If We Had Known

by Elise Juska

  “Well, what did she say?” Her mother was still looking at her, still waiting, a sponge clutched in her hand.

  “I mean, I’m not secretly starving myself, if that’s what you’re implying,” Anna said. “I’m stable.” It was technically true. She was back on Lexapro and steadily adding more calories, more and different foods, soft foods, foods she could handle—she’d been through this process before and fell back into it with a combination of shame and deep relief. But the food, the meds—that was the easier part. Or, at least, the more tangible. Beneath it lurked the real problem—abstract, seemingly insurmountable—which was that Anna was so paralyzingly afraid. Gavin used to joke about his neighbors, the old Abbotts, who had exiled themselves after their son died, but Anna thought she understood the impulse completely. She was still avoiding the Internet because she couldn’t risk running into any more horrible stories, shootings or dead bodies. The one time she drove past the mall she’d had to pull over and breathe into her knees.

  I know it’s scary, Anna, Theresa had said. And it’s true. Things will happen. Things that are not in your control. But you do have choices. Anna hadn’t replied, tearing at the hole in the knee of her jeans.

  Now she said, “We talked about me going to this party. With Kim.”

  “And she thought that was a good idea?” her mother asked—hopefully, it seemed. Her hope was unbearable.

  “I mean, it would involve being around other people, so that’s probably a step in the right direction,” Anna said, then glanced away. Theresa had stressed this point: that by exposing herself to the things that made her anxious, Anna would realize those things couldn’t hurt her. But she felt bad, seeing the sadness on her mother’s face. She wondered about who, besides herself, her mother even talked to. Without her students, it was striking how unpeopled her life was. The affair she’d had was over; Anna had asked, and she believed her. Her mother seemed so unmoored she couldn’t possibly be involved with someone right now. Initially, Anna had found the news of the affair upsetting—the fact that it had happened, the difficulty of aligning this version of her mother, of the world, with the one she thought she knew—but she could no longer summon any anger. Last week, when Maggie had appeared at Anna’s dorm, she’d been steely and determined, single-minded, but now her mother had collapsed, insides showing, like a house with its walls stripped away.

  Then Maggie asked, “Is it on campus?”

  Anna paused. “What?”

  “The party. Kim’s party.”

  “Yeah. In her dorm.” Anna really didn’t want to go; she was only considering it because Kim had asked her. You owe me, she’d said. Then Anna hesitated. “Oh,” she said, and looked up at her mother. “Is that not okay or something?”

  Her mother looked back. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I mean—should I not go to campus?”

  “I’m not banned from setting foot on campus,” she said, with a weak laugh. “And neither are you, certainly.” But she looked pained. Anna had always resented her mother’s love for her students but was beginning to comprehend how truly outsized it had been, how small and shrunken the life that was left. “It was my decision,” she added, and Anna nodded. Then her mother pulled out a chair and sat across from her, shifting a stack of plates to one side. “So Dad’s coming,” she said. “Next week.”

  “Really?” Anna replied, caught off-guard. “Coming where? Here?”

  “He wants to spend some time with you. And we thought—we both agreed—given everything, your appointments with Theresa—and, just, everything—it might be best that way.”

  Anna pinched a fingernail into her exposed knee. “Felicia’s not coming, is she?”

  “I offered,” she said. “But no. Just him.”

  “Thank God,” Anna said, and her mother cracked a small smile. “Still. Will that be weird?”

  “Yes,” her mother admitted. “Probably.” She shrugged, an unconvincing twitch of one shoulder, and Anna felt a swell of sympathy for her. For what she’d put her through, and what she’d lost. It would be hard for her, Anna realized, to have her dad there. It was the reason she was cleaning. It used to be that her mother barely seemed to register the dust and the mess, but now everything was more exposed.

  The next morning, Anna woke at eight thirty, and the house was silent. For a moment, she tried to enjoy the peace and quiet—had she experienced a moment of true peace since she’d left for school?—but as she lay there listening, the quiet stole inside her brain. Her mother was always up early, by five thirty usually, but there was no trace of her. Anna was reminded of that morning in August, returning from Gavin’s, hungover. She’d searched the empty house, roaming through room after room and feeling more and more disoriented, like being inside a bad dream, until eventually she’d checked the barn.

  This time, when she got out of bed and looked out the window at the driveway, the car was gone. There was a note on the kitchen counter: at store. Anna sat at the table and ate her cereal and milk and apple. She felt agitated, her edges ragged. Maybe it was yesterday’s appointment with Theresa, or the prospect of Kim’s party that night, which she now felt pressured to attend. When she caught herself crunching her stomach in/out, she said out loud: “Stop it, Anna. Stop.” She pressed her palms against her eyes and inhaled as deeply as she could. Then she stood and pulled on her coat and grabbed her backpack from the hall closet, checking that her laptop was still inside. When she stepped out the back door, the smack of cold made her teeth ache. She headed toward the barn—dilapidated, she’d once described it, which James had applauded as authentic, but the reality of it was just sad. She steered her bike through the rusty door, wheeled it across the yard, and then took off down the driveway, spackled with flat wet pinecones and fallen leaves.

  The chill was bracing, the sky an alert white, so white it looked almost pink. Bare maples stood along the side of the road. They looked like naked lungs. Anna’s cheeks were quickly numb, but it felt good to be moving. It was six miles to the town library, and by the time the white clapboard house came into view, she felt calmer, her edges smooth. But as she pulled into the parking lot, Anna realized her mistake: On Saturdays, the library didn’t open until noon. For a minute she just sat there, staring at the pearl-colored sky. In the past, she would have taken her laptop to the mall—there was Wi-Fi in the food court—but that wasn’t an option anymore. The only other possibility was one of the coffee shops on campus. She entertained the idea of biking past the mall to get there, but only for an instant. She couldn’t unsee the sign by the road, the one that had always advertised sales or photos with the Easter Bunny but now said only RIP NEVER FORGET.

  Ten miles of back roads later, Anna parked her bike outside a coffee shop. It was still relatively early, uncrowded. Inside, a few people worked on laptops, flanked by mugs of coffee. A group of runners sat together in their school-branded windbreakers. All of them were Central Maine students, surely. Strange to think Anna would be assumed to be one too. Since coming home, she’d received two texts from Alexis—doing ok, roomie?—and one from Isabel. For the most part, though, she hadn’t had, or wanted, any contact with school (in that regard, her mother’s canceled Wi-Fi had been a perfect excuse). Now she ordered coffee and found a table by the window, plugged in her laptop. After so much neglect, it seemed to wake up slowly. She picked up her mug and took a sip. Outside, a few snowflakes drifted slowly toward the sidewalk. Apprehensively, she opened up her school email, but there wasn’t much there. Missed announcements about advising for next semester, an anthropology lecture, a Halloween party in the student union. She deleted as she went. Then, bracing herself, she clicked on Facebook—but there were no longer any comments about the shooting. No comments about her mother, or the YouTube video. It was back to the usual dumb stuff. It was both soothing and depressing. Drunken posts from the night before, selfies from college parties. A Groupon deal, an ad for the Gap. Get to know your new favorite pair of boots! She clicked her notifications: New Messag
e from Luke Finch.

  Anna knew the name, though it took her a few seconds to search her brain and retrieve it. When she did, panic tunneled through her—her mother’s old student. The one who wrote that thing. Why, possibly, would he be writing to her? She checked the date on the email: It had been sent over a month ago, early October. There were needles in her palms. What did he have to say to her? Was he going to attack her, or her mother? Her finger hovered over the DELETE button, ready to make the message vanish, but then she took a breath and looked around the room. She reminded herself that she was here, in this coffee shop, and this message was online, it couldn’t hurt her. It was scarcely real. If she chose to read it, then she couldn’t torture herself with thoughts of all the terrible things it might have said. She could read it once and make it disappear.

  Hi my name is Luke Finch. I was your mother’s student and I’m sorry about everything. I’d take it all back if I could. I never thought your mother was a bad teacher and I never wanted to get anyone in trouble and actually I’m a hypocrite because I’m the one who screwed up. I was a jerk to Nathan when he was maybe asking me for help one time and there was a moment when maybe if he’d connected with somebody things could have ended up different. Or not. Maybe he was just really screwed up more than I thought but if anyone should be getting blamed it should be me.

  For a minute, Anna stared at the screen. Her mouth was dry. She’d been prepared to be indignant and now she didn’t know what to feel. She read the message twice more; it sounded sincere. She pulled up Luke’s Facebook page and, channeling Alexis, picked through it. Hometown: Paxton, Maine. Birthday: March 29, 1993. A profile picture of two dogs, identical golden retrievers. Recent albums he’d been tagged in—Spring Break, Graduation, Senior Week. He had a nice smile, though he was rarely looking at the camera. In most of the pictures, he was with the same girl, tagged April Peale. After Senior Week, she disappeared. There were no more recent photos, hardly any recent anything. Ironically, it didn’t seem that Luke Finch was too active on Facebook. His long, sprawling post from August was no longer there.

  The only recent post was this: The reason I wrote about Nathan Dugan in the first place is because one time he asked me to hang out with him and I said no and I felt bad about it. It had attracted only a few vapid responses, stupid smiley faces. They were missing the point. He wasn’t asking to be reassured; he felt guilty. It was an apology. I dare you, Anna thought, and before she could talk herself out of it, she had opened up his message and written: hi thanks for sending.

  As soon as she hit RETURN, she felt a whorl of panic—that her message was out there, loosed in space. She watched the laptop for a minute, willing the words back, then stared out the window. The snow had started coming down more quickly. She went back to the counter for a refill and by the time she sat down again, there was a reply on the screen.

  Luke: hey

  Luke: thanks for writing back

  She surveyed the coffee shop, as if he might be sitting there undercover, but there were only the students with their laptops and their coffees. A barista was crouched next to the display case, arranging muffins behind the glass. She returned to the empty box.

  Me: sorry it took so long

  Me: i just saw your message

  Me: been avoiding the internet lately

  SEND, SEND, SEND. She waited, heartbeat ticking. It was a strange thing to put out there, she thought, about the Internet. She took a long swallow of coffee, preparing for his response, but he wrote only: thats probably a good thing

  Luke: the internet i mean

  Anna set her coffee down. Outside, the snow was starting to stick.

  You think? she typed. I thought you were some kind of online sensation.

  Luke: hahaha

  Luke: i hope not

  She smiled a little.

  Luke: hows your mom?

  Anna considered the screen.

  Me: fine

  Me: not teaching right now

  Me: but you probably knew that

  Luke: is she going back next semester?

  Me: she says she isnt sure

  Me: but its literally impossible to imagine her doing anything else

  Me: im living with her actually

  Me: temporarily

  Me: im on a break from school

  It was another bizarre thing to admit to a stranger. He’d probably judge her for it, think she was needy and screwed up, but did it matter? The whole exchange was real and not-real at the same time. Her pulse beat quickly as she watched the dots that meant Luke Finch was typing. Worst-case scenario, he asked her questions she didn’t want to answer, and she logged off, never wrote to him again.

  Luke: i get it

  Luke: im actually living with my dad

  At his kindness, her entire body relaxed a notch. They went on like that for a while, trading messages, like raindrops falling into the ocean, one and then the next.

  Twenty-Three

  As Maggie watched Tom’s car pull up to the house, headlights beaming in the falling late afternoon light, she remembered the day he left. It was the last time he’d been there: a bitterly cold Saturday in March, patches of black ice on the driveway, the sky a leaden gray. To Maggie’s dismay, Anna had skipped swim practice, wanting to be there to say good-bye. She’d stood on the porch steps, crying as Tom’s truck rolled away, dragging the slippery U-Haul behind it, and by the time he was turning onto the main road—excruciatingly slowly, the patient blinking of the turn signal almost an insult—Anna was folded over her knees, sobbing. Maggie remembered observing her from a distance, as if her own daughter were a wild animal she had no idea how to appease or to approach.

  Now, Tom was driving a hatchback and carrying a single duffel. Anna greeted him with a long hug, and the sight of them together made Maggie’s eyes stir with feeling. He was older, Maggie thought. Thicker around the middle, and his hair was gray all over. It shouldn’t have surprised her. She made herself smile, like a host, and showed him to the office-turned-guest-room. Offered him a cup of coffee the way he always took it, no sugar, a touch of cream.

  That first night, they ordered pizza from Mario’s. Tom didn’t say much. He was still angry, Maggie knew, that she hadn’t called him the day she went to pick up Anna. Perhaps sensing her parents’ discomfort, Anna did most of the talking. She told Tom she was doing a little better, mentioned the party she’d gone to with Kim the weekend before. She was starting to think about going back next semester, she told them. She could take extra credits and still graduate on time. She and Theresa had discussed holding weekly Skype appointments. Maggie watched as she ate two slices, and without leaving a pile of oily napkins beside her plate.

  After dinner, Anna went upstairs, and Tom said he had to make a phone call. Maggie offered the land line, reminding him about the cell reception, but he said he’d try his luck with his phone outside. As she washed the dinner dishes, Maggie watched him swivel like a weathervane, attempting to pick up a tendril of reception. She heard him cursing. It had never frustrated him much before, she thought, but of course now he was accustomed to a more efficient sort of life. He was heading back toward the house just as Anna skipped downstairs, saying, “I’m going out.”

  “You are?”

  “Just to the coffee shop,” she said, as Tom stepped through the back door.

  “Now?” Maggie said. “It’s late.”

  “It’s seven forty-five,” Anna said. “It’s only late here. Everywhere else in the world it’s early.”

  “She’s right,” Tom said.

  “I need Wi-Fi,” Anna said. Maggie had told herself that, for Anna, the canceled Internet had been a good thing: It had led her to this coffee shop she liked, motivated her to leave the house.

  “That makes two of us,” Tom said, and Maggie felt an old twinge of annoyance—his easy attitude toward Anna, their old alliance. But Anna looked at her and said, “I won’t be late.”

  After she was gone, Maggie gestured again to the old phone o
n the kitchen wall. “Help yourself,” she said, then retreated to the living room couch. She tried to focus on the book in her lap while Tom made his call. He spoke quietly and quickly, with urgency, though Maggie couldn’t make out any words. After Tom hung up, there was silence. Maggie watched the dark television screen, breathing as quietly as she could. She pictured Tom standing in the kitchen, which had once been his kitchen, noticing the grime between the floor tiles or the way the wallpaper they’d chosen together years ago had started curling at the seams. Then she heard him clanking in a cabinet, and he appeared in the living room with a bottle of wine clamped under his elbow, two glasses in his hand. “Porch?”

  “Where did you find that?” she replied, but he was already heading across the room. She peeled the afghan off the couch and followed, turned off the porch light to keep moths from flocking the bulb. Outside, they each assumed one of the white wooden rockers. It was something they had never done before; maybe that was why Tom had suggested it. The chairs should already have been brought inside for winter—their wood was chipping, cushions caked with dirt—but the sky, she thought, was luminous. A waste that they hadn’t sat there years ago.

  Tom wrenched the cork off the bottle and picked up a glass. Maggie drew the afghan around her shoulders. “I can’t believe we’re back here again,” she said.

  Tom said nothing, focused on pouring.

  “It was visible,” she added.

  “You should have called me, Maggie.”

  “You had lunch with her in—what? October? And you didn’t see it? You actually said she looked good,” Maggie snapped, but her anger dried in her throat. She didn’t have any right to it. She too had missed it. “Sorry,” she apologized, before he could speak. Tom handed her a glass, set the bottle by his feet.

  “What can I say. I saw her. I spent two hours with her,” he said. “I thought she was doing well.”

  He was always more forgiving of them as parents than Maggie had been, more generous, and this had once annoyed her too. Now she was grateful. Maggie took a sip. Despite everything, it was comfortable, talking to Tom: the familiarity of him, their long shared history. To really know a person—how much work it was, how much effort.