Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  She took her jewelry off in front of the mirror and hung up her dress and changed into her clean jeans, sitting on the bed to roll up her cuffs. When she bent down, Rufus shoved his nose in her hair and knocked the closet door with his tail.

  “All right, all right, I hear you. Can you wait till I get my tennies on?”

  She chose an old windbreaker of Henry’s and after a few tries—shining them into her palm—found a working flashlight on the mantel. She took Rufus out in the side yard and told him to go. He watched her as he squatted, looking worried, as if asking her for a little privacy. She paced the septic field like the inspector, bent and sniffing. Fireflies lifted from the rhododendron, locusts called from the trees. With every step she expected purple puddles in the grass, her tennies bleeding, but all she discovered was a wiffle ball.

  Rufus was done, and pleased with himself. She fetched him a treat from inside and left the flashlight by the sink, and they walked down to the dock. She’d have to take him in before the fireworks started, turn her radio on and close the door to her room, and still he would end up quivering under the bed. Now he stuck close to her though. He’d seen her filling boxes in the kitchen and knew they were leaving. She wondered if he’d had a good week, and thought so. The days would have seemed normal to him, tagging after the children or flopped on the concrete, the smell of the carpet. Next year would be harder.

  The dock shimmied under her feet, Rufus clicking by her side. She’d done this unthinkingly so many times, and now she wished she’d paid more attention. Bless him, Kenneth had covered the boat like she’d asked. The moon was low over Prendergast Point, and to the north the Gothic arches of the bell tower shone orange. A couple of docks up, the Nevilles had congregated, their laughter floating across the water. A whole flotilla of boats stood off of Midway, eclipsing one another’s running lights. She sat on the bench and Rufus laid his head on her knee.

  “You missed us, huh? Yes, I know you.”

  She scratched and he stopped panting and then began again, harder, his wet breath warming her hand. A mosquito landed on him and she shooed it. The kids would have to put on bug spray.

  The stars were up, the lake still. It hadn’t been a bad week, everything considered. She hadn’t expected to see Niagara Falls. They’d managed to fit their golf in, and seeing Herb and Marjorie had been important. She and Arlene had had a good day at the Institute. It had been a full week, maybe that was more accurate.

  She would miss the place, it was that simple. After taking everything into consideration—Henry and Arlene and the children and the money—she would regret her decision because she enjoyed coming here every summer. The cottage was familiar, a place she still knew while the rest of her world had changed. She’d been wrong to think she could break that bond so easily. And yet tomorrow she would. She would lock the door and drive away and that would be that. Already it nagged at her like a task left unfinished. She didn’t even have to stop by Mrs. Klinginsmith’s and drop off a key. There was something dishonorable in such convenience, as if she hadn’t suffered enough.

  She’d felt the same way when Henry died—that night, riding back from the hospital, all her worries and terrors fulfilled and obliterated at the same time, and nothing to take their place. Kenneth and Arlene had put her to bed, but in minutes she was in the bathroom, doubled over the bowl, and the next morning she was frantic, a kind of mindless anxiety that remained with her through the funeral and into the following week, leaving her empty and bedridden. She couldn’t imagine going through that again.

  She wouldn’t. She would go home and pick up where she’d left off, working in the backyard all morning, swimming at the club after lunch, paying the bills. They’d find a nice place for next year. They could even take a drive by and see what the new owners had done.

  Rufus belched under her hand.

  “Well, excuse you.”

  The Chautauqua Belle was out in the middle of the lake, lit up like the Fourth of July, and she thought she should take him inside before things got going. She stood and tottered back toward shore, the boards jiggling underfoot. Henry had built this dock. She remembered him and Herb Wiseman sinking the pilings—she had home movies of them in their plaid swim trunks. Every year at the end of the season they’d pull the sections up and stack them behind the garage. The new owners would probably rip the whole thing out and put in a new one. That was their prerogative.

  The boys passed her as she crossed the lawn, each of them carrying something white—popcorn. She stole a handful for Rufus, who hunted in the grass for a kernel she’d dropped. She had to grab him by the collar. If she didn’t get him inside before the first big boom, he’d run away and they’d spend all night trying to find him. Kenneth and Lisa had the boys’ drinks, and here came everyone else with blankets and sweatshirts and bug spray. She kept heading for the door with Rufus, who didn’t understand what he’d done wrong.

  “Where are you going?” Sarah asked. “You’re going to miss the fireworks.”

  “I’m coming,” she promised over her shoulder. “Don’t let them start without me.”

  20

  They sat together like always, but there was no point. Sam and Justin were right beside them, and her mother and father, all of them crowded onto the dock. And even if they were alone, Ella wouldn’t risk it. She’d had her chances this week and done nothing, and still she felt cheated.

  The thump of another rocket going off came across the lake as it traced its orange path upward, disappeared between the stars and opened in a green circle, a white flash at the center giving them a second to brace for the boom and then the echo rumbling over the hills. Beside her, Sarah leaned back on her elbows and tipped her chin up like she was sunbathing, waiting to be kissed.

  Another thump, and another. Ella could read the colors on Sarah’s cheeks—a red one, an orange one that turned blue at the last second. She had to stop herself from watching her, but the fireworks were so not what she wanted right now, and she fought them, sharp-eyed, flattening them as they tried to jump out at her. In between she could hear clapping from the other docks. The embers fell in streaks, drifted with the wind.

  “Whoa,” Sarah said at a double one, purple blooming through green.

  A huge orange one like a sun that stayed together till it went dark.

  “Oooo.”

  A small white one that broke into pinwheels that squirted away.

  “Those are the ones I like,” her mother said.

  A red one and a flash and Justin stuck his fingers in his ears. It was like a giant drumbeat thumping her heart, impossible to ignore. She tried not to let it surprise her again, alert for the next flash, letting the rest of them break up and fade. Her neck hurt and she twisted it and resettled. On the blanket, Sarah’s hand was inches from hers.

  She’d had this argument with herself so many times that she was sick of it, and out of anger more than any real hope, she turned her wrist and reached her pinkie toward Sarah, but still fell short. She left her hand there, waiting through two more rounds, aware of how close she was to touching her, tensing when a bomb went off.

  It would have to be an accident, and it had to be now.

  She didn’t even know why she was doing this. She should be happy that she was this close to her.

  “Nice,” Sarah said, to a shower of twinkling silver stars.

  The sky filled in again to scattered clapping, and as if this were her cue, Ella tucked her knuckles under and pushed the heel of her hand across the rough blanket so the side of hers rested against Sarah’s, the contact soft and incidental. She could say it was a mistake.

  Sarah picked up her hand and shifted so they weren’t touching. Ella drew hers back. By the time she thought to say sorry, it was too late.

  It didn’t mean anything. Sarah had barely noticed. Everything was okay.

  The launchers thudded and thumped and they had to track all the different rockets.

  “It’s not the finale,” her father said. “Not yet.�
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  “I should hope not,” Grandma said.

  The colors exploded on top of each other, showing the puffs of smoke beginning to move away, ghosts gliding across the water. The waves turned red and blue and green, and the trees. Sarah’s face hadn’t changed, open to the glow. They were sending up more, their trails like comets.

  “Wow,” Sarah said.

  “Look at that one,” Sam said.

  Whistling spinners and gold plumes, a low spray of Roman candles ending with a heavy barrage. The bombs came one after another, a clump flashing white and then the impact deafening them again and again. Ella sat there inside herself and followed a plane blinking high above it all, imagining how it looked from up there, wishing she were far, far away.

  21

  Meg didn’t know why she was crying. Not because of the glasses. Because she was exhausted. Because she was stoned and the week was over and she was feeling emotional. She recovered quickly, shooing Ken and laughing at herself even as she wiped the tears. The rest of them watched her like she was out of her mind, and she realized they weren’t used to seeing her cry. It was new for her too.

  “It’s just sad,” she explained, and looked again at the way her mother had nested the glasses in the box marked with her name—a beer carton, ironically. She thanked her for wrapping them.

  “I didn’t think you’d have time in the morning. I’ve also got you down for the cedar chest. I emptied it out but you’re still going to need a hand getting it in the van.”

  Ken and Lise volunteered as a team. Arlene said they’d all help each other, and Meg thanked them, knowing she was the one who needed the help, the only single.

  “Is that all you’re taking?” her mother asked. “That’s not very much. I’m still trying to get rid of that blender you like.”

  “Does it work?”

  “It works fine,” she said, surprised.

  She had one at home that she hardly used, and a Cuisinart, but she did like the thick glass pitcher and the old-fashioned chrome controls.

  “If no one else is going to take it.”

  “It’s all yours,” Ken said.

  While they went over his list, she wrapped the heavy pitcher in newspaper and thought it was typical of her mother to take advantage of her one moment of weakness, then saw she was being petty and let it go. Her mother knew she liked the blender, and Ken had gotten stuck with way more junk than she had. She noticed it was all their father’s stuff—like the glasses—and that Lise didn’t want anything.

  It was late and they had to get up early, but her mother couldn’t let them go without letting them know how much she and Arlene were taking. The TV, the nightstand and dresser, the answering machine—the list went on and on. Meg didn’t see how it would all fit in the car.

  Neither did Ken, upstairs. They whispered, separating the kids’ books and things by the glow of the night-light. She was burnt from the fireworks, her eyes tired. There wasn’t time to tell him what her mother said, and she accused herself of taking the easy way out. She’d tell him over the phone, and even then she’d just say her mother was helping her with the house, not mentioning the cottage, as if there were no connection between the two.

  Maybe that was why she cried, she thought under the covers. Because she saw it as a trade in a way, and her fault.

  It wasn’t.

  Which left Jeff getting remarried, an idea she vetoed immediately, if only because it was so humiliating.

  It was everything, she thought, the whole week. But she didn’t believe that either.

  22

  He was dreaming he was still working at Merck, and then he was taking Sam and Ella to a hockey game, except somehow he was out on the ice in his tennis shoes and had to go through these brown doors like a stage set someone had built for a skit, only there was nothing on the other side.

  He had just gotten a puck with a sticker on it from someone official when his stomach woke him up, a sharp pain that he thought would stop. When it didn’t he slid out of bed and made his way through the dark to the bathroom, barely sitting before everything gushed out of him, loud and hot and loose, and he sat there in his own sour stink with his ass stinging and thought with an awful feeling that he’d caught some splashback. It was the food at Webb’s, too rich, greasy lamb chops and a buttered potato, everything lubricated to go through. Maybe the lamb had been bad, because he wasn’t done.

  Nothing came, but he could feel it waiting to pour out, he had no control. He flushed, still sitting there, and felt the wind from the whirlpool, cooling. The moon wrapped the room in shadows, the toothpaste levitating above the marble of the sink. His stomach dropped and bubbled like a swamp. He tried and then bent over, eyes closed, breathing through his teeth. It was cold, but if he went back to bed he’d just have to come back.

  Someone was snoring, a short steady exhale—Meg. Outside, a single locust shrilled like the underlying whine of a TV, otherwise the night was quiet.

  What time was it? They had to get up and drive. Maybe he was upset about leaving, maybe that was it.

  He pushed again and got nothing, and then, like a mud bank giving way in the rain, everything slid down and out, plunking under him. He flushed and took a breath and squeezed until there was nothing but foam. He couldn’t imagine there was more, but he didn’t trust his stomach. He sat up straight and then bent over to test it, pressed his fingers into his gut like a doctor checking an appendix.

  It hurt to wipe, and he folded an extra handful to make sure, then rinsed his hands in the sink.

  “You okay?” Lise asked when he got in.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I think I ate too much.”

  Her body was warm, and soon she’d gone back to sleep. He was wide awake. He still didn’t know what time it was, and now he didn’t want to. He was fine on his back, just a little tender; it was when he rolled on his side that he felt the soggy wad shift and fill his intestines, the hot juices gnawing at him like poison. He rolled onto his back, hoping that would fix things, but in a minute he was up again. It would be like this all night.

  23

  Emily was surprised to find it was 3:36; she thought it was earlier, that she’d just dropped off. At the foot of the bed, Rufus was licking himself.

  “Rufus,” she said in the dark, and he stopped.

  He started again, lapping evenly.

  “Stop,” she said, and he did.

  Saturday

  1

  They were the first ones up, and Emily took her coffee out on the dock with Rufus, flushing a family of ducks. Mist rose off the water in wisps that broke in the cold air. Only the real fishermen were out. The day was cloudless, the lake a mirror; it was a shame they were leaving. Beyond that she didn’t allow herself to think. She would appreciate every minute of this. She would save it.

  When Arlene shook the planks, she didn’t look around, and Arlene just sat down beside her, sipping, as if they’d made a pact not to speak. The bell tower rang the half hour, and they both turned toward it, then faced the lake again, two old ladies.

  They were like sisters now, Emily thought, with everyone else gone. No one else was going to take care of them. She wanted to thank Arlene for understanding, except she wasn’t sure she understood, or could, and she didn’t want to risk this fragile agreement between them. And so they sat, quiet as the time of day, while the rest of the world woke up around them.

  2

  “Do you have all of your stuff together?” his mother asked.

  “Yes,” Sam said.

  “All of it?”

  MAGNETON GREW TO LEVEL 40!, his screen blinked. He showed Justin.

  “Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your suit from yesterday—hanging on the back line? Go get it. Bring in everything that’s on the line—please. Justin, you go help him.”

  “Just,” Aunt Margaret warned. “I don’t want to hear any sighing.”

  They both saved and shoved their Game Boys in their pockets and stepped
around the open suitcases.

  Downstairs, Grandma was cleaning the refrigerator and had the blue Koolers lined up on the counter. They stopped to see who was getting what. Sam didn’t see any sandwiches and hoped they’d stop at the barbeque place halfway. There was an ice-cream stand right next door.

  “Are you two looking for something to do?” Grandma asked.

  “No,” they said, and went to get the suits and towels.

  Outside, his father and Aunt Arlene were folding down the backseat of the van. Like usual, the girls had disappeared so they didn’t have to do any work.

  “Why do we have to have so many towels?” Justin asked.

  The ones on the ends were too high to reach, and they pulled at them until the clothespins let go and fell in the grass. They filled their arms so full Grandma had to open the back door for them.

  “Thank you both very much,” his mother said, and they headed for the stairs, thinking they’d sneak away, but his mother stopped him. “I just need you for a second. Justin, you can go ahead.”

  At first Sam thought she wanted him to sit on a suitcase or something, but Aunt Margaret had come over beside his mother, the two of them standing there serious. He knew what it was when she told him to sit down.

  3

  Lise’s anger made her pack faster, bagging Ella’s shampoo and cramming it in their toiletry kit, tossing the dregs of her conditioner. And she’d been looking forward to this all week.

  “I wish I knew why,” she told Meg. “That’s what bothers me.”

  “There may not be a reason.”

  “There has to be a reason. And then he’ll lie about it, you saw him. It drives me crazy. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know if talking with someone would help or not.”

  “Not if he’s like that,” Meg said.