“You’d choose this case over-”
“No. Don’t try that shit on me. Do not.”
“Volume control, please.”
“You know who I am. You knew the minute you convinced me to do what Beatrice asked that I would never stop until I found Amanda again. And now you want to tell me it’s over? Well, it’s not. Not until I find her.”
“Find who? Amanda? Or Sophie? You can’t even differentiate anymore.”
Both of us had reached one step below atomic and we knew it. And we knew how bad it would get if we took the next step. Marry an Irish temper to an Italian temper and you often get broken dishes. We’d done a little counseling just before our daughter was born, to help us keep our hands off the nuke button when the air in the silo got too tight, and most times, it helped.
I took a breath. My wife took a breath and then a drag off her cigarette. The air on the porch was cold, bracing even, but we were dressed for it and it felt good in my lungs. I let out a long breath. A twenty-year breath.
Angie stepped in close to my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and she placed her head under my chin and kissed the hollow below my throat.
“I hate fighting with you,” she said.
“I hate fighting with you.”
“Yet we manage to disagree fairly often.”
“That’s because we like making up so much.”
“I love making up,” she said.
“You and me both, sister.”
“You think we woke her?”
I went to the door that separated our bedrooms and opened it, watched my daughter sleep. She didn’t sleep on her stomach so much as on her upper chest, head turned to the right, butt sticking up in the air. If I looked in two hours from now, she’d be on her side, but pre-midnight, she slept like a penitent.
I shut the door and came back to bed. “She’s out.”
“I’m going to send her.”
“What? Where?”
“To see my mom. If Bubba will take her.”
“Call him. You know exactly what he’ll say.”
She nodded. It was barely a question, really. Angie could tell Bubba she needed him yesterday in Katmandu and he’d remind her that he was already there. “How’s he going to get weapons on a plane?”
“It’s Savannah. I’m quite sure he has connections there.”
“Gabby’ll love to see her nonnie, that’s for sure. She’s been talking about it nonstop since the summer. Well, that and trees.” She looked over at me. “You good with that?”
I looked at her. “These are bad fucking people I’m going to take on. And, like you said, they know where we live. I’d put her on a plane tonight, if I could. But what about you? You’re going to put the spurs on again, join me on the wagon trail?”
“Yeah. Might speed the process up.”
“Sure. But what’s the longest you’ve been away from Gabby since we had her?”
“Three days.”
“Right. When we went to Maine and you whined about missing her the whole friggin’ time.”
“I didn’t whine . I stated the obvious a few times.”
“And then restated it. That’s called whining.”
She slapped my head with a pillow. “Whatever. Anyway, that was last year. I’ve matured. And she’s going to love this-going on an adventure to see her nonnie with Uncle Bubba? If we told her tonight, she’d never have fallen asleep.” She rolled on top of me. “So what’s your immediate plan?”
“Find Amanda.”
“Again.”
“Again. Trade the cross she stole for Sophie. Everyone goes home.”
“Who says Amanda’s going to give it up?”
“Sophie’s her friend.”
“The way I’ve heard it, Sophie’s her Robert Ford.”
“I don’t know if it’s that bad.” I scratched my head. “I don’t know a lot, though. Which is why I’ve gotta find her.”
“How, though?”
“Question of the month.”
She reached across my body and grabbed my laptop bag off the floor. She opened it, pulled out the file marked A. M C C READY and opened it on the pillow to the right of my head. “These are the shots you took of her room?”
“Yeah. No, not those-those are of Sophie’s room. Keep going. Those there.”
“Looks like a hotel room.”
“Pretty impersonal, yeah.”
“Except for the Sox jersey.”
I nodded. “Know what’s weird? She isn’t a fan. She never talked about the team or went to Fenway or wondered aloud what Theo was thinking when he made the Julio Lugo deal or traded Kason Gabbard for Going Going Gagne.”
“Maybe it’s just Beckett.”
“Huh?”
“Maybe she’s just got a crush on Josh Beckett.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, that’s his jersey, right? Number 19. Why are you whiter than usual suddenly?”
“Ange.”
“What?”
“It’s not the Red Sox she’s obsessed with.”
“No?”
“And she doesn’t have a crush on Josh Beckett.”
“Yeah, he’s not my type either. So why the jersey?”
“Twelve years ago, where’d we find her?”
“At Jack Doyle’s house.”
“And where was that?”
“Some little Podunk town in the Berkshires. What was it, like, fifteen miles from the New York border? Twenty? They didn’t even have a coffee shop.”
“What was the name?”
“Of the town?”
I nodded.
She shrugged. “You tell me.”
“Becket.”
“Give Daddy a hug.”
“No.”
“Sweetie, please.”
“No, I said.”
We were in tantrum mode. Standing in the C Terminal of Logan, Bubba and Gabby with their tickets in hand, a surprisingly light security check-in line awaiting them, and Gabby pissed off at me like only a four-year-old can get pissed off. The arm-folding, the foot-stomping, the whole deal.
I knelt by her and she turned her head. “Sweetie, we talked about this. Throwing a tantrum in the house is what?”
“Our problem,” she said eventually.
“And what’s throwing a tantrum outside our house?”
She shook her head.
“Gabriella,” I said.
“Our embarrassment,” she said.
“Exactly. So give your old man a hug. You can be mad at me, but you still have to give me a hug. That’s our rule. Right?”
She dropped Mr. Lubble and jumped on me. She held on so tight her thumb knuckles dug into my spine and her chin dug into the side of my neck.
“We’ll see you real soon,” I said.
“Tonight?”
I looked at Angie. Christ.
“Not tonight. But real soon.”
“You’re always going away.”
“No suh.”
“Yes suh. You go away at night and you’re gone when I get up in the morning times, too. And you’re taking Mommy away, too.”
“Daddy works.”
“Too much .” She had a catch in her voice that suggested another meltdown was imminent.
I propped her in front of me. She looked in my eyes, a tiny-doll version of her mother. “This is the last time, honey. Okay? Last time I go away. Last time I send you away.”
She stared at me, eyes and lips bubbling. “Swear.”
I held up my right hand. “I swear.”
Angie knelt beside us and kissed our daughter. I stepped back and let them have their own moment, which was even more emotionally fraught than mine.