The Night He Said No One

The Drive Home That Never Happened

I spent the next two hours pretending I hadn’t seen it. I told myself it was nothing. A guy can be talked to by someone at a party. A guy can say “no one” because he doesn’t want to explain to his girlfriend who the loud woman behind him is. I was tired, and the fire was warm, and I let myself believe the easy version.

Around one-thirty I went looking for him so we could leave.

He wasn’t on the patio. He wasn’t at the fire. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the basement where people were playing cards. I texted him. I called him. I walked the whole gravel drive with my phone flashlight, checking truck cabs, because I had seen enough of these parties to know that was where people ended up.

Danielle’s white Equinox was gone.

I stood at the end of the driveway for a long time.

Ryan came out and found me there. He had a beer in each hand and offered me one, and I shook my head.

“He leave with her?” I asked.

Ryan looked at the empty spot where the Equinox had been. He didn’t say yes. He didn’t have to.

“Man,” he said. “Kenzie’s gonna kill him.”

“Kenzie’s not going to know,” I said, and I’m still not sure if I meant it as a fact or a plan.

I drove home alone with Brody’s keys in my pocket. I sat up on the couch in case he called and needed a ride. He didn’t call.

Around two-thirty I remembered the location sharing.

We had turned it on for each other a year earlier, after Brody lost his phone at a Huskers tailgate and spent a whole Sunday retracing his steps. Neither of us had ever turned it off. I don’t think he remembered it was on.

I opened the app. His dot was not at the Lindqvists’. It was not at a gas station or a Taco John’s or on the side of a county road.

It was in Bennet. On Pine Street. Across from the grain elevator.

I zoomed in until the map showed the shape of the building. Half a duplex.

I sat there on the couch in the dark and stared at that little circle with his initials in it, and I felt sick in a way I can still feel if I think about it too long. I took a screenshot. I don’t know why. I think some part of me already knew I was going to be the only one who could ever say for sure.

I checked it at three. At four. At five-fifteen. The dot didn’t move.

At 6:41 it started moving toward town. I took another screenshot.

At 7:04 in the morning the front door opened.

He walked past me without a word. I heard the shower run for maybe three minutes. He came out in his work polo, grabbed a protein bar off the counter, took his keys out of the bowl where I had left them, and walked out the door to his job. He didn’t look at me once.

When he came home that night, he was holding a pizza.

“Figured you didn’t eat,” he said, and put it on the counter, and turned on the Royals game, and it was like the night before had been a rumor somebody started.