by Mary Kubica
I’m starting to feel certain that I’ll find nothing, and this will all be for naught. It comes with great relief, knowing with certainty that there is no one here, that there was no one here, that Maisie was wrong. Maisie was being silly, I reason. She was confused. She saw something on TV, and her imagination is to blame for this, for bringing the man with the hat and gloves to life. My heartbeat decelerates. I stop shaking. I smile.
There is no man with a hat and gloves. No one has been here watching us.
And that’s when I catch sight of the mud.
I freeze in place, my legs going numb.
There sit three glops of mud, trampled across the back patio, three large footprints of mud imprinted on the brick pavers beneath the pergola where the slats of wood have deflected the rain. Not in the yard as they should be, but pressed up closely to our home, coming to a dead stop beside the kitchen’s bay window, where only hours ago I stood with Maisie, listening to the rain. The footprints are squashy around the edges, losing shape. By morning they will be gone, trace evidence of our visitor washed away by the storm. I could call Detective Kaufman and have him come in the morning, first thing to see, but what are the odds that by the time he arrives the footprints would still be here? He wouldn’t believe me. Detective Kaufman would stare at me with those somber eyes of his and tell me again that I am wrong. There is no case, he would say. You know what I think happened? I think your husband was driving too fast and took the turn too quickly. And then he would apologize for my loss.
I shine the flashlight on the footprints and force myself to step closer to examine them closely. It’s a lug sole, like you might find on a hiking boot or a heavy-duty work shoe. The three steps are spread wide, farther than my own legs can span. I set my foot beside the print, measuring the length, easily reasoning that they belong to a man, for the size bears a striking resemblance to Nick’s shoes on my own feet.
In my hand, the flashlight battery dies, and my world turns to black. I peer around, utterly blind. “Is someone there?” I call out, but no one replies. But someone was here. That I know for sure as I call for Harriet, and the two of us hurry back to the front door and inside.
Someone was here. But who?
NICK
BEFORE
I make the difficult decision, the one I’ve been trying to avoid. I’ve put it off as long as I possibly can. I can’t keep paying Connor for work that I can do, and so around noon, when the office is empty, I ask him if I can buy him lunch, and there in a crowded Mexican restaurant over a plate of nachos supreme, I tell him I have to let him go. His eyes grow wide at first, and then he laughs, thinking that this is some kind of joke, that I’m screwing with him maybe.
“Funny, Boss,” he says, chuckling as the waitress brings glasses of ice water and then leaves. We’ve known each other for years, and that’s the kind of thing we used to do. Pull pranks on one another. But this time it isn’t a prank. The look on my face is serious, and I tell him no, it’s not a joke.
“I’m sorry, Connor. I have to let you go,” I say again, telling him how it will be easier for him if I lay him off rather than having him resign, as if I’m doing him some sort of favor, which in all actuality, I am. He just doesn’t realize it yet. I tell him this is for the best. Being laid off is indicative of the shortcomings of our practice, not him; resigning is a reflection of his work ethic and stamina, his staying power. But already I see his hands clench up into fists on the table slab, his face become red. He flexes and then clenches the hands, again and again, gearing up for a fight. He reaches for a napkin and wads it into a ball, tossing it back and forth between his hands.
“You can’t be serious, Nick,” he says to me, eyes steely but also stung. “After everything I’ve done for you,” he bleats, and it’s conjecture only when my mind goes immediately to Clara, to my life with Clara. That if it weren’t for Connor, Clara and I would never be.
Though he doesn’t say it, that’s exactly what he means.
Clara was working at a kiosk in the mall when I met her, trying hard to sell some sort of high-end perfume to passersby. It helped put her through college, the commission she made off of sales, which wasn’t a lot, but as she told me later that day in the food court over limp slices of pizza, It was better than nothing. Connor claims he saw her first, but if so, it was seconds before I spied her long, lean legs that stretched out from beneath a miniskirt whose hemline landed high above her knees. You can have her, is what Connor said before we’d even exchanged a word with Clara, as we stood, backs pressed to a railing that overlooked an open space and four floors of stores. He saw exactly what I was looking at, and though his comment didn’t bother me at the time, in the coming years it did, this constant reprise that Clara was mine because Connor had let me have her, as if she was his to give. As if, if he hadn’t been so charitable that day at the mall, she might otherwise be his. He always said it with a smile, too, so that the line between sarcasm and truth blurred. Did he mean it, or was he only joking? I could never tell.
I look him in the eye now and say, “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Connor. The business is a mare’s nest right now. You know that. We’re losing patients left and right. It isn’t personal. I can’t afford to keep you on board.” And then I make all sorts of promises I’d make if I had to let anybody go, how I’d write a letter of recommendation, I’d put in calls to a few colleagues around town.
Connor’s eyes avert from mine, and he raises a hand to get the waitress’s attention, ordering a Dos Equis when she stops by. A Dos Equis. It’s only noon, and Connor has patients to see later today. He’s trying to provoke me, to get me to tell him what he can and can’t do. “Connor,” I say to him. “I don’t mean today. I’m not laying you off right now. There’s time to find a new job. I didn’t mean so soon.”
He shrugs. “Who said I had any plans of leaving today?”
The problem with Connor has to do with a problem with authority. A disregard for it. Connor doesn’t work well when he’s under someone else’s leadership. He wants to be the guy in charge. His last position he was fired from—or rather, asked to resign—because he went head-to-head with the boss too many times. Connor works well with me because I never treat him like an employee; we’re far more of a partnership.
Connor hasn’t held the same position for any two years in a row now, and this laundry list of jobs on his résumé will soon raise red flags.
“You have patients to see this afternoon, Connor,” I remind him. “You know I can’t let you see patients if you’ve been drinking,” I say as the waitress delivers the green bottle to his hand, and he raises it to his lips, taking a long, slow swig. He maintains eye contact all the time, staring at me, a challenge.
“Then fire me,” he says, with a look in his eye I really don’t like. One that’s charged and combatant, looking for a fight, and I know what that guy in the bar must have felt like months ago as Connor sidled up behind him and jabbed him in the nose.
“Oh, wait,” Connor says now, laughing, “you already have.”
But the laughter dies quickly, and he stares at me in a way that doesn’t back down.
“I didn’t fire you,” I say. “This is different. You know that, Connor. You know I wouldn’t do this if I had some other choice. This isn’t personal,” I tell him, pushing the plate of nachos supreme away. I’m no longer hungry.
“After everything I put into the practice,” he says, and without meaning to, I ask, “What? What did you put into the practice?” which makes him more mad.
“The patients I brought on board,” he spits, though the number of patients Connor brought into the practice was negligible. Most of the patients we have are mine, who I gladly share with him. Except that now I need them back.
“You wouldn’t have Clara if it wasn’t for me,” he reprises, Connor’s favorite refrain. “You wouldn’t have Maisie or that baby.”
“Leave my family out of this,” I say, voice composed.
“Your fami
ly is already part of this,” he says. “Your family, my family. We’re all family,” he tacks on, and then he laughs in that arrogant way that he does sometimes, asking, “Do you ever wonder how Clara’s life would have been different if she picked me instead of you? I bet she does. I bet she asks herself that all the time,” and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to hit him.
He’s hurting, I tell myself. It’s an act of self-preservation, that’s all. I’ve fired him. I’m the asshole here, not Connor.
“My back is to a wall,” I say. “I don’t have any other options,” which I don’t. The way things are going, there’s a chance I’m going to be taking money out of Maisie’s piggy bank to cover Connor’s salary this year. I try to explain this to him, to remind him of my family, my mortgage, how I have a baby on the way, but it’s something he doesn’t want to hear.
“I have obligations, too,” he says, and that’s when things get even more personal, my unintentional implication that since Connor isn’t married and doesn’t have kids, he is of less value than me.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I say, but no matter what I say, he’s going to assume I did. The space between us drifts to silence as he pounds back the rest of his beer and asks for another.
“I’m sorry, Connor,” I say. “I really can’t tell you how sorry I am that it’s come to this.”
At that he leans across the table, so close that I can smell the jalapeños on his breath, and says, “You know what, Boss? It’s fine. It’s not a big deal at all. You know why?” and I ask, drawing away from his advance, “Why?”
“Because sooner or later, you’ll regret this. You’ll see,” and he rises from the table to leave, shoving the wooden booth into my gut as he goes.
It comes to me in the middle of the night, what I need to do.
It comes to me in a circuitous sort of way because I’m thinking of horses. Actually, what I’m thinking about is our unborn baby’s bedroom, and how I swore to Clara that I’d have it painted, and now here we were, mere weeks until launch, and the room had yet to be painted. I’m thinking about how much something like that costs—professional painters—because Clara wrongfully assumed I was too busy at work to do it myself, and suggested I hire someone to do it for me. I’d put off so many other tasks on the house—installing the crown molding that Clara wants, maintenance checks for the aging appliances, the sump pump, the hot water heater, the air conditioner, all for lack of money and not time. Clara had already picked out a color for the baby’s room—Let It Rain, it’s called, a delicate gray to pair with the pricey new quilt—so all I needed to do was pick up the paint.
It won’t take more than two hours to paint, I’d told her. Don’t hire someone. I’ll do it.
So there I am lying in bed, thinking about the paint and the paint store, and I start thinking about the horses we drive past on those country roads that lead to the paint store, back where Clara’s parents used to live. I think of Maisie, in the back seat of the car, always so excited to see the horses. “Look, Daddy, brown one!” or, “Horsey with polka dots,” she’ll scream, pointing, so that I find myself enamored by the smile on her face. Horsey with polka dots? Of course there’s no such thing. But I look anyway because that’s what Maisie wants me to do.
But thinking about the horses makes me think of horse racing, and though I don’t know a thing about horse racing, I decide it’s something I can learn.
I don’t actually bother going to a racetrack, but rather find an offtrack betting site online, one that links directly to my bank account so I can easily withdraw money to bet with, and have the winnings just as easily transferred back in. In the morning I stop by the bank and set up a separate account, only in my name so that Clara doesn’t see the comings and goings of cash in our personal accounts, not that she ever looks anyway but just in case. For whatever reason, I set up a POD at the banker’s suggestion, a payable-on-death account to keep my funds out of probate court in the unlikely chance that I should die. I name a beneficiary. Clara.
I’m not trying to be scheming, because that’s not the kind of man I am, but I don’t want Clara to worry about our financial woes; between her mother and the baby, she’s got enough on her mind right now and doesn’t need to be stressed about a problem I can solve. I just need to earn enough money to pay my debts, to get my practice back on track, and then I’ll be happy.
I do research on horse racing; I learn the vocabulary, backstretch and pari-mutuel, bankroll and trifecta. I create an online account and link it to my new bank account. I set myself up in my office during a forty-minute gap when I don’t have an appointment, and discreetly turn the lock on the door. I get to work.
In order to bet, I need money I can bet with. Clara’s savings account has already been drained. My money market, too, has been liquidated and poured into this dental practice. What we have in our combined checking account is barely enough to pay the mortgage and electricity and the rising cost of groceries. I leave it alone, knowing we need to eat. The last thing in the world I want is for Clara to go to the grocery store and have the clerk tell her that the credit or debit card has been denied. She’ll fill with shame and embarrassment long before she fills with anger or dread. I see her there, my beautiful wife with Maisie by her side—Maisie already fussing because of how much she hates to grocery shop—and Clara’s fair cheeks flaming red because everyone is staring at her for the denied payment. I hear her words, the shaky rhythm of her voice as she says to the clerk, There must be some mistake, and asks the clerk to run it again, only to go through the same shame a second time around. I won’t do that to Clara.
The way I see it I have two options: Maisie’s 529-college savings fund, and my life insurance plan. My first thought is to go for the life insurance, to surrender the policy for its cash value. It’s not like I intend to die anytime soon. It’s a whole-life insurance policy, like life insurance and a savings account rolled into one, or at least that’s the way I explained it to Clara years ago when I sought coverage. Instead of a policy for a fixed time—say until our children turn eighteen and become financially independent—I opted for the whole-life policy, a decision that is paramount now. The cash is far more valuable in my hands than sitting squandered away, tied up in a life insurance policy I may never need.
I fill out the necessary paperwork to surrender the policy, though it will take time for the insurance company to pay out. In the meantime, I start slowly with Maisie’s college education fund; the loss is less than withdrawing from my own retirement fund, and so it seems like a smart choice, the lesser of two evils.
By the end of the day I’ve made about seventy-five dollars, which somehow feels like a million bucks. It’s a good day, I tell myself, until an hour or so later when Clara calls, scared out of her mind, saying her mother got ahold of the car keys again and took the car out for a ride.
“I thought your father did away with the car keys,” I say, and she rejoins with, “That’s what I thought, too.”
Turns out Tom forgot to hide the keys.
“They found her,” she assures me, but still she’s scared stiff. “One of these times she’s going to get hurt. Really hurt.”
“Or hurt someone else,” I nearly say, though I don’t want to be the Negative Nelly and remind Clara of this. She and her father both know how much is at stake every time Louisa somehow or other manages to find herself in the driver’s seat of a car.
“Where’d she go this time?” I ask, and Clara reluctantly tells me that her mother was navigating the country roads out to the rental property that Tom still owns, telling a passerby when he found her pulled off to the side of the road, completely lost and disoriented, trying to find directions on the back of an old CD case as if it was a street map, that she was attempting to get home.
Where’s home, ma’am? the passerby had asked, spotting the Medic Alert bracelet that Louisa wears and calling the toll-free number for help, but Louisa had only shaken her head and said she didn’t know. She didn’
t have the slightest clue where home was, though she described it, the big, old farmhouse just a mile or so from my favorite shortcut through town, a forgotten, winding road that managed to circumvent nearly all of the town’s traffic.
But Tom and Louisa didn’t live there anymore; they hadn’t lived there in many years.
But as with everything else in life, that was something Louisa couldn’t remember.
CLARA
I wake to a knocking sound rapping on a wooden pane and, moving sleepily down the wooden steps, greet the flower delivery driver at the front door. It’s the third time this week that he’s come, his arrival always just shy of 8:00 a.m. Too early. He must sit outside in his car, waiting for what he deems an appropriate time to knock. Nobody wants flowers when a loved one has died, but still they come, these flowers, awakening me this time from sleep. I thank the deliveryman, quite certain he’s grown tired of seeing me in my pajamas again and again, hair a mess, sleep in my eyes, mouth repugnant with morning breath. I close the door, staring out the window at the evidence of last night’s storm.
It’s everywhere.
Tree limbs have been wrenched from the arms of trees and tossed capriciously across the earth; a half block down the street, a power line is down, lying recumbent on the road. I reach for the chandelier’s light switch and turn it on; the electricity is out. It will take hours for the electric company to remedy the situation, hours while Felix and Maisie and I have no access to light, to coffee, to TV. Important things. Across our lawn, the remains of an overturned garbage bin are strewn: a box, a fast-food bag, an empty container of cat litter; shingles are missing from the roof of a neighbor’s home. There are puddles on the street, which little perching birds bathe in, splishing and splashing their wings in the turbid rainwater and then, like Harriet the dog, shaking them out to dry. The sun is out, trying unavailingly to dry the earth. It will take time. A red-winged blackbird sits beside the puddle, watching me through glass.
