Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  She’d forgotten the Game Boy on the fridge. It didn’t matter.

  Harry Potter was boring. She wished she’d bought that Oprah book. She was becoming as cheap as he was.

  She set Harry down on the fuzzy crescent rug at her feet and rubbed her hair with her hands, her scalp loose on her skull. With her palms over her ears, she could hear a great trembling like an earthquake, a herd of buffalo a mile away. Why was she so tired? She’d done nothing but sit in the car. Her back hurt from standing in line. She wiped herself and stepped out of her underwear, catching her face in the mirror.

  “Oh God,” she said, trying to be funny for someone.

  She took three Advil, cupping a handful of sulfurous water to wash them down, the sweet coating lingering after. When she opened the medicine cabinet, her face slid off the mirror. She turned her back on it to brush her teeth.

  She decided not to read. She took the side by the wall so he wouldn’t have to crawl over her. The sheets were freezing, her headache that much clearer. She could hear the liquid hiss of Ella snoring. She wondered if Ken had a dollar to give Sam from the tooth fairy, because she knew he’d do it anyway, he couldn’t be that ruthless. She wasn’t either, Sam would discover that soon enough.

  She was just frustrated, having to compete with everyone for Ken. She wasn’t used to it, or was too used to it here, tired of fighting the same old ghosts. There was always a moment like this during their visits when she felt unstrung, her world provisional, at the whim of primal forces. She had to remind herself that as eternal as these positions seemed, they were temporary, that in a day or two they would go home and all of this would vanish, become nothing but a weekly phone call, or, in the case of Meg, a monthly one. Their lives would go on with minimal interruption. For whole days they would talk to no one but each other. They’d go to bed and then wake up together, fix breakfast and tend the children, just the two of them, the bills their only worry, and the disasters on NPR.

  She thought she should be alarmed at how tightly she held on to that promise, because at heart it was false—their problems were larger than she wanted to admit—and yet she wasn’t. The week would end, as it had to. Eventually Ken would come to bed, first turning to her, then rolling over so she could nestle against him. She just needed to be patient, to forget about her watch ticking on the cedar chest. It wouldn’t be long.

  18

  Without the rain, Arlene realized how loud the night was, how unserene and wild. She loved the peepers over by the marina, riotous, screaming away like frightened birds, the cicadas keeping time in the trees. As Rufus neared the dock, frogs plopped into the shallows, a musical handful of stones, and there, as the trees gave way to the oily calm of the lake, the sky opened up, a bowl of stars.

  Arlene stopped and tipped her chin, gawked at them like a child, openmouthed with delight. There were things in life that had a power over her, things that could not be denied—autumn, Schubert, a child who wanted to learn. They restored her faith, she supposed, the same way the Institute had refreshed her mother every summer. This was why they came to the lake, why they muddled through all the crossness and soft water, the lumpy pillows and rainy days. She wanted to run back to the cottage and drag Margaret out to see it, this proof of goodness or reward, but knew that would ruin the feeling, send it fleeing like the brief illusion it was.

  On the dock, Rufus waited for her, stock-still, as if she might take off and ditch him.

  “You just hold your horses,” she said, and stepped onto the boards, a much different proposition than during the day.

  The wind was mild and it was hard to see the water. Rufus went ahead, his nails tapping.

  “Oh, now you can’t wait for me,” she said, but he kept going, sure of their destination.

  The bench was wet. She slicked off a spot with the palm of one hand, but still it soaked cold through her trousers, making her sit up straight and clench a breath. She lit a cigarette and tucked her other hand in her armpit for warmth.

  The moon threw a surprising amount of light. It lay puddled on the water, cast shadows of the pilings across the motorboat. Perhaps she’d go out with them tomorrow if there was a spare seat. When Henry first bought it, the three of them used to boom up and down the lake, taking turns at the wheel, leaping wakes and skidding through turns, waving a rooster tail of spray. He stood up to drive, peering over the windshield, bare-chested and wearing his Ray-Bans, a can of beer in one hand. They’d come in sunburnt, bleached blond, the roots of their hair throbbing from the wind. She’d wanted Walter to see her like that, the ravishing beach bunny, but of course he couldn’t come up. She told Henry about him, sure he would keep their secret, even if he disapproved, and he did—both disapprove and keep it.

  “I think you’re kidding yourself,” he’d say, or “In my experience, that’s not how it works,” or “Don’t let Emmy hear you say that,” but he stayed out of her affairs.

  He would have been within his rights. Their love had been improper. She’d been Walter’s teaching assistant, the two of them sneaking around campus, meeting in his dark office after the rest of the department had gone home. She could still bring back the thrilling strangeness of being stretched naked across the cool leather inlay of his desk, the patterns the flowered border left on her skin. He had a phonograph he played when they made love, and weekends when he was occupied with his wife and daughter, she haunted the record stores, trying to find a piece that described how she felt about him.

  She’d brought a copy of Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges that last Monday. They never listened to it. He took her to the Ramble instead, clasped his hands behind him as they walked through the ankle-deep leaves. Back in her apartment she dropped the unopened record in the garbage and smoked most of a pack before calling Henry, only then giving in to tears. All that fall he checked in on her, making her eat and holding her while she wept, and not once did he remind her of how silly she’d been.

  Rufus sighed and she looked up, movement drawing her eye. What she thought was a satellite resolved itself into two dots and then three, an invisible airplane blinking across the stars, small and high up enough to be silent, tiny compared to the vast backdrop. The summer sky was fixed with the season, had been with her since she was a girl here, quietly abiding the turning of the world, the wars and great changes. She felt lifted out of herself, as if she could look down on the dithering old woman who sat on the dock, and the trees and dark cottages along the shore, felt buoyed up towards the larger question of the stars and the earth and eternity.

  She could not see Henry in her mother’s version of heaven, a place not much different from the Institute, with beveled hedges and Mozart lilting from the woods, the inhabitants robed and earnestly discussing philosophy like the ancient Greeks. She hoped there was a time in his life when he was happy with everything that he would return to, like those mad, breathless days she thought Walter could be hers.

  She had no real idea of heaven, she thought, even less than the cottonball clouds and harps a child would have: a carless small town blessed with good weather, houses lifted from fairy tales. That didn’t mean it didn’t exist. She couldn’t believe Henry was just gone, lost.

  Her mother would scoff at her apostasy, see it as prideful and selfinflicted, one more useless thing she’d learned, but it wasn’t. Her whole life had been dedicated to giving others the courage to say “I don’t know” and then go further, the search for truth itself a sacred rite. It made no sense to stop now just because she found herself faced, in the end, with her mother’s favorite questions.

  Behind her, a car glided down Manor Drive, its headlights picking out the sides of houses, its taillights painting the leaves. A truck, chugging, probably a fisherman on his way to the marina. Her neck hurt, and the stars had lost their majesty. She was almost done with her cigarette, and it was too chilly to wait for the bell to ring.

  She did not plan on going to heaven. She would simply no longer be, just as, in a minute, she would no longer be
on this dock. The bell would ring anyway, as it would next week and next year, when they were no longer here. The stars and the earth would turn, the cottage fall down. It was not a mystery. Someone would take over her apartment and stalk the small rooms, pace from the kitchen to the front door the same way she did, set their plants on the fire escape to take the sun. All she would leave behind were her scrapbook, a few pieces of her mother’s jewelry, a stack of fading snapshots. She would be the old woman in the video they strained to name, a difficult trivia question, their great-grandfather Maxwell’s sister, the one who never married. What disturbed her most was not the idea that they would think her a lesbian (though she’d fielded that one more often than she cared to remember) but unhappy, that even in death she would have to defend her choices and, as in life, inevitably lose to the opinions of those who didn’t know her.

  She stubbed out her butt on the piling behind her, smearing the ember, then scratching at it with the filter.

  “You ready, old man?” she said, and Rufus grumped and struggled to his feet.

  She could see easily now, the water a silvered, reflective black like the waxed finish of a limousine. As they approached the bank, the frogs dove for safety. Rufus stayed obediently at her heel until they reached the grass, then loped over to the kitchen door, lobbying for a treat. In the woods, the locusts screamed, eternal as the stars. The night was full of sex and predators—life, Arlene thought. Near the stairs, Rufus wagged his back end, prancing frantically.

  “All right, all right,” she said. “I see you.”

  19

  There was no remote, another rustic feature of the cottage, and when he stood up to turn on the eleven o’clock news he saw with a twinge of disbelief—followed sharply by annoyance—that they’d forgotten to take the tapes back.

  “It’s okay,” Meg said, “I can take them back tomorrow.”

  “I can drive,” he said, and it was true, he’d crisscrossed most of the U.S. stoned during his college years, going on road trips with his Deadhead friends just for something to do, the thrill of being out there, moving, spending the shows grooving in the parking lot, driving the whole way back because everyone else was fried. Maxwell Cassidy. It had been a while.

  “I’ll come with you,” she said, and after they made sure the back door was open, they hopped in the 4Runner and started off, Freedy Johnston on the CD player.

  Meg had never heard of him. It didn’t seem like her, as if she’d changed, lost some precious skill or sense of appreciation, the years and the booze dulling her. Ken remembered how she’d introduced him to music, spinning her 45s for him with her door closed. They played a game where he had to name a song by its first notes, Meg dropping the needle, the record scratching around, then the thump of a bass, a drum beat, and she’d lift it again. “I Think We’re Alone Now!” he’d shout. “Sky Pilot!”

  So what was she listening to now?

  “Nothing,” she said. “The Stones. Old stuff. Jeff took all of his CDs, so we’re a little short on tunes right now.”

  “I guess I know what to get you for your birthday.”

  “Yeah,” she said, as if it didn’t matter.

  He babied the 4Runner up Manor Drive, obeying the fifteen-mile-an-hour limit. Their neighbors were mostly asleep or away, only a few windows still awake. The feeling of being stoned and the only ones up reminded him of high school, cruising the empty streets, the radio wired into the night. Meg had been gone by then, leaving him to deal with his parents, to take on the unfamiliar role of the favorite.

  “You oughta lock that door,” Freedy Johnston sang. “Somebody might get in. Didn’t I teach you that?”

  There was no one on the highway, only a light above the cornfield, bugs orbiting the hot bulb. He turned and the neat green rows riffled in his headlights like a deck of cards. The Snug Harbor Lounge was doing a decent business, its neon making a carnival of the parking lot. Then darkness, farms and unlit billboards, the white line stuttering under the tires, a familiar, dreamy feeling. Trees and signs floated by, invisibly suspended. The moon traced a creek through a field.

  “Niagara Falls,” Meg said, and it took him a second to process it.

  “Slowly I turned …”

  “Did you get some pictures of her?”

  “Some.”

  “Will you do me a favor,” she said, “and take one of me with her before the week’s over?”

  “Sure,” he said, but waited for her explanation, let the road occupy his mind.

  “She’s not young.”

  He thought this was ridiculous but agreed. “So have you talked to her about the house?”

  “When have I had time?”

  “I’ll have four hours with her tomorrow morning,” he said, and she laughed.

  “All I want is a picture, that’s enough for me. Four straight hours. Man.”

  “So I guess I’m representing us, is that it?”

  “Hey, she’ll listen to you before she’ll listen to me. I know Arlene’s tried to talk to her.”

  “I don’t think she can back out now. It’s pretty much a done deal from what I can tell.”

  “They’re still doing a septic inspection. How done can it be?”

  He’d tried that angle because he wanted it to be done. The money just wasn’t there.

  “Who’s going to pay the taxes on it? You know how much they are?”

  “Three thousand a year,” she guessed. “Ballpark.”

  “Do you have three thousand dollars?”

  “She’s got three thousand dollars. She doesn’t need the money, she just doesn’t want to deal with the hassle. I bet if you offered to take care of the place, she’d keep it.”

  “I don’t want to take care of the place,” he admitted.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Right. I’ll tell her that.”

  He knew it was a mistake as soon as it escaped, an unfunny joke. But he couldn’t take it back, and he couldn’t blame it on being stoned, though he never would have said it straight.

  “Fuck you,” she said, and went quiet on him.

  She sat there, a statue in the dark, as they sped past Willow Run and crested the hill by the campgrounds, the shuttered Book Barn.

  “Lovers cry,” Freedy sang. “One last kiss by the edge, then hand in hand, two lovers fly.”

  The reason it was so hard to talk about money, he thought, was because it revealed how they really felt about each other. Maybe it was the same with the cottage, his willingness to let it drift away an unrealistic wish to rid himself of all the difficulties he associated with his family, the misgivings, both real and imaginary, he felt when he thought of his mother or father or Meg and his own nonsupporting role in their lives.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be. It’s true. That’s why you’re the one who’s got to offer. I don’t count.”

  He wanted to contradict her but knew better.

  “I thought you liked the cottage,” she said.

  “I do.” He searched for a reason that wouldn’t convict him, then resented her for forcing him into a corner. “It’s just the money.”

  “She’s got the money,” Meg said, as if he didn’t understand. “You think she wants to sell the place? She just doesn’t think she can take care of it without Dad. All we have to say is we’ll take it over, both of us. That’s what she wants. I’m telling you. What is she going to use the money for? She can’t take it with her.”

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly, as if mulling the whole thing over.

  He didn’t want to think of his parents’ money, whatever money there was (his father’s insurance on top of the stocks and bonds and mutual funds, the joint accounts and the two houses). At his most desperate he fended off the idea that it alone could save him, her death a windfall not far down the road. No, their money was theirs (was hers now), as separate and secret from him as their love life, and best left that way.

  “Talk to her,” Meg said. “See how she
feels. What else are you going to talk about for four hours?”

  “You.”

  “I figured that.”

  “She still hasn’t reamed me out about the job yet.”

  “And I’m going to miss it.”

  “I’ll give you the highlights.”

  He was glad to joke about himself, joining with her to make fun of his mother and the expectations they would never live up to. He could still make her laugh by playing the fool, her goofy little brother.

  “Can I smoke in here?”

  “Sure,” he said, anticipating Lise’s objections, “just open a window.”

  He cracked his as well.

  Far off, at the bottom of the hill, high clusters of lights bathed the on-ramps of the Southern Tier like a crime scene. Hogan’s Hut was closed for the night, only the Mobil pumps aglow, reminding him that he needed to buy gas tomorrow, and he found himself thinking of Tracy Ann Caler, somewhere out there, probably dead. He could dedicate his work to her, use it to commemorate her life, the house she grew up in, her family, her room—very Bill Owens, the mystery of the everyday. He could see how much it would require, the time and patience. That was what he wanted to do with the cottage, and he’d barely started. Tomorrow was Thursday, and half of that was golf. He’d take the Holga in his bag. There would be time on the tees and greens, driving the cart—not too much, just what Morgan ordered.

  They came down past the Ashville marina and into Busti, where the speed limit changed. The gas and convenience mart there was closed, no surprise, and the Ice Cream Shack, back in its gravel lot. A van passed them coming the other way, then two cars, two more, a steady stream headed north. It wasn’t until they went under the railroad overpass outside Lakewood that they saw the movie complex was letting out. On their left the Dairy Queen was still serving, the entrance and exit of the parking lot marked by lighted cones three feet high, complete with the curl on top.

  “Very nice,” Meg said.

  “How many times a year you think those are stolen?”