Marc opted to continue searching for Agnes. He decided now was a good time to check the upstairs bedroom to find her trap door escape hatch, and where it led. As he made his way up the stairs he saw Richardson walk past the base of the stairs with a few bags of his own. He heard him kiss Jacqueline and say, “Did Daddy and Mommy deliver? Best Christmas ever!” Marc slipped into Agnes’s room and closed the door, just in time to drown out the sound of Monroe throwing a fit because the wi-fi password wasn’t working.
Marc felt silence inflate around him, which came as a welcome relief to all the commotion downstairs. He’d have to leave for the airport in a few hours, and he was aware that he’d most likely be leaving with more questions than answers, but any mysteries that could be solved quickly would at least give him something to work with as he puzzled over what happened to and with Agnes.
The closet door was still open, and everything appeared to be as he left it. Now he could be more methodical. He removed everything that was on hangers and laid them out on the bed five or six at a time. When there was only a bare closet rod left, he moved on to the cubbies. They were light enough to just lift out of the closet and set aside, which was much easier with the room to himself. The closet was empty from the clothes rod down to the floor.
Marc knelt and ran his fingers all along the walls. All he felt was clammy drywall. The textured surface tingled against his palms, but he didn’t see or feel any variations to suggest a way through. He looked down at the floor and saw that a patch of beige carpet had been laid into the closet, not at all matching the bedroom floor, but no doubt used anyway on the assumption that the closet doors would be kept closed.
He pried up a corner of the thin carpeting, and pulled it up and away from the floor, like a magician’s flourish. At last, the reveal, he thought. The revelation proved to be plywood flooring. He tossed the carpet piece aside and felt around on the floor for something, anything. All he found was a splinter in his right ring finger. He made a tch sound and yanked out the splinter.
Defeated, if only temporarily, He thought through the course of events that led to this dissection of the closet. What if Agnes hadn’t actually gone into the closet, which was really weird, even for her, and because Jacqueline wasn’t really paying attention, she fooled her into thinking she did? What if she had crouched down close to the door and slipped out when Marc came in? He knew he wasn’t the most observant guy in the world, especially when he was angry. Classic misdirection: he went in, Agnes went out, and left him crawling around on the floor like a sucker. And like Jacqueline said, Agnes blended in.
He sighed and laid the carpet patch back onto the closet floor, then put the cubbies back, then all the clothing on hangers, five or six at a time. After surveying his handiwork, He turned to leave the bedroom when he saw his father standing in the doorway.
“Doing some remodeling, son?”
Marc was startled and felt a twinge of guilt for rummaging around in his sister’s bedroom without permission. “Oh, uh, no… I was trying to find Agnes.”
Father cocked an eyebrow. “I’d-a thought you two were a bit old for hide and seek.”
“Well, you know… I, uh, guess not. Have you seen her lately?”
Father shook his head slightly. “Not since yesterday. Well, she was asleep when we left this morning, but… well, let’s just say yesterday and leave it at that.”
“Okay, Dad.” He was eager to leave it at that.
Father turned to leave and paused. “Find any skeletons in there, son?” He gave a sly wink.
“I sure didn’t, Dad.” Marc laughed sheepishly.
“Well, that’s good. I’d hate to think my daughter didn’t have a future in politics.”
Marc laughed, a little too much. Father went to his bedroom, and Marc paused outside of Gracie’s bedroom and considered knocking. Time was running out, and he’d be on a plane sooner than he’d like. Something made him think better of it, and he went back downstairs and into the front room. There he was greeted with the sight of Millie wearing a tiara. As best as he could tell, it was encrusted with diamonds. The sunlight streaming through the front window gave it a dazzling glow. Prisms danced on the walls as Millie moved her head.
He couldn’t restrain himself. “Uh, what, now?”
Millie looked up from her laptop, beaming proudly. Before Marc could say anything, he felt wind at his back. Gracie stood beside him, slack jawed, then tense, her fists balling up at her sides.
“Are you effing kidding me?”
CHAPTER 10: DEPARTURE
The rest of Marc’s holiday visit was a blur. Jacqueline and the rest of the royal Winsteads mostly circled their wagons, occasionally acknowledging other people, especially when the kids wanted to show off their laptops or some other trinket.
Gracie fumed but didn’t engage with them. She retreated to the TV room and sulked in her father’s recliner.
Agnes remained invisible, not that anyone inquired as to her absence.
Mother cleaned up after everyone else in the kitchen. Glasses clinked as they were rinsed out in the sink and placed into the dishwasher, followed by bowls, silverware, and a few coffee mugs.
Father spent some time upstairs resting before preparing to shuttle Marc to the airport.
Marc filtered into the kitchen. “Hey, Mom.”
Mother looked up from her housework. “Good afternoon.”
“Have you seen Agnes?”
She smiled and closed the dishwasher door. “Not since yesterday, why?”
Marc took a breath. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to have this conversation, when suddenly the words just spilled out of him. “Has… uh, has she been acting… strangely lately?”
Mother looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shook her head as if she couldn’t remember where she had left the house keys since she had used them last. “I don’t believe so. Strangely how?”
“Well, she, uh, had some kind of episode this morning.”
She looked concerned. “Episode? Like a seizure?”
He felt foolish, not really being well armed for this line of inquiry. “Maybe. I don’t know. We were talking this morning, then she got really… strange, and then she passed out.”
“Oh dear. Did you call an ambulance? Is she okay? Where is she?” Mother tossed a dish towel aside and began to walk toward Marc.
He held up his hands. “She’s, uh… Agnes is missing, Mom.”
Mother stopped suddenly and looked up at Marc. “Missing?”
“Yeah. I told her to explain what was wrong with her and she went to her bedroom and, well, this sounds ridiculous, but she disappeared.”
She gave him a perplexed look. “Disappeared? What are you saying, Marc, are you saying Agnes vanished into thin air right before your eyes?”
“No, and that’s what’s so stupid. Jacqueline says Agnes went into her closet, and when I opened the door to get her to come out of there she was gone.”
“Gone?”
“And I feel really dumb for asking this, Mom, but this house doesn’t have… secret… passageways, does it? That you know of?”
Mother looked up at his face with a blend of pity and disappointment. “That’s enough of that, Marc. Where’s your sister?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mom, she’s not here.”
“Well then, where is she? She doesn’t drive, she didn’t get a ride with any of us, so where did she go? Did you check for footprints in the snow? This was hardly a thorough investigation, was it, dear?” She lightly tapped his cheek with her palm and left the room.
Marc was crestfallen. He called after her, “I’m serious, Mom.”
“Of course you are, dear.”
He cursed his terrible decision making and wandered off to the TV room. He found Gracie sitting in Father’s recliner, with her knees pulled up to her chin, watching and not watching random snippets of each cable channel, one by one. Click. A home improvement show, preparing to install a new kitchen island. Click. Pet
ticoat Junction for a fleeting moment. Click. Contestants being told what their next Impossible Cooking challenge was. Click.
Marc sat down softly on the TV room sofa and watched the images appear and disappear in rapid succession. He tried to just roll with Gracie’s channel surfing binge, but after a short time he couldn’t stand the flakiness of the television and turned his attention instead to his sister, crunched up on the recliner and staring ahead at the television, remote aimed at the cable box, and pressing the same button over and over.
This wasn’t going to be his best family visit, he surmised, let alone the best family Christmas. Time was almost up, and he could hear Father starting to make rumblings to the effect of going out to warm up the car.
“Hey, Gracie.” She stared straight ahead and didn’t flinch at the sound of his voice. “I, uh, I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together this weekend. I’ll try for a long weekend in the spring, like around Easter. I hope you’re doing okay.” She said nothing. Marc pulled out his cell phone and glanced at the time: Fifteen minutes until he had to be on the road. “I’ve, uh, got to get ready to roll out of here. Are you gonna be okay?” She said nothing. He stood up and held his arms out toward his brooding sister. “Can I get a goodbye hug?” Gracie said nothing, but she put the TV remote down and got up from the recliner. She walked robotically into her brother’s waiting embrace and she hesitantly reached up and patted his back, listlessly. He gave her a few pats and said, “Call me, okay?”
Gracie said nothing. She pulled away and got back up on the recliner, pointing the TV remote straight ahead. Click. Click. Click.
Father looked in on them. “Ready to go, sport?”
“Just a sec, Dad. I’ve got to grab my things.” Marc jogged away to retrieve his duffel bag. In short order, he was dressed for the journey back to Chicago. He said his goodbyes to everybody except Father, who was driving him to the airport, and Agnes, who remained missing. Gracie did not emerge from the TV room to see him off.
Marc looked back wistfully at his childhood home, hoping Gracie would step out onto the front stoop to say goodbye. Agnes was a close second. He’d settle for a simple “Gotcha!” and leave it at that until the next time he and Gracie spoke by phone.
He and Father sat in silence for the bulk of the drive to the airport. Marc was most at ease talking to Gracie, but in her absence, he would need to explore every avenue in his quest for answers about Agnes, and her strange disappearance. He cleared his throat and looked over at his father, who looked straight ahead and drove along confidently. “Uh, Dad, has Agnes been acting strangely lately?”
Father frowned. “No, I can’t say that she has, why?”
“I’m worried about her.”
Father shot him a brief glance. “Oh? Is something the matter?”
Marc shook his head. “I’m not sure. She… well, I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but she passed out earlier today after having some sort of episode.”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed anything like that, but come to think of it, she seems to have lost a lot of weight this year. Maybe she’s not eating enough.”
Marc cursed himself inwardly for not commenting on that when he and Agnes were having an actual conversation. He started to inhale to ask another question, when the airport exit came into view.
“Which airline are you taking, again?”
“ARCTURUS Air.” Marc wondered if there was anything that company didn’t do. He watched the departures area creep closer through the windshield.
Father whistled as he pulled up to the curb. “Here we are.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Marc exited the car, then pulled his duffel bag out of the back seat. He slammed both doors and gave a wave. Father waved back, and then was waved along by an overzealous security guard.
Four hours later, Marc emerged from the jet bridge into Terminal B at Midway airport in Chicago. Marc’s flight home had been uneventful, as flights go: Some turbulence toward the end, and then a solid landing, to everyone’s relief—enough to warrant a sitting ovation from the passengers.
He took a cab home, not wanting to mess around with the rideshares that late at night. That was uneventful too, as cab rides go. The cab driver rarely spoke, except to confirm the destination address and to ask if Marc wanted to put his duffel in the trunk. He declined.
The only other morsel of conversation came at the intersection of Cicero Avenue and the Stevenson expressway. The cab driver waited for the light to change, then made a head-shake gesture to the right of the car. “Homeless people gone.”
Marc looked up from the text he was sending to Gracie letting her know he made it home safely. “Pardon?”
“Homeless. All gone from here.”
Marc shrugged.
The cabbie looked over his shoulder. “You know, bums.”
Marc nodded. “Huh.” He didn’t frequent the Midway area enough to know if that was conversation-starter material. He kept his focus on his phone for the remainder of the drive home to signal his disinterest in small talk.
He was back in his apartment shortly thereafter, and the familiar surroundings felt cold and uninviting. He tossed his keys aside and dead-bolted the door behind him. He had to be at work early on Monday, which was going to be a bear after a whirlwind trip out to his childhood home, especially after lying in bed recounting the strange events from earlier in the day, which now seemed a century ago and a million miles away. He stared up at the darkness gathering around the ceiling and sorted through his thoughts. Where had Agnes gone? Why had she acted so strangely, then passed out, and then refused to explain anything? Why was everyone so damn okay with her being gone without a trace?
Well, that last part was easy, he reasoned. Even he was guilty of not being particularly invested in the day-to-day affairs of his slightly younger sister, that is, relative to Gracie who was the baby of the bunch, chronologically speaking. On the other hand, Agnes did something unusual, even downright scary, and that didn’t warrant much more than the occasional cocked eyebrow or shoulder shrug from anyone else?
Marc felt guilt wash over him as he recounted the myriad ways that he ignored Agnes in the past, only to now come off as an excitable fool the moment she turned up missing. Maybe it was some sort of cruel prank, played by the others. Maybe Jacqueline conspired to hide Agnes from him, played dumb when he asked where she was, and impressed everyone by keeping a poker face while Marc crawled around in vain looking for trap doors and secret passages as if they lived in some Medieval castle, where the probability might have been much higher, that is, if movies were at all to be believed.
Marc covered his eyes with the crook of his left elbow and tried to force himself to get some sleep. Before drifting off, he said to the darkness, “I’m sorry, Agnes.”
The darkness did not reply.
CHAPTER 11: MONDAY
Morning came much too soon, as predicted, and Marc found himself swilling coffee and pulling himself together for the work day. He rolled his eyes at the thought of racing into the office when it was going to be a virtual ghost town all week. The last week of the year was the worst, if you hadn’t saved up any vacation time for the occasion. Marc hurried out the door and was quickly on his way to the office, thankful for the lighter traffic load.
Marc plopped down at his desk at 7:58 A.M. and looked around at the empty desks. Never mind the homeless people that cab driver was talking about, the office people were gone too—well, mostly. Right around 8:15 he heard rustlings in Shay’s cubicle. Marc decided to top off his coffee in the break room and stopped by to say hello. “Hiya, Shay. How was your holiday?”
Shay looked up from her rolling computer bag and held her laptop in midair momentarily, brightening up at the sight of him. Christmas cards were pinned all over her cubicle walls, and word art announcing, “Have a blessed day” surrounded the space that was about to be occupied by her computer. “It was good, Marc, thanks for asking. Did you have a blessed Christmas as well? Didn’t you go see y
our family? Was it good?”
“Uh, yeah, I did. They’re good… everyone’s okay,” he lied.
“That’s good.” Shay stuck various cords into her laptop and flipped it open. Soon her monitor flickered to life and displayed the company logo before proceeding to the desktop, littered with icons. The desktop wallpaper was the word #BLESSED in brush script.
“Yeah, it was a short trip, but it was good to see everybody.”
She nodded approvingly. “That’s good.”
He started to step away to head over to the break room, then stopped momentarily to add one more thing. “My niece got a diamond tiara.”
Shay’s eyes widened. “She did what? No, she didn’t.” She laughed. “Oh, my goodness, Marc, that’s so precious.”
Preciously obnoxious, he thought. He held up his coffee mug and smiled. “Need a refill. So not ready for Monday.”
“No, definitely not. I don’t do Mondays, Marc.” She laughed.
He headed off to the coffee station with the soft tick-a-tick-a-tick-a of Shay typing away on the laptop.
Marc didn’t mention it to many people, except on rare occasions and never at work. Shay was in fact known in a former life as Klye’shaye, the one-hit wonder known for “We Playin’ (or What)”. She went from obscurity to collecting her fifteen minutes of fame, and after tiring of the grind of milking one song for all it was worth she retired into the appreciably less glamorous world of business analysis.
Every so often Marc would hear “We Playin’ (or What)” somewhere, such as on the overhead speakers in a department store while he searched for jeans that fit. It was hard to reconcile that the same woman who provides the weekly variance summary report used to fill arenas.
Occasionally she would agree to come out of retirement, usually for charity events or church festivals, tailoring the song as “We Prayin’ (or What)”. The remainder of the year she was just Shay the BA, apparently content to figure out how to paste formulas into spreadsheets.
Work dragged, not only for being a Monday but being the mid-holiday Dead Zone. Marc wondered why he couldn’t just have the week off as something like a Christmas bonus—his company didn’t award any—and be spared the agony of surfing the internet all day while wearing business casual clothing when he could just as easily do that at home in relaxed casual clothing and much more comfortable surroundings.
The Spaces Between Us Page 5