He's Gone

by Deb Caletti

  No. Not at all. I can picture Ian in each one. This is when I see him most clearly, looking at his shirts. I can see thirty Ian’s all in a row, draped from every hanger. The blue button-down is a favorite of his. In it, he leans forward over me in bed, blue shoulders, smelling like shaving cream, kissing me good morning before he takes off for work. That orange one—sitting beside me on the airplane during our trip to Sante Fe. That white shirt—he married me wearing it.

  Abby returns to her place on the bed as she reports on the call. “Evan Lutz? Another friend of Ian’s.”

  “Employee.” I picture Evan with his red hair and beard, his office decorated with his collection of Happy Meal toys.

  “He’s got a lot of friends,” my mother says.

  “Mom?” Abby has an odd look on her face. Oh, no. She holds that book again with both hands.

  “Tell me.”

  “Evan said his girlfriend was sure she saw Ian at Bagel Oasis yesterday.”

  I put my hand to my heart. I’m not sure I can breathe.

  “Yesterday?” my mother says.

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Did you tell him to call that detective?”

  “I did.”

  I am holding the sleeve of an olive 100 percent cotton number. Terrible to iron. I am holding it by one cuff. It might look like we are holding hands. Olive shirt: romantic dinner date at Mario’s. The candle kept blowing out, and the waiter returned repeatedly to relight it.

  We are all silent. It is great and horrible news. I feel sick. My mother tries to lift some stain off her jeans with her fingernail. Abby just looks down at that book.

  “We don’t know,” my mother says finally.

  Abby opens the book at random. She gazes down at an image, which proves too remarkable not to share. “Wow,” she says. She holds it up, shows us. It is breathtaking, all right. Lush, velvety blue wings rimmed with soft corduroy brown. “Ulysses,” she reads.

  “Well, isn’t that perfect,” I say. “Ulysses. Maybe Ian’ll be back in twenty years, too.” Shock—it’s quickly being replaced by anger.

  “I don’t know about you guys, but when I see something beautiful like that, all I want to do is trap it and suffocate it.” My mother rolls her eyes. She huffs with disgust again.

  A hand over a mouth. Arms pinned back. A struggle to breathe.

  It’s not here. His favorite T-shirt. I can see him in that shirt perhaps most of all, sitting across from me on that picnic blanket on one sunny summer afternoon. It’s funny what becomes a favorite shirt. My own is a big white cotton thing, beloved because it’s big and white and cotton. But his—it’s got a guitar on it, with wings. It was a promotional item from a product release from the company he used to work for. He’s had that thing forever.

  I grab the stack of T-shirts, toss one aside and then another. I look through the laundry hamper pile, already dumped out.

  “There’s a T-shirt. It’s not here. A pair of running shoes, too.”

  “Okay,” Abby says. But she doesn’t write anything down. She just closes One Hundred Butterflies and sits there with a worried face.

  “Pollux,” I say.

  “What?” Abby looks confused, as if maybe Pollux is being unjustly accused of making off with Ian’s stuff.

  “He’s been too quiet for too long.”

  It’s that mother sense you develop. That never-ending surveillance for potential disaster that is always, always working after you have a child. It ticks steadily behind the scenes, no matter if you’re cooking dinner or if you’re on the phone or if you’re checking your missing husband’s closet for clothes he might have packed when he left you.

  There’s a crash in the kitchen. It’s the sound of a knife dropping on the floor, at least. Something else thudding, too.

  I dash in there, and Abby and my mother follow. Pollux has pulled down a corner of Saran wrap with his teeth, and he has banana-bread crumbs on his beard.

  He runs over to the back door when he sees us. He lies down, as if to convince us he’s been there all along.

  “Goddamn it,” Abby says. “Look at this, you bad boy!” He’s gotten a few cookies, too. “Come here!”

  Of course, he doesn’t. He gets up and starts to woof and trot around, back and forth and back and forth in front of that glass door, wild-eyed with wrongdoing. He is not innocent and we know it, and there is nothing for him to do now but bark and bark at that dark night.

  7

  I try to call Evan Lutz at his Happy Meal office the next morning, but he doesn’t answer. I am tired of waiting around and doing nothing. Minutes are now posing as hours, and hours as days. The crew calls in: Paula, Ian’s secretary; Simon Ash; Bethy; my father. No one has any news. I call our bank again to see if there’s been activity on our account. I open Ian’s laptop for the hundredth time and look at that damn password screen in frustration until I slam it closed once more. I call Detective Jackson but only get his voice mail. I picture him on the other line right then, speaking to Ian, delivering a stern message about his bad behavior. This feels great, even if it’s only happening in my own head. Ian is susceptible to humiliation, and Detective Jackson is really hammering into him. There, you bastard. Bagel Oasis? You go into hiding, you at least ought to do it right. You go to the Caribbean or something, you asshole. Not some cheap sandwich shop a few blocks from your very own office building.

  It occurs to me: I’ll lose the help of the police now, won’t I? It’s unclear what exactly Detective Jackson has been doing as he waits to open a proper investigation, but I’ve been mostly grateful he’s around, regardless. His presence has felt like action when there’s been no other forward motion, no leads, no calls about our posters, nothing. So what do I do now? I should freeze my bank accounts, that’s what.

  “Going to BetterWorks,” I tell Abby. She’s eating cereal, and I can see her five-year-old self there at the table. She’s still the same determined little person with those intent brown eyes. Years ago, I’d be getting up to make her lunch. Sandwich, fruit, treat, and a love note written on a Post-it. I’m struck with a heart stab of longing for that time.

  “Want me to come?”

  “No.”

  “You okay to drive? You look like hell.”

  “I’m fine.” Oh, how we love and overuse fine, our all-purpose little evasion. Fine means not fine. Fine means Pity me. Fine means Don’t ask.

  “Last night, you were—”

  “I know. Bad dream.”

  “Same one?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Maybe we should try that Jim Beam again tonight. I won’t pour so much.”

  “Wasn’t it Johnnie Walker?”

  “I get all those alcohol men confused.”

  “Wait. Jack Daniel’s.”

  “Isn’t he a country singer?” She chuckles at herself.

  Pollux sees the jacket and the keys. He waits for the magic words but gets the other ones instead. “You stay with Abby,” I say to him.

  “God, don’t look so disappointed, Poll. You’re making me feel bad.” Abby plucks a bit of cereal from her bowl and gives it to him.

  “Poor you, left behind,” I say.

  I am failing at this, I think, because I’m supposed to be sure of something here. Sure that he’s left me. Sure that he’d never leave. Sure that he’s fine, or not fine. Alive, or not alive. I’m supposed to have some kind of knowing, deep in my bones. But I have no knowing. I am sure of nothing. Deep in my bones, there is only hollowness. I am so hollow that I can feel the wind outside whipping through me as a truck speeds by, driving too fast on our street. I can feel my body shudder—that’s how empty it is. The wind has upended a bit of trash on the street. It’s a piece of paper, which scurries end-to-end, corner-to-corner, for a few brave feet. It’s making a run for it, and I run, too, to catch it. Suddenly that paper seems potentially important. Everything does. Everything might be. It has critical information, I know it. I pick it up. It’s only someone’s old dry-cle
aning receipt. Aloha Fine Dry Cleaning. Silk blouse (2). $14.99 plus tax = $15.65.

  Ian and I—we made love for the first time in a forest. It was in that spooky park, which didn’t seem so spooky once you got out and walked down some of the trails. It was beautiful in there, really. It was the beginning of summer, and light filtered through the trees, making lace-doily patterns against the boughs. We weren’t the type for some motel. I guess it felt more honest that way. Nature was more authentic than renting some cheap room for a few hours. We didn’t want it to be like that. You had to separate yourselves out of the cheapness of it all somehow—give some dignity to what was otherwise tawdry.

  He carried the blankets. I carried a bag with a few snacks and drinks. Premeditation. We assumed we’d walk down the trails, same as we had a few times before, and that some perfect spot would call out to us, some flat, leafy glade that would both welcome and hide new lovers. But off the path there were only ferns and bushes with stout, sturdy leaves and thorny trails of blackberries that stuck to your skin, making pinpricks of blood. I tried to joke, because Ian was thrashing this stick back and forth as if it were a machete and we were in the Amazon. He was so serious right then. He didn’t laugh or make some crack back at me. I felt guilty about this, like I wanted what was about to happen more than he did. Every branch that snapped under my feet sounded as loud as a cracking spine.

  Eventually there was a spot of soft ferns, well away from the trail and any eyes that might see us. Ian laid down the blanket with his usual precision. He reached his hand out to me and I went to him. Finally he smiled, though his eyes still looked solemn. I knew that this was a momentous occasion, less because it was a transition for us than because it meant the breaking of his vows. His, not mine. The crisis always seemed to be about his marriage, his loss. I felt a curl of resentment that I ignored. And the truth was, I didn’t feel the guilt of that vow-breaking in the same way he did. My vows had felt broken since the first time Mark raised his hand to me. They had been broken again when he threw me to the ground and kicked my ribs. Why do they always say a marriage is crumbling? It sounds so gentle, like toast. Mine didn’t crumble. Big chunks fell off and crashed into the sea, causing tidal waves to rise. I wanted Ian. I wanted him to make love to me. I wanted that union.

  And, in spite of his solemnity, Ian wanted it, too. He pulled me to him. We always had passion, and it lit up there on the forest floor. He undid his pants and put my hand around him, and if at any time I felt a sense of my own infidelity, it was then. Not because my hand belonged to only one man, but because I had held only one man for so many years. Ian felt different. It was like momentarily wearing someone else’s slippers. Your feet know the feeling of your own, and any other pair is wrong.

  Passion—well, honestly, I was fighting to hold on to it. I felt too aware of twigs in my back and the possible sound of footsteps and the awkwardness of bra clasps. I was acting. Maybe it was like most first times, when things squeak and fumble, when you’re thinking too much. The first time can be a mission to be accomplished or a line to cross. We fixed that later.

  But that day it was the effort of the outdoors and some slight embarrassment at my choice of underwear, that kind of thing. I am never exactly smooth when I want to be. It was one of those memories that become more embarrassing with time, after you know better. The next Christmas, Ian gave me six tiny thongs, and I realized my mistake. Tall mother undies, even satin, were still mother undies. I cringe at that even now.

  Regardless, the mission was accomplished. The line was crossed. We lay together only briefly afterward before hurriedly dressing. If you’ve ever thought that an affair might be romantic, believe me, there are a thousand reasons why it’s not. Especially when the motivation is as serious and life-changing as love. This isn’t some sort of cautionary message of morality, don’t get me wrong. Do what you want. But there were no long hours of looking into each other’s eyes is all I’m saying. Someone always wore a watch. And even then I could feel it, the way my options were dwindling as my old ship was beginning to sink, the prow tipping upward in the black waves.

  I love you, Dani. God, I love you so much. We were meant to be together.

  I love you, too, Ian.

  Shit! Look how late it is!

  Oh, no! Can you hand me my—

  I’ll probably break out with poison ivy. That’d be a trick to explain.

  Mark came home that night, and I set dinner on our plates and plates on our place mats and poured milk in our glasses, something I had done hundreds of times. Hundreds. But now all of that, a lifetime of that, was a fate I had suddenly, narrowly missed. At the table, Mark talked about work, the leads that were given to Gary when they should have gone to him, something, I don’t know, because playing over his face were images of forest leaves and light patterns among branches, skin on skin, bodies that now didn’t seem to fumble awkwardly but moved effortlessly in the replaying. I watched Mark cut his pork chops, but over the top of his hands, like those plastic sheets in some medical book showing ever deeper layers of the human body, were Ian’s hands, set on the curves of my hips. As I picked up the dishes that night, I was aware of the long red scratch from a blackberry thorn that was hidden under my sleeve.

  Later that evening, I watched Mark brush his teeth at our sink. His shirt was off, and he was wearing a pair of baggy boxers. His white stomach hit the counter edge. He’s gained weight, I thought uncharitably. There were small round rolls spilling over the silly elastic of his shorts. Then again, I had thin white lines on my hips from being pregnant with Abby, and my breasts had started to sag.

  You didn’t notice I got my hair cut, he said.

  Ah, you got your hair cut. I was in bed already. Abby had gone to bed, too, an hour before. I had a book on my knees. I read the same lines over and over. Lines about some forest floor, a couple tangled passionately, a couple now separated and filled with longing.

  Too short? I think it’s too short. Makes my face look fat.

  My heart had become closed and stingy, unable to offer any reassurance. I shrugged.

  Thanks, he said.

  What? It looks fine. You worry more about your hair than I do.

  He brushed, spit into the sink. Wiped his mouth on a towel. Shoved the towel back onto the rack.

  Can you? I gestured in the direction of the towel. It’s all clumpy.

  You giving the home tour tomorrow? Who’s going to see? He wasn’t angry, he was joking. Trying to kid me out of some confusing mood I was in.

  I will. It’s inconsiderate. I work hard to keep things nice.

  He got in bed beside me. You do. You keep things really nice.

  I was engrossed in my book. Much too engrossed in the riveting plot to notice his eyes on me, questioning, or his fingertips stroking my arm up and down, up and down. My skin was shriveling from his touch; it felt disgusting to me. I wanted to scream at him to stop. He was staring, and it felt like he could see too much. He hadn’t seen me for years, but now there I was with my butterfly skeleton outside my body.

  Are you okay? he asked.

  I’m fine.

  He was still waiting.

  I went for the all-purpose fatigue-and-illness excuse, our other favorite evasion. What would we do without it—all the honesty it’s helped us avoid, all the intimacy? I’m tired, is all. I think that dinner didn’t sit well with me.

  You need a Pepto-Bismol? Brief flash—forest floor interrupted by the realization of daily issues like stomach upset. Somehow you don’t picture a lover fetching Pepto-Bismol. I felt a little panicky at the flimsiness of the dreamy light flickering among evergreens. Soul mates would still occasionally eat at some bad taco truck or get the flu. My husband had seen me give birth, and he was still here.

  I’m okay.

  I turned the page, even though I hadn’t read it. Mark reached around on the floor by the bed, found the remote, and flicked the TV on.

  Mark … I’m reading.

  He gave me that long look again,
and then he turned the volume low, low enough that he’d have to lip-read to watch the show. I set my book down now that he’d ruined it with moving mouths and silent dialogue. Really, I couldn’t even hear it. Still, I turned my shoulders away from him in a huff.

  I could feel it in my chest, the spinning piston of irritation. Mark felt it, too. He began to stroke my arm again.

  Something else had happened that day, I could tell. I could feel it in Mark’s needy fingers. It was remarkable. It was temporary. But it was good while it lasted: The tables had turned.

  It changed things, making love with Ian. It was like losing a second virginity. Marriage sends you back to some sanctioned state of purity in regard to sex, and now Ian and I had broken that, and we’d broken it together. It was not done lightly and the ramifications were not inconsequential. God, do you hear that? It sounds like I’m discussing contract negotiations, not pleasure. I guess it was a contract negotiation of sorts, contract renegotiation. We thought about our relationship differently after that. We thought about our marriages differently after that, too. It solidified things between us. Not entirely. But we went from the liquidy state of Jell-O to the point where you could drop the fruit in it. We would have had a mess if we’d taken it out of the mold right then, but you get the idea. Not the best metaphor. Whatever.

  I wanted Mark to know after that. The marriage was finished in my mind, and staying now felt intolerable. His eyes were the wrong eyes and his body was the wrong body and my life was the wrong life. Even if Ian and I didn’t ride off into the sunset together, I knew that the marriage was irretrievably broken if I could have those kinds of feelings for someone else. Before then, every time I faced the thought of leaving, every time I sobbed after some frightening altercation or held my pillow in the night or watched his jawline for signs of mood, it felt too large. Over was just too big. Alone was even bigger.

  They call an abusive relationship a cycle of violence, when really it’s a cycle of hope. It’s a cycle of misguided optimism. One day that optimism is gone, if you’re lucky.