Chapter Thirty-Two Barb
Chapter Thirty-Two
Barb
Linda doesn’t leave my side the entire time I pack, as if she’s worried I’ll make a break for it when her back is turned.
With every button-up blouse that’s folded, every pair of slacks, I’m tucking away a piece of Venice Beach, of Tessa, of the truth about Regina I’ve only half uncovered.
It feels wrong, leaving when I’m this close to answers, but they’re answers I’ll never find.
The police aren’t investigating. Tessa won’t accept the truth about her husband.
Maybe that denial shields her. I have to hope so, because she won’t let me near them again.
I can’t protect her. I can’t get justice for Regina.
The only thing I can do is go home, start to heal myself.
Linda monitors my progress from the sitting area.
I can see the effort it takes for her to refrain from asking what happened.
I’m relieved I don’t have to reassure her I’m fine.
I’m not fine. The hard part is just beginning.
Going home, figuring out how to continue living, knowing I’ll never expose the facts of my daughter’s death.
I have my appointment with Christine, my therapist, on Monday.
We meet every two weeks. So much has happened since I last spoke to her, yet I haven’t even missed a session.
She doesn’t know my daughter is dead. Maybe I won’t tell her, and therapy can become a space where Regina’s still alive.
Christine will know, though. She always knows when I lie to her.
I’ll cancel, then. Quit altogether. I’m not ready to do the work she’ll demand of me.
I stuff my dirty laundry into a packing square, angle it into my suitcase, and zip up the last ten days in California.
The sun is still bright as we head to the airport.
Block after block, strip malls filled with nail salons and marijuana dispensaries disappear behind us.
How did Regina expect to find beauty in a city this ugly?
Why did she think she’d be happy here? Linda has booked us on the 6:30 flight back to Newark, determined to get me airborne before I change my mind.
I study Linda as she drives my rental car, navigating the surface roads to Alamo.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I silence it.
It won’t be Officer Gonzales or Tessa, the only people I want to hear from.
“Why now?” I ask Linda. “How’d you know to come now?”
“When we last spoke, you really worried me.” Linda stays focused on the road ahead. “I didn’t like you being all alone out here.”
“I wasn’t alone.”
“She’s not your family.” Linda drifts to a stop at a red light. I hear what she means by this. I am your family. I don’t deserve her kinship, her unconditional love.
“I’m sorry,” I begin. I need to tell her. Whatever it may do to our friendship, she deserves to know the truth, what I thought about her husband, how I distrusted him so quickly. “Last time we spoke, I was trying to tell you, when I was fired—”
“I knew,” Linda blurts, unable to hold it in any longer. “Dick told me they were going to fire you. He made me promise I wouldn’t tell you, but to hell with that. I should have warned you. I shouldn’t have let you get blindsided. I’m sorry.”
The light changes, and Linda floors the gas pedal.
No, I’m sorry, I’m about to say. Her expression makes me hesitate. She’s calm, absolved. She needs to forgive herself, not to forgive me.
“It’s not your fault,” I say instead. It wasn’t Dick’s fault either.
I wasn’t fired because of anything he may have done.
I wasn’t fired because I’m obsolete, because I’m a woman, an older woman.
I was fired because I went against protocol.
I overstepped and made a young woman uncomfortable along the way. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
And that’s the truth of it. It would have made no difference if Linda had told me.
In fact, I probably would have done something rash in response.
She was right not to get involved. My meddling hasn’t helped anyone.
It didn’t help Jessica. It didn’t save Regina.
It hasn’t kept Tessa safe. It won’t benefit Linda now, if I tell her what I thought I saw between her husband and his employee.
I let this moment, its apology, belong to my friend. That’s what she needs from me.
Linda turns the radio on, and we listen to songs from our youth until we pull into the rental car lot. The sky becomes a pale orange as we wait for the shuttle bus to take us to the terminal. Outside, it’s still warm. My coat dangles over my arm, carefully positioned so the phone won’t fall out.
A jolt shocks my leg like I’ve been electrocuted. It’s only my phone, the airline, alerting me of a gate change. I close the text exchange, then freeze when I notice a missed text from Tessa, sent over an hour ago.
Help.
The shuttle bus pulls to a stop before us. The driver helps Linda with her suitcase, and she mounts the steps behind him, stopping when she realizes I haven’t followed.
I stare up at her from the sidewalk. “I have to go.”
“What do you mean?” Linda leans out without stepping off the bus. “Our plane leaves in eighty minutes.”
“I need to help Tessa.” I wave my phone in Linda’s direction. Tessa has asked for my help. I can’t abandon her now.
Linda climbs down from the bus, grabs my phone, and reads the text.
“Barb,” she cautions.
“I’ll explain everything when I get home, all right?”
“I’m staying with you.”
The driver watches us. “Ma’am?” the driver asks Linda.
It rattles Linda, who likes being called ma’am about as much as I do.
“I’ll be home soon,” I promise her.
She studies me, about to say something, then steps onto the bus. We hold each other’s gaze as the doors close and the bus pulls away from the curb. I may not have been able to save Regina, but I can save Tessa. If I’m not too late.
The sunlight is starting to fade by the time I’m back at the canals, banging on Tessa’s front door. No one answers. I step back into the alley. A light glows from the second floor. Someone is home.
“Tessa,” I scream. “Tessa.” I jump up and down until my knees remind me I’m too old for the impact. “Tessa,” I shout again.
I feel her first, a prickling across my skin before the ominous words “She’s not here.”
I whip around to see the next-door neighbor, unable to decipher what her constipated expression forebodes for Tessa.
“Where is she?”
A chill settles through me when she says, “The hospital.”
Oh god. I’m too late.
“Did he hurt her?”
Just then, Tessa’s door opens, and a young Hispanic woman I’ve never seen before pokes her head into the alley.
“Is Tessa okay?” I ask her.
She glances at the neighbor, who’s still got that sour expression on her face, then back at me.
I grin weakly, hoping I exude trust. It must not work, because the young woman offers each of us the same wariness.
Whatever’s going on out here, she wants no part in it.
It’s unfamiliar, this young woman’s misgivings.
I’m used to being ignored. Infantilized.
I’m used to all the ways I’m undermined and discredited as an older woman, taken for granted.
I’m not used to being distrusted. It’s almost a compliment.
“Look,” I say to the younger woman, “I know you don’t know me from Adam.
” Her face grows curious at my old-fashioned phrasing.
“I promise you, Tessa sent me to check on her.” I want to lie and tell her I’m Tessa’s mother, but this neighbor, inching in on our conversation, will know it’s not true.
Instead, I show the babysitter Tessa’s text.
She bites at her bottom lip as she scans that single word. Help.
“Tessa’s in danger.”
“She’s not in danger,” the neighbor scoffs. “She’s in labor.”
It hurts to ignore a woman my age. Still, I tune her out, willing the babysitter to focus on me, just me, and not lump me in with this meddling neighbor.
“I need to know what hospital she went to.”
If he’s hurt her, if he’s going to hurt her, they might not be at the hospital at all.
The babysitter continues to shift her focus between me and the neighbor, debating which of us to trust.
“They’re at Cedars,” she finally says. Even I know the famous hospital.
I dash across the alley, waving thanks behind me, as I reserve an Uber to meet me on Pacific.
It won’t arrive for ten minutes. I don’t want to imagine what he can do to her in ten minutes, let alone however long it will take me to get to Cedars-Sinai.
If that’s even where they are. If he hasn’t taken her somewhere else entirely.