Gone Too Long

by Lori Roy

  Imogene stands from the table, and as she passes Christopher, she gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze because that’s the kind of thing Jo Lynne would do. “Be right back,” she whispers.

  “I think you was bringing this to show the boy,” Mama says when Imogene reaches the hallway, and she hands Imogene the photo of herself and Daddy when they were younger.

  “What is it?” Jo Lynne asks when Imogene slides back into her seat at the kitchen table. Jo Lynne has run a washcloth under warm water and is handing it to Christopher and motioning for him to wipe his face with it. “Make you feel better,” she says.

  “Picture of Daddy,” Imogene says.

  Across the table, Christopher is wiping his face with the warm cloth, all the while keeping his eyes on Jo Lynne. She nods and smiles so he’ll know he’s doing good.

  “Do you recognize this man?” Imogene says to Christopher, and she slides the picture across the table.

  Walking back into the kitchen after having closed all the window dressings, Warren switches on the radio even though Mama has disappeared into her room, and then he sits next to Imogene. Draping an arm over the back of her chair, he leans across the table to get a look at what Christopher is staring at.

  “What’s this?” he asks, trying to get a better view of the photo, which is upside down to him, and then he snatches it away. “You can’t be showing him that, Imogene.”

  “Is that him?” she asks Christopher.

  Again, she’s frightened the boy because she doesn’t have Jo Lynne’s soothing work voice. She isn’t angry with Christopher. She’s scared. Scared of finding out what’s been done to him. Scared of finding out what’s happened to his mother. Scared of how badly this will hurt Mama. Scared that in all of it, she’ll be reminded how alone her own son was in the end. But that’s not something she can explain to a child.

  “It’s okay,” she says, trying with a quieter, softer tone. “Is that the man from the basement?”

  “Stop, Imogene,” Warren says. “That’s not how we do things.”

  “The both of you need to stop,” Jo Lynne says, sliding a warm roll onto Christopher’s plate. She hands him a small tin of frosting, demonstrates how to spread some on his roll, and then hands him a butter knife.

  “Christopher?” Imogene says.

  “Out, now,” Warren says, grabbing Imogene and dragging her from the table.

  Imogene yanks away and pushes at him. “Please,” she says, squatting so she’s looking across the table at Christopher’s level. “Tell me. Is that him?”

  It isn’t much, what Christopher does next. But it’s enough. He nods. Imogene looks back at Warren and then up at Jo Lynne. They’ve seen it too.

  “Yes?” Imogene says. “Yes, that’s the man?”

  Christopher sticks a finger in his mouth, licks it clean, and then stares at it. Jo Lynne gives a nod when he looks up at her, his eyes wide. She knows he’s asking if he can do it again, dip that finger in the icing and stick it straight in his mouth. Then he turns to Imogene and again he nods.

  “Yes,” he says, popping that sticky finger back in his mouth. “That’s the man.”

  Chapter 38

  BETH

  Before

  I see on the newspaper he spreads out on the table that today is daylight savings time day. It’s written on the front page. I stare at the date. Down here, one day is exactly like the next. I forget that the world outside has moved on, and I ignore the changes in my body that prove time isn’t waiting for me—my hair that hangs to my waist, my legs and arms that have grown longer and thin, the light bulb I can nearly reach without the chair. I’ve been in the basement for two years.

  He says nothing about being glad the sun will shine an extra hour today. I wish he would, because then I’d know for certain it’s real. That’s how excited I am to see the date and scared all at the same time. Even though I’m looking right at it, looking so hard the thick black letters start to blur, I can hardly believe the day is finally here. But instead of saying anything about spring having finally sprung, he sits at the table and reads quiet to himself, and he didn’t bring me any special things today like he usually does. Every once in a while, he lets out a long breath that makes his lips flutter.

  When he first told me the days gain an hour, I wondered why I never knew about that when I lived with Mama. How could an hour get added to a day and me not know? But then I read in one of my books that only the clocks change. Spring forward, the science workbook said, alongside a picture of an old-fashioned clock leaping over a row of purple and yellow flowers.

  All winter, we have been going outside every Sunday. Some days, the sun has been bright and warm on my skin, but other Sundays, the sun has been dim and the day cold. As much as I wanted the days to get warmer and longer, I also liked the cold days. While he would set up a folding chair wherever he could find a sliver of sun, I would stand in the coldest, darkest spot I could find. I’d stand where the wind whipped past me, and if he made me wear a coat, I’d leave it open and the hood down. I’d make myself as cold as I could because I could feel the cold. I could also feel the warm when he took me back down into the basement. For a few moments, the only few I’d have all week until I went outside for another twenty minutes, I could be happy to be back inside where I was warm. The tight walls didn’t make it hard for me to breathe, and the ceiling didn’t hang so low. For those few minutes, I was almost happy. But by the time he would leave me, so would that happy feeling of being warm again.

  “What are you smiling about?” he asks me as he folds over his paper and glances at his watch. It’s almost five o’clock, and we always wait until five o’clock.

  I shrug and say nothing because I can’t tell him why I’m smiling, and Mama says I’m the world’s worst liar. I can’t tell him I’m smiling because it’s daylight savings time, and I can’t tell him that next Sunday is the day I run.

  “Well, I’m guessing I’m going to be the one to wipe that smile off your face,” he says, standing and tucking his white shirt into his belt. Sometimes he’s still wearing church clothes when he comes here on Sundays, sometimes not. And he smells spicy, like the cologne the men Mama would sometimes bring home wore.

  I pull my knees into my chest and rest my chin on top. I think maybe he saw inside me and knows what I was thinking. I lift my head long enough he’ll see the smile is already gone from my face.

  “It’s Imogene’s husband,” he says. “And boy, too.”

  Imogene is going to be a lawyer if she ever finishes school over in Milledgeville, and he sometimes says she shouldn’t be doing that and should be home with her baby instead, but I think he doesn’t like her going to college because he never did. His own daddy doesn’t think he’s smart. He’s told me that before. Sometimes when he’s reading the paper to me, he tells me he’s smart and God damn anyone who says otherwise. I nod when he says things like that because Mama always said any right-minded person will favor a rose over a cactus. Trick is, make them think you’re a rose while all the time being a cactus underneath. Sometimes I pretend Imogene is my sister like Mary is Laura’s sister. Imogene is smart and pretty with wild red hair, and when I read the books that were once hers, I pretend I’m smart and pretty too. Being smart and pretty and going off to college to be a lawyer and being a mom makes me think Imogene is a cactus underneath it all too.

  “Both of them was killed,” he says, popping a piece of gum in his mouth. “Just like that. Truck T-boned them. Right there outside of town. Got family matters to contend with today so can’t stay.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, hiding my face as best I can. I smell his pepperminty breath.

  “But next week,” he says, “we’ll go for extra long.”

  Except for Julie Anna and Mama, although I don’t believe Mama is really gone, I’ve never known anyone who died and especially not a baby boy like Imogene’s baby boy. His name was Vaughn. I saw his picture once. He had round cheeks and fat legs, and he was hugging Imogene. Her head
was thrown back and she was laughing, so mostly, I could only see her red hair. Thinking about Imogene having to go on living without her baby boy makes me think about Mama having to go on living without me. Mama hurting makes me hurt, and I want to run to her as fast as I can so all the hurting will stop.

  When he comes on Wednesday, I say I don’t feel well so he’ll leave me sooner and won’t see how I can’t hardly sit still for being so nervous about the day I’ll finally run. Sunday has never taken so long in getting here, and the waiting and not knowing what will happen has wadded itself up inside me, and I worry it’s all going to spill out where he’ll see it. He looks sad about me not feeling good. He says, maybe this’ll perk you up, and pulls a necklace from his pocket. It has a slender silver chain and a smooth blue stone. He tells me it’s a moonstone and that the necklace has been in his family for generations. Family is real important, he says. Nothing more important. He knows that now because Imogene lost hers, and I think it scares him to see what that kind of loss does to someone. I want to ask him if Imogene is going to be all right and will she be able to get up every morning and keep on living, but I don’t because I doubt he’ll like me caring and worrying about Imogene. He won’t understand that I’m really asking if Mama has been able to keep on living without me.

  “Wear it every day,” he says, dropping the necklace in my hands. “I’m the only family you got now. And this necklace, it’ll remind you.”

  I slip the necklace over my head, lie down, and pull my legs up tight so he’ll leave. He wants me to love him like Imogene’s baby loved her. I’ve known that since he first told me about Imogene’s baby boy and her husband. He wants a home and a family and even to be smart, all the things Imogene had. Mostly, he wants someone to love him like that little boy loved Imogene.

  When the door opens again and a light shines down the stairs, I open my eyes and I think it’s finally Sunday. I must have slept right through my alarm that I started setting so I’d never miss doing my chores and marking off the days. I sit up on the sofa where I still do all my sleeping and look at the orange numbers on the clock: 11:53, it reads. But the light I see isn’t the light at the bottom of the stairs, it’s a flashlight, and I hear two voices. I hear his voice, and I hear a woman too. It isn’t Sunday. It’s still Saturday night, and he’s brought someone with him.

  Chapter 39

  IMOGENE

  Today

  Imogene drops back down into her seat at the kitchen table. Next to her, Warren picks up the picture of Daddy, turns it upside down in his lap. Neither of them says anything more because from behind Christopher’s back, Jo Lynne is jabbing a finger at them and signaling they better sit themselves down and shut themselves up. Once they’re settled, Jo Lynne slips an oven mitt on one hand and takes the second batch of rolls from the oven. Imogene thinks to ask why so much food, but it’s always too much food with Jo Lynne. As if he can sense Imogene is about to say something more to the boy, Warren leans over and whispers to her.

  “Not another word out of you.”

  Imogene nudges him away. She knows enough about eyewitness accounts and suspect identification to know she has complicated Warren’s job by showing Christopher the picture of Daddy, but she doesn’t care. She knows now that Daddy had been keeping Christopher and his mama in that house. And it also means she was right about Tim Robithan and the other Knights being all tied up in this somehow. That fire wasn’t an accident either. The Knights probably set it to clean up Daddy’s mess, and then they put it out to save a property they felt entitled to. When her phone begins buzzing for the third time, Imogene slips it from her pocket and steps into the living room.

  “Hey, Tillie,” she says. Back at the table, Christopher has finished his first roll and Jo Lynne is offering him a banana. He shrugs as if she asked him if he’s ever eaten one before. “Not a good time. If this is about the watches, Warren’s here and I told him already.”

  “Ain’t calling about the watches,” Tillie says. “Think this is something you’ll want to tend to.”

  “Can you e-mail me, then?” she says. “Send a picture, whatever information you got? Today really isn’t a good day.”

  “Don’t need to send no pictures.” On Tillie’s end of the line, a loud rattle sounds in the background, most likely him dropping his bundle of keys on the hook on the cash register where he always keeps them.

  Imogene takes a few more steps into the living room.

  “I really can’t do this today,” she says, dropping onto the sofa. “And why are you even open on a Sunday?”

  She remembers this kind of tired. It’s a deep-down tired, so deep her bones ache. She lived this way, day and night, for at least two years after Russell and Vaughn died. She’d been numb for being so tired, for not being able to sleep but not being able to get out of bed either. For not eating, not drinking, not caring or wanting. People didn’t know what to say to her during those years. Most settled on giving her a hug, and they lingered as an awkward moment inevitably swelled between them, that moment no words can fill because no words are fitting, and then with a gentle squeeze, maybe to her hand or her shoulder, or maybe cool fingers rested on her cheek, they would walk away.

  But after a little time passed, people began to say she could have made no difference. Don’t torture yourself with what might have been. She would nod as if they were right. It seemed more polite than telling them how downright cruel they were for saying a mother couldn’t help. It seemed more polite than screaming that maybe she couldn’t have changed what happened, but at least, if she’d been there, she’d be dead too. Only Mama had known better. God willing, she would say to Imogene, this is the hardest trial that’ll ever test you. Your heart’ll keep beating; your lungs’ll keep on too. And the rest of you will catch up, all in good time.

  “I ain’t open,” Tillie says. “Café at the end of the block called me in about a broke window. Remember that necklace of your mama’s?”

  “Sure, I remember,” Imogene says. “Long since settled.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Imogene rests her head against the back of the sofa and stares at Christopher. He is sitting with his hands in his lap while Jo Lynne holds up the banana and shows him how to pull one long slice of peel from it.

  “Pardon?” she says. “You’re talking about Mama’s good necklace?”

  “Damned if it didn’t turn up hanging from my register this morning. Right there on the total key.”

  “I don’t think so,” Imogene says. In the kitchen, Christopher takes the banana from Jo Lynne, and this time, he pulls off a slice of peel. “It’s been, what, four years, maybe five since it went missing.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s your mama’s necklace I’m looking at.”

  Mama hadn’t been upset about the value of the necklace when it disappeared, not the monetary value anyway, but she’d been frantic to have lost one of her last connections to her mother. It had been her mama’s and her mama’s before her—a moonstone pendant on a sterling silver chain. She’d been certain she last wore it to Russell and Vaughn’s funeral. She remembered for certain, because it was a good long time before she went to pull it out and wear it again. When she did, it was gone. The whole family searched for it, looked under every cushion, behind every dresser. Finding that necklace was the only thing Imogene cared about in the weeks and months after she lost her family.

  In the end, everyone figured the necklace was stolen and pawned for cash. Though Imogene wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, because even now it sounds pathetic, Mama’s missing necklace was mostly why she decided to take up a career rescuing things. She hadn’t been able to rescue her family so she had to rescue something else instead.

  “You found it in the store?” Imogene leans forward to see Christopher smile and tap his fingers together. He’s feeling the stickiness left behind by the banana. That one small thing being enough to make him smile is proof of how little he’s had to smile about in his life. Again, Imogene can’t let her mi
nd settle on what might have happened to him down in that basement. “You mean someone came in wanting to sell it to you?”

  It’s familiar, sitting here like this and staring into the kitchen. She did the same just a few hours ago except she’d been staring at Tim Robithan and he’d been staring back and spouting off about Mama’s property like it was his own. She had been tired and blurted out something about those watches he’d tried to sell down at Tillie’s. She hadn’t thought about it at the time, but Tim will know now that they’re wise to what he’s done and that means he might make his way to Tillie’s shop with a mind toward getting those watches back. Sliding forward on her seat, she waves at Warren to get his attention and points at the phone. She covers the receiver and whispers for him to come talk to Tillie.

  “Nobody came in selling nothing,” Tillie says. “Window back there in the storeroom’s been broke, but not a thing missing that I can tell. Was worried them watches were going to be gone, but they ain’t. Only thing that ain’t right is this necklace of your mama’s that’s hanging from my register as we speak.”

  Imogene holds up a single finger to Warren when he joins her in the living room so he’ll know she isn’t done talking yet.

  “I don’t understand, Tillie. What do you mean, someone left it?”

  “Just that. Broke in and hung it right where I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Are you all right?” she says. “What did the police say?”

  “Well, hell, I’m fine. And the police ain’t said nothing. Didn’t call them. I’m going to go complaining someone broke in to give me something? Don’t make no sense.”

  Tillie starts to say something else, maybe about the cost of the broken window, but he stops midsentence. In the background, someone is banging on something.

  “Hey there, Imogene,” he says, coming back on the line. “I’m going to have to call you back.”