Page 10 of The Missing Half

I follow Jenna up the path to her front door. Her home in Osceola is a white one-story, small and old, but well-kept. She unlocks the door, and we go inside.

After I told her about the proximity of Mesquite and Rosie’s earlier, we decided to meet up at her house to talk through everything this evening. When I asked about the bus route, she offered to pick me up from work and drive me to my apartment after we were done. It was a bit out of the way, she admitted, but her place had food and, from glancing at my laptop the other day, a better computer. I suspect though that she just wanted to go somewhere that didn’t look like a hurricane had hit.

I follow her through the front door, the wood floorboards creaking beneath our feet.

“Is this where you lived with Jules?” I ask. I’m still mad at her, but in the wake of what I found, it feels as though we’ve slipped into a temporary truce. The storm is on the horizon, but it’s not here yet.

“Yeah,” she says. “I thought about moving, but…I don’t know. She loved this place so much.”

We walk into the living room, and I stop short. On the side wall, covering almost its entire surface, is a collection of research— newspaper clippings, printed articles from online publications, maps marked up in Sharpie—all about our sisters’ cases. The other day, when Jenna said she’d consumed everything about the two investigations, I thought she was being hyperbolic. It’s clear now she wasn’t.

“Oh, right,” Jenna says when she sees me looking. “I know it’s a lot.”

A lot doesn’t come close. This is the kind of wall serial killers have, or detectives in TV shows when they’re slipping into obsession. The sheer amount of information in front of me makes me dizzy. I don’t think I’ve seen even half these articles before, and it’s a reminder that I’m the shitty kind of survivor while Jenna’s the good kind. Unlike me, she went looking for her sister the night Jules went missing, and she hasn’t stopped searching since. I walk closer and touch my fingertips to the curling edge of a newspaper cutout with the headline “Another Missing Mishawaka Girl—Are the CasesConnected?” My sister’s name in the article catches my eye: 19-year-old Kasey Marie Monroe…

“Nic?” Jenna says and I jump a little. “Hey, are you hungry? I could make us sandwiches.”

Ever since the DWI, my expenses have skyrocketed. At first it was the legal fees that were drying up my bank account, now it’s the payment plan to cover the state’s fine. For months now, all I’ve been able to afford in the way of food is Cup Noodles and leftover pizza from work. I may still be angry with Jenna, but I’m not turning down a free meal. “Sure.”

We head into the kitchen and I sit at a little round table while she moves around, pulling out sliced meats and cheeses, whole grain bread. She piles salt-and-vinegar chips onto plates, slices a fat tomato, washes crisp lettuce. With my first bite, I realize how long it’s been since I’ve had a fresh vegetable. I can almost feel an influx of my vitamins and minerals. We eat in silence for a while. Then, as we’re picking at the last few chips on our plates, Jenna looks up atme.

“I’m glad you decided to work with me on this,” she says. “I think we should—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I wave a hand. “Hang on. There’s no ‘we’ yet, Jenna. I mean, I want to do this—obviously, because I called you—but we need to hash some shit out first. For starters, you lied to me. You deliberately misled me about my own sister’s case. That’s a pretty fucked up thing to do.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I mean, honestly, how furious would you be if someone did that to you?”

“I know,” she says again. At least she sounds genuinely contrite. “It was a really shitty thing to do. But it wasn’t like it was premeditated or anything. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, it just came out. Honestly, I was probably as surprised to hear me say it as you were. Normally, I have everything all planned out. But I didn’t think there was any chance you wouldn’t talk. I just assumed you’d want to figure out what happened too. When you didn’t, I got desperate and made something up. Not that it’s an excuse for lying, but that’s why I did.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to know what happened,” I say. “Jesus, I’d sell my soul if it would help me understand what happened to Kasey. But when I think about that summer, about my sister, I…” I shake my head. “Look, the good memories just make me miss her, and the bad memories—they make me feel like shit. Plus, I thought what you were trying to do was, you know, futile. I didn’t think learning anything new about her case was even possible.”

“I get it,” Jenna says. “I do. But what about now? You learned something new.”

I eat a chip, then another. I’m already in—I was in the moment I biked up to the commercial strip this morning—but I want to make her sweat like she made me. “If I agree to help, you have to swear on your life you won’t lie to me again.”

“Done.”

“I’m serious, Jenna. If I do this and I ever find out you’re lying or holding something back about our sisters’ cases, I’ll…” I look around her kitchen. “I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

It sounds both petty and dramatic, but she just says, “I get it. I swear.”

“And you know, I don’t have a car right now…” I haven’t told herabout getting a DWI, but biking everywhere isn’t common in Michiana, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she suspected something. “Which means if we ever need to go anywhere, I’m gonna need a ride.”

“Right. No big deal.”

“And…” I rack my mind. I don’t have anything else to ask for, but I still feel like I have the upper hand, and I want her to pay. Not suffer, not sacrifice, just pay. I glance around the kitchen. “I want that tomato.”

Jenna follows my gaze. “You want that tomato?”

“I haven’t been eating enough vegetables, and I don’t have time to go to the store.”

“Right.” The corner of her mouth twitches. “It’s yours.”

She’s chewing her lips now, fighting to keep a straight face. Despite myself, I feel her amusement catching in me. She presses her fingertips to her mouth, but a laugh escapes them. “I’m sorry,” she says, her shoulders shaking. “But you asked for my tomato. ”

“Shut up.” But I’m laughing now too.

“You demanded it.”

“I don’t know, I felt like I needed something physical. A token of your regret.” This makes us laugh harder.

After it fades, Jenna picks up our plates and puts them in the sink. When she turns back around, she’s all business. “Should we get started? There’s more space in the living room if we wanna work in there.”

We walk in and I settle into an old, threadbare armchair. Jenna sits on the couch, her laptop on her thighs.

“Okay,” she says. “If the reason for both Jules and Kasey acting weird was because of something that happened where they worked, then we need to find someone else who worked there too. At either place, I mean, during 2009 when Jules was at the restaurant, or in 2012 when Kasey was at the record store.” She bows her head, rubbing her hairline irritably. “I can hardly remember my own co-workers from back then, let alone any of my sister’s.”

“I can,” I say.

Jenna looks up.

“Yeah. Lauren Perkins? I told you about her. She gave me a ride home the day Kasey went missing. She worked at the record store that summer too.”

“Do you still know her? Can you reach out?”

The idea of seeing someone from my old life, of showing her what a dead end my new life has become, makes my skin prickle with dread. “I might have her number saved,” I say.

But when I check my contacts, she’s not there.

“Are you on any social media?” Jenna asks.

“I have Facebook, but I haven’t been on in a long time. Like, years.”

She puts her laptop on the coffee table, slides it toward me. “Why don’t you log in? See if you’re friends.”

I have to reset my password because I can’t remember my old one, but pretty soon, I’m in. When my profile fills the screen, the breath kicks out of my chest. I’d forgotten my banner photo was an old picture of me and Kasey. I’m probably seven or eight in it, Kasey nine or ten. We’re both dressed up as witches for Halloween. Our arms are around each other’s necks, cheap silver rings stacked on our fingers. We’re wearing gauzy dresses and pointed hats, our lips painted black. When I realize I’m staring, I look away.

In the search bar up top, I type “Lauren Perkins,” then scan the list of results.

“None of these are her,” I say. “At least, I don’t think.”

Jenna walks around the table and looks over my shoulder. “Click on them to make the picture bigger. Just to be sure.” I do and this confirms it: none of these Laurens is the Lauren I knew. “Try googling her,” Jenna says. I open another internet tab and type in her name, but again there’s nothing. “Hmm. Maybe she got married and changed her name.”

I laugh. “Lauren is Kasey’s age. She’s twenty-six—she’s not married.”

“Nic, we live in the Midwest. At thirty-three, I’m practically an old maid.” When she says this, I realize how little I really know about this woman I’m now working with. I know about her sister’s disappearance and her mom’s cancer, and I know she’s a receptionist at a dentist’s office, but that’s about it.

“It’s just hard to imagine,” I say. But what I’m really thinking is that if Lauren got married, it means she’s moved on from the devastation of losing my sister, moved on from Kasey herself. It shouldn’t feel like a betrayal, but it does. This is what I do, assume everyone else is frozen in time because I am.

I click back to Facebook and delete Perkins from my search. When I hit enter again, a list of Laurens materializes, two of whom are my friends. A Lauren Maxson and a Lauren Tate. Neither name triggers any recognition, but in the thumbnail picture next to the latter, I recognize Kasey’s old friend. Her face is no bigger than a pea, but it’s her. Lauren Perkins. Now, Lauren Tate. “This is her.”

“You’re still friends.”

“Mm-hm.” I click on her name and Lauren’s profile fills the screen. “Yikes.”

“Not what you were expecting?” Jenna says.

“Not exactly.”

In high school, Lauren was the kind of girl who loved indie bands and Jane Austen. She wanted more than anything to get out of Indiana, explore the world. Her current Facebook profile seems to be for someone else entirely. It’s one of those shiny-happy-family ones, with a small picture of her beaming down at a baby, her hair and makeup perfect. The banner photo behind it is a professional: Lauren sits on a grassy knoll alongside a clean-cut man who looks like he could be a political candidate with a little time and money. There’s a baby in her lap and a little girl in front. All four are in matching white and denim. Beside the word From on her About page, it says: Mishawaka, Indiana. Beside Lives in, it says the same.

The mean part of me whispers that Kasey would have done it all better, lived a life more worthy of existence. For the first time, I briefly let myself visualize a future for my dead sister. She would have become a nurse, traveled the country, dated all types of different men before settling down with someone interesting and kind.

Jenna and I dig around Lauren’s profile and discover that it revolves around the same four things: her husband, Matthew; their daughter, Beth Anne; their baby son, Thomas; and their church, Holy Mount Presbyterian. That’s another surprise: Sometime since 2012, Kasey’s former best friend found Jesus. We sift through post after post, going back in time. Matthew and Lauren with their kids at Beth Anne’s birthday party. There’s a candle in the shape of a four on a cake and a bounce castle and young moms in sundresses talking to young dads in polos. Matthew and Lauren with their kids at their church’s Easter egg hunt. Beth Anne runs around in white patent leather shoes and bunny ears. Thomas is tiny in seersucker shorts and a white collared shirt, asleep in Lauren’s arms. Matthew and Lauren in the hospital, holding newborn Thomas. Beth Anne sits nestled in the hospital bed, smiling down at baby brother. Somehow, Lauren looks fresher and more put together after giving birth than I ever do.

“I can’t believe she has two kids,” I say.

If Beth Anne is four, it means Lauren had already had her by the time she was my age. The idea of me raising a baby right now is absurd. I couldn’t even take care of a cat.

“Should we message her?” Jenna says.

“Yeah, okay.” I scroll back to the top of her page and click on the message button. My cursor blinks in anticipation. “What do I say?”

“Just say you’ve been thinking about Kasey and you’d like to talk, ask her a few questions. Does she have an hour sometime over the next week or two for you to buy her a coffee? Keep it vague and upbeat, something that’s hard to say no to.”

I type out the message, and when I hit send, a bubble of anticipation rises inside me. It’s as if I’m expecting Jenna’s front door to fly open and Lauren to be standing there, ready with all the answers to our questions. Beyond the walls of Jenna’s house, I hear nothing but the chirping of crickets, the buzz of cicadas.

“Thank you, Nic. I know I dragged you into this, but I appreciate your help.”

“I’m not doing it for you,” I say. “I’m doing it for Kasey. And like you said, we found something new. I’m in it now.”

—

I check my Facebook obsessively after that. It’s the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do before I close my eyes at night. I start pulling out my phone so often at work that Brad asks me if everything’s all right, and when I say it is, he gives me a rueful smile and gently reminds me that cellphones are only to be used on breaks. Four days after I sent our original message to Lauren, I send a follow-up telling her to please respond because what I’m after is important. Then I send another two days after that: We can talk over the phone if that’s better for you .

“What’s under the messages?” Jenna asks me on the phone Wednesday night. It’s been a full week since we met up at her house and reached out to Lauren. Jenna’s been asking for updates over text every day, but I’ve had none to give her. Her last text, which I saw after work this evening, said, Let’s touch base. Call when you can.

“Under the messages?” I say. I’ve just gotten home and am sitting on the edge of my bed. “What do you mean?”

“You should be able to tell if she’s seen the messages or not. If there’s a timestamp, like sent seven days ago, she hasn’t read them. But if you see her little profile photo, it means she has.”

I pull the phone from my ear and put it on speaker so I can search my screen. “Shit,” I say. “She’s seen it. She’s seen them all.”

Jenna sighs. “Which means she doesn’t want to talk.”

“What the fuck?” I haven’t seen Lauren in years, but once upon a time, she was a relatively big presence in my life. Sure, I only knew her through Kasey, only talked to her when they were together, but she was in and out of our house a lot during high school. I remember one time before Kasey went away to college when she, Lauren, and I went driving late one night. We rolled down the windows and put on some mix CD we still had from middle school and shouted the songs at the top of our lungs. I may not have wanted to write her, but I assumed if I did, she’d write back.

“Maybe it’s time we track her down,” Jenna says.

“We don’t know where she lives. Her profile just says she’s in Mishawaka.”

“We don’t know where she lives, but we do know where she goes.”

I think back to Lauren’s profile page, all those photos of her and her family on Sunday morning. “Damn it.”

“Yeah,” Jenna says. “I think we have to go to church.”