Page 17 of Ruthless Creatures
“Oh, c’mon. I’ve told you all about him. He’s got a place right on the lake. Three hundred feet of private beach. The tech guy. Any of this ringing a bell?”
Zero bells are ringing, but I nod anyway. “Right. Stavros. Gray sweatpants. I remember.”
She sighs. “You so don’t.”
We stare at each other across the table until I say, “How early does early-onset Alzheimer’s kick in?”
“Not this early. You’re not even thirty yet.”
“Maybe it’s a brain tumor.”
“It’s not a brain tumor. You’re just kind of…” She winces, not wanting to hurt my feelings. “Checked out.”
So Diane the blabbermouthwasright. Groaning, I prop my elbows on the table and drop my head into my hands. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You endured a major trauma. You’re still getting over it. There’s no correct timetable for grief.”
If only there was a body, I could move on.
I’m so ashamed by that thought, my face burns. But the ugly truth is that there is no moving on.
The worst thing about a missing person who’s never found is that those they leave behind can’t really mourn. They’re stuck in a perpetual twilight of unknowing. Unable to get closure, unable to properly grieve, they exist in a kind of numb limbo. Like perennials in winter, lying dormant under frozen ground.
It’s the unanswered questions that get you. The terrible what-ifs that gnaw at your soul with hungry teeth at night.
Is he dead? If so, how did it happen? Did he suffer? For how long?
Did he join a cult? Get abducted? Start a new life somewhere else?
Is he alone out in the woods, living off the land?
Did he hit his head and forget his identity?
Is he ever coming back?
The list is endless. A one-sided, open-ended Q&A that repeats on a loop every waking hour, except you’re only talking to yourself and the answers never come.
For people like me, there are no answers. There is only life in suspended animation. There is only the slow and steady calcification of your heart.
But I’ll be damned if I’ll let my best friend calcify with me.
I raise my head and say firmly, “You’re going on that date with gray sweatpants.”
“Nat—”
“There’s no reason both of us should be miserable. End of discussion.”
She gazes at me with narrowed eyes for a moment, until she sighs and shakes her head. “I don’t like this.”
“Tough. Now text your boy toy that your date is on and finish your lunch.”
I make a show of polishing off my salad as if I’ve got the appetite of a farm animal, because Sloane’s like a grandmother: it always makes her feel better when she sees me eat.
Watching me, she says drily, “I know what you’re doing.”
I answer through a mouthful of salad. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Looking heavenward, she draws a slow breath. Then she deletes whatever she had been typing on her cell and starts over. She sends the message and drops her phone back into her purse. “Happy?”
