Home Field

by Hannah Gersen

  Dean said, “I can die now, a happy man.” A cliché but she had laughed. And then she startled him, saying that thing that had locked the scene into his memory for good, making it something more than just a lovely lovers’ day.

  “I can’t believe I ever wanted to kill myself,” she said. “Last year at this time . . . that’s all I could think about.”

  “Not really,” Dean said, his eyes still on the sky.

  “Really,” she said. She made him sit up. She took his hands in hers. “You need to know this about me. I don’t handle . . . I don’t handle things well. There was a time when I thought it would be better for Stephanie if I was gone.”

  “Stephanie adores you.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know, I know.”

  “You’re a wonderful mother.”

  “Dean, you don’t have to say that. You don’t have to reassure me. It was a kind of sickness. A kind of weakness. I didn’t want to face my life. And maybe I was tired, too. I don’t know. You would never feel that way so you can’t understand. But I want you to try.”

  “Okay,” he said. But he didn’t try. He didn’t want to imagine her feeling those things.

  “Dean, listen to me.” She squeezed his hands. “These weren’t just thoughts. I bought a gun.”

  “Okay.” He searched her face for some change, some hint of bitterness or sorrow, but he could only see his beautiful fiancée with her gray-blue eyes and smooth, untroubled brow. “Do you still have it?”

  She shook her head. “I got rid of it. I told myself it could still be a possibility; it just couldn’t be that easy. That’s how crazy I was. But then I started to feel better. And then I met you. And I didn’t want you to know how I felt—how low I could get. I didn’t want you to see me any differently.”

  “I don’t,” Dean said. And he didn’t, in that moment.

  “You don’t have to say that. You don’t even have to marry me. I just wanted you to know.”

  “But I want to marry you, that’s all I want.”

  Did he want to save her? That was what Dean wondered now. Or was it Stephanie he wanted to save? And what was this thing in him that needed to rescue women? He saw Megan as someone in need of rescuing, he realized, trapped by Joelle’s ideology. And maybe he saw Laura that way, too, as a woman who needed to be saved from marrying into the town that had trapped him.

  He coaxed a drowsy Stephanie from the car and led her into the lounge, which was empty and dark. Dean turned on a small floor lamp near the fireplace. The coals were covered in bright gray ash; Dean blew on them and they briefly glowed orange.

  Stephanie lay down on one of the sofas against the wall.

  “I’ll get you a blanket,” Dean said.

  “Mm-hmm,” she murmured.

  Dean found a large walk-in closet, but it was full of scientific equipment: scales, magnifying glasses, microscopes, water-testing kits, rubber gloves, and a variety of measuring instruments. On one of the lower shelves there was a box of compasses. Next to it was a pile of laminated maps. Dean took one out and unfolded it. It covered only a small portion of the mountain: the school, the fire tower, and the nature and fitness trails. The markings were cartoonish and not drawn to scale; it was more like the map you might find at the beginning of a children’s story. Dean traced its borders with his finger, then pointed to a spot in midair, high above the map. That’s where his son was. Out in the nothingness.

  Stephanie was fast asleep when he returned to the great room. She had draped her coat over her, like a blanket. Dean imagined Robbie in the same prostrate position, somewhere in the woods. Fear gathered in his chest; it was a kind of tightening, a kind of pain. He went outside onto the deck where he could see the mess hall, the windows still lit. There was no news, no point in going over there unless he wanted the distraction.

  He didn’t want the distraction.

  He noticed a telescope at the far end of the deck and went over to it. He knew nothing about the constellations, so he just looked at the moon.

  Robbie had once asked him why the moon didn’t fall out of the sky. That was one of his first big questions. Robbie asked more “why” questions than Bryan. Or maybe it was that he asked more specific ones. Bryan accepted life’s constants more easily. You couldn’t just say “the law of gravity” to Robbie. Dean had to set up a miniature solar system on their kitchen table. The moon was a blueberry. Earth was a Golden Delicious apple. The sun was the basket that held all the fruits. It took forever to explain how the moon could reflect the sun’s light even as it was surrounded by darkness. Dean had to demonstrate how the moon could orbit the earth while at the same time the earth was turning.

  “The moon is showing us that it’s sunny somewhere else,” Robbie eventually said. And then Dean knew he understood.

  Now, as Dean gazed at the moon, he imagined that it held captive all the sunny moments of his life, starting with his childhood, when his mother was young and wore her hair long, tied back in a handkerchief when she was working in the yard and he would play nearby, bouncing his rubber ball against the walls of his small, sturdy house. And then, elementary school, catching the bus at the end of his dusty lane, playing flag football at recess with his friends, running home on the long dusty lane, talking to his father, helping him to brush the horses, carrying buckets of water to him and small hay bales, too, the twine cutting into the flesh of his palm in a satisfying way. Years and years of these wonderful hours of purely physical happiness, hours that began to break down during his high school years when a kind of willed determination crept in, hardening everything. But still, the sun beating down, the pain in his limbs, the excitement of growing up.

  And then Nicole, a woman he remembered as doused in sunlight even though she was the saddest person he’d ever known.

  Dean stepped away from the telescope. The moon was small and simple again, without contours, just a silver misshapen disc that looked like it could fall from the sky.

  Where, thought Dean, where, where, where? Where is my son?

  WHEN ROBBIE WAS feeling bored, or alienated, or out of his depth—when he was in gym class, playing soccer, for instance—he would narrate his circumstances, putting himself in the third person. Robbie Renner stood near the goal in the fullback position, watching as clouds drifted by. He wasn’t cut out for soccer, his thoughts were elsewhere . . . It helped him see his life as a story, and he liked stories; you could hold a story in your mind in one piece.

  When night first began to fall in the woods, when the moon came out and the shadows got darker and more mysterious, Robbie turned it into the setting of a story. He wasn’t scared, or rather, he was scared, but he would appreciate his own bravery and nerve. He had done it! He was out late at night, on his own, in the world.

  But as the night wore on, Robbie’s sense of exhilaration faded. Fatigue and hunger began to creep in, and he couldn’t be a narrator anymore. All he could think of was how hungry he was and how sore his legs were. He had eaten his other Snickers and two boxes of raisins. He had chewed all his gum and drunk the small apple juice he’d saved from lunch, earlier in the day. He was tired of sweet. He wanted something salty now—a grilled cheese sandwich or a plate of scrambled eggs. French fries.

  Above, the tree branches creaked. Occasionally he saw the glowing eyes of a small nocturnal creature. He liked seeing them. He wasn’t scared of animals.

  He was going to be in so much trouble when this was over.

  He could never explain himself to his father. Certain events would come back to him, and he would feel shame spreading through his body. Like the time his father caught him wearing his mother’s clothes. Why had he done that? He couldn’t say. But when he was crouched under his parents’ bed, wearing his mother’s clothes, feeling like the weirdest person in the world, he had heard his father say his mother’s name out loud. And he clung to that.

  He told Ms. Lanning about it. Not what his father said, but that he didn’t think it was fair that Stephanie could take and we
ar his mother’s clothes and no one said anything about it, because she was a girl. If it were the other way around, if his father was gone, not his mother, Robbie knew it would be okay for him to wear his father’s old T-shirts. It would be encouraged, even. Sometimes he wished his father had died instead of his mother. Ms. Lanning said it was okay to have that as a wish. That it was normal, since he had been closer to his mother. Robbie thought it made him evil. Ms. Lanning said she didn’t believe in evil, that it was a theological word. Robbie said it didn’t matter to him if she believed it, he was the one who had to live with the word in his mind. Ms. Lanning asked him what he thought it would be like if his mother had lived, but not his father. But Robbie couldn’t imagine his father dead. It was like his father was more alive than other people. Ms. Lanning said, Yes, I know what you mean.

  Robbie’s original plan was to walk until he reached the main road, and then he would find a farm and sleep there, in a shed or a barn. But he had underestimated the distance. Or he had gotten off course. He wasn’t sure at this point.

  Ahead, the woods appeared to be getting darker, but he couldn’t be sure. Probably a patch of underbrush. Maybe briars. He could usually walk around them, but at night it was hard to see where they began and ended, even with his flashlight.

  A sharp, familiar odor reached his nose. Pines. There was a stand of white pines near his house; he liked to lie beneath them on hot days and listen to the branches whispering above him.

  These pines were not white pines—they were something taller and hardier—but Robbie still felt protected as he sat down beneath them. He lay down on his side, resting his head on his arm. Then he changed his mind and gathered some pine needles and leaves into a pile, which he then covered with his scarf. His hands were cold and the tip of his nose was cold, but otherwise, he felt warm enough. He thought, I’ll never fall asleep like this. He remembered his mother telling him it was okay to just rest on the nights when you couldn’t fall asleep. And she would also say, Joy comes in the morning.

  Robbie closed his eyes. Sleep broke over his exhausted body like a wave. When he woke up, six hours later, the sun was rising, a pale fragile light drifting through the trees. Birds sang noisily. So much more of the landscape was visible in daylight. He realized there was a field close by; he could see a break ahead in the trees. He hurried over to it; his legs were energetic again, and his body felt light. He was so hungry.

  When he reached the edge of the forest, he found himself staring at a large, rolling field, freshly hayed with square bundles of straw deposited at regular intervals. In the distance was a line of telephone poles. The moon hung above the horizon, white in the pearly sky. Robbie checked his compass. Yes, he was heading west. That was good. The road he wanted was right ahead.

  STEPHANIE WOKE UP to the sound of children’s voices. She was completely disoriented; she couldn’t remember falling asleep, or where she was or even what day it was. Large square cushions were scattered across the floor in front of a limestone fireplace with blackened logs in its hearth. A phrase floated into her head: Death is the black door you walked through. She didn’t know where it came from, unless it was the residue from a dream.

  Then it was as if some window was opened and reality could enter: she was at the Outdoor School, she had driven here last night, Robbie was lost.

  “Dad?” She thought she smelled coffee brewing somewhere. She stood up and looked out the window and saw a group of kids lined up to go somewhere, their hats and coats bright against the fading autumn landscape. They couldn’t stand still even as they quieted down; they kept shifting, touching each other, adjusting their clothes, scuffing the ground, and bending down to pick up pebbles, dried leaves, pine needles, clumps of dirt. Stephanie felt so full of longing as she watched them, it was as if she could reach out and touch her childhood. She didn’t want to be a kid again, though. She just wanted her mother back.

  She found a bathroom and washed her face and hands. She took her braids out and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Her skin was pale, lusterless, her nose red around the nostrils, and there was acne emerging on her chin and in the space between her eyebrows. Her mascara had rubbed off beneath her eyes.

  Outside the air felt especially cold on her damp face. The campus was empty of people, the trees bare of leaves. The children who had stood outside the window were gone, headed off to wherever they went on the last day. It was so quiet that she could hear the flags flapping and the little metal rivet banging against the flagpole.

  “Stephanie! You’re awake! I was just coming to get you.” Her father was running toward her. He was coming from the mess hall. “They’ve seen him. Someone saw him!”

  “Where?” Stephanie hurried to meet him. “When?”

  “He was at a gas station—a Sheetz. About an hour ago. The guy working behind the counter saw his photo on TV.”

  “Robbie was on TV?”

  “He was on the morning news.”

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s not that late, honey. Not even nine.”

  “I don’t understand, why did he go to a gas station?”

  “He was hungry.” Her father smiled. “He bought powdered doughnuts.”

  “That has to be Robbie! Where is he now?”

  “We don’t know. But it wasn’t that long ago that he was at that store. We’ll find him.” Her father kissed her forehead. “Come on, let’s go get your brother.”

  Chapter 15

  What seemed easy was difficult. The police had assumed Robbie was walking along Route 35, because that’s where the Sheetz was, but he wasn’t—or he was, but he somehow eluded notice. It was as if he didn’t want to be found. Either that or something terrible had happened. He had hitchhiked and it had gone wrong. Or he’d stepped into oncoming traffic. Or he’d been bitten by a dog or hit by a combine or he had slipped, somehow, and fallen into a ditch. Or, or—what? What else? Dean tried not to let his mind go there, but it was hard when his house was full of worried family, and when the phone kept ringing with reporters, teachers, colleagues, and even two different lawyers who wanted Dean to know that their services were available should he choose to take legal action against the school system. Unbelievable. Dean felt assaulted by the world, with all its logistics, its pettiness, its demands and complications. He should have stayed up at the Outdoor School, up on the mountain, where it was nature and memories and waiting.

  The kitchen phone rang again. “Goddammit!” Dean said.

  “I’ll get it, Dad,” Stephanie said. She gave Joelle an apologetic look, but Joelle kept her eyes on the ham-and-cheese sandwiches she was preparing.

  “I got it,” Dean said. “Hello?” he barked into the phone. “Unless you’re calling to say you’ve found my son, I really don’t have time to talk. Okay?”

  “Dean, it’s Laura.”

  “Oh, God. Hi.” He glanced at Stephanie, who he knew was watching him, and gave her a vague nod before taking the phone into the living room. Not that he could be alone there. Jenny, Megan, and Bryan were sitting on the floor, playing Parcheesi while they waited for lunch.

  “Sorry,” Laura said. “I know you need to keep the line open.”

  “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m glad you called.”

  “I wasn’t sure if I should.”

  “You should, believe me. You wouldn’t believe the scum that have been calling—reporters and lawyers. All the bottom-feeders.”

  “So there’s no news of him yet?”

  “Somebody saw him in a gas station around eight, and that’s the last we’ve heard of him.”

  “You’re sure it was him?”

  “He was wearing the right clothes. It sounded like him.”

  “Well, look, how far could he get, right?” Laura said. Her voice was even, but Dean could tell she was scared. “He won’t do anything stupid.”

  “I don’t know,” Dean said. It was such a relief to talk to her. “Even the smartest kid is a little bit stupid.”

  “Even if he did do
something dumb, even if he hitchhiked, what are the chances—”

  “I don’t know, I can’t think about that. I really can’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You warned me,” he said. “I should have listened to you.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault.”

  “No, it isn’t. But people only say that when they wish it was somebody’s fault.”

  “I’m not trying to blame you.”

  “I know you’re not.” Dean looked up at the ceiling, trying to get a feeling of privacy in his house full of people.

  “Can you think of a place he might want to go?” Laura asked. “He usually goes somewhere specific when he leaves school. Has he mentioned any place in particular?”

  “He hasn’t been talking to me much,” Dean said. “Not that I noticed.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. Now is not the time.”

  “Laura, I need to change.” It felt good to say her name. He didn’t care who overheard.

  “You need to find Robbie. That’s all you need to do.”

  “I mean it. Nicole is gone. That’s the truth. If Robbie comes home—”

  “Don’t say if; are you crazy? Of course he’s coming home.”

  “I hate just sitting here, waiting.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help? Could I bring over some lunch?”

  “Joelle’s making lunch.” Dean glanced at the kids. Megan was stretching, her legs in hurdler’s position. Tomorrow was Regionals. He hadn’t forgotten, but its importance had faded.

  “Actually, there is something I need to do, but I might not be able to,” Dean said. “The girls have a meet tomorrow. It’s a big one. I’m supposed to be there.” He glanced at Megan, who was openly listening. “Do you think you could go in my place? You would be a chaperone, you could leave all the meet logistics to Philips. I mean, if we don’t find—”

  “Of course,” Laura interrupted. “Of course.”

  “You don’t actually have to do that much,” he said. “You just let the girls run.”