Missing Mom: A Novel

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Five rings. No answer. I wanted to cry, this was so frustrating. My brother-in-law’s genial recorded voice clicked on Hello! No one can come to the phone right now but if you wish to leave a message…

  “Clare? Are you there? Please pick up, Clare. This is Nikki.”

  As if Clare needed to be reminded who I was!

  I tried to speak calmly. Since what had happened to Mom, my behavior with others was divided, not equally, between Calm Nikki and Gone-to-Pieces Nikki. I was having some luck keeping the Gone-to-Pieces Nikki private, now that Wally Szalla was more reliably in my life.

  “Clare, I’m at the house. I guess I should start without you. I hope nothing is wrong over there. Give me a call, will you? You have my cell number.”

  Actually it felt good to be angry at my sister. There is nothing like a wave of indignant anger toward a bossy older sister to dissipate panic.

  I stuffed my cell phone into my pocket, got out and crossed the lawn. Vaguely I was headed for the front door. Not the kitchen door! Mom’s tinkly little sleigh bells overhead. But maybe I should wait for Clare, before I went inside. I’d brought plastic garbage bags, for trash. Clare was bringing more bags, plus boxes and cartons. We assumed that Mom had a store of garbage bags (in the garage) as well as boxes and cartons in the attic. And Mom had plenty of cleaning supplies in the house, as well as a new lightweight vacuum cleaner to replace the bulky old vacuum she’d been thumping and thudding around the house with for years.

  Go inside. Use the front door. Hurry!

  What was I afraid of, the house was certainly empty. The front stoop was littered with yellowed old flyers, newspapers. Though Gwen Eaton’s mail delivery had been discontinued, the mailbox beside the front door was stuffed with junk mail.

  I began to toss things into a garbage bag, with a kind of fury. My heart was beating so strangely it felt like choked laughter.

  It was 9 A.M., and then it was 9:20 A.M., and no Clare.

  For today’s adventure in Mt. Ephraim, I was wearing comfortable old clothes. Not Funky-Chic Nikki but Grab-Bag Nikki. Sleeveless black T-shirt, khaki shorts, WCHF AM-FM hat pulled down over my now-flattened punk hair. I had to suppose that neighbors were aware of me, those who were home. Deer Creek Acres was that kind of place, you might describe as vigilant/concerned or plain nosey depending on your mood.

  As an older teenager, I couldn’t wait to escape. But since what had happened to Mom, people in this neighborhood had been so warmly supportive, so genuinely grieving for Mom, I’d had to re-think my old feelings.

  Clare was less certain. She was beginning to think that Mt. Ephraim was making almost too much of Gwen Eaton, so many people claiming they’d been her best friends. Clare had thought maybe we should go through Mom’s things at night, with the blinds drawn, in the hope that no one would see and come to bother us.

  I told Clare no thanks! That sounded like a terrible idea.

  Clare said she hadn’t been serious. Of course.

  As Clare had said she hadn’t been serious, a flippant remark she’d made about Wally Szalla, after meeting him the other day in Chautauqua Falls.

  So that’s Wally Szalla! He doesn’t look the type.

  I was drifting about the yard picking up fallen tree branches. My legs felt weak and I was beginning to sweat. More and more I seemed to be feeling someone watching me.

  The Highams were home across the street, no doubt. And there was Mrs. Pedersen next-door, her station wagon in the driveway.

  Young mothers pushing children in strollers, in the street. Dogs trotting beside them. Nikki Eaton had been gone from Deer Creek too long for any of these young women to know me, but possibly they’d known Gwen Eaton.

  The house where the lady was murdered. They would not utter such scary words to their children yet somehow their children would know.

  Schoolbuses had arrived and departed in the subdivision. There wasn’t much local traffic, delivery vans and repairmen. Each time a vehicle appeared on Deer Creek Drive I glanced up expecting to see Clare’s car, and each time I was disappointed.

  Back of the house, the lawn crew had cut the grass in crooked careless swaths. Debris from a recent storm lay scattered everywhere and Mom’s flower beds were choked with weeds. Her purple and and yellow irises, her beautiful roses. We’d teased Mom about fussing more over her flowers than she did over us. (Though it wasn’t true.) Mom said, “You’re not stuck in one place like flowers. If you get thirsty or crowded with weeds, you can do something about it.”

  I tried not to think how shocked Mom would be, if she could see how things were deteriorating.

  Dad, too. He’d been the one to really fuss over the house, more obsessively than Mom.

  In my room at the back of the house, sometimes I’d hear my father whistling as he prepared to mow the grass. (We’d never had a professional lawn crew. Most people did their own lawns in Deer Creek Acres.) Once, when I was about twelve, I squatted by my window and whistled through the screen like an echo, and Dad whistled back, assuming at first (as he said afterward) that it was a bird.

  A bird! We’d teased Dad over that for years.

  Poor Mom never could whistle. She’d try, pursing her lips as we instructed her, but all that came out was a feeble hissing sound. But Mom hummed and sang to herself, outdoors as well as indoors.

  How they’d cared for this modest property, Gwen and Jonathan Eaton!

  And now it would be sold. Placed on the market, in the hope that strangers might buy it.

  The house where the lady was murdered. In a town as small as Mt. Ephraim, it might be difficult to find these strangers.

  Our backyard was defined by a four-foot redwood fence that had come to look permanently waterlogged. Probably it was rotting, and would have to be replaced. Mom had grown morning glories, climber roses, clematis and sweet peas in profusion on this fence. I was tugging at a willow branch that had fallen into the climber roses when I heard someone behind me.

  “N-Nikki?”

  I turned, startled. It was Gladys Higham.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to creep up on you, Nikki.”

  My heart beat hard and sullen Go away! Leave me alone! but of course I forced myself to greet Gladys with a smile. I had to be polite, I was Gwen Eaton’s daughter.

  Gladys was wearing a shapeless floral print dress, cotton socks and crepe-soled shoes of the kind Mom had worn. Her heavy legs were waxy-white. Except for her tight-permed bluish hair that fitted her head like a cap, she was looking slack-bodied, blowsy. Older than I’d ever seen her looking. She approached me hesitantly as if uncertain of her welcome.

  “Oh, Nikki! I saw the car out front, I—I thought it must be one of you—you, or Clare.”

  Gladys hugged me, and I tried to hug her back. I held my breath against the faint chemical smell of her hair.

  “Nikki, dear, you’re thin. You are taking care of yourself, I hope?”

  There was no avoiding conversation with Mrs. Higham. To deflect questions about me, I asked how she and her husband were, and Gladys told me. I asked after her children, and grandchildren, and Gladys told me. I was certainly sincere. Mom would have been pleased with me. I hoped that Gladys didn’t notice how impatiently my toes were twitching inside my sandals.

  Now I was more disgusted with Clare than ever. Where the hell was she!

  “—Walter was saying just the other day, ‘I suppose the next step is, the Eaton house will be sold. And no telling who will move in.’”

  Gladys spoke anxiously. Her large pillowy sliding-down bosom heaved with a sigh.

  “Well, yes. Neither Clare nor I would ever live here, it’s only practical to sell the house.”

  “It is practical, yes! But so sad.”

  Damned if I was going to apologize. My smile persevered.

  “Your mother and father lived in that house for at least thirty years. I remember them when they were so young! Walter was saying, ‘It isn’t a good real estate market right now.’ Something about interest ra
tes?”

  Gladys spoke slowly, doggedly. Behind her bifocal glasses, her eyes brimmed with moisture. I dreaded this stout elderly woman bursting into tears, and making me cry, too; I dreaded her hugging me again, or even touching my arm. As in a nightmare I was forced to recall how desperately I’d run to her, into her kitchen. How I’d interrupted this innocent woman’s life. Those chittering canaries, parakeets. I’d upset them, too.

  There was an intimate bond between Gladys Higham and me, I could not bear to acknowledge.

  “Gwen just loved this house! All her growing things. She was just the happiest woman, you know, Nikki. I loved to hear her sing. She loved people, and she loved life.”

  I murmured yes, that was so. But now—

  “—except Japanese beetles, Gwen did not love. Oh, those nasty things, eating our rosebushes.” Gladys laughed, sadly. “‘Why did God make Japanese beetles, Gladys, do you know?’ she’d ask, and I said, ‘Same reason He made rattlesnakes.’ Walter, he’d say, ‘Same reason He made Bill and Hillary: to test us.’” Gladys laughed, shaking her head. “It breaks my heart, to see her irises in that state. And her American beauties, in that bed there. When my daughter Liddie had her trouble, you know, two surgeries in six months plus Dwight Junior falling off that railroad trestle and breaking both legs, it was Gwen who always asked after her. That was Gwen.”

  “Gladys, I know. But now, if you don’t mind…”

  “The funeral was lovely! So many flowers. And the music. And that minister spoke so wonderfully, I don’t agree with people who say he talks too much. I know, Clare doesn’t like him. I can understand that.” Gladys spoke quickly, as if making amends. The flesh of her upper arms was so white, and so terribly raddled, I had to look away. “And Clare’s luncheon, so lovely. What brave girls you are, you and Clare! Walter was saying, he’d never seen such a large party in a private house. So many people we didn’t know. Your sister’s house is quite something, isn’t it? The rooms are extra-big, and even the furniture. And that swimming pool in the back! Walter was saying, he wouldn’t want to pay taxes in that neighborhood. But I gather Rob Chisholm has a good job at what’s-it-called—Coldwater Electric? Gwen used to say. I never was one for swimming, like Gwen. People said she was the most wonderful—patient—instructor at the Y. Her seniors adored her! After your father passed away, you know, Gwen was at the pool every morning. She told me, ‘In the water you feel so free.’”

  Politely I murmured yes. I’d gone back to picking up storm debris and shoving it into a garbage bag.

  Glady’s chatter was a sincere form of grief. I supposed.

  Mom hadn’t approved of Dad brusquely cutting off neighbors who tried to engage him in inane chatter. She’d scolded Clare and me for being obviously restless, in the presence of prattling elders. There is just no excuse for being rude to anyone, Mom believed. Because you never know.

  Never know what? I’d asked.

  What might come out, to surprise you.

  “—never told the police, or anyone. Not even Walter. I wanted to, Nikki, but—”

  I looked around to see Gladys all but wringing her hands. Suddenly I understood that my mother’s friend had something to tell me.

  “—just couldn’t. Because I wasn’t sure. The police questioned me and made me so nervous, Walter was listening and Walter is always correcting me because I get things wrong, but he gets things wrong, too!—goodness, even my grandchildren do. But when you’re my age, that’s when people notice. Over and over in my mind I tried to remember what I’d seen. I do remember Gwen backing out of the driveway that morning, I know it was before 10 A.M because I’d just gone out to hoe in the peony bed. And Gwen stopped the car and called out, ‘Gladys, why don’t you come with me? It’s my crafts class, out at the mall. A bunch of us have lunch afterward.’ And I just wasn’t dressed, you know. I mean, it wasn’t the right time for me, right then. Now he’s retired Walter is at home mostly all day, he’d want to come with me. And he’d complain afterward—‘So many women yakking.’ I’d told Gwen I wanted to take a crafts class at the mall, I’d been telling her for a long time and she’d always invite me, but it was never the right time, I guess. And that day, Gwen was probably just being polite. But if I’d gone with her!” Gladys paused, wiping at her eyes. Her face was flushed as if with exertion. “What happened would not have happened, would it? He would not—that man—wouldn’t have come over to Gwen’s car—if there’d been two of us.”

  I stared at Gladys, astonished. Had she been blaming herself? For such a thing? As if any of this could be her fault.

  “—and later, when Gwen came home, I mean, when I saw her car—”

  “You saw Gwen come home? With—him?”

  This was something none of us had heard before. No one in the neighborhood had told police they’d noticed Gwen drive back to the house, to her death.

  No one seemed to know whether Lynch had forced my mother to drive back here, or whether he’d overpowered her somehow, had her captive in the car and drove back himself. Or possibly, naive as she was, Mom had voluntarily driven her murderer back to the house, for some “sensible” reason: having hired him to do lawn work, or handyman work as she’d hired him the previous summer. When Lynch had impulsively confessed to Mt. Ephraim police, he hadn’t provided such details.

  “Nikki, that’s what I don’t know. It’s all a blur to me. I think I saw Gwen’s car pull into the driveway, like she’d come home early from the mall. Like maybe there wasn’t a class, or she’d forgotten something. The strange thing was, she didn’t park where she usually does in the driveway but halfway inside the garage which I noticed because—why’d anyone do that? Unless it was raining and you wanted to go inside the house through the garage door. But it wasn’t raining. And really I wasn’t exactly seeing any of this, at the time. I wasn’t paying that kind of attention. Gwen was always driving that car! She was always going somewhere, and coming back from somewhere. Since your father passed away…She was kind of lonely, I think. But of course, Gwen loved to be busy. So many activities! Church committees, and her swim class for seniors, and the arts council, and hospital volunteer, and there’s some friend who’d get her to sub for her at the public library, Gwen was always willing to help out. And of course her crafts classes, and Garden Club, and seeing friends for lunch or if they were sick, Gwen was so faithful to her friends, even the most awful people, nobody else could stand. Well, I don’t get out the way I’d like. Gwen was always after me. Except there’s Walter, he’s jealous of my women friends, he’s even jealous of our children having more to say to me than to him, but what would they say to him, he’s always complaining! Well, Gwen had her own special way of seeing things. They said she’d had a hard life in her own family, her mother dying young like she did, and the Kovachs not having much money, but I never knew that from her. Sure she missed your father, they’d been sweethearts since high school. Except maybe Jon was older. Oh, Gwen never complained of being lonely! ‘Jon and I had thirty years together,’ she’d say, ‘I would be so selfish, to want more.’ She meant it, too. Gwen meant these things she’d say. She had so many friends who loved her. Of course, some of them, I won’t name any names, they took advantage of her good nature, and Clare was onto one or two of them, I remember. And Gwen had her church. And she could visit Clare, anytime. Or almost anytime. She said she had a ‘standing invitation’ for Friday evening dinners, at the Chisholms’. She could see her grandchildren, living right here in Mt. Ephraim. My grandchildren, I get to see twice a year if I’m lucky. And Gwen was so proud of you, Nikki, writing for the Beacon. Wednesdays when the paper came in the mail, she’d be so excited looking to see if—”

  “You didn’t see him, Gladys? You didn’t see anyone in the car?”

  “I—I don’t think so. I don’t see that well, dear. If I did see something, I might not have known what it was. Shapes are just blurs, sometimes. It’s like my grandchildren ‘surfing’ the TV channels, I can’t see to keep up. But if I’d looked harder
!—if I’d seen a man driving your mother’s car, a strange man, I would—I might—I don’t know what I would have done but I—I might have done something. I might have called Gwen—I might have gone over, to check. I might have called 911.” Gladys paused, pressing both hands against her bosom. She was breathing heavily. “I’ve never called 911 in my life! Not once. Until you came to use my phone, I’d never even known anyone who had. So maybe, I would not have called 911. I’d have been afraid, I think. Walter, too. ‘Don’t get involved’ is what he’s always saying. Like, you’re a witness to a traffic accident, if you give your name to anyone you can be called as a witness, you have to show up in court, or they can arrest you! So Walter would not have called, or wanted me to call. And if I’d seen a man, I might have thought it was some repairman. Like that exterminator man who’d come by, Gwen had had what she called an ‘ant invasion.’ Well, he showed up in his van, with cartoon bugs painted all over it. ‘Scourge of the Bugs’—some catchy name like that. All over this neighborhood every weekday there’s TV repairmen, plumbers, roofers, furnace men. You wouldn’t give a second glance to any of them. Your poor father had the worst luck, Gwen said, with furnace men: either they didn’t come when they said they would, or they didn’t come at all, or, if they did, they’d repair the furnace wrong, and make things worse. So, if I’d seen a man over here, I might not have taken any special note. And later, Gwen’s car was gone. I’d gone inside by then, and when I came out, the driveway was empty. And the garage door was down. And if I’d thought about it, which I doubt that I did, I’d have thought that Gwen had just gone back out again, which was not so unusual. Now the garage door down, that was unusual, but I didn’t think anything of it, I guess. My mind was on other things, you see. We have health problems, I won’t go into. Walter’s blood pressure, for one. Just that,” Gladys said, her stout soft body beginning to quake, “—I might have done something, and I know it. I might have saved Gwen, somehow. Oh, I know this, Nikki! I will always know it, in my heart.”