Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  Emily called the boys in before the second set was done, trapping Arlene at the counter. “Would you mind pouring them some milk?” she asked, busy microwaving the syrup.

  “Can I have juice?” Sam asked.

  “After you finish your milk. Did you want some?” she asked Arlene. “Otherwise I’m going to fridge the rest of this. I don’t imagine anyone else will be up for a while.”

  “That’s fine,” Arlene said, and left. Emily turned down the burner and spooned two for herself.

  “Are there any onions in them?” Sam asked.

  “No, there are no onions in them.”

  “I don’t like them.”

  “Then don’t eat them,” she said, exasperated. He’d barely touched his plate, just a wedge missing. Justin was tucking in as if to prove him wrong. If she didn’t know better, she would have said Sam belonged to Margaret and Justin to Kenneth.

  “Can I be excused?” Sam asked.

  “Drink your milk, then clear your place.”

  He chugged half the glass.

  “Whoa,” she said, “whoa. That is not how a gentleman acts. And Justin Carlisle, this is not a race. I know you both want to go play your Nintendo, but while you’re at the table, you will act accordingly. Now let’s try that again.”

  They suffered her, their impatience and ungainly restraint the same she knew from her own children and, from the other side, her own childhood. Perhaps that was why children were so reassuring: no matter how the world changed, you could count on them being the same.

  “Can I be excused?” Sam asked.

  “Wait for your cousin,” she instructed, and he sighed.

  Finally she released them, telling them to wash their hands before touching anything.

  The dishes, meanwhile, had finished their cycle but were still too hot to put away. She did the breakfast dishes by hand, wiping down the sink and draping the dishcloth over the spigot. The griddle she dried immediately so it wouldn’t rust. Putting it away, she remembered her mother’s, perpetually greased, attracting fat black ants that skittered over the linoleum. Some morning—maybe a rainy day like today—her mother had taught her how to fry bacon, how not to be afraid of the popping grease (saving it in a can kept next to the timer), and then eggs over easy, the way her father liked them. She couldn’t have been more than ten. Every morning before school she cooked his breakfast. In high school she tried to disguise the smell with Evening in Paris, opening the window on the bus until her neighbors complained. Every morning before going to work her father kissed her cheek and thanked her, said what a good cook she was. And then, every night, her mother put her to shame with lavish dinners that probably took ten years off their lives, the gravy boat a staple, real cream with dessert. That way of life seemed unthinkable now, antique, and yet it had been hers, was still the guide and yardstick she relied on. She wondered if the children would remember her the same way, these strange corn cakes hopelessly old-fashioned.

  Of course. She would be their past. Time was not a circle or a line but a kitchen, a lamp, an armchair.

  She would look at the children’s lists today and make her decisions. She would see how much would be kept and how much jettisoned. Oh, most of it would fit in at any Goodwill, but there were pieces she was secretly rooting for, combinations she’d appraised like a matchmaker. She wanted Margaret to have the cedar chest (and someday hand it down to Sarah). The wardrobe upstairs had always been Kenneth’s, and the dresser in the guest room Arlene’s (and the night table that went with it; it would be silly to break up the set). Lisa would want nothing, and that was fine with Emily. She would no longer allow herself to be perplexed by her daughter-in-law’s mystifying coolness toward her. After all these years, Emily had built up a protective indifference of her own. Some people would never be sympathetic, and to struggle against that fact was foolish, maybe even dangerous, but surely wasteful.

  She tidied up the kitchen, then, satisfied, draped the dish towel over the handle of the oven to dry. She gave Rufus a treat and looked out the window again, the drops on the glass—the glass itself, the dust-specked sill and its tarnished lock—filling her with a dread sense of confinement. She would go absolutely bats with the kids in the house all day. Maybe she and Arlene could take a trip to the Book Barn, have lunch somewhere.

  In the living room, the boys were playing their Game Boys but had courteously turned the sound down. She took her book to the couch and tried to read, distracted by their cries. They huddled over the plastic tablets like monks, all concentration, while she couldn’t go two paragraphs without looking up.

  Taken in broad daylight, from a public place. Certainly they would have a video camera there, like at the bank. She couldn’t get over it. Kenneth would be able to tell her something.

  She wanted a newspaper. At home she’d stopped delivery for the week, and the thought of the empty vestibule, the front door, the motionless furniture, made her wonder what the children would want from that house. Kenneth was her executor, and she worried that Lisa would convince him not to take anything of hers. Margaret would get everything and then neglect it; at Easter her house was a pigsty, mounds of laundry in the corners of the children’s rooms, an inch of dust under the beds.

  She would have to add a newspaper to Kenneth’s grocery list. There was something else eluding her, flittering just beyond the reach of her consciousness.

  “‘I understand your confusion, Counselor,’” she read a second time, but the scene in the Lord Magistrate’s chambers seemed faraway and stale. It was too early to be reading, she’d end up with a headache by lunch-time. The rain was tough on her sinuses. She needed to write that postcard to Louise, maybe that was it. She set the book aside. Curled at her feet, Rufus looked up as if she were going to move. He rose creakily, anticipating her, and she leaned back.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “It’s too wet for a walk.”

  He laid his head lightly on her knee to be petted, as if he understood her.

  “Yes,” she cooed, “you’re stuck here like the rest of us.”

  2

  There was no sense getting up. Above them, the rain tapped at the roof, fingers absently drumming a table. Warm in her corner, Lise pressed against Ken’s back and listened to its steady tread.

  “Let’s stay in bed all day.”

  “This bed?” he asked, because the mattress was hard and the bottom sheet always slipped off.

  “Any bed.”

  “What about the kids?”

  “They can get their own bed.”

  Her fingers twirled the bristly hair of his stomach, her pinkie circling his innie. When she fished lower, he rolled over, turned to her.

  “Meg’s right there,” he whispered.

  “And I’m right here.”

  She pushed her breasts against him, her greatest weapons. In college she’d let him take pictures of them—not her, just them, disembodied—artsy geometric silhouettes in shaded grays and stark black and white. In the prints they looked like moons, eclipses. In their first apartment on Marlborough Street, he hung them over their bed. By then she’d gotten used to him stalking her around the house, shooting her obsessively—sleeping, getting dressed, using the bathroom. She lost her self-consciousness so that even in the rawest shots there was an intimacy she felt lucky to be the subject of. She was even prouder of those pictures now, and of the girl who’d trusted him, as if they proved and documented not only her beauty but her courage.

  “We can’t,” he said, and while it was true—Ella and Sarah were still in their bags—Lise was disappointed.

  All she wanted was for him to flirt with her, make a game of the possibilities. Last night had been so nice. She hated to think they might go back to the way things had been. Their skinny-dipping had seemed a promise of something larger, or maybe she was looking for a change and had latched on to the first hopeful sign.

  “I know,” she said, and rolled away, flat on her back, her breasts spreading, falling into her armpits.r />
  “Now you’re mad.”

  “I am not mad. Why would I be mad?”

  “I don’t know, but you are.”

  She wasn’t, she just wanted them to connect again, to be the young lovers who played with his lights and lenses and didn’t care if they made any money as long as they had fun. Their life together, begun so openly, so focused on each other, now seemed to depend on Ken’s success. Sometimes she wished he would quit, and then she felt selfish and vowed to support him that much more. It would not be her fault if he failed.

  Downstairs, the dishwasher kicked into another cycle. Before, she’d smelled butter frying—Emily making breakfast for the boys.

  “I’m going to get up,” she said. “My feet are sweaty.”

  “You don’t want to read your book?”

  “I can read downstairs.”

  “Don’t go,” he said, and held her.

  It was all she wanted, and she gave in to him, let him slide his knee between hers. The smell of his skin meant home to her, the same way their shared warmth made even these rough sheets familiar. This communion meant so much to her, and yet he barely seemed to notice. Sometimes she imagined that he didn’t love her, that he was just playing along for her sake, giving the absolute minimum to keep her happy. How much easier it would be if she didn’t care.

  She bit at his shoulder in fun. “What’s the plan for today?”

  “Is there a movie the kids want to see? Doesn’t Will Smith have something out?”

  “You don’t want to take them.”

  “No,” he admitted, “but the boys can’t go by themselves.”

  “The girls can watch them.”

  “They’re not going to want to do that.”

  “Tough,” she said.

  “You got some sun yesterday.”

  “I know.” She pressed a finger to her nose. The skin felt thin and tender, as if it might rip. “I’ll put some aloe on it. Isn’t there anything else to do?”

  “The casino.”

  “Like they don’t play enough video games as it is.”

  Her back hurt, so she shifted, Ken turning with her, both of them facing the powder-blue wall. Long ago the roof had leaked so there was the ghost of a stain, like a tide line. Emily had wanted $325,000 for the place but had never told Ken what she’d gotten for it. Probably what she asked. In four years Ella would be off to college, and they had no way of paying for it. Her parents had offered to help but secretly she hoped Ken would refuse. They’d taken enough from them. Emily had never given them a penny.

  Ken cupped one breast, fiddling with the nipple. She chased his hand, then caught it and held it warm against her belly. One of the girls got up and went to the bathroom.

  “Is that Ella?” she asked, and he raised up to check.

  “Yep.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I’m sure your mother’s wondering where everyone is.”

  “It’s vacation,” he said. “You’re supposed to sleep in.”

  They lay there with the rain thumping, but she’d started to think, her mind weaving all over the place. Ella left the bathroom and lay down again. The toilet ran for a while and then simmered to nothing.

  “I’m awake,” Lise said.

  “Read your book.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  “I can’t.”

  He could, it seemed. Yesterday he’d been up before dawn, leaving her cold and alone, and now when she needed to get up he wanted her to stay with him. It seemed they were never on the same schedule.

  He wasn’t asleep, just dozing, burrowed into her shoulder. The stain on the wall looked like reaching fingers; they slid down the wall and then stopped, magically evaporated. She didn’t hear the dishwasher anymore and wondered if she could take her shower.

  “I’m getting up.”

  “All right,” he said, groggy, not arguing.

  “Here I go.”

  “I’ll go,” he offered, but weakly, an empty gesture.

  “No,” she said, “you sleep.”

  She pushed off the covers and got out and the cold seized her. In the bathroom she twisted on the heat lamp, the timer ticking behind the dial. She turned on the water and waited for it to warm, closing the glass door against the spray and the smell. He should be getting up, she thought, not her. Something in her conscience, some mother’s or daughter’s sense of obligation drove her, made it impossible to lie there while others were working, taking care of the children. Then why, standing there naked and tired, the musty steam opening her pores, did she feel so guilty?

  3

  There was nothing to do. They couldn’t go for a bike ride or take Rufus for a walk, so there was no way to go by his house, if it was his. Ella pretended to be disappointed for Sarah, and she was, a little. Stalking him was something they did together, Sarah frantic for her advice, her opinion. Not used to being included, Ella felt like she was part of the romance, like the goofy best friend in a movie. He might win Sarah’s heart but only with her help, and she and Sarah would always share something deeper.

  Her mother wanted them to get dressed and get their breakfast, like she was in a hurry to go somewhere. Downstairs the adults (“the dolts,” Sarah called them) were making plans.

  “Your father has generously offered to take you all to the movies,” her mother threatened.

  Oh boy, she almost said, but knew not to. Vacation made her mother crazy. From the day they started packing until all the laundry was done, she was totally psycho. The best thing to do was keep quiet and stay out of the way, one of the few talents Ella was proud of.

  When her mother had closed the door at the bottom of the stairs, Aunt Margaret got up and padded to the bathroom, her hair spiked and wild, her eyes barely open. Sarah shook her head, embarrassed, but Ella watched her cautiously, as if she might slip and reveal her mystery—a flash of tattoo, a hidden scar. Sarah said some nights when she drank she would come into her room and lie down on her bed and cry. She’d say things about Uncle Jeff that Sarah knew weren’t true. Now she seemed like she might be drunk, or had been last night. It was nearly ten, late to be waking up. She closed the door and Sarah groaned.

  “She’s so … uh!”

  Ella gave her room to continue, but she dropped her chin into her pillow, sticking her lower lip out, thinking, and Ella thought of her own mother and their battles over TV, the dishes, being nice to Sam. Compared to Sarah’s parents, they seemed childish, not problems at all.

  “Why can’t we just stay here?” Sarah asked. Instantly Ella was against her father’s idea, even though she could think of at least two movies she wanted to see. It might get nice later, and they could always go to the movies at home.

  “It’s so annoying. They don’t even ask you if you want to do something.”

  “I know,” Sarah said. “Then they get mad because they think they’re doing you a favor.” She rolled on her back and held her arms straight up, mummylike, toward the ceiling, then let them crash back down. “What do you think he’s doing right this minute?”

  Ella had no clue what boys did at ten in the morning on a crummy day. Watch TV? Play computer games? She couldn’t see him doing either, just eating, working out, walking around in his suit of muscles.

  “What do you think his name is?” Sarah asked, torturing herself for the pleasure of it.

  Dave, she thought, or Dan. Something dumb.

  In the bathroom the shower blasted on, the water drilling the stall. Secretly, Ella was pleased. It meant they’d have to wait until Sarah’s mother was done. It meant another fifteen minutes alone with her. On a day like today, she’d take whatever she could get.

  4

  Emily expected her to be upset about the kidnaping, as if they were related to the woman. Caught by surprise—in her room with an afghan over her lap, lost in her book—Arlene could only respond with a puzzled shrug. She thought it would be enough to sig
nal her lack of interest, but Emily lingered in the doorway. Until now, Arlene hadn’t realized how much she was enjoying the quiet of the room, the thin light reflecting off of the lawn and through the window, the wind pushing the trees. She could stay here all day and be content, put on some tea before lunch, listen for the whistle. She had grown so used to being alone.

  “You have to wonder if there’s a boyfriend involved,” Emily speculated, “or an ex of some sort. These things don’t happen at random.”

  Arlene would not be drawn into a discussion and chose her only escape, a noncommittal “I’m sure we’ll find out.”

  “Do you think?”

  “Eventually,” Arlene said, not looking up from her book.

  “I’m not so sure. A lot of these missing-persons cases go unsolved, young people especially. Of course who knows how many of them are runaways. I would be very surprised if we learn anything by the end of the week.”

  “I said eventually,” Arlene said. “If they’re bringing in the FBI, they probably have something to go on. They wouldn’t bring them in unless they had evidence this is a federal case. A lot of those missing persons you’re talking about are children involved in custody battles. This was a grown woman, if what you’re telling me is correct.”

  “That’s why I’m betting on the boyfriend.”

  “And the federal connection would be … ?” She could hear the teacher in her tone, coaxing logic out of a confused student, asking for supporting facts. She knew from experience what the criteria were.

  “Drugs,” Emily said.

  “That sounds like a guess.” But probably right.

  “Do you have a better one?”

  “No,” Arlene admitted. “I don’t have to have one, do I?”

  “I just thought you might be interested. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “You’re not bothering me, and it is interesting. I’m just trying to read my book, that’s all.”

  “Do you have your list?”

  It didn’t register, this wild shift.

  “Of things you want,” Emily said.

  “I’m already getting the TV.”