Page 24 of Thicker Than Water
His phone chimes with a text. He pulls it out and steps backward. “They’re here. I’ll see you later.” As he turns away from me, he adds, “Afterdrama club.”
I should stop him from leaving. Any other mother would. They’d tell him that visiting his father is nonnegotiable. Or they’d draw him closer, speak until they found a way to sand down his edges. But there was something of my mother in him just now, something bitter and suspicious, ominous as her warnings, that felt like glass beneath my skin. I can see it backfiring, any grasp for honesty, for understanding between us. So I let him go and I don’t say a word.
In his absence, I stare at the family room wall, the giant photographs with which I’ve tried to cover the roosters. In one, Aiden is six years old, perched on Jason’s shoulders at a baseball game. He’s exuberant, cheering, stretching his arms up high. He doesn’t hold on to Jason; instead, he trusts his father will keep him stable, keep him safe. And suddenly, it’s difficult to see them as the same boy—the joyful one in the photo and the sullen one in Converse who just walked away.
Those Converse, though—the ones I’m sure he was wearing in the middle of the night. They’re troubling me again, despite Aiden’s insistence that I’d only been seeing things, that he hadn’t put them on that night to leave the house.
I grab my phone and load the app for our home security system. We hardly ever set the alarm—Jason only had it installed for his occasional business trips, when Aiden and I are home alone—but the app logs every time the front and back doors open and close. I scroll down to early Monday morning, then pull in a breath.
Someone did leave the house. I picture Aiden lacing up his Converse, easing down the stairs so he wouldn’t wake us, and feel my gut clench. Except—according to the app, he didn’t leave just once, but twice. The first time was at 1:41 a.m., and it appears he returned only three minutes later. Then, at 1:58, he left again, coming back at 2:03, shortly before I found him in his room, nervous and disturbed.
Why was Aiden outside so late? I return to my concern from last night that he might have been sneaking out—but he was gone for such a short time. Was he meeting someone? My mind conjures quick, impossible images of a late-night drug deal on the corner of our street. I almost text him, begging for answers, but I know he’ll ignore the message. Instead, I remind myself that, whatever Aiden did that night, he was home safe in the end. I can ask him about it later.
Searching for distraction, I refill my coffee, then move toward my laptop. I take Jason’s receipt—one more mystery clouding my thoughts—and flatten it against the kitchen table. For a single moment of respite, my palm obscures Gavin’s address, but when I lift my hand again, there it is: Jason’s hurried handwriting, whipping my heart into a gallop. I flip it over, practically smacking the table. Now it’s just a regular receipt, a simple coffee order. Nothing suspicious at all.
I force my attention onto my computer. Sienna will be here soon, and in the meantime, I can settle my nerves by touching base with clients, clearing out messages in our inbox. Right now there’s one email from Dale Stapleton, a craft brewer, and seven from Angie Price, the owner of Sweet Love Bakery. As I scan Angie’s emails, I find they’re all stream-of-conscious notes about her business’s history, mission statement, and upcoming product launches. I’m used to her spontaneous, scattered approach; it’s why people need copywriters in the first place, and the act of it—translating complicated,nuanced thoughts into words that are simple and succinct—is as soothing to me as tidying a messy room.
It was Sienna’s idea for us to go into business together. Before that, we were both freelancing; Sienna made graphics for marketing agencies, and I wrote ad copy for talk radio. It was a good way for me to stay home with Aiden while he was young, and sometimes, when Sienna felt cooped up in her apartment, lonely without co-workers, she’d bring her laptop and sketchbooks over so we could work side by side while Aiden played at our feet. The days felt easier with her around—not only because she helped with Aiden, but because we bounced ideas off each other and laughed at our mistakes together (the time I mistyped “public” as “pubic” in an ad, the time Sienna drew a tree that we decided resembled “a penis with problems”).We should do this for real, Sienna suggested one day.Be a team, start our own business. Think how much time we’d get to spend together—and I grabbed her hand, already giddy with the idea.
Jason was skeptical at first. He worried we might clash over projects in a way that could crack the core of our friendship. But Sienna and I weren’t concerned. We knew that our core was uncrushable, fortified by all the ways we offset each other’s flaws. Sienna would handle our more difficult clients, communicating with a clipped, no-nonsense swagger I could never even attempt, and if those conversations escalated, I would keep her from boiling too hot, from spewing anger like lava onto the people whose money and referrals we needed.
This is why, looking at our inbox now, I ignore the message from Dale Stapleton in favor of the ones from Angie Price. Dale tends to be abrasive and arrogant, which means that dealing with him falls firmly into Sienna’s territory. The first time we met with him at his lodge-like brewery, he noticed me taking a back seat in the conversation. That was nothing unusual—I got tongue-tied during pitches,whereas Sienna delivered them effortlessly—but Dale seemed almost offended by my silence.
“And what about you?” he asked, nudging his chin at me. “What’s your part in all this?”
“She’s the copywriter,” Sienna said. “She’ll make the descriptions of your products sound like poetry.”
“My product is beer,” he replied, eyes still leeching onto me. “No need to get all Shakespeare and shit. I’m a simple guy.” He adjusted the brim of his trucker hat. “I’d like to keep things simple, all right?”
“Of course,” Sienna said. “We’re happy to accommodate whatever style you prefer.”
I nodded in agreement, but Dale wasn’t satisfied. He chuckled—meanly, Sienna and I agreed on the drive back home—and flicked another comment my way: “You always let her speak for you?”
I actually flinched, as if he’d thrown his foamy beer in my face. The question seeped into me, reaching someplace deep, and as I clamored for an answer, seconds accumulated—one, two, three—before Sienna uncrossed her legs and planted both feet on the floor.
“Julia is perfectly capable of speaking for herself,” she said, “but I’m helping her out today, because she’s got laryngitis.” At that, Dale leaned back, as if worried I might infect him. “From allergies,” Sienna added.
Later, in the car, I apologized for my awkwardness, to which Sienna reached into the passenger seat and squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “That guy was a dick.” A dick who ended up hiring us, not just for the initial lucrative job, but also for frequent web updates and annual merch designs—and every time, I’ve hardly even communicated with him.
Now I flag Dale’s email with the red “Sienna” label and return to Angie’s messages, which stir no discomfort in me. I don’t get very far, though, because in a minute, the front door opens, Sienna’s feet swishing over the mat.
“I broughtmotatoes!” she calls, and enters the kitchen carrying a doughnut box. Inside are two maple bacon, our favorite, but not even the glistening bacon or thick maple frosting is enough to stoke my appetite. Sienna shoves hers in her mouth, devouring it in four ample bites.
“What’s that?” she asks as I pick at the bacon. She points to the receipt on the table before licking her fingers.
“I found this in Jason’s pocket, in the pants he wore to the conference.” I push the paper closer to her so she can see her brother’s handwriting. “That address? It’s Gavin Reed’s.”
Sienna freezes, one finger still in her mouth. Then she wipes her hand on her pants and picks up the receipt. “Hmm,” she says.
“Hmm? That’s it?”
“Well—yeah.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Why, you think this means something?”
“I have no ideawhatit means, but I’m struggling to understand why Jason had Gavin’s phone in his car and why he wrote down his address—on the night Gavin turned up dead.”
“Okay, first of all, you don’t know he wrote this down that same night.”
“Turn it over. The receipt’s from Friday morning.”
