Chapter 12
TUESDAY
Gray light filters through the partially shut blinds.
I shift restlessly, punching the pillow before curling deeper into the nest I’ve created within the downy comforter and warm bedsheets.
Last night’s silence from both Clint and Erika reverberates loudly in my head.
By the time I got back to the hotel, it’d been too late to call, and neither of them responded to my good-night texts.
For an extended moment, I stood over my rollerboard imagining shoving everything I could into it, calling a car, and going home.
I would speak my secrets and then urge Erika to speak hers.
Instead, I eventually curled into the plush wingback chair by the window and idly scrolled through social media while keeping one eye on the envelope lying on the desk. Just after two in the morning, I tossed a navy sweater over the unnerving package and slipped between the cool, crisp sheets.
The weight of the day that has barely dawned presses down on all sides.
The envelope needs to be handed over. By me.
I need to tell them what I know and then wash my hands of Betsey.
As I rehearse the words I will use when I walk into Terrence’s office, disappointment curls its merciless tentacles around me.
I really thought I’d assembled my dream team at Garman Straub.
I flop onto my back and press my finger into my right temple to try to relieve the growing tension.
Over the past who knows how many weeks, sleep has become so elusive.
Same thing happened right before I switched careers.
I’d been living my calling, or so I thought.
Constructing financial plans and sharing in the dreams of my clients, I was content.
And then I literally fell into becoming a portfolio manager.
Two of my clients from Kennebunkport were snowbirding in Key Biscayne.
I combined a mini vacay with meeting them and, at the last minute, decided to spend a day at a conference about exchange-traded funds.
Running late for the keynote session, my heel snagged on the carpet, and I went down.
Hard. Always a klutz growing up, my knees have taken a beating over the years, but it was the mortification of tossing my hot coffee down the aisle and sprawling face down among hundreds of seated guests that hurt the most. The guy onstage even stopped speaking.
I remember glancing up and feeling his mortification on my behalf.
I did the only thing I could do. I shot to my feet, took a bow, and scooped my now-empty paper cup from the floor.
A light applause turned enthusiastic as the speaker made a joke about making an entrance.
I darted down a row and took an empty seat.
After the keynote, during the break, I discovered I’d become a minor celebrity. A few people even asked if it was staged. My entrance and awkward flight through the air had come just as the speaker was remarking about the power of mistakes and the privilege of your sequel.
The people I met because of my moment of humiliation became the people who changed my career trajectory. These new funds called ETFs wiggled their way into my brain and then bore down deep.
After I spent a few nights tossing and turning at the prospect of blowing up the easy rhythms of our lives, Clint didn’t even flinch when I told him five years ago I wanted to make the move from producer to creator and take a job with Garman Straub.
It took many late evenings and stolen moments between meetings to come up with solid plans for new investment strategies.
Then, three years ago, I presented my idea for a highly innovative family of ETFs.
The reception to my ideas was mixed.
In the end, if your idea has value, the naysayers don’t matter. You only need a ripe market and at least one voice that is willing to shout in the darkness alongside yours. Especially effective is if the voice belongs to the CEO of a successful Wall Street firm.
I press my face back into the pillow. This playback is a distraction, because it’s not my career, the funds, or the dinner that is gnawing at me.
It’s not even the file I have yet to fully examine or the note with the veiled threat and no demand.
It’s something else. Something weighing on my heart. I stare up at the white ceiling.
Is Erika looking up at her ceiling right now, or is she sleeping her usual sleep of the anesthetized? I’m convinced that the best sleep of your life is when you’re a teen.
I sit straight up in the bed. What did she say during our second phone conversation yesterday?
Even the fact that there was a second call has every alarm bell clanging.
I assumed she said text. Her phone is a constant source of angst in our house.
Either she’s on it too often texting her friends or she’s been shut out of a group text created by some friend one day, enemy the next.
What have we done to this generation of children growing up with these identity-crashing devices?
But what if she didn’t say text? She’d been crying and it had almost sounded like her three-year-old lisp had returned, because the word had sounded a lot more like sext.
Hoping there is a less-terrible slang definition, I slide my phone from my bedside table and google the word.
Sending or receiving sexually explicit or suggestive images, messages, or videos on electronic devices.
Nope, as bad as I thought. My baby couldn’t possibly have meant that.
She hadn’t even started talking about dating.
Teen friendships took all her energy. And ours.
Without hesitation I make the call.
A low grunt greets me.
“Sorry, honey. Were you sleeping?”
“Was I sleeping at four a.m.?” Clint’s voice sounds as if gravel pelts every word.
“I’m worried about Erika.”
“Okay.” The bed creaks. “What’s happened?”
“How was she last night?”
“Fine, I think. I was late getting some updated trail maps sent to the printer after dropping Reid off. I ordered our favorite pizza from D’Ellies.”
My skin prickles in the cool air, and I tuck the sheet around my waist. He’s a talented cartographer and a very good dad. “Thanks for doing that. Did she talk at dinner?”
“Rob came over.”
I close my eyes. Clint’s Appalachian Trail buddy with a round face and a mop of brown curls appears behind my lids.
He’s always throwing back his head and laughing his strange can’t-quite-get-the-old-roadster-engine-to-turn-over laugh.
It used to make me giggle, but lately it just makes me tired. “What time did she get to bed?”
“What’s eating you, Mer?” He asks the question as if my answer is the last thing he wants to know.
“Something she said yesterday. She was pretty upset. Do you think there’s a guy?”
“What? What guy? No. I don’t think there’s a guy.” His tone shifts and he’s almost talking over himself.
“Fine.” I raise my open palm as if in surrender. “You’re right. I’m probably reading too much into it. Hard to tell over the phone.”
“So, she hasn’t mentioned a guy?”
“Not specifically.” I decide not to tell him the word she used and save him from the experience of acid sloshing through his stomach too. “I’m not there, so I don’t really know what she meant.”
He puffs into the phone. “That what this is?” His voice lowers. “Some kind of smoke screen to get back here? To get your own way?”
As if I’ve been physically slapped, my hand flies to my cheek and my eyes fill. My own way? None of this is my own way.
I lower the phone and watch as my finger ends the call.
Silence pulses in my ears like crashing waves.
I hung up on my husband. But how dare he think I’d create an issue with our daughter to manipulate him.
She’s our priority over any infuriating marriage issues.
I need to know our baby, our firstborn, is all right.
And, of course, the one place in this world I want to be is the only place I can’t go. Home.
I move my trembling fingers over my screen and click on the Messages app. I send Erika a good-morning text and ask her to call me when she gets a chance. I remind her how much I love her.
She won’t get the message for another few hours until she retrieves her phone from our family docking station. I hope she’s sleeping soundly, the friend drama has resolved, and that she simply said the word text.
I place my quiet phone back onto the bedside table and slide out of bed.
I don’t call Clint. And he doesn’t call me.