Every Time You Go Away

by Beth Harbison

  Going down the stairs, I tried an old self-hypnosis trick of feeling more confident and relaxed with every step down. It kind of worked too, until I heard a bang and an expletive coming from upstairs. “Everything all right?” I asked automatically.

  “Fine.”

  Dubiously I returned to the kitchen, where all of my supplies were. Where to start? I guessed I should begin by cleaning up. Everything needed a clean surface before beginning, didn’t it? Even life needed a clean slate to start again. I’d look at this exercise as beginning my life over.

  It turned out it was less of a philosophical meditation and more of a painkiller commercial. The sink, counter, stovetop, all of that was easy to do, but it was a lot harder to get inside the cabinets and under the stove, and so on. I bonked my elbows, knees, and my head half a dozen times. Yet it felt strangely good to be putting elbow grease into a job, to work hard and see results.

  I heard Dave the Plumber walking around up and down the stairs, in and out of the house, into the laundry room where the water main was, but I squelched the urge to ask if I could help. He’d made it clear he didn’t need my help, and what could I do anyway? Besides, I didn’t want to help. I was pretty tied up myself.

  It was when I had my head under the kitchen sink, hitting the reset button on the disposal, that I heard the voice.

  “I think we’re going to need a new dishwasher. This one’s about a hundred years old.”

  “What?” I asked, trying to back out gracefully but pulling off more of a Winnie-the-Pooh-stuck-in-the-tree sort of move. “How can I need a new dishwasher? I haven’t even run this one yet!”

  There was no one there.

  “Hello?”

  No answer. I got up and walked around the wall and into the hallway with the laundry room, where I ran smack into Dave the Plumber. “There you are. Why do I need a new dishwasher?”

  He ran his hand across his forehead and through his hair before looking at me wearily. “Is this a quiz?”

  “What do you mean? You just said I needed a new dishwasher.”

  “Lady, I haven’t even seen you for half an hour, I definitely haven’t been chatting with you about your appliances. Are you saying it’s broken and you need me to take a look?”

  “No, it’s not broken, that’s exactly my point.”

  “You’re telling me that your dishwasher is not broken?”

  “That’s right.” I could hear it myself, I was starting to sound like a mental patient.

  He shook his head. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about before I get back to work?”

  Panic gripped my chest. Was I losing my mind? “Sorry, no. It’s just … I thought I heard a voice when I was working in the kitchen. Saying—”

  “That you need to get a new dishwasher.”

  I sighed. “Yes.”

  “You’d better look into that, then.”

  I looked at him. “It was a really long night.”

  He smiled, barely. He may be an ornery guy, a curmudgeon even, but he was nothing if not grounded, and that was what I needed around right now.

  “Maybe get yourself a glass of water. Or something stronger. Unless…?”

  “No, I haven’t been drinking this morning,” I said in answer to his unasked question.

  He shrugged. “No sin in it. Just might make you hear things.”

  I can do that all by myself. “I’ll get back to work now.”

  “Me too.”

  He clomped off back upstairs, and I stood there for a moment glued to the spot, trying to figure out what the hell had happened and what the hell I was going to do about it. When I heard him clanking on pipes, I found the sound reassuring. It was nice to have a man around the house, even if it was a hired crabby plumber.

  I found myself thinking that should be the name of his business. The Crabby Plumber. Described him and yet had a lovely ring of beachy whimsy. I chuckled to myself at the thought and returned to the kitchen.

  The dishwasher sat there, gleaming stainless steal, conspicuously begging attention. I opened it, as I had earlier, and everything looked normal. I closed it back up. I’d run it when the water was back on.

  It was probably fifteen or twenty minutes later that it hit me. The new dishwasher. We’d gotten it when we first bought the place. We’d been pretty cash poor then and had hoped to make do with most of the appliances and plumbing as they were, planning to replace them one by one as money allowed. But the dishwasher had leaked the minute we’d started it.

  All these years later it was hard to remember exactly what Ben had said, but I know he said we needed a new dishwasher. I was Mary Sunshine, trying to make everything seem better than it was so he wouldn’t change his mind and think we’d made a mistake in buying this place I’d so desperately wanted.

  It was just like him to say we needed a new one because this one was a hundred years old. In fact … I tried to rewind the morning … had that been Ben’s voice I’d heard saying it? In this wildly inconsistent nonsense world I’d found myself in, that would make more sense than the plumber walking through and saying random things like that, then hiding and denying he’d said anything.

  One thing was sure: I knew I’d heard it.

  * * *

  Dave worked until early afternoon, cutting out the ceiling, taking a huge fan off of his truck and directing it toward the dampness, and making noise about water mitigation, which was apparently the process of fixing the damage caused by a flood.

  He said there had been several leaks in the pipes upstairs and that it looked like they had frozen at some point during some winter because no one had emptied the faucets when winterizing the house. That was true, it hadn’t even occurred to me. When Ben had died, I knew to make sure the house was locked and secured and that everything was turned off, but the whole process of draining the pipes had eluded me. There would probably be an unpleasant surprise when I went to turn on the hose bibs outside as well. I remembered Ben being fastidious about that.

  “I’m going to have to run out and do another job I committed to,” Dave said. “Plus get a few parts, but I can come back tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yes! Absolutely! Anything to get the water back on.” Tomorrow suddenly seemed very far away.

  He gave a salute and turned to leave.

  “Mr. Macmillan?”

  He stopped and turned around.

  “About earlier, the whole dishwasher thing?” What was I going to say? How was I going to follow up with this? Why on earth had I even brought it up?

  He looked at me expectantly. “What about it?”

  I floundered. “Well, it looks like the dishwasher is working fine, so I won’t need you to look at it after all.” Lame lame lame. I had tried to mitigate my seeming insanity by increasing it.

  He gave a slow nod. “Good.” Then, without further examination of me or the conversation, he turned and left.

  “Good,” I echoed in his wake. “I’ve made a hell of an impression. I’m probably going to be charged extra for having an unsound mind and subjecting the poor man to it.” I realized I was speaking out loud, but I didn’t care. “Damn it, Ben, why did you have to do this to me?”

  It would have been easy to just collapse into a self-pitying heap of grievances, but I’d done enough of that since I’d gotten here. That wasn’t why I’d come. I’d come to do a job and that’s what I was going to do.

  But I couldn’t do it alone. I called Jamie’s number, and this time he answered.

  And I was relieved to hear his voice, I really was. Part of me felt so tender toward him, so happy that he was safe, and so eager to see him and try—again—to have a fun time together, to heal our relationship and make it what it had once been and what it undoubtedly still would have been if Ben hadn’t died.

  The tenderness wasn’t what came out, though. Instead, I felt a hot stream of angry air fill me and I let him have it, leaving no clue whatsoever of the love I felt for him or the need I had to be with him
and have his help and support.

  Instead I was just a screaming meemie, and I absolutely hated myself for it.

  “Jamie, good god, how many times are you capable of ignoring your own mother?”

  Chapter Ten

  Jamie

  Roxy was gone when he woke up. Probably off to the mall to talk to her friends. She’d sip an Orange Julius and recall her meltdown in a totally different way than it went down. The way her friends glared at him after nights like this, the way she did too when she was around them, always told him that somehow he’d come out as the bad guy, regardless of the truth.

  Let’s see, how would she recall the night before through her own little magic filter?

  All she’d need to say was that he tried to break up with her while she was going through all this. Whatever all this was at the time. She was always going through something, and a lot of it was really bad. But some of it was just bullshit. Exaggerations, just like she made about him. Sometimes he wondered if the whole thing was fabrication.

  He’d met her dad—he was friendly and kind of quiet. Not in a brooding way, more in a shy way. Jamie had to give her story the benefit of the doubt, though, he got that he couldn’t truly know, and he’d feel like a real jerk if he said, He seems like a perfectly nice guy! and then she turned up with a black eye from him someday.

  He rolled over and finally sent in his essay. Within half an hour he’d gotten a disappointed email back from his teacher. She told him to ask himself why he made his own life harder by not doing the easy things—the essay was easy for him and she knew that; pressing send on time was also easy.

  He didn’t answer, and he had a feeling she’d be a little harsher with the grading of this one out of sheer principle.

  He got his room together and then headed downstairs.

  His phone rang.

  Again. His phone rang again. It had been alive with the buzz of his mom’s calls and Roxy’s on and off all morning. He should have just put it on silent, but instead he’d thrown it into a pile of dirty laundry so he could sleep a little longer.

  Roxy would eventually just show up, but for now she probably believed he was still sleeping, so he could still wait a bit on that. His mom, though, was just going to keep calling.

  He pulled turkey, cheese, mayonnaise (his mom had gotten him the chipotle-seasoned kind—he hadn’t even told her he liked it, she just noticed he ate more sandwiches when that’s what she picked up), and Wickles Pickles from the fridge. The bread was almost gone. He’d have to grab some from the store.

  The phone buzzed again. Mom.

  He shut his eyes and put his head back before returning to making his sandwich and ignoring her again.

  It felt shitty ignoring her like this, especially after what had happened to his dad. He could picture her alone in the beach house right this second, trying to call her son, probably knowing it would go to voice mail again. She was pissed or she was sad. There was no chance she was calling because it was so much fun going through the house.

  But he also knew she was calling because she wanted him to come help. The second he pictured doing that he shut down. He was a pretty calm, level person. But certain things sent his anxiety crunching right up and down his spine. Pretty much anything to do with his dad or spending a lot of time alone with his mom was cringe-inducing.

  If he answered, she’d ask him to come, he’d say no, and she’d either rally and say she understood or she would give him crap for it. Either way, he’d hear it in her voice—that need, that desperation. He’d feel guilty either way. Unless he actually said okay and went.

  He couldn’t even picture the house as it must look now. Empty and quiet, dusty, and half packed. Memories hanging in the air like spiderwebs, sticky, frustrating, complicated, and dying to wrap themselves around his skull.

  He could feel the thin strings on him right now.

  Plus his mom was bound to start crying at some point. He wasn’t an unfeeling jerk—his whole life he’d been able to pat her on the back and say the right things to make her feel better when something struck her this way. He wasn’t fooled by her smiles after his dad died. There was an unbearable heaviness to her sadness and he couldn’t always take it. He wanted to escape it and pretend it didn’t exist. But most of the time he’d straighten up and do his best, knowing it was what his dad would have wanted. And knowing, frankly, that it was what he was supposed to do.

  But he couldn’t do it with this. He felt like a prick, but he couldn’t be strong for her this time about his dad’s death. Not this directly, with the beach house. He couldn’t muster the comfort she needed. He wasn’t any good at it in this case. Or maybe just not anymore. He didn’t know yet.

  If he answered, she’d also ask him if he’d just woken up, and then say, Lord, really? and then she’d ask what he was doing. He’d say he was making a turkey sandwich, and she’d say, For what is basically your breakfast? That’s so gross. Scramble an egg for it, at least. And then he’d ask if that was all, and the conversation would wind down, and—

  Buzzzz …

  All right, fine, he just played it out in his head. He may as well answer.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Jamie, good god, how many times are you capable of ignoring your own mother?”

  “It looks like about ten.”

  She sighed. “Very amusing. Are you just waking up?”

  Check. “No.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ve been up since eight.”

  He wanted to say, I wouldn’t be able to sleep there either, but he didn’t want to introduce more weirdness to the situation.

  Besides, she took over on her own. “This is really … just strange being here…” Her voice trailed off, and the pang of guilt started to play in his chest.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Please … listen, I know we talked about me coming and doing this myself, but it turns out it’s more work than I anticipated.”

  Here it came.

  “I need you to help me,” she finished. The words were strange, almost. She never admitted she couldn’t handle things, even though it was patently obvious at times.

  And if it was anything but that house, he’d make himself do it. “I can’t. I’ve got schoolwork and … stuff.”

  “You’re taking that class online and it’s almost finished.”

  “Yeah.” True. “But I’m doing other things too.”

  “What are you so busy doing right this second?”

  He paused. Any point in lying? In embellishing? What could he even say that was important? “Eating a turkey sandwich.”

  “But you just woke up?”

  “Yes.”

  She made a sound of distaste. “That’s not breakfast.”

  Check.

  She used to say that about his dad eating salad for breakfast too. But in that case he had to agree. Salad was never exactly great, but for breakfast? It was pretty disgusting.

  “Is that all?” he asked. “You called to complain about how late I slept and my breakfast choices?”

  Tension swooped into her voice. “I called because you ought to come help your mother.” A beat. “And I’m complaining about your lunch choices, considering nothing about a turkey sandwich is breakfast.”

  “It’s a perfectly healthy choice no matter which one it is. Beats having Skittles for breakfast or lunch, right?”

  Another sigh. “True.”

  She remembered, as he did, his Skittles binge. There had been some Jolly Ranchers thrown in too, but he’d gone through a pretty long period of eating mostly candy, in between forcing down the vegetables his mom made him eat.

  But he wasn’t going to give her that now.

  “I gotta go,” he said. “Roxy is calling.”

  “Roxy is always calling.”

  He gave a half shrug that she couldn’t see. “True.”

  “I bet she called more than I did today and she’s not packing an entire house b
y herself.” There was a hint of anger to her voice. “This isn’t how life is supposed to be,” she went on, softening. “Sleeping all day, having lunch for breakfast, and probably nothing for dinner. I … I haven’t been on top of things enough.”

  He was about to try to reassure her that she had been, but that wasn’t true. She hadn’t. They both knew it.

  In the background he heard the doorbell. It was an old one, an actual bell that you had to turn instead of press. He’d completely forgotten about that sound.

  “Who’s at the door?” he asked, suddenly, uncharacteristically, worried about her being alone there.

  “Oh, that’s just the Grotto pizza I ordered for lunch. No big deal. Why don’t you get some Grotto tonight?” She hesitated, purposely, knowing it was his favorite. “Oh, wait, you can’t because they only have that here at the beach.”

  She very nearly got him with that one. “’Bye, Mom.”

  “Roll your eyes at Roxy for me.”

  “Will do.”

  She hung up before he did. He looked at his sandwich. Grotto really did sound good.

  Why was it that all they had around here was crappy chain restaurants, but only a couple of hours away they had all that good, beachy food?

  He could almost smell it now. The greasy, salty Thrasher’s french fries, covered in so much malt vinegar that the tang almost hurt. The ice-cream cones from Kohr Brothers. He could distinctly remember the creamy vanilla-orange swirl dripping down his fingers, melting in the hot sun, all over his face and even sometimes dripping down his bare chest if he was “horsing around” with his friends enough. That was his dad’s expression, which must have come from his dad, because it was unlike him to use such antiquated terms.

  His hand and chest sticky. His sandy feet bare on the shady part of the boardwalk wood, his mom worried he’d get a splinter (which he often did). His hair so filled with salt that it stuck up at all ends. His mom always lamenting how much lighter his dark hair got in the summer, saying life would be cheaper for her if hers did the same. His skin got dark brown, just like his dad’s, never burning, but they were always being chased down by his mom and a spray bottle of SPF 50 anyway. He was the kid who could actually look cool on a skim board (an inherently uncool thing, really, but girls always came up and wanted to try it).