Gone So Long

by Andre Dubus III

  Standing in that dim yellow kitchen. The echo of what Linda had screamed at him—you can’t can’t can’t! At his feet, she lay still and he needed to get help. He was telling the woman on the phone that his wife was hurt, and for a long while, it seemed, his street address was not coming to him, only the name of their cottage, the Ocean Mist. He may have told her that, too. We live in the Ocean Mist. And that’s when he saw Suzie standing down there to his left, three years old, her dark hair all curly. Around her lips was a ring of chocolate ice cream, and she was staring at her mother and then she began to call for her and this called their address back to him and he told the dispatcher woman and hung up the phone. He unlocked the kitchen door and opened it wide, then he picked up his daughter and carried her back to his and Linda’s bedroom.

  On the lamp table on Linda’s side of the bed was a stack of children’s books she’d read to Suzie. Now that she was bigger, many nights they’d let her fall asleep between them and stay there till morning, and nothing was better than drifting off to Linda’s voice reading to their Suzie, their daughter’s tiny voice asking a question about a rhyme she didn’t understand because she loved rhymes.

  Wonder and think. How much water can fifty-five elephants drink?

  The book was by that doctor who drew his own pictures, too. Goofy creatures with big noses and floppy ears and big feet. One night, Suzie had pointed to one of those books that was her favorite, though she shortened the title to Rink Fink and called it the one about the elephants. This was from a book called Oh, the Things You Can Think—no, it was Oh, The Thinks You Can Think, and that night, lying back on the pillows and pulling Suzie up beside him, her head against his shoulder, he opened that book and began to read.

  “But I want to see Mommy.”

  And why is it

  So many things

  Go to the Right?

  You can think about THAT

  Until Saturday night.

  That’s a line that’s never left Daniel. Later, in the Hole, it rose up in the wind of all those other voices. That line, and Suzie’s voice: “Is Mommy okay?”

  His upper arm pulled Suzie in close, and he held the book with both hands above his chest and their two faces, and then something happened that surprised him, though it shouldn’t have: “The Sound” began to take over. “Rink Rinker Fink.” He could see himself up in the DJ booth of the Himalaya, the microphone at his lips, that dirty plexiglass between him and the lighted strip, and he took his time with each word, giving each one enough air so he could float to the next and the next and it would become a song you couldn’t help but fall into, Linda looking up at him like he was holy, like he had come into her life only to bring her to somewhere better.

  But Suzie wasn’t listening, and her body still hadn’t relaxed into the side of his. She said again that she wanted to see her mommy, and so what could he do but pull her in tight and hold her and not let go? He could smell the ocean in her hair because bath time did not come till after supper. He could smell that and the coconut lotion Linda had rubbed on her earlier. He could smell the dried sweetness of the chocolate ice cream he had not wiped from his daughter’s face, and there was that other smell, too, nearly sweet as well but ancient, now drying on the skin of his right hand and forearm where it had splattered and where it remained just inches from their daughter’s face, and she should not see this, but Danny kept reading—no, the Sound did—one goofy rhyme at a time. Under one of them was a drawing of a kid diving off a wooden springboard into an inflated pool of water, his arms and legs spread wide, his face grinning like he just didn’t give a shit about anything anymore.

  The Sound read on and on, slowly turning one page after another. There was a picture of a mother creature holding its baby creature, some rhyme about sticks, and Suzie began to squirm and say she wanted to go see her mother, but the Sound told her no, Mommy wants to be alone right now. “Sometimes when you’re sick, you want to be alone.”

  And that drawing of the kid belly-flopping off that board, that smiling kid’s closed eyes, his ponytail curled in the air, Danny wanted to fall right into that—no, he was already in that picture, hanging in midair, waiting for what would happen next to hurry up and happen. There was the thought, as insistent as a lit cigarette to his own skin, that he should get up and run out to the kitchen and do what he could for Linda. Take a dishrag and press it to what he’d done. Try to slow or stop it. But he knew better. He knew where the Reactor had gone with what had clattered in the sink. The Reactor always went for the white-hot center of things—a sneering boy’s sneer, a laughing man’s teeth, a disloyal heart’s—Danny couldn’t even think the word, just felt the echoes of its soft pierce and thud up his arm, just saw how his wife had looked at him then, the knowing in her face that was the sameknowing she’d shown him in her raised eyes when he was The Sound up above them all, as he was now, reading to Susan, her small torso pulled into his, her bare foot on his knee.

  The first to arrive were two EMTs. Over The Sound’s voice, there was a knocking then a rapping. A man calling out words like “911 call.” Like “emergency.” Like “hurt.” Suzie knew that one, and she lifted her head and said, “Daddy?” but The Sound read on, and Danny pulled her back to his chest and the open book in his hand, these goofy creatures with their silly rhymes, as if all of life was supposed to be one big adventure of funny times with friendly creatures and why did we always have to take everything so damn seriously? Why did Danny have to give that serious man in the doorway any attention at all? Can’t he see I’m reading a book to my girl? Can’t he see that she’s three and everything will be all right? And wasn’t it funny that he was the same one who’d tended to Squeeze’s brother Bill? Danny knew this because the man had a crew cut that nobody had then, and he was fat and there was a dark mole on his throat, though Danny hadn’t noticed that the last time. In the air, there were questions. But they were floating debris in the wake The Sound was plowing through, taking his time, in no hurry whatsoever. Then Suzie’s voice was in the air, and her question was not about a rhyme or a picture but about her mother, and Danny patted his little girl’s back and said, “Mommy’s getting help now. She’s okay. It’s okay.” Okay a good word, a perfectly fine word that did not feel like a lie at all, not until the doorway filled with one cop’s face then another’s, then four of them were in his and Linda’s bedroom and everything was just fine till one of them tried to pick up Suzie and take her away, and the Reactor came out like he’d never come out before, and even weeks later Danny had nightstick bruises on his skull, an itch from nine stitches along his chin, a burn in his shoulders and elbows from getting chained and yanked, but nothing was as bad as the cool lightness of Suzie’s body gone from the side of his. Nothing was worse than that.

  It was the last time he ever touched her, and it was one of the only times he’d read to her. That was Linda’s job, not his. But he wonders now if Susan remembers him doing that. She was three. She might.

  But does he really believe that’s all she’s going to remember about that night?

  A woman’s laughter out in the hallway, then a man’s voice. A nearby door opening and closing. Daniel’s eyes are on the paper in his hand, but he’s not reading it. His tongue is thick, and his mouth tastes like dried bile, and he’s listening for more sound out there. That man and woman in their room next to his or across the hall, their voices sound young, in their thirties or forties still, and that woman’s laugh. In it is—what?—trust. Like she’s been with him awhile, and she knows he’ll look out for her. She knows he wants only good things for her. That he isn’t with her just because of what she might let him do to her in that room. That he holds her in a high place in his heart. All of this is in her laugh, and it’s hard to take.

  Daniel’s bladder burns. The bones in his back feel like they’re being squeezed.

  He held his wife in a high place, he did. But she acted like she was in a cage, which—he won’t deny it—was true. Those last weeks, the snake slithered thr
ough each and every tunnel of Danny’s brain, and the voice that came out of him in his own house only asked questions or gave orders. “You go straight to the arcade and come right back. And don’t talk to anyone but customers. If you know anybody, you ignore them, you hear me? How come you’re wearing lipstick? You never wear lipstick. No, we’ll go food shopping together. Why did you look at him? Do you know him? How come you don’t talk to me anymore? You used to talk to me. Those jeans are too tight. Put on something else. Who was at the beach? Did you sit alone? I don’t want you talking to anyone on the strip, you hear me? Nobody. They’re not your friends. You don’t need friends. You have me.”

  But he thought he loved her. He wanted to love her.

  A moan. At first Daniel thinks this has risen up from forty years ago, how when things were still good Linda would hold his face in her hands, her own face jerking slightly with each of his thrusts, her eyes on his, and she made the sound that’s coming from the room next door. It’s the woman making that sound, and Daniel hears only pleasure in it. He almost gets up to press his ear to the wall and hear it more clearly, but he doesn’t move.

  The thing is, he was happiest with Linda not during all that but after, when they lay side by side, drifting off to sleep. Her bare back was warm against his chest, and it was those times when he knew he would never be alone again, and he could not believe his good fortune. He had been The Sound, and now he had this, and he would do anything to protect it.

  The moans are more muffled now, and there is the rocking of the bed, the occasional tap of the headboard against Daniel’s wall. He picks up the TV’s remote, but he’s not sure which button turns it on, and he never liked television. For a few years, he owned one, but each and every show was full of people living with other people: handsome husbands and pretty, funny wives; smart, good-looking kids and their smart, good-looking friends. In each episode someone would be in some kind of trouble—an angry boss, a college friend standing at their door and never leaving, a letter left in the wrong drawer and found by the wrong person—and within thirty minutes all would be resolved, each episode ending with hugs and laughter. Watching this, Daniel felt like he was a lone visitor from a cold planet far away where he’d never been welcome in the first place, and he’d turn the channels as fast as he could, but even the crime shows were too neat and tidy, all the bad people caught and locked away by the story’s end, the cops healthy and in good shape, strong and moral and cheerfully ready for the next bad thing to come down the pike.

  What else was there but sports and game shows and the news? But those were bottled up and delivered the same way, like life was a staircase you climb every day in a massive store of shiny products that, if you’re good enough and lucky enough and if you climb straight enough, will all be yours and you’ll never have a reason to be unhappy.

  The room next door is quiet. Daniel wonders if the sounds he heard were real or not. Then more steady tapping against his wall. He stands and carries his instructions to the desk and picks up the pen on the pad beneath the lamp. The last three tell him to type his will, then sign and date it in front of two witnesses. The final piece of advice reads:

  Make at least two copies of the will. Give the original to the person who will execute the will on your behalf, give one copy to your spouse, and keep one copy for yourself in a safe place in your home.

  Daniel sees his kitchen drawer where he keeps his calculator and notepad for figuring his caning prices. He could put it there. But what if there’s a fire, or his roof leaks? Maybe he should buy one of those small safes at Home Depot. But no, some punk could break into the trailer one day and think there’s something valuable in there. Better not to draw attention to it whatsoever.

  Against his wall come five or six rapid taps then quiet, then soft voices, then that woman’s laugh again. Quieter now, thick with love.

  Then they’re both in the bathroom. Water in the pipes. Does he hear that, or just think it? He puts on his glasses, turns over the instruction sheet to its blank side, and writes:

  Daniel Patrick Ahearn, November 28, 1949, 26 Butler Place, Salisbury, MA

  Single.

  He stares at that only a second before crossing it out. He writes:

  Widowed.

  A heated tingling through his face and on his neck, though the word is accurate, no matter how you look at it. He flips the paper over, reads the rest of the first item, and turns the page back to where he was writing.

  Susan Lori Ahearn Dunn, Eckerd College, Florida

  He’ll have to make that more accurate later. He writes:

  Person who will execute me— He stops. He crosses out the word me and he writes my.

  A door closing then muffled laughter. It’s the man’s this time, and hearing it, Daniel feels it as a sign of hope that he’s heading in the right direction— with this will, with this trip south, with the letter he sent his daughter that she’s probably already read at least once. And how did he end it? He wishes he could remember that, but he can’t. But he better have written love. He sure hopes that he wrote the word love.

  26

  SUSAN’S CELL phone rang, and now she was talking to her husband, and that gave Lois the chance to go outside to her car for the bag of Dresden lamps. The sun was low to the west, and it made the dead pine needles in her gravel driveway look golden, and Lois was breathing hard from her slow climb up the stairs with those lamps. From down in the kitchen came the smell of chicken broiling. Suzie had found a Cuban or Mexican station on the radio and men were singing in Spanish above strumming guitars and high-flying horns and all of life seemed to be a raucous party under the sun. It was hard to miss the change in her granddaughter. Even though she came into the kitchen apologizing for being late in starting their dinner, she looked . . . happy wasn’t the word. She still wore no makeup and her short chopped hair was a mess. She looked too thin too, but she seemed lit up from somewhere inside herself, if that made any sense. At first this ticked Lois off, and she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t really hungry and didn’t care that their dinner hadn’t been started. Maybe it was that Suzie had found something to do in this house that made her feel good for once. Why couldn’t she have been that way as a kid? It would have made things a hell of a lot easier. Though her reading used to do something like that to her as well. Susan would be in her room for hours then come down in a spell from some faraway world that Lois was never invited into herself. Then the boy years began, along with their fights upon fights upon endless damn fights.

  But tonight Suzie seemed to read all this in Lois’s face, and she said, “I wrote a lot today, Noni.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t any good at writing.”

  “I’m not. I’m just beginning not to care anymore.”

  Lois could do without the Spanish music. There was too much of it in town as it was, but there was a festive lightness in the air that she and Suzie were making together in this dark old house, and Lois was glad Susan was still on the phone with Bobby because now she could wrap these two lamps she’d decided to give them both.

  Well, Marianne had helped with that. Just before they closed the shop for lunch, Lois told her how much Suzie had liked those Dresdens, and Marianne turned to her and said, “You should give them to her and her husband.”

  Perhaps if she hadn’t said husband, Lois knew she might not be doing this at all. Her business was doing well enough, but these two lamps were a good acquisition and eleven hundred bucks was eleven hundred bucks. But still, all through lunch the idea hung inside her like the vanishing fragment of a good dream, and now, sitting on the edge of her bed with a roll of wrapping paper and reaching into her bedside table drawer for the Scotch tape she knew was in there, she felt that old excited anticipation she used to get the night before her children’s birthdays and Christmas, even Easter when she’d leave out baskets for Linda and Paul she’d stuffed with chocolates and jelly beans and wrapped yellow and pink candies shaped like bunnies. As they got older, she put money in that
fake green grass, silver dollars she made Gerry get from the bank, though he rarely helped out with any of this, and that was all right too, this feeling of being alone while she celebrated the love she felt and maybe, okay, fine, was never really very good at showing when it was not a special day. Each December or April or October, for Linda’s birthday, and August, for Paul’s, and later, May for Suzie’s, it was Lois’s chance to show them just how much she loved them, and often, while wrapping their gifts, sometimes sipping a glass of wine or something stronger, her eyes would well up and she could only hope that whatever she was wrapping would be good enough. Would say everything she never really seemed to say herself.

  But where was that goddamn Scotch tape? Lois lifted out three or four furniture and toy catalogues, eBay printouts, two empty prescription bottles for pills she could not remember having to take. There was the broken case for her drugstore readers that were nowhere in sight, an unopened package of mini–tissue packs, her loaded pistol she no longer kept in its case. She lifted it out by its handle and set it on the mattress beside her. And there it was, in a nest of pennies and paper clips and hairpins, a brand-new double pack of tape she bought who the hell knows when or why.

  Marianne had wrapped both lamps in bubble wrap, then laid them side by side in a large ivory cardboard box they ordered in bulk from New Jersey. She covered it with its top and taped its sides, and she helped Lois find two better shades for them out back. They had an entire shelf of lampshades, glass and fabric—ovals, bells, and drums, rectangles and squares, Empire, Victorian, and Arts and Crafts. In the dusty sunlight, between two sconce half shades, Lois saw three bells in oyster silk. They were just right, and two of them were in good shape and close to the same color as the porcelain figurines of the two lovers, the bell-shape in proportion to it all, the silk a nice complement to the poured lace of the woman’s dress.