Page 24 of The Missing Half
Chapter Twenty-three
A little after six the following Saturday evening, I pedal up to my old childhood home, drop my feet to the pavement, and pull my phone from my backpack. When I see there are no notifications from Jenna, a small bubble of exasperation swells inside me.
The past few days since I last saw her have been a blur. The end of summer is fast approaching, and Funland is getting its usual surge of parties before all the kids go back to school. And because I missed my regular AA meeting that night Brad gave me a ride home, I had to track down another in South Bend to make up for it. Throughout it all, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Kasey and Brad and those unexplained miles on our odometer. I’ve hardly had time to scarf food down before I fall asleep at night, let alone make time to touch base with Jenna. So I suppose I can’t blame her for her radio silence when I’m doing the same.
And really, I don’t need a confirmation text to know she’ll be here. We made the plan to talk to my dad before she left my apartment on Tuesday night, and she’s more eager to ask him questions than I am.
Because I couldn’t come up with a single believable explanation for randomly introducing a new friend to my dad, we had to think of another way to spring Jenna on him. We decided that I’d show up alone for dinner, then after an hour, I’d say my friend was swinging by to give me a ride home. If my dad didn’t invite Jenna in, she’d ask to use the bathroom and we’d go from there.
I walk my bike to the stairs leading to the porch and lean it against them. I called my dad earlier in the week, so he’s expecting me, but he doesn’t know the real reason I’m here, and my dread builds with every step I take closer to the front door. When I reach it, I hesitate, as if the air in front of me has calcified. My relationship with my dad has grown distant, and barging in seems intrusive somehow. But it feels awkward to ring the doorbell of the home where I grew up, so I do what I always do and split the difference, knocking as I enter.
“Hello!” I call. “Dad? It’s me.”
He appears in the doorway that leads to the kitchen. “Nic,” he says with a genuine smile that cracks me open a little. “Come on in. You hungry? I just got out stuff to make sandwiches.”
We walk through the living room and into the kitchen, and like I do every time I’m here, I marvel at how little has changed. There’s the old plaid couch where Kasey and I used to sit till late into the night, watching movies and sharing a package of Oreos. There’s the ring on the coffee table where my dad left a beer one time, and my mom, when she discovered it, yelled for a full ten minutes. There’s the dining room table that was never used till Kasey went missing and then was transformed into the central hub of our search.
“Ham and cheese okay with you?” my dad says.
“Sure.” I sit at the little kitchen table while he piles slices of ham and provolone onto two pieces of white bread. Once the sandwiches are plated, he spoons some store-bought potato salad next to each.
“Thanks,” I say as he sets a plate in front of me. “This looks great.”
“Well, it’s not exactly gourmet, but it does the trick.” He opens the refrigerator door. “You want something to drink? I have water, orange juice, beer—” His voice cuts out suddenly and he clears his throat.
With his back turned to me, I don’t have to hide my eye roll. Just like Kasey’s disappearance, the DWI is something my dad insists on pretending never happened. “Water’s fine,” I say, then, when I see his hand hovering over the row of beers, I add, “You can drink, Dad. I don’t mind.”
He brings our drinks over and we begin to eat. “So,” he says between bites. “How’re things going?”
So much between us feels like a conversational landmine, and I scour my mind for something safe to talk about, eventually telling him about Banksy and the animal shelter, without ever mentioning the reason we both know I’m clocking so many hours there. I ask him about work at the fish hatchery, and he tells me all about his new boss. During a lull in the conversation, I pull out my phone and check the time. It’s almost seven. Jenna should be here any minute. I make sure my ringer’s on, then tuck it back into my pocket.
But five minutes pass, then ten, and when Jenna still hasn’t called, that bubble of exasperation turns to irritation. Has she forgotten? Did her plans change and she didn’t tell me?
“So…” my dad says. Outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we don’t normally spend one-on-one time together, and I can feel him reaching for ways to pass it. “Brad tells me things at work are going well.”
My heartbeat quickens at the sound of Brad’s name, and I shoot another glance at my phone. Jenna is now officially twenty minutes late. The prospect of interviewing my dad alone makes me jittery with nerves, but at this point, I’m starting to think Jenna’s not coming, and here he is, handing me the perfect opening.
“Work’s fine,” I say. “Busy, but good.” I take a sip of water, going for casual. “When did you and Brad hang out last?”
“Well, he would’ve come over last night. We still do our weekly beers, you know. But he was heading down to Nyona with Sandy for their reunion.”
“It’s nice you guys still do that. See each other every week, I mean.”
I hesitate, running the tines of my fork through the dregs of potato salad on my plate. The main thing Jenna and I planned to ask about tonight was Brad’s whereabouts on the nights of Kasey’s and Jules’s disappearances. If he was at his family reunion during the former and on the fishing trip during the latter like I assume he was, those will be the pieces of evidence I can give Jenna to finally get her off this Brad thing. They’re not irrefutable proof that he wasn’t involved, but they’re as close as we’re going to get.
“What about that fishing trip the two of you used to go on?” I say. My instinct is to poke at his alibi for Kasey’s disappearance first, but I’m not sure how to broach that without my dad getting suspicious, so I start with this instead—where he was when Jules was taken. “You guys still do that every summer?”
“Course we do, you know that.”
“How many years have you been going, again?”
“Since before you were even born.” He searches the ceiling. “Our first year was probably 1988 or so?” He grins, proud of the tradition. Meanwhile, all I can think is Your best friend is a liar and a cheater and a piece of shit. And also, Please let him be innocent.
“Wow…” I say. “And you go the same weekend every year, right?”
“First weekend in August. You know what I always say. That’s the one nonnegotiable I have.”
My body slackens in relief. I’m not done asking questions, but this is what I was hoping for—my dad’s confident corroboration of Brad’s alibi, without him ever knowing I was looking for it in the first place. His best friend may be an asshole, but he didn’t kidnap Jules. And if everything Wyler and the police and every reporter and media outlet have said is right, that Jules was taken by the same man who took Kasey, that means Brad didn’t kidnap my sister either.
“Actually,” my dad says, “you know what? That’s not true.”
My eyes dart to his face. He’s staring at a spot on the table, a small frown between his eyes.
“What’s not true?” I ask.
“We did miss one year.”
“What—what happened?”
“Brad couldn’t make it,” he says with a shrug. “I can’t remember why…That’s the only time either of us has ever canceled though, so it must’ve been something important. Something big.”
“And…what year was that?” Don’t say 2012, I think furiously.
My dad stands, grabbing our plates and putting them in the sink. He turns on the tap and sprays the dishes with water. Then he turns to face me. “It would’ve been 2012. I remember because it was right before—” His voice cuts out and he clears his throat to cover it, but I know what he almost said. He almost said, Right before Kasey went missing.