Every Time You Go Away

by Beth Harbison

  “Why is there a plumber here?” Jamie asked.

  His mom put her hands in her back pockets and walked over. “The water isn’t working. Well, it’s off. It was leaking. I saw this big water stain on the ceiling. Figured it was coming from the, um, the…” She gestured upstairs with a finger. “Bathroom sink.”

  Usually, when his mom made guesses about things like this, he would exchange a silent look with his dad. “Pipes froze?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it seems like it—how did you know that?”

  He shrugged, like it was no big deal. Really, though, he’d asked his dad a thousand questions about everything like this. Lame as it was, he loved being in a club with his dad. The club where they were the men who knew stuff like this, and his mom was the obtuse but adorable (his dad always said) one, who didn’t quite understand the things they did.

  “Anyway, the plumber’s going to have to replace the drywall, which is one of about a million things that need to be done…”

  They were both imitating his dad. She could say replace it, but she probably couldn’t quite envision what that would entail.

  Really, Jamie was in a club with his mom too: neither one of them really knew how to be that kind of adult, and his dad did.

  “All right, no water. So what do we need to do?”

  What do we need to do to get this over with? he thought. The place reeked of conflicting memories and imaginings.

  No surprise, she had a laundry list of things for him to do. Putting gloves on and moving big piles of wet pine needles and leaves into bags. Windexing the outside and inside of all the windows, which at first sounded extremely anal, but then he realized every window had a buildup of about an inch of pollen and dust. She had him vacuum every corner of the carpet and of the ceiling, which, again, sounded like not a real thing, but he was surprised they were so dusty and cobwebbed.

  She had an entire other list she was forming of things that had to be done with water. Bathtubs, sinks, etc.

  She worked on the oven, on the pantry, on packing their dishes into boxes marked KITCHEN.

  Once he’d finished the tasks she’d doled out, he went upstairs. He wasn’t really sure why. He wanted to see what the plumber was doing. He’d always watched his dad do this stuff, but that made sense. That was his dad.

  Jamie decided not to think about that, or about his dad, and went up to the upstairs bathroom with as much casualness as he could.

  The guy must have heard him, because he stopped cranking his wrench and then looked at Jamie.

  “’S goin’ on, kiddo?” he asked, looking a little irritated to be interrupted, but—Jamie suspected—looking a little relieved that it wasn’t Jamie’s mom.

  “Not much. Just seeing how it’s going up here.”

  The guy glanced at him, then kept working.

  “You all selling the place?”

  Jamie nodded, and then realized he wasn’t looking at him. “Right. Yeah.”

  “Bet she’s got all kinds of stuff for you to do.”

  He couldn’t tell if he was telling him to go do any of those things, or if he was just talking.

  Talkin’, as this guy was more likely to say.

  “Yeah, she does. Taking a quick break, I guess. I already did the whole front yard, the windows, all that stuff.”

  Why was he going on about this? Was he looking for praise? Had he merely been silent for too long during the day, and now he needed to word-puke onto someone, anyone? Literally, anyone?

  The guy gave a whistle. “That yard looked like no easy task. I saw it yesterday, boy, I’ll tell you. Wasn’t envying the guy who’d get hired to do that. Looks like she had you built-in, though, huh?”

  There was humor in his voice, so Jamie said, “You know it.”

  You know it? All right, he had to stop. Go elsewhere. Be weird on his own.

  “You helping your mom out here all summer or are you gonna be working?”

  “Uh.” He looked around, then heard the whir of a Dirt Devil start up downstairs. “Not sure.”

  “Well,” he said, wrenching the pipe tightly, “if you wind up looking for a job, my sister’s got a place, might be looking to hire somebody.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yep. One of those seasonal restaurants on the boardwalk. Beer and wines and”—he moved something with a clunk—“crap like that. I know she hired a couple of kids who ended up flaking out on her. No idea if she’s replaced them yet. If you decide you don’t wanna hang around this house all summer, let me know, I’ll put you two in touch.”

  “Cool. That’d be pretty cool, actually.”

  He hadn’t given serious thought to how long he’d stay. The house was tough, but there was something about the salty sea smell of the air outside that made him feel at home. Almost happy. Spending the entire summer out here sounded a lot more freeing, and a lot less shitty, than he would have guessed. He pushed from his mind all the worries about the house itself and the phantoms it might possess.

  “How will I get in touch with you if I want to do that?”

  The guy gave a laugh. “Kid, your mom’s got my number and she’ll probably need to use it more than she thinks, though I hope not, for her sake.” He sat up, hands on both his shins. “She hired the oldest working guy in town. Means I go to bed early, but I know what the hell I’m doing.”

  Jamie laughed. “I bet.”

  The guy looked at him for just another second, and then stood and started packing up. It seemed their conversation was over.

  “Thanks,” said Jamie.

  He went downstairs again, feeling a lot younger than he had in a while.

  His mom was standing in the living room in baggy gray shorts already splattered with old paint, a sports bra, and baggy tank top. The tank top wasn’t covered in paint like the pants, but it was an ugly orange, so he was glad she’d decided it was a trash shirt. Her hair was back in a bandanna. He had a sudden flashback of her, what, ten years ago? When they’d painted his room at home. He wanted it to be gray, instead of baby blue. He’d seen a character on a TV show with a gray room and had decided the blue of his room was too infantile.

  Once it was done, though, he’d sort of wished they’d made him keep it that way. The gray was so depressing. The blue, in retrospect, made him feel better.

  “Did you bring any painting clothes?” she asked when she saw him. She smiled a little when she saw his face—dreading the task ahead.

  “I didn’t. But … I don’t really care about these clothes.”

  He’d said it to be accommodating, but realized now that she’d bought them for him. She’d bought him almost everything he had; he couldn’t have gestured at any of his own clothes and said this.

  He watched her resist the urge to point this out, and instead said with a flourish of her hand at him, “Welcome to your new painting outfit!”

  She extended a roller to him. “You’re on, Jackson Pollock, get your paint on.”

  “That’s an awful joke. If I were to do it like Jackson—”

  “Okay, but if I’d said Yves Klein, you wouldn’t have gotten the joke, would you? He painted solid colors, and yet—”

  “Music?” he said to his mother, the art history major, the woman who could have gone on about this for hours.

  “Your choice. For now. If it’s the Beatles.”

  “I brought my speaker, I’ll just go get it.”

  “If you drive off, so help me!” she called after him.

  He turned back to her, walking away with his keys, and gave a mischievous look like that might be just what he was about to do.

  He would never, though. Not after he saw how his mom was. She was herself, but she was off. She was sadder than she’d been since the news. She was jumpy.

  This only proved to be more true throughout the night. They painted for two hours, took a break, ate pizza, chatted, then painted until almost midnight. All the while, though, she seemed off.

  She kept looking at the walls, her eyes out of focu
s, or turning fast at the sound of a twig on the porch out back. She leapt whenever the dog moved. Even Dolly was weird, though. Was this one of those horror-movie-type things where whoever came into the house after a tragedy becomes possessed?

  His imagination took that and ran with it for a second, imagining his father here, possessed. Or possessing.

  No. That was dumb. His mom was just acting weird. It wasn’t a whole thing.

  It made perfect sense that she was so off. He couldn’t imagine being in her position. The same could be argued for his position, but he was different from his mom. He was more compartmentalized than she was; she was always trying to put out ten fires at once.

  He told her about the job prospect, just to distract her. She’d been delighted to hear of the possibility, presumably glad he might stick around, but, despite her attempts to act otherwise, she still seemed a little zoned out.

  He hoped to god this wasn’t her now. Please, he thought, don’t let her change.

  Don’t let him lose both parents.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Willa

  Jamie spent his first night at the beach house being surprisingly cooperative. We ordered Grotto’s pizza, and patched the walls in the family room completely and even got one of them painted. The smell of fresh paint was like aromatherapy to me and the look of a nice, clean, pristine wall, in a new color (warm buttery yellow) helped me realign my purpose in being here.

  The plumber had come and nearly finished the job and offered Jamie work at his sister’s restaurant on the boardwalk. I wasn’t sure how long we’d be staying at the house, but I felt strongly that Jamie getting out and meeting kids his own age who weren’t the video-gaming losers he was used to at home would be good for him. And therefore good for me. Good for us.

  The next day was pleasantly filled with more painting for me while Dave finished the job.

  “You’re about set,” he said, coming into the family room. “It just needs to totally vent out up there and you can slap a coat of ceiling paint on and call it a day. Come on, take a look.”

  I followed him through the kitchen and into the living room, where the corner had, just a couple of days ago, been it’s own little black rain cloud, complete with rain. Now it was a mismatched patch of solid drywall. He’d even sanded it in so the joints were smooth.

  “It looks great,” I said wholeheartedly. “How much do I owe you?”

  When he cited the price, I thought I had misheard. “That’s for the whole job?”

  His face colored slightly. “You’d prefer to pay more?”

  “No, no, it’s just—” I shook my head. “Nothing at home is ever the least bit affordable. That’s a very fair price, I’m just … relieved, actually. Thank you.”

  He nodded. “It’s my job.”

  “You know,” I said, trying to let go of my instinct to always try to do everything myself, “I was thinking about replacing the fixtures in the downstairs bathroom. If I ordered them, could you put them in?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let me tell you what I want.” We went to the room. “This sink has always driven me crazy. I need storage underneath. Do you think you could transform a bedside table into one of those sinks that looks like a bowl?”

  “As long as it fits in here. I’d have to do some measurements.”

  “Well, it’s right here.” The old master bedroom was right between the bathroom and the kitchen. I rather liked the idea of replacing everything in it with something new and either getting rid of or repurposing whatever remained. I didn’t need those reminders.

  Dave went out and retrieved a tape measure and took some measurements of the table, and of the space in the powder room. “That’ll fit,” he pronounced. “And it’s a pretty good height too. You just need to make sure the sink is no more than about fifteen inches in diameter and six inches high. Standard one-and-three-quarter-inch drain.”

  “Wait, wait.” I went and opened the junk drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. “Let me just write that down.”

  He waited and repeated the information. “It’s pretty standard,” he said. “You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it.”

  I pictured a gleaming new powder room. “Great!”

  “Just let me know when it comes in, I’ll pick it up.”

  When he had gone, I finally allowed myself to feel some optimism about the job ahead. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, I’d already gotten one wall painted, the leak was fixed, and the downstairs bathroom would be modernized. At his prices, maybe I’d do them all. And put a new faucet in the kitchen. That was about all it would take to update the place, since the bedrooms were standard squares that would look fresh with a new coat of paint.

  If only I could stop seeing my dead husband, everything would be great.

  * * *

  It was not to be. I had no sooner brushed my teeth and put on my nightshirt than I walked into the bedroom and saw him there, sitting on the bed.

  “You again,” I said, to myself, of course, since he couldn’t hear me. This illusion, or hallucination or whatever it was, was starting to get old. “I know I am imagining this; I am not going to let it put me in a nuthouse. This is just a trick of the mind. And eye.”

  “That’s some greeting,” he said.

  I froze.

  His voice! That voice, that voice, I knew that voice. I didn’t even remember how well I knew that voice. This was coming out of the deep recesses of my broken mind. I was really crackers!

  I shook my head. Vehemently. Too vehemently. Denial at its finest. “I don’t believe this. You’re not talking to me. I’ve finally lost it.” Then, incongruously, “Say something else.”

  “Like what? I’m…” He splayed his arms. “Here.”

  “You’re dead.”

  There was a moment’s pause that seemed to last forever. “Yes,” he said at last. “I figured that out.”

  “That’s it.” I started pacing. “I’m really going crazy. This is the end. I’ve finally lost it.”

  “Baby, you were always crazy.”

  And he always said that. But that was no proof of anything. I knew what he always said, what he did, how he looked, his gestures, even his stance. There was nothing surprising about any of this.

  This was all me.

  “This isn’t you,” he said, at exactly the right moment.

  “There—that’s proof!” I was talking at “him” but I knew I was talking to myself. “You’re reading my mind. That proves you’re in there. That this is my imagination.”

  “I can see why you’d think that, but I wasn’t reading your mind. It’s just a logical thought in an illogical situation. And this…” He smiled. “This is an illogical situation. We both know that.”

  Oh, that smile.

  That was the thing that had gotten me first, and it was the thing I missed the most about him.

  I missed seeing that heart-wrenching smile.

  Knowing this was sheer madness, I went along with it. After all, it wasn’t as if I could just walk away, go to bed, and pretend I hadn’t seen anything. “If you’re here, prove it.”

  “I … I’m here.”

  “Or you’re my imagination.”

  He gave a concessionary nod of the head. “Hmm. I guess you seeing me walk through the room the other day didn’t prove it either.”

  “Nope, I saw it.” Was I talking to myself? Or was he really there? I was arguing against a situation I truly hoped was real. “Still in my head.”

  He appeared to think about it. “Do you know what I was reading at the time of my unfortunate death?”

  I nodded. “I cleaned it all up.”

  He looked surprised. “Really? That doesn’t sound like you. I would have thought you’d keep the whole thing intact like a mausoleum.”

  “That was my inclination,” I admitted, and remembered how damn hard it had been to close that book and put it back on the shelf. I’d looked to see what page he was on—251—
and felt sad setting it aside. “But that would be ridiculous. I can’t sell the place with a dead man’s last scene like a diorama in the middle.”

  “No, I’m glad you didn’t. Sorry I didn’t make the bed, but I was busy, you know, passing away.”

  “I made it.”

  “Good, good.”

  There was a moment of silence, during which I just gaped at him. I wanted to go touch him, but I knew from experience that he’d disappear, and, whatever was happening, I didn’t want him to disappear.

  “Do you know what’s in the freezer?” he asked suddenly.

  I thought about it. I had checked the fridge to see if it was clean, but I hadn’t checked the freezer. That was weird, why hadn’t I?

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “Aha! I do. There are two Martino’s pizzas—”

  “Ben, honestly, that is such crap food. Why do you do that? They’re so bad for you. Full of hydrogenated oils and cholesterol, they’ll give you a—”

  He sighed. Exaggerated. “A heart attack?”

  “I was going to say…” My face grew warm. “Yes, I was going to say that. Wow. I’m sorry, that was insensitive.” I was apologizing to a specter.

  “But true. Except it wasn’t the pizzas, it was just my time. I know how that works now, it was my time, and that was that.” He reached out a hand. “Come on, let’s go look in the freezer.”

  I hesitated, then reached for his hand.

  It’s hard to describe what I felt. It was kind of there, but, like the other night on the boardwalk, it felt more like phantom pain, in a way. I could feel his hand, but it felt like a memory. It wasn’t solid.

  I was afraid to go anywhere, even with him, for fear he would evaporate into nothingness. I didn’t know how this ghost stuff worked, if this was indeed ghost stuff at all, but it seemed to me that ghosts couldn’t stray too far afield. Like they were tethered to a single place at a time.

  Then again, I couldn’t refuse his hand or resist looking to see if he was right about the freezer. That was definitely something I didn’t know, unless he had said it was just ice cube trays in there as usual. But he’d mentioned the pizzas.