The Things We Wish Were True

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

  “I can definitely do that. She’ll be thrilled.”

  “Cutter’s been asking for her. He doesn’t remember anything from that day, so please just warn her we’d like to avoid talking about it. Don’t want him getting upset.”

  “She just wants to see him. She’s been so worried.” Zell took a deep breath. “I think she feels guilty, at fault somehow.”

  “Well, I’ll talk to her. Reassure her,” Lisa said.

  “That would be nice,” Zell said. She got the room number they’d been moved to since Cutter was out of intensive care and promised to head to the hospital just as soon as possible. She ended the call. Before she went anywhere, she was going to take a shower.

  “Cailey!” she called. She bustled outside, rounding the corner of her house to the front yard, where she’d last seen Cailey. But Cailey wasn’t there. She scanned the yard, but it was empty. She moved to the backyard calling out for Cailey. But the backyard was empty, too, the squirrel feeder they’d planned to mount later still sitting on the patio.

  She ran back to the front yard, yelling Cailey’s name loudly. Her mind ran to the little girl who’d disappeared months ago, the one they’d never found. She’d lived not too far from Sycamore Glen. Zell raised her voice and yelled the child’s name even louder still.

  CAILEY

  I was sitting on Mr. Doyle’s back deck eating a fudge pop—my favorite—when I heard Zell hollering for me. “I think someone’s looking for you,” he said and gestured in the direction of her voice, loud and panicked sounding. I hopped up and went running toward Zell’s house, the pop still in my hand.

  “Hey! Hey!” I yelled when I rounded the corner and spotted her pacing back and forth in her front yard. “I’m over here!” I waved my arms over my head, the Popsicle dripping a little as I did, droplets like brown rain sprinkling down.

  Zell was in the front yard, and as soon as she saw me, she stopped moving and stared at me like I was a ghost coming toward her. I crossed the street in a hurry and met her in the middle of her yard. I looked over to see if Mr. Doyle had followed me, but he hadn’t. I guessed he went inside to check on his mother. She was taking a nap, but later he was going to take her for a walk in her wheelchair. He said he was waiting till it wasn’t hot as Hades to go. He said I was welcome to walk with them, but I said I’d have to ask Zell. He made a face and said it wasn’t likely she would say yes. I asked why, and he said, “Long story.”

  Zell gave me a quick hug when I got to her, then she looked at me like my mother did when she was disappointed. I tried to figure out what I could’ve forgotten to do for Zell, but I couldn’t think of anything. The nice thing about Zell’s house was I didn’t have to do a thing. She mostly did it all, which was a nice change.

  “Where were you?” Zell asked. “And where’d you get that fudge pop?” She was acting like I stole it.

  “From Mr. Doyle,” I said, and pointed toward his house like Zell didn’t already know where he lived. Then I remembered. At the pool she’d seen me talking to him after he gave me my trophy and asked me not to ever go to his house. She’d said I didn’t have to understand, that I just needed to listen to her. When he offered me the Popsicle, I forgot all about that. All I could think of was eating that fudge pop, how cold and good it would taste on a hot day.

  “I didn’t ask him for it,” I said really quickly. “He offered.” I wanted Zell to see I had good manners even if I wasn’t the best listener in the world. The last thing I wanted was for her to get mad at me and send me home.

  “Cailey, please stay away from him. I’m telling you, it’s for your own good,” Zell pleaded with me, casting a glance at Mr. Doyle’s house as she spoke.

  “He just gave me a Popsicle. He said I looked hot out here. He was being nice.” I tried to assure her, but she wasn’t buying it. Grown-ups sure do like to worry. Even when they don’t have anything to worry about, they invent stuff. It was kind of like my mom, telling me not to talk to strangers. My mom had been so wrong—just look at how nice people had been. I mean, before Cutter’s accident I didn’t even know Zell, and now I practically lived with her.

  Zell waved her hand in the air. “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. You’re OK and I’ve got exciting news.” She put her arm around my shoulders and began walking me back toward her house. She kind of stunk after working on the habitat all morning, but I didn’t dare say so.

  When she said she had news for me, I honestly thought she was going to tell me that Mr. John had said he’d dig us a pond. I was starting to feel at home with Zell and John, starting to think we might actually finish this project of ours. I wasn’t even thinking about Cutter. The truth was, lately, I hadn’t thought about my mom and brother much at all. First, my selfishness had landed my brother in the hospital, then I went off and lived the good life while he was there and forgot about him. I was the worst sister in the world.

  “Yeah?” I asked. “What is it?” I was already thinking of the special fish I’d ask Zell to buy for the pond. I’d seen them on a show on TV before. They were big and fat and orange, like overgrown goldfish. I would name them—

  “Your brother’s awake,” Zell said. “We’ve got to get ready and get up to the hospital.” She beamed at me, and I felt the Popsicle start to drip down my hand. “He’s going to be so happy to see you!” She gave me a little hug, and I made my face smile back at her because I should’ve been happy.

  I mean, I was happy. Relieved, too. But in the same moment, at the exact same time, I was sad, too. Because I would be going home. Possibly as soon as that night. No more dinners with Mr. John and Zell. No more Zell asking, “So what do we feel like for supper?” No more wildlife habitat. No more going over to hang out with Lilah next door. No more waking up on the sofa with an afghan covering me because Zell thought I looked cold. I’d have to take my Fourth of July trophy off her mantel.

  “That’s great,” I said, hoping I sounded the way a normal kid would when she heard that her brother who might have died wasn’t going to die after all. “I can’t wait to see him.” When tears welled in my eyes, I made it seem like it was because I was so relieved. And I was. But I was also thinking about what it would be like to go back to being the one who took care of people instead of being the one who got cared for.

  Zell and I took showers superfast and got dressed. I met her downstairs in the kitchen, and she handed me a big, shiny apple. “You haven’t had lunch, and I don’t think that Popsicle is going to hold you.” She gave me a wink that told me I was forgiven. “We’ll go get lunch after the hospital to celebrate. How’s that sound?”

  It sounded nice. It sounded like a fitting end to what had been the best summer I could remember.

  On the way to the hospital, we passed a billboard of that little girl who’d disappeared. It had a big picture of her, smiling and looking at us all as we drove past, heading to our everyday lives while she remained lost. I could tell it was her school picture. (School pictures always look the same no matter what school you go to. I’d been to enough to know.) The billboard asked the question, “Have you seen me?” with a phone number and the promise of a big reward for anyone who helped find her. It gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I had to look away really quickly, even though her face stayed in my mind.

  I saw Zell notice it, too, but neither of us said anything about it, even though I knew both of us were thinking about earlier when Zell couldn’t find me. Zell had it wrong, though. Mr. Doyle was a nice man who was just a little lonely. He had to take care of other people a lot so he didn’t have the greatest life. I understood how that felt.

  After we passed the billboard, we stopped and got candy and balloons for Cutter, and I got him a puzzle he could work on now that he was awake. It was a picture of Superman flying through the air, his fist raised. If I’d been brave enough, I would have told Cutter that he was Superman, surviving drowning the way he did. But sometimes it was hard for me to say mushy stuff to other people, especially if other people were watching.

>   I got butterflies in my stomach when we parked in the lot at the hospital, and they spread their wings and started flying around when we got into the elevator to go up to the eighth floor, where Cutter was. I was worried about seeing him and my mom. I was afraid of what she would say to me, the way she would look at me, her smile frozen on her face for Zell’s sake, but her eyes cold and hard. I was nervous about Cutter looking at me with those dark eyes of his, eyes that told the real story about what had happened at the pool that day, how I’d failed him. The elevator door opened, and Zell reached out and gave my hand a quick squeeze. In just a few weeks, family had become strangers, and strangers had become family.

  I took a deep breath and followed Zell down the hall, my feet heavy as I walked past the framed artwork done by sick children. I kept my chin up, trying not to think about those suffering children taking crayon to paper, and made myself smile at the nurses as they walked by. When at last we reached room number 810, the butterflies were whipping around my stomach so hard I felt like I might need to lean against the wall. But Zell pushed open the door (without even knocking), and I had no choice but to follow her inside my brother’s hospital room.

  I think it was because Zell didn’t knock first that we caught Mom and the man together, leaning against each other the way only two people who are very comfortable would do, his arm casually tossed across her shoulders. If they’d had some warning, I bet my mother would’ve put some distance between them and not looked so cozy. She hadn’t let Joe come around us for the first several months they dated. (I wish she’d never let him come around at all.) But I guessed this was a different situation.

  I recognized the Ambulance Guy right away. He was the one who stopped and talked to me while the other two got Cutter loaded into the back. He was nice and everything but, jeez, how did he end up with his arm around my mother? In the split second between when the door opened and when they realized we weren’t just another nurse entering the room, I got the picture.

  They weren’t hiding anything from Cutter, who was sitting up in bed picking at a tray of food on a table stretched across his bed. They were laughing at something Cutter said, and he was laughing, too, and for just a moment, I wondered if maybe it would be better for all of us—them, too, not just me—if I stayed with Zell and let them be a family. They looked comfortable and familiar, like they belonged together. And when their heads swiveled around to take in Zell and me standing in the doorway motionless, it was clear just who the outsider was.

  I felt Zell’s hand come to rest on my shoulder, and then she said with that bright, happy voice she used sometimes, “We came to see the miracle boy!” She pointed to the stuff I was carrying. “And we brought presents!”

  My mother got up and rushed over to me, wrapping her arms around me and hugging me so big I could hardly breathe. Ambulance Guy came over and took the things from my hand, exclaiming, “Cool! Look, Cutter!” a little too loudly.

  From inside my mother’s arms, I could see Cutter. He gave me that Cutter grin I’d seen a thousand and one times before, and in that moment, with my mother hugging me and Ambulance Guy in the room and Zell saying all her Zell things, it hit me: Cutter was OK. He was OK. He was OK.

  Which meant, I guessed, so was I.

  LANCE

  In the year before Debra left, she’d gotten into new foods, her devotion to all things healthy pursued with the kind of zeal usually attributed to cult followers. She’d eaten carrots dipped in hummus, and smoothies made with strange ingredients, and apples dipped in almond butter instead of peanut butter. “What’s wrong with peanuts?” Lance had asked, but she hadn’t answered, already buzzing to the next thing.

  She’d never stayed still, as if the healthy foods were giving her excess energy she had to keep moving to burn off. She’d eschewed anything made with flour or sugar, waxing eloquent on how fruits had all the natural sugar she’d ever need. She’d made and devoured huge salads, nibbled on nuts and seeds, avoided beef in favor of chicken or seafood. She’d rarely spoken to him unless it was to sermonize over the health benefits of the foods she was eating and, therefore, foisting on the entire family. There had never been anything good to eat in the house. He’d grumbled and complained, even as the weight fell off her and she’d started to resemble the girl he’d married again. Trouble was, she’d acted nothing like that girl.

  She’d taken up running. She ran all the time, even when it rained. “Shouldn’t you join a gym or something?” he’d asked, concerned, as she’d taken off into the rain one cold day when he was sure she’d catch her death. “You could run on a treadmill. Wouldn’t that be . . . safer?”

  Debra hadn’t answered. She’d just run away.

  She even ran in her sleep, a phenomenon he’d witnessed one night as she’d lain splayed in their bed, sleep sacking her midsentence. Her mouth had still been open, her unspoken words escaping into the air. He’d watched her, wishing he had the courage to rouse her and tell her all he was thinking. I feel like I’m losing you. I fear that we’re drifting apart. And yet you seem so happy, so purposeful, for the first time since the kids were born, and I’m scared to death to mess with that. He’d watched her sleep and thought of all the things he couldn’t say to his wife. Watching her, he’d noticed twitching under the sheets, and it had taken him a moment to realize she was running even in her dreams. Her feet had moved as though she were rhythmically plodding along the asphalt. Even in her sleep, he could see in hindsight, she’d been running away.

  Lance watched for Jencey and her girls to arrive in that mammoth SUV she drove. He was always a little shocked when he saw a tiny woman climb out from behind the wheel of one of those intimidating vehicles. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to drive a car that big, that high, through traffic and down narrow suburban streets. And yet, he’d seen many a mom whip one of those things into a parking space without a second thought.

  He busied himself by emptying the dishwasher, a chore he normally made the kids do (Debra hadn’t required them to do enough around the house, and that only added to her stress and unhappiness in his opinion), but he needed a distraction so he’d stop pacing by the front windows, looking out for Jencey, who must’ve been going for fashionably late. He hoped she hadn’t forgotten about their date.

  He scolded himself for even thinking that word. This was not a date. And yet, he looked forward to spending time with her, had spent the better part of the day with an anticipatory grin on his face. Lilah had even noticed it. “Stop smiling, Dad,” she scolded. “It makes you look weird.”

  He’d done his best to comply with her request, forming his lips into a straight line. But moments later, he was smiling again. Lilah shook her head and went outside to investigate whatever Zell and Cailey were up to in the Boyette backyard. They’d been outside a lot lately, busy as beavers. He supposed he should be neighborly and inquire, but he’d been preoccupied with thoughts of Jencey, coinciding with more and more memories of Debra and thoughts about it being over. He was, he knew, beginning to let his wife go. But letting her go meant he had to find her and do it officially, which was an idea that was forming more and more each day, almost independent of his conscious thought life. His subconscious was deciding for him: it was time to move on, to pronounce the time of death on his marriage and start living—for real—again.

  He saw the SUV pull into his driveway and tried not to attach symbolism to its appearance at that moment. And yet, as Jencey climbed out of the big vehicle, he felt his heart lift and hoped that when she saw him waiting for her in the doorway, maybe hers did, too. He raised his hand in greeting, and she gave him that smile he’d been waiting to see, the one that made him think about a future apart from Debra, something he hadn’t thought was possible.

  JENCEY

  Jencey was on a rooftop with Arch, sitting at a café table overlooking a splendid view of the city below on a perfect day. Arch was wearing the dark-gray Armani suit she loved with a crisp white shirt and a deep-red tie. The gray suit complemented his sta
rting-to-silver dark hair, and he was tan from a recent trip to Miami that he swore had been no fun at all. He couldn’t stand the clients, he’d said upon his return. She saw the lie but said nothing.

  They sipped champagne, the bubbles tickling her nose as they always did, making her feel happy and light. He reached for her hand and took it across the table, trailed his fingers up and down the soft inner skin of her forearm, a signal that he wanted to make love later. She wasn’t even sure he knew he did it, but she knew his cues. She knew everything about him.

  Suddenly a group of men in black suits surrounded them, guns drawn, shouting, “Mr. Wells, you’re under arrest!”

  She began to shake her head no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. They were having drinks before a lovely dinner in the restaurant downstairs. She was going to have She Crab Soup because she’d heard it was excellent there, and she loved a good She Crab Soup—the delicate meat, the rich, creamy broth with a hint of sherry—if it was made right. After dinner they were going back to their hotel to climb into bed. How could these men drag him away? What right did they have?

  “Arch!” she cried, attempting to lunge toward him even though one of the men restrained her. “Arch, don’t let them do this!” He looked back at her, his face a mask of panic and terror. He turned from her and allowed the men to drag him away. She turned to the man holding her back and tried to look into his eyes, but the black glasses he wore prevented her from seeing them. She pulled them off, only to find that where eyes should be there were just vacant black holes. His mouth opened, and before she could scream, the man in black spoke to her. “Jencey,” he said. “Wake up.”

  She opened her own eyes to find herself on Lance’s couch, her legs thrown across his knees with an inappropriate air of familiarity, Monty Python frozen on the TV screen. He stared at her, his brows knitted together. “Sorry I woke you,” he said. “You were having a nightmare.”