Daddy's Gone a Hunting

87

Mark called in to the office on Friday morning at nine o’clock to say that he hoped to be there by noon, but he would certainly be in time for the one o’clock client meeting. He had never told his new employer about Tracey. Now he explained, as briefly as he could, to the senior partner at his law firm that the Tracey Sloane who had been in the television news yesterday and in the headlines of today’s papers was his sister.

As quickly as he could without being rude, he managed to cut off the outpouring of condolences he was hearing from his boss. “It’s going to be much easier for my mother and for me to know that Tracey’s remains will be in the family grave with my father,” he said. Then, once again, he declined the sympathetic offer to take the day off and insisted that he would attend the meeting.

He had made the call as he was sitting at the breakfast table with his mother. She had arrived last night on what was supposed to be a five o’clock flight from Chicago but because of the snowy weather there, the flight was delayed. The hour’s difference in time between New York and Chicago meant that it was past ten o’clock when she arrived at LaGuardia Airport, and it was almost eleven by the time they had collected her bags and taken a cab to the apartment.

When they arrived, it was to find the table already set and the food Jessie had ordered waiting for them. A few minutes later they were sharing the platter of assorted sandwiches and the sliced pineapple and strawberries, and then choosing from the selection of petite dessert tarts Jessie had prepared. He had told her that the first thing his mother ever did when she returned home, after she had been out, was to make a cup of tea. Last night Mark had found that the kettle had already been filled, and the teapot with teabags in it was on the stove.

Now Martha Sloane, a robe over her long cotton nightgown, said, “I can’t believe I slept this late, and I can’t believe I slept at all. When I got here last night, I was so afraid that I’d just lie awake thinking and thinking. I didn’t even realize how hungry I was. I hadn’t had anything yesterday except a piece of toast at breakfast. But after that lovely supper, and then finding the bed all turned down and ready for me, I guess I just relaxed and oh, how I needed to do that.”

“You sure did, Mom. You looked exhausted.”

Mark was already dressed to go to the office, except that his collar was open and he had not yet put on a tie. He had earlier told his mother about going to Hannah Connelly’s apartment before he had phoned her on Wednesday evening to tell her about Tracey, and that one of Hannah’s friends, Jessica Carlson, had come down with him while he made the call.

“I guess you know that I was pretty upset, Mom. I hope I didn’t make it harder for you,” he said now.

“No, and I’m glad that you weren’t alone when you called me. It’s good that you had a friend with you.”

“I had just met Jess a few minutes earlier,” he explained. “No, that’s not quite true. I met her and Hannah Connelly the night I moved in here last week. We rode up in the elevator together. Do you realize how impossible it would have been to imagine that we, who were perfect strangers, would meet and then find out that Hannah’s family owns the property where Tracey’s body was found?”

When he spoke of Tracey, he was deliberately using the word body. He did not want his mother dwelling on the image of what had been found in the sinkhole. A skeleton with a cheap necklace still clasped around its throat.

They sat quietly for a moment, then Martha said, “It does seem impossible, Mark. Do you remember that quote from Byron, ‘stranger than fiction’?”

“Yes, of course.”

“’Tis strange-but true, for truth is always strange. Stranger than fiction.”

“That certainly applies in this case,” Mark said, fervently. He sipped his second cup of coffee. He knew that now they were both preparing themselves for what was going to happen. After his mother got dressed, they were going to the medical examiner’s office to arrange for Tracey’s remains to be shipped to the funeral director in Kewanee. Next week there would be a funeral mass, and Tracey would be buried with their father in the cemetery only a few miles from the house. Tracey would finally be home.

Putting off the moment when he would once again suggest that he go alone to the medical examiner’s office, he said, “Mom, Jess is a lawyer. She’s very smart and she’s very kind.”

Martha Sloane’s maternal instinct told her that her son liked this lady very much. “I’d love to meet her at some point, Mark. Tell me about her.”

“She’s about thirty. She’s tall, slender, with lovely red hair down to her shoulders.” He did not tell his mother that when he had finished speaking with her the other night, after he hung up the phone, he had burst out sobbing and buried his face in his arms at the table. Jessie had leaned over, put her arms around him, and said, “Let it out, Mark. You need to cry.”

Later, when Jessie knew he hadn’t had dinner, she had scrambled eggs for both of them. Then yesterday, she had phoned to see how he was doing, and when she learned his mother was coming in fairly late, she asked if it would be okay to leave something light to eat in his apartment. “I’m sure she won’t want a heavy dinner,” she had said, “so if you drop off your key in Hannah’s mailbox, I’ll get something in for you both. There’s a gourmet deli in your neighborhood that you probably don’t know about yet. I’ll pick up something there. Anyhow, Hannah and I will be going out to dinner nearby, so it’s simply no trouble.”

Martha Sloane pushed back her chair. “Now, Mark, before you start suggesting again that I wait for you here while you go to make Tracey’s arrangements, I’m going to shower and get dressed. We will do this together.”

Mark knew better than to argue. He cleared the table and loaded the few breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, then walked into the living room to wait for his mother. He sensed that there was something different about the room. He looked around and then realized what it was. The pictures he had laid on the floor in anticipation of hanging them over the weekend were already on the wall in the exact spots he had marked for them.

Obviously, Jessie had done that, too. I’ll invite her to have dinner with Mom and me tonight, Mark thought. I know Mom wants to meet her and thank her for being so thoughtful. And so do I. I’ll call her right now.

When he walked into his bedroom to make the call and to get his tie and jacket, Mark had a spring to his step that had not been there since before Tracey left home. Since the time when she used to pitch to him in the backyard or take him to the movies and buy him candy or popcorn. Or both.