Janice Johnson - From This Day On

“Why the questions?” he asked now. “What did the college want? Money?”

“No.” She explained about the time capsule. “It might be interesting to see what Mom put in it. I could go to the opening in her place.” She hadn’t known she wanted to attend until the words were out.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Your mother values her privacy.”

She didn’t like feeling defensive. “I’m assuming whatever she put in is sealed. I wouldn’t necessarily have to open it.”

“Then why go at all?” her father asked, reasonably. “Chances are they’ll mail anything that doesn’t get picked up. You can send it on to her.”

“That’s true.” So why feel deflated? “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” His voice had relaxed. “Jakob tells me you talked.”

“Yes, he called. He suggested getting together, but we haven’t managed yet.”

Her father didn’t question the absurdity of that excuse. In three months, two single adults who were truly interested in meeting up could certainly have managed to find a few free hours. Dad had to be aware that Jakob and Amy had never had an easy relationship.

The call ended with her feeling unsatisfied by what he’d told her. If pregnancy didn’t explain Mom’s decision not to return to Wakefield, what did? Why had she never, even once, mentioned that she’d gone there?

Over the next few days, Amy wrestled with her conscience. She had no doubt at all about whether Mom would want her to see whatever she’d put into that time capsule. This was the woman who repelled the most casual question about her past. But the knowledge triggered old anger for Amy. Other people talked casually about their parents.

Yeah, my mom went to Fillmore Auditorium all the time when she was a teenager. How cool is that? She even admits she took LSD. Or, Mom says she loves Dad, but she still wishes she’d finished college before they got married. She insisted on telling me about every crappy job she ever had. In gory detail. Which I guess worked, because no way am I dropping out for some guy.

Hearing the voices of friends, Amy thought, Me? I didn’t even know where my mother went to college.

She had no idea whether her mother’s reticence had the same reasons as her own, which she did understand. Amy had spent her adult life blocking out growing-up years that had been mostly painful. She did holidays with her mom and Ken, who was an intelligent, kind man. That was pretty much the sum total of her relationship with her mother.

She’d actually been surprised when they asked if she would consider housesitting for them. It would be nice to think she was the only person they trusted, but the truth probably had more to do with the fact that, thanks to the ups and downs of her writing career, she pretty much lived on a shoestring and they knew it. They were doing her a favor. Two years with no rent was the next best thing to winning the lottery. She’d be able to save money. Maybe even do something wild and crazy like take a real vacation.

Her thoughts took a sideways hop. Speaking of money, was there a possible article in the time capsule? Of course the alumni magazine would undoubtedly be running one, but there had to be a tack she could take to intrigue readers who had no connection to Wakefield. The hopes and dreams of teenagers, captured so many years ago and now being revealed, unaltered. The reactions of former students as they were reminded of who they’d once been. She toyed with the notion that there was something dramatic in the capsule, a revelation that would provide a dramatic story for the Atlantic or the New Yorker.

She smiled wryly. Dream on. Okay, for Seattle Met, maybe.

It would be interesting to see a list of names of the attending alumni. Given the college’s reputation and national ranking, some well-known public figures had undoubtedly graduated from Wakefield.

Oh, well, she had a few weeks to decide whether she really wanted to go. In the meantime, she had to concentrate on researching an article she knew she’d get paid for.

Deciding she wouldn’t get dressed at all today—the boxer shorts and camisole she’d slept in were comfortable and cool—Amy took the coffee to her stepfather’s study, where her laptop had replaced the one he had taken with him.

A few minutes later, she was almost engrossed enough to forget the peculiar fact that her mother had, by her silence, lied about her college years.

* * *

JAKOB NILSSON DROPPED his phone on the end table and reached for the remote control. He didn’t immediately touch the mute button to restore sound on his television, however. Nothing much was happening in the Mariner game he’d been watching, and he was still trying to figure out what his father had wanted.

Dad was a straightforward kind of guy. Blunt, even. Out on a job site—he was a contractor—he could best be described as a sledgehammer. So why had he just talked in circles?

The purported message had been that he thought it was a shame Jakob and Amy weren’t acting the part of close and loving family members, given that they probably didn’t live a mile apart. Jakob had pointed out that he hadn’t so much as seen Amy since—he’d had to stop and think—Thanksgiving five years ago. He hadn’t mentioned that the only reason he remembered the occasion at all was that it had been so awkward all around. At the time, his marriage was deteriorating. The fact that Susan was sulking had been obvious to all, casting a pall over the gathering. She hadn’t bothered being polite to his stepmother—yeah, Dad was on his third marriage—or to Amy, who looked as if she’d rather be anywhere at all than at Dad’s house for a not-so-festive holiday meal. Jakob wasn’t sure why she’d shown up that year, when she didn’t most.

Before that... He really had to search his memory to nail down the previous time he’d seen Amy. A Christmas, he thought. Her mother had just remarried, he remembered that, and she’d gone back east with her new husband to celebrate the holiday with his aging parents. Amy hadn’t looked real happy to be at Dad’s that time, either. Jakob would have followed his usual pattern of making an excuse once he heard she was coming, except what could he do? It was Christmas, and Susan wouldn’t have understood.

Jakob couldn’t even say he understood. He only knew his relationship with his half sister had been prickly from the beginning—his fault—and by the time they were both teenagers, uncomfortable. He didn’t let himself think about why. Water under the bridge. He no longer had any reason to dodge her, but no reason to seek her out, either.

Still, the conversation with his father had been bizarre. While he meditated, Jakob tossed some peanuts into his mouth, chewed, then chased them down with a swallow of beer.

Dad wanted something besides a warm and fuzzy relationship between two people he knew damn well couldn’t even tolerate each other. It had to do with Amy’s mother and with a time capsule opening. Jakob wouldn’t swear to it, but he kind of thought he was supposed to talk Amy out of going to collect whatever her mother had put in it.

He grunted at the idiocy of the whole line of conjecture. Yeah, sure, he was just the guy with the best chance of influencing Amy’s behavior.

When Mariner player Gutiérrez knocked the ball over the head of the Texas Ranger shortstop, Jakob restored the sound long enough to follow the action. Gutiérrez made it to second. The next player up to bat struck out, though, bringing the inning to an end, and he muted the ensuing commercial. His thoughts reverted to their previous track.

Why would Dad think Michelle had put anything of even remote significance in that time capsule? Jakob was speculating on why it mattered if Amy got her hands on whatever that was when he thought, Oh, shit. Unlike Amy—he hoped unlike Amy—he had been old enough to understand some of what Michelle and his dad were fighting about before they separated and then divorced. Now he did some math in his head and thought again, Shit. His father knew something. Maybe not for sure, but enough to want to keep Amy away from that time capsule and what was in it.