Chapter Twenty-Four
The next day finds Diana back at Sully’s for lunch. As she waits for her order, she checks out the announcements pinned to the bulletin board by the front door.
“Do you think they ever found this cat?” A woman to her left, wearing dark sunglasses and a wool coat, her head swaddled in a plaid scarf, points to a “Lost and Found” notice for a missing cat named Belle. “The date on this is a month ago. Maybe she came home?”
“Maybe,” Diana says.
“I always wanted a cat. Do you have one?”
“When I was little, my family had a cat named Pearl.” Diana smiles. “She liked to eat blueberries and sleep on my pillow.”
“And now?”
Diana turns to the woman. She looks familiar, but it’s hard to tell with the scarf and sunglasses obscuring her face and hair. It’s strange she’s so bundled up on this warm day. “No, my husband was allergic to cats.”
“Diana, your order’s up!” Stephanie calls from the counter.
“Excuse me,” the woman says. She slides past Diana on her way out the door, leaving behind the faint smell of cigarettes.
I must have met her at the library, Diana thinks, as she turns back to the “Lost and Found” notice. Printed in large text across the posting, above a photo of a black cat with elongated whiskers, is a plea: We must find her.
Just as I must find Jessica, Diana thinks. What if I can’t?
This question occupies her as she picks up her sandwich and her second large cappuccino of the day and walks down Main Street, past the post office, the florist, and Alcott Bank. What Are the Consequences If I Don’t Find Jessica?
She sips her drink, and the ideas come to her, one by one:
If I don’t find Jessica, this will be all I have: a story without an ending.
There will be gaps. Always.
I’d never know the full truth.
I’ll never understand why Tom left me that letter.
Her phone rings, and Diana stops in front of the library’s garden, where the tulip bed is already filled with green stems, a sure sign spring is on its way. She drops her sandwich into her tote and retrieves her phone from her jacket pocket.
Alcott Elementary School. “Dammit,” she says, answering the call with a frantic jab at the screen.
“Mrs. Morgan? Hi, it’s Rosemary Sekella.”
“Is Phoebe okay?” Diana doesn’t offer a greeting; calls from Phoebe’s teacher in the middle of the school day are never a good sign.
“Phoebe had a little scuffle on the playground during recess. She’s physically fine, but she’s been upset since and can’t settle. Are you available to pick her up?”
“On my way.”
As Diana runs to her minivan, she reviews her schedule for the rest of the day. Two meetings, a conference call, an overpacked to-do list. Maybe she can take the call from home, after she figures out what’s wrong with Phoebe. Or maybe work will have to wait. It wouldn’t be the first time.
In the months after Tom’s death, when everyone tried to help her transition to widowhood, Diana was introduced to the niece of a friend of Vivian’s whose husband had also died young.
She was supposed to offer Diana helpful tips for navigating her new life, but the two had little in common other than their loss.
Without children or family nearby, the woman worked eighty-hour weeks and spent her free time doing yoga.
“My body is amazing, and I can do the one-handed tree pose,” she shared during their one phone call.
“But I’m miserable. If only we’d had a baby. ”
Diana tries to remember that woman when the kids don’t listen or fight with one another. Or need to be picked up early from school.
Situations like this make living across from Alcott Elementary School convenient. Diana parks in her own driveway, leaving her cooling cappuccino in the cup holder, and sprints to the school’s front door. As she waits to be buzzed in, she texts Camille. Sick kid. Working from home rest of today.
Phoebe waits on the bench outside the nurse’s office, clutching her backpack and coat and sniffling. “Mama,” she says, holding out her arms. Her face is covered by a large bandage and white surgical tape.
“What’s going on, Pheebs? Why are you out here?”
“A kindergartner came in throwing up. The nurse said I should stay in the hall.”
“Good idea,” Diana says, sitting next to her. “I’m going to look at your face, okay?”
Diana pulls off the tape, and Phoebe gasps as her hair sticks to the adhesive. Diana inhales sharply when she sees her daughter’s wound, a bloody streak from chin to cheekbone. “Does it hurt?”
“Not really. Only when I smile.”
“So no smiling, kid.”
Phoebe grins and then winces. Diana adheres the bandage back in place and kisses her nose. “Want to tell me how you got this scratch?”
“Mrs. Morgan, good, I caught you.” Rosemary Sekella comes around the corner, stopping in front of the bench. “The office told me you were here, and the children are at music, so I was able to come talk to you.”
“What happened?” Diana likes Mrs. Sekella. She taught Duncan, too, and Diana had found her fair and encouraging. Duncan still talks about the lizards she keeps in her classroom.
“During recess, Phoebe and another student bumped into each other, and Phoebe fell face-first on the blacktop.” Rosemary scrunches up her face in sympathy. “Phoebe got the brunt of it, I’m afraid. The other child was unharmed.”
Diana picks up Phoebe’s backpack and takes her hand. “Thanks, Mrs. Sekella. I’m sure she’ll be at school tomorrow.”
Diana decides an afternoon of recuperation is in order: unlimited cartoons, along with Oreos and orange juice spiked with seltzer, served with Phoebe’s favorite pink metal straw.
Diana is in the kitchen preparing the snack when the landline rings.
She forgot to turn the ringer off when she last checked the messages, and before she can get to the phone, Tom’s voice fills the house.
Hello! You’ve reached the Morgans. We’re not—
“Hello?” Phoebe says, interrupting the recording. “Hello?”
When Diana enters the office, Phoebe is holding the phone, a quizzical look on her face. “Mama, no one’s talking.”
“Let me have that, honey. You go lie down.” Diana places the phone next to her ear. “Hello?”
There’s silence on the other end, though it’s not the typical delay that comes before a political campaign robocall or telemarketing appeal kicks in. Instead, Diana swears she hears someone breathing. “Who is this?”
She hears a click, and the line disconnects.
Diana turns to the answering machine and presses play.
The twenty-three messages that follow are all hang-ups, and each is from an unknown caller.
For the first time, Diana pays attention to when the calls came in and discovers that each was made on a weekday while she was at work and the kids at school.
She dials *69, a trick she remembers from the pre–cell phone days, but it doesn’t go through.
Whoever is calling has blocked their line.
Are these calls from the people Tom warned her about? Is it the intruder? Diana quickly steps away from the window, as if the caller might be parked in front of her house.
“Mama?” Phoebe yells from the living room. “Can I have my Oreos?”
“Yes, honey. One minute.” Diana turns down the phone’s ringer and stacks a box of pencils on top of the answering machine, preferring to keep the machine hidden from her children.
There’s nothing to do about this now, but be vigilant, she tells herself, closing the shades in the office and moving into the living room to shut the drapes.
After all, these could be wrong numbers.
Diana settles Phoebe on the sofa with her cookies and drink and covers her with a blanket. “Need anything else?”
“Bear Bear. He’s in my room.”
“Of course, Bear Bear,” Diana says, as she checks the lock on the French doors to the backyard. “How could I forget him?” She runs up the stairs and grabs the stuffed animal from Phoebe’s bed.
Confused by Bear Bear’s heft, Diana turns him upside down. A lump shifts inside. She lifts Bear Bear’s shirt. On his belly, a large safety pin closes together a ragged gash. Diana unhooks the pin and peels back the fur. In between the stuffing are dozens of small copper disks. Pennies.
“What the hell?” Diana walks slowly down the stairs, poking her finger inside Bear Bear’s belly. When she reaches the living room, she deposits Bear Bear on the coffee table and removes the pennies.
“Phoebe, what are these doing in here?” Diana starts counting, as if the number of pennies will give her an answer.
“Mama, you aren’t supposed to see them.”
“What do you mean? Why are there pennies inside Bear Bear?”
“They’re from Daddy.” Phoebe speaks in a rush of words. “Grandma said sometimes when people die, they send us messages. These pennies are Daddy’s message to me.”
Diana’s heart stutters, as she clutches some of the pennies in her hand. Others spill out into her lap. She loses count at thirty-six.
“Daddy always picked up pennies when he saw them on the ground. He put them in his pocket for later. So now I look for pennies. They’re everywhere, Mama. Everywhere!” Phoebe smiles, her eyes squinting as she strains her cheek muscles. Her hand flies up to her bandaged cheek. “Ow. I forgot.”
Diana tries to hide her twitching mouth. She has no memory of Tom picking up pennies.
“It’s why I fell today. At recess.” Phoebe looks so tiny, curled up under the blanket, with her long hair spread across the pillow and the bandage obscuring half of her face.
“I saw a penny on the blacktop and ran to get it. A fourth grader was running to catch a football, and we crashed into each other. He fell on his butt, and I fell on my face.” Phoebe digs her hand into the pocket of her jeans. She holds up a penny. “But I got it.”
Don’t cry. Do not cry, Diana thinks. “You love Bear Bear. Why would you cut him open like this?”
“He’s my most special stuffie in the whole world. That makes him the best place for my pennies.”
“How about a piggy bank instead?”
“No, Bear Bear.” Phoebe rubs his ear between her fingers. “Can you close him up? I’d like to snuggle with him.”
“All right,” Diana says, unprepared for how exhausted this conversation has made her.
“You can have some of my pennies, if you want, Mama. I’m sure it would be good with Daddy.”
Parenthood is challenging enough, Diana thinks as she busies herself putting the pennies back into Bear Bear. But handling this on my own? When will it all stop?
After fixing the safety pin in place, Diana hands Bear Bear to Phoebe. “You keep the pennies, honey,” she says, grief coloring each word. “I think that’s what Daddy would want.”
At bedtime, Diana finds Phoebe in her room, reading to Bear Bear, the bedside table lamp dropping a halo of light around them. Diana stops in the doorway and assesses her daughter. A new emotion surfaced with the discovery of the pennies: guilt. For all she’s missed and keeps missing.
“It’s time for sleep.” Diana enters the room and takes the book from Phoebe, setting it on her bedside table. “First, though, I have something for you.”
“A present?”
In Phoebe’s hands, Diana places the small blue ceramic dish Tom kept in their bedroom.
It was where he emptied his discarded change before bed each day.
Diana hadn’t touched it since his death.
After dinner, though, she dusted it off and dumped it onto her bed to sort the coins.
To her astonishment, the dish was filled only with pennies, dozens of them.
“These were your dad’s last pennies. You should have them.”
Phoebe brings the dish up to her face and closes her eyes.
She looks like she’s praying, or sending a message.
She inhales and her eyelids pop open. “Thank you, Mama,” she says, her voice full of awe.
Phoebe makes space next to the lamp for the dish and settles back against the pillow. “See? It’s a sign!”
“A sign?”
“I wanted a message from Daddy, and these pennies are the message.”
Diana wants to run away. Drop everything, leap up and out the door into the night. Run and keep running until all this is over, until moments like this one can’t crush her anymore.
“What’s the message, honey?” she chokes out instead.
“He loves me. More than anything.”
When she’s halfway down the stairs, Diana recognizes the familiarity of Phoebe’s words. When you speak of me to Duncan and Phoebe, tell them their father was imperfect, but he loved them, and you, more than anything.
A coincidence? A higher power? Or are the words common enough? Diana doesn’t know what to believe, though she admires and is even a bit envious of Phoebe’s faith.