Ray caught his breath, his heartbeat picking up pace as a memory blazed across his brain. Sonia had told him his wife had died of cancer too. He scrunched his eyes shut trying to remember what she looked like. Something—anything—about her. Her name, for instance. Despite pushing through the pounding pain in his head, he couldn’t drum up so much as the vaguest recollection of her face, her hair, or even the color of her eyes. Nor could he recall anything about her illness. Surely there would have been dozens of doctors’ appointments, hospital visits, treatments. He must have accompanied her to some of them. He rubbed his brow in an effort to ease the tension. It must have been a traumatic time for Henry too—watching her slowly dying. At some point, it would have been impossible to hide the truth from him.
Ray blew out a heavy breath and reached for his plate to take it to the kitchen. He would do whatever it took to help his son move on from this. For starters, he needed to make a concerted effort to spend some quality time with him in the coming weeks. They felt like strangers forced together. No doubt, he’d been so wrapped up in taking care of his wife for the past few months that Henry had been sidelined, perhaps even shipped off to relatives. He frowned to himself. Were his wife’s parents still alive? He tried to think of their names as he rinsed off his plate and silverware and stashed them in the dishwasher. With a bit of luck, he might have identified them as his in-laws in his contacts. If nothing else, his wife’s phone number had to be in there. And then it hit him. The police had found his wallet, but his phone had been smashed beyond repair.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, he glanced around the kitchen for a laptop. He must have a computer in the house somewhere. He made his way down the hall, peering into each of the bedrooms in turn. His heart leapt when he spotted a MacBook on the nightstand in the main bedroom. A momentary flash of panic hit when he opened it and realized he couldn’t remember his password. But the second he placed his fingers on the keyboard, they flew over the keys with a mind of their own. He pulled up his contacts and searched for the name, Jenkins. The only two listed were his own and his mother’s. No contact information for his brother, and no one with the same last name who could possibly be his wife. Maybe she hadn’t changed her name after they got married. He would have to dig up his marriage certificate—it had to be in one of the moving boxes, along with Henry’s birth certificate. He scrolled back up to the first name in his contacts and began working his way through the list, checking the notes section for any additional identifying information. To his disappointment, he didn’t recognize any of the names as those of his in-laws.
Disheartened, he closed the laptop and took stock of the moving boxes stacked in the room. Why had he not unpacked, yet? By all accounts, he’d been here for a couple of weeks already. With a resolute sigh, he got to his feet and approached the first box. Time to make a start on things while Henry wasn’t around. After hanging up his shirts and pants in the closet, he cleaned out a few drawers in the dresser and put away his underwear and T-shirts. He flattened the cardboard boxes and stacked them in the hallway, before moving on to the guest bedroom. Judging by the night light near the bed, this was Henry’s room. Ray ran a hand over his jaw, berating himself for not doing a better job of making the place more kid friendly. No wonder his son wanted to stay at Jessica’s—his toys weren’t even unpacked. Ray made a mental note to purchase some kid-friendly bedding as soon as possible—Henry’s favorite superhero, perhaps. For several minutes, he stood staring out of the window, trying to remember what superheroes Henry liked, but he came up blank. No matter. He’d ask him about it tomorrow and then order something on Amazon. A couple of days from now, Henry’s room would look a whole lot more appealing to a four-year-old boy. In the meantime, he could make a start on things by unpacking his son’s belongings.
Opening up the flaps on one of the cardboard boxes at the foot of the bed, he was surprised to find it was packed full of books. He checked the remaining boxes, but found nothing of Henry’s in any of them. They were mostly filled with work files. He straightened up and stretched out his back. Maybe he’d intended to make this room his office, but that still didn’t explain where Henry’s belongings were.
He reached for the Target bags on the floor and tossed them on the bed before rifling through the contents. It looked like he’d gone shopping for Henry recently. It struck him as odd that he hadn’t bothered to empty the bags and put the items away. Despite his fatigue, he got to work folding the clothes and putting them in the lowest drawer in the dresser. Evidently, the contents of Henry’s old room must still be in boxes somewhere. The most obvious place to look was the garage.
