“I understand,” he pleaded. His grip on my sleeve tightened. “Please.” Every word was a struggle. “I still understand.”
That was all he said. But it was enough. What I took it to mean was this: “Even though I can’t speak or respond, I comprehend. Please don’t shut me out.” For a while, the doctors agreed. He had expressive aphasia. Then he had another stroke, and the doctors became less sure of what he did and did not understand. I don’t know if I apply my own version of Pascal’s Wager here—if he understands me, then I should talk to him, if he doesn’t, what’s the harm?—but I figure that I owe him that. So I talk to him. I tell him everything. And right now, I was telling him about Dina Levinsky’s visit—“Do you remember her, Dad?”—and the hidden CD.
Dad’s face was locked, immobile, the left side of his mouth turned down in an angry slash-hook. I often wished that he and I never had that “I understand” conversation. I don’t know which is worse: to be beyond comprehension, or to understand how trapped you really are. Or maybe I do know.
I was making the second turn, the one by the new skateboard run, when I spotted my former father-in-law. Edgar Portman sat on a bench, splendid in his casual best, his legs crossed, his pants crease sharp enough to slice tomatoes. After the shootings, Edgar and I tried to keep up a relationship that had never existed when his daughter was alive. We had hired a detective agency together—Edgar, of course, knew the best—but they came up with nothing. After a while, Edgar and I both grew weary of the pretense. The only bond between us was one that conjured up the worst moment of my life.
Edgar’s being here could, of course, have been a coincidence. We live in the same town. It would only be natural to bump into one another from time to time. But that wasn’t the case. I knew that. Edgar was not one for casual park visits. He was here for me.
Our eyes met, and I wasn’t sure I liked what I saw. I wheeled the chair toward the bench. Edgar kept his eyes on me, never glancing down at my father. I might as well have been pushing a shopping cart.
“Your mother told me I’d find you here,” Edgar said.
I stopped a few feet away from him. “What’s up?”
“Sit with me.”
I set my father’s chair on my left. I lowered the brake. My father stared straight out. His head lolled toward his right shoulder, the way it does when he gets tired. I turned and faced Edgar. He uncrossed his legs.
“I’ve been wondering how to tell you this,” he began.
I gave him a little space. He looked off. “Edgar?”
“Hmm.”
“Just tell me.”
He nodded, appreciating my directness. Edgar was that kind of man. Without preamble, he said, “I got another ransom demand.”
I reeled back. I don’t know what I had expected to hear—maybe that Tara had been found dead—but what he was saying . . . I couldn’t quite comprehend it. I was about to ask a follow-up question when I saw that he now had a satchel in his lap. He opened it and pulled something into view. It was in a plastic bag—just like the last time we went through this. I squinted. He handed it to me. Something ballooned in my chest. I blinked and looked at the bag.
Hairs. There were hairs inside it.
“This is their proof,” Edgar said.
I could not speak. I just looked at the hairs. I laid the bag gently on my lap.
“They understood that we would be skeptical,” Edgar said.
“Who understood?”
“The kidnappers. They said they’d give us a few days. I immediately brought the hairs to a DNA laboratory.”
I looked up at him and then back at the hairs.
“The preliminary results came in two hours ago,” Edgar said. “Nothing they could use in court, but it’s still pretty conclusive. The hairs match the ones sent to us a year and a half ago.” He stopped and swallowed. “The hairs belong to Tara.”
I heard the words. I didn’t understand them. For some reason, I shook my head no. “Maybe they just saved them from before. . . .”
“No. They have aging tests too. Those hairs came from a child around two years old.”
I guess that I knew that already. I could look and see that these were not my daughter’s wispy baby hairs. She wouldn’t have them anymore. Her hair would have darkened and thickened. . . .
Edgar handed me a note. Still in a fog, I took it from him. The font was the same as from the note we’d gotten eighteen months before. The top line over the fold said:
WANT ONE LAST CHANCE?
I felt the thud deep in my chest. Edgar’s voice seemed suddenly far away. “I probably should have told you immediately, but it seemed an obvious hoax. Carson and I didn’t want to get your hopes up unnecessarily. I have friends. They were able to rush through the DNA results. We still had hairs from the last mailing.” He put a hand on my shoulder. I did not move.
“She’s alive, Marc. I don’t know how or where, but Tara is alive.”
My eyes stayed on the hairs. Tara. They belonged to Tara. The sheen, that golden-wheat hue. I petted them through the plastic. I wanted to reach inside the bag, to touch my daughter, but I thought my heart would burst.
“They want another two million dollars. The note warns us again about calling the police—they claim to have an inside source. They sent another cell phone for you. I have the money in the car. We have another twenty-four hours maybe. That was the window they gave us for the DNA testing. You’ll have to be ready.”
I finally read the note. Then I looked over at my father in his wheelchair. He still stared straight ahead.
Edgar said, “I know you think I’m rich. I am, I guess. But not like you’d think. I’m leveraged and . . .”
I turned toward him. His eyes were wide. His hands shook.
“What I mean to say is that I don’t really have that many liquid assets left. I’m not made of money. This is it.”
“I’m surprised you’re doing this at all,” I said.
The words, I could see immediately, wounded him. I wanted to take them back, but for some reason I didn’t. I let my eyes drift back toward my father. Dad’s face remained frozen, but—I looked closer—there was a tear on his cheek. That didn’t mean anything. Dad has teared up before, usually with no apparent provocation. I did not take this as any kind of sign.
And then, I don’t know why, I followed his gaze. I looked across the soccer field, past the goalposts, past two women with Baby Joggers, all the way to the street nearly a hundred yards away. My stomach dropped. There, standing on the sidewalk, looking back at me with his hands in his pockets, was a man wearing a flannel shirt and black jeans and a Yankee cap.