Janice Johnson - Mummy Said Goodbye

“She was a friend of your mom’s.”

Brett didn’t say anything.

“Her boy—what was his name?—was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?” Craig remembered.

“Malcolm.”

“You know, she’s not going to treat you any differently because your mom disappeared.”

“Yeah?” Fury blazed on Brett’s face when he lifted his head. “Everyone does! They either feel sorry for me,” he spat out, “or else they’re wondering if I saw anything. You can see what they’re thinking!”

Yeah. You could.

“Robin knows you.”

“So?”

Craig groped for an answer to the unanswerable. So she’d known Brett, known Julie, even, casually known Craig. She, too, had shunned the entire family after police cars with flashing lights were seen in front of the Lofgren home. She hadn’t called to find out why Brett quit the Little League team. Malcolm hadn’t called to invite Brett over to hang at his house.

Brett bowed his head again, but tension still ran through him. “She’ll think you killed Mom.”

“I’m not the one in her class,” Craig said. “Brett.” He waited until his son met his eyes. “I can ask for a change of teacher if you want.” No response. “Otherwise, we’ll give Ms. McKinnon a try. If you’re not happy, then I’ll have you changed to a different room.”

“Why can’t we move?” his thin, dark-haired son cried. “Where no one knows us?”

Because this is purgatory, Craig thought, and we’ve been consigned to it.

“You know why.” He wrapped an arm around Brett’s shoulders and squeezed. “We’re outta here the minute the police find out what happened to your mom.”

“But they think you killed her.” Brett searched his face. “Don’t they? So, are they even looking for Mom?”

“Sure they are.” Craig hated his falsely hearty voice, never mind the fact that he was lying to his kids despite his vows never to do so. No, the cops weren’t looking for Julie, because they were sure she was dead. Fish bait. What they were doing was waiting for him to screw up. Head out furtively some Tuesday afternoon for that storage space, rented under another name, where he’d hidden the bloodstained tarps. Or maybe even the body. The cops were probably listening to this conversation. Craig was willing to bet the house was wiretapped. He was the suspect, and the cops were dogging his every footstep.

Abby, still in the doorway, let out a sniff. “I miss Mommy.”

Craig held out his hand to her and lied yet again. “Me, too, Punkin. Come here.”

She plopped onto the bed on his other side and wept a few tears onto his T-shirt. Brett continued to sit stiffly, saying nothing.

“Daddy?” Abby said after a moment. “Did you light the coals?”

“Light the…” He swore and leaped up. “I forgot all about them.”

They’d burned down to fiery embers, perfect for barbecuing. Abby brought him the plate of steaks, which he laid on the grill. Juice sizzled as it hit the coals. Soon, the scent of their meat cooking mingled in the air with the smells from across the fence.

And finally, he and his children ate, near to the laughter and conversation in the next yard but not part of it, isolated as they always were now.

Because one day Julie had vanished, leaving behind her car keys and purse. Who would befriend even the children of a man who must have murdered his wife?

ROBIN MCKINNON sat in her classroom and waited for the bell that would bring students rushing in. Hands flat on her desk, she took one last survey of her newly hung decorations, the welcome she’d written on the blackboard, the arrangement of the desks, the names she’d stenciled onto cards and taped below each wooden cubby where her sixth-graders would park their backpacks and lunches.

Her gaze paused halfway, on one name: Brett Lofgren. She both dreaded and anticipated seeing him walk in the door. Notes from Brett’s fourth grade and fifth grade teachers made it clear that he had become a troubled boy since Robin had known him. And no wonder! How horrifying for him, to be torn between fear that his mother had abandoned him and his sister and the more frightening possibility that his father had killed his mother.

The Tribune had reported that Brett claimed his mother had said goodbye to him; his story was one of the major reasons Craig Lofgren hadn’t been arrested. But what if he’d made up that story to protect his father? Imagine as the weeks and months went by and his mother wasn’t found. Would he start wondering if his father had murdered her?

She shivered, thinking about it, remembering Julie Lofgren. Robin had met Julie through circumstance, just…oh, two mothers who often sat together at sporting events, rooting for each other’s kid, talking in that idle way you did when a Little League game dragged on for hours. After several years, she’d have sworn she knew Julie, the bubbly, pretty woman with dimples and an irresistibly childish delight in the triumphs of her children. Robin had talked about her husband, then their marital troubles and finally the divorce. Just before Julie disappeared, a year after Robin’s divorce—when she and Glenn had become embroiled in an ugly custody battle because Glenn was trying to impress his new girlfriend—Julie had listened sympathetically.

In turn, she had confessed to problems in her own marriage, nebulous but enough to make her lower her voice and to cause the light that imbued her to dim. She had never once suggested that Craig was abusive or that she was afraid of him, but she was never quite specific about what was wrong at home, either.

Robin felt guilty that she hadn’t stayed in touch with Brett. He and Malcolm were more soccer buddies than close friends, rather like their mothers, but Mal would have been okay with inviting Brett over. She just hadn’t thought to suggest it, even though she’d read all the newspapers with her friend’s face constantly in her mind, wondering at her fate, first thinking about Craig as a distraught, loving husband, then as a violent man who wouldn’t take rejection. She and Malcolm had had their own turmoil about the same time, thanks to Glenn…. But that was just an excuse. Robin prayed that Brett’s closer friends had been more faithful.

The bell rang, its shrill clamor making her start. Feet thundered in the hall and two boys jostled to be the first into the classroom. Other children pressed behind them.

“Children” was still the right word, although they wouldn’t like to hear it. This was her favorite age, these boys and girls on the brink of so much more: of physical maturity, of making decisions that would direct their lives, of being genuinely cool, of “going together” meaning more than the words. You could mistake a sixth-grader for a sophomore in high school one minute, a fourth-grader the next. Like the boys’ voices, cracking and squeaking and booming, these eleven-year-olds wavered between childhood and adolescence. She liked to think she could still have an effect on them that she might not be able to in another year or two.

She smiled as they poured in. “Take a seat. Any desk is fine today.”

A few she knew well, because of extracurricular activities or because they were younger siblings of former students. Others were familiar faces, because she’d seen them in the halls every year. A few were new to the district.

As always, she marveled at how much less mature the boys were than the girls—a sad fact that had the girls longing for middle school. A curvy brunette sauntered in, flipping her hair and eyeing the boys sidelong. Pants darn near as low and tight as Christina Aguilera’s hugged her hips; her baby tee, snug over a buxom chest, announced that she was a “princess.” Slipping quietly into a front seat was another girl, slight as a fourth grader, who would undoubtedly pretend with friends that she was interested in boys, even though she still played with Barbies at home.