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“Oh, wait.” Tanya reached up on the closet shelf and took down a faded cardboard shoe box. She brought it over to the table and dumped out the contents. Papers, mostly. She flipped through them. “Central Valley Tool and Die...it’s just HR stuff. Benefits, employee handbook. These look really old. Wonder how long he even worked there?”
An envelope fell out, two words written in black ink on the outside. “The Girls.” Jen didn’t know until that second that she knew her father’s handwriting, that the memory of it had lodged fast and hidden all these years.
Tanya shook out three pictures. Two were their school pictures from the year before Sid moved away: shy grins, their hair curving out in Farrah Fawcett waves, sleeveless cotton shirts revealing thin suntanned arms. The third picture was of the whole family, much earlier: their mother in the middle, Jen no more than six or seven and wearing a sundress printed with anchors. Sid with a mustache, looking out of the frame, scowling with impatience, as though there was somewhere else he needed to be.
* * *
The afternoon held no more surprises. Forms to sign at the morgue, where it turned out that they were not required to view the body. A brief tug-of-war at the mortuary until Jen gave in to the pitch and bought their cheapest urn for the ashes she had no intention of ever claiming.
It was dark by the time they checked into the Double Tree. Their room had a view of the parking lot. The heater cycled on with a vengeance, something rattling deep within.
“Is it okay with you if we do room service?” Jen asked. “I really don’t want to go back outside in the cold.”
“I’ve got something better,” Tanya said, setting her overnight bag down on the nearest bed. She unzipped the bag and pulled out a bottle of wine, and then another. “I even remembered the corkscrew. And check it out. Snacks.”
Jen feigned enthusiasm. She knew Tanya was just trying to contribute, and she didn’t really need anything more than the canned nuts and snack mix. While Tanya was setting it all up on the nightstand between the two beds, laying out a hand towel for a tablecloth and pouring wine into the plastic cups, Jen called Ted, but there was no answer. She took off her makeup and changed into her pajamas.
“Wow, look at you,” Tanya said, when Jen came out of the bathroom. She was lounging against the pillows in her bed, watching television. She picked up the remote and shut it off. “Got big plans later?”
Jen looked down at her pajamas, a silky navy blue set that Ted had given her for Christmas. “These aren’t anything special,” she said, blushing.
“Seriously? I don’t dress like that unless I’m getting some action.” She grinned, her teeth pink from the wine. She was wearing a faded T-shirt over sweats. Her cup was almost empty.
Jen got into her bed, pulling the covers up over her legs and taking a sip of her wine. She was always embarrassed when Tanya talked about the men she was seeing. They never lasted long, and they were never anywhere near as good as Tanya made them sound when she first met them.
“I feel like we ought to drink a toast to the old bastard,” Tanya said, and it took a minute for Jen to realize that she was talking about their father. “Only, I can’t think of a single thing to toast him for.”
Jen raised her cup, reaching across the space between the two beds. She was going to say May he rest in peace, but something stopped her; she had never seen Sid at rest during her entire childhood. He was always on the move, fidgeting, pacing, coming and going.
Until Tanya called, Jen had barely thought about her father in years. Sid Bennett was often away from home when his daughters were young, disappearing for days at a time. Later he took pipeline work in Alaska and his absences stretched to months. When he was around, he wanted little to do with two solemn, skittish little girls, and spent his time antagonizing their mother instead until she finally told him not to bother to come back.
And then the summer that Jen was thirteen and Tanya a rebellious, sullen fifteen, their mother got sick. Sid started coming around again, looking for an opening, wooing her with smooth talk and cheap flowers when he needed a tank of gas or money to tide him over. She was unable to resist, the cancer rendering her silent and listless. He might have persisted right up to her death, but a bar fight landed him in the hospital for a long stay at the end of that dismal summer.
When he was released, he headed north, ending up here in Murdoch. They only found out where he was when the court tracked him down after their mother died, but by then Jen and Tanya were settled into their aunt’s basement, a solution everyone agreed was better than trying to extract any support out of Sid.
“He never got in touch with us, not once,” Jen said, after they both drank.
“That never seemed to bother you before.”
“It doesn’t. I mean, I don’t know what I would have done if he had. It’s just that now he’s dead, I’m realizing that it’s like he never aged, for me. I never saw him get old.”
“I guess it was too much to hope that he would have gotten remarried. Left someone else to deal with all his shit.” Tanya’s voice was bitter.
“At least it’s all done. After today we don’t ever have to think of him again.”
“So we just walk away.” Tanya sighed. “I guess at least we got a night away from the kids. Speaking of which—what’s Ted doing with his big night to himself?”
“Working on the bathroom, supposedly.”
“He’s still not done?”
Jen grimaced. Ted had been laid off for almost six months, and the renovation project was supposed to keep him busy while he looked for a new job, but lately he hadn’t done much job searching or renovating. In the past few weeks there had been several times when he went out “for supplies,” and came home empty-handed. “He swore he was going to get a lot done this weekend.”
“Good luck with that.” Tanya laughed. Jake’s father left when he was a baby, and she took a dim view of men in general, other than the brief infatuations at the start of her relationships. “With his wife and kids gone for the weekend? I bet he went out and painted the town.”
“I guess...” Jen said, more morosely than she meant to.
Tanya looked at her keenly. “Hey, I was kidding. Everything’s okay with you guys, isn’t it?”
“No, no, it’s fine. Just, you know, I wish he’d find something. It’s hard having him underfoot all the time.”
Tanya looked at her doubtfully, picking up the bottle. “Here, give me your glass.”
As Tanya topped off her wine, Jen couldn’t help thinking of the little slip of goldenrod notepaper Ted had tossed in the tray on his dresser along with his change. The feminine handwriting that wasn’t hers, the initials SEB in a curvy script at the top. On it, Sarah Elizabeth Baker had written Thx tons, Thursday 2pm Firehouse xoxoxo.
Sarah had been his assistant before he was laid off. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she had a knowing, sensual way about her that was hard to miss; she could make a Brooks Brothers blouse look like an invitation. At the Christmas party, when she’d had too much to drink, she’d kissed Ted on the mouth when she said goodbye.
None of which necessarily meant anything—except that Ted left Flores Martin months ago. And yes, for a while there was a weekly bundle of his mail, delivered with one of these little gold notes paper clipped on top.
But there hadn’t been mail from work in a long time.
Jen wondered if she could tell Tanya about Sarah. But Tanya would be too quick to turn on Ted, too quick to castigate him for crimes he might not have even committed.
So Jen drank her wine and changed the subject, and when the bottle was empty Tanya opened the second one, and they made a good dent in it before Jen finally turned the light out. They mumbled their good-nights just like all those years ago when they shared a bedroom and a bunk bed. Tanya was asleep in minutes, her breathing even and deep. Jen lay awake for a while despite the blurry wine buzz, thinking about Sarah and her glossy hair, the x’s and o’s at the bottom of her note.
When Jen finally slept, her nightmare had nothing to do with Sarah, or even Sid. She dreamed the red bird, its beak opening wider and wider, its screams ever louder, uncoiling and unfurling until there was nothing else.
Chapter Two
Livvy woke up shivering. Her shirt was wet against her back. Something cold had seeped into her sleeping bag, the room smelled like vomit and her head felt thick.
Faint light came from the hall at the top of the stairs, enough for her to make out the others, asleep in the basement rec room. Paige and Rachel and Collin. The girls were huddled in the sleeping bags Rachel got from the garage, and Collin was making do on the couch with a blanket from Rachel’s room. No one else was awake. Someone snored softly.
Livvy sat up groggily, peeling the damp sleeping bag from her skin. It smelled like stale beer—and there was the overturned plastic cup. Rachel must have set it down between them before she fell asleep. Livvy patted the floor; the spill hadn’t reached Rachel, only her. And soaked through the carpet. How were they going to clean it up before Rachel’s parents got back?
Not to mention where Collin had vomited, over by the TV. They’d gotten most of it up then, holding their breath and laughing. It had seemed funny last night. Livvy knew that he wasn’t the only one: Paige had thrown up behind the fraternity before they’d walked home from the party.
“Are you up?” It was Paige, whispering from her other side. They’d lined up on the floor, the three of them, just like they used to do in middle school when they fell asleep watching movies during sleepovers. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“Rachel spilled beer on my sleeping bag.”
“Eww. Leave it. Come on.”
They tiptoed upstairs to Rachel’s bedroom, sneaking through the house as if Mr. and Mrs. Crane were sleeping upstairs. But they weren’t even home; they had taken Rachel’s sister to some out-of-town tournament, leaving Rachel home by herself. She was supposed to be on the school ski trip—they all were. Instead they’d walked the half mile to the edge of campus, to Collin’s brother’s fraternity, where the party was still in full swing hours later when they left.
Paige flopped on Rachel’s bed. “Did you get it on you?”
“Just on my shirt.” Livvy pulled the shirt over her head. She got clean clothes out of the overnight bag she’d stowed in Rachel’s room last night. Her pajamas, yellow flannel with snowflakes, were still folded neatly at the bottom of the bag. She felt guilty as she pulled on her clothes; she could smell the fabric softener her mom used.
Paige yawned. “Did you end up talking to Sean?”
Livvy didn’t look at Paige. Even hearing his name, even that hurt. “A little,” she said, like she didn’t care. “They weren’t there long.”
“You looked so good last night. It must have killed him. Oh, my God, especially when that guy...remember?”
Paige laughed, still riding the giddy thrill of their lie. She’d told everyone they were freshman from Ann Arbor, visiting for the weekend. No one questioned it, not for a second. People flowed in and out of the fraternity, tracking snow in on their shoes, leaving the door open, standing around the keg on the back porch like it was summer. No one seemed cold. Rachel was gorgeous and Paige was fearless and Collin made them laugh, and Livvy kept to the center of them all, where no one seemed to expect her to talk. Just to dance, as the night wore on and she drank more and Paige convinced her to get up on the coffee table, and she’d shut her eyes and felt the music go through her and then when she opened them, there was Sean, standing in the doorway watching her with an expression she couldn’t read.
“Stay here. I’m going to go get us a couple Red Bulls,” Paige said, bounding off the bed.
“Okay.” Livvy crawled under the covers. Maybe she and Paige could sleep here a little longer. She wasn’t supposed to be home until after lunch. With any luck, when she got home she would go straight to her room and her parents would leave her alone for once. At dinner if they asked her about the skiing she’d just lie—no big deal.
Except the thing with her mom’s dad. Livvy squeezed her eyes shut and burrowed down deeper in Rachel’s bed. It was so weird, not to even know she had a grandfather, that he had been alive all this time. Then all of a sudden he was dead, and Mom was going up there with Aunt Tanya to get him cremated or something.
At least her mom would be distracted and maybe she wouldn’t ask her a million questions about the ski trip. But still. It was her mom’s dad. Her mom and Aunt Tanya had been really poor growing up and their mother died when they were in high school and they had to go live with relatives, and her mom never talked about it except to constantly say how grateful they should all be for their blessings. So her dad must have been a real dick, not even taking care of them when their mom died, but still, not to ever even mention him?
Paige came back with the drinks. She slid in next to Livvy, and they popped the tops and drank. “So, what did you say to Sean?”
Livvy shrugged. “I told him I heard Allie has herpes. Then he told me I didn’t know what I was missing, and I told him to go fuck himself.”
“You didn’t!” Paige cracked up. “You can do so much better, anyway. Did you give that guy your number last night?”
“Are you kidding? My parents would kill me.”
“So? They don’t know about last night, right? You got away with it once, you can do it again. We just have to be careful.”
But as Paige chatted on about the night before, Livvy could only think of the way Sean had looked at her over his shoulder as he left. She knew her parents hated him, and even her friends thought he was a loser since he got suspended again, but none of them knew what it was like when he looked at you as though you were the answer to every question he ever had.
Last fall, for a few months, Sean had made her his world. And even if Livvy pretended she hated him now, even if he was with that skank Allie, whose cousins supposedly were in a gang, even if he never thought about her anymore, she knew that being with him had changed her and she would never be the same.
She hadn’t told Paige the truth about what really happened. Sean and Allie came up to the keg together, holding hands, not seeing Livvy standing there until they already got their drinks. Sean looked like someone slapped him, and Allie said something, and Livvy tried to get past them but Allie blocked her way.
“I heard you have herpes,” she muttered so only Livvy could hear.
And Livvy couldn’t think of anything to say back, because she was drunk and about to cry, and so she shoved Allie hard and the full cup of beer went all down her front, splashing up into her face and soaking her hair. As Sean dragged Allie off, she was yelling that Livvy would be sorry.
Livvy was already sorry. But not about Allie.
Chapter Three
When they got back to Tanya’s apartment, Jen parked and turned off the car. “Let me help you take your stuff up.”
Tanya had fallen asleep on the drive, and there was a crease on her face from where it was pressed against the hood of her coat. “What stuff?” she said irritably. “All’s I’ve got is just the one bag. Plus I need to pick up Jake from next door.”
She already had her hand on the door handle, and Jen didn’t know how to tell her that she wasn’t ready to leave her, that she’d replayed that desperate little apartment over in her head the whole way back and her stomach felt like it had a giant hole in it. That there were things somebody needed to say and she didn’t know what they were or how to say them.
“Have lunch next week?” she asked.
Tanya was out of the car, and she ducked back down to peer in. “We never have lunch. There’s nothing around the office except that Arby’s.”
She looked both perplexed and irritated. It was true that they never met for lunch—Jen wasn’t sure she could even find the building where Tanya worked.
“Or just call me,” she settled for.
Tanya got her bag and shut the door. Jen watched her walk to the stairs of her building, but drove away before Tanya reached the landing.
* * *
Jen managed to compose herself before she picked up Teddy from the Sterns’. Cricket Stern was one of her best friends, not to mention the mother of Teddy’s best friend, Mark, but even so Jen hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her the real reason she’d gone out of town. Spa weekend with her sister, she’d claimed, a late birthday gift to Tanya. It wasn’t like Cricket’s and Tanya’s paths would ever cross, so it was a safe lie, but Jen felt guilty, anyway. But if she hadn’t been able to talk about Sid before the trip, she was even less willing now, so when Cricket asked she just said that the spa treatments were relaxing, the restaurant very good.
Teddy fell asleep in his car seat on the way home. She carried him up to his room and put him to bed; a nap wouldn’t hurt, considering the boys had been up late the night before. Ted was taking a shower in the hall bathroom, and Livvy’s door was closed, which only deepened Jen’s dark mood as she went to unpack.
The door to their own bathroom, the one Ted was renovating, was closed. On the floor of their bedroom was a mound of clothes, a sweatshirt and jeans and socks that were still warm when Jen picked them up to toss them in the hamper. She had lifted the wicker lid and was about to drop the clothes in when she noticed something odd: in the bottom of the hamper was only a single pair of boxer shorts.
Jen stared at the boxer shorts, thinking. She had emptied the hamper Friday when she did the laundry. In her arms were the clothes Ted had worn today while he worked on the bathroom. The flannel pants and T-shirt he slept in were on the floor by the bed, where he left them every morning for Jen to fold and put under his pillow.
She dropped the clothes in and let the lid fall shut, and went looking for his gym bag. She found it on the floor of the closet, unzipped it and confirmed there was nothing in it but his MP3 player and a couple of water bottles. Nowhere was there another set of dirty clothes.
Ted hadn’t done laundry since Livvy was a baby, and he never wore the same clothes twice. Which meant he had hidden or disposed of yesterday’s clothes for some reason.
Or left them somewhere else. He could have left the house yesterday with a change of clothes in his gym bag, gone somewhere else where he showered and changed, leaving the clothes for someone else to wash. Sarah, for instance. Sarah, who probably had one of those stackable units in her condo, who was in training to take on the role that Jen played, learning how Ted liked his T-shirts folded and his socks rolled and—
“No,” Jen whispered. There had to be a good explanation. It was crazy to equate a note and some missing laundry with a full-blown affair.
Ted walked into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, a thin sliver of shaving cream under his chin. He looked exhausted. Jen toed the gym bag out of sight in the corner of the closet.
“Hey,” he said, giving her a tired smile. “Welcome back.”
She watched him get socks and underwear from the dresser, clean clothes from the closet. He dressed unhurriedly, tossing the damp towel across the hamper. If he was covering up a guilty conscience, he was putting on a hell of an act.
“How was the drive?” he asked. “Any snow on your way back?”
“A few flurries. Nothing that stuck.” She forced a smile. “So, I can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to all weekend.”
His expression slipped, and his eyes darted to the closed bathroom door. “Okay, look,” he said nervously. “Don’t lose it when you see the tub. I mean, where the tub was. It was a big job getting it out of there.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“Nothing happened. Look, Jen, that thing weighed a ton. It would have been a job no matter who took it out.” He opened the bathroom door, and light poured in from the window.
“I hit the wall trying to get it out of here,” Ted continued, talking fast, his face going slightly red. “And listen, there’s a little damage to the subfloor, too, but I was lucky, I lost my grip, and I’m telling you, if I’d dropped that thing there’d be a crater there and not just a dent.”
Jen pushed the door open the rest of the way, willing herself not to react. No matter how bad it was, it could be fixed, and—
“Oh, wow,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth. Where the old tub had been, she saw a gaping hole edged with ragged plasterboard, wallpaper hanging in strips. The wall tile was gone, leaving exposed lath and scarred plaster. The subfloor was filthy and gashed, and the whole thing looked like a bomb had gone off in it.
And nothing else appeared to have been done. Ted had promised to finish stripping the wallpaper and replace the light fixtures—not to mention replacing the bathtub—by the time she was back from Murdoch. Instead, he’d gotten the tub out and then...what?
“Like I said, I know it looks bad,” Ted said.
