فصل 13 - بخش 02

13

After lunch, which Marcy and her girls only picked at, Marcy went into the bedroom to explore Terry’s side of the closet. He was half of their partnership, but his clothes only took up a quarter of the space. Terry was an English teacher, a baseball and football coach, a fund-raiser when funds were required – which was like always – a husband, and a father. He was good at all of those jobs, but only the teaching gig paid, and he wasn’t overloaded with dressy clothes. The blue suit was the best, it brought out the color of his eyes, but it was showing signs of wear, and no one with an eye for men’s fashions was going to mistake it for Brioni. It was Men’s Wearhouse, and four years old. She sighed, took it down, added a white shirt and a dark blue tie. She was putting them in a suit bag when the doorbell rang.

It was Howie, dressed in duds much nicer than the ones Marcy had just bagged up. He gave the girls a quick hug and bussed Marcy on the cheek.

‘Are you going to bring my daddy home?’ Gracie asked.

‘Not today, but soon,’ he said, taking the suit bag. ‘What about a pair of shoes, Marcy?’

‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘I’m such a klutz.’

The black ones were okay, but they needed a polish. No time for that now, though. She put them in a bag and went back into the living room. ‘Okay, I’m ready.’

‘All right. Step lively and pay no attention to the coyotes. Girls, keep the doors locked until your mom gets back, and don’t answer the phone unless you recognize the number. Got it?’

‘We’ll be okay,’ Sarah said. She didn’t look okay. Neither of them did. Marcy wondered if it was possible for preteen girls to lose weight overnight. Surely not.

‘Here we go,’ Howie said. He was bubbling over, cheerful.

They left the house with Howie carrying the suit and Marcy carrying the shoes. The reporters once more surged to the edge of the lawn. Mrs Maitland, have you talked to your husband? What have the police told you? Mr Gold, has Terry Maitland responded to the charges? Are you going to request bail?

‘We have nothing to say at this time,’ Howie said, stone-faced, escorting Marcy to his Escalade through a glare of television lights (surely not necessary on this brilliant July day, Marcy thought). At the foot of the driveway, Howie powered down his window and leaned out to speak to one of the two cops on duty. ‘The Maitland girls are inside. You guys are responsible for seeing they’re not bothered, right?’

Neither responded, only looked at Howie with expressions that were either blank or hostile. Marcy couldn’t tell which, but she leaned toward the latter.

The joy and relief she’d felt after looking at that video – God bless Channel 81 – hadn’t left her, but there were still TV trucks and microphone-waving reporters in front of her house. Terry was still locked up – ‘in county,’ as Howie had put it, and what a terrible phrase that was, like something out of a lonesome country-and-western song. Strangers had searched their house and taken anything they pleased. The wooden faces of the policemen and their lack of response were the worst, though, far more unsettling than the TV lights and the shouted questions. A machine had swallowed her family. Howie said they would get out of it unharmed, but it hadn’t happened yet.

No, not yet.