Fragile

by Lisa Unger

  Henry didn’t just have Marshall on his mind. The news of Charlene Murray’s disappearance had rocketed through the school. There was an aura of worry and excitement in the hallways, klatches of girls gathered whispering, dramatic. He picked up snippets as he walked the halls. She ran away to New York City. She had a fight with her mom. She was afraid of her stepfather. I heard she has a boyfriend in Manhattan. I thought she was with Rick Cooper! The big news when he left the school that day was that she’d updated the status bar on her Facebook page: Charlene is large and in charge, living in New York City! The Hollows SUCKS!

  An early-morning meeting at the school, with police and some of Charlene’s friends and their parents, had yielded nothing. Rumors abounded about a boyfriend in the city, someone she’d met at a concert, but no one knew a name or address. Calls to her cell phone went straight to voice mail. Other than the status bar update, no one had heard from her since early evening yesterday. Melody Murray looked cored out by worry, dark under the eyes; her voice was quaking. But the attitude of the police, Jones Cooper in particular, was that Charlene Murray was a runaway.

  “She’ll come home when she runs out of money,” he’d said. “Or nerve.”

  Maggie had shot her husband a look; then her eyes fell on Henry. After the meeting, Maggie told him about Marshall’s visit to her home, about her conversation with Marshall’s aunt.

  “I feel like everyone’s backing away from him,” she said. “That’s what happens.”

  Then, “Maybe you should stop by there, Henry. If you think you can keep your cool with Travis.”

  Maggie was a person who cared too much. It was one of the reasons why he still loved her. Maybe he always would.

  • • •

  Henry lifted a hand and knocked on the door. It was flimsy, the glass in square panes rattling with each knock. The air had lost all the warmth and humidity it had held yesterday and taken a hard dive into winter. The lawns around him were a litter of fallen leaves, the trees already turning ashen fingers against the sky. No answer. He knocked again.

  Just as he was turning to leave, he heard footsteps inside. A moment later Travis, thick-jawed and barrel-chested, opened the door. The two men regarded each other.

  “What do you want, Ivy?”

  Henry still remembered Travis lean and handsome. The man before him had deep lines at his eyes and around his mouth, a grayish cast to his skin. He was a bad facsimile of himself, had a chewed up, defeated aura.

  “I’m looking for Marshall. Are you aware that he hasn’t been in school in a week?”

  Travis offered an exaggerated shrug, took a sip from a big mug of coffee he held. “News to me.”

  Henry felt a tingle of anger, a little flood of adrenaline. Travis leaned against the door frame.

  “He told Dr. Cooper that he was helping you paint your office,” Henry said. He tried to subtly peer into the house behind Travis, but the big man filled the doorway.

  “True. In the afternoons and at night, though. Not during the school day.”

  Henry calculated that Travis had about fifty pounds on him. But he reeked of cigarettes. Henry ran five miles a day, lifted weights, even took a yoga class now and then. He was in good shape, just five pounds heavier than he’d been as a senior in college, and that was hard-gained muscle.

  “Do you know where he is right now?” Henry glanced over at the car.

  “You’re telling me he’s not in school, then I don’t know.”

  Narrowed eyes, slack posture, a muscle clenching and unclenching in his jaw, Travis radiated a lazy meanness. It was an attitude he’d cultivated as an adolescent and then perfected as a town cop. Now that Travis had been stripped of his uniform, Henry thought the guy looked more dangerous than ever. It chilled Henry to think that Travis was no longer bound even by the code of the department.

  “Look, Travis,” said Henry. “Marshall’s been doing really well. He’s been on medication, studying hard. I think he has a good shot at a school like Rutgers or Fordham. But he needs to keep it up, come to class. You want what’s best for him, don’t you?”

  Travis dug his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, seeming to consider Henry’s words. And Henry thought for a moment that he’d been heard. But then a derisive sneer spread across Travis’s face.

  “And you think you know what’s best for him?” he said. “A bunch of head shrinking, pills, and history lessons?”

  Henry felt his fist clench, felt the urge to take a step back and prepare to fight. But he kept his cool, thinking of Maggie, and held his ground.

  “I do think some psychological help-medication combined with talk therapy-and a good education are the right things for Marshall, yes,” he said. “And most people would agree with me.”

  “Well,” said Travis. “I’m not most people. And Marshall is my son. So I’ll decide what’s best for him. And you, my sister, and that shrink can all fuck right off.”

  Instead of anger, Henry felt a kind of resigned sadness close around him like a curtain. He remembered how unsatisfying it had been to beat on Travis, how much it had hurt. Turned out Mrs. Monroe was right after all. The smarter among us must use our intellects to resolve conflict. He’d find another way to help Marshall. Henry offered a deferential nod, the lift of a hand.

  “When you see Marshall tonight, ask him to come to school, to finish out the year and get his degree. After that, it’s up to him.”

  He didn’t look Travis in the face again, knew he couldn’t see that nasty grin without being moved to do something he didn’t want to do. So he turned and walked away.

  At the bottom step, he heard Travis whisper, “Fucking faggot.” And he thought, but couldn’t be sure, that he heard Marshall, or someone, laugh in response. Henry Ivy kept walking.

  Marshall thought he might throw up, but he pasted a wide smile across his face, so that when his father turned back from the doorway that’s what he saw. The effort of holding up the corners of his mouth felt like it would break his face in two.

  “I told you he was a pussy,” said Travis.

  Marshall tried to laugh, but it sounded strangled. He was so tired. He didn’t remember ever being this tired before. He pushed himself off the bottom stair and went to stand by the side of the window by the door. He watched Mr. Ivy hesitate by his car a moment and look back at the house. Then Mr. Ivy climbed inside and closed the door. It was another minute before the engine started, as if he was watching the house, waiting. He was giving Marshall a sign. It’s not too late; if you come out now, I can take you away. Marshall rested his hand on the knob just as Mr. Ivy pulled the silver Honda into the street and drove away. Marshall felt a part of himself go with him. He wanted to run into the street and wave his arms. Mr. Ivy, help me!

  “What are you looking at? Is he still out there?”

  Marshall watched the street, hoping that he’d see the car come back… maybe this time with the police. Maybe they knew who he was and what he’d done. Maybe they’d come back and take him away. In the fantasy of this, where they broke down the door and led him away in handcuffs, he only felt relief, a blessed, knee-weakening relief. Something like the feeling he’d had when he’d seen his father led away from the courtroom in handcuffs, knowing Travis would be in jail for six months, and that Marshall would be staying with Leila and Mark. He’d been scared; he’d been sad, too. But he’d also felt something inside him relax and expand. He wouldn’t always be steeling himself, preparing to ward off blows. He could put down his guard.

  “No. He’s gone.”

  He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you get some rest? You’ve had a hard night.” His father sounded almost nice, almost like he imagined other fathers sounded when they talked to their sons.

  He turned to look at Travis. “But-,” he started.

  His father lifted a hand. “We’ll deal with it later. Go on upstairs.”

  He couldn’t bring himself to argue, didn’t want to ruin it by starting a fight
. And he was so tired; he could barely keep his eyes open. He headed up the stairs. When he turned around, he saw that his father was shouldering on his plaid wool jacket, something it seemed like he’d been wearing forever. Marshall was about to ask where he was going, but the words wouldn’t come. Travis couldn’t be going far because he wasn’t allowed to drive. As he reached the landing and turned for his room, he barely registered the door opening and closing.

  In his room, everything in the space around him, everything that had occurred in the last twelve hours, seemed fuzzy and indistinct. He found himself grasping at memories that slipped away like water through a cupped hand. He lay on his bed and stared at his computer.

  The screen saver was a racing galaxy of stars; a doorway to that other universe. He had so much control there. In the real world, life was so messy, so many variables-things spun out of his grasp. Even inside himself, he seemed to have so little control over his emotions. And once his emotions took over, he split in two. There was the watcher within him, the creature without. The watcher could only look on, its desperate commands, pleas, and warnings ignored while the creature acted.

  We don’t choose where we come from, Marshall. And we often have little to say about what happens to us. But the adult understands that he and he alone is responsible for his life. You have choices now, choices that will affect your future. Let me help you make the right ones.

  It was one of the first things Mr. Ivy had said to him. And the words had seemed strange at first, because no one had ever said anything like that to Marshall. He actually, for a moment, wondered if Mr. Ivy was making fun of him. When Marshall was called to anyone’s office, it was for a reprimand or for the delivery of some bad news-like he was being held back a grade or was being switched to a lower-level class, one of those small rooms with one or two other students and a teacher who spoke very soft and slow, repeating the same stupid shit over and over. But Mr. Ivy never treated him like a moron or a mental case. He’d treated Marshall with respect, offered him a hand up from the swamp he was wading through.

  Through a kind of mental fog, he heard a car door slam outside. He went to the window, wondering if Mr. Ivy had come back. But instead, Marshall watched his father climb into a taxi, saw the car pull up the street. Where was he going? He couldn’t imagine his father calling for a cab, paying for a ride. A low-level anxiety started to buzz inside him. There were some flashes of memory-his mother crying, Charlene on all fours puking by the side of the highway. His head ached. It ached so bad he was nauseous from it.

  He stumbled to his computer and, as he moved the mouse, the screen came to life. Charlene’s page was open in front him; he read the list of comments from her last posting: “Charlene is large and in charge, living in New York City! The Hollows SUCKS!”

  Even if she hadn’t told him her password, it wouldn’t have taken him long to figure it out. Rockstar. They were all living inside their heads, weren’t they? They were living on dreams because life didn’t quite measure up, and even in their teens they already had the vague sense that it never, ever would.

  He started to laugh then. It came from a deep, dark place inside him. He thought of Mr. Ivy, Dr. Cooper, his aunt and uncle-all the people who believed in him, who put themselves out because when they looked at him, they saw something that wasn’t there. His father always thought that he knew better, that he was smarter than everyone else. If they were any good, Son? Trust me. They wouldn’t want anything to do with you. As it turned out, his dad was right.

  It felt like laughter, ripping through him in great uncontrollable peals. But when the screen went dark, he saw himself. The boy in the reflection was weeping.

  Charlie floated through the day on the memory of Wanda’s perfume; he imagined that the unique scent of her body and the floral melody she wore still clung to his skin. The sense memories of their night together kept coming back to him in flashes as he drove from job to job, as he crawled around in attics, carried traps to his truck. He barely noticed the hours pass. He kept hoping to hear her voice on the Nextel. But Old Joe was on dispatch today; it was Wanda’s day off.

  “I’ll cook dinner for you tonight, Charlie, if you don’t have any plans.” She’d said it shyly, as though she worried about seeming too forward, too eager.

  He didn’t care about seeming too eager. Hell, he was eager.

  “I don’t have any plans, Wanda. And if I did, I’d cancel them.” He could still hear that mellifluous giggle.

  He’d intended to knock off a bit early, pick up some flowers and a nice bottle of wine before going back to Wanda’s. But as he was finishing his last call, he remembered Mrs. Monroe and the traps he’d left in her attic. He’d promised he’d go back to her today. Remembering her standing there watching him leave, he couldn’t bring himself to let her down. He called Wanda from his cell, her home number on a folded sticky note in his pocket. He wondered if she’d be angry, or annoyed. Most women would be.

  “That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Charlie,” she said. “You’re a kind person. A man of your word. Trust me, it’s a rare, rare thing. You take your time.”

  “Wanda,” he said, a rush of feeling pulsing through him. “I’m dying to put my arms around you.”

  There was a moment of silence, when he heard her breathing. He wasn’t worried that he’d said the wrong thing. They were past that awkwardness already.

  “I’m waiting for you, Charlie,” she said. Her voice sounded breathy and sweet.

  He let out a little moan. “Okay, I better go before I come racing over there right now.”

  “Go take care of Mrs. Monroe. And then get over here and take care of me,” she said and hung up with a playful laugh. He thought of her perfect breasts and parted lips and was glad he had a ten-minute drive to Mrs. Monroe’s to get his pants under control.

  • • •

  As he pulled up to the old house, he saw Mrs. Monroe standing in the big bay window over the porch. She stepped back quickly when she saw him turn in the drive, maybe embarrassed to be caught waiting. She greeted him at the door.

  “I thought you forgot about me. I called your dispatch,” she said. “The guy who answered the phone was a moron, not that nice girl on the phone yesterday.”

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Monroe. I wouldn’t forget.”

  She waved a hand. “People today forget everything. They even forget to take care of their children.” She wasn’t crotchety, not complaining. She just seemed sad, wistful.

  He wanted to disagree with her, to say something positive to change her mind. But too large a part of him agreed with her. He wondered if he was the only one who felt frightened and agitated watching television-the terrible programming, the manipulative advertising. What is this doing to our culture? he’d wonder. But on some nights, he was too tired to turn it off. And suddenly everyone was driving like they were mildly drunk-people pulling out into traffic without really looking, weaving in their lanes. Inevitably, he’d glance over to see someone entrenched in conversation on a cell phone, oblivious to everything else. People did forget everything. They even forgot themselves.

  “Well, I’m not one of those people.”

  “A throwback,” she said with a smile, giving him a pat on the arm.

  “I guess so.”

  He made his way toward the staircase. “Any noise last night or today?”

  “Not a peep.” She stayed at the bottom landing. “Forgive me if I don’t follow you up. My arthritis.”

  “No problem. I remember where the attic access is.”

  But the traps in the attic were empty, the bait untouched. He moved some of the junk around but still saw none of the usual signs-no feces, no evidence of gnawing. The scent he’d caught yesterday was gone. Maybe it had been his imagination. Or hers. He entertained the notion that the old lady might be losing it, hearing things that weren’t there. But no, she didn’t seem the type. Still, what he’d smelled yesterday was an odor that only intensified with time. If there was something dead up ther
e, it should only smell worse today than yesterday. Maybe the cool weather had slowed the decay. He’d leave the traps one more day, come back again tomorrow.

  He found Mrs. Monroe on the couch watching the news. On the screen, a picture of a missing girl-a pretty girl, thin with fair skin and jet hair, dark brown eyes. An assumed runaway. Police encourage anyone who has seen her to contact them immediately, a male voice-over declared grimly.

  “Mrs. Monroe,” he said. The old woman gave a little jump of surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Oh,” she said, pointing at the screen. “That girl, she’s a friend of my grandson’s. They’re all very worried. No one’s spoken to her since last night.”

  “I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard the news today.”

  The old woman pushed herself from the couch with effort, waving away his attempt to help her.

  “Find anything up there?” she asked. When she finally rose, she steadied herself with her cane.

  “Afraid not. I’ll come back tomorrow and check again.” Her shoulders seemed to sag a bit with disappointment; she drew in a weary breath.

  “All right.” She handed him a rolled-up bill. “I appreciate it.”

  “Oh, no-,” he started to decline. But she pushed the money into his hand.

  At the door he said, “I hope she’s all right. Your grandson’s friend.”

  “I do, too,” she said with a shake of her head. “She’s a troubled girl. Problems at home, I think.”

  “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

  He wasn’t sure of this at all, of course. In high school, a friend of his-a girl friend he’d secretly loved-had run away. Lily. The memory of it caused a surprising catch of sadness in his throat. It was something he seldom thought about anymore, had willed away from conscious thought. No one ever saw her again. Ever. He didn’t share this with Mrs. Monroe.

  It wasn’t until he was back in his truck and driving toward Wanda’s that Charlie remembered the girl he’d seen last night, the one with the punky hair who’d climbed into the old muscle car. Could it be the same girl? Should he call the police and say something?