Songs for the Missing

by Stewart O'Nan

  “No, it would be too weird.”

  “This whole thing is too weird,” her mother said.

  They coasted down the long hill toward the park, the harbor and the lake spread before them. The sky was darker over the water, and a line of pickups hauling empty trailers waited at the boat ramp. Beyond the jetty, wind dashed the waves into whitecaps. If Lindsay didn’t know better she would have thought it was going to pour. She couldn’t let herself believe it.

  The softball diamonds with their stalky light towers were at the far end, by the inlet. Dustdevils twisted across the infields. At the nearest backstop people were battling a flapping pink banner. A van from WKGO was already there, playing music, and Connie’s Pontiac and a few other cars Lindsay didn’t recognize. She overshot them, choosing an empty stretch, then missed the spot she wanted, her side well over the line. She had to back up and head it in again.

  “Good enough,” her mother said, and reminded her to put it in park.

  “Stupid,” Lindsay accused herself.

  “No ‘stupid.’ You just need practice.”

  They were downwind from the concession stand, and the air smelled of popcorn and hot dogs. Lindsay let her go first, tagging along as they lugged the boxes over to the table where Connie was taping a flyer to a wheeled tank of helium. The Kim that never existed smiled out at Lindsay. The flat black-and-white combined with her ridiculous updo made the picture look dated, as if she’d been kidnapped from 1985. Above the flyer was a price list. Balloons were two dollars, ribbons three, bracelets five.

  It was like a carnival. The police had their own table where they’d fingerprint and take digital pictures of little kids for free, and WKGO would be broadcasting live from a tent pitched next to their van. A continuous feed of studio patter and bad commercials blasted from the speakers. Her mother cut across the grass to hug a slender woman with long dark hair who was talking with some technicians. At first Lindsay thought she must be the DJ, and wondered how her mother knew her. When the woman turned it was Jocelyn. Lindsay had never seen her in jeans.

  None of the other players had shown up yet, and she felt dorky in her uniform. They put her to work filling pink balloons printed with an inkblot of Kim’s face above the Crime Stoppers number. Connie showed her how to use the tank. She didn’t have to tie them; there was a plastic clip that pinched the neck. She had to knot a string around that and then fasten it to the backstop. After she almost lost the first one to the wind, she learned to tuck each under her arm like a football and wrap the string around her wrist. With every gust Kim’s face kissed the fence.

  Her mother relieved her when Mr. Pallantino arrived with the equipment. He’d taken over as coach, giving the team the chance to lose two more games.

  Like all the adults, he said he was sorry and asked how she was doing.

  “I’m okay,” she said wearily, because she didn’t want it to be a big deal.

  He shouldered the bat bag while she carried the box with the helmets and the balls—the opposite of her routine with her father. It felt wrong, like she was getting off easy. The bag was heavy and dusty, one touch ruining a clean uniform. Her father made her carry it for a reason. “I’m not hitting today,” he’d say when she complained, “you are.” As much as Lindsay hated playing, at the end of the game she’d collect and then count the bats and haul them to the car as if they were her personal burden, dumping the bag in the back of the wagon as if it held a body. Early on she understood why she took such grim satisfaction in completing the task. It wasn’t just that for now the torture was over. The truth was more pathetic: It was the one thing she could actually do.

  They were at home, meaning they were in the first-base dugout. She tucked her sneakers into the Sea Wolves bag and laced up Kim’s cleats. Even after two seasons they didn’t fit right, as if the leather kept the memory of their original owner. She double-knotted the laces and tucked the tips under the way her father had taught her.

  Mr. Pallantino sat on the far end of the bench, going over the score-book. They were playing the number one seed, Pizzi’s Cafe, a team that had destroyed them both times this season.

  “Who’s pitching for us?” Lindsay asked, as if it mattered.

  “Beanie.”

  “Not Tessa?”

  “She’s on vacation.”

  They only had twelve people on the roster—a sore spot with her father—and it came to her that they might not have enough players and would have to forfeit. They’d play the game anyway, but it wouldn’t count, so it wouldn’t matter if she struck out or made an error.

  As she warmed up, tossing with Mr. Pallantino on the sidelines, her teammates trickled in and joined them, saying hey as they trotted past. Shelly and Amanda made seven, and Beanie wasn’t there yet. Pizzi’s gathered down the left-field line to stretch in the grass. Beyond them, boats chugged up the inlet, headed home. They had eight, then nine. Officially you were supposed to have ten, but there was still half an hour till game time. Connie deputized Amanda’s little sisters Evie and Edie; they went along the outfield fence with a bunch of balloons, attaching one to every post. A TV truck rolled in—Channel 12 from Erie, she knew it from a distance. The music was loud and the stands were filling, the crowd speckled pink. The wind had died down, and far over the lake the clouds parted, letting through a single sunbeam that fell on the water like a spotlight. They were going to play, she needed to resign herself to that fact, yet, numbly, she resisted. Only when Beanie took the field—to cheers from their side of the bleachers—did Lindsay give up.

  In the end they had exactly ten. They sat hip-to-hip on the bench while Mr. Pallantino paced the fence, reading off the lineup. For a dizzy instant she was afraid—since it was Kim’s day—that he would have her leading off, but it was a copy of her father’s. She’d be playing second base and batting last, an insult she was used to.

  Halfway between home plate and the mound a tech was setting up a mic stand for the pregame ceremonies. All week her mother had been practicing her speech on Connie, asking an imaginary crowd for “a moment not of silence, but of hope.” She tried the line different ways, like it was part of a play. Any way she said it, it was lame. Then they’d play the song and everyone would release their balloons. The symbolism didn’t make sense to Lindsay, or maybe it was her own guilt that made her reject the metaphor of letting go. She’d thought she was being a chicken, but she’d known that first night when they hadn’t heard anything that Kim was dead. The rest was just not wanting to believe it. The balloons wouldn’t do anything. The whole thing was stupid.

  The third-base bleachers were a sea of pink, and it wasn’t just Pizzi’s fans. The stands behind her were jammed with families from church. They’d been to the playoffs last year, but the crowd was nothing compared to this. She craned around for Dana and the rest of the Hedricks. It was hard with all the balloons. She’d almost given up, searching the fence down the right-field line, when she spotted J.P.

  Her first reaction was that she had to warn him. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

  He was standing just past first base, holding a balloon like everyone else. Beside him, half hidden by her own balloon, was Nina. She said something, and as J.P. bent his head to listen, he pushed his hair out of his eyes. The way Nina tipped her lips to his ear, Lindsay couldn’t help seeing them as a couple. She thought she had no reason to be jealous, even if it was true. He’d been nice to her because she was Kim’s sister, that was all. It was another case of being Little Larsen. She’d built the rest herself out of private jokes and quiet words of encouragement, those long days he’d asked her to save him a seat on the bus and they rode with the sun setting and their arms and legs touching. When they were alone together she didn’t have to act. Unlike everyone else, he didn’t ask her how she felt. He already knew.

  He turned toward her and she looked away as if slapped.

  The speakers crackled. “Hello, Kingsville,” the MC said, as Mr. Riggio waddled over in his blue umpire’s shirt and motioned
for them to take the field. A cameraman knelt by home plate, waiting.

  “Come on now,” Mr. Pallantino said, “let’s see some smart defense out there. Outfield, get the ball in. Infield, take the easy base.”

  Connie was guarding the opening with a bunch of balloons. Everyone was supposed to take one, even Ashley, who had to carry her catcher’s mask in her glove. Beanie led them out, and the crowd cheered politely.

  “Come on, let’s see some hustle!” Mr. Pallantino said, just like her father, and they ran to their positions, the balloons jerking behind them.

  At deep second Lindsay was even with J.P. and Nina, and suspected it wasn’t a coincidence. She considered casually waving to them, but couldn’t make herself look over. Beside the backstop as if she was up next, her mother stood at attention, a balloon in one hand, a ribbon pinned to her shirt. The MC was telling Kim’s story as if they all didn’t know it by heart. Standing there alone and exposed, she imagined people in the bleachers pointing and whispering—that’s her sister.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” the MC said, “please help us welcome Kim’s mom, Mrs. Fran Larsen.” The crowd rose and applauded as she walked to the mic. Lindsay patted her mitt soundlessly.

  Her mother wasn’t nervous. Her speech was short, just a thank you to everyone for coming, for being so generous and keeping Kim in their hearts. They’d timed it to the music, a lilting, syncopated plinking of a ukelele and then a man moaning soulfully—Somewhere Over the Rainbow , by the big Hawaiian guy. The idea was to choose a song people could request and dedicate to Kim, reminding listeners that she was still missing. When Lindsay first heard the song they picked she’d shaken her head. It was from a commercial, this little kid and his grandfather chasing fireflies. It had been in movies, it had even been on ER. It was the kind of mushy, overplayed song Kim hated. Lindsay just assumed that knowing it was cheesy made her immune to its emotional pull, yet now that it was playing and she had no choice but to stand still and listen, the singer’s high voice and the spare strumming seemed lonely and haunting (he was dead, a kind of saint in Hawaii), and despite herself she felt her throat closing.

  Not here, she thought. Not now.

  Rigid as a Marine, she fought back the idiotic Disney tears, but the song wouldn’t stop. The intro was just long enough for her mother to finish her speech—“in a moment not of silence, but of hope”—and turn to find her.

  This they hadn’t practiced, and a twinge of disbelief made Lindsay’s face flush. The music was plinking, the singer moaning like the wind. Her mother reached out a hand for her to join her.

  The cameraman panned to Lindsay, his lens trained on her face. She hesitated, thinking crazily of running away, of racing over to the fence and kissing J.P. It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t the one who died. She hadn’t done anything.

  With her first step her cleats caught in the dirt and she stumbled, nearly losing her balloon. In the stands behind her a little kid laughed. She recovered and crossed the infield, her cheeks burning, her vision blurred, with every step struggling to remember the intricate mechanics of walking. Her mother intercepted her halfway, taking her in her arms. Lindsay held on to her, wishing she could hide there.

  “It’s okay, babe,” her mother said, rubbing her back, because—for no reason except the dumb song—she was sobbing.

  “I’m sorry,” Lindsay said, and she meant about everything.

  “It’s okay.”

  Someday I’ll wish upon a star, the singer sang, like it wouldn’t work, and Connie and Jocelyn gave the bleachers the signal to release their balloons.

  “Hang on to yours,” her mother said as, with a communal oooh, everyone watched them slowly ascend, climbing above the treetops into the sky, swirling, forming patterns as they rose to the music, drifting with the competing winds over the harbor and out over the open water, dwindling to dots against the clouds.

  When they were almost gone her mother raised hers high. The crowd watched solemnly as the song went on—there’s a land that I heard of—and standing there beside her, Lindsay realized that this was the real point of the ceremony. For all of their best wishes, in the end her mother would be left alone. When everyone else had stopped, she would still be thinking of Kim, and searching for her, and hoping, because she had no choice. She was different now, separate from them, and always would be. That was why they clapped for her. Looking at her Statue of Liberty pose, Lindsay understood that she was fully aware of it—and that it didn’t matter. The song wound down, the singer cooing softly: Why, oh why, can’t I? Lindsay raised her balloon, and then, together, they let them go.

  Follow Me

  The police had released the Chevette, so he needed her to FedEx him the spare set of keys. She’d just poured her third glass of wine when he called (her last, she’d promised, then filled it to the brim), and for a moment she was confused. It wasn’t that complicated. They needed two people to drive the cars back.

  Honestly, Connie wouldn’t mind driving her out. It would give them a chance to replace the flyers at all the rest stops.

  His plan was to drive the Chevette himself, then take the bus back to Sandusky. As he explained his logic the unthinkable dawned on her: He wasn’t coming home.

  “Just how long are you going to stay there?”

  “We’ve got the Pennsearch people coming this weekend.”

  “So you’ll be home Sunday night.”

  “Probably.”

  “Just like last week.”

  He ignored the dig. “If there’s no change.”

  “Ed,” she tried. “You don’t want to take the bus.”

  “It’s just easier if you send them.”

  “How is it easier?”

  “This way we don’t have to figure out what to do with Lindsay.”

  It was true, Fran didn’t want to leave her, but that wasn’t what they were talking about. He’d been gone for nine days now, and she felt tricked, and disloyal for bringing it up. She stayed silent, letting her disappointment sink in. Drinking could make her picky and bitchy—needlessly, she thought, and relented. “So what’s going on with Cedar Point? Is that going to happen?”

  She wandered the downstairs, tidying up the kitchen while he filled her in. There was still no trace of the stolen cars, and the T-shirt was so contaminated from the dumpster that the lab results were useless. The glove, as they’d both suspected, had come from the hospital. He relayed this dully, as if he’d already explained it to someone else. In a tone only slightly brighter, she told him about their plans for the fun run, ending up lying on the couch with her eyes closed while the news played mutely. Like every night, she waited for the moment when they set aside the exhausting topic and spoke directly to each other.

  Their questions were elemental then. How did she sleep? Did the pills help? Did he want some for himself? What did he eat today? What was she doing tomorrow? They hadn’t talked like this since they were dating, and a girlish part of her was tempted to see it as romantic, the two of them separated by fate, surrounded by night, a pair of voices connected by invisible waves traveling the cold air between remote towers—a furtive, unearned bond that dissolved at the thought of Kim out there by herself. She would give up any happiness of theirs to have her back. Short of that she resolved, impossibly, to protect him.

  Later it came to her—after another glass—that maybe he didn’t think she was strong enough to drive the Chevette. Whether he was being chivalrous or chauvinist, he was wrong. Being here alone was harder than driving the damn car.

  The next morning when she sealed the keys in the unyielding FedEx envelope, the idea of him dropping in and taking off again like a soldier on leave bothered her. Some of that was frustration at having to follow the investigation at a distance, and some, she could admit, was jealousy. For all his grumbling about the tedium of motel life, she wanted to be there. Though she believed in him, he wasn’t a practical person. As an administrator she had years of experience massaging an unresponsive bureaucracy.
She was pushier and more organized, and thanks to Connie and Jocelyn she’d done her research. She wasn’t being unfair in thinking she knew the territory better. Because she did, she also knew that three weeks was too long.

  The day was taken up with business—the detective’s morning briefing, a conference call with the bank and their accountant Sal about the legalities of the reward, the search for free T-shirts for the fun run. In the end several places promised deep discounts, but no one would donate them outright, not for an order that large. She was up against a deadline, and grudgingly put the deposit on plastic, reading the number over the phone, while right in front of her on the counter were bills they couldn’t pay.

  She felt bound to the house, and after weeks of neglect it was a wreck. Lindsay hadn’t vacuumed as she’d promised, and Cooper’s hair was everywhere. Even if she felt like cooking, there was nothing to eat. In the basement there were precarious stacks of other people’s Tupperware. Ed coming home wouldn’t solve any of this, yet she felt she was getting no help, and after Lindsay had picked at someone’s spinach lasagna and slipped back to her room, Fran allowed herself a good cry while she did the dishes.

  Afterward, fortified by a glass of pinot grigio, she felt stronger. She wasn’t angry with him, he had to know that. He could stay there as long as he wanted.

  She wasn’t sure he believed her when she told him. As if to make up for it, he promised he’d be home for dinner tomorrow, as long as the keys got there by two o’clock.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Anything.”

  “I can do chicken on the grill.”

  “That sounds good.”

  It became her mission to make his visit a success. The simplicity of it inspired her. She would give him what she knew he missed, what he counted on—the same dream he’d sold his whole life—but unselfishly. A welcoming house, a home-cooked meal. In bed, as the Ambien lowered her into sleep, she was still choosing a menu.