Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  She desperately wanted a drink but fought it off. At first she’d thought marijuana maintenance was an AA joke, but it had become her saving grace. Not that she could tell anyone about it.

  Her father’s glasses, that’s what she would put first.

  The house itself. She could hole up here, send the kids to the local schools. They’d love that, huh? All three of them alone then, with no friends.

  Like any whim, it dissolved when it hit reality. Her choices were simple: stay and make the best of it, or leave and start all over again.

  She licked her lips, the taste like a rich spice on her tongue, overwhelming. She had gum in the glove compartment. When she thumbed the button, a tiny light came on behind the maps and repair bills. The foot well was a nest of Taco Bell garbage, the van a fucking mess—another mark against her. She hadn’t had time to deal with it. Tomorrow, she thought, already arguing against such a waste of vacation. It was going to rain anyway.

  The gum was old and hard to get going but then spread its sweetness through her mouth, behind the castlelike battlements of her teeth, under her tongue. The Wrigley family came to Chautauqua. There was a real Mr. Hershey too, and she saw them walking in some formal garden of a mansion, a gravel path between rosebushes, two turn-of-the-century tycoons with canes and swallowtail jackets. That should have been her life. Instead she was getting stoned in a piece-of-shit minivan, her husband probably boffing his little girlfriend this minute.

  “Asshole.”

  It was like a mantra, holding off any real thought of him. And he was an asshole.

  She sat back and felt the gum squishing, resisting her teeth. From the dock came laughter, and then footsteps, the planks shaking. The seat was low enough to hide her; she poked her head up, her nose resting on the thinly padded sill of the window.

  It was just Ken and Lise. Ken had a pair of beer bottles, and Lise had her arms crossed over a folded blanket. They stopped in the yard and kissed deliberately, silhouetted in the frame of the Wisemans’ oaks, the lake silver behind them, a Hallmark card, and though she wanted to duck down so she’d be hidden, she watched them until they finished and walked hand in hand to the kitchen door and inside. He still relied on Lise, still needed her in the simplest way. She wanted someone who needed her like that. Even Justin had learned to go to Sarah when she wasn’t feeling well.

  They’d kissed right in front of her, and she felt jealous the way she’d been as a teenager, hurt that she wasn’t the one in love, the loved one. She was too old for this shit.

  “Exactly,” she said. That was the problem right there.

  She found the lever and flipped the seat up, quietly got out and walked to the dock. Halfway to the boat, she noticed wet footprints—not shoes but toes and heels, the insteps missing. By the ladder they were almost solid. They’d been skinny-dipping. She would have gone if they’d asked her.

  They didn’t want her there.

  “Duh,” she said, like Sarah.

  She thought of shucking her clothes and diving in, but it was too shallow, and there was no point doing it alone. She did enough things alone.

  She turned and headed back toward shore, the lights of the house drawing her on. Five things. Her mind emptied after the glasses. There were five of them, but her mother would think she was making fun of her, ridiculing something she held dear. It was her father’s memory they were all paying tribute to. Something of his, she thought, something he loved.

  The boat was gone, and the TV. Ken would get his tools. She’d inherited his love of scotch, that should count.

  Maybe the glasses would be enough. She would come up with some obvious choices to placate her mother. A dresser, an end table. She’d ask Sarah and Justin if they wanted anything.

  The door to the garage was open, and she closed it. She took the kids’ suits and towels off the line and brought them inside, still damp. Only one lamp was on in the living room, and the radio was off, Rufus escaped to her mother’s room, crashed on one of the braided rugs. Upstairs the sink was running, Ken and Lise getting ready for bed. It wasn’t even eleven yet.

  What would they say if she went out to a bar, got in the car and hit the Snug Harbor Lounge, came home plowed and shouting? She could let herself get picked up—but here the fantasy ended, turned into a sermon, that AA training kicking in, and the memory of several ridiculous nights, rooms like nightmares, men she would have never slept with sober, drives home she didn’t remember, torturous mornings listening to Jeff’s accusations, some of them true. Easy does it, you bet.

  She looked in the fridge and then remembered the ice cream, stopping to spit her gum out before she served herself. Spooning it into a dish, she noticed her mother’s goofy salt and pepper shakers and thought they were being asked to do the same thing—reclaim some lost part of themselves and pretend it had never left.

  It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t; the world just wasn’t like that.

  She took her ice cream into the living room and sat on the couch. The water had stopped upstairs, leaving only her spoon tapping against the dish. When she was done, she rinsed her bowl and spoon and fit them into the dishwasher, gave the counter a light wipe-down, locked the doors and turned out the lights—all calmly, precise, her steps measured as a valet’s. For the first time all day, she felt useful, human again.

  14

  The rain woke Sam up, thumping like something running across the roof. A pressure insistent as a pinch told him he had to pee, the water flogging the roof only confirmed it. Justin was asleep with his mouth open. The girls were lumps. Someone had turned the fan off. He left his warm sleeping bag, guided by the night-light beside the bathroom door.

  The heat lamp in the ceiling made everything red, like he was in an oven. He sat on the toilet, staring at the glass knobs of the vanity, the light making everything look strange, his toes barely touching the cold floor. It was so quiet he could hear what he was doing through the rain, the stream interrupted by one plop, then another.

  When he couldn’t get anything else out, he wiped himself the way his father showed him, folding the paper in squares, then did an extra one to make sure. At home when he left streaks in his underwear they lectured him, his mother pretending she wasn’t mad, but once he’d overheard her emptying his hamper, stopping dead and saying very clearly, “Not again.” He’d hidden in the basement with his Nintendo, and later his father had talked with him, shown him the trick of folding the paper over. Sam didn’t tell him it didn’t always work. Sometimes when it didn’t, he buried his underwear in the bathroom garbage can. Sometimes to be safe he didn’t wear any.

  Silently he put the lid down, then turned to the window. He was sure he would see someone standing in the dark side yard, a man in a suit and tie like Grandpa at the funeral, not moving, just standing there looking up at him.

  There was nothing, just the grass, the leaves waving and slick with rain.

  He shut the light off and opened the door at the same time. There was someone in front of him.

  He froze, waited for the shadow to fall on him, consume him whole.

  A hand reached out of the dark and gently touched his head, as if to soothe him.

  “It’s just me,” said Aunt Margaret. “Go to sleep.”

  She passed above him like a ship, trailing a warm scent, shutting the door behind her. The edges glowed red. He burrowed into his bag, waiting for her to return, his face aimed at the door, but then he and Ella were in a canoe on this river in the jungle and there were rocks everywhere and something to do with a book and a compass, and yet he was still waiting for Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret was beautiful, that’s why they were in the canoe. She had put her hand on his head, passed so close he could smell her perfume. In the morning he would remember it like a dream.

  Monday

  1

  Emily had asked Kenneth to remind her last night about the garbage, but it must not have been important enough, because here she was, pursued by Rufus, going through the downstairs emptying out the
sticky wastebasket in the bathroom and the woven wicker one under the gateleg table and the nasty kitchen trash as well. He was like his father, he could never take a hint. Or was it just male stubbornness? Men acted so put-upon whenever you asked them to do the littlest task, as if they were taking on chores you were supposed to do.

  “Please stop following me,” she told Rufus, and he slunk under the table, turned twice and sank down with a bony thunk, still looking to her for instructions, or forgiveness.

  She dragged the trash out the kitchen door and into the rain. The screen swung shut too fast, and the bag caught on a sharp corner, jerking her back, a cold drop falling down her collar. “Come on, you thing,” she said, and tugged. It let go, a white hole appearing in its skin, a balled tissue peeking through. It was bad enough that it was raining without this kind of nonsense.

  She needed to get herself organized. She still had to run last night’s dishes, and there was that postcard for Louise Pickering she needed to get out today, otherwise it wouldn’t arrive until she was back home, and that was no fun.

  On her way to the garage, she recognized the shearing squeal of a power saw and the gunlike report of hammer blows echoing from the Smiths’ new addition. It was larger than the cottage and blotted out what had been a lovely view from the road. The permit had been a bitter fight among the homeowners’ association. It was one more reason the Lerners were leaving, and a small but nagging factor in her own decision to sell. Manor Drive wasn’t what it was when Henry had first brought her here.

  She had her old tennies on so she was careful on the stones, and opened the door all the way before pulling the bag through. She pushed the wheeled garbage can and found there was something in it. A bungee cord threaded through the handle on top protected it from raccoons. She unhooked the cord and popped the lid to find a bag from last year, dark liquid pooled in the folds; the winelike smell made her turn away and clap the lid down. She swallowed a large breath, set the lid aside, muscled the new bag up and in, then clamped the top on again.

  She had to step outside a second. “Good God,” she said, ignoring the drops falling all around her. Kenneth was probably still asleep. The children would be down any second, needing breakfast. She could make corn cakes from last night’s leftovers. The idea appealed to her. Though they had the rest of the week, she didn’t see how they would eat everything in the fridge.

  She unlocked the garage door and rolled it up, creaking in its steel track, then tugged the handle of the can. It was more bulky than heavy, and easy to roll, at least until she cleared the concrete apron and bumped onto the sodden grass. Her tennies were smooth and she had to take baby steps. Rufus watched her, dry behind the kitchen door.

  The Wisemans had their can out, which reassured her. She rolled hers around the mailbox, out onto the hard, glossy road, then backed it into the grass and left it there, her hands suddenly unburdened, her first task of the day crossed off. How strange that she still took satisfaction from such mundane things. They just had to be done all over again—but not this one. This really was the last time she would take the can to the curb.

  There would be time to get maudlin later. Back in Pittsburgh there was nothing but time. Again, the notion of inviting Margaret and the children to come and live in the house with her flashed and died without residue. Stupid, not what Margaret wanted. They would be at each other’s throats in no time.

  The idea that she had been in real trouble and hadn’t told her hurt. It was just one of a list of things Emily needed to say to her. With the rain, she might not get the chance.

  What a gray, dismal day, the lake choppy and mouse-colored beneath the trees, mist out on the water. She hurried back to the kitchen as fast as her tennies let her. Rufus pranced behind the screen door.

  “What is it?” she asked, wiping her shoes on the mat. “I already fed you. Go lie down.”

  Before she got the dishwasher going, she went into the living room and listened to see if anyone was in the shower. The box of detergent was a green foil brick, clumped from the humidity. She had to bash it with the heel of her hand to fill the compartment. When she turned the machine on, it stalled, then kicked in with a solid knock.

  There was enough corn to make cakes for everybody, and syrup in the cupboard. She turned on the light over the cutting board. With the day so dark and the steamy thrum of the machine, it made the kitchen seem cozy. Living alone, she’d come to appreciate these brief, untroubled moments, fleeting as moods, delicate as spells. At home she cultivated them with the radio, with trips to the window, a cup of tea with cream, a favorite Dorothy Sayers, but more often they surprised her like this, needed only to be recognized for the treasure they were.

  She was suddenly inordinately proud of putting the garbage out by herself—realizing at the same time what an absurd figure she must have seemed. It wasn’t yet seven. The trash didn’t get picked up until noon.

  She held off turning on the radio until she’d sliced all the corn from the cobs, the thin white juice like milk on the cutting board. The flattened slabs and rows of kernels made her think of stuck-together puzzle pieces. If it rained like this all day, they would have to break out the board games, erect a card table and start one of the giant puzzles—Turner’s London Bridge in fog, a field of tulips under a windmill. The Jamestown station would have the weather. She moved the few steps to the radio by reflex, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

  She was just in time, an intrusive, unmusical tone noting the hour. A ticker-tape clicking introduced the lead story.

  “So far police have no leads in the case of a Sherman woman,” the announcer gravely enunciated, “abducted yesterday from a Mayville convenience mart.”

  The dish towel still in hand, Emily held both sides of the radio, leaned close to the louvered speaker hole, but the man told her nothing of value. Local and state officials were working together on the investigation, and then there was something about a crash on the Southern Tier, traffic backed up for miles, a driver taken by LifeFlight helicopter.

  She made sure to get the weather—intermittent rain today and tomorrow, Wednesday a mix of sun and clouds with a chance of showers. Basically they weren’t sure.

  Maybe there was something on TV. She zipped into the living room, Rufus right behind her.

  The set took forever to warm, and then the only channel she could get had a national wake-up show on, a man and woman sitting in plush armchairs surrounded by flowers. As if summoned, the boys thundered down the stairs. She clicked it off so they wouldn’t put on a video.

  “All right,” she said. “Who wants corn cakes?”

  “Me!” Justin said.

  “What’s in them?” Sam asked, looking worried.

  “Liver,” she said, “and brussels sprouts.”

  “No.”

  “What do you think is in them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Here,” she said, “if you don’t like them, we can give them to Rufus, how’s that?”

  “Okay,” Sam said, and she wasn’t sure if he was serious or joking. He was an odd little thing. She knew Kenneth worried about him. There’d been that trouble at school, and then the guidance counselor suggesting he be tested, and Lisa refusing, a whole soap opera that went nowhere.

  But the woman. That was the danger in the morning, other people’s business impinging on yours, cluttering up your mind. In the kitchen, she remembered word for word what the radio had said. Abducted. And Kenneth the first to discover her gone. The police would probably want to talk to him again. They would have to get a paper, find out who she was.

  The dishwasher ground on, cycling higher. The window above the sink was beginning to steam up. Outside, the Wisemans’ oaks flailed; on their dock, the Indians flag stood rigid in the wind, the lake pitching with whitecaps, dishwater gray. It was a day to stay inside, to cuddle up under a blanket and read by a warm light. Who knew with Chautauqua weather. It could be sunny by lunchtime.

  While the griddle warmed, she st
irred the batter. Arlene came in, wearing the same sweater as last night, and asked if she needed any help. Emily freed her to go have her first cigarette of the day, standing like an exile under the chestnut. The butter sizzled, filling the kitchen with a sharp, salty smell. She wished there were bacon for the boys. She’d tell Kenneth to get some, but she knew she’d forget, and started another list. Milk, bacon.

  The butter had disappeared, only a lick of smoke curling up. She spooned the batter onto the hot griddle and stood there, spatula in hand, not yet watching the edges, just standing there, time passing around her. She wouldn’t miss the old Westinghouse with its untrustworthy burners, the clock that hadn’t worked since the mid-seventies, the broiler that cut out without warning. She loved food but despised cooking. It was something Henry—having never been expected to feed anyone—never understood in her.

  This was different, a gift, though she supposed she did still worry about meals. At home the clock nagged her, said she needed to eat something even when she wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was the lake, or summer, but she was ravenous.

  Arlene opened the door, letting in a cold rush of wind. She returned her lighter to the windowsill; she had another on the screenporch for easy access.

  “I found out what happened,” Emily said.

  “What happened to whom?”

  “At the gas station yesterday.”

  She checked the cakes; they were ready. While she started another pair, she told Arlene what she’d heard on the radio.

  “Interesting” was all Arlene said, as if she didn’t care.

  “I thought it was, someone out there kidnaping people in broad daylight.”

  “I’m sure there’s a whole story behind it they’re not telling.” Arlene rooted in the fridge for her orange juice.

  “I’m sure,” Emily agreed, but somehow Arlene had made any speculation unappetizing, killed it with her teacher’s deadening objectivity.