I park the car in her garage, practically staggering to the door. I didn’t come straight here from school. I went to the police station first, following Officer Boone there. I thought they were going to show me Jake’s body, but they saved me from that, using his clothes and his shoes as a means of verification, for which I was grateful. I didn’t know that I could stand to see Jake’s face after what happened to him and after all those days in the woods, though the clothes were hard enough, knowing that they had pulled them from his lifeless body. Officer Boone offered to drive me home but I said no, that I could drive myself. He was reluctant, but he let me, while another officer followed along in his car to make sure I got home okay.
I told them everything I know about Christian and Lily. I told them to speak to Jim Brady, that Jim Brady will tell them that Lily was at Langley Woods the same day as Jake, and then it won’t just be my word against hers.
Now my mother pulls open the door. She steps back to make room for me to fit. “Oh, Nina honey, what’s wrong?” She throws opens her arms. I walk into them, and she folds them around me. Her body is strong. She’s solid and unbreakable against me. I sag into her, letting her hold me, suddenly overcome with emotion that I’ve been holding back. In that moment, it all comes spilling out. Jake is gone. Jake is dead. My eyes fill, and then tears roll down my cheeks, crying so hard that I can’t speak. My mother says nothing at first. She holds me. She strokes my hair, like she did when I was a girl and I was upset about something, a fight with a friend or a breakup with a boyfriend. She would squeeze beside me on my twin-size bed, slip her arm around my shoulders and tell me everything was going to be alright, and I believed her.
“They found Jake. He’s dead, Mom,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “He’s gone.”
Her hands are warm, steady, and her placid voice, when she speaks, is a narcotic. “I know, honey. I know.”
As my mother helps me to bed that night, pulling back the covers for me and tucking me into bed, I think about Jake. These last months that I spent with my husband, we were both discontent. We weren’t unhappy, but we weren’t happy either. It wasn’t always that way. There was a time in our lives that we were undeniably happy.
That night, I dream about Jake. I wake up crying for Jake, calling out his name. But Jake doesn’t come. My mother is the only one who comes. She is the only one I have left in this world, the only one who cares about me now that Jake is gone.
CHRISTIAN
Ileave work. The building I work in is ten stories tall and is easily one of the most recognizable buildings around because of its design. It’s cool and unique, postmodern. The building itself is blue with a sloping exterior that is nothing like the squat beige buildings that surround it. It stands out.
I take the elevator down to leave. My office is located on the eighth floor. It’s just around five and so the elevator is practically full to capacity, everyone anxious to go home. I’m way back in the elevator because I got on first, which means I’ll be the last to get off. Our building backs up to the interstate. From the eighth floor, I always see traffic start to build as late afternoon descends, getting worse the closer it gets to five, which means the interstate is practically a parking lot by now.
Some man and his kid are on the elevator with me. They stand just in front of me, the man carrying the little boy in his arms. The father is turned away, facing the elevator doors, so that I see his son’s face over his shoulder. I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s cute. He settles my anxious nerves as we descend. This wasn’t a good day. Despite getting rid of the bag of Lily’s clothes, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I couldn’t stop regretting letting Nina leave with the knowledge of what was in the bag.
This little boy can’t be more than two years old and I find myself thinking how maybe, one day, in the not so distant future, if Lily and I are lucky, this man and his son will be me and mine. I smile at the kid and he smiles shyly back, a toothy grin, before latching on to and burying his face into his father’s neck.
The father looks over his shoulder at me. He says, “He’s shy,” as if apologizing for his kid.
I say, “That’s okay.”
We reach the ground floor. The doors open and everyone steps out. I walk through the lobby for the revolving doors.
I call Lily on the way home but she doesn’t answer. I don’t leave a voice mail or text her because I don’t want to wake her if she’s napping.
Lily is in the living room when I come in. She’s not napping like I thought. She stands at the window, staring out into the backyard, so that I just see her from behind. If she heard the garage door opening, if she hears me come in, it’s not obvious.
Lily’s shoes block the door. Her jacket is on the kitchen island beside her bag and keys. “Hey,” I say, stepping over her shoes and setting my own bag on the floor, leaned against the island. “How was your day? I tried calling you.”
Lily doesn’t reply. She stands, staring out the window as if in a state of suspended animation.
“Lily?” I ask. I come across the kitchen for the living room. When I reach her, I set my hands on her shoulders, looking past her for the backyard, to see what she sees. There isn’t too much worth looking at, though the view, as always, is beautiful and serene. It’s quiet outside. There is no one there, no one walking along the path. The river is still and the day gray, the sky patchy with clouds. “Is everything okay?” I ask, turning her gently by the shoulders with my hands, forcing her to look at me.
Lily’s skin is pale. Her long brown hair falls flat and frames her face. “He’s dead,” she says, cold and emotionless. “They identified him.”
Lily’s words reach my ears, but my brain hasn’t done anything with them yet. It’s slow in catching up.
By instinct, I ask, “Who?” though I know who.
It comes as a complete blow, though it shouldn’t, because we’ve known since they found the body that this was bound to happen. I just didn’t know it was going to happen today.
“Jake.”
“When?”
“Today.”
“Nina told you?”
Lily shakes her head, her words coming out in unsteady bursts. “The teachers. At school. It’s all anyone is talking about.”
“How do the other teachers know that Jake is dead, that they’ve identified his body?”