She eased through a four-way stop, feeling the heat from the fresh-from-the-oven dish radiating through the pot holder she’d placed on top of it. She was taking a meal to a family in need, something she did often for a variety of situations. It was, as she told her girls, the least she could do. She had made her go-to poppy-seed chicken casserole, perfect for the ill, the new parents, the bereaved. The ultimate comfort food, replete with creamy goodness and topped with buttery crackers. She didn’t know the calorie count and didn’t need to. She wasn’t eating it. And, in the face of an unexpected and mysterious loss, she wondered if anyone would.
This particular family was one she didn’t actually know. Though the kids went to the same school as Nicole, they were younger, which meant Bess hadn’t crossed paths with the mother. Still, when the sign-up notice came through her email, she recognized the name from the news. She’d followed the story like so many others. A healthy, active middle-aged man, who by all appearances was living a normal life, had disappeared. No indication of trouble, no reports of suspicious activity beforehand. He was just . . . gone. And in his absence, a wife and two kids were left to wait and to wonder as the police investigated and the media speculated. The school had arranged meals for them, first prevailing upon those closest to them, then branching out to the parents at large, appealing to the question that haunted everyone: What if it was you?
Bess eased her hulk of a vehicle into their narrow driveway and thought the worst thing she could think: She wished it was her. She wished that her husband, Steve, would disappear just like this man had. That one day he just wouldn’t come home. That she could play the role of the distraught wife as strangers brought her food. That life as she knew it would end, so that, eventually, she could start a new one.
But this she could count on: she would return home from this errand, and, shortly after, Steve would come through the door, carrying his briefcase and complaining about his day. They would make polite conversation through dinner—tonight with extra plates at the table—and then he would disappear behind his office door to do whatever he did in there, and she would be left to watch whatever she could find on television. The best nights were when there was something good on.
She shifted the car into park, the transmission adjusting with a heavy, weary thunk. She opened the driver’s side door just as the phone, resting in its spot in the center console, rang. She cast a longing glance at it. She wanted to answer it but couldn’t just then. Instead she had to carry dinner to a family in crisis, then go home and serve dinner to her own family, pretending that her daughter’s unexpected arrival home from college hadn’t scared her, that her other daughter’s anger didn’t concern her, that her houseguest was a welcome addition, and that she still loved her husband. Casey’s arrival bothered her most of all. She sensed that something was terribly wrong, no matter how much Casey acted like coming home unexpectedly was no big deal. While Bess was determined to get to the bottom of it, she couldn’t just yet. There was simply too much going on at the moment.
When she could, she would talk to her daughter, insist she tell her the truth about whatever had transpired back at school that sent her running home. The question was, would Casey be honest? Bess recalled being Casey’s age. She was very rarely honest with her own mother. Bess liked to think they had the kind of relationship where Casey could tell her anything. But she also knew that Casey had become more distant since the breakup with Eli, less inclined to share more than cursory details. Bess had thought things would smooth over once Casey got immersed in college life and forgot all about Eli.
But it was hard to immerse yourself in college life if you’d left college behind.
There was no time to think about what it all meant. A man had stepped onto the porch and was watching her warily. She climbed out of the car, retrieved the casserole dish, and balanced the bag of rolls and container of green beans on top of it as she cautiously made her way up the front walk. The smell of home cooking wafted up, and her stomach rumbled in response, a reflex more than real hunger. Bess was an excellent cook. Everyone said so. She wondered how many meals she’d made since she’d stood at the altar beside Steve, pledging to love, honor, and plate up the four food groups in a new and creative way every night.
Under the man’s watchful eye, she felt oddly nervous, complicit even, as if she were somehow participating in this family’s plight by bringing them food. Wasn’t that why people reached out to those facing hard times? To help was to separate yourself from those you helped, the distance across their threshold far wider than it appeared. It was acknowledgment that tragedy had befallen this house, yet insurance that the plague would pass over your own.
“I brought food,” she said dumbly, offering up the casserole as proof. “Dinner,” she said again, as if that wasn’t obvious, seeing as how it was nearly dinnertime.
The man stepped forward with his arms extended, studying her face as he did. She wondered what he saw as he regarded her. A pretty woman, or someone who was once pretty?
“This is for Maria Rinaldi,” she said. “I’m from the kids’ school.”
“Yeah, she told me someone was coming,” the man said. He nodded in the direction of the porch behind him. “I’m her brother-in-law,” he added. He looked
