Fragile by Lisa Unger Page A

speakerphone,” said Jones, and Ricky obliged with a sullen glance at his father. The call went straight to voice mail. “This isChar. Leave a message—or don’t. What do I care?” Then a heavy strain of punk rock blasted out. Ricky looked around self-consciously.
    “Uh, Char, it’s me. Where are you? Your mom is here. Everyone’s pretty worried. Call me back.”
    He ended the call and kept his eyes on the phone in his hand.
    “If you didn’t get that phone for her, Melody, where did she get it? She doesn’t have a job, right?” asked Jones.
    Melody seemed distracted; she was staring out the window into the backyard.
    “I don’t know,” she said. Her voice sounded weak and small.
    They all looked at Ricky.
    “How should I know?” he said, lifting his palms. “Everyone has a cell phone. I figured her mom got it for her.”
    “You need a credit card to open a mobile account,” said Jones. Maggie waited for him to go on, but he was already walking off, his own cell phone in his hand. He turned back.
    “I need that number,” he said to her.
    Maggie handed him her phone with Charlene’s number still on the screen. He took it and walked off again. She heard him giving the number to someone on the other end. A few moments later, there was a knock at the door, then male voices in the foyer.
    “Who would she have called other than you, Rick?” Maggie asked.
    He gave a slow shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe Britney?”
    Melody shook her head vigorously. “No. I already called.”
    Maggie watched Ricky stare at the ground, shifting from foot to foot. Melody had a shine to her eyes. Jones stood grim-faced in the entrance to the living room, two uniformed officers behind him. Thinking purely as a professional, Maggie thought each of them was off pitch. Melody was too unhinged, considering Charlene had run off in a safe neighborhood after a fight, not for the first time. Ricky was vacant, looking anyplace but into her eyes. Jones was stern and angry, when he should have been helpful and concerned. Even she felt oddly disconnected, floating above the scene. The tightness in her chest was the only sign of the fear and tension she felt.
    She was suddenly aware of the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the foyer—a housewarming gift from her mother. She didn’t even like it but found a general inertia when it came to getting rid of it. It had stood in its place, marking time, for more than a decade. As she walked to the closet, prepared to go out and look for Charlene herself, the clock issued a single chime, announcing the half hour. It was 11:30 P.M.

9
    T he watercolor sky—silver fading to blue fading to black, the high slice of moon and glimmering stars—reminded her that she’d always wanted to paint but didn’t know how, was in some ways afraid of the idea of putting brush to canvas, of making a mark that couldn’t be erased. The idea that she might create something that was laughable, pitiable, or silly had stopped her from ever taking a class or even buying paints. Foolish. It was foolish. If she had a patient tell her such a thing, she’d ask him why he would hold himself back from something that might give him pleasure and peace. Who constituted this imaginary audience of ridiculers and detractors? How might he defend his desire to create something beautiful just for himself? And what, just what exactly, was so horrifying about making such a harmless mistake as a mark on paper that couldn’t be erased? But she didn’t bother asking herself these questions. She just made false promises to herself. Years ago, she would tell herself that she’d have time when Ricky was older. Now it was when Ricky left for school, or when she and Jones retired.
    Her father had been an artist. Her mother had an attic full of his oil paintings and watercolors—landscapes, portraits, still lifes. When Maggie was a girl, there had always been a work in progress on the easel he kept in the dining room, where he liked