Free Payton Hidden Away by Jonathan Korbecki Page A

accident.”
    “At the plant?”
    She nods. “It’s
also the year I got pregnant and gave birth to a still-born baby boy.” She
looks at me, and I can see the fatigue in her eyes. “I named him Anthony.”
    “I’m…sorry.” I
don’t know that I am, but it’s awkward as hell.
    “I think I
cursed God about a hundred times that year. Maybe more.”
    There’s a blob
of chewy meat in my mouth that I can’t bring myself to swallow, and I’m looking
across the table at a girl who apparently named her dead kid after me. I don’t
know who her son’s father was, and I don’t really care to. I didn’t even need
to know that she had been pregnant. Ironically, my eyes drift to her left hand.
There is no ring.
    She smiles,
lifts her hand and wiggles her ring finger for a better view. “Jeff Taylor,”
she says.
    “Jeff Taylor?”
I’m stunned. “The guy whose dad owns Taylor Collision?”
    “Owned,” she
answers. “Past tense. Jeff ran it into the ground. If you ever want to see the
face of ADHD, well, there you go.”
    “What did you
see in him?”
    “I was young and
lonely,” she says, washing her meal down with a sip of ice water. “He was
sweet.” Her glance is accusing. “And he was around .”
    Guilt trip.
    “Anyway,” she
continues, her eyes returning to her meal. “He’s out of the picture.” She chews
for a moment before looking up again, catching me staring.
    “It’s none of my
business,” I mumble.
    “You’re acting
like it is.” When I don’t answer, she continues. “Anyway, by the looks of
things, you’re doing just fine.”
    “By the looks of
what things?”
    “Where do you
live now?”
    “Atlanta.”
    “Can’t be cheap
to live in Atlanta.”
    “I do all
right.”
    “Got a nice
apartment?”
    I smile. “I have
an average apartment.”
    She matches my
smile. “Suits you.”
    “Nothing suits
me.”
    “An apartment
does. You can just pick up and go at a moment’s notice.”
    Guilt trip #2. I’m
not taking the bait. I didn’t fly across the country just to be reprimanded for
a decision I made half a lifetime ago. I don’t remember everything that
happened, but I know enough to know that it wasn’t all my fault. “Why did you
stay?” I ask. “Here, I mean?”
    “You mean after she disappeared?” She pauses, looking at me hard enough to make me feel
uncomfortable. “Why’d I stay?” she asks. “Why’d you come back?”
    I hear her ask
the question, but I don’t answer. I’m barely listening. My mind has drifted,
because the words ‘ after she disappeared ’ are lodged like a kidney stone
in my mind, chiseling at my memory, and suddenly I know why she called.
    “You okay?” she
asks.
    I forgot. I
completely forgot. I mean, I remember Joanne, but I forgot that she went
missing. There was that whole thing—a missing persons—but I wasn’t even here. I
was down in Georgia getting ready for fall semester while they were organizing
huge search parties up here. They traipsed through fields and looked in
abandoned buildings for weeks. Joanne Lambert made front page news from June
until December. My mom gave me all the updates when I called on the weekends,
but—
    They never found
anything.
    “Tony?” she
asks.
    “Yeah?”
    “You okay?”
    “No, I’m not
okay. I don’t remember.”
    “You don’t
remember? Which part?”
    “Any of it. All
of it. I forgot.” I shake my head. “I forgot about her.”
    “About Jo?”
    “How do you
forget something like that?”
    She sits back,
clearly angry. “You forgot ?”
    I shrug.
    “Are you for
real? You forgot ?”
    “What, you think
I’m lying? You think I’m happy about this? I have this big blank spot
that I can’t reconcile, and it’s eating up half my fucking childhood. I can’t
remember anything. When you called this morning, I couldn’t even remember what
you looked like.”
    She stares at me
from across the table, a table which might as well be the Grand Canyon given the
distance between us. I