Lindsay was in her room, tapping away at her computer. After everything, he didn’t like her being online so much, and poked his head in to tell her not to stay up too late.
Their room was dark, just the nightlight on by the sink. He brushed his teeth and slid into bed next to Fran, plumping his pillow and fitting his knees behind hers.
“Hey,” he said, because he wanted to thank her for going tomorrow.
She didn’t answer, so he tried again, gently—“Hey.”
No, she was out.
“Must be nice,” he said.
It was like fighting himself. He was too hot, and struggled to find the right position, his limbs caught at awkward angles. On the insides of his eyelids a montage of the day’s accumulated negatives flickered, the shifting shapes like Rohrshach blots. He was talking to a man in a pulpit that was actually a Segway. He didn’t recall falling asleep; he only realized he must be, since he was dreaming. When he woke, the curtains were still dark, and he thought it was close to daybreak. The clock said it was ten past two.
In the morning his eyes burned as if he’d gotten soap in them, and he took three Advil. Fran was already working, packing a picnic basket with curried chicken salad and cucumber sandwiches. She’d even bought mint Milanos for his mother. While Lindsay showered, they drank coffee out on the deck. The day was bright and perfect, a male cardinal tweeting his two-toned call from the peak of the garage. In the lull, he thanked her; she dismissed it with a wave. She’d asked Dana to watch Cooper, a detail he hadn’t thought of. At least one of them was capable.
Lindsay came down with wet hair, already wearing her iPod. Fran made her take a Nutrigrain bar and some orange juice. He’d moved the box of flyers so she wouldn’t have to sit with them, but as they pulled out he caught her glancing into the way back, and the look on her face. He should have just stuck them in the garage.
To get on 90 they had to drive out 7, past the gorge and the Conoco—the pumps packed with holiday traffic. Fran watched the doors as they passed, as if Kim might be inside working. Nina was off to school, as were J.P. and Elise. He never expected them to stay, but he didn’t understand how they could just leave her behind. While he was away, Fran had seen J.P. drive by the house a few times. If he tried anything, forget calling the cops, she said, she was ready for him. Ed thought he knew J.P. better than she did, and didn’t see him as a bad kid, just immature, but didn’t blame her for being angry.
At the far end of the bridge he turned and sped down the ramp, merging into the stream of trucks powering east, and soon they were cruising along with everyone else. On their right the massive, shimmering red and gold billboard for Adult Paradise rose above the caved-in remains of a barn. They crossed the state line, an elaborate sign welcoming them to Pennsylvania. Even with Fran right beside him, and the prospect of seeing his mother, he felt the same sense of letdown that gripped him when he’d left Sandusky, the nagging fear that he was going the wrong way.
“We should stop and get some of those mints she likes,” Fran said.
“Good idea.”
His mother was at the point where dessert appealed to her more than meals, but she’d always had a sweet tooth, a weakness she’d passed on to him. As a child he sneaked the pastel green butter mints from a cut-glass dish on the dining room sideboard, retreating to his room to eat them one at a time, letting them dissolve on his tongue, the chalky solid magically turning sweet and creamy. Like visiting his mother, just the thought of them sparked a mix of comfort and guilt. The new ones didn’t taste the same, though it was possible they were cut-rate imitations and not the real thing.
There was a CVS just off her exit where they’d stopped before. He left the car running for the air-conditioning and headed across the lot. They weren’t that far from Kingsville, so he was surprised there was no flyer on the door, and weighed going back and getting one.
Why did he have to think? There was no such thing as a holiday for them anymore.
Fran watched him as he backtracked and opened the door, dipping down to trip the latch.
“What’s up?”
“No flyer.”
It didn’t take long. He’d become practiced at explaining the situation, and the cashier was the mother of two teenagers, and glad to help. She gave him a discount on the mints, shook his hand and held it an extra second. “God is good.”
“I hope so.”
“He is,” she said, as if she knew Him personally.
Outside in the heat he wondered what had happened to her that she was so certain, and thought of his mother raising him by herself, his father dead at thirty-seven of a heart attack. Would she have said God was good?
“Well?” Fran asked when he handed her the bag.
“Mission accomplished.”
The home was another ten miles through the suburbs of Erie. When he was a boy there’d been nothing out here but Christmas tree farms and hunt clubs, a speculator’s dream. Now it was overrun by pricey developments with names like Northglen and Devonwood, switchbacked tiers of McMansions winding up terraced hillsides to sunset views along the ridges. From all the deer crossing signs, he imagined they were a problem, not used to commuters.
He hoped it wouldn’t be crowded. Saturday was a big visiting day, but he expected most families had their own plans for the weekend. The weather was ideal. As they closed in on the home, he pictured himself a mile out on the lake, the water sparkling, nothing but blue sky to the horizon, the Indians game on his old transistor, a pair of sandwiches and a couple of cold Buds in the cooler. The hardest thing he’d have to do was wrestle an empty out of a foam cozy. That was the whole idea behind the holiday—a rest from one’s labors. When the girls were younger, they’d barbecue at the park, then motor out around dusk with everyone else to the middle of the harbor and wait for the fireworks. Kim loved the big booms, clapping in the gap between the flash and the concussion, while Lindsay covered her ears. It hadn’t been that long ago—six or seven years. His mother was still living in the old house then, drinking secretly, her sight just beginning to fade, and again it seemed to him that everything around him had changed drastically while he’d stayed the same. It wasn’t true, of course, though his decline, being financial, had taken place privately, hidden in debt refinancing and title transfers, a sudden shift of a balance sheet. That was the market—it fluctuated. If he didn’t think it would rebound, he’d have quit years ago and moved them to Florida. No matter how bad it got, he had to believe the lake would always bring people back.
His last thoughts before seeing her were generally this desperate, as if he might better understand his life in relation to hers and somehow justify leaving her there. He didn’t need Rich—the success, who never visited—to tell him he should be taking care of her. It was just that with Kim missing, he already felt stretched thin.
“Quit biting your lips,” Fran said, and patted his thigh.
“Sorry.”
They turned the last curve and the complex spread on their left, commanding a slight rise, its low white wings radiating from a cupolaed rotunda, efficient as a chickenhouse. BRIGHTVIEW HOME, read the ranch-style arch above the entrance. On both sides of the drive, almost choreographed, two uniformed workmen rode identical mowers over the lush, sprawling lawn, and by the flagpole near the front doors a gardener was weeding a thriving bed of geraniums. Initially the home’s attention to buildings and grounds had been a selling point, but now the institutional neatness depressed him, so much window dressing. The real life was inside.
To his surprise the visitor’s lot was almost full. He imagined these other families were like them, taking this last opportunity to see their loved ones before the regimen of work and school kicked in.
“It’s going to be a zoo,” he said.
“I’ve seen it worse,” Fran said, and motioned for Lindsay to remove her earbuds.
He carried the basket, grateful to have something to hide behind. Walking in, he always felt exposed, his mere presence an admission, as
if he was the only son to leave a parent here. The receptionist at the front desk asked for his mother’s room number and called ahead to the nurses’ station to make sure she was ready. No one accompanied them down the long hallway—carpeted and uncomfortably quiet—and he was aware of Lindsay sticking close, as if they might ditch her. The walls were a pleasing shade of coffee, with cream chair rails, and between every other door stood a tripod table with a bonsai tree or African violet, yet as much effort as the designers had put into the place they couldn’t disguise that in essence it was a hospital. The beds gave it away—fitted with protective rails and wired with call buttons.
His mother’s door was open, an aide he recognized from last time helping her stow her tape player and the book she was listening to. She seemed thinner, wasted, the curve of her scalp visible beneath a teased puff of hair. Though it was easily seventy-five degrees, she had a blanket over her lap. Before he said a word, she cocked her head as if sensing some inaudible vibration, then reached her good hand toward him. “Eddie.”
Fran took the basket so he could hold her.
She could only raise one arm, the other lay limp in her lap. “I’m so sorry, Eddie,” she said, her breath in his ear. She smelled strongly of alcohol—no, butterscotch. She kept his hand as he straightened up, as if afraid he’d run away. “I told Betty here, all we can do is hope.”
“How are you doing, Grace?” Fran asked loudly, bending to kiss her cheek and present her with the mints.
“Fran, really, you didn’t have to do that. Goodness. Thank you. As for me, I’m afraid the news isn’t good. Dr. Ray says he wants to test my . . . my . . . oh gosh, what do you call it? You know.” She appealed to Betty, who didn’t know. “My thing. My liver. He wants to check my liver function. Did I tell you, we saw you on TV the other night. Everyone was very impressed.”
Fran stepped aside and Lindsay bowed down and hugged her grandmother.
“How tall are you now?” she asked, patting her shoulders. “My God, she’s an Amazon.”
There weren’t enough chairs for them to sit so they stood around her, catching up. The room was furnished with pieces from the old house—the cherrywood secretary where his mother kept her checkbook and stamps, the marble-topped table from the front hall, the hutch from the dining room, complete with dishes he’d eaten off as a boy. On top of his father’s dresser, beside a black-and-white photo of his parents cutting their wedding cake, stood a framed portrait of Kim and Lindsay in matching bumblebee dance outfits, springy heart-topped antennae poking from their heads. There were other shots of Kim on the walls, alone or with Lindsay, even a few with all the grandchildren, pictures of himself and Rich as kids, and one of his mother as a little girl in a belted winter coat and a muff, standing on the running board of a long touring car. Normally her gallery didn’t bother him, but now instead of a comfort the past was just loss, and he suggested they go outside and find a spot by the pond before they were all taken.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to help your old mother up. I’ve been having trouble with my legs.”
As Betty set the folded blanket on the bed and helped him lift her, he was surprised by how light she was. Her ankles were thick with fluid, but her upper body was a husk.
“Did you want a chair?” Betty asked.
“We’re okay,” he said automatically. His mother could walk, she was just slow and a bit unsteady, and had been since her sight had deteriorated.
“If you need me for anything, just buzz the desk.”
“Thank you,” Fran said, and took her place, giving his mother her elbow to hold.
Suspended between them, his mother bent forward at the waist, as if looking down at her feet as she lifted one and then, with effort, the other. She was wearing brand-new white Nike trainers, which they encouraged here for safety, but which looked utterly foreign on her, a woman who considered jogging silly.
“I don’t know,” she said after a few tentative steps. “A chair might be easier.”
“Would you rather have the chair?” he asked.
“If it’s no bother. This thing with my legs has been getting worse. It has to do with the . . .” Her good hand fluttered, searching for the word. “With the blood getting down there. I can’t think of it now. I have to wear these socks all the time.”
“Compression hose,” Fran said.
“Even when I’m sleeping.”
“It could be phlebitis.”
“That’s not it.”
“They’re probably worried about blood clots.”
“You’d know better than I would,” his mother said, as if the condition was temporary. “I swear it’s something new every week around here.”
Betty helped them get her into the chair, kneeling to set her shoes on the footrests, and he rolled her down the hall, Lindsay walking ahead to press the oversized button that activated the door. He had to hunch to push the chair, and couldn’t avoid the pink, mottled patches on his mother’s scalp, the blue veins encased in waxen, almost translucent skin. He recalled his grandmother Biggs the last time he saw her, at his grandfather’s funeral, shriveled in a wheelchair, her face a lumpy net of wrinkles behind her veil, but powdered, her cheeks and lips artificially red. He and Rich stood before her in their church clothes—white shirts and clip-on ties, hard shoes. She reached out for them to each take a hand, then pulled them close. Her voice was a raspy whisper. “You need to be good for your mother,” she said, as if it was a secret. “You’re all she has now.” At the time and for years afterward he wanted to think it wasn’t true, but honestly it always was. Since his father died they were all she had, just as she was all they had, like it or not. He hadn’t always been good, though that was a long time ago. Surely by now he’d paid for his sins against her.
Outside, families strolled the paths, the grandchildren conspicuous, at the periphery. Mostly there were couples, a single child visiting a parent, and he was glad Fran and Lindsay were there.
The koi pond was the centerpiece of the grounds, spring-fed and murky green, the thick orange and white fish rising to kiss the surface. The path snaked through stands of bamboo and cherry trees along the manicured banks. As he’d thought, their favorite spot was taken, but after a short walk they found a bench in the shade of a Japanese maple and Fran spread a blanket on the grass.
“Delicious,” his mother said of the chicken salad, though she managed only a few bites. Lindsay opened the mints and poured her a handful. “Oh, that’s too many,” she said, and, sucking each one until it was gone, proceeded to eat them all.
Somehow—as if she subscribed to a satellite radio station dedicated to their old lives—she had news of neighbors and childhood friends he could no longer recall. Daniel Shostak’s father had passed away. The Normans’ youngest daughter, who went to Case for astrophysics, was interning with NASA in Cleveland this summer. Her interest in others reassured him, though she regularly groped for what she wanted to say. The gaps were noticeable, and she prolonged them by circling the missing word until they were all stumped.
“That’s what happens when you get old,” she joked, but it seemed clear that she was foggier than usual, and he racked his memory of his last visit for signs he might have missed.
The afternoon was long, and as hard as they all tried to avoid it, ultimately they had to talk about Kim. While he’d kept his mother informed, he hadn’t gone into any real detail regarding the investigation, not merely because he didn’t want to upset her, but because he knew she would have her own ideas on how it should be handled—as if the police actually listened to them. Now when she brought up the possibility of her paying for a private detective, Lindsay asked if she could go get a water from the machine inside, and with a finger Fran signaled that she’d go with her.
“Do you think it’s too late?” his mother asked when they were gone.
Though he was sure it wasn’t her intention, the question hurt him. It was unfair of her to lay the matter out so plainly.
“I
’m not sure what bringing in someone from outside would accomplish at this point.”
“That’s just it, you don’t know. Someone from outside might see things differently.”
He wanted to tell her this wasn’t TV, but said he’d consider it, and thanked her for the offer.
“If you’re worried about the money—”
“I’m not worried about the money.”
“Because you and your brother are going to get it all anyway. You might as well use it when it can make a difference.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Please do,” she said. “I may not be of much use anymore, but I can at least do this for her.”
Her offer was sincere and not the ultimatum he might have seen it as in the past. As the oldest grandchild, Kim had been her favorite. From the beginning she’d seen herself in her, taking credit for her facility with numbers and love of drawing, even her good skin, and while Fran chafed at her claims, he could see some merit to them. The two were at once headstrong and defensive, at the mercy of their own showy emotions yet intensely private, blowing up and then retreating into themselves. Like Kim, his mother would always be a mystery to him.
While they were alone they talked about the tests Dr. Ray wanted her to take. So far the doctor was dumbfounded (her word). Her symptoms were consistent with someone exposed to benzene or some other industrial solvent over a long period. She made it sound like a riddle, her case one of a kind. He didn’t ask if she’d told the doctor about her drinking, as if those years had no effect on her liver, and then, in midthought, realized how cold he was being. Directly across the pond a father and son were playing chess on a bench, their legs crossed, jaws propped on fists like twins, and he wondered what they weren’t saying to each other. Every family here, he thought, somehow they were all trying to keep the illusion of normal life going. At this point what couldn’t be forgiven?
Songs for the Missing Page 17
