Page 34 of The Missing Half

Chapter Thirty-three

On the two-hour bus ride back from Grand Rapids, I sit, my forehead pressed to the cool window, staring, unseeing, at the scenery passing by, thinking about a memory I haven’t thought about in a very long time.

In elementary school, there was this night toward the end of the year when parents would come to school to see what their kids had been working on. The science teacher would display our three-panel poster boards on the solar system or tarantulas or the ocean tides. The English teacher would line her walls with our handwritten essays—biographies of our favorite historical figures accompanied by drawn portraits. All those Lincolns in top hats. The art teacher would prop our paintings on easels, put out a grocery-store cheese platter, and pretend her nine- and ten-year-old students were artists in a gallery. Spring Show-and-Tell, we called it. When I was in fourth grade, it was a very big deal.

For me, the art room show-and-tell was the pinnacle of the evening. I’d worked on my painting—a landscape of the woods—for what felt like ages, talked about nothing else at the dinner table in weeks. Two nights before the event, though, my dad told me he was going to miss it. He’d just taken a second job, which he did sometimes when money was tight. This one was selling shoes at the mall, and he couldn’t rearrange his shift. I was devastated. Everybody else would have two parents there.

Despite this, I woke up on the day of the Spring Show-and-Tell hyper with excitement, and it only intensified as the day went on. Our art teacher had given us the option of staying after school to finalize our projects if we wanted, and I got the idea to add a moon to my landscape, so I stayed.

It took me the entire two hours between the end of school and the time my mom was due to arrive to paint my moon, taking pains to make sure the contours of the orb weren’t all the same shade. I pictured my mom admiring it, holding it delicately by the edges, insisting it lie flat in the car on the ride home. She might even frame it, I thought. It really was that good. But my mom wasn’t in the first round of parents to pass through the door, nor in the second. The minutes ticked by, and after almost an hour, she still hadn’t showed. Her absence felt like a stone in my stomach getting heavier and heavier.

And then suddenly, I heard my sister say my name behind me. Her voice was so familiar, so uniquely soft and calming, that even though she was the last person I was expecting to be there, I knew it was her before I even turned around.

“Dang, Nic,” she said, her eyes on my painting. “This one’s yours? It’s good. Like, really good.”

“Where’d you come from?” Only in sixth grade herself, she wasn’t much taller than the other fourth graders and she must’ve slipped in without me seeing. Without waiting for a response, I said, “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s sick. She told me to tell you she’s sorry. She feels bad about missing.”

“But…” I said, “she was fine this morning.”

“I know. I think it’s the flu or something, ’cause it happened really fast.”

Kasey, it turned out, had taken the city bus to the stop nearest the elementary school. It wasn’t a long ride, but it was the first either of us had ever used public transit, and to get us home, she had to navigate it all in reverse with a fourth grader by her side. When we walked through the door, the house smelled like vodka. It’s obvious now, but it would take years for me to understand what happened that night, to understand that my sister had lied to spare my feelings.

The memory is softening my anger toward Jenna, turning my confused suspicion into something less ominous. Deep down, I still trust that she is trying to protect me, that, just like Kasey on the night of the show-and-tell, she is lying to keep me safe.

I just wish I knew what danger she thinks I’m in.

—

I’ve had an idea percolating on the ride home, and when the bus pulls into the station in South Bend, I make the snap decision to act upon it: I’m going to visit Jenna’s mom.

I know she and Jenna have a complicated relationship, but during these past few weeks, Jenna has been a near constant by her side. They must be talking. And though it’s morbid to admit, who could be a safer person to confide in than someone who’s waiting to die? If Jenna has told anyone the truth about what’s going on, I have to believe it would be her mom.

I unlock my bike from the rack outside the station and take the local bus back to Mishawaka. But instead of getting off at the stop nearest my apartment, I stay on for another three till we pass Memorial Park. I remember Jenna’s mom’s neighborhood from the time Jenna dropped medicine off there a few weeks ago, and unlike Jenna’s place, surrounded by a maze of streets, her mom’s is right off the main road. The idea of knocking on a dying woman’s door to interrogate her feels icky, so I stop by a grocery store on the way to buy flowers. After I’ve paid for them though, I realize that showing up on her doorstep with a bouquet doesn’t make me kinder, only more manipulative—I’m getting better at this. Maybe the thought should make me feel bad, but it doesn’t. If the flowers get me even an inch closer to finding out what happened to Kasey, they’re worth it. I stuff them into my backpack, then pedal the final quarter mile to Mrs. Connor’s house.

When I reach the corner of her street, I slow, looking for Jenna’s truck, but there’s only one car in the driveway. Does it belong to Mrs. Connor? A hospice worker?

The house is just as I remember it, a small one-story with peeling gray paint and a sagging roof, as if its own weight is too much for it to bear. The yard is sparse in some places and overgrown in others, the effects of a dry summer on top of years of neglect. In the surrounding yards I spot a rusty tricycle, a deflating kiddie pool, Barbies stripped bare and limbs akimbo. Mrs. Connor’s yard is empty.

Despite my conviction earlier, with every step I take closer to the screened front door, my sense of dread and impropriety grows. Here I am, a stranger, interrupting the last few weeks—possibly the last few days—this woman has left, and all I have to offer is a thirteen-dollar, plastic-wrapped bouquet of daisies. Nerves clench a cold fist around my neck. I imagine the inside of the house thick with the smell of decay, cluttered with pill bottles, an IV stand, all the other accoutrements of death I don’t know about. I imagine a hospice worker leading me back to the bedroom, Mrs. Connor sunk in her bed, struggling for each breath.

I shoot a glance over my shoulder. Knowing Jenna, she won’t be away for long, so it’s now or never. I take a deep breath, lift a fist, and knock.

After a moment, the door cracks open, and a woman peers through, revealing nothing more than a sliver of her face—a narrow, watery eye; the pinched corner of a mouth. The house is dark and the screen door is shadowing her features, but even so, I know immediately this is not a hospice worker.

“Yeah?” the woman says. There’s a burble of daytime television from the room beyond. “What d’you want?”

“Are you…Mrs. Connor?” Based on everything Jenna told me, I wasn’t expecting her mom to be able to walk, let alone answer the door, but she also said the cancer was fickle. Good days and bad.

“Unless you got cigarettes, I’m not interested in buying.”

“I—no. I’m not here to sell you anything.”

The one eye I can see narrows. “You one of those bible beaters, then? I thought you guys dressed up more.”

“Mrs. Connor, my name’s Nic. I’m a friend of Jenna’s.”

“She’s not here.” The door starts to close.

“Wait!” I say. “Please. It’s you I want to see. Here.” I thrust out the bouquet. “These are for you.”

Mrs. Connor eyes the flowers, and I can see a debate churning in her mind. A gift was clearly the right idea; I just wish I’d sprung for the more expensive ones. I hold my breath, praying she deems them nice enough to buy her time. Finally, she opens the door.

Though we’re still separated by the screen, I can see her properly now. She’s wearing a white nightgown with a pink robe over it, untied and pilling. A cigarette is perched between two fingers, a plume of smoke curling to the ceiling. In her other hand, she holds a plastic mask connected by a thin tube to an oxygen tank by her feet.

“Well,” she says, “ Maury comes on in twenty, but I suppose you can come in till then.” Without opening the screen door, she turns back into the house, dragging the oxygen tank behind her.

The floorboards creak beneath my feet as I step inside, the air hot and unmoving. The ceilings are low, and none of the lights in the house are on, so it feels a little like walking into a cave. The living room is off the right. Mrs. Connor has resettled on the couch, an overflowing ashtray on the upholstered arm beside her. The TV flickers with a commercial—she’s the last living person paying for cable. To my left is a kitchen with linoleum floors and a metal table. Dishes litter the counter by the sink.

“There’re vases beside the microwave,” Mrs. Connor says. “You can put the flowers in one of those.”

I open the cabinet to find a clutter of glasses and vases and sift through them, settling on a squat round one. But as I set it onto the counter, Mrs. Connor’s voice barks out at me.

“Not that one! It won’t balance out the stems. Get that nice, tall, curvy one.”

“Oh. Right.” I replace the round one and search for something that fits her description. “This one?” I say, holding one up.

From the couch, Mrs. Connor nods solemnly.

I arrange the flowers in the vase, then fill it with water. I’m about to leave them in the kitchen but think better of it and carry them to the living room with me, taking care to place them in the exact center of the coffee table.

“Thank you for talking with me,” I say, sitting in the armchair adjacent to the couch.

Mrs. Connor gazes at the arrangement, bringing the plastic mask connected to the oxygen tank to her face, sucking in deeply. When she lowers it, she takes a drag of her cigarette. “No one brings me flowers anymore.”

“Well, I…” My voice fades as I realize in horror that the rest of my sentence was going to be: know you’re dying. “Jenna’s mentioned you like flowers.”

She snorts sarcastically, as if the idea is preposterous.

“So, like I said, I’m a friend of Jenna’s, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about her.”

Mrs. Connor’s eyes snap to mine. “What’s she done now?”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that.”

I have no idea how to ask what I want to know. From the little Jenna has told me about her mom, and from what I’ve witnessed so far, it seems Mrs. Connor lives in a state of emotional volatility. I don’t want to upset her by bringing up Jules before I have to.

“I noticed that Jenna’s been acting off recently,” I begin. “And I know she’s been spending a lot of time over here, so I was wondering if she’s confided anything in you? Anything that might be the reason behind it?”

“Even if she had,” Mrs. Connor says, “I wouldn’t believe her. She’s a little liar.”

I shake my head. “What do you mean? What does she lie about?”

“Every day, she walks in here, and she tells me she loves me, but I know she doesn’t mean it. Lying through her teeth.”

“Right.” So, Jenna wasn’t exaggerating when she described her mom.

“Jules was the one you should’ve been friends with,” Mrs. Connor says. “Sweet as lemon meringue, my Julie. She died though. Few years back. Did you know that?”

“I did, yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Killed by some son of a bitch.”

“Do you…” I hesitate. “Do you have any idea who it could’ve been?”

“If I did, he’d be long dead. I would’ve hunted him down and killed him right back. If I weren’t hooked up to this goddamn machine, that is.”

“You know,” I say—this seems as good an opening as I’m going to get—“Jenna and I—that’s what we’ve been doing together. Looking into Jules’s case. Seeing if we can figure out who took her.”

Mrs. Connor studies me. “You’re a good one.” She points to my chest with her cigarette. Half an inch of ash falls onto the floor, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Julie would’ve liked you.”

“It was Jenna’s idea, actually.” I try to hold her gaze, but she turns indifferently to the TV. “Has she mentioned anything to you about it?”

She turns back to me and there’s an amnesiac look in her eye, as if she’s forgotten both who I am and what we’re talking about. I wonder if that’s the cancer. “What?” she snaps.

“I was asking about Jenna. Has she told you anything about looking into Jules’s case?”

Mrs. Connor barks out a laugh that turns into a hacking cough. “Jenna doesn’t tell me shit. She comes over to police me. That’s it.”

“Police you?”

“Babysit me. You know. ‘Stop smoking, Mom,’?” she parrots in a whining voice. “?‘Did you take your pills? You know you can’t drink when you’re on medication. ’ If it were up to her, I’d sit here all day doing nothing but drink celery juice.”

I thought my dad’s silent treatment was bad, but this open hostility is so pointed, so cruel. “When she’s over here,” I say, forcing my voice to stay pleasant, “has she ever mentioned anything about someone scaring her?”

“Scaring Jenna? Please.”

“Well, has she ever mentioned anything about me?”

“First I learned about you was when you knocked on my door. Don’t take it personally though. My Julie was sweet as pie, but not Jenna. It’s why I always said I wish that man would’ve taken her instead.”

I lurch out of my chair, a snapped mousetrap. Jenna hasn’t confided in her, and it’s no wonder why. Coming here was a mistake. “I need to go.”

“You sure?” she says. “It’s nice to have some decent company for a change.”

But I’m already at the front door. I fling it open and am about to step through when I whirl back around. “You know what? Jenna is one of the best people I’ve ever met. You’re lucky to have her for a daughter, and if you can’t see that, then you’re a fucking asshole. Thanks for nothing. Sorry about the cancer.”

To my surprise, Mrs. Connor starts to laugh. “I told you Jenna’s a liar.”

My hand, which had been reaching toward the door, stills midair. She’s baiting me, I know. And yet. “What’re you talking about?”

“Like I said, if Jenna really loved me, she’d tell her friends about my cancer.”

“She did tell me about it. That’s why I brought it up.”

“Not the diagnosis. The remission. If my daughter truly loved me, she would’ve told you my cancer was in remission, now, wouldn’t she?”

“You mean…”

“That’s right,” she says. “Got the news three weeks ago. I’m clean as a whistle.”