Missing Pieces. Heather Gudenkauf

phrases that seemed to punch the air from his chest: He was drinking again. I should have stopped her. Stopped him. The roads were wet.

      Sarah wanted to turn and reach for Jack but forced herself to remain facing forward in the kayak, afraid that any movement would cause him to stop talking.

      He flipped the truck. Upside down in a cornfield. Killed instantly.

      Jack’s breath came out in jagged chuffs and Sarah could tell that he was crying. Slowly, carefully, as one might to a skittish animal, she reached behind her and found Jack’s hand.

      A year later they were married, she quit her job as a reporter and they moved to Larkspur to begin a family. In the past twenty years Sarah had wanted to ask Jack so many questions. Not just about the accident and the years that followed, but about what his life was like before his parents died. Simple questions. Did he look more like his mother or his father? What books did she read to him before bedtime or did she call him by a pet name? Did his father teach him to bait a hook or skip rocks across a pond? But every time she broached the subject, Jack would find a way to avoid the conversation. He wouldn’t let her in.

      Jack released Sarah’s hand and ran his fingers through his gray-flecked hair, a nervous gesture that she knew he would repeat a hundred times before they landed. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to come back,” he murmured.

      Jack jiggled his leg up and down, striking the back of the seat with his knee. The man in front of him turned around and glowered with irritation. Jack didn’t notice.

      “I’m sure they understand,” Sarah said, laying a hand on his leg to still it. But she wondered if Jack’s aunt and uncle truly understood how the boy they took into their home could stay away for nearly two decades.

      “I should have called her back.” Jack’s voice caught and he cleared his throat. “It just slipped my mind and I knew she’d call again in a few days.” Jack’s aunt, without fail, called the house each Sunday evening to check in and catch up on the events of their week. But the previous Sunday they were out for a walk and had missed Julia’s call. She had left a message on their machine, but it was late when they returned home and Jack had forgotten to call back the following day.

      When they came home and listened to the message, Sarah had thought she detected a shakiness in Julia’s voice, a tremor that made her think of Parkinson’s. At the time she had dismissed it, but now she wondered if she should have said something to Jack.

      “Do you think that Julia sounded different the last few times she called?” Sarah asked, pulling her cardigan more tightly around herself to stave off the plane’s chilly temperature.

      Jack narrowed his eyes as if mentally shuffling through recent conversations with his aunt. “I don’t think so. What do you mean?”

      Sarah hesitated. “I’m not sure. Has Hal said anything about any health concerns?”

      “No, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t had any problems,” Jack admitted. He tilted his head back against the headrest and stared up at the plane’s ceiling. “I can’t believe they still live in that house,” he said, changing the subject. “It’s too big for two people. And those steps. They’re so steep. I tripped down them all the time when I was a kid. I just can’t believe that someone hasn’t had a bad fall before now. The place is a death trap.”

      Jack crossed his arms in front of his chest and burrowed more deeply into his seat. “We used to go to this pond,” he said as she slid her hand through his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. The comforting scent of his shaving cream and the starch used to iron his shirt filled her nose. “Aunt Julia would pack these elaborate picnics. Strawberries that we’d spent hours picking and pickled herring on crackers, cheese with names we couldn’t pronounce and her homemade bread.” Jack’s voice sounded far away and Sarah hung on his words. “Then we’d all climb into the back of Uncle Hal’s truck and drive down the old mud road to the pond. We’d sit on the bank and fish for hours and would end up with just a few bluegills, a bass if we were lucky. Julia would make a big deal out of each one we caught, though, clapping her hands and jumping up and down.”

      Sarah thought about the times they had taken Elizabeth and Emma fishing. The girls squealing over the wiggling worms that Jack used to bait their hooks. Their delight at Jack pretending to buckle beneath the weight of their catches.

      “Sometimes I can still taste those strawberries.” Jack smiled sadly and Sarah squeezed his hand.

      “It must be hard going back,” Sarah reflected. “Lots of memories.”

      He nodded tentatively, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “Everything seemed so simple then. Easier somehow.” Jack turned to the window then and looked out at the far-reaching landscape below. The world was endless from this vantage point, full of infinite wonder and possibility, and Jack drifted off in thought as he took in the view.

      “I remember on stormy summer nights,” he started, his voice tinged with sadness. “When the power would go out, my mom would scavenge through the cupboards and drawers looking for flashlights.” Sarah’s breath caught in her chest. Jack never spoke about his parents. Ever.

      “Amy and I would grab the clean sheets from the clothesline just before the rain began to fall. Then we’d throw them over the furniture to make forts. We’d pretend the flashlights were our campfire and tell each other stories...”

      Jack looked as if he was going to say more but instead he rubbed his hand across his mouth as if wiping away the thought. He turned back from the window and leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes.

      Sarah wanted to press for more, but she knew this fleeting moment of reminiscence was over.

      As the airplane carried them away from the life they had made together, she watched Jack doze. Behind his closed eyelids she knew that a thousand secret memories drifted. She wanted him to let her in, to know that he was safe. Safe with her. Maybe she couldn’t erase all the sadness and bitterness he was carrying. But she could be there for him and help him through the pain.

      Despite the sad circumstances of their trip to Penny Gate, Sarah was looking forward to seeing the town Jack grew up in. She wanted to drive along the roads that he once traveled, to see the bedroom that he once slept in, to spend time with his family, whom she had only gotten to know over the years through phone calls and birthday cards. She thought it might bring her closer to him.

      She let Jack rest until the pilot’s voice filled the airplane cabin, announcing their impending arrival in Chicago. The fasten-seat-belt light blinked on, and she lightly nudged Jack awake. Down below, the blue expanse of Lake Michigan was edged by miles of skyscrapers. Each drop in altitude was jarring, and Sarah’s stomach churned. She reached for Jack’s hand and closed her eyes, squeezing his fingers tightly until finally the wheels touched the runway.

      They had only fifteen minutes to get to their gate in time to catch their connecting flight to the small airport near Penny Gate, and Sarah scurried to keep up with Jack’s long strides as they wove their way through crowds of travelers, her carry-on bag bumping along behind her.

      When they arrived at their gate, they joined the line of passengers to board their connecting flight. Jack quickly called Hal for an update on Julia’s condition.

      “She hasn’t woken up yet,” he reported grimly when he hung up the phone. “She’s back from X-ray and she has a skull fracture, a broken pelvis and both arms are fractured.”

      Sarah handed her boarding pass to the gate agent. “That’s terrible. Does she need surgery?”

      “I don’t know. Not yet, anyway. They’re watching her closely to make sure there isn’t any bleeding on her brain.”

      They were the last of the fifty passengers to board the full flight. Because of their late booking Sarah’s seat was three rows behind Jack and across the aisle.

      It was just a short thirty-minute flight to the small regional airport near Penny Gate, and as they got closer to their destination, Sarah watched from afar