. Where was she? What had happened? He was afraid they would think he was losing his mind.
When was the forty-eight hours going to be up? When could he file a report on a missing Larissa, and why would he want to engage Cobb and Finney again with their cold stares and presumptions of Jared didn't even know what. And yet, what else could he do but file?
Maggie and Ezra brought Dylan, who babysat Michelangelo along with Emily, while Maggie called their friends, asking them to daisy-chain the news that due to a short-lived emergency, the Memorial Day bash was unfortunately being cancelled this year. She even called Larissa's mother.
”You're telling me not to come? But I just spoke to Jared, who told me to bring potato salad!”
<script>