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Michael gathered his keys, his wallet, and stuffed them into his pockets while Angela hovered behind him.
“She can’t be right, Michael. She can’t just show up here and say you’re the father of her child and then you just believe her. It’s not logical.”
“We were having sex up until the day we separated.”
“I know,” Angela said. “But you used protection, right? You’re smarter than that.”
“The pill. She was on the pill. It’s not perfect.”
“If she was even taking them,” Angela said. “Hell, the way we’re struggling with having a baby, maybe it’s a long shot. The doctor said your—”
“Okay. I know the doctor says I have a low sperm count. But it’s not just me with issues, remember?”
But the first part of her statement brought Michael up short. He didn’t know for sure whether Erica took the pills. He never checked. He took it on faith that Erica swallowed one every morning. What husband would want to have to check on that?
“Where does she want you to go?” Angela asked. “Do you even know what she’s getting you into?”
Michael made a calming gesture with his hands, holding them out before him, the palms toward Angela. As he did it, he knew it was a bad idea. No one liked to be told to calm down when they were angry. Angela certainly didn’t.
“Michael—”
“I’m sorry. Just ... There’s a guy she wants to talk to, someone who might know where the girl is. She wants me to go along. I guess she might feel safer with a man by her side.”
“And you’re the man? Not some other friend or a cop?”
“She might be lying or I don’t know what, but she thinks the kid is mine. That’s why she wants me to go.”
“Do you hear this, Michael? Do you hear this?”
“Erica had issues, just like we all do, but she wasn’t a liar. She was always forthright.”
“Except she didn’t tell you about this child. Or she’s lying.”
“We’ll sort that out, I guess.”
Before Michael could move past her and through the door of their bedroom, Angela reached out and placed her hand on his arm, stopping him from moving forward. She tightened her grip, an affectionate squeeze, a reminder that the two of them were connected in ways that didn’t need to be spoken out loud. Years together. Mostly good, but even the bad. Together. Connected. “You should call the police right now. Go over to the phone and call them. Tell them Erica is here and she’s upset about her daughter. She wants you to confront a witness or a suspect or whatever, and they need to come and talk her down. That’s their job, not yours. It’s understandable that she’d be upset if her kid is missing. I get that. The cops will understand.”
“I can’t do that.”
“This is your life now. You and me. Our house, our future.” Angela’s brown eyes widened, beautiful dark pools. “We have plans for next week. We have plans for tonight , remember? The time of month, what we’re trying to do. That’s for our future together.”
Michael reached down, took her hand off his arm, but held it between both of his. He loved the feel of his skin against hers, even in the most casual way. After a decade together, he found her touch could still send jolts of electricity coursing up his arms. Even with the strain of both of them working, trying to have a child, he still felt it. It was also true that over the past year, they’d snapped at each other more, neglected the little things that had once made them feel so intimate. He tried to remember that all working couples went through these things, that life sometimes felt like an out-of-control merry-go-round, and they were both desperately hanging on.
“It’s an hour or so up to Trudeau and then an hour back,” Michael said. “A little chat with this guy. Or maybe I can talk her down from the ledge before we go very far. But if something happened to your child, if we couldn’t find her, wouldn’t you want anyone and everyone on earth to help you get through? Wouldn’t you want the whole world to stop if you were living in that hell and hearing that clock tick?”
Angela looked down at their joined hands. “I wouldn’t go to someone I hadn’t seen in a decade. I wouldn’t call up any of my ex-boyfriends.”
“I’m not her ex-boyfriend. I’m her ex-husband.”
Angela broke free of his grip. She stepped back, her gestures and movements short and sharp. After a moment of looking at the floor, she tilted her head up, her eyes locking with Michael’s again, her breath coming through her nostrils. “How do you know I won’t call the police the minute you walk out the door? I can tell them your name and her name and where you’re heading. How do you know I won’t do that?”
“I’m asking you not to,” he said.
“You’re trusting everyone tonight, aren’t you?”
“What if she is my daughter?” Michael asked.
Angela winced, then looked away. “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I’m not sure I can think about you having a child with someone else when we can’t.”
“But if she is ... She showed me a picture downstairs. She looked like ...”
“Like who?”
“Like my family,” Michael said.
Angela’s eyes narrowed. She’d discovered something. Like a terrier, she held it in her mind’s teeth and worked it over. “How old is this kid? The missing one?”
“Nine.”
“Nine? Oh, Michael. Do you think she looks like Robyn? Is that it?”
Michael’s anger broke, his words exiting his mouth like a whip crack. “Don’t make me out to be a sap. I’m worried, and I’m helping. This isn’t buying magazines. This is a kid’s life.”
“Michael, you’re not a sap. You’re nobody’s fool. But this issue, Robyn, I know the weight you still carry from it. I know you have the dreams. I know your mom isn’t close to being over it... .” She paused, gathered her thoughts. “I’m sure Erica knows all about what happened to Robyn. You must have told her when you met. She must have seen how your family acts about it.”
“I’m going.”
He tugged the bedroom door open and stepped through, heading down the hallway toward the stairs. He wondered how any parent bore the burden of losing a child. He’d seen the toll it took on his parents over the years, his father’s inability to even say Robyn’s name until the day he died. The pictures of Robyn that went into a closet, the fragility and protectiveness that his parents displayed. Michael wouldn’t have wished it on his worst enemy.
Angela followed him down the stairs to the front door. Before he went through it, she said, “Be careful. You don’t know where she’s taking you or who you’re going to see.”
“I will.”
“No, really. Be careful. Remember when you two split up. You told me about her calls, the threats.”
“Not threats. She was hurt.”
“I saw the e-mails, Michael. If she lied to you about birth control and then kept this child from you, if she sent you those messages when you left her, then are you sure you know everything she’s capable of?”
Michael paused for a moment, taking in the house. The cleanliness and the comfort. Problems and all, this was the life he loved. The life he held close.
He flashed to the picture on Erica’s phone. The blond girl, the one who looked so much like Robyn.
“An hour there and an hour back,” he said as he went out the door.