Laura Dave - The Last Thing He Told Me

“I’d like to help you. I would. But it’s not something I can do, dear. If you want to leave your number, I can check with the pastor, but I just don’t think that he’s going to want to provide our parishioners’ personal details.”

“Jesus, lady, you’re not going to give us a break here?” Bailey says.

It’s, admittedly, not great language for her to use.

Elenor stands up, her head dangerously close to hitting the ceiling. “I’m going to need to excuse myself now, friends,” she says. “We have a Bible study group this evening that I need to prepare for in the conference room. So if you wouldn’t mind showing yourselves out.”

“Look, Bailey didn’t mean to be rude to you, but her father is missing and we’re just trying to find out why. It’s putting our family under a great deal of stress. Family is everything to us, as I’m sure you can understand.”

I motion toward the photographs lining the mantel above the fireplace—the Christmas shots of her children and grandchildren, the candid shots of her husband, their dogs, a farm. Several photographs of Elenor and, perhaps, her favorite grandchild, sporting some crazy streaked hair of his own. His in a shade of green.

“I’m sure you’d be the first to go to great lengths for your family,” I say. “I can see that about you. Please just think about it for a second. If I were sitting there and you were sitting here, I’m just asking you, what would you hope I’d do? Because, I’d try to do it.”

She pauses and straightens her dress. Then, miraculously, Elenor sits back down, pushing her bifocals higher on her nose.

“Let me see what I can do,” she says.

Bailey smiles in relief.

“The names can’t leave this room.”

“They won’t leave your desk,” I say. “We will figure out if there is someone who can help our family. That’s all.”

Elenor nods and pulls my list across the desk. Then she picks it up. She looks down at it, in her hands, as though she can’t believe she is doing this. She sighs so we know she can’t believe she’s doing this.

She turns to her computer, starting to type.

“Thank you,” Bailey says. “Thank you so much.”

“Thank your stepmother,” Elenor says.

Which is when an amazing thing happens. Bailey doesn’t cringe when I’m referred to that way. She doesn’t thank me. She doesn’t even look at me. But she doesn’t cringe, which feels a little like the same thing.

I don’t have any time to savor it though because my phone starts to buzz. I look down to see a text from CARL.

I’m outside your house, can you let me in? I’ve been knocking…

I look to Bailey, touch her hand. “That’s Carl,” I say. “I’m going to see what he wants.”

Bailey nods, barely acknowledging me, her eyes focused on Elenor. I head out into the hallway and text him that I’m calling him now.

“Hey,” he says when he picks up. “Can I come in? I’ve got Sarah with me. We were on a walk.”

I picture him standing outside our front door, Sarah in her BabyBjörn, wearing one of the enormous bows Patty loves to stick on top of her head, Carl using his walk with his daughter as an excuse with Patty—an excuse to come and talk to me without Patty knowing.

“We aren’t home, Carl,” I say. “What’s going on?”

“It’s really not a phone type of conversation,” he says. “I’d rather talk in person. I can come back later if that’s better. I walk Sarah at five fifteen, get her some fresh air before dinner.”

“I’d rather hear what you have to say now,” I say.

He pauses, not sure what to do. I can see him considering whether to insist we do this in person later, when it will be easier for him to spin whatever he needs to spin. Because I have no doubt—I’ve had no doubt since I saw the look on his face yesterday—that there is something he knows, something he is afraid to say.

“Look, I just feel real bad about what happened when you came to the house yesterday,” he says. “I was caught off guard and Patty was already so pissed. But I owe you an apology. It wasn’t right, especially when…”

He pauses, like he is still trying to figure out whether to say it.

“Well, maybe I should back up, I mean… I don’t know exactly what Owen told you, but he was really struggling at work. He was really struggling with Avett.”

“He told you that?” I say.

“Yeah, he didn’t go into a whole lot of detail, but he said he was under a lot of pressure to get the software working,” he says. “He told me that much. He told me it wasn’t going as smoothly as Avett had let on. But that his back was against the wall…”

That stops me. “What do you mean ‘his back was against the wall’?”

“He said he couldn’t just walk away. Go get another job. That he had to fix what was happening.”

“Did he say why?” I say.

“That part he didn’t get into. I swear to you. And I tried to push him on it. No job is worth that kind of stress…”

I look back into Elenor’s office, Elenor still staring at her computer, Bailey pacing back and forth.

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“Wait… there’s something else.”

I can hear him struggle. I can hear him struggle with how to even put the words together.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Just say it, Carl.”

“We didn’t invest in The Shop, Patty and me,” he says.

I think back to what Patty said to me—how she called Owen a crook, how she accused him of stealing their money.

“I don’t understand.”

“I needed to use that money for something else, something I couldn’t tell Patty about, something to do with Cara,” he says.

Cara. The coworker Carl’s been involved with on and off since before Sarah was born.

“What exactly?” I say.

“I’d rather not get into details, but I thought you should know that…” he says.

I can imagine a variety of scenarios that would cost him tens of thousands of dollars—the one percolating to the surface involves another baby, in another BabyBjörn, who also belongs to him. To both of them.

But I’m guessing and I don’t have time to guess. I also don’t particularly care. What I care about is that Owen didn’t do what Patty accused him of doing. It almost feels like a kind of proof—a piece lining up to help me prove it to myself—Owen is still Owen.

“So, even with what’s going on, you’re letting your wife think that Owen took the money from you? That he convinced you to invest your savings in a fraudulent company?”

“I realize it’s messed up,” he says.

“You think?”

“Can I at least get some points for telling the truth?” he says. “This is the last conversation I want to be having.”

I think of Patty, self-righteous Patty, telling her book club, her wine club, her tennis group—telling just about anyone in ladies central who will listen to her that Owen is a crook. Telling everyone the false information her husband has fed her.

“No, Carl, the last conversation you want to be having is the one you are about to have. With your wife. Because either you’re going to tell her the truth or I’ll do it for you.”

This is when I hang up, my heart racing. I don’t give myself time to process the implications of what he’s told me because Bailey is motioning for me to come back in.

I pull myself together and walk back into Elenor’s office. “Sorry about that,” I say.

“That’s quite all right,” Elenor says. “I’m just pulling everything up…”

Bailey starts to move around the desk toward Elenor, but Elenor stops her with her hand.

“Let me just print the records out,” she says. “And you can have a look. But I do need to get to that meeting, so you’re going to have to move quickly for me.”