Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [62]
Nora Ray’s mother hadn’t been to the office now in years. Nora Ray didn’t even know if she’d ever officially quit. More likely she’d walked out one day after getting a call from the police, and she’d never been back since.
The lawyers had been nice about it. They’d volunteered their services for a trial that never happened in a case where the perpetrator was never caught. They kept Abigail on the payroll for a while. Then they put her on a leave of absence. And now? Nora Ray couldn’t believe her mom still had a job after three years. No one was that nice. No one’s life stayed frozen for that long a period of time.
Except, of course, for Nora Ray’s family. They lived in a time warp. Mary Lynn’s room, painted sunshine yellow and lined with blue ribbons and horse trophies, remained exactly the same day after day. The last pair of dirty jeans she’d tossed in the corner were still waiting for an eighteen-year-old girl to come home and throw them in the wash. Her hairbrush, filled with long strands of brunette hair, sat on top of her dresser. A tube of pink lip gloss was half-opened next to the brush. Ditto the tube of mascara.
And still taped to the mirror above the dresser was the letter from Albany State University. We are proud to inform you that Mary Lynn Watts has been formally accepted into the freshman class of 2000 . . .
Mary Lynn had wanted to study veterinary sciences. Someday she could work full-time saving the horses she loved so much. Nora Ray was going to become a lawyer. Then they would buy farms side by side in the country, where they could ride horses together every morning before reporting to their high-paying and no doubt highly rewarding jobs. That’s what they had talked about that summer. Giggled about, really. Especially that last night, when it had been so friggin’ hot, they had decided to head out for ice cream.
In the beginning, right after Nora Ray came home and Mary Lynn didn’t, things had been different. People stopped by, for one thing. The women brought casseroles and cookies and pies. The men showed up with lawn mowers and hammers, wordlessly attending to small details around the house. Their little home had hummed with activity, everyone trying to be solicitous, everyone wanting to make sure that Nora Ray and her family were all right.
Her mother had still showered and put on clothes in those days. Bereft of a daughter, she at least clung to the skeletal fabric of everyday life. She got up, put her hair in rollers, and started the pot of coffee.
Her father had been the worst back then. Roaming from room to room while constantly flexing his big, work-callused hands, a dazed look in his eyes. He was the man who was supposed to be able to fix anything. He’d built their deck one summer. He did odd jobs around the neighborhood to help pay for Mary Lynn’s horse camp. He painted their house like clockwork every three years and kept it the neatest one on the block.
Big Joe could do anything. Everyone said that. Until that day in July.
Eventually people stopped coming by so much. Food no longer magically appeared in the kitchen. Their lawn was no longer mowed every Sunday. Nora Ray’s mom stopped getting dressed. And her father returned to his job at Home Depot, coming home every night to join her mother on the couch, where they would sit like zombies in front of a score of mindless comedies, the TV spraying their faces with brightly colored