Page 18 of The Missing Half

Pam is sitting at the front desk of the animal shelter when Jenna and I walk in the next morning.

“Nic? What’re you doing here? You’re not on the schedule today, are you?” Her obvious horror at the idea is almost laughable.

“I’m just visiting,” I say. “I wanted to bring my friend.”

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was call Jenna. I’d given her the time she’d asked for, but still, it seemed she wasn’t quite ready.

“Hang on,” she said. “Lemme wake up first. I need coffee. And let’s do this in person, okay? I’ll come pick you up and we can go somewhere. Is there anywhere that makes you—I don’t know—calm? We have a lot to talk about, and I’d prefer to do it with nice, normal Nic, not spit-in-a-bad-man’s-face Nic.”

The first thing that popped into my head was Banksy.

“I see,” Pam says, her smile tight. “Welcome.”

“We’ll just head to the cat room,” I say. “Always good to see you, Pam.”

Five minutes later, I’ve taken Banksy out of his cage and brought him to the room designated for interacting with the cats, which is mercifully empty. Jenna and I sit on the floor, our backs against adjacent walls, our legs out in front of us. The tips of our shoes almost touch.

“I can see why you like him,” Jenna says with a nod at Banksy. “He’s just like you.” Banksy hasn’t quite taken to Jenna and sits curled in the far corner. His crooked tail is wrapped around his body, and his one eye glares lazily in her direction. “Are you thinking about adopting him?”

I haven’t been able to articulate that plan yet, not even to myself. After all, I couldn’t take care of my first cat, so why would I think this one would be any different? Still, every time I walk through the doors of the shelter, my eyes find the sign on the far wall: Looking to Adopt? Look No Further! and I feel a little ache of longing.

“No,” I say. “Can we talk about last night now?”

Jenna nods. “We can talk.”

“The way McLean reacted to our sisters’ names…It was so fucking creepy. He had to have done something, right? He has to be involved.” I say this as if McLean’s individual reactions to hearing Jules’s name and Kasey’s name were the same, even though they weren’t. When he talked about Kasey, he was crude, careless, mocking. But when Jenna brought up Jules, he got quiet, and for some reason, this was the reaction that sent a chill up my spine. But if Jenna didn’t pick up on this, I’m not sure I want to point it out.

“I don’t know what it means,” she says. “But yes, it was definitely creepy.” Her voice is soft, and I think perhaps she got the same read I did.

“What do you think about what McLean said about Lauren? Do you think it’s true? That for some reason that summer she was annoyed with my sister?”

“I don’t know,” Jenna says. “I have no idea why she would lie about that, but it does kind of add up, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why she stopped working at the record store. To put some space between her and Kasey.”

“I thought about that too. Changing jobs for the last month of summer seems like a lot of work just for tips. Especially for Lauren. Her family wasn’t super well-off or anything, but they had more money than we did. I don’t think she would’ve been that desperate for cash. But I just can’t wrap my head around them fighting. I mean, I remember that summer. Kasey spent the night at Lauren’s all the time.”

“Even at the end?” Jenna says. “In August?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remember the timeline of that summer, but my memories don’t work like that. I can conjure flashes—Kasey and me painting each other’s nails, Kasey and me sneaking vodka from the liquor cabinet, Kasey snapping at me for monopolizing the car—but I can’t put anything in order. I let out a frustrated groan. “I don’t know.”

From his corner in the room, Banksy blinks open his one eye. He yawns, stretches, saunters over to me, and curls into my lap. I put a hand on his warm little body, feel his rib cage slowly rise and fall.

“If Lauren and your sister did have a falling out,” Jenna says, “that could have had something to do with why Kasey was acting off. And it would explain the argument in the parking lot too. Kasey worked at the record shop and Lauren worked next door. It’d make sense that if they had some sort of confrontation, it’d be there.”

“Maybe. I mean, yes, it could explain a few things, but it’s hard for me to believe McLean over Lauren. I think we just need to talk to her again.”

“I agree. But how are we gonna find her? She probably went to church again this morning, but”—Jenna checks the time on her phone—“yeah, she’s got to already be home by now. Not that having this conversation surrounded by a bunch of church people would be the best strategy anyway.”

“I already figured that part out,” I say. “When we said goodbye to her last weekend, she told me to give her love to my parents, and I realized I know her family. I mean, I don’t know them well or anything, but if I call, they’d probably give me her address. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it the first time around.”

“Well,” Jenna says. “I think bumping into her at church was a less threatening way to start, but I’m all for showing up on her doorstep now. Do you have their number?”

“No. But I can get it.”

I pull out my phone and tap on my dad’s contact. A bubble of dread fills my chest. I love my dad, but I don’t love talking to him. The line rings and rings. I’m about to hang up when I hear his voice.

“Nic?” He sounds surprised, as he always seems to be when he’s reminded of my existence. This is why things between us are hard. He can’t say Kasey’s name, but she’s the only thing that fills his brain. I understand—in this, I am my father’s daughter—but his grief is so big and unruly, it leaves no room for me. It’s as if the moment Kasey disappeared, I vanished with her. “Hey. Uh…How are you?”

“I’m fine.” I feel Jenna watching me, but I keep my eyes on Banksy, asleep in my lap.

“Good, good…Brad tells me things at work are going well.” I can tell by the way he says it that Brad has not mentioned me looking into Kasey’s disappearance. Good.

“Yep,” I say. “Things are fine. I don’t actually have that much time though. I was calling for a favor. Do you have a number for the Perkinses?”

“As in Joe and Bitsy?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure I have it somewhere…Let me put the phone down for a minute.” I’m relieved but not surprised when he doesn’t ask why I want it. A few moments later, he comes back on the line. “Okay. I found a few here in the Rolodex. I’m guessing this first is their landline, if they still have one. The other two are for their cells.”

“Perfect.” I look at Jenna and nod.

My dad reads the numbers aloud on speaker, and I type them into my phone. When he finishes, there’s a moment of silence, which he fills by clearing his throat. “You should stop by the house sometime. I could fix us dinner or something.”

“That sounds great. Why don’t you text me some dates?” We both know the invitation will die here, but sometimes I can’t help but make it harder. You still have me, I want to say. You still have one daughter left.

“Will do. Take care now.”

After I hang up, Jenna says, “Do you know what you’re gonna say? To the Perkinses?”

“I was thinking I’d tell them I ran into Lauren at church. Say she was really nice to talk through some things with me and I want to send her a thank-you, but I don’t have her address.”

“That’s good,” Jenna says. “I think you might be getting better at this.”

“Well.” I scratch Banksy behind the ears. “I’m learning from the best.”

—

Jenna needed to swing by her mom’s place to drop off some medicine, but even with the errand, it’s less than an hour later when we pull up to the address Mrs. Perkins gave me over the phone. Lauren’s house is a two-story red brick with an American flag flapping out front and one of those green, summery wreaths on the door.

Jenna and I are out of the truck and walking up the front path when the garage door rumbles open and a white SUV pulls into the driveway. I see Lauren behind the wheel. She parks in the garage, gets out of her car, and slams the door behind her. She looks like an almost different person today, so unlike the pristine woman we saw last week at church. Her hair is pulled into a limp ponytail, unwashed strands falling around her face. She’s wearing jeans and an oversized button-down with a smear of what I imagine is spit-up on her shoulder.

“No!” she calls as she starts walking toward us. “I cannot talk to you. How did you even find me?”

I knew Lauren wasn’t going to be happy to see us again so soon, but this reaction is a shock. “I-I’m sorry if this is a bad time,” I stammer. “We—”

“Bad time? Bad time? My husband’s out of town and I’m taking care of two kids on my own, who are in the car right now and—” She waves a hand. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I need to get my kids in the house, and you two need to leave.” She turns and starts striding back to her car.

I give Jenna a confused look that she mirrors back at me. Maybe we went a little far by getting Lauren’s address from her mom, but surely that isn’t what has elicited this extreme of a response.

“Lauren,” Jenna says. “Is everything okay? What’s happened?”

Lauren whirls around. “Look, Nic, I talked to you because Kasey was my friend. But I am not getting wrapped up in whatever it is you guys are doing. I have two kids, and I am not putting them in any more danger. We were doing fine, and then the moment you came along—” She stops short. “Please just leave.” She presses a series of buttons on a little pad on the wall and the garage door starts to close.

“Wait!” I call out to her. “The moment we came along, what?”

But she’s already disappeared from view.

“What the fuck?” I say, turning to Jenna. “?‘Any more danger’? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” Jenna says. But I can tell she does. We both do: Sometime in the last week, something scared Lauren into not wanting to talk about my sister.