Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  At heart he knew that was not true. They were just rainy-day thoughts. The weather—the world—could make you feel so small inside yourself, curled up like a snake in an egg.

  Out on the lake, a boat trolled along, a man in a slicker standing under the canopy—SHERIFF, it said on the hull. It was Tuesday. Tracy Ann Caler had been missing two whole days. At sixty miles an hour, driving in shifts, they could be in California by now. They could be anywhere.

  He turned back to the garage, the flat light making everything seem even more squalid. They could have her in a place like this, he thought, wrapped in that tarp, shoved under the life preservers.

  She was probably fine, probably in on it with a boyfriend, legging it west with their nest egg. He hoped so.

  He shut the light off and then appreciated the darkness, softening everything, the accidental light from the windows touching on curves and angled surfaces, the crescent heads of wrenches. Yes. Here was rest, and shelter, the quiet he thought of when he imagined his father, happy at his saw, guiding a hand plane along the edge of a freshly cut board, shavings curling up in a white wave over his fist. The rain tapped in the rafters. He could stay here all day, hide like a child. If only he could capture this, but technically it was beyond him.

  “Ah, but you felt it, didn’t you?” Morgan would say. And he would be right.

  Ken checked his watch, as if this time tomorrow he might have the same light. He left everything where it was, his list unchanged. He would be back until he was satisfied. After such a fruitless shoot, it felt like a triumph, a promise. It was strange, he thought, how little it took to stop him from giving up.

  7

  “Did you eat breakfast?” his mother asked, like he might be in trouble, and for a minute Sam convinced himself that he had. If he said no, she would sigh and march him into the kitchen, and he would have to stop playing his game.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What did you eat?”

  “Grandma eggs.”

  He was walking in the tall grass when the screen flashed and the wild Kangaskhan he’d been looking for all morning appeared. He had all thirty safari balls, more than enough if it didn’t run away.

  “I hope you thanked Grandma for making them.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you brush your teeth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s smell,” she said, beckoning him with a finger and leaning down so he had to stop in midbattle.

  She held his chin in her hand. Beside him, Justin looked up like it was weird.

  He tried to breathe lightly, hoping he’d brushed well enough last night so his mouth would still be clean.

  “No you did not brush your teeth. Why do you lie to me—why? I don’t care if you’ve brushed your teeth or not, as long as you tell me the truth. Do you understand? How am I supposed to trust you when you pull stuff like this, huh?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know,” she repeated. She reached for his Game Boy, and he had to stop himself from yanking it away like when Ella tried to grab it. She took it from him, then turned it over as if she’d never seen it before. She clicked it off, losing everything he’d won since the last time he saved.

  “Hey!” he said, reaching for it, starting to explain, but she held a single finger in front of his face like a knife.

  “This is stopping right now. I am not going to have you lying to me. You go upstairs and brush your teeth, and when you come down we’re going to have a talk with your father. He was going to take you and Justin to the arcade today, but I think you may have blown that deal, I don’t know.”

  It was a giveaway. She knew, just like he knew, that his father would let him go to the arcade. Justin checked them again, worried now, as if it was Sam’s fault for messing things up.

  “Go,” his mother said, pointing to the stairs with his Game Boy, and he did, his whole face twisting, heat steaming behind his eyes. He banged his way up them, letting her know how mean she was being.

  “Don’t you stomp on the stairs like that!” she shouted.

  He caught his foot in midstep and set it down with a violently willed gentleness, finishing the rest of them calm as a robot. It was only when he’d reached the top and turned out of sight that he threw looping punches at the air so hard they knocked him off balance. He kicked Justin’s pillow so it wrapped around his ankle, stepped back and kicked it again.

  “Are you brushing your teeth?” his mother yelled up.

  “Yes!” he called and went to the sink and turned the water on. It smelled, and the holders were gross. He took his brush and squeezed on a green blob of Justin’s Crest, then stood there avoiding the boy in the mirror, wondering if she’d ask Grandma if he’d really eaten and what would happen if she found out. It didn’t matter. His father would still let him go to the arcade.

  Someone was coming upstairs. He hesitated for a second, as if he wasn’t supposed to be brushing, then kept going, the white foam clownlike around his mouth.

  It was his father, his Game Boy in one hand. “Sam I Am,” he said, in a tired tone Sam recognized. His father had his camera around his neck, and Sam wondered if his mother had made him stop too.

  “Finish up,” his father said, and Sam rinsed and spat. His father put down the lid of the toilet. “Have a seat.”

  His father leaned back against the edge of the sink, his arms crossed under his camera, and Sam knew not to talk. He looked at the mirror behind his father, the back of his father’s head and the bright ceiling near the light.

  “Do you understand why your mother’s upset with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t brush my teeth.”

  “Why else?”

  “Because I said I did.”

  “Because you lied about it, that’s why she’s upset. Do you understand that?” His father moved his face so Sam had to look at him.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the truth?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there something difficult about brushing your teeth, or did you just forget?”

  “I just forgot.”

  “You should have just said so. You should have said, ‘I forgot.’”

  “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

  His father shook his head. “When you lie, you’re going to get in trouble, you ought to know that by now.”

  Again, he leaned there with his arms folded, saying nothing. The best thing to do, Sam knew, was to wait.

  “So what do you think we should do?” his father finally said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I told your mother and Aunt Margaret I’d take you and Justin over to the video arcade later, and I’m going to honor my promise to them. For now, though, I’m taking away your Game Boy.” He opened the battery compartment and removed the two double-A’s. “You can have it back tomorrow. Next time your mother or I ask you a question, you tell the truth.”

  “Yes, sir,” he was supposed to say.

  “Okay,” his father said, and stood up and opened his arms for Sam to hug him, and Sam did, looking at himself in the mirror, his hands on his father’s back, his cheek against his soft shirt, and it was all right. If it weren’t for his mother turning his Game Boy off, everything would have been okay. They were still going to the arcade, like he knew they would. He’d already played more than an hour anyway, and his father hadn’t said anything about breakfast, and Sam thought he’d won.

  He’d learned something too. From now on he’d have to remember to save his game after every battle.

  8

  Emily closed her door and shook the three lists from her pocket and sat sideways on the edge of her bed to go over them. She laid each out in front of her on the spread, trying not to read what they’d written in any order, to ignore them for a moment before starting, though their handwriting gave them away. She felt the same queasy apprehension she knew from opening Christmas gifts or gam
bling—the sense, through the bubbly anticipation of luck, that something could go horribly wrong. How much easier it would have been for her to select the correct pieces for them and then let them make whatever trades they wanted, but she’d chosen the diplomatic route and now she had to go through with it.

  “Oh my,” she said, because at a glance she saw that all three had picked the same thing, the cedar chest. For Kenneth and Arlene, it was their first choice. It was Margaret’s second, but she was only asking for two things, the other the set of Henry’s gas-station glasses that Emily wanted for herself.

  The decision was simple. She’d always thought of the chest as Margaret’s, to pass on to Sarah, and it would be the only thing Margaret was getting. So. Emily circled it on Margaret’s list and crossed it off the others’.

  God knew why, Kenneth wanted the little refrigerator in the garage. Henry’s golf clubs—that made her happy. Kenneth hadn’t played with them last summer, out of respect, and she was pleased that he felt comfortable enough to ask for them now. She would clean them up for him before they went out this week. And Henry’s fishing gear. Good. She’d counted on him taking that. It saved her the trouble of lugging it all home. Some of the lures were worth money, and the fancy reels.

  Lastly, he asked for the 7UP bottle with the twisted neck. Henry had won it for him at a fair, a ring-toss thing, and how badly he’d wanted it, and for Henry to win it for him. Henry had missed his first three tosses and came up with another dollar. She feared there would be tears, and then the plastic ring leapt and ricocheted, dinging among the glass shoulders until with a last flip it landed solidly, perfectly, on the neck of a bottle. Emily worried the children would break it the next day, it looked so fragile. She was amazed it had lasted this long, that, useless as it was, it had become a beloved relic, even to her. Though it was listed fifth—as if disguised—Emily understood, knowing Kenneth as she did (his moods, the quiet hours he stayed in his room while Margaret and her friends rollicked in the backyard), that it meant more to him than all the other things combined. She thought, sadly, that he should have known it was his to begin with. He really hadn’t changed that much from the timid boy he’d been. She’d had to encourage him to speak up, to not let the louder children bully him, but even then he’d been deferential, afraid of offending others, herself included. For all her harping, he’d never overcome it, and that seemed to reflect on her. This was just further confirmation. He should have known he didn’t have to ask.

  The same with Margaret, she thought, ashamed, and circled the glasses on her list. What kind of mother would deny her children the least thing?

  Arlene had listed the TV even though Emily had said it was hers, but also an old, engraved map of the lake that hung in the guest bedroom which she’d completely forgotten—a handsome oak-leaf frame from the twenties adding a rustic touch. And the afghan, to Emily a chocolate-and-butterscotch horror in need of dry cleaning (or perhaps burning). That was it, just four things. She was surprised not to find the dresser and the nightstand. The Goodwill people would be happy at least.

  No one had taken the low wardrobe upstairs or the oval mirror with its wavy glass and gilt eagle fiercely peering down. No one wanted the good fireplace tools or the end table the phone sat upon, and these seemed like mistakes, gross oversights. She thought Kenneth would want the new hose by the side of the house, barely a year old. Margaret had forgotten the antique blender she always complimented her on. Emily knew Lisa didn’t want anything, that was fine with her, but her own children, and Arlene, who knew the history of each piece. Maybe she could rent a van in Jamestown, drive it down behind Arlene.

  She’d known this would happen. Henry would be shaking his head, smiling at her folly, the way she never learned.

  “Well,” she said vacantly, as if giving in, and gathered the three lists and stood. She folded them together and slid them into the front pocket of her jeans and, looking around the room, imagined it empty, just carpet and walls, even the curtains tossed in the garbage. She and Henry had made love here, maybe listened to the same rain at night. Years, the same trees in the window, the damp. She reached down and touched the bed, ran her palm over the nubbly chenille. It was only a moment before she stopped herself.

  9

  Sarah had just nabbed her third king when she glanced up and found Aunt Arlene looking at her expectantly, as if she’d forgotten to do something. Panicking, Sarah checked her mouth. Only the very tip of Aunt Arlene’s tongue poked out, subtle, like a middle lip.

  Sarah slid her tongue out, the tip pinched between her teeth, and peered at Justin to her left, but he was busy with the card he’d drawn from the pile.

  Across from her, Ella had her tongue out like Aunt Arlene and was looking at Sam, who was busy wiping Rufus’s nose with a tissue.

  Sarah turned back to Justin, still fumbling with his discard. He’d lost the first two games already and wasn’t happy. He was used to winning at things like chess where there was time to think, but this was different.

  Come on, Just, she thought, look at me.

  Aunt Arlene and Ella turned from Sam to Justin, stopping to meet eyes with her, conspirators.

  Sam threw the balled tissue at the wastebasket and missed, and when he turned back to them he saw everyone and stuck his tongue straight out, a rude strawberry.

  She thought she should tell Justin he’d lost, but that wasn’t how you played the game.

  He put down the king she needed, saying, “I know you want this one,” and then, expecting some reaction from her, saw her tongue. He pushed his out hopefully, and they all laughed at him. Even she found herself smiling, going along with the joke.

  “It’s not fair. You guys are cheating.” He was pouting, his eyes reddened, the lower lids brimming.

  “Right, we’re all cheating,” Ella said, though in reality they were all peeking at each others’ hands. It was part of the game.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Sam teased him.

  “Shut up!”

  “Justin,” their mother warned from the couch.

  “He’s making fun of me—”

  “Play nicely or don’t play at all.”

  “You’ve got to stay awake over there,” Aunt Arlene said, shuffling. “The trick is not to worry about your own cards. Worry about everyone else’s.”

  He knows how to play, Sarah wanted to say, but Aunt Arlene might think she was giving her lip. She was touchy and Sarah thought she didn’t like her very much, the same way Grandma liked Ella better. Part of it was how she looked—she knew that feeling from everyone at school: the other girls, the boys, even the teachers. It was like she was some kind of freak, except she was supposed to be lucky. Her mother was proud of how pretty she was, always telling her to be thankful for her looks, that someday she’d be grateful for them, and Sarah couldn’t explain to her how hard it was knowing everyone thought you must be stupid or stuck-up or slutty and were dying to see you mess up.

  Aunt Arlene dealt out their hands on the orange velvet ottoman. It was Ella’s turn to go first.

  “Wait,” Justin said, struggling to get his hand together. His hands were too small for the cards, that was one problem.

  Sarah had a pair of aces and junk, so she watched Ella and then Aunt Arlene and then Sam pick up and discard, her tongue ready, caged behind her teeth. She hesitated before she picked up, faked, making sure Sam wasn’t going to ambush her in the middle of her turn.

  She drew the third ace, checked everyone as she slipped it into her hand (not rearranging), then discarded. Ella looked at her, holding her eyes to see what she was hiding, and Sarah gave her a bluff smirk, as if she might or might not have something.

  Justin picked up and put down the same jack of clubs, so she concentrated on Ella’s face, her eyes reading the new card from the top of the pile, then blinking as she added it to her fan, folded the hand closed and looked them over again.

  “Nothing,” Sam guessed.

  “Let’s see what she throws away,” Aunt Arl
ene coached, and glanced at Sarah.

  Someone must be close, she thought.

  Ella threw the jack of hearts.

  “It’s not jacks,” Sarah said.

  Aunt Arlene had to reach from the couch.

  Ella’s face hadn’t changed. Justin scratched at his collarbone, his arm blocking Sarah’s view of his hand. He was going for queens. He had three, and she had the other one. She decided to let him win. It wasn’t really cheating.

  “King of diamonds,” Aunt Arlene said, laying it down, and Sam snatched it up.

  They all waited for him to punch his tongue out (Sarah eyeing Aunt Arlene, waiting for the delayed move), but he set down the jack of spades.

  “Three in a row,” Justin noted.

  A second check of Sam and Aunt Arlene and then Ella, and Sarah picked up the fourth ace.

  Her luck surprised her. She couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Uh-oh!” Ella cried, and then everyone was watching her face and the five cards in her hand. There was no rule that you had to stick out your tongue before the next person’s turn. Part of the strategy was choosing the right time, like an assassin. She fitted the ace into the middle of her hand and dumped the queen.

  Ella was staring at her like a gunslinger, sure. Sarah matched her, waiting. Beside her, Justin was so excited he dropped part of his hand. To throw them off, Sarah checked Sam and Aunt Arlene.

  Aunt Arlene had her tongue out, just barely, sneaking between her stained teeth.

  Ella had hers out, and Sam, grinning like an idiot.

  Justin was still gathering up his cards.

  She saw that they saw. Losing on purpose would be worse. Short of kicking him there was nothing she could do, so she stuck out her tongue.

  “Ha ha,” Sam said, doing his Nelson, which Sarah hated.

  “No,” Justin said, looking around wildly, short of breath, “I won. You’re cheating. You’re a bunch of cheaters. I don’t want to play anymore.”