Dying Breath - Wendy Corsi Staub

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first realtor told Cam and Mike way back when, a great place to raise a family.

      So Montclair it was. With a built-in security system. Because you can’t be too careful…anywhere.

      Not when you’re a mother tormented by visions of real kids in real trouble.

      Cam looks up at her daughter heading up the steps. “Tess? You should pack, tonight or tomorrow morning. Okay?”

      “Yeah.”

      Not very convincing.

      “Don’t leave it for the last minute,” Cam calls, but her daughter is already down the hall, closing the door to her room.

      She sighs, remembering Tess’s little-girl days, when she was always delightful, always delighted.

      When was the last time she heard Tess laugh?

      Really laugh, not the staccato, sarcastic sound she frequently emits these days to express just how ridiculous she finds something—or someone, usually Cam.

      Well, can you blame her? She started a new school, turned fourteen, and her parents split up, all in a matter of months.

      Not exactly a glee-inducing combo.

      Only thing that can top that for Tess will be finding out her soon-to-be single mom is pregnant.

      Cam shakes her head and starts for the kitchen, thinking she needs a glass of—

      Milk. That’s all you get tonight.

      Or ever.

      Cam sighs, longing for wine, for her little girl, for Mike.

      For the life she used to have—or perhaps, for the life she never had at all.

      Okay, so it isn’t the first time over the years that Ike’s caught a glimpse of Brenda—only to have her either vanish into thin air or prove to be a figment of his imagination all along.

      He’s pretty sure he didn’t take a hit of acid earlier when Frankie offered—though, yeah, he remembers taking a hit or two off Jimmy’s joint before they went on. But it’s not like he’s stoned out of his mind, blind drunk, or—despite his age—going senile.

      Maybe it was just wishful thinking.

      Brooding, he twirls the cold, wet beer bottle back and forth between his palms.

      For all he knows, Brenda has been dead all these years, just like Ava.

      Somewhere in the back of Ike’s mind, beneath the weighted shroud of grief and loss, something stirs.

      No.

      More wishful thinking, and you know it.

      Or does he?

      Years ago, there was no DNA testing. Ava’s body—with all recognizable features obliterated in the fall—was identified based on the contents of the wallet in her pocket.

      No one ever questioned it, or the fact that there wasn’t a suicide note. Not even Ike. Not back then, anyway.

      But as the years passed, he began to wonder…

      Would his firstborn child, his beloved, beautiful Daddy’s girl, really have done that to him after all he had been through? Would Ava—after promising to be a stand-in mom to her little sister—have abandoned Cam as well? Was she that distraught over Brenda’s disappearance, or her grades, or a breakup, or any of the things the police said might have caused her to kill herself?

      Anything’s possible.

      And when Ike’s stone sober, he’s usually fairly convinced that it was her. When he’s messed up, though…he believes anything’s possible.

      Like some other girl diving to her death that day with Ava’s wallet in her pocket, and Ava still being alive somewhere.

      Like Brenda showing up in some bar looking for him…

      Or on the street in Philly, or in an Atlantic City dive casino, or at his granddaughter’s eighth-grade graduation, or any of the other places Ike’s glimpsed her—or so he thought—over the years.

      Brenda.

      As hard as it ever was to believe his wife had really chosen to walk away, it’s even harder to fully accept, even now, that she’s never coming back.

      Maybe that’s why he keeps looking for her, for both of them, Bren and Ava, more and more lately.

      Or maybe he’s seeing Brenda because she’s really there.

      Maybe she couldn’t stay away. Maybe she’s been watching him, and Cam, and even Tess, keeping tabs on them. Just waiting for the right moment to come back into their lives.

      Any time now, Bren, Ike silently tells her, wherever she is. Any time.

      “Need another beer, Ike?” Billy asks, and he shakes his head.

      The night is young. It’s time to move on.

      Ike drains his beer and leaves the empty on the bar, then shuffles off toward the door and the neon-lit world beyond.

      “…Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth on a beautiful night here in the Bronx…” the radio sportscaster is saying as, driving past the stately mansions of Montclair, Mike fights the urge to make a U-turn and go back and…

      What?

      Knock on the door and demand that Tess make a decision about where she wants to spend the Fourth of July?

      What would that accomplish?

      She’s not in a reasonable mood. She hasn’t been in a reasonable mood since she turned fourteen and he moved out.

      Nice timing, you selfish jerk.

      Cam didn’t say that, but she wanted to. He could tell. He’s said it to himself enough times since he made what now feels like a stupid, spontaneous decision to jump off what he’d decided was a sinking ship.

      “…The pitcher winds, kicks, and deals…outside, ball one.”

      Poor Tess.

      Never in a million years did Mike ever believe his own daughter would become the product of a broken home. Divorce happens to other people. Not him and Cam.

      Or so he thought, until he woke up one day and asked himself whether he’d be happier with her…or without her.

      The answer seemed so damn clear at the time. As far as he was concerned, they’d hit an all-time low when she refused to accompany him on the February ski trip with his side of the family, an annual Christmas gift from his parents.

      She claimed it was because she didn’t want to take Tess out of school for a week.

      “We’ve always done that, and it’s no big deal.”

      “Now that she’s in high school, she can’t just miss all those days, Mike.”

      “She can take the work with her.”

      “They won’t do that. They’re trying to discourage parents from pulling their kids out for illegal absences.”

      “That’s ridiculous. She’s our kid; we can take her out of school if we want to.”

      “And have her fall behind, and maybe jeopardize her grades? Uh-uh. Let’s just ask your parents to wait until March this year for a change, since that’s when her break is.”

      “Can’t. I’ve got to be in Prague that week,” he said.

      The truth was, Mike hadn’t yet scheduled that particular business trip; he just knew it was coming up.

      But Mike knew how the suggestion that they postpone the ski trip till Tess’s March break would go over with his father. Mike Sr. wasn’t thrilled with Cam’s decision to enroll their daughter in a public high school. He’s a big believer in private school.

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