by Lisa Unger
“You did a good thing,” she said. He seemed like a nice man, a kind person. She found herself smiling.
“I just wish I’d heard about it sooner. I hope she’s okay.”
“I think it’s going to take time.” She handed him the check and pulled out a ten-dollar bill she happened to have in her back pocket.
“Thanks,” he said. He attached the check to a clipboard and handed her the service receipt, folded the ten, and put it in his pocket.
“Anyway, I’m glad they found her. A girl I knew ran away once. They never found her. It’s the worst thing imaginable, to not know, I think. To always wonder.”
Maybe it was the worst thing, to not know. Maybe it was worse than grief. The mind, the psyche, adjusted better to catastrophe than to uncertainty. She hoped she’d never have to find out either way.
“Oh,” he said. He turned around as he was about to leave. “The attic access door was stuck. I couldn’t get it closed.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll check it. Sometimes when the weather is crazy like this, it gets tricky to close it.”
After she’d shut the door behind him, she went back upstairs and wrestled with the ladder for a few minutes, trying to remember how her mother had shown her to maneuver it up. She considered going out to get Ricky but then wound up, on a whim, climbing the ladder. She hadn’t been up there in so long. She wondered if her father’s paintings would be easily had. She’d been thinking she wanted to get some of them framed, hoping they would inspire her to do some painting of her own.
She sneezed immediately in the dust and the mold, which had no doubt been kicked up by Charlie’s search for the raccoons. She reached up and pulled at the string that turned on the light. Out the window in the back, she could see all of The Hollows stretched before her-the church steeple, the town square, the high school off in the distance. In her current state of gratitude, she felt a wash of affection for the town where she’d grown up and returned to marry Jones and raise their son together. This morning Ricky had told her, out of nowhere-maybe he’d sensed that she needed some good news-that he planned to accept his early admission to Georgetown. DC has a fairly lively music scene, he’d said. That’s great, she’d said. I’m really proud of you. Your dad will be, too. And then, mingled with the pride and joy for her boy, had come an unexpected aching sadness. Motherhood was a widening circle of good-byes.
She ran her eyes over the field of clutter, and toward the back of the attic she saw what looked like a pile of canvases. Maggie made her way past the old sewing machine (Elizabeth never sewed a thing in her life; even her knitting had never amounted to anything but the world’s longest scarf), her old bicycle with flat wheels, a stack of record albums, an old trunk (who even knew what was inside?); even some of Ricky’s baby things (how in the world had those ever made the trip from their house to hers?) sat dusty in a canvas bag. Just before she got to the canvases, she saw a gray plastic bag. This was obviously where the raccoons had made their nest; a little spot covered with hair and dander had been hollowed out. She should clean it; it smelled. Better yet, she’d just empty the bag of its contents, throw it in the trash, and do a better cleaning job when things had settled. But for some reason, as she did this, she felt a tingle on her skin, a trickle of dread down her spine. She knelt and pulled open the zipper.
Inside was a violin case and an old book bag. Maggie had never played the violin and had never owned a backpack like that one, simple navy with no flourish whatsoever. She felt a dryness in her mouth as she opened the lid on the violin case and looked at the instrument inside. The wood gleamed as if it had been recently polished. She plucked the strings; they were badly out of tune. A little pocket at the tip of the case contained a few rectangles of bow rosin. In the red velvet that lined the case, there was a name embroidered with black thread. She willed herself not to look at it, blurred her eyes so that she couldn’t read it. Her hands wanted to slam down the lid of the case, shove everything back into that gray bag and forget that she ever saw it. But, of course, she couldn’t do that. She made herself read the name Sarah.
“Mom, what’s wrong? You look sick.”
Maggie had rushed from his grandmother’s house and into the car as if she were trying not to get wet in the rain-except it wasn’t raining. In the driver’s seat, she looked pale, shaky.
“What happened? Did you see another raccoon?”
“I’m just tired,” she said. Her voice sounded hoarse. “It’s catching up with me.”
Everyone always talks about how well mothers know their children. No one ever seems to notice how well children know their mothers. He always knew when she was lying. She didn’t do it very often, and she wasn’t very good at it. He decided not to press her; they were both under stress. But this was the first quiet moment they’d had together, and Rick had something on his mind.
“Grandma said a lot of crazy things when I found her,” he said. His mother had started the car and was backing out of the drive.
“Like what?” Maggie was absent, her mind elsewhere.
“Weird stuff. Like, ‘She was already dead when he found her.’” His mother stopped the car and turned to look at him. Her always fair skin was a ghostly white, her blue eyes looked stormy gray, like they always did when she was sad or angry.
“I thought she was talking about Charlene,” he said. “But that wasn’t it. I asked her about it today when you went to get the car. She said she doesn’t remember.”
His mother still hadn’t said anything, was staring at him but clearly not seeing him. She had a glazed and distant look in her eyes.
“I didn’t believe her-that she didn’t remember,” he said. “She wouldn’t look at me. Told me to forget the ‘deranged ramblings of an old woman.’” He did his best Elizabeth impersonation on the last words, but Maggie didn’t crack a smile, just continued looking at him with that blank expression. He went on, even though he was starting to feel uncomfortable. “She said she was embarrassed by how I’d found her and not to make it worse.”
Maggie put the car into park and rested her head on the wheel.
“Mom?”
He put his hand on her shoulder; it scared him to feel her shoulders start to shake. He’d rarely seen her cry-once or twice after a fight with his father, maybe. Once when a patient of hers had died. The other night, when they were fighting about the tattoo, he’d seen tears spring to her eyes. But he’d never seen her break down.
“Mom? What is it? Why are you crying?”
Listening to her cry, he felt like crying now, too. Everything-his grandmother, his father, and Charlene, all of them broken and hurt-the stress and pain of it was an expanding pressure behind his eyes, a ratcheting ache in his neck and shoulders. He felt like opening the car door and running and running until he was too exhausted to feel anything at all. But he didn’t; he stayed in his seat, stayed with his mom.
“I’m sorry. I’m okay,” she said, lifting her head suddenly and looking at him. She wiped the tears from her eyes and then reached out and put her hand on his face. Her palm felt damp and warm. “I’m so sorry.”
“Mom,” he said, leaning in to hug her. “I’m not three. You’re allowed to cry.”
She held his eyes for a second, then gave a quick nod and started digging into her purse. She pulled out a little rectangular package of tissues, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. She handed him a clean one, and he took it even though he didn’t need it.
“Mom. What do you think she meant?”
“You know what, kiddo? I really have no idea. I’ll talk to her.”
She put the car in reverse and started backing out of the driveway. He felt a release, then. He’d told his mother; he’d felt an urgency to do that. And now that he had, some of the tension he’d been holding left him.
“When you see Charlene, will you tell her I want to see her? Just as a friend. Will you tell her that? That I just want to be her friend.”
“Is that true?” she asked. She turned onto t
he main road that would lead them home. “That you just want to be her friend?”
His mother seemed more solid but still not herself. Her voice was distant and strained.
“I don’t know,” he said, blowing out a breath. “I don’t know what I want.”
The sound of the blinker seemed unusually loud, and he realized that he’d turned the radio off. He leaned forward and turned it on; he’d been looking for music his mother would like on the XM radio. He’d picked the eighties station. He didn’t recognize the song that was playing.
“You’re right, you know?” she said. “You’re not three anymore. You’re old enough to understand that Charlene has been through something awful, something that will take time, a lot of time, to move past. Are you prepared to be her friend through that, to be what she needs when she needs it and put your own desires aside?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess.” He hated the way his own voice sounded-boyish and petulant.
“Good,” she said. “That’s good.”
She started driving again. They didn’t exchange another word until they got home.
“Are you hungry?” his mother asked.
“Maybe I’ll order some Chinese?” he said. He was hungry, ravenously hungry.
“That sounds good,” Maggie said. She reached into her bag and handed him her wallet. “I just want some soup.”
She went up to her bedroom and closed the door. He stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched after her, feeling like he should apologize or comfort her-or something. But instead he just grabbed the cordless phone and ordered enough food with his mother’s credit card to feed the neighborhood; then he turned on the television and zoned out for a while.
Worse than the violin were the contents of the book bag-textbooks Maggie remembered well, notebooks filled with scribbles and doodles, Sarah’s name and address written neatly on the inside covers. A red one for math, a blue one for English, a green one for science. A biology quiz on which she’d earned a B plus. There was a note obviously passed back and forth between her and Melody for days: “Don’t you think Jones Cooper is the cutest boy in school? No doubt! Let’s watch MTV after school today.”
She hated that she’d seen those things, hated that she’d touched them. She could barely stand to ask herself how they’d gotten in her mother’s attic. Who had put them there?
In the master bath, she ran the shower, stripped off her clothes, and got beneath the scalding hot stream. She let it soak her hair and beat on her shoulders. She took the shower gel on the ledge, squeezed it onto a loofah, and started scrubbing her body, hard, hard enough to hurt. She wanted to clean it all off her, to shed the skin she was in. She couldn’t name everything she felt-anger, fear, the siren song of denial luring her from instinctive dread. It could be some bizarre coincidence that had led those missing pieces of evidence to come to rest in her mother’s attic-Elizabeth and Jones both ignorant of their presence. Couldn’t it?
Does Jones ever talk about it? Melody had asked. It was such a strange question, staying with her, tugging at her pant leg for attention. And then there were Elizabeth’s words to Ricky: She was already dead when he found her. God, what did that mean?
But worse than even those things was the image she had of Jones last night-his frantic search of their son’s room, the things he’d said. Anyone is capable of anything, given the right circumstances, the right motivations.
The water couldn’t be hot enough; she was light-headed in the steam, her skin was red and raw. But in the solitude, she could weep. She’d barely held herself together in the car, but now she let it all out, knowing she couldn’t be heard.
She found herself remembering what it was like to be in love with Jones. Not the kind of love they shared now. But the kind of breathless, helpless, anxious, ravenous in love with him she’d been after her father’s funeral. Her passion was a burning city, a five-alarmer that raged out of control beside the cavern of her grief for her father. It was a distraction that kept her psyche busy, that kept her from wallowing in the sorrow of loss.
She knew by their second date-he came into the city and took her to dinner at Joe Allen and they saw Cats, even though she’d already seen it-that she was going to marry him. He seemed uncomfortable, the way out-of-towners always do in the city-looking around at people who seem more glamorous than they can ever hope to be, overwhelmed by the sound, the lights, the masses of people. She liked that about him, that he was humble, that he was willing to be out of his element to be with her. She was so used to the arrogance of the men she met here; they all seemed imbued with a sense of self-importance just because they were New Yorkers. She already loved the earthy smell, the salty taste of him, the thickness of his powerful body. It was more than lust; it was hunger.
“Why didn’t you leave The Hollows?” she said.
It was loud in the restaurant. A big party of tourists beside them was celebrating something-lots of raucous laughter and clinking glasses.
He shook his head, took a sip of the red wine he was drinking. Even then, he knew a lot about wines. He’d chosen a bottle of Chianti Riserva from Montepulciano. And she knew to be impressed, even as she wondered how much it cost.
“I couldn’t really,” he said. A chorus of laughter erupted beside them.
“Your mother. She was ill.”
“Yeah.” He looked down at his glass. “That was part of it.”
That’s when she saw it, the shadow. It flashed over his face and was gone in a heartbeat. But she saw it, how he went dark at the mention of his mother. She knew a little bit about Abigail from things Elizabeth had told her, how she’d kick up a fuss every time Jones needed to be in an away game, how she’d keep him home when she was feeling low and then write him a sick note, how she’d harass his teachers if she thought he was being treated unfairly. That woman is a piece of work, Elizabeth would complain.
“But it was more that I just couldn’t imagine myself living outside The Hollows.”
“You feel like you belong there.”
“More like I don’t belong anyplace else.”
After the play, they stood on the sidewalk as throngs of people pushed around them and started hunting for taxis. There was an awkward moment, when he looked up at the buildings and she stared at the folded Playbill in her hand.
“I parked in a lot a few blocks from here,” he said. He turned to point uptown. During the performance, they’d held hands. And then he’d started doing this lovely thing after intermission. He’d reached over with his other hand and stroked her arm, in soft, slow circles. Something about it built a heat inside her; there were moments when she could barely focus on anything else. “Do you want to get a drink?”
“Take me home, Jones.”
Did they take a cab, a subway? Did they go to his car? Now she couldn’t remember. All she remembered was taking him back to her tiny one-bedroom apartment. She remembered him kissing her neck as she unlocked the door. Once inside, her bag and their coats were shed to the floor. An ambulance wailed past her window, filling the apartment with light and sound.
“I haven’t felt this way about anyone,” he said. “Not like this… in so long. Maybe never, Maggie.”
She’d imagined him with a parade of women-the prom queens of the world, all throwing themselves at him, as they always did in high school. But those girls with so much apparent promise were just housewives and mothers now, married to other men who commuted to the city to work at banks and firms. She’d seen them all at her father’s funeral. There was nothing wrong with them; they all seemed lovely, normal, satisfied in their lives. But that luminosity that had been afforded by their youthful prettiness, their palpable coolness, was gone. It surprised her to discover that Jones was lonely. It surprised her more to discover that she was lonely, too. She realized that her passion was always spent on her studies and her work.
“I haven’t, either,” she said.
She didn’t remember the details of their lovemaking, but what she did remem
ber about that night was an overwhelming feeling of happiness and relief, a soul-deep sense of satisfaction, of homecoming.
It seemed like so long ago. It was. And the years, the lifetime, between then and now were a patchwork of good and bad days, failures and successes, joys and disappointments-like every life that isn’t derailed by catastrophe or tragedy, however gigantic or mundane. Somehow the things she’d found in the attic-even though she didn’t know how they’d come to be there or who had put them there-made her feel as if it all lay upon a rotting foundation. She felt as if she might be about to step through the floorboards of her life.
As she turned off the water, she thought about something Jones had said on their wedding night. It was something that came back to her often, filling her with a sense of deep warmth for her husband. She remembered it when she was angry at him, during times when she felt like they couldn’t be further apart, and it never failed to fill her with the same pleasure, the same thrill it had given her the first time he uttered it.
He said, “Maggie. You saved me.”
Only now, nearly two decades later, did she wonder what he’d meant.
26
He mostly talked. He talked about his mother, about his father, about how he’d always felt like a loser, an outcast.
Without the usual mask of black makeup, Charlene looked about twelve. She sat curled up on Maggie’s couch, wearing sweatpants and an old black T-shirt, clutching a pillow against her center. Her hair was freshly washed, pulled back with a barrette in a girlish way. Maggie had the urge to hold her.
“Once he asked me to sing while he masturbated.”
She looked up at Maggie with a flat stare, as if daring her to be shocked.
“And how did that make you feel?”
She blew a breath out of her nose. Charlene was going for jaded, unaffected, but Maggie could see her hands shaking.
“It made me sick.” She spat the last word. “But you know what’s weird? Part of me was, like, flattered. Does that make me a freak? I mean, I was tied up in a boat. Tied up, you know, singing, while this asshole spanks the monkey, and I was thinking, Wow, he really likes my songs.”