Their Eyes Were Watching God

(PG 7) He'd tell 'em so too, if he was here. If he wasn't gone.

This verifies the idea that Tea Cake was gone, and that his absence is the reason Janie has come back to the Everglades. She doesn’t actually tell us what happened to him though. He may be gone or dead or she may have done away with him (…fielding… =/). Her tone implies something big happened between them and which leads us to believe we will most likely find out later.