More bewildered than before, I stumbled around the side of the trailer. With shaky fingers I reached for the handle, my mouth dropping in surprise when the door opened. I climbed in, groaning as I got out of the wind at last, until the pungent smell of a lemon air freshener dangling next to the window smuggled its way up my nose, making me retch. I looked around the compact space, took in the kitchenette, fully made-up bed, white bathroom complete with toilet, sink and shower, and the small seating area that had a padded bench and cat-print cushions. My legs wanted to walk the rest of my body to the bed and make it collapse there, but I refused. Drink. Clothes. Shoes. Those were what I’d come for.
I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water, gulped as much of it down in one go as I could as the rest dribbled down my chin. Two more glasses followed and, once satisfied, I pulled open the small wardrobe next to the bathroom, yanked a green flannel shirt from a hanger and reached for a pair of jeans. They were so long and baggy they pooled at the bottom of my ankles, but they were warm, and as I hoisted them over my board shorts I heard loud voices outside, two people in a heated argument. I ducked, leaving a sliver of space for me to see out of the window. A man, his shoulders almost as broad as his legs were long, strode ahead of a petite blonde woman. She took twice as many steps to keep up with him, almost running by his side, and both yelled at each other as they approached, their words gaining enough clarity for me to hear.
“No, Rita,” the man shouted. “I’m not going to calm the fu—”
“Don’t you swear at me, Sal,” Rita yelled back, her face pinched. “I apologized. I told you it didn’t mean anything. And let’s be real. It’s not like you’ve never—”
“Don’t put this on me.” Sal stopped, turned and pointed a finger. “We weren’t married.”
Rita let out a piercing laugh. “You’re a hypocrite.”
“Get in the car.”
“I’m not driving home with you in this mood.”
Sal the giant didn’t move, and when Rita refused to budge, he said, “Suit yourself.”
He opened the driver’s door, disappeared inside and started the engine. I wondered if he would leave his wife stranded there, but after a moment’s hesitation, Rita scuttled over and got in the car.
This had been my cue, time to get out of the trailer and hope they were too distracted by their arguing to see me, but the vague shreds of recognition I’d experienced when I’d spotted the Maine number plate stopped me from moving. The air filled with the scent of lemon air freshener, and when the trailer lurched forward, I’d made no attempt to escape because something inside me gently whispered that Maine was home.
4
LILY
A little more than six hours had passed since we’d located Jack’s truck at the beach, but it felt as if it had been years. Sam had taken over my call to the police as we’d stood next to the old Ford, our bodies lashed by the wind and rain. He’d had no choice because after I’d dialed 911, I’d panicked, shouting into the phone, spouting words in no particular order like gone and boyfriend and beach. When I’d become angry because the dispatcher couldn’t string my nonsensical ramblings together, I’d told her, in no uncertain terms, to fucking listen. That’s when Sam gently lifted the phone from my fingers, put his arm around my shoulders and guided me to his car. He opened the door and ushered me inside, all the while explaining the situation to the emergency services, his words making it through my ears and inside my head, where they swirled around in an erratic, confused mess.
I’m not sure how long it took for the police to arrive. Minutes, probably, but it could’ve been hours. Sam and I sat in his car as I called whomever I could think of—Jack’s boss, our few friends and acquaintances—but nobody had seen or heard from him, and by the time I hung up I was no closer to solving the urgent mystery of his whereabouts. I brought my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them as Sam talked about his upcoming business trip, and how his daughter had broken her finger rock-climbing. Part of my brain acknowledged he was doing so to keep me from losing it, and so I listened and nodded, listened some more and nodded again, incapable of uttering a single word, but increasingly grateful for his.
When the police car arrived and parked across from us, a male officer in uniform and a woman dressed in a drab gray suit got out. They moved at a brisk pace, and although Sam had managed to keep me calm up to this point, I now scrambled for the door handle, jumped into the rain and ran toward them. The concerned expression on their faces reignited the panic bubbling inside me, everything I’d tried to push down by telling myself Jack was okay, we’d find him, and all this would be over soon. One glance at them made my stomach contract, threatening to empty my guts all over the parking lot. I clenched my fists, willing my food to stay down.
“And your boyfriend swims here regularly?” This came from the male policeman, who’d introduced himself as Officer Stevens before we’d given them the facts as swiftly and succinctly as possible. Stevens was about my age, maybe a year or two older, with four moles on his neck, arranged in a perfect square as if it were a connect-the-dots game for toddlers. As he talked, I caught the sweet scent of maple syrup. It made me think of
