Chapter 76: Bonus Chapter 4: The Words He Never Said

Every time she drank it, she would let out that deeply satisfied little sigh, then say, “Nathan, you have to become a chef someday.”

“Why?”

“Because then I can drink your soup every day.”

“I can make it for you every day now.”

“That’s different. A chef is a real job. You get paid.”

“Don’t I already hand my whole paycheck over to you?”

“That’s different.”

She could never explain exactly what was different.

She was just being shameless.

And he had loved the way she was shameless with him.

Nathan lowered the heat and stared at the soup rolling in the pot.

White steam rose and blurred his vision.

He blinked once.

The steam thinned.

The kitchen was still the same kitchen.

Empty.

Only him.

That night, Nathan wrote in his journal.

By then, he had filled a thick stack of notebooks. He had started the day she disappeared and had not missed a single day since.

Every entry began with Chloe.

Sometimes he wrote for pages. Sometimes only a few lines.

But he never sent any of them.

There was nowhere to send them.

Chloe,

I miss you.

I made the chicken noodle soup you loved today. Somehow it didn’t taste as good as it used to when you were here. Maybe my cooking has gotten worse. Or maybe it’s because you weren’t here.

When you come back, I’ll make it for you again.

Good night.

He closed the journal and put it into the drawer.

The drawer was almost too full to shut now, packed tight with notebooks, each one heavy with words that had nowhere to go.

He turned off the light and lay down in bed.

Moonlight slipped through the window, drawing a small patch of silver-white across the floor.

Nathan closed his eyes.

In his ears, he could almost hear her voice.

“Nathan, good night.”

“Good night, Chloe.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

She had once said they had to say good night every day.

“Even if we fight. Even if we’re mad at each other. We still have to say it. Because no one knows what might happen tomorrow, so the last thing we say today has to be ‘good night.’”

Back then, he had thought she was making a big deal out of nothing.

Now he understood.

She had been right.

No one knew what might happen tomorrow.

So the last thing he should have said that day was, “I love you.”

He never got the chance.

On the phone that morning, she had said so much, and he had not answered in time.

Then the call had cut off.

That sentence stayed lodged in his throat.

Twenty-three years.

And still, he had never been able to say it to her.

2012 · Spring

The rain fell for an entire day and night.

Nathan remembered it with brutal clarity, because he had been driving through it with the wipers turned to their highest setting, and he still couldn’t see the road ahead. Water poured over the windshield like a waterfall. The sky was the color of sheet lead, pressing so low it looked ready to collapse.

He and Alvin were heading toward a small town in the Midwest.

Someone had called in a lead.

They said a man who owned a farm had been keeping a woman of “unknown origin.”

It was not the first lead.

Not even close.

Over the years, there had been too many like it. Some came from people who genuinely wanted to help. Some came from lonely old men who had seen a poster and mistaken a stranger for Chloe. Some came from people who had seen the posters and thought they had recognized her.

Most of them were false.

Alvin still refused to let a single one go.

So did Nathan.

Because even a false lead meant someone had seen her face.

Someone had remembered.

Someone, somewhere, had thought of Chloe and picked up the phone.

That alone was enough.

The car crawled along the mountain road. On one side stood a steep wall of rock and soaked earth. On the other, the road dropped into a deep ravine, the bottom swallowed by rain and fog.

The storm worsened by the minute. Every so often, loose stones tumbled down the slope and struck the roof of the car with dull, heavy thuds.

Nathan tightened his hands around the steering wheel until his knuckles went pale.

“Dad, we should pull over somewhere. The rain’s too heavy.”

Alvin leaned forward slightly, squinting through the sheet of water across the windshield.

“Keep going a little farther. I remember a gas station up ahead.”

He had barely finished speaking when a deep rumble rolled down from the hillside in front of them.

It wasn’t thunder.

Thunder cracked open the sky.

This sound came from beneath them.

Low. Heavy. Ancient.

Like some buried beast had opened its throat inside the mountain.

The road trembled. The steering wheel shuddered in Nathan’s hands.

He looked up.

The hillside ahead was moving.

Mud and rock poured downward like a second, darker waterfall.

Not in the slow-motion way disasters happened in movies. Not with time to scream, calculate, pray, regret, bargain.

Fast.

Violent.

Unstoppable.

As if some giant hand had pushed the whole mountain toward them.

“Dad, watch out!”

Nathan jerked the wheel.

The car fishtailed across the slick road. Tires screamed against wet asphalt, the sound sharp enough to split the rain.

He reached across the center console, grabbed the passenger door handle, and shoved it open with everything he had.

Then he pushed Alvin out.

After that, the world vanished.

When Nathan woke, he was lying in a pile of shattered stone.

Pain had become the whole universe.

Not pain in one place. Not a broken arm, a cut lip, a bruised rib. This pain came from between his bones, from every cell, from every place where his body had been crushed and badly reassembled. Every seam screamed.

His right leg had no feeling.

He tried to move it.

Nothing answered except a brighter, vicious wave of pain that tore through him so hard his vision went white.

Rain struck his face, cold as needles.

He opened his eyes.

Everything was blurred.

The sky was still gray. The rain was still falling. He had no idea how much time had passed.

“Nathan! Hold on! I’m getting help!”

Alvin’s voice came from very far away.

So far it sounded as if a thick wall stood between them.

Nathan tried to answer. His mouth opened, but only a thin breath escaped.

“Chloe…”

Footsteps retreated.

The rain swallowed everything else.

Nathan lay there and stared at the colorless sky.

Raindrops fell directly into his eyes. He blinked, and the world blurred even more.

Consciousness began to leak out of him grain by grain, like sand slipping through loosened fingers.

And then, as if some cruel hand had reached into his mind and turned a key, he thought of Chloe.

Not a distant memory.

Not an old photograph.

Her voice.

That final message.

Honey, I should be home around four or five tonight. How about Popeyes for dinner? I want the Cajun chicken sandwich, four spicy tenders, and a large red beans and fried rice. Love you! XOXO!

She had said so much.

He had not had time to answer.

Then the call ended.

He had thought she would be home soon.

He had thought they had plenty of time.

He had not known that would be the last time he ever heard her voice.

If he had known, he would have said it.

Chloe, I love you too.

Be careful on the road.

Come home soon.

I’ll be waiting.

He had said none of it.

He had written the last set of data into his lab notebook and told himself he would call her back when she got home.

He could not have known that phone call would never connect again.

“Chloe…”

His lips moved. His voice was light as a fallen leaf.

The rain was too loud.

No one heard him.

He closed his eyes.

He didn’t want to open them.

He was tired.

So tired.