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“Yes, he gave me his season tickets,” I said, twisting the knife a little deeper now that I knew where her weak spot was. “I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Blake and his family. They’re such great people.”
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same people?” she laughed. “The stingy, judgmental Alan and Ellie Gaston?”
“I wouldn’t know that side of them,” I said, wondering how Remy could have seen them as anything but kind and generous.
“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she smiled, then quickly changed the subject. “So, where are Nina and Blake?”
“Not home, I guess,” I said, without commenting further. If Remy didn’t know what was going on, I wasn’t going to tell her anything, but I was going to warn Blake. “I need to get going. It was nice to meet you, Remy.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Ella,” she said, as she pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen before punching a few numbers and turning her back on me.
“No wonder your daughter doesn’t want to live with you,” I muttered once I was safely enclosed in my car. “You are a snob, Remy Gaston.”
I stopped at the store to pick up a few things for dinner and another bag of cat food for Howard before driving home. In the parking lot of the grocery store, I quickly texted Blake to warn him that Remy was back in town and looking for him and Nina. I waited a few minutes to see if he’d respond, and then went in and did my shopping. It was well into the dinner hour when I returned home and started cooking.
Howard hopped up onto the counter as I chopped onions and stared at my hands as I cut the crisp white rings. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I chopped, and I kept up a constant stream of chatter telling Howard all about my day. He gave me the same detached look that he always did when it was close to his meal time, but he didn’t hop off the counter.
“I tell you, that woman is a menace,” I said, as I added the onions to the pan on the stove and listened to them hiss as they hit the hot oil. “She tells me that I don’t look like a teacher. Can you believe that? What the hell is a teacher supposed to look like?”
Howard blinked twice and then shifted his gaze to the window over the sink as I began chopping the peppers and garlic. Soon the smells of sautéed vegetables permeated the kitchen, and as I added the crushed tomatoes, I concluded that Blake had left Remy because she was such a pretentious social climber.
As the thick, rich sauce simmered, I put the water for the noodles on the stove to boil. When they were ready, I served Howard his dinner and dished up a plate of spaghetti for myself. We ate in companionable silence at the counter as I thought about what other avenues I could take to help find Nina.
“Where do you think a teenager would go in this town, Howard?” I said out loud, as I cleaned up the dishes after dinner. Howard hopped down off the counter and meandered toward me. When he reached me, he rubbed against my legs as he mewed until I reached down and picked him up and cuddled him. He purred loudly as I rubbed my cheek against his head and said, “You still haven’t answered my question, buddy.”
A head butt was his only response.
After I’d cleaned up the kitchen, Howard and I curled up on the couch to watch a movie. By the 10-minute mark, Howard was sound asleep in my lap, and not soon after, I followed him to dreamland.
I was jolted out of my sleep by the sound of Howard mewing and scratching at the back door. Confused, I reached for my phone and saw it was well past midnight, and from the sound of Howard’s meows, it sounded like there was someone at the back door.
I grabbed the iron poker from the fireplace stand and slowly approached the back door. The lights were off, so I couldn’t see who was standing there, but as I watched, I saw a shadow shift and all of my senses went into to overdrive.
“Howard,” I whispered. “Get away from that door!”
He ignored me as he scratched on the door and mewed even louder. I heard a light tapping, and then a voice said, “Emily, are you there?”
“Who is it?” I called, holding the poker like a baseball bat as I approached the door.
“It’s me, Nina,” the voice said.
“Nina?” I yelled, as I dropped the weapon, unlocked the door and yanked it open. I shouted, “Where have you been, young lady? We’ve been worried sick about you!”
Nina took one look at me and then brought her hands up to cover her face as she began to cry. I quickly grabbed her and pulled her to me, wrapping my arms arou
nd her as I rocked her back and forth whispering, “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. You’re all right now.”
I pulled Nina into the house and led her to the living room couch, where I sat holding her as she sobbed. Once the storm had subsided a bit, I handed her a box of tissues and went to make her a cup of tea. When I brought the steaming mug back to the living room, Nina was sitting cross-legged at the end of the couch, holding my fat ginger cat in her lap as she wiped her eyes.
“You want to tell me what happened?” I asked, as I handed her the mug.
“I got mad at Mom and Dad,” she said, as she stared down into her cup. “They are so angry with each other that they don’t even see me anymore.”
“But your dad said he was going to talk to your mom about the living arrangements when she got back,” I said, reminding her that I’d been there during the discussion, but trying not to sound accusatory.
“But he always says that, and then he never does,” she sighed. “Or Mom never listens.”
“So you decided to teach them a lesson?” I asked.
