Missing Mom: A Novel

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “You are free to go home now. We’ll be contacting you in the morning.”

  These were practiced words, obviously. Detective Strabane had uttered them many times before.

  I was examining the card he’d given me. It seemed so trivial, a business card at such a time. Dad had had a stack of similar little cards after he’d been promoted to senior vice-president of Beechum Paper Products. It seemed like there were hundreds of these cards, winding up in drawers, fallen into the cracks of things and behind cushions.

  DETECTIVE ROSS J. STRABANE

  MT. EPRHRAIM POLICE DEPARTMENT

  TEL: (716)722-4186 EXT. 31

  HOME: (716)81 7-9934 722-1874

  Strabane was urging us to go home, get a good night’s sleep.

  A good night’s sleep! The bastard.

  “…this way of thinking when I was a young kid, a kind of superstition like in a primitive part of the brain, that a bad day was just for that day, a ‘bad luck’ day, and the next day had to be different. But when you grow up, you know that bad days can come one after another, there’s no connection between them. So, the exhaustion will hit you, what has happened today, that is too much for you to comprehend, you should try to sleep tonight.”

  It was a touchingly mangled speech. Clare was staring at the detective in astonishment. For a moment no one spoke. Rob thanked Strabane, and said we would all try.

  All this while I’d been watching the garage anxiously. I could not see my mother’s body any longer. I wasn’t sure if it had already been loaded onto an emergency vehicle backed up to the garage entrance.

  I said, “I want to go with Mom. I have a right, I think.”

  It was explained to me, I could not go with Mom. I did not have a right, in fact.

  I said, “I’m not leaving her.” Then I said, as if there were any logical connection between the two statements, “This house is my home. It is my home.”

  Clare tugged at my arm, annoyed. “You’re coming home with us, Nikki. Don’t be silly.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “We need to be together. You can’t drive back to Chautauqua Falls in the state you’re in.”

  A wisecrack bristled on my lips I’m in the same fucking state you’re in, Big Sis: New York State.

  “My car. I can’t leave my car here.”

  “Rob can drive your car to our house, Nikki.”

  “Why are you in a ‘state to drive,’ Clare, and I’m not?”

  “Nikki, the shock was worse for you. You were the one to find Mom…”

  “Well, I don’t want to leave her just yet.”

  I must have spoken sharply, I’d become an object of attention.

  Gil Rowen, who’d known “Johnny” Eaton and “Feather” Kovach forty years before, was advising Clare that “your sister” be taken to the medical center after all: I wasn’t looking good, I’d had a “severe shock.” I turned on him with a savage grin: “You can speak directly to me, Chief Rowen. I’m not brain-damaged.”

  I resisted Clare’s fingers on my arm. I resisted a herding movement of my brother-in-law, to urge me in the direction of the Chisholms’ Land Rover. I wasn’t a sick child, to be taken care of by responsible adults! I was filled with rage suddenly. I wanted to scream, bite, tear with my teeth.

  At this moment there came a darting movement in the grass in front of the house, a furtive dark shape. Dad had planted two willow trees in the front yard when I’d been a little girl, these had grown to their full height, the graceful branches arcing, falling toward the ground, beginning to quicken with new spring growth. The shape darted from the base of one of these willows to the other, I saw a flash of tawny reflector-eyes. Smoky!

  In the commotion my mother’s cat had run outside, terrified. I had completely forgotten him until now.

  What a nightmare for a cat! The house was blazing with lights, strangers speaking in loud voices. Smoky had lost his only companion in Mom, now he’d lost his place of refuge in which he’d been safe for almost ten years. In a seductive voice I called “Smoky! Kitty-kitty!” and tried to approach him even as he retreated before me, ears laid back. Smoky was a football-shaped cat, burly rather than fat, his fur was not glistening-silky but dull gunmetal-gray, Dad had called him about the least graceful cat he’d ever seen, some strange hybrid between a cat and a small species of pig, but Mom had loved him. And he’d loved Mom, and would never be able to comprehend that she was gone.

  Clare called to me, but I ignored her. She and the others were staring at my odd posture as I crept across the lawn, hand extended. They hadn’t seen Smoky, they had no idea what I was doing. Rob was calling me, too. I ignored them, pursuing Smoky who was at the corner of the house now, by the lilac hedge, poised to disappear into oblivion. The pretense was that I had something to feed Smoky, something in my hand, but Smoky was too shrewd for me, and frightened of the loud voices of strangers and the activity in the driveway. I turned to shout at these intruders: “Don’t talk so loud! Please lower your voices! You’re scaring my mother’s cat.”

  Smoky bolted from me around the corner of the house, and disappeared. Hunched almost double as if in pain, in fact my gut was livid with pain as with molten lead, my hand still extended into the shadows, I ran after him.

  oblivion

  Toward dawn I fell asleep. I think.

  There was a promise that, whatever had happened that hurt so badly, it would be rescinded by morning.

  Like DELETE on the computer. Click onto DELETE and whatever it is you want to get rid of, becomes was.

  Except it wasn’t the right sleep somehow. Maybe it was someone else’s sleep, sloshing onto me by accident. A kind of gritty froth-foam slapping over my face, then withdrawing. I was lying where I’d fallen on a lumpy beach. Pebbles, cold wet sand. Too exhausted to move my head. This kind of gritty-filthy surf washing over me and for a fleeting second or so I would be sleeping and then the surf would withdraw leaving me exposed and my eyes sprang open in terror.

  Mom? Mom?

  It was so, I’d gone home with Clare and her husband.

  I hadn’t been able to find Smoky. I stumbled and fell in a neighbor’s backyard. I wasn’t crying but I was very tired. I had to concede, Clare was probably right: I wasn’t to be trusted driving a car in the state I was in.

  Mental state, Clare meant.

  And it wasn’t a good idea for me to be alone that night. The police chief who’d known my dad and mom insisted. No! not a good idea, Nicole! Not alone in a rented apartment in a shabby-chic brownstone in Chautauqua Falls where possibly I would be in danger.

  “You’re coming with us, Nikki. Now.”

  Clare climbed into the high cab of the Land Rover like a general climbing into his military vehicle. Clare grim-jawed and glarey-eyed like one going to war.

  Rob followed behind us in the Saab. I was the lone passenger.

  “Until whoever did it, the murderer or murderers, the cowardly bastards, is caught. You will be with us.”

  I was not able to think clearly but I did recall the police officer with the swarthy simian face who’d assured us that after a bad day you can expect a good day, anyway a less-bad day. Some kind of superstition but maybe it was so?

  On the way home, Clare swung around to stop at Luke Myer’s house. Dr. Myer had been our family “primary care” physician for as long as I could remember and he had not yet heard of Gwen Eaton’s death and was stunned, shaken, by what Clare had to tell him but recovered enough to provide Clare and me with something to help us sleep that night.

  A quick-acting “mild” barbiturate.

  Clare made it clear, she did not believe in drugs. But tonight was an emergency situation, especially where I, Nikki, her younger and more emotional sister, was concerned.

  “You see, Nikki was the one to discover the—”

  Clare felt the need to begin again. “Nikki was the one to find Mom. She’s taking it pretty hard as you can imagine.”

  Clare’s eyes flashed like scimitars.
Not with tears.

  It would be said in Mt. Ephraim that Nikki, the younger Eaton daughter, had collapsed after discovering her mother’s body but this was not true! I had not collapsed at the time. I had not collapsed for hours. Not so that anyone could see.

  As soon as I was alone upstairs in the Chisholms’ house my head seemed to come unhinged from my neck and fell heavily forward. It had been my intention to shower immediately, to tear off my blood-smeared clothes and wash my hands which bore traces of black ink, but in the bathroom I became frightened, flushing the toilet involved so much noise. I seemed to lack the strength to take a shower, I was shivering badly and unable to remove my clothes. Sweatshirt, jeans. My punk-cut hair I’d been tamping down with both hands like a monkey displaying grief.

  I was too exhausted to take the sleeping pill Dr. Myer had given me. I couldn’t make the effort to run water into a plastic cup, lift the cup to my mouth. I staggered into the attractively furnished guest room that Clare was providing for me at the end of the second-floor corridor of the house, I’d never slept in my sister’s house before and was comforted by a familiar scent of our mother’s floral soap and potpourri for this room closely resembled Mom’s guest room and in fact a number of Mom’s things were here: an oyster shell afghan Mom had knitted, a macramé wall hanging, coral shell knickknacks and clay vases. I fell heavily onto the bed. Onto the oyster shell afghan. When someone knocked hesitantly at the door—“Nikki? Are you hungry?”—I burrowed more deeply into the afghan and did not answer for I could not bear facing my sister’s children with the terrible knowledge between us of what had happened to their grandmother, I could not face them just yet.

  Nikki! Don’t leave me, honey.

  Honey, I need you. Come help me.

  If you’d come earlier…Nikki!

  Toward dawn I fell asleep. I think.

  And in a dream there was the whispered promise that what had happened that hurt so badly would be rescinded in the night. What had happened that had no name would be rescinded by morning. I had not been a little girl for many years but I was willing to believe as a little girl might believe. For there was Mom wearing the clumsy oven mitts she’d bought at a church bazaar, three sizes too large for her, stooping to pull a bubbling casserole out of the oven and unaware of me watching. And there was Mom feeding her “strays”—three very hungry cats jostling for her attention, in a corner of the kitchen. And there was Mom casting a sidelong look at Clare and me who were acting silly about something Oh really, you two! Make yourselves useful.

  For why should things be serious, couldn’t you turn them into a joke? Better to smile than to frown. Better to laugh than to cry. Deflect a remark that might wound with a quizzical lift of the eyes, an innocent/mischievous twitch of the lips. Dad was the worrier in the Eaton family. Dad was in need of “lightening”—“cheering up”—for Dad took his responsibilities seriously, supporting his family, this damned recession in western New York State that seemed never to be turning around the way politicians were always promising yet taxes remained high, taxes were steadily rising, where was it going to end!

  Go give Daddy your valentines. Go on, Daddy is waiting. And give Daddy a kiss, whether he asks for a kiss or not.

  Mom was sewing a quilt. Not a full-sized quilt but a baby-sized quilt, for one of my older Eaton cousins was having her first baby. The quilt was “patchwork”—squares of all different colors, designs—pale green, pale lavender, white bunnies, red cardinals, orange giraffes, sunflowers. As the needle in her fingers darted and winked Mom hummed loudly to herself.

  I was jealous! I was too old for a baby quilt.

  You’ve had your turn, sweetie. This is for a new baby.

  I didn’t wake until after 10 A.M. Sunshine was beating into my face. I smelled of my body and of what had happened in the garage and my brain was aching as if broken glass had gotten inside my skull. I seemed to be wearing the identical blood-stiffened sweat-smelling clothes I’d worn the day before. Sweatshirt, jeans. I’d kicked off my running shoes but hadn’t the energy to pull off my dirty socks. My underarms were caked with stale deodorant and my mouth tasted like tar. I’d been sleeping on my face, the entire right side of my face was imprinted with the whorled knit of the afghan like a bizarre tattoo.

  The childish thought came to me, Is Mom still dead? Maybe something happened while I’ve been gone, to change that?

  case closed!

  There is a romance of mystery, but when my mother Gwen Eaton was murdered there was no romance, and there was very little mystery. For within four hours of her reported death her murderer had been tentatively identified by Mt. Ephraim Police and within twenty hours he’d been positively identified. Within forty-eight hours, he’d been arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary, theft, criminal trespass, and credit card violation.

  None of this was like TV or the movies. Believe me. It was not suspenseful or what you’d call exciting. It was revealed to us, Gwen Eaton’s family, those whom newspaper obituaries call “survivors,” as a rapid-fire recitation of facts so bluntly presented, we were like Little League batters at the plate as adult hardball pitches slam by at one hundred miles an hour. Maybe we’d assimilate these facts at a later time, but only later.

  And maybe not ever.

  Mom had been murdered at approximately 11 A.M. of the morning of May 11. Approximately forty-five minutes earlier, at the Mt. Ephraim Tiger Mart service station on Route 33 north of town, evidently on her way to the Northland Mall, Gwen was seen giving a ride to an individual who approached her on foot as she was waiting for her car to be serviced. By chance this individual, a Caucasian male twenty-nine years old with a history of methamphetamine abuse, was known to the proprietor of the Tiger Mart who, after news of Gwen’s death was broadcast on local TV that evening, would call police to report what he’d witnessed.

  Once the hitchhiker was in Gwen’s car, he forced her to drive back into Mt. Ephraim and to 43 Deer Creek Drive where he would ransack the house looking for cash, credit cards, pawnable items, and he would stab her with a weapon similar to a Swiss Army knife some thirty-three times, including six separate stabbings in the throat. He then fled in Gwen’s car, with some of Gwen’s jewelry and household items. At approximately 11:45 A.M., a man attempted to use Gwendolyn Eaton’s Visa card at the Wal-Mart on Route 33 south of Mt. Ephraim, but fled when a cashier called a store manager to examine the card with a woman’s name on it. (This transaction was captured on Wal-Mart videotape.) Forty minutes later, the same individual succeeded in using the card, forging Gwendolyn Eaton’s signature, at J & J Men’s Discount Clothiers a few miles farther south on Route 33 where his purchases were: a $23.98 cotton shirt, a pair of $29.99 chino trousers, a pair of $34.99 running shoes, and a pair of $2.98 socks. At approximately 12:45 P.M., this same individual approached a gas station attendant at Hal’s Mobil Service at the intersection of Routes 33 and 39, asking for the key to the men’s room, where it was believed he changed his soiled clothes. (He was wearing a canvas jacket, not visibly stained, over a bloodstained T-shirt and jeans. He laughingly attributed the way he looked to an “accident with a chain saw” he’d had while trimming trees that morning.) The attendant became suspicious and noted the license plate number of the 2001 silver-green Honda this individual was driving, which he’d report to police that evening after the 10 P.M. local TV news.

  A bundle of bloodied men’s clothing—T-shirt, jeans, socks—would be discovered next morning in a Dumpster behind a McDonald’s twelve miles west on Route 39: so carelessly jammed into a J & J Men’s Discount Clothiers plastic bag, it was spilling out and immediately caught the attention of the trash pickup workers who reported it to police.

  At approximately 7 P.M. of May 11, in a Radio Shack near the Dunkirk, New York, exit of Interstate 90, the murderer attempted to purchase a $376.99 CD/video player but again fled when the salesman questioned the Visa card with a woman’s name on it; this time, the murderer left the card behind.

 
; By 10:25 P.M. of May 11, a tentative I.D. of the murderer of Gwen Eaton had been made by New York State police. Fingerprints found in Gwen’s house would substantiate the I.D. The murderer had a prison record: he’d served five years of a seven-to-ten-year sentence at Red Bank Men’s Facility for drug-related felonies, check forgery, and burglary. He was tracked to his grandmother’s residence in Erie, Pennsylvania, about twenty-five miles beyond the state line, where the stolen 2001 Honda registered in the name of Gwendolyn Eaton was found in a barn and where he was taken into custody without offering resistance.

  Amid numerous items in the car, officers found Gwen Eaton’s emptied wallet. Beneath the driver’s seat, a bloodstained Swiss Army knife.

  “See, most criminals are stupid like I told you. Especially meth-heads looking for quick cash.”

  It was Detective Strabane who told us these things. Though he frowned and squinched up his monkey-face, swiped at his nose and shifted his shoulders inside his dun-colored sport coat (not only unbuttoned but missing one of its plastic buttons) you could see that the plainclothed officer had all he could do to suppress his excitement and elation. Oh, he felt good about this professional police work! He had been at the prow of it, you could be sure.

  We stared at him, stunned into silence. Clare, Rob, me.

  Finally Clare said, “‘Ward Lynch.’ That was his name. I’d gotten it backward. I met the man myself, once. At Mom’s. I’d thought he was a joke. One of Mom’s lame ducks, to tease about. Oh, Jesus.”

  In the Chisholms’ living room (“cathedral-style” ceiling, hardwood floors) Clare and I were seated on a sofa, Rob was a few feet away in a chair. And there was Detective Strabane leaning forward, earnest and eager, elbows on his knees, in another chair. My niece and nephew had been banished upstairs, what the “policeman” had to say wasn’t for their ears. Clare had begun to cry, bitterly. Yet not hiding her face as you’d expect, just sitting rigid and furious, fists clenched at her sides. I knew that I was expected to cry with my sister, to hug her tight, but my arms were like lead, my legs were like lead, I hadn’t the strength to turn to her, couldn’t move an inch. She might have been on the far side of the room.