The Long Way Back, page 7
“Eva Explores was our diary,” she says instead.
Detective James looks unimpressed. “No phone, no computer. No diary or journal or even a note from a friend. There isn’t even dust on her windowsill. Eva’s life looks pretty sterile.”
Charlie’s tears are swift and mortifying. She blinks them away, but not before one slips down her cheek. Eva’s life is the farthest thing from sterile. “I don’t think you’d understand,” she whispers.
“Maybe I’ll understand this.” Detective James takes a step toward her. “Did Eva use drugs? Did she party? What about alcohol? Did she drink a lot?”
For a moment Charlie is too stunned to even reply. “No. Absolutely not.”
“So the alcohol on the boat was yours?” This question comes from Agent Turner, and when she turns to look at him, his gaze is steady. There is no pity in his eyes, but also no rancor.
“Yes,” she admits to him, not Detective James. She thinks, My mother was an alcoholic. I battle my own addictions. Mostly, I win. But of course, she doesn’t say that. Charlie knows how it will look, and that they will shift their full attention to her. She can’t have that—they need to keep focusing on the water. The raft. The hope that somewhere out there Eva is okay and waiting to be found.
Charlie needs them to believe that it’s true. She needs to believe that it’s true. So she changes the subject. “I’ll make that list for you,” she says, crossing the room to grab a pad of paper and a pencil from Eva’s desk. “Of her friends. And her boss at Mugs. She rides to school sometimes with the kid who lives at the end of the road. I think his name is Andrew?”
They let her scribble, jotting down every name she can think of, and then referencing her phone to see if she has their contact info. But Agent Turner’s question lingers in the room like an odor. It’s just another piece of circumstantial evidence stacked against her.
INSTAGRAM POST #401
With love from Arizona!
The Sutton girls don’t do snakes, but we’ve been told that the rattlers down here “brumate” (a fancy word for their special form of hibernation) in winter. So we left the West Coast for some southern sunshine—and Tucson is making our hearts go pitter-patter! Everything here is a study in contrasts: hot days and cold nights, harsh landscapes and the most delicate of flowers, arduous trails but moments of true serendipity. Can you believe we just stumbled across this purple prickly pear? A perfect heart in the middle of the toughest path. If that’s not a metaphor for life, we don’t know what is. There are tons of great hikes around here, but we especially loved Bear Canyon to Seven Falls (this photo was taken about halfway in). It’s an 8-mile out and back with an elevation gain of just over a thousand feet. The trail features several stream crossings (you will get wet shoes!) and ends at a gorgeous pool (definitely plan ahead for a much-deserved swim). Bookmark it for your next Arizona trip. And Happy Valentine’s Day from us. We hope you enjoy this little love note in the wild! #bearcanyon #sevenfalls #valentinesday #evaexplores
Always take the long way back,
Charlie & Eva
[IMAGE CONTENTS: A pair of hands curled in the shape of a heart frame a prickly pear pad that is also heart-shaped. The cactus is bright purple and green, and there are tall saguaros and jagged mountain peaks in the distance. The hands are tanned and lightly freckled, and around the right wrist there are several handmade friendship bracelets in a rainbow of colors.]
They spent just over a month in Arizona. It was supposed to be a pit stop on their way from southern California to Florida, but Charlie and Eva ended up loving the desert in a way they couldn’t have predicted. It wasn’t at all what they expected it to be. Though it was hot, the air felt clean and crisp in their lungs, and the endless sunshine in the dead of winter was welcome. They wanted to be outside all the time and created their own little haven in a campsite shadowed by the Rincon Mountains.
An outdoor rug ringed by plastic Adirondack chairs in an array of primary colors became their unofficial living room and a place of fellowship for their neighbors in the campground. Late afternoon was their impromptu gathering time, and Charlie found herself looking forward to this hour with strangers who became quick friends more than she cared to admit.
There were the requisite snowbirds, older couples from freezing northern states who wintered in Arizona and inevitably missed their children and grandchildren—they took great pleasure in spoiling Eva. And there were younger families who came on weekends to enjoy the two sparkling pools at opposite ends of the campground—Eva took great pleasure in spoiling their small children. Sometimes, as people began trickling over with icy drinks in hand, Eva would offer to take the kids to the pool by herself and let the adults have “grown-up” time. Because the campers felt a bit like family, and because Eva was so clearly kindhearted and dependable, the parents inevitably (gratefully) said yes, and sank to the bench of the picnic table in the shade of Sebastian’s awning with exhausted smiles.
“She’s incredible,” Diane, a thirtysomething mom with five-year-old twins, told Charlie. “You’re raising an amazing young woman there.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty great.” Charlie grinned. “But she is fifteen—she can be a total pain in the butt, too.”
“I just can’t believe that your teenager agreed to hit the road with you. How long have you been gone, again?” Diane’s husband, Tim—a man almost ten years her senior and with far less social grace than his lovely bride—stopped dealing the Rook cards long enough to arch one eyebrow at Charlie.
She didn’t answer. He had asked this question before. Somehow, the lifestyle that Charlie and Eva had chosen for a season was suspect to Tim. He gave Charlie the impression that he thought they must be on the run from something, and he was forever trying to ferret out what he considered to be the “real” reason for their itinerancy. But Diane wasn’t having it.
“Stop it,” she said, smacking his arm with the back of her hand. “I just hope we have as good of a relationship with our boys someday as Charlie has with Eva.”
“It’s inspiring,” Ingrid said, joining the circle. “Your relationship is beautiful.” She was pushing her adult daughter, Lydia, in her wheelchair. There were already a half dozen lengths of colored floss taped to the arm of the chair. Eva and Lydia would braid friendship bracelets later, enjoying quiet camaraderie before tying their creations on each other’s wrists. They were amassing quite the collection.
“It’s not inspiring,” Charlie demurred. “It’s just us. This is something we’ve always wanted to do, and we’re lucky to be able to do it.”
“So how long do you think people will bankroll your adventures?”
“Tim, seriously!” Diane grabbed the deck of cards from his hand and shooed him off the picnic table. “I need a drink. Why don’t you go grab us some margaritas? Charlie?”
Charlie shook her head, but Ingrid, and Leo and Kyle (who had just turned up), all indicated that they’d take one of the sugary canned concoctions that Diane favored. Tim left the circle in a bit of a huff.
“Ignore him,” Diane told Charlie when Tim was out of earshot. “He’s just jealous.”
“Of some company goodies and Venmo contributions for gas?” Charlie chuckled, but it was hollow. The truth was, one of the reasons they had settled in Arizona for so long was because they were running low on cash. The mail forwarding service they had employed before they left Minnesota kept them flush in outdoor gear and trendy T-shirts, but the few checks they received were small. Once, Charlie had uploaded a gas station photo to their Instagram stories and joked: “Will trade travel tips for gas money!” Enough people ponied up a few bucks that she was able to fill the tank and grab some pre-made subs from the convenience store. They weren’t destitute, but they certainly weren’t rich.
“Nah, he’s jealous because you like each other enough to want to be together, day in and day out, week after week, month after—hey!” Leo broke off when Kyle hit him.
Everyone laughed because Leo and Kyle had been together on location for nearly two months. They were filmmakers working on a documentary about ocelots in southern Arizona and northern Mexico, and their lives consisted of tracking the rare mammal and hurrying off to remote locales when sightings were reported. Unusual footage of one of the sleek cats peering at a trail cam had them tenting for a week, but they were back at home base—a worse-for-the-wear fifth wheel circa the late 1980s—while they pored through footage and decided where to go next. Like Charlie and Eva, they were their own solitary duo.
“I didn’t choose this life,” Kyle joked. “It chose me. And believe me, I’d take anything with a pulse over Leonard here.”
“That’s a low blow,” Leo mused, reaching for the Rook cards he had been dealt. “Don’t tell people my real name is Leonard unless you’re ready for everyone to know that your Tinder profile claims you’re five foot nine.”
Ingrid got the giggles at this, and Kyle’s protests only made her laugh harder. “Honey, we see eye to eye and I’ve been five five since the seventh grade. Whoever swipes right on you is in for a surprise!”
Charlie loved their banter, the comfortable back-and-forth of this potpourri of people. The campground was a level playing field where their backstories were often irrelevant; they lived in the present moment and rarely discussed much beyond their plans for the very next day. An outing to a fabled taco truck on the outskirts of a nearby small town, a midday movie at the cinema to get a break from the heat, a nighttime trip to the local observatory.
Stargazing was how Leo first managed to get Charlie alone. “Did you know the entire state of Arizona has light pollution laws?” He told her that one night as the sun went down and everyone filtered back to their trailers. “It’s a worldwide hub for astronomy, so they cut down as much unnecessary light as possible. You’ve never seen the Milky Way until you’ve seen it beneath an Arizona sky.”
He was cute, a little younger than Charlie, with a hipster beard that he kept carefully trimmed. Leo wore lightweight hiking pants with zippered pockets and T-shirts that hugged in just the right places. At first, Charlie thought that he and Kyle were a thing. But when she agreed to walk over the ridge with him so they could watch the first few stars prick the purpling night sky, and he laced his fingers through hers, any lingering doubts vanished.
They had sex a handful of times, usually on a coarse, wool blanket that Leo carried along during their star-gazing excursions. It was hurried but sweet, a guilty pleasure like stolen candy. Charlie and Leo were more friends than anything, but when he slid his body against hers, Charlie felt a spark of longing so white hot it made her claw her fingers into his skin as she bit back tears. She was lonely, she realized, and maybe he was, too. For a few weeks outside of Tucson they had each other, but around the circle with their friends in the afternoons, they treated each other with the same neutral warmth they employed with the rest of their patchwork group.
Charlie thought she had everyone fooled.
It wasn’t until Leo and Kyle were packing up to head for the Mexican border that she realized her whirlwind romance with Leo wasn’t exactly a secret.
“So I guess we’re going to Mexico?” Eva asked, watching as Leo and Kyle struck camp only a few sites away.
“I thought we decided on Florida.” Charlie was barely paying attention as she worked on a crossword puzzle in the local paper. She and Eva were side by side at the picnic table. “What’s a four-letter word for a lover’s clash? Starts with a T.”
“Tiff,” Eva said automatically.
“I think that works, I need a—”
“Is that what happened with you and Leo? Did you have a tiff?”
Charlie looked up. “What do you mean? Leo and I are friends.”
Eva snorted a laugh, but it was a bitter sound. “Is that what they call it nowadays?”
“Evangeline.”
Charlie watched as her daughter deflated, curling over the innards of the portable gas stove that she had spread across the picnic table. It had stopped working suddenly, and Eva had insisted she could fix it. A few FaceTime chats with Frank later, and she was soaking the sealed burner base in vinegar while she cleaned the burner holes with a straight pin. It never ceased to amaze Charlie how this child could be so like her and yet so wholly other. Sure, Charlie had renovated the Airstream, but every single upgrade had been a mortal battle. She hated it. Eva, on the other hand, was curious and nimble, quick to see the problem and then puzzle out how to mend it. Eva was a fixer, but she wasn’t much of a fighter, never had been. “Sorry,” she muttered, responding to Charlie’s mild reprimand.
“You don’t miss much, do you?” Charlie wrapped an arm around Eva and pulled her close. She wondered why her daughter was upset. Was she jealous? Angry that Charlie had kept a secret from her? Afraid that her fling with Leo would change everything? “I guess Leo and I didn’t do a very good job of hiding our”—she fumbled for the right word—“relationship.”
“Everyone knows. Do you like him? I mean like him like him?”
“He’s not going to be your new daddy, if that’s what you mean.” Charlie tried to put a smile in her tone. “Leo’s a great guy and I really enjoyed hanging out with him—and everyone—these past few weeks.”
“Me too.”
There it was. A wistful note in Eva’s voice that matched the melancholy in her own spirit. Eva was lonely too. Apparently, it was catching.
“Do you want to stay?” Charlie asked. “Ingrid and Lydia will be back next weekend, and the twins are already making plans for an epic bean bag tournament.”
“No,” Eva said.
Charlie paused for a moment, gathering her courage for the next question. “Do you want to go home?”
Eva didn’t answer right away. Instead, she put her head on Charlie’s shoulder and watched an oriole land on a branch of the lime-colored paloverde at the edge of their site. Ingrid had sliced an orange and put some grape jam in the cap of an old sour cream container to lure the bright birds to the tree. It worked like a charm. “No,” Eva said after a while. “Do you want to go home?”
“Home is wherever you are,” Charlie said. She pressed her cheek against her daughter’s warm head. “Home is the wide-open sky.”
“The stars at night,” Eva chimed in after a minute.
“The beginning of a new trail.”
“The end of a new trail.”
“Sebastian.” Charlie felt herself choking up, but the spell was broken when Scout poked his head between the two of them. “Feeling left out?” She laughed, rubbing his broad head.
“Home is wherever Scout is,” Eva finished, wrapping her arms around the dog’s neck. “We’d never forget about you, good boy.”
Charlie’s heart ballooned in her chest and strained against her ribs in a bittersweet ache. She didn’t know if she was making the right choices for herself and for her daughter, but it was the best that she could do. It was a free-range, joyful and joy-filled life, and if they had to document and share scraps of it here and there, so be it. She’d take a picture of the oriole and the grape jam, talk of strangers who became friends, and follow the road wherever it led them next. So what if they were lonely? There were much worse things to be.
They had each other.
When Leo turned and caught her staring, she lifted her fingers in goodbye.
CHAPTER 6
SUNDAY
Charlie pulls a baseball cap over her long, layered pixie and slips on a pair of sunglasses. It’s not a disguise—not really—and yet, she doesn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to herself. With her hair pushed behind her ears and the glasses taking up half of her face, she’s sexless and forgettable, an average-sized person in nondescript jeans and a gray sweater.
After Detective James and Agent Turner left—the list of names and numbers in hand—Charlie hurried downstairs to catch Frank and Sophie. They were already gone, but Sophie had left behind a loaf of her homemade sourdough bread and a jar of apple butter with a Post-it Note stuck to the lid: Call me if you need anything. Anything was underlined twice, and Sophie had helpfully written her cellphone number at the bottom. It would’ve been thoughtful if she and Charlie didn’t text back and forth on an almost daily basis.
Stress makes people do strange things, Charlie thinks as she crumples up the note and shoots Sophie a text.
Can I borrow Mack’s truck?
Mack, Sophie’s late, beloved husband, has been gone for nearly five years, but Sophie can’t bring herself to get rid of his truck. As far as Charlie can tell, she keeps it around for hauling branches to the dump, and for her once-a-month solo trip to get a slice of rhubarb pie at the greasy spoon Mack frequented on the outskirts of town. Charlie has always respected her neighbor enough not to inquire about the significance of the truck, but apparently when her daughter is missing all bets are off. She has no compunction about asking to borrow what had once been Mack’s pride and joy.
Sophie doesn’t hesitate. Sure thing, she texts back almost immediately. Keys are on the hook just inside the mudroom door.
Nobody knows when Charlie slips out the side door and follows the path through the trees to Sophie’s house. If her handlers—the cops still stationed on the Morrows’ property—decide to check in on her, they’ll find her gone, but Charlie doesn’t care. Let them put out an all-points bulletin and scour Landing for her. Let them think whatever they want. She has things to do.
Because Charlie needs to see how bad it’s gotten, when she pulls Mack’s truck out of the Greenes’ driveway, she turns south toward the crowd of media vans and journalists camped at the end of the lane. With her baseball cap and sunglasses, she’s hard to recognize, but it doesn’t really matter because no one gives her even a passing glance as she drives by. They’re clumped in small groups, chatting away with their eyes trained on the house overlooking the water. Charlie guesses there are a dozen journalists and cameramen, and the hoods of their vehicles are littered with paper coffee cups and bags of takeout. An unmistakable air of anticipation wafts through the open truck window. It’s as if they can tell she’s close. Too bad Charlie is driving away from them instead of preparing to make a statement or—even better—offering up another juicy impromptu clip.
