“Next time I come back, it’s gonna be different,” I said.
“You ain’t coming back,” Farver said, shaking his head. “You too busy looking for ghosts.”
“I’ll be back,” I said.
Farver cackled. “Now you sound like the Terminator. That’s fucking funny.”
I nodded at Lasko and we headed for the door.
“Most kids, they don’t come back, you know,” Farver said.
I stopped and turned around. “I know.”
Farver stood. “So you’re pretty fucking lucky if this is someone you know. That girl came back. ‘Cause most of the time?” He shrugged, a small, ugly smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “They don’t come back.”
THIRTY TWO
“Sorry, I didn’t call,” Elizabeth said. “I was tired.”
I was back home in Coronado. Lasko and I had driven back, mostly in silence, because there really wasn’t much to say. Going to see Farvar had been a bust. I could’ve paid him, but I doubted he would’ve told me the truth. My gut told me he was involved somehow, but I didn’t think he was going to admit anything. So Lasko dropped me off and I told him I’d call him the next day. I’d showered, more to wash the stench of Farvar’s home off of me than for any other reason, and my phone was buzzing as I pulled my clothes on.
“That’s okay,” I said, stretching out on the bed, happy to hear her voice. “I know it’s been pretty tiring.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It has.”
“How was your day?” I asked. “What did you guys do?”
“Was okay,” she answered. “Just kinda more of the same, I guess.”
“What’s more of the same?”
“I packed up some more of my stuff. I think Mom made our plane reservations to come back, but I’m not sure when.”
It was the first time she’d referred to Lauren as Mom and it stopped me for a second. I wondered what caused it to happen, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get the info from her.”
“What did you do today?” Elizabeth asked. “Did you run?”
Her question again stopped me. Because she was asking about me, what I did, like she had an interest in how I was spending my time.
“Yep, I went early,” I said. “Didn’t sleep great, so I took off as soon as I got up. It was colder than usual. And I didn’t have you to pace me.”
She laughed. “I just usually try to keep up.”
“Baloney. I just don’t let you see how hard I’m breathing.”
“Whatever.”
I smiled. It felt like a normal father-daughter conversation, one that I hadn’t had in maybe forever.
“What else did you do?” she asked.
“Just running around,” I lied. “Stuff I had to get done.”
“Are you gonna get a job?”
For the third time in the conversation, she stopped me cold. I felt like I was talking to someone I’d never met.
“Uh, I’m not sure what I’m doing yet,” I said. “Why?”
“I was just wondering. If you were gonna be traveling and stuff or whatever.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Whatever I end up doing, I won’t be traveling. I’ll be staying home. I won’t be leaving.”
“Okay.”
I hesitated, then asked, “Is that alright?”
“Yeah,” she said, sounding surprised. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just…I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And… I… I don’t know. I just would rather you were going to be around when we get back.”
The frustration and sting I’d felt at her not returning my text the previous night was replaced with my heart hammering against the inside of my chest and tears welling at the corners of my eyes. “I’ll be here. I promise.”
“Okay,” she said. “Here’s Mom.”
My breath caught while I waited for Lauren to come on the line.
I heard her muffled voice saying something and then she was there. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“How are you?”
“A bit overwhelmed.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Hang on a sec.”
I waited and her voice disappeared into a tunnel again.
“Okay, sorry,” she said. “She was getting in the shower.”
“That’s alright.”
“Yeah. Overwhelming,” she said, lowering her voice. “Like a new kid today.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “She woke up in a decent mood. I didn’t. And she asked me what was wrong. So I just laid it out for her. Everything. How frustrated I was, how confused I was. I told her how hard it was when she was gone. I told her how we went to shit and how you basically gave up your entire life to look for her. I don’t know.” She paused. “I just told her everything and I didn’t filter it and I didn’t worry about how she was going to react because I felt like she didn’t care, anyway.”
I took a deep breath and wiped at my eyes.
“And she listened,” Lauren said. “She sat there and she didn’t interrupt. She asked me what was wrong and I just didn’t even think. I just told her everything that was on my mind. And I was crying when I was done, just a mess. And then she leaned over and hugged me and told me she was sorry.”
Lauren coughed and I knew she was crying.
She worked hard to clear her throat. “I told her none of it was her fault and that I was sorry that it was hard and probably a bunch of other things that didn’t make any sense.” She paused. “And then I told her I was pregnant.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I laughed. “You did? Why?”
Lauren laughed, too. “I don’t know. I was just on a roll, I guess. She laughed, too.”
“What did she say?”
“I honestly don’t even remember,” she said. “But she was happy. She was still hugging me. And then she was apologizing for getting angry with me about the Corzines and that it was just hard and she didn’t really want to stay, but she felt like she was letting everyone down and she didn’t want to do that. She just kind of let it all out and I just hugged her. And then we were okay.”
I wiped at my eyes again. It was as happy as I’d felt in a long, long time. Everything else fell away. It felt like we were a family.
“So she asked if she could call you tonight,” she said. “That’s why she called.”
“I was shocked to hear her voice.”
“I thought you would be. And I heard what she was asking you.”
“About staying?”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I told her I didn’t know what I was doing, Lauren, but that I’m not going anywhere.”
“I figured,” she said. “By her reaction, I mean. She smiled.”
“I hope that’s okay.”
“It is, Joe. It is.”
I still didn’t know what that meant for us, but I was glad she was saying it was okay. I wasn’t certain that we could put all of the pieces of our old life back together, but maybe there was a chance for a new life. A brand new start that would leave the past squarely in the past.
“And I don’t mean to cut this short, but I’m absolutely exhausted,” Lauren said. “I forgot how tiring it is being pregnant.”
“You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, just tired,” she said. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll get with the doctor when we get back and figure out where we’re going.”
“She said you made reservations?”
“No, I was just looking at flights. But probably day after tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll work on the flights in the morning and then let you know. But that gives her another day here tomorrow and we can ship back whatever she wants to ship.”
“Okay.”
She paused for a moment. “Joe.”
“Yeah?”
“I think we’re gonna be okay.”
“Me too.”
We said goodbye and hung up.
I plugged my phone into the charger on the counter and walked out front for a minute, needing some air. The evening breeze was weak, barely reaching the front yard from the ocean, but the salt hung heavy in the air. The yard still looked neat and trim after the work I’d done on it. I went and stood where Elizabeth had been standing the day she was taken.