Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense

by Joyce Carol Oates

What’s a prenup, I asked, and Caitlin turned to me with a sneer: “ ‘Prenuptial,’ Steff. Everybody knows what a ‘prenuptial’ is.”

  The way Caitlin said Steff made me want to slap her. Like my name wasn’t a serious name and could be shortened to some ugly syllable while her name was such a special name, she would not allow anyone to shorten it to Cate.

  Mom explained to me what a prenuptial was. A kind of legal contract Mr. Lesinger had asked her to sign, to acknowledge that she would receive a “fixed sum” in the event of his death, and would be allowed to continue to live in Mr. Lesinger’s house though she would not be the legal owner of the house, while the estate would be divided among the Lesinger heirs.

  This did not sound right to me. Caitlin said she’d rather die than sign any contract like that—”If a man loved you, he wouldn’t ask you to sign.”

  Mom’s face reddened as if she’d been slapped. She told Caitlin she was speaking in ignorance. “There are different kinds of love. One day you’ll find out.”

  But Caitlin just laughed and walked away, as if Mom was the most pitiful case she’d ever seen.

  Did I hate my sister Caitlin? No.

  Did I want to hurt my sister Caitlin? No!

  3.

  Mostly this was a happy time for our mother, after a long unhappy time. It was a happy time for Caitlin and me, too—at least, it was meant to be.

  We lived in a bigger house now, on three acres of land edging Mineral Lake. We had a step-father now, not just a father who’d abandoned us. (As Mom used to tell anyone who’d listen.) Instead of a dumped wife Mom had become a new wife.

  Mom was proud of her new name—Mrs. Martin Lesinger. In the kitchen I found a piece of paper with Mrs. Deborah Lesinger and Mrs. Martin Lesinger written on it a half dozen times in red ink, that I ripped up and threw away. Embarrassing!

  Caitlin and I still had our old name, which was our father’s name—Doherty. When he’d had a few beers Mr. Lesinger spoke of adopting us which made Caitlin laugh, and made me want to run away and hide.

  Caitlin was sixteen. I was thirteen. Too damn old to be adopted.

  Anyway, could a man adopt another man’s kids? Was that legal? Even if Dad had left us and moved a thousand miles away (as Mom was always accusing) he was still our father, and Doherty was our name.

  It was just after my eleventh birthday that Dad left. Later he said he’d waited until then on purpose, so as not to spoil my birthday on March 5. (But every March 5 after that would be poisoned by the memory. Funny Dad hadn’t thought of that.)

  Dad told us he’d left not because he’d stopped loving us—that is, Caitlin and me—but because Your mother and I no longer make each other happy.

  That is a scary thing, I think. As soon as you fail to make a person happy, they can leave you.

  We knew that Mom and Dad had been arguing a lot but we had not taken it too seriously. For a long time they’d been arguing about the least little thing you could imagine like who had gotten gas for the car last or who’d left the thermostat too high. Or, when Dad spilled something in the refrigerator, he’d called for Mom to come clean it up, without giving a thought to cleaning it himself.

  Near as Caitlin and I could figure our parents never argued about anything real at all.

  Of course, we didn’t know what they argued about when they were alone in their bedroom at the rear of the house. When they shut the door to that room with them inside.

  In a family, one day is not so different from any other. Especially when you are very young—a “child.” The important thing in life is routine. You can depend upon routine. There is comfort in routine. There is even comfort in the boredom of routine, for where there is boredom there cannot be fear.

  Then one day, when Mom was at work, and Caitlin and Kyle and I were at school, something happened that had not ever happened before: Dad came back to the house in our absence, methodically packed his things into suitcases, backpacks, and boxes, and left.

  Just left. Like that. And never came back.

  It was hard to forgive Dad for telling Kyle beforehand. So Kyle was not so stunned. But Caitlin and me, and of course Mom, were really stunned.

  Some shocks, you never get over.

  Each morning when you wake up there is a sliver of time before you remember what it was that has happened, that cut your life in two so you have thought I will never be happy again. So for that instant you can be happy. But then your memory sweeps over you like dirty water and of course you remember what it is, or was—what it was that had happened, that cut your life in two and can’t be changed.

  Dad moving out was like that. When we came home and he was gone it was like some kind of scene in a movie, where people are made to look like fools for being so taken by surprise. Being shocked, starting to cry—an audience will laugh at you for being so clueless.

  Afterward I could not remember how we learned where Dad had gone. Maybe Kyle told us. Or, Kyle told Mom. I think it was that—Kyle took Mom out onto the porch to tell her. Must’ve been something like Dad is gone and says he isn’t coming back. He says not to try to get in contact with him.

  Kyle was such a jerk, we could not ever forgive him. To keep from crying he kept making stupid jokes.

  Of course we could see that Dad’s things were gone. He’d swept his clothes out of the closets—his big jackets, in the front hall closet—so roughly, other things had fallen to the floor which he hadn’t taken time to hang back up, or hadn’t noticed. Not until the next morning did he call Mom, by which time Mom was in a very bad state.

  It would turn out that in an argument Mom had told Dad—”If you’re so damned unhappy all the time, just move out. We won’t miss you!”

  Mom had said such things in the past. Mom had sometimes screamed such things in the past. But Dad hadn’t seemed to take it seriously, he’d just say something harsh and hurtful in reply, and it was soon forgotten, like water rushing along a riverbank. Except this time Dad had decided not to forget.

  “Your mother told me to move out,” Dad would tell us, with a smirk. “—and so I did. Hope she’s happy now.”

  Saying such things meant that Dad wanted Caitlin and me to take his side against Mom. And maybe we did, sometimes. But we had to live with Mom and not with Dad, who didn’t have room in his life for us (he said) but who’d agreed to take Kyle (there were special circumstances with Kyle).

  Mom would say, in disgust—Your father has abandoned us. She’d say Your father is a rat abandoning a sinking ship. But she’d try to laugh to show that this was a joke, sort of.

  Hearing that the family would be “split” I seemed to see something like a great tree that has been split down its center with an ax.

  For a long time Mom refused to speak of Dad at all. If she had to refer to Dad she would say your father. If she was speaking to someone else she would say The girls’ father. (As if Kyle, who wasn’t living with us then, did not exist.) Mom’s lips twisted like there was a bad taste in her mouth, or she was trying hard not to cry.

  In this way our lives that had seemed so familiar and so routine became strange and shaken-up and complicated like a snarled ball of yarn. When Dad first left there were four of us left behind—Kyle, Caitlin, Mom, and me. Dad was supposed to see Kyle, Caitlin, and me on weekends except Dad’s life was “difficult to schedule” and often he had to cancel; sometimes, he just didn’t show up. Much of the time we had no idea where he was living, whether he was living alone or with someone. At one point he’d moved so far away, to Port Oriskany in New York State, it was a round-trip of two hundred miles, so coming to see us, to pick us up to take us to a movie and supper, was a hassle and Dad tended to blame us for it. Mom was having issues with Kyle “acting out” (Mom’s term) so she and Dad decided that Kyle should live with Dad, at least temporarily, so Kyle went to live with Dad in Port Oriskany and started school there but then Dad moved again, back to Pennsylvania, to Jamestown which was closer to Morgantown at least. By this time Kyle was out of school but living
at home and trying to get work. And then Dad got “remarried.”

  This was a real shock to Mom. Such a shock, you could surmise that Mom had (secretly) been hoping that Dad would return to her.

  Poor Mom! Caitlin and I were ashamed for her then.

  It sometimes happened, that people who’d been divorced would reconcile, and “remarry.” It was a TV kind of happy ending. Though it happened so rarely you could almost say that it never happened, yet you wanted it to happen, you wanted to believe it might happen to you and your family.

  Did I believe, sort of? Maybe.

  But seeing how pathetic Mom was, I wouldn’t have ever told her.

  I was twelve years old and a tall “husky” girl for my age—almost as tall as Caitlin. I hid away to cry—I was ashamed of being so weak. I hated it when Caitlin cried which was mostly to get her way, not out of actual sorrow or grief but to make people feel sorry for her and do favors for her.

  When Mom cried it was angry crying. Tears spilled down her cheeks that looked scalding. You had to run away!

  It was around this time that Caitlin bleached her hair, and put purple and green streaks in it. Caitlin got her ears pierced, and a silver piercing in her nose, and started wearing the kind of sexy clothes Dad wouldn’t have allowed her. (Dad was always saying he knew what guys are thinking when they see a girl dressed in a provocative way—”And it ain’t nice. Take my word.”) Caitlin became pushy and snotty and took out her bed temper on me.

  Used to be, we’d been friends. Now, we were barely sisters.

  Like Kyle I had “issues” at school so they sent me to the school psychologist who kept pretending to be sympathetic with me, encouraged me to cry if I needed to cry, pushed a box of Kleenex at me, and tried to get me to admit that I “hated” my parents for breaking up our home; I had to hate my mother for sending my father away, and I had to hate my father for leaving. But none of this was true. The only person I hated was the psychologist.

  I did not hate my parents at all. I felt sorry for Mom, and all I wanted was for Dad to come back, we would all forgive him.

  Then one day some older kids were pushing me in the cafeteria line, and I pushed back, and a kind of flame ran through me—I hate you. Hate hatehate you.

  Seeing the look in my face and feeling how strong I was, so suddenly, they were frightened of me. They backed off fast.

  From then onward, I did not cry. Not even when I was alone in my bed. After a while Dad became someone I saw at a distance, his face was small and blurred and no longer had the power to make me cry like a pathetic little baby.

  Mom had a new better-paying job at the Buick dealership out on the highway. She began to take care with her hair and makeup and she dressed stylishly as she had not troubled to dress in years. She was often excited and distracted when she came home from work, late; many nights she went out for drinks with her friends.

  Some of these friends were men, and sometimes these friends stayed overnight at our house.

  Caitlin said it was “gross”—but better than Mom depressed and drinking alone. “Then we’d have to take care of her.”

  Mom began to go away weekends—Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Miami, New York City. Once, Las Vegas. Her friends were divorced men with children, in complicated relationships. Over a weekend there might be strangers for supper, and/or strangers who were house guests; kids our age, or younger or older, who used our bathrooms, slept on our living room sofa or in sleeping bags on the floor, asked if they could use our computer. Mom was always chiding Don’t be selfish, girls—this is my chance at happiness. There’s plenty of room for guests here.

  One Thanksgiving there were eleven of us crammed around the dinner table. Don’t even ask me who they all were. In the high-decibel noise even Caitlin was kind of silenced. It was like a tornado had rushed through the world uprooting houses and throwing people together who didn’t belong together and did not even know one another but it seemed imperative that they sit together at the same table and break bread together as Mom called it.

  Which was why I’d promised myself Never me. Never get married and never any kids for me.

  Then, that phase ended. For Mom was seeing Martin Lesinger “seriously,” and Mr. Lesinger was her boss at work.

  Caitlin whispered to me, “Ohh gosh! He’s so damn old” but I thought it was maybe a good thing that Mom’s new man friend was older than Dad which might mean that he wouldn’t get restless and leave her the way Dad did. He’d be old, and more settled in one place.

  And this turned out to be so.

  4.

  “Hi, Steff.”

  Hunt saw me wince, and understood that that name was hurtful to my ears. So he began to call me “Stephanie” which no one but some of my teachers called me, and my heart melted.

  When I was alone I said the name “Hunt” aloud. I did not dare say “Hunt” when another person could hear including my step-cousin.

  While Mr. Lesinger and his brother Davis from Keene, New York, sat together in the living room smoking and drinking beer and talking in lowered voices, Caitlin and I spent time with Hunt outside on the redwood deck.

  It was a warm summer day and Hunt and Caitlin were in shorts but I was wearing my worn old jeans, to hide my thick thighs.

  Mom says that I am not fat, just big-boned. Mom doesn’t have a clue.

  Caitlin and Hunt did most of the talking. Half the time it seemed like they’d both forgotten I was there.

  It was like Mom to fret over the simplest things. You could see that Mr. Lesinger and his brother had a lot to talk about, in private, for a while at least, and didn’t want Mom hovering over them offering drinks and things to eat. And every few minutes Mom would come outside laughing and breathless to see how we were.

  “What can I get you, Hunt? Another beer?”

  “No ma’am. I’m fine.”

  “I’m thinking of making some cheese puffs. Y’know what cheese puffs are? Think you’d like some?”

  In her whiny voice Caitlin intervened: “Mom, Hunt isn’t hungry. He just had lunch. We’re going target shooting in the ravine, he’s going to give me lessons.”

  “No. I don’t think so. That is not a good idea. Martin would not like it.”

  Mom spoke vaguely, not really listening to herself. All the while she chattered at us she was attuned to the men in the living room as if fearing they might be talking about her. Or worse, not talking about her at all.

  In the bright sunshine Caitlin’s platinum-blond hair gleamed. Except for the purple and green streaks her hair was smooth and fine, and you had to concede that Caitlin was very good-looking, in a prissy spoiled way that I hated. For around Caitlin, everything had to be focused on her.

  My hair was darker, a kind of muddy color. It was slightly coarse, not smooth, and my skin was slightly mottled, as if someone had rubbed it with a soiled eraser. It made me sick with resentment how Caitlin ate as much as I did, or almost, and was so sexy-skinny, while I was what Mom called big-boned.

  Mom was always trying to make me feel better about myself. Using psychology, I guess. Steff your eyes are beautiful. Thick lashes like that, I wish I had….

  It was just bullshit. All I could do not to run away and hide.

  Dad hadn’t owned any guns but all the men in the Lesinger family owned guns. They were a hunting family, which was common in our rural county in western Pennsylvania, as it was common in upstate New York. Their favorite game was deer, which they talked about hunting, a lot.

  I didn’t like to think that my cousin Hunt who was such a kind person, and so sensitive, could bring himself to actually shoot a deer! I could believe this of the other Lesingers, and of most men in fact, but not of Hunt.

  Martin Lesinger owned not only a deer rifle but a doublebarreled shotgun which he kept “under lock and key” in the basement of his house; and he owned a handgun, a revolver, which he told us was licensed for “homeowner’s protection.” This revolver he’d showed Mom, Caitlin, and me just once, to warn us nev
er to touch it.

  But then he added, “Unless there’s an emergency situation. Someone breaking into the house when I’m not here. Someone who has to be stopped.”

  Mom laughed nervously at this remark. Mom said she hoped such an emergency situation would never come up since she had no idea how to shoot a gun and would be scared to death to touch his gun. And Mr. Lesinger said, with a smile, the way you forgive a silly person whom you love, “All you’d need to do is shoot at the ceiling, Debbie. Or at the floor. Any intruder would get the hell out of here, seeing you with a gun.” Mr. Lesinger laughed as if that was a comical thought, and Caitlin and I laughed too.

  This gun, which was a “.45-caliber automatic,” as Mr. Lesinger described, he kept in a table beside his bed, unloaded.

  Hearing this Caitlin dared to ask what good would an unloaded gun be? If you needed a gun for an emergency, you’d need it loaded. Like, if Mom had to shoot at the ceiling.

  It was like Caitlin to pipe up with some skeptical remark. I saw how Mr. Lesinger stared at her as if he’d have liked to slap her. I didn’t understand why he was so annoyed by her for asking this question which seemed like a sensible question which I’d have asked myself except I was too shy around Mom’s frowning new husband unless maybe there was something we didn’t understand. Because the gun is not unloaded, see? Of course, the gun is loaded.

  This was complicated. Mr. Lesinger wanted us to stay away from his gun or—we had permission to use his gun? The gun was unloaded or—the gun was loaded?

  Even Caitlin backed off asking more questions. Mom was smiling at all of us, obviously confused and waiting for the scene to be over—in her new marriage there were lots of scenes, like TV scenes, you found yourself in but mostly just waiting for them to get over. And Mr. Lesinger made me nervous when there was an edge to his voice.

  When a man is irritated, it’s like he might flail out with his fists. Not hard, and not to hurt, not even on purpose, but he just might do it, reflexively, and you might get hurt if you are standing too close.

  And if a man hurts you, and you show that hurt, and your eyes lock with his, he will never forgive you. For always you will be the girl he has hurt, which means you are the girl he can always hurt again.