3

For the first time since Gia had known him, Jack looked his age. There were dark rings under his eyes and a haunted look hovering within them. His dark brown hair needed combing and he had been careless shaving.

“I didn’t expect you,” she said as he stepped into the foyer.

It annoyed her that he could just show up like this without warning. On the other hand, she was glad to have him around. It had been a very long, fearful night. And a lonely one. She began to wonder if she would ever straighten out her feelings about Jack.

Eunice closed the door and looked questioningly at Gia. “I’m about to fix lunch, mum. Shall I set an extra place?” The maid’s voice was lifeless. Gia knew she missed her mistresses. Eunice had kept busy, talking incessantly of Grace and Nellie’s imminent return. But even she seemed to be running out of hope.

Gia turned to Jack. “Staying for lunch?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

As Eunice bustled off, Gia said, “Shouldn’t you be out looking for Nellie?”

“I wanted to be here,” he said. It was a simple statement.

“You won’t find her here.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever find her. I don’t think anyone will.”

The note of finality in his voice shocked Gia. “W-what do you know?”

“Just a feeling,” he said, averting his eyes as if embarrassed to admit to acting on feelings. “Just as I’ve had this other feeling all morning that I should be here today.”

“That’s all you’re going on—feelings?”

“Humor me, Gia” he said with an edge on his voice she had never heard before. “All right? Humor me.”

Gia was about to press him for a more specific answer when Vicky came running in. Vicky missed Grace and Nellie but Gia had kept her daughter’s spirits up by telling her that Nellie had gone to find Grace. Jack picked her up and swung her to his hip, but his responses to her chatter consisted mainly of noncommittal grunts. Gia could not remember ever seeing him so preoccupied. He seemed worried, almost unsure of himself. That upset her the most. Jack was always a rock of self-assurance. Something was terribly wrong here and he wasn’t telling her about it.

The three of them trailed into the kitchen, where Eunice was preparing lunch. Jack slumped into a chair at the kitchen table and stared morosely into space. Vicky apparently noticed that he wasn’t responding to her in his usual manner so she went out to the backyard to her playhouse. Gia sat across from him, watching him, dying to know what he was thinking but unable to ask with Eunice there.

Vicky came running in from the back with an orange in her hand. Gia idly wondered where she had got it. She thought they had run out of oranges.

“Do the orange mouth! Do the orange mouth!”

Jack straightened up and put on a smile that wouldn’t have fooled a blind man.

“Okay, Vicks. The orange mouth. Just for you.”

He glanced at Gia and made a sawing motion with his hand. Gia got up and found him a knife. When she returned to the table, he was shaking his hand as if it were wet.

“What’s the matter?”

“This thing’s leaking. Must be a real juicy one.” He sliced the orange in half. Before quartering it, he rubbed the back of his hand along his cheek. Suddenly he was on his feet, his chair tipping over backwards behind him. His face was putty white as he held his fingers under his nose and sniffed.

“No!” he cried as Vicky reached for one of the orange halves. He grabbed her hand and roughly pushed it away. “Don’t touch it!”

“Jack! What’s wrong with you?” Gia was furious at him for treating Vicky that way. And poor Vicky stood there staring at him with her lower lip trembling.

But Jack was oblivious to both of them. He was holding the orange halves up to his nose, inspecting them, sniffing at them like a dog. His face grew steadily whiter.

“Oh, God!” he said, looking as if he was about to be sick. “Oh, my God!”

As he stepped around the table, Gia pulled Vicky out of his way and clutched her against her. His eyes were wild. Three long strides took him to the kitchen garbage can. He threw the orange in it, then pulled the Hefty bag out, twirled it, and twisted the attached tie around the neck. He dropped the bag on the floor and came back to kneel before Vicky. He gently laid his hands on her shoulders.

“Where’d you get that orange, Vicky?”

Gia noted the “Vicky” immediately. Jack never called her by that name. She was always “Vicks” to him.

“In… in my playhouse.”

Jack jumped up and began pacing around the kitchen, frantically running the fingers of both hands through his hair. Finally he seemed to come to a decision:

“All right—we’re getting out of here.”

Gia was on her feet. “What are you—?”

“Out! All of us! And no one eat any thing! Not a thing! That goes for you, too, Eunice!”

Eunice puffed herself up. “I beg your pardon?”

Jack got behind her and firmly guided her toward the door. He was not rough with her but there was no hint of playfulness about him. He came over to Gia and pulled Vicky away from her.

“Get your toys together. You and your mommy are going on a little trip.”

Jack’s sense of urgency was contagious. Without a backward glance at her mother, Vicky ran outside.

Gia shouted angrily: “Jack, you can’t do this! You can’t come in here and start acting like a fire marshall. You’ve no right!”

“Listen to me!” he said in a low voice as he grasped her left biceps in a grip that bordered on pain. “Do you want Vicky to end up like Grace and Nellie? Gone without a trace?”

Gia tried to speak but no words came out. She felt as if her heart had stopped. Vicky gone? No—!

“I didn’t think so,” Jack said. “If we’re here tonight, that might happen.”

Gia still couldn’t speak. The horror of the thought was a hand clutching at her throat.

“Go!” he said, pushing her toward the front of the house. “Pack up and we’ll get out of here.”

Gia stumbled away from him. It was not so much what Jack said, but what she had seen in his eyes… something she had never seen nor ever expected to see: fear.

Jack afraid—it was almost inconceivable. Yet he was; she was sure of it. And if Jack was afraid, what should she be?

Terrified, she ran upstairs to pack her things.