And they are watching me. I know it. I feel it. It’s the same itchy feeling as before, the same paranoia-inducing sensation of hidden eyes following me. Some of it is due to the FBI agents stalking my every move, but not all. I’ve gotten good at spotting the Feds. It’s always the nondescript car across the street, the pedestrian who doesn’t quite belong, the lone man or woman at the bar.
Peter’s men are different. I never see them; I just feel their presence. They’re the shadow around the corner, the echo of footsteps in the parking lot, the itch between my shoulder blades. They’re there all the time, but never close enough for me—or the Feds—to spot them.
Of course, it’s possible I really am paranoid this time, but I don’t think so. I know Peter. He wouldn’t leave me here without keeping tabs on me. Or so I keep telling myself as week after week passes by without a word from him… without so much as a hint that he’s coming back for me.
I try to focus on the fact that I get to spend all this time with my parents, and I’m glad about that. I really am. Dad seems to have gotten a new lease on life since my return, swimming and doing his doctor-assigned exercises with renewed vigor and dedication. And Mom is getting better every day, her bones healing with the speed of a woman half her age. She’s still bedbound for now—a fact that drives her insane—but the doctors promise that she’ll start physical therapy as soon as her body can take it, possibly by the middle of January.
November rolls into December, and still, the interminable waiting continues. It’s like I exist in a limbo between my old life and the one I’d started to settle into with Peter. I’m living in my childhood home, surrounded by my family and friends, yet I can’t shake the sensation that I’m a guest, a visitor at a place I no longer belong.
I think my parents sense that, because as December advances, they start questioning why I’m not doing certain things, like looking for a new job or finding another place to live. I fend them off by saying that I want to focus on Mom for now, but as her health continues to improve, that excuse sounds increasingly hollow.
“Sara, honey… you don’t have to be here all the time,” Mom says when I come to visit her one chilly December morning. “Your dad can entertain me just as well, and I know you have things you’ve been putting off because of this.” She waves her uninjured hand at the leg casts that keep her immobile.
Smiling, I shake my head. “There’s nothing that can’t wait, Mom. Thanks to the sale of the house, I have money in the bank, and I like living with Dad. Unless he’s tired of having me underfoot?”
“Of course not,” Mom says right away, as I knew she would. “He loves having you back home. You have no idea what a relief it is to have you back. If you want to live with us forever, you are more than welcome. I just know that you’ve always been independent, and I don’t want you to feel obligated to take care of us instead of getting your life back on track.”
Life back on track. I bite back the urge to tell her that I don’t know what that means anymore. That there’s no “track” for me, no straightforward path that I can see. My future, once so clear and linear, is now shrouded in darkness, full of twists I can only guess at.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” I say, shaking off the gloomy thought. “I’m happy to be here with you and Dad.”
And smiling, I gently steer the conversation away from me.
Away from the future I can no longer envision.
We celebrate Hanukkah at the Levinsons’, then Christmas and New Year’s at the hospital with Mom. At the celebrations, I laugh and smile, exchange gifts and pretend I’m back for good. I tell my dad that, yes, I will look for a new job soon, and I discuss the purchase of a new house with Joe Levinson. He recommends a good real estate agent to me, and I write down the name, as though it matters.
As though any of it matters when, at any moment, I might disappear again.
By the time mid-January rolls around, the strain of waiting and pretending, of constantly juggling all the half-truths and lies, takes a toll on me. Peter’s absence is a raw gash in my heart, and no matter how hard I try to focus on my family and friends, I miss him all the time, so much that he’s all I can think about throughout the day. I know how wrong that is, and I kick myself for it, but at this point, I’m so used to the smothering guilt that it doesn’t feel as awful as it once did.