Songs for the Missing

by Stewart O'Nan

  “Yes,” he said, leaning in close to his nose, “you’re a good boy.”

  From the front came a wave of cheering, making Cooper turn toward the door. A minute later, Fran looked in.

  “You ready, Freddy?”

  She had the check under one arm like a prop, and she was smiling. Her face had been made up for her interview so she looked younger, almost rosy, like the teenager she’d been, and he thought that though he might never reconcile himself with Kim’s death, he could not deprive her of this.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, and, taking her hand, went out to face his public.

  When the moment came, he stood beside her. Mimi Knapp was a character, wearing a beat-up jean jacket and a black POW/MIA hat. Her dog’s bandana was an American flag. She was taller than he’d expected, and overwrought, tearily holding on to Fran, then clinging to him as if they’d been reunited. She’d found Kim, that was the only reason she was here. He’d wanted to be the one, as if that mattered. As he held her, he thought that the unforgivable thing, ultimately, wasn’t the randomness of the discovery, but that she’d kept looking long after he’d stopped.

  The presentation was staged. Jocelyn set them on their marks and stood back.

  “Okay, everybody,” she said, raising her arms wide like a conductor. “Big smile.”

  There’s No Place Like Home

  At the check-in she had to prove who she was. To get the discount, she needed to give the ticket agent the name and address of the funeral home. She could submit a copy of the death certificate on her way back. To Lindsay it seemed like too much just to save a hundred bucks, but she wasn’t paying for it. Her father had e-mailed her with the information as soon as they knew, then called again last night to remind her, as if she might forget to bring it. Like her mother, she organized her important papers in a folder so they’d be handy.

  “What relation are you?” the woman asked gently.

  “I’m her sister.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Lindsay said, equally soft, and slid the folder into her backpack.

  “Just the one bag?”

  At school it had taken her a while to shed the feeling of being singled out. Now it returned, an intimation of what was to come. Until then she’d been enjoying her anonymity, listening to Holly Golightly on her iPod as she moved with the swarm of passengers across the tram platform and up the escalators to the noisy concourse and into the shuffling, switchbacked lines. It was the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question: What airport is the busiest in the U. S.? The chaos was intimidating and thrilling. Tonight, on a weeknight, there were more people here, she estimated—and more interesting people—than in all of Kingsville.

  The irony was that this was her first time flying by herself. She literally couldn’t have done it without Kim.

  Security was another crush of people, and once she’d unzipped her laptop and ducked through the metal detector and put her shoes on again, she had to navigate a maze of food courts and flashy retail galleries until she found the correct terminal. She stood on the moving walkway, passing gates with more enticing destinations. She imagined joining the line filing into the jetway for San Francisco and calling her father from the plane, saying she’d made a mistake. It’s okay, she’d say, you can go ahead without me.

  The few people waiting for her flight looked like they came from Erie, and were being sent back. A woman her grandmother’s age wore a black and gold letter jacket listing all of the Steelers’ Super Bowl wins. A badly tattooed guy wore a flannel, baggy acid-washed jeans and Timberlands. Lindsay took a seat by the floor-to-ceiling windows and listened to Cat Power, gazing out at the Tron-like landscape—nothing but darkness and the sapphire runway lights. The emptiness made her think of space, and whether there was a heaven. She was nineteen, older than Kim had ever been, yet she would always be her baby sister. Little Larsen. How long had it been since anyone called her that? She’d outgrown it, like everything else.

  The flight was on time and mostly empty. They rose out of the city, headed west, then banked around, crossing north of the skyscrapers downtown, climbing over the vast absence that was the lake. The lights describing the far shore slowly approached, twinkling, then fell away behind them, and the farmland of Indiana, cut by I-90—cloverleafs and rest areas bathed a dull orange. Did they really need to go so fast? The train would have taken nine hours, but the flight attendants barely had time to serve them pretzels and a beverage before they prepared for landing. She secured her tray table and Cleveland slipped beneath the wing. The wind buffeted them as they descended. Somewhere down there was the spot where Kim had been found, and camp, and her highschool, and their house, in which, right now, her mother would be setting out their best china for the reception tomorrow, refusing Aunt Carrie’s help and fretting that she wouldn’t have time to get everything done.

  Once they were on the ground, she realized she’d forgotten the time change. She didn’t mind losing the hour. What was strange was turning her watch ahead when she felt like she was going backwards.

  They must have been the last flight of the night. There were only two gates, both deserted. The seating area was dark, the newsstand locked behind a steel grille. A janitor’s cart sat in the middle of the hall.

  Her father was waiting at the baggage claim in his old down vest and a beat-up Sea Wolves cap he wore to cover his receding hair. His face was windburnt from being out on the boat so much. He looked, she had to admit, like someone from Kingsville. When she hugged him, he reeked of cigarettes. He took her backpack and asked how the flight was.

  “Good,” she said.

  “Any problems picking up the ticket?”

  “Nope.”

  “How’s life in the big city? Working hard?”

  He saw her bag come out and grabbed it.

  “I can take it,” she said, but he waved her off.

  The parking lot was smaller than her dorm’s, and poorly lit. He’d brought the Taurus, and set her bags in the back, on top of a pile of FOR SALE signs.

  “I thought you might bring the Escort.”

  “You know, I didn’t even think.”

  “How’s it doing?”

  “Okay. I take it down to the marina, so it smells like bait. I’m just kidding, it’s fine.”

  She waited until they were on the highway to ask how things were.

  “Good. Remember the Kizers? I just closed on their old house.”

  “How’s Mom doing?”

  “A little frazzled, with everything. She’s afraid it’s going to rain.”

  “Is it supposed to?”

  “You know her, she wants everything to be perfect. I told her that’s why they have the tent.”

  “The tent?”

  “It’s not a tent like you go into. It’s more like a covering. You’ll see.”

  “Okay.”

  Her legs were jumpy from sitting for so long, and she rubbed her face and watched the signs sail by.

  Her father drove the limit, trucks highballing past as they crossed the state line. WELCOME TO OHIO, THE HEART OF IT ALL.

  All night she’d been going east, now she was going west. It was like she was circling the town, spiraling in as if she couldn’t face it head-on.

  There was no avoiding the Conoco, shining bright at the top of the exit, and then the long dark stretch of Route 7 and the dip over the bridge. Though it was barely eleven, the light at State and Harbor had gone blinking yellow. The Dairy Queen was closed, and the gates of the cemetery.

  “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” she asked, though she knew most of it. She just didn’t want to be ambushed by anything.

  She’d only been gone two months, and she’d come back for fall break, so why did she expect the house to look different, faded or decayed, the lawn gone wild? Everything was the same—the coachlight and the pillared porch, her mother’s Subaru in its spot by the garage. It wasn’t until her father stopped before the door to fit the key in that she realiz
ed the yellow ribbons were missing. They were done waiting.

  Cooper waddled up the hall, barking.

  “Oh, Mr. Ferocious,” Lindsay said, and knelt down. He wriggled in her arms, trying to lick her face. “Yes, I missed you too.”

  “Look who it is,” her mother said, and hugged her extra, like she’d never let go. “Your timing’s perfect. I just finished putting the living room together. Come see.”

  “She’s been working on it all day,” her father said.

  “There,” her mother said. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to help?”

  It was more than a day’s work. The walls were lined with pictures of Kim. She’d recycled the blowups from the memorial service. Between them, as if to fill any gaps in the timeline, hung huge collages of snapshots, from Kim as a red-faced newborn all the way up through that last summer. Lindsay was in some of them, cropped or off to the side. Her mother’s computer was set up in one corner, running a slide show. On the coffee table, as if part of some ritual, sat five black leatherbound albums.

  “Wow.”

  “I told you she’s been busy.”

  “I had extras made, so there’s a whole set for you.”

  At school the only picture Lindsay had was hidden deep in her desk, along with her shots of Jared and Matt and Eric. Her suitemates were under the impression that her grandmother had died.

  “I don’t have room right now, but thanks.”

  “You can take a CD, can’t you?”

  “Sure. So, how are Uncle Rich and Aunt Carrie?”

  “Already bitching about the Days Inn,” her mother said. “Surprise, surprise.”

  They were glad she was home, but it was late, and they had a big day tomorrow. Cooper tagged after her, claiming his spot at the foot of her bed as if she’d never left. She’d forgotten her nightshirt and had to wear an old pair of pajamas, making her feel like even more of a guest. On her way to the bathroom she passed Kim’s dry-erase board, wiped clean. Brushing her teeth, she stepped out and stood in front of the empty board. She wondered if her mother would ever get rid of it, or any of Kim’s stuff. The medicine cabinet was full of long-expired prescriptions and contact solution.

  Lying in bed, still moving from the plane, she recognized that her room was a museum too. From the custard yellow walls with her Cowboy Bebop and Inuyasha posters to her sticker-fringed monitor on the child-sized desk, it all belonged to another person, a clueless girl she loved and felt sorry for ditching.

  The day after they found Kim she received an e-mail from J.P. asking if he and Nina and Elise might be allowed to attend the funeral. She kept his request in her inbox, meaning to forward it to her father so he could be the one to tell him the service was family only, but every time the subject line came up she grew more and more annoyed. It was the first time she’d heard from him in years. Finally she deleted it, then deleted it from her deleted folder. He’d probably searched the university directory for her address. The girl who’d lived in her old bedroom would have been flattered and happy.

  She didn’t remember Cooper jumping up on the bed, but in the morning he was stretched out beside her. The room was dim and gray and smelled warmly of pumpkin pie. She was surprised to find it was 9:30. Knowing she was on Central Time, they’d let her sleep in. She could hear her mother banging around the kitchen and decided she’d better get up. Outside, the sky over the woods was a quilt of clouds. Standing at the window, she recalled all the times she’d selfishly prayed for rain. Please, she thought, not today.

  Downstairs her mother had all four burners going and the sink piled with mixing bowls.

  “Those can wait,” her mother said. “What you can do is start putting together the pasta salad.”

  Her father breezed through in his down vest. He was going to pick up Grandma. Did they need anything while he was out?

  “Vanilla extract,” her mother said. “But by the time you get back it’ll be too late. I’ll just grab some from Sunny.”

  After the pumpkin pie there was a Dutch apple, then a cheesecake, and a quiche. The basement fridge was stocked with a case of white wine. It was like preparing for a holiday, except Lindsay noticed the dishes were all Kim’s favorites, as if this was the last time her mother would ever make them.

  “Did Dad tell you about meeting the crazy lady?”

  “No.”

  “Actually I shouldn’t say that, she was very nice. I don’t know. You know how sometimes you can look into a person’s eyes and tell they’re not right? She was like that. Very pleasant to talk to, and obviously we owe her everything, but . . . We had a chance to talk in private before we did the photo op, and she said—she actually said this—finding her was the only reason she was still alive. She started crying, and we’re in this little room by ourselves. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “I hugged her and told her how much it meant to us, and she was fine. I just wondered, what’s she going to do now?”

  “Find someone else.”

  “Well,” she said doubtfully. “I suppose we all have to find ways to go on. Anyway, that was interesting.”

  The moral was for her, Lindsay sensed, and meant to be encouraging. She could have told her mother it was needless. She had no intention of letting Kim destroy her. Somehow she’d make it through today, and tomorrow she’d return to her new life at school, where no one could see her sister’s ghost hovering over her.

  Everything was done except the quiche. When she finished doing the dishes, her mother told her to go take her shower. They had to leave no later than one fifteen.

  “If you need anything ironed,” her mother called up the stairs, “just hang it over the railing.”

  In the bathroom Lindsay calculated how many hours she had to endure until her flight left. As the spray warmed her front she caught her eyes in the tiny mirror of Kim’s waterproof CD player and held them a few seconds, accusing herself. Was that all this was to her—an interruption?

  A knock on the door stopped her. Her father had called. There was some sort of problem with Grandma’s heart monitor. They’d have to bring his suit and meet them at the funeral home. That meant they needed to leave in forty minutes. Could she do that?

  She could, but her mother couldn’t. They were late, and in the rush her mother forgot his belt. She had Lindsay call ahead to let him know.

  “At least it’s not raining,” Lindsay said.

  “For now, knock wood.”

  Her father’s car was in the lot. They parked beside it and hurried in.

  He was standing in the lobby, talking softly with Uncle Rich and Aunt Carrie, dressed like lawyers in matching black. Almost hidden behind him was her grandmother, hunched over in her heavy camel-hair coat. She carried a tripod-footed cane and hung on his arm. Lindsay hadn’t seen her out of the nursing home in so long that it was a shock. She’d had her hair done and was wearing lipstick. “Don’t you look nice,” she said, taking Lindsay’s arm so her father could get dressed.

  She’d been told the service was going to be family only, but Connie and Jocelyn were there, chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Hedrick. She thought of J.P. and Nina and Elise, and wished she’d forwarded his e-mail. They knew Kim better than anyone here.

  In minutes her father returned, buttoning his collar. Father John had solved the problem. No one would know he was beltless under his robes.

  Outside, the limo was waiting. She helped her father with her grandmother, sitting her in the middle. Behind them came Uncle Rich and Aunt Carrie in their white Escalade, the Hedricks’ Volvo and Connie’s Pontiac. Lindsay wondered why they bothered with a procession. The drive to the cemetery was less than a mile, and the casket was already there. As they crawled across Harbor an old man standing on the corner removed his hat.

  No one spoke until her father said, “I hope she doesn’t mind us being late.”

  “She won’t,” her mother said, patting his leg.

  Lindsay thought it was Kim who was late, thoug
h she knew to keep the joke to herself. Today was supposed to make them feel better, and she had her own fantasies of Kim looking down from above. As they passed the Dairy Queen and slowed for the turn she pictured them doing the drive-thru as a tribute, sitting in the far corner and eating fries as Father John delivered the eulogy.

  They rolled through the gates, making oncoming traffic wait. Among the headstones stood a blue tent with the casket and two rows of folding chairs. Father John had gone ahead and was crossing the lawn as the line of cars parked.

  The smell of burgers grilling warmed the air. The funeral director ushered her mother to the front row while Lindsay and her father led her grandmother. There were four chairs set out for them by the nap of an astroturf mat. On each lay a single red rose.

  For their safety the florist had removed the thorns, leaving the stems defenseless. As Father John asked them to bow their heads, Lindsay dug a thumbnail into one of the empty nubs, gouging a wet crescent.

  I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

  Her mother and father held hands through the prayers. Her grandmother lifted her glasses and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, her lips quivering. The polished finish of the casket reflected the front row, and Lindsay found herself in it, a bloated, faceless shape. Though no one had told her, she knew the only thing left of Kim was bones. It was impossible and true at the same time. Her hair and eyes and smile were gone, like those long gray afternoons playing Battleship. A day like today, she thought. That would never happen again, or anything else between them, only in her memories. Whatever grudges she held against her, she had to let them go. She looked past the casket to the trees where sparrows flitted in the branches, oblivious. She didn’t believe in the forgiveness of sins or the life everlasting. She didn’t even know if she wanted to. She thought she should, for Kim.

  “Amen,” everyone said, and Father John closed his prayer book on the silk ribbon. Deliberately, in stagy slow motion, he padded over to the casket and laid a hand on the lid as if he were blessing it. He turned to them and held up his hand.