Missing by Jonathan Valin Read Free Book Online Page A

last
night. A lot of questions still unanswered. If you don’t feel up to
hearing this, it can wait a day or two."
    "No," she said, "I’ve wanted to talk
to you anyway. If it hadn’t been for the funeral and the aftermath,
I would’ve called you this morning?
    "Should I come out now?"
    "Wait till tonight. Mason’s brother and sister
are at the house right now, and I . . . I just don’t want to deal
with this while they’re around."
    "Okay," I said, "I’ll come about
nine."
    "You promise?" she said in a tiny voice.
    "Sure. You think I’m going to flake out on
you?"
    "People do that, you know."
    "I’ll be there. You can count on it."
 
    7
    TWILIGHT was just descending over Blue Jay Drive,
when I I pulled into Cindy’s driveway at nine sharp. She was
waiting for me on the front stoop, her chin on her knees and her
hands wrapped around the legs of her loose white dress. Even in her
brown study she was more than pretty. It had been a while since I’d
met a woman who made me feel like she did—just to look at.
    "It’s good to see you," she said,
stirring as I came up the walk.
    "And you," I said, smiling at her.
    She reached out a hand, and I helped her to her feet.
"I’ve had Mason’s brother and sister here all day."
    "How was that?"
    She shrugged. "They’re nice, rich, stupid
people who want to feel bad but don’t know how. Neither one of them
has an inkling what Mason’s adult life was like. They cut
themselves off from him once they learned he was gay, so the only
good memories they have are of him as a child. That’s what they
talked about, mostly. What a good swimmer he was. How kind to animals
and other children. Actually they were just exercising their
nostalgia, remembering themselves as kids, trying to work up a little
honest grief. It was depressing and a little revolting, too."
She sighed. "I’m probably being unfair. I’ve been feeling
disappointed with people anyway, lately."
    "It’s normal. You’ve suffered a loss."
    "Have I?" she said with a cynical smile.
"What have you lost when you don’t know the person who’s
been taken from you well enough to realize that he’s on the verge
of taking his own life? Harry, I lived with Mason for three years. I
saw him almost every day of those three years. This is something—"
She threw her hands to her head and combed her fingers through her
curly black hair, pulling it back savagely from her face. "How
could I not know that something was this badly wrong with him? What
kind of person is that blind? And what kind of person would keep this
kind of pain secret from his lover?" Dropping her hands, she
shook her head disgustedly. "Anymore, I don’t know if I knew
Mason at all. Or myself."
    I tried to look sympathetic, following the etiquette
of mourning like friends are supposed to do when people die. But the
truth was that she was right about her lover—he was a jerk to have
abandoned her like he did—and she was wasting her emotions trying
to figure a motive that he himself probably hadn’t fully
understood.
    "I’m sorry to lay this on you," she said,
brushing her eyes with her sleeve. "But I’ve had to play the
gracious widow for the last three days. And I’m tired of it. Come
inside."
    I followed her through the door into the narrow
living room. A half-dozen folding chairs had been set up by the couch
and along the window side of the room to accommodate the mourners.
Paper cups and plates were scattered on the floor. A stack of fresh
plates sat on a card table near the kitchen hall, along with a coffee
machine and the remains of a tea ring.
    "I know it’s a mess," the girl said,
staring morbidly at the room. "There have been a lot of visitors
here. A lot of Mason’s friends from school. A lot of current and
former students. It’s funny how many people loved him."
    "Why funny?"
    She dropped down heavily on the couch. "Because
he obviously didn’t know it, or he wouldn’t have done this
terrible, stupid thing."
    I sat across from her on