Russell and Shannon went back to Shannon’s place, where they found Arietta on the veranda. The nurse was in, tending to Shannon’s father, and Arietta was bright and sunny, asking Russell and Shannon how their day was going. In her eyes, Shannon saw a thousand questions about what Shannon and Russell were up to and whether their relationship had changed.
Rather than answer, Shannon made an announcement. “Russell and I are going back to New Haven tonight,” she said.
Arietta closed the book she’d been reading. Her smile melted off her face. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened,” Shannon said, trying to smile. “I’ve been here a little longer than I planned for, and I need to take care of a few things for next semester. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Honey, you don’t need to worry about me,” Arietta said firmly. “Now that I have the nurses coming, I’m really happy here. I have a good flow.”
“I want to be here,” Shannon said, glancing at Russell. “It’s been lovely spending time with you.”
As she said it, Shannon was surprised to find how true it was. She’d always been closer to her mother than her sisters were. She’d always been closer than she’d been to her father. But over the previous few weeks, Shannon and Arietta had lived side by side, forging a routine that kept Fred’s comfort a priority. They were also up against the blackmailers, whoever they were.
“I promise, I’ll be back soon,” Shannon said. She knelt and scooped her mother into a hug, telling herself that everything would be all right.
The reality was that she didn’t know what she and Russell were getting themselves into.
They decidedto take Russell’s car back to campus. Shannon was too jittery to drive, and Russell said he liked to feel “in control” when things were so topsy-turvy. Shannon ached with attraction for him. On the ferry, Shannon wrapped her arms around him and watched as the island receded into the horizon.
“You look a lot like your mom,” Russell said suddenly.
Shannon pulled her head back to gaze up at him. She’d always thought her mother was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen, that she had an elegance that Shannon herself would never be able to present.
“I’m sure my sisters look more like her than I do,” she said.
Russell shook his head and kissed her cheek. “I’ve met your sisters, remember? They’re nothing like her. Not like you.”
When Shannon and Russell reached New Haven, it was nearly nightfall. They went immediately to Shannon’s apartment, where she unpacked her things as they strategized how they would do what they’d come to do. According to social media, Dina was still in and around campus, and according tofriends of friends (which they texted for information as breezily as they could), Dina had been seen at a bar not far from campus numerous times that summer. People said that her boyfriend worked there.
“What if we just, like, smack the photo of my dad and Dina onto the table in front of Dina’s new boyfriend?” Shannon suggested, furrowing her brow. “Maybe the boyfriend will freak out and make Dina explain herself?”
“Maybe,” Russell offered, although he didn’t sound sure about any of it.
Shannon knew it was a loose plan at best. What she hated to admit was that Officer Turnwell was right. Just because Dina and Fred had had a relationship didn’t mean Dina was the one blackmailing her mother. Before her father’s stroke, Dina and Fred had been two consenting adults. They’d fallen in love of their own accord.
It wasn’t like Shannon could dispute that.
More than that, now that her father’s life was, in many respects, over, Shannon had complicated feelings about her father’s love life. Because his body had failed him, because his mind was gone, Fred couldn’t love any longer. He couldn’t feel anything, as far as she knew. Was it better that he’d been allowed another love while he was conscious?
When she said this aloud to Russell, Russell took her in his arms and said, “You can be angry with your father for cheating on your mother, you know. Even though he is the way he is now.”
“I know that,” she whispered. “But I don’t want to be angry. It feels like a wasted emotion.”
They held each other like that for a few minutes, each of them stirring in thoughts about romance and what it means to love someone “till death do us part.”
At nine thirty that evening, Russell and Shannon entered the bar where Dina frequently drank beers, hung out, and maybe flirted with the bartender, her boyfriend.
When Shannon and Russell slid into a booth, they saw Dina’s boyfriend behind the counter, filling a glass with beer from the tap. He was chatting to a woman Shannon knew from the neuroscience program. Her name was Georgina, and she came from Alaska. There were rumors that she was about to fail out of Yale. From the looks of things, she didn’t seem panicked about it. Shannon watched as Dina’s boyfriend poured her another beer.
“Shannon?” Georgina spotted her and waved. “Where have you been?”
Shannon felt drawn into her orbit. It was now or never. She moved toward the bar, her heart pounding. She felt the bartender’s eyes burning into her as she fell into a hug with Georgina. “I was out of town,” she said. “Visiting family.”
“Oh, right. Your poor dad,” Georgina said, squeezing her shoulder.
At this, Shannon thought that the bartender’s eyes flickered with recognition, as though he’d suddenly realized who Shannon was. Unless she was imagining things? It was so hard to tell.
She wasn’t a spy. But she was a neuroscientist, accustomed to searching for clues under a microscope. Surely, that should help her in this case. Surely, she could pick up small details.