When You Went Away

by Michael Baron

  It was Sunday night and there was no one I could talk to about tracing her message back through the remailer she used. Maybe someone from the IT department at Eleanor Miller would be able to help tomorrow.

  Back in October,Maureen’s father hired a private investigator to track Tanya down.We called him off after a month when it was obvious he didn’t have enough information to do his job. Feeling the need to do something now, though, I called his cell phone. I told him what little I knew about the record store and agreed to wire him a retainer in the morning. If he found the store, I would be on the next plane. I was no longer worried about Tanya’s response upon seeing me. I needed to bring her back.

  As little as it was, I felt like I was doing something. But it wasn’t nearly enough to calm me down. I opened the journal and tried to write, but I couldn’t put down a single word. It no longer served the function it had been serving for me. Not when my need to communicate with the real Tanya was this great.

  I went into Reese’s room to watch him sleep in blissful ignorance. He didn’t know his mother was gone forever. He didn’t know his sister anguished somewhere all alone. He didn’t know that I’d bounced the woman he adored from his life. I envied him.

  I went into my room and sat in the middle of my bed. I tried asking Maureen for advice, but she wasn’t talking. I don’t know how long I sat there, but at some point, I entered something like a meditative state.

  Only to learn that there were no answers forthcoming.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Contact Information

  Ally didn’t come to the office that Monday. Her assistant called Ben to tell him she wouldn’t be at the team meeting; she got sick on something over the weekend and needed another day to recover. This was a relief for me. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I faced her again.

  I was much too distracted to work. I talked to a colleague in IT about tracing the remailer and he connected me to a friend who connected me to another friend. In the end, I learned a chapbook’s worth of jargon, but nothing of Tanya’s whereabouts. These remailer services were especially effective at masking the origins of the messages they handled. That, of course, was the point. I wired the investigator his money and spoke to him twice on the phone. He told me that his preliminary sweep of independent record stores in the South had netted no owners with the names Syd or Sidney. I didn’t think until then that Tanya had probably changed the owner’s name to deflect any efforts I might make to find her. The investigator could search forever and never learn anything based on what I’d given him. Still, I asked him to keep looking.

  By mid-afternoon, after attending a meeting but not participating in it in the slightest, I realized that I needed to get away. I couldn’t pretend that my life was in any way routine when Ally was down the hall hating me (as presumably she would be tomorrow), and Tanya was suffering somewhere else. I had to get out of the house and out of my job for at least a few days in order to gain a little perspective.

  I went to see Marshall and, remarkably, he wasn’t on the telephone.

  “Listen, I’m going to take the rest of the week off as vacation time.”

  “You can’t. There’s too much happening here.”

  “There isn’t too much happening here. The catalogs are in great shape, there isn’t another board meeting for a couple of weeks, and because it’s August half the staff is on vacation already anyway.”

  “This is the time when real executives step back to take stock of the company and plan for the future.”

  “I’m not in the best shape to do that right now.”

  “The company is in desperate need of creative solutions to its mounting problems.”

  “I’ve got a few mounting problems of my own and I’m going to explode if I don’t get away.”

  Marshall picked up his pen and started doodling. He did so for a good minute before speaking again and I briefly thought he believed that our conversation was over.

  “At some point, the regular recitation of your issues gets boring, Gerry.”

  I was instantly furious. “Sorry I can’t be more entertaining for you. Ben will have the details of where I’m staying the next few days.”

  Marshall dropped the pen. “Maybe it’s time for me to be as cavalier with you as you are with your professional responsibilities.”

  I moved around to Marshall’s side of the desk and glowered at him. I think he thought I might hit him, because he shrank back a little. “How can you possibly be such an unmitigated horse’s ass with someone who has contributed as much as I have all these years? I have taken hundreds of hours away from my family – hours it turns out I can never make up – for the good of this place. I did that because I love this company and I believe in this company. I have bled for this company and will bleed for it again. But right now I’m just a little bit out of my mind and if my taking some time off to try to deal with that is a problem for you, then fire me.”

  Marshall held my stare for several beats and for that time, I thought he was in fact going to fire me. It wouldn’t have surprised me, given the way he acted with me over the past several months. Then he broke eye contact and said, “Go.”

  He returned to the papers on his desk and I wondered if there was more I should say. I decided there wasn’t and began to leave his office.

  “Gerry,” he said, stopping me. “Leave your contact information with my assistant, not yours.”

  Dad,

  I spent the whole day baring my soul, so I should probably do it with you, too. I spent a bunch of time talking to this grief counselor and she got me to think about a lot of things (A LOT of things), and then after I finished with her, I did another three hours with the woman who hooked us up, which I’m sure was a real thrill ride for her.

  Here’s the thing: I always felt like I was competing with you for Mom’s affections. You may have figured this out a long time ago. If you did, Mom never said anything and you and I certainly never talked about it. But I felt it very strongly and I was very conscious of it even when I was really young. This probably sounds stupid to you. I mean, I know that Mom and I had a great relationship – better than the ones any of my friends had with their mothers – but she was just SO crazy about you. It wasn’t like she dropped me on the floor or anything when you walked into the room, but I definitely had to share her when you were around. No one else’s parents were married the way the two of you were married. You even fought differently than most couples.

  Anyway, as long as I can remember, I always tried to get Mom to like me more. You know, asking her to help me out with stuff, taking a special interest in everything she did, taking a REALLY special interest in the stuff that you didn’t like that much, that sort of thing. I know that sounds really childish but – oh, yeah – I was a child.

  When Mick showed up, I was sure I had you. I could have all these dreamy mother/daughter conversations about men and what it was like to be in love. And the fact that you instantly despised him played right into my hands. I could have those “Dad doesn’t get it” conversations, too. But then you two announced that Mom was pregnant. And as soon as I heard it, I realized that I was the one who had lost. Mom actually liked you so much more that she was going to replace me with another baby. After that, it was just a matter of letting things run their natural course. Mick painted this romantic picture of life on the road, away from the rules and the people who made the rules. It sounded like a little fantasy to me when he first started talking about it. But after your announcement, I started to think about it more and more. Then one night, a couple of days before we left, Mick started talking about it again, and I just said, “Let’s do it.” I didn’t want to live in a house with you and Mom anymore. And if I heard one more word about the new baby, I was going to go crazy.

  I blew it, Dad. I mean a piece of me always assumed that I’d come back to Port Jeff at some point after establishing myself and that Mom and I would pick up where we left off. I had no idea that I would be gone for the rest of her
life. No matter how mad I was or how betrayed I felt, I never would have left if I thought that I would never see her again.

  And I blew it with you, too. I mean almost right from the beginning. I don’t know where this competition thing came from. For all I know, you felt the same way and were glad to see me bow out. But I couldn’t help watch you and Mom together and feel a little jealous, even with everything she gave me. Maybe BECAUSE of everything she gave me. And it made me miss out on what you and I could have had together. Yeah, we did some fun stuff. And there were times, you know? But something always got in the way. I think the something was me.

  Enough psychobabble. I feel moderately calmer after talking all this stuff out with these people today. I even feel a little better now that I’ve written you this message.

  Don’t hate me too much, okay?

  Hearts,

  T

  I had just finished packing for our trip when I checked the computer. I had no idea that Tanya felt this way. Certainly, there were times (especially when she was little) when she did something obviously intended to draw her mother’s attention away from me. That was something every kid did. I didn’t realize how much deeper it went.

  And it explained so much. If Tanya had been more obvious, would Maureen and I have been able to intervene? Had she been obvious and I just missed all the signs? I couldn’t understand why Tanya felt the need to compete with me.Didn’t she understand that people had room in their hearts for more than one person? Did she understand it and still find that it wasn’t enough? Was it possible that Maureen and I loved each other too much for her?

  I read the end of the message again. I feel moderately calmer after talking all this stuff out with these people today. That was good. At least she didn’t sound as desperate as she did in her last message, though I knew all too well that one never knew when the bad moments were coming. Don’t hate me too much, okay? That was easy. I never even came close to hating her, even when she angered me or dismissed me the most. This new admission couldn’t make that happen.

  If anything, it did precisely the opposite. Tanya had never seemed this vulnerable and open to me.

  This increased my need to see her exponentially. I called the investigator and told him to redouble his efforts, regardless of the cost.

  • • •

  Finding a nice place to stay on the beach is always difficult. Finding one impulsively in the middle of August is nearly impossible. I could get a “last minute cancellation” with an acre of private waterfront in the Hamptons for $10,000 and there were any number of motels available “within driving distance of the beach.” None of this was what I wanted. Eventually, I found a resort on a lake in northern Connecticut with one last room.

  Reese and I made the three-hour drive the next morning.Once we settled into our room, we went for a walk down to the lake. Walks had taken on a different meaning for Reese in the last week. He didn’t want me to carry him nearly as much and he flat-out rejected his stroller.What he really wanted to do was hold one of my fingers and toddle along the path. This was an extremely slow process since at any moment he might sit down to examine something or, inexplicably, just sit. While the exercise could be tedious at home, we had come here to do precisely this kind of thing.

  It had been a while since Reese and I had a significant stretch of solo time together. Now, given everything that had happened recently, I found that I could take comfort in just about anything he did. If he wanted to crawl around in the grass for forty-five minutes, I watched him do it, interrupting his activity only to prevent him from putting an ant in his mouth. If he wanted to sit on my chest while we were in a chaise lounge and pat my cheeks for an inordinate length of time, we did that. I talked the teenaged son of a vacationing family into taking us out in a rowboat, knowing that I needed to hold Reese carefully during the entire trip given his propensity for exploring. And we spent a lot of time sitting at the edge of the lake, Reese completely naked and seemingly enjoying the gentle lapping of the water at his legs and bottom.

  At night, we ate at the resort’s restaurant. The food wasn’t particularly inspired, but there were many kids there and I knew that Reese could do nothing that other kids hadn’t done at least three times already that evening. And he was surprisingly well mannered, patiently waiting for our food to arrive while gnawing on bread with the three teeth that had broken through. As a reward, he got his choice of desserts, chopped up peaches in heavy syrup being his favorite. Then we returned to our room to watch the Yankees in what could very well be their last big series of the season.

  The Blue Jays were in town with their eight-game lead and the Yankees really needed to sweep in order to get back into the race. Ultimately, they lost all three games instead and it became obvious that they would not play in October this year. The one bright spot was the reemergence of “Kid” Kitterer. After a very fast start, he went through a terrible stretch of games where he couldn’t hit at all and even made mistakes in the field. There was talk of sending him back to Scranton just to get the pressure off him. But in this series, he tried his best to carry the team on his back, hitting four homers, knocking in ten runs, batting .625 and making two remarkable defensive plays. And though it perturbed me that the Blue Jays had all but eliminated the Yankees, I knew his efforts weren’t in vain. He gave all of us a glimpse of the future.

  I thought a tremendous amount about Ally and about how things turned out between us. I nearly called her several times, if for no other reason than to try to make sense of our last day together. I thought about telling her about my dream and about how the events unfolded for me from there, hoping this would give her some context. But I always came around to the same reason not to do it.

  I really missed her. It wasn’t just that I’d come to depend on her. It wasn’t just that she made me feel better about nearly everything. It wasn’t just that she excited me, entertained me, and kept me motivated. It was that she reached me. At the most impossible time, she became another central part of my life.

  But calling her was out of the question. I wouldn’t put her at the mercy of the endless flitting of my emotions. If I ever brought another woman into my life, I owed that woman the peace of mind of knowing that I could deal with our relationship on its own terms. Anything else was terribly unfair.

  I had no idea what it would be like for us to work together. I wondered if Ally had gone to the office on Tuesday.Was it terribly upsetting for her to get ready that morning and drive to the building? I wondered what she thought when she learned I would be gone for the week. I even wondered if this was the final sign that it was time for me to leave Eleanor Miller. None of this would be easy.

  On Thursday morning, Reese and I walked down to the lake when something caught his attention. He let go of my finger and took several clumsy steps in that direction before he stopped and, perhaps realizing what he’d just done, looked back at me. He had an enormous grin on his face and he sat down and patted the ground wildly with his open palms. I went to pick him up to hug him, but I realized that he would be happier if I simply boosted him back to his feet. He sauntered off toward the woods while I trailed behind him.When he fell down, I picked him up again and pointed him in the direction of the lake.

  For most of that day, Reese wanted to do little more than walk as much as possible. Even when we were in our room – not a large space – he insisted on exploring everything he could. This would require an entirely new level of babyproofing when we got home.

  His growth curve was extraordinary to me. In the last nine months, he’d gone from someone who could do little more than scream when he was hungry to someone who could traverse a path, splash by a lake, eat copious amounts of peaches, and make his audience laugh in a wide variety of ways. By his first birthday, he’d add countless other things to his resume. It was dizzying. And the fact that it happened to millions of children all over the world on an ongoing basis didn’t make it any less unique or fascinating to me. For the thousandth time, I realized how t
hankful I was for this experience.

  On Friday night, I got a call from the investigator. He’d made absolutely no progress in his search for Syd. I decided to put a halt to the investigation. He wouldn’t find Tanya for me because she was clever enough to make it nearly impossible to do. She would come home when she could, when she wanted to, or not at all. As frustrating as it was to me, I didn’t have any say in this.

  The owners of the resort let me borrow their computer a couple of times during the week so I could check my e-mail. I did it once again on Saturday to find a message that Tanya had written days before, but which arrived only a few hours ago. All it said was:

  “Life’s mysteries seem so faded.”

  P.S. Syd made me a nice going-away dinner.

  The lyrics were from Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” a song Tanya knew was one of my favorites, a beautiful and sad tune about a teenage runaway that I’d somehow never associated with Tanya until this very moment.What was the message here?Was she the runaway train? Had things gotten worse again? What was I to make of this? And what could I do?

  Of course, one part of the message was entirely clear. If Syd had made her a nice going-away dinner, that meant she had moved on yet again.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Just a Prior Engagement

  We went home the next morning. Concerned that my newly ultramobile son would have even greater difficulty with a long car ride, we made several stops along the way to allow Reese to stretch the legs that now served a new purpose for him. Even a rest-stop parking lot was a field of dreams in his current state of mind.