Too bad tragedies happened to good people and their children.
“Tell your wife thanks for the cookies,” I said, knowing she’d backed a batch for my parents as she always did.Then I wished the old police detective a good day and hung up.
The next number I dialed was my parents’, and I waited for my mother’s voice to pick up.
“Nicky?”
“Hi, Ma,” I said, forcing my voice to soften around the edges.“Sorry for calling so early.Ken said you already called him, so I figured you were either awake or sleep-talking.”
“It’s okay, honey.We were just watching TV.Dad’s here, too.Say hi, Charlie.”
In the background, I heard a grunt and the rattle of a glass on a table, then my father’s voice saying, “Hi, Charlie,” just to be a smartass.
I could picture them on the worn brown sofa in our old living room, my dad hunched over a crossword, my mother in her fuzzy slippers and robe.I hadn’t seen them in person since Christmas, but the image never changed.
“What did Ken say?”she asked.
“He says they’re still looking, Ma.”
Silence.Just the echo of her breath, the shudder of her wanting to believe something might have changed, that this year would be different.“Yeah, I guess they are.”
The old pain crackled in her voice.Not sharp anymore, but like a joint worn down by time.I remembered the way she looked when Isabella had vanished: wild-eyed, brittle.Now, she’d shrunk inside herself.She never asked for details about my cases, and I never offered them.She knew I got this job because a part of me hoped I’d find my sister, but all I had found were more dead ends.
“Did you eat?”she asked, because this was how we pivoted.
“Yeah.I had pasta.Not as good as yours, but close.”
She tutted.“You should find a nice girl out there.Have her cook for you.”Her tone brightened, pushing the tragedy back into its box.“You ever talk to that girl from your building, the nurse?”
I grinned.“No, Ma.I think she’s got a boyfriend now.”
“Good.He must be a nice boy,” she said, and I heard Dad snort in the background, probably at the word “boy.”
“You should look for someone new,” she said.“Life is too short to eat bad pasta alone.”
I let her fill the silence with a parade of neighbors’ birthdays and church fundraisers and the new dog she saw at the shelter.My dad chimed in once, to ask if I still had all my fingers.Somehow, he thought every shootout ended with severed digits, even though he should’ve known better.It was my knee that had gotten me an honorable discharge, after all.
It went like that for a while, until Mom ran out of news.I knew what came next; it was always the same question.
“Nicky, you ever think about moving back here?”she asked, so quiet it almost slipped past me.
I squeezed the phone hard enough my knuckles blanched.“Not yet, Ma.There’s still work to do.”
“You can work anywhere,” she said, but it was habit, not argument.
“Not this work,” I said.
She let it go.“Okay, honey.Promise to call next week?”
“Promise.”
We said goodnight, and I waited until the call dropped before I let the phone fall to the bed.I sat there, hunched forward, rubbing the spot on my chest where the ache had finally settled.
It was always like this.The week after Isabella’s birthday was a fog.I used to drink through it or run until I collapsed.Now, I just worked.Picked up extra cases.Tracked every runaway, every foster kid, every Jane Doe until my eyes burned and my brain shut down.
I scanned the table.George’s file was still open, but I couldn’t look at the photos anymore.I flipped to the page with his prison contacts, reading the names in my head, willing one of them to jump out at me and confess.
Instead, my thoughts drifted to Nadya— cloaked in humor, hair like a bad breakup with a paint store, hands always in motion.I’d known right away she was the girl from the bar; the girl who’d made me laugh and made me want to hunt down the monsters who had hurt her.The moment I’d stepped into that hospital room, before I’d even heard her voice, I knew it was her.
