“What?” My voice went up a few notches as I put my mug down for fear I’d spill hot coffee all over myself. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He held up both hands, waving them around. “Don’t panic, it’s nothing, really. Well, except I had to change my trip around. I’m leaving for Chicago tomorrow.”
I exhaled, wondering if this was how I’d be from now on: jumpy and on edge, always expecting bad news. I chastised myself for thinking like that. Jack was alive. He was definitely alive. The search would start again soon, which had to count for something. “Don’t worry, I—”
“I am worried. I’ll be gone almost two weeks and I don’t want to leave you alone. It’s not fair. Are you sure you can’t call someone to come and stay with you?”
Tears prickled the backs of my eyes. I blinked them away, forcing my face into a grimacing smile worthy of a contortionist act in the circus. I’d known Sam for almost as long as I’d known Jack, but we weren’t close enough for me to share the details about my family. Hell, I hadn’t told Jack everything. I wondered if now was the time to inform Sam that Jack might not be who he’d said he was, but I couldn’t. I still didn’t want to believe I was in love with a liar, and besides, what was the point in sullying Jack’s reputation if it all turned out to be a stupid case of mistaken identity?
“I’ll be fine, Sam. I promise.”
“This isn’t the kind of situation you want to deal with alone.”
“I’m perfectly capable—”
“I know you’re capable, but my point is you shouldn’t have to.” He paused, hesitated for a while before saying, “What’s the next step?”
The anger I’d somehow suppressed thus far became stronger, and I tried hard to tamp it down. Subtle as they were, the comments the police and Sam had made all implied Jack wouldn’t be coming home. How could they think that way when there was still hope? It was an insult, a punch in the face, and I wouldn’t stand for it. If Sam wanted to convince me to give up on Jack, he’d have to be direct about it. I raised my chin.
“What do you mean, ‘next step’?” I said.
“Uh, well, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to wait,” I whispered, jaw clenched. “He’ll come back. I know he will.”
Sam smiled faintly but said nothing. Jack would’ve called him a coward. Jack would’ve... Jack. How could that not be his name? If Heron and Stevens were right, then who the hell was he? Why had he lied? How could he have told me I was the most important person in the world and listened to me saying I felt the same about him? Our relationship had been the one thing in my life I’d been sure of. As corny as it sounded, when I’d met Jack it had been like coming home. I’d spent the years before drifting from job to job, city to town to village, with no clear plan on what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, let alone with whom I wanted to share my life. I hadn’t always been like that, so lost and unprepared. My family was respectable, as my parents had often reminded my brother, Quentin, and me. My mother was a family doctor, my father an executive banker. Well-to-do people, career people, stable. They’d tolerated what they’d identified as my “flaky phase,” during which I’d been drawn to music and art before adding boys and makeup to the list. For quite some time, both Mom and Dad had been convinced I’d grow into the academic daughter they wanted, a carbon copy of Quentin, who was fourteen months my senior, yet light-years ahead in terms of meeting the life goals they’d assigned him. He was a sure bet, the thoroughbred my parents paraded in front of their friends. In contrast, I was the stable girl best kept in the back, lest she cause embarrassment.
If the annual round-robin announcements my mother sent at Christmas were to be believed, Quentin was on the fast track to becoming an internationally renowned neurosurgeon. The thick, floral-white letter tucked into the padded, lavender-scented envelope rarely contained a mention of me, and I was certain they sent me the annual update merely as a reminder of what I’d messed up and lost, and as an overt signal to not bother visiting them anytime soon unless I met their exacting standards. Jack knew most of this, but I’d justified withholding some of the details about my past because we were all guilty of hiding things when we met someone we liked, I mean really liked, a person with whom we could imagine spending the rest of our life, but who might not feel the same if they knew all our ugly little secrets up front. Except I hadn’t only withheld the information at the beginning, I’d never shared it at all.
“Lily?” Sam’s voice tore me away from the memories of my dysfunctional family. “Do you want to spend the night at my place? The spare room—”
“No. I have to prepare a few things for work.”
“You’re going in tomorrow? Are you serious?”
Sliding my empty mug across the coffee table with my toes so I could stretch out my legs, I noticed the gray tinge on top of my white sock, reminding me I should’ve showered or at least changed my clothes. “I can’t sit here all day. I’ll go mad.”
Sam nodded, watched me for another few seconds before standing up. “I have to pack. You’ve got my cell number. Call me as soon as you hear anything. And even if you don’t. Okay?”
“I will, I promise.”
I accompanied him to the front door, where he gave me a hug and a fatherly kiss on the top of my head. “I can’t believe this is
