Харлан Кобен - Run Away

Sam was asleep on his side, fetal position, legs pulled up tight. That was how his son always slept. Simon didn’t want to wake Sam yet. He headed into the kitchen and opened the drawer with the Ziploc plastic bags. He grabbed some out and quietly made his way to what they’d dubbed “the girls’ bathroom,” the one Paige had shared with her little sister Anya.

It had become something of a running joke in the house that the kids never changed their toothbrushes until the bristles were not only frayed but pretty much nonexistent — so years ago, Simon took it upon himself to buy a package of new toothbrushes every two months and switch them out on his own. He was going to do that today too, so no one would notice what he was up to, even though, well, who really would?

Paige’s toothbrush was still here from her last visit... sheesh, how long ago?

He took her toothbrush carefully by the handle and placed it in the plastic bag. He hoped that there would be enough DNA on it to get a sample. He started to leave the bathroom but pulled up short.

He trusted Ingrid. He really did.

But working under a better-safe-than-sorry personal philosophy, Simon put Anya’s toothbrush in a second Ziploc bag. He moved to the other bathroom and put Sam’s in one too.

It all felt like a sick, terrible betrayal.

When he was done, Simon headed into his own room and packed the plastic bags in his work backpack. He checked his phone. Nothing. It was still early, but he texted Suzy Fiske anyway:

Hey I’m home for a bit. If you’re awake, can you wake up Anya and send her home for breakfast?

He wasn’t sure how long he’d have to wait for a response, but right away he saw the flashing dots indicating Suzy was typing him back:

I’ll wake her up now. Anything new on Ingrid?

He told Suzy no, nothing new, and thanked her profusely for looking after Anya. She typed back that Anya was a pleasure, that having Anya around actually made it easier, and while Simon knew that she was being nice, he also knew that there was truth there. Suzy had two daughters and like most sisters that age, they fought. If you add a third element into a mix like that, it changes the chemical makeup just enough to make everything a tad more pleasant.

Simon texted back:

Still I’m super grateful.

He moved back into the kitchen. All of his male New York City friends suddenly liked to cook. Or claimed they did. They waxed eloquent about some complicated risotto dish they recently made or a recipe from the New York Times weekly email or some such thing. When, he wondered, did cooking become the new poser claim, replacing all the amateur sommeliers? Wasn’t cooking, for the most part, a chore? When you read history books or heck, watch old movies, wasn’t being a person’s cook one of the worst jobs in the house? What would be the next chore turned into great art? Vacuuming maybe? Would his friends start debating the wonders of Dyson over Hoover?

The mind likes to wander under stress.

The thing was, Simon did have one meal, one specialty if you will, that he prepared with great aplomb on those weekend mornings when the family were together and he, the father, was in the mood: pancakes with chocolate chips.

The secret behind Simon’s beloved family breakfast recipe?

You can’t have enough chocolate chips.

“It’s more like chocolate with pancake chips,” Ingrid had joked.

The chocolate chips were in the upper cabinet. Ingrid always made sure they had them, just in case, even though it had been a long time since Simon prepared his celebrated dish. That depressed him. He missed having his children home. Forgetting Paige’s tragic descent for a moment (as if he ever could), having his oldest daughter go off to college had been more traumatic than Simon would have expected. When Sam left, the trauma doubled. They were leaving, his children. They weren’t really growing up anymore — they were grown. They were abandoning him. Yes, it was natural and right and it would be a lot worse if they weren’t. But it bothered him anyway. The home was too quiet. He hated that.

When Sam graduated high school, his class president posted a well-meaning meme on the school’s social media. The photo was the classic self-help image of a lovely beach at sunset with the prerequisite gentle waves, and the text read:

LOVE YOUR PARENTS.

WE ARE SO BUSY GROWING UP, WE OFTEN FORGET THEY ARE GROWING OLD.

He and Ingrid had read the meme together in this very kitchen, and then Ingrid said, “Let’s print that out, roll it into a tube, and shove it up a pretentious ass.”

God, he loved her.

He’d been seated as they read that meme, Ingrid leaning over his shoulder. She threw her arms around his neck, bent close so he felt her breath in his ear, and whispered, “Once the kids are all out of the house, we can travel more.”

“And run around the house naked,” Simon had added.

“Er, okay.”

“And have a lot more sex.”

“Hope springs eternal.”

He fake-pouted.

“Would having more sex make you happier?” she asked.

“Me? No. I was thinking of you.”

“You’re all self-sacrifice.”

Simon was still smiling at the memory when Sam said, “Whoa, Dad’s pancakes.”

“Yep.”

His face lit up. “Does that mean Mom’s gotten better?”

“No, not really.”

Damn. He should have thought of that — that his son would see him making pancakes and jump to that conclusion.

“It means,” Simon continued, “that she’d want us to do something normal and not just wallow.”

He could hear his own “Dad voice” falling way short of the mark.

“It isn’t normal when you make pancakes anymore,” Sam said. “It’s special.”

He had a point. He also ended up being both right and wrong. The breakfast did end up being normal — and special. Anya came up from the Fiske apartment and threw her arms around her father as though he were a life preserver. Simon hugged her back, closed his eyes, rode the wave for as long as his daughter needed.

The three of them sat around the circular table — Ingrid had insisted on round for the kitchen, even though rectangular fit better, because it “promotes conversation” — and even though two chairs were glaringly empty, it felt somehow, well, normal and special. Anya soon had chocolate all over her face and Sam teased her for it, and then Anya recalled how her mother called his breakfast concoction “chocolate with pancake chips.”

At some point, Sam broke down and cried, but that felt normal and special too. Anya slid off her seat and wrapped her arms around her older brother, and Sam let her, was even comforted by his little sister, and Simon felt the pang deep in his heart of Ingrid missing this moment between her children. He’d remember it though. As soon as Ingrid woke up, Simon would tell her about this moment, when her son looked for comfort from his little sister — his little sister of all people! — and she was able to give it, and one day, when Simon and Ingrid were old or gone, they’d still always have each other.

It would make Ingrid so happy.

While Sam and Anya did the dishes — family rule: whoever prepares the food doesn’t do the cleanup — Simon headed back to his bedroom. He closed the door. There was a lock on it, the kind of flimsy thing you install so your kids don’t walk in on you during an inopportune moment. He turned it and then opened Ingrid’s closet. Toward the back, there were six hanging bags with various dresses. He unzipped the fourth one, the one with a conservative blue dress, and slid his hand down to the bottom of the bag’s interior.

That was where they hid the cash.

He took out ten thousand dollars in wrapped bills and stuffed them in the backpack with the toothbrushes. Then he checked his phone to make sure that there was nothing important and headed back into the kitchen. Anya got changed for school. She gave her father another hug goodbye and left with Suzy Fiske. When he closed the door behind them, Simon had yet another of his imaginary conversations with Ingrid, this time asking her what gift they should get Suzy when this was over — a gift certificate to that dumpling place or a spa day at the Mandarin Oriental or something more personal like a piece of jewelry?