Splinter (Fiction — Young Adult) Page 3

  I flinch. We never talk about her, so this is unexpected.

  “Don’t you?” I ask.

  “I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.”

  There’s a tickle in my nose suddenly, and an itchiness in my eyes, like I’m about to cry. “I feel her sometimes.”

  He pauses. “Me too.”

  I should say something about her, something to prove I remember her, something to show him he’s not alone in wondering where she is.

  “Certain things you do . . . you remind me of her,” he says. “Some of the things she used to say . . . the way you look at me when you’re angry . . . And you don’t eat meat. You used to, you know. When you were little, hot dogs were your favorite.”

  A memory, or maybe a flash of a dream, wafts into my mind: I’m roasting a hot dog on a stick over a fire. Mom’s laughter fills my ears for a split second—she’s laughing at something someone said, something Schmidt said—Schmidt?—and then, just as I’m about to grasp the moment, the whole thing is gone.

  I try to get it back.

  What had Schmidt said?

  Why was Mom laughing?

  Why were we there? Roasting hot dogs?

  Was Dad there too?

  But the memory’s gone.

  I think back to what Dad just said. “Mom didn’t eat meat?” Maybe I knew that once, but she isn’t the reason I stopped eating animal carcass. I stopped because I don’t like leaving little skeletons or pools of blood on my plate.

  “No.” A hint of a smile appears on his lips. “She loved animals too much to eat them, she used to say. That’s why I learned to cook. Didn’t want to give up bacon. And you love animals too. Watching you with Kismet . . . you should’ve always had a dog. Your mother wanted one.”

  “She did?” What else have I forgotten about her?

  “Maybe we should get another.”

  “You mean . . . replace Kismet? Like you tried to replace Mom with Heather?” I didn’t know I was going to say that; I’m still angry about Trina Jordan, I guess.

  “I didn’t replace your mother. No one can replace her.”

  “Really?” I beg to differ. My father wasted no time in dating Heather after their divorce. I never questioned it, because I quickly came to love Heather, and it seemed clear that she and Dad were meant to be. But Dad’s quick resurgence into the dating world is one reason Eschermann suspects that Dad knows what happened to Mom. Even if they were divorced, even if her disappearance sent him down a long, dark road with a bottle in his hand . . . “You and Heather packed away all the pictures of her. It’s like she was never here, like you don’t want to acknowledge her existence. We don’t talk about her. Ever.”

  “Because it used to upset you to talk about her.”

  “When I was little.”

  “You’d cry with just the mention of her.”

  “But that was ages ago. And now I’m forgetting. She’s slipping away. And if we never talk about her . . .”

  Maybe that’s why her music has been haunting me lately. Maybe it’s a subconscious urge to remember.

  He slips his hands into his pockets and trails his glance from the window to the items on my bulletin board—pictures of me with Brooke, with Cassidy. But the one picture I have of Mom, I keep hidden in a drawer. So, if I’m playing devil’s advocate, who’s willing to forget?

  “Your mother’s favorite color was light yellow.”

  “Sugar-cookie yellow,” I say with him.

  He offers a brief smile. “And that’s why the foyer is still painted a pale yellow. The family room throw pillows are pale yellow. The kitchen cabinets . . . that same pale yellow.”

  I close my eyes and savor the memory of her staining the porch swing. It’s weathered and gray now, but it, too, had an opaque yellow cast to it when I was a little girl. The color of sugar cookies right out of the oven.

  “She may be gone, Sam, but she’s still here. In this house. And even though we got divorced, she’s still here.” He pats his knuckles against his heart. “She’s here because you’re here. Nothing and no one is going to squeeze her out.”

  We’re staring at each other now. His eyes are misty with so many things unsaid.

  This might be one of those times when storybook daughters hug their fathers-of-the-year, but I’m not a hugger. Dad and I have never had that type of relationship. He isn’t touchy-feely, either. I know he loves me. I assume he knows I love him. We don’t have to put on spectacular shows of affection to prove it.

  After a few moments of silence, he says, “We’ll talk more in the morning, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulls out his cell phone and turns around. “Good night, Sami.”

  And just like that, the moment’s gone.

  At least for him.

  “ ’Night, Dad.” I close my text book and cradle my aching head in my arms.

  I hear Dad as he heads down the hall.

  “To do tomorrow.” He talks through his plans for the next day on the voice recorder on his cell phone. “Finish workout by seven and protein shake by seven fifteen. Shower by seven thirty.”

  So regimented. I think I must be more like Mom. Breaking a day into fifteen-minute increments doesn’t make any sense to me. Dad says that’s how he gets the most out of every day. But what if something unexpected comes up and you can’t enjoy it because it doesn’t fit into your schedule?

  I think he used to be more fun . . . before. But maybe he was more fun because of the alcohol. And the alcohol, I know firsthand, was not fun after a certain number of swallows. He’d drink until he was numb. He’d stare quietly at the television, out the window, or at the wall, even. If he’d look at me, he’d look right through me. At first it scared me. But eventually I got used to it. I’d cover him with a blanket after he passed out on the couch or at the table. I’d put myself to bed and cry myself to sleep, praying that he’d be Dad again when I woke up in the morning. And usually, he was. He’d mutter something about losing track of time last night, and we’d get on with our day. Now, I suspect the regimen, the schedule, is part of what helps him stay sober. If that’s the case, maybe it makes sense after all.

  After he kills the hall light, I hear the soft murmuring sounds of his fan down the hall—Dad can’t sleep without white noise—as a background to his mapping out of the day. I open the drawer of my bedside table and find my locket. I pick it up by its silver chain and carry it to the window seat. Along with my laptop.

  Staring down at links to articles and webpages containing the words Trina Jordan Missing, I loop the chain twice around my ankle and fasten it. I sink into the hypnotic rhythm of the white noise down the hall and imagine a map of the United States. Mentally, I stick pushpins in all the places Mom’s been, and try to get her laughter back in my head.

  Pins pop up on the map in my mind: Providence, Dover, Richmond, Tallahassee . . .

  The lines between cities create triangles. Cosine “A” equals adjacent over hypotenuse.

  Originally, my parents met in Atlanta, but they moved out here, to the Chicago ’burbs where Dad grew up, when he got a tenure-track position at NU. I was a baby at the time; I don’t remember living anywhere else. It makes sense that she’d go back to the southeast once she and Dad called it quits, even though she doesn’t have any family left there and none of her old friends in Atlanta have heard from her in the past ten years.

  What doesn’t make sense is the fact that she never bothered to contact anyone—anyone—to confirm that she was alive. To tell the police that there was no need to mount a manhunt for her.

  What doesn’t make sense is that she left me behind.

  And even now, she’s just a car ride away. It’s not like she moved to Zimbabwe. I wonder how she can’t want to see me. I’m her daughter. Shouldn’t she feel my absence the way I feel hers?

  I travel through the hourglass in my mind, rewinding time. The mother I remember—just snippets, a caricature, really—was affectionate, loving. Not the type of woman who’d take off and not s
ay good-bye. She’d blare her music—Photograph—and twirl me around while we were supposed to be cleaning the kitchen.

  Sometimes I hate her for leaving me to deal with this mess.

  But one thing I know for certain: she did leave.

  Dad isn’t capable of doing what the cops think he did. He couldn’t have hurt her. It’s a ridiculous thought, and most of the time, I think the police know that. But then they find a connection in something like Trina Jordan, whoever she is, and they have to investigate. Like Eschermann says, he’s just doing his job.

  I click on a link. Remember Trina Jordan spans the top of the screen. A beautiful brunette with black-as-night eyes stares at me from immediately below the headline. I scan the words on the welcome page:

  Trina Jordan lived in a suburb of Atlanta.

  Atlanta!

  Took the dog for a walk ten years ago.

  Never came home, and neither did the dog.

  Family and police assumed she’d run away—she’d run away before.

  Her sister questioned Trina’s significant other at the time, but only in regards to whether he’d seen her, or if he knew where she’d gone.

  Significant other’s name? Christopher Joseph Lang.

  My father.

  He told me he didn’t know her.

  She disappeared ten years ago, a few months before my mom left. And he was dating her at the time? How could he have been dating a woman in Georgia before his divorce was even final?

  A lump forms in my throat, and my mouth is suddenly so dry that I can’t swallow.

  Trina’s been missing a long time, but people assumed it was her choice to be gone.

  Just like Mom.

  A recent “development”—one the police haven’t disclosed to the general public— has changed all that, so the case is being reopened. Now there are webpages devoted to her remembrance. Which is what you do for people who are not just missing, but dead.

  And she used to be my father’s girlfriend.

  The thought fills me with a tingling sensation in my fingers, my toes. I’m dizzied, numb, hot. Too hot, as if I’m surrounded with flames.

  Get it together, Sami.

  I’m safe.

  I’ve lived with Dad my whole life. He’s never hurt me, not even when he was drinking.

  I know I’m safe.

  But we’re only safe until we’re not. Aren’t we? And he lied to me about Trina Jordan.

  My phone drones a humming alert; I have a text from Brooke, but I can’t read it now. Can’t worry about Friday, and Brooke and Alex, and Zack and Cassidy.

  My room spins around me, or maybe I’m walking in circles.

  I crank open the window. The scent of burning leaves wafts through the air. I look over at Schmidt’s place. The place I was forbidden to go, once Mom was gone.

  If Dad figures out I’m second-guessing his innocence . . .

  Is that what I’m actually doing?

  If I doubt him, what will he do? How might he react?

  Can I make it out this window and across the lawn to Schmidt’s place? If I have to?

  I leap toward my door, close it, and lock it with the slender skeleton key that’s always shoved into the keyhole.

  The locket bounces against my ankle when I sink into the comfort of my bed. I pull the duvet up to my chin, as if hiding makes everything better. My aching head sinks into the pillow.

  Trina Jordan is a coincidence. Maybe my dad has just always been drawn to flighty women who are prone to taking off without warning. The article said Trina Jordan had run away before. Maybe that’s his type. After all, my mother had left her daughter behind. And her postcards prove she’s out there somewhere. Of course, Heather is as steady as a rock, even if she is free-spirited, so maybe I’m wrong.

  The dog was gone too, though. Trina took the dog. If she’d left the dog behind, that’d be another story.

  But Mom couldn’t be bothered to take her own daughter.

  Come home, Mom.

  It would be easy enough to do, especially considering how much ground she’s covered in the past ten years.

  I see the triangles in my mind, angles connecting to cities all over the country. All she has to do is find the right in-between and follow the hypotenuse. I’m waiting here at the end of it.

  I close my eyes and concentrate until I hear the peal of Mom’s laughter. It’s a gem, something I can’t lose. I may never hear it again in real life.

  Shortly after Mom left, I had a dream.

  It was vivid, vibrant. She’d come back, out of the secret passageway, to play with me in the sunflowers one more time.

  She came back, if only while I was asleep.

  I have to believe she’ll come back again, if only to prove Trina Jordan’s disappearance is a coincidence.

  And it has to be, or everything I know, everything I’ve always believed about my father, could be a gargantuan lie.

  I see Trina Jordan’s face in my mind.

  It’s there when I traipse to my shower, there as I dress and pack my backpack.

  Even the too-loud club music accompanying Dad’s morning workout in his basement gym doesn’t help to distract me.

  I slip two pieces of wheat bread into our ancient chrome toaster and find the cinnamon shaker on its designated shelf.

  She took the dog for a walk, and she never returned. Neither did the dog.

  I grab a clementine from the bowl of fresh fruit on the island and peel it over the trash.

  I pour myself a glass of almond milk.

  Business as usual, right?

  The music from the basement comes to a dead stop. A creeping dread crawls through me, chewing at the back of my neck.

  Who’s coming up the stairs? The father who’ll reminisce about sugar-cookie yellow? Or the man whose exes seem to disappear without a trace?

  “Morning, Sami.”

  I flinch a little, even though I knew he was coming, but hope he doesn’t notice. “Hi, Dad.”

  He opens a cabinet, selects a stainless steel shaker from the third shelf up, and proceeds to mix a protein shake. Although he’s toweled off, sweat bleeds through his T-shirt in a V down his back. “You’re up early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” My toast pops up.

  “Me neither.” Two scoops of protein. Chocolate flavored. Ice cold water from the filtered tap. Shake, shake, shake. “I have an early conference call with that guy about the grant and there’s a meeting after my classes about the December conference.”

  The shake gurgles as he pours it into a glass, and the shaker clangs as he places it into the copper farmhouse sink. Sip. Silence. Sip.

  I eat the last section of my clementine and then clear my throat. “I did some research last night. Online.”

  He avoids my stare, simply takes another sip and pulls up the weather forecast on his tablet.

  “I looked up Trina Jordan.”

  His gaze snaps up. “Why did you do that, Sam? I told you—”

  “You knew her, Dad. Why didn’t you just tell me you—”

  His body tenses. “Because I’m the father, and you’re the kid, and sometimes I know what’s best, okay? I don’t think involving you in Eschermann’s half-baked theories is going to help anything. When I say I don’t want to talk about it—”

  “But you didn’t say that, Dad. You said you didn’t know who she was. You lied to me about it.” Tears gather in my eyes, but I blink and inhale, trying to make them go away.

  “Samantha . . .”

  “Were you cheating on Mom with her?”

  “No, Sam. Trina and I hadn’t been involved for some time before I met your mom. And I haven’t heard from Trina in a decade.”

  “Did you know she’s been reported missing?”

  He closes his eyes briefly and nods. “I did know that, yes. I looked it up online last night, too. But it’s got nothing to do with me, Sam. Trina’s been off the radar for ages. Her sister did get in touch with me years ago to see if I’d heard from her, and I was
n’t able to help her.”

  “Why did this thing with Trina come up now, if it’s such old news?”

  “I don’t know. You saw the website, I take it. Apparently there’s been a development.” He says the word as if it’s nothing more than theoretical bullshit. But maybe it isn’t.

  “Why wouldn’t you just tell me about it—about her—when I asked? She was your girlfriend, and she disappeared.”

  “She wasn’t my girlfriend when she disappeared, Sam, and that’s an important distinction to make. I knew her before I met your mom.”

  “The website I saw said you were her significant other.”

  “Anyone can write anything on a website. You know it doesn’t make it true. My guess is her family published that site, and frankly, they never knew much about Trina. They sure didn’t know when we began or ended our relationship.”

  “Okay, but tell me about her. What happened? Dad . . . look, you were mad that I called Eschermann before I told you about the postcard, right?”

  “I wasn’t mad, I was—”

  “This is the same thing, here, isn’t it? I’m going to find out. Someone’s going to tell me. It should’ve been you.”

  He doesn’t reply right away.

  He nods. He pats the countertop, a few inches from a barstool. “Sit down. We can talk if you want.”

  I take a seat, bringing my plate with me.

  “First, whatever I tell you,” he says, “stays here. You can’t tell Cass.”

  “We’re sisters. Isn’t that what you and Heather said? Sisters, divorce aside. Sisters rely on each other. Sisters—”

  “You’re sisters, yes. But this information . . . look, I love Cassidy, and I love Heather—”

  This floors me for a second. They’re getting divorced. But he loves Heather? I mean, sure, exes can care about each other. But Dad’s never said that he still loves Mom—not in those words, not even last night.

  “—but I don’t want to talk to them about Trina. At least not yet. They’re not levelheaded like you and me. They have a tendency to blow things out of proportion sometimes, and this is one instance when a level head is absolutely necessary. Why do you think I didn’t invite Ken Eschermann in last night?”