“You could ask her now.”
“I can’t find her. She goes through these times when she doesn’t answer. And I keep thinking, what if she knows the police are looking for her now? We’ll never find out the truth. She’ll just vanish into thin air.”
“Well, she will call you eventually. She wants something from you. She’s addicted, in a sense. At least from what you tell me. And when she does, just casually suggest getting together because you were never able to pull it off that other time. She’ll either agree or she won’t. Call the detective as soon as you set a plan.”
I told her that was exactly what I was going to do.
When we parted that night, Becky thanked me again for calling her. She had been surprised to hear from me and asked me why I reached out just then. I confessed that I wasn’t really sure. She told me then that she’d almost called me, to ask if we might have lunch or coffee, and wasn’t sure why she felt that way either.
“Destiny, I guess,” she finally said, and asked if she could hug me. There was something about her, a straightforwardness and complete lack of cant, that was so appealing.
Two days later, Esme texted from yet another phone number. I’ll tell you the truth. I promise this time.
Quickly, I texted back: All this time you’ve wanted to see me. You wanted to warn Stefan he was in danger. You wanted to tell me something big. Then you just disappeared. I know you are afraid. But if you know some surprising truth about that night, just tell me.
She texted back: It’s not just about that night. It’s other things, too. If I tell you the truth, you can’t tell anyone else.
Not even Stefan?
No one else. Don’t talk to Jill. Don’t talk to the police. No one. Things could happen to me. I could get killed.
No one’s going to kill you.
You don’t know. You don’t understand!
And then she was gone again. I nearly threw the phone across the room. Sleep was lost to me now. I finally got up and paced until the sun rose. I wondered if I would ever be able to see a sunrise again and think only about the weather. With Molly at my heels, I desultorily inspected our raised garden, the wreckage of the tomatoes I planted every year, determined every time to give the tender plants my most valiant effort, an effort which I then, at least for the past several years, abandoned by July. As if reproaching me for my desertion, many fat fruits hung heavy on the vine. Others were regrettably smashed on the ground. I made a pouch of my sweatshirt and began to fill it… I would make myself busy, I would make marinara sauce and freeze it. I had once been a devout gardener; I used to have ordinary pursuits.
It was when I was making my way back heavy-laden to the patio that I noticed something: Footprints in the mud around the rosebushes Stefan had replanted were just a few feet from the back door. It had rained a few nights before, washing the snow nearest the house to mud. Then the mud had frozen. So that meant…night before last or the night before that, someone stood there, yet again, facing the windows to our family room, forty inches of air and an eighth of an inch of glass from our vulnerable lives. The shoe prints were running shoes, but with a different pattern from the Nike Air Max I wore when I took walks. How did I know the pattern on the bottom of my running shoes? I knew because I often used a garden tool to dig the dirt and gravel out of them before I put them in the washing machine. And these prints were not my size. I set my foot heel-to-heel within one print. They were noticeably larger, by perhaps almost half an inch.
Fifteen minutes later, Esme called me. It would later seem like something that would happen on TV, my struggling to extract my phone from my pocket, spilling all the tomatoes onto the patio flagstones, where they lay seeping like small organs. Was she out there, watching me? Or did only the hoodie figure do that? Was privacy the most ridiculous of illusions? She said softly, and to me chillingly, “I still remember the sounds. Stuff hitting the walls. Yelling. I should tell you. I have to get it over with.”
“And so you should. You have to get this off your chest. We should really meet, now, before you go away.”
“I’ve waited too long,” she said.
“Tell me more,” I said, and listened to her breathing. “Tell me the rest.”
Silence. Breathing. Then not even that.
I was the one who finally disconnected. Then I stood with my hand on the phone receiver. Did I understand just what I was asking for? If Esme was indeed as sick as I believed that she must be, was she the one drawing me close, then pushing me away, in a game intended to entice me to throw away caution, to come to her, on her terms?