Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  His father would have never taken them to the movies by himself. Maybe to the drive-in on a Saturday night, the whole family going, his mother making popcorn at home to take in a cookie tin. He could envision his father at the wheel, a seed of light trapped in his glasses, an indistinct picture flashing on the screen. Ken had passed the place ten years ago, and even then it was overgrown with weeds, the fence around it falling down. Now it was supposed to be part of a mall, the field of speaker poles harvested and paved over. It was like the Putt-Putt, another lost monument to his imaginary happy childhood. That time had solidified, become history, and yet he could bring back conversations at the dinner table, Meg jumping from her seat and running upstairs, slamming her door while her napkin uncurled on top of her mashed potatoes.

  “Do you know what her problem is?” his father asked, as if he had no clue—as if there were an answer—and then his mother (after hesitating, waiting to see if he’d do it) would get up and remove the napkin from Meg’s plate and rigidly cross the living room to the stairs and go up them slowly. Meg never came back down, and so this turned into a wordless ritual, quicker each time, less upsetting. The solution was to send Meg away to boarding school. After that, their dinners were uneventful.

  He could never think of sending Ella or Sam away from him—as if that made him a better father. He was too aware of his own shortcomings to criticize or even compare himself to anyone. He resented the movie, that its clumsy moralizing could make him rethink his own complicated life, yet provided no real help. He didn’t need Tracy Ann Caler to remind him of how precious his children were.

  They came over the rise that looked down on the bridge, and wind buffeted the 4Runner, turned the wheel in his hands. Up the lake, the clouds held a greenish tinge. It began raining harder—loud—and he had to click the wipers to high and lean forward so he could see. A splash of taillights flared. Rather than brake and risk hydroplaning, he took his foot off the gas. Hard drops battered the windshield, knocked the roof like marbles.

  “Whoa,” Sam said.

  Ken downshifted, keeping his eye on the lights. He was afraid they were going too fast, that the car was too large to stop if the guy ahead of him locked them up. He could pull off, but then his lights might be a target. The rain had to weaken eventually. He put the defrost on but all it did was dry out his eyes. He noticed that the girls had stopped talking, the silence a kind of alarm.

  Though he couldn’t pick out any landmarks, he knew they were coming downhill into the dip before going over 17 and past Hogan’s Hut. If he could see the turn for Hogan’s Hut, he’d take it and they could wait out the storm there. He imagined what it was like out on the lake. There were sure to be a few fishermen stuck in remote coves, bundled up in ponchos with only beer to keep them warm.

  He realized he needed to blink, and did.

  The car in front of him braked, and he braked. They were crawling along, doing less than twenty. He could see a second car ahead matching them. Another materialized, brighter. The double yellow line reappeared, and a black strip of sky. The rain softened, slackened, and the wipers were beating crazily. He turned them down. In the distance, a wave of thunder broke and rolled over the hills. Beside him, Sam thumbed on his Game Boy. The girls went back to reciting the best lines.

  He sat back and relaxed, the tension draining from his arms, bleeding through his fingers into the wheel. The cars ahead sped up, shedding mist. The road turned in a long curve, bottomed and climbed the far side of the dip. They were right where he’d thought they were, nearly to 17. It was still raining, but he could see now. They crossed the overpass and Hogan’s Hut floated by on their right, its pumps lit against the gloom, a red Pegasus flying in a white circle. He thought of Tracy Ann Caler standing behind the counter, sipping her coffee and listening to the radio. She must have had no idea what was happening.

  He thought he could have done something, but short of going back in time to warn her, he couldn’t imagine what that might have been. He could not have done that any more than he could revisit his father in the hospital and tell him he’d done a good job. The wish was pointless; it was just how he felt now. He wondered if his feelings for his father would change in the coming years, though his father himself would be absent from the process.

  As they passed the Book Barn he looked for Meg’s minivan but didn’t see it. Willow Run was deserted, a light on in the dumpy clubhouse. In overgrown yards sat scabby cottages losing their asbestos brick in patches, and then, heralded by a giant billboard, a lone model home, its yard neat as a green. The wrecks were more interesting. While they must have been here through his childhood, and in better shape, he didn’t remember them. The country seemed old to him, long gone to seed, like the Pittsburgh his father knew, a city of natty bankers and brawny steelworkers. It was a trick of memory, giving the past a solidity the present could only imitate.

  Part of it was vacation. The days were shapeless and bland, like today, taking the kids to the movies. It was just the rain, and having nothing to do. In Boston he’d be in his darkroom, satisfied to work in the quiet red light. Part of it was his father, he couldn’t deny it. For all its changes, Chautauqua seemed to belong to the past, brought those lost summers and everything in them closer.

  He and Lise still had to do their list. The thought of it annoyed him, wiped his mind clean. The idea of choosing a literal memento stumped him. He wanted all of it, none of it. It seemed more of a gesture than anything.

  The Snug Harbor Lounge had snagged a good-sized crowd, pickup trucks and an El Camino with a tarp parked on the grass.

  “Can we go by the fishponds?” Ella asked, and he took the first turn.

  The road was rough, a lumpy quilt of frost heaves and plugged potholes. They weren’t quite high enough to see the surface of the water. He pictured it stippled, a moil of black and white textured like the face of a planet. There was no point. He didn’t have the film or the light or the lens. He could cheat with the Nikon, but it would look mushy, and setting up would take forever. In back, the girls were laughing, and he shelved the thought before it could bother him, set it beside the list. Lise was right; he needed to take a break. He needed more than the Holga. He needed a whole new way of seeing. That wasn’t going to happen in a week.

  Morgan was always talking about things being organic, coming from the subject rather than being forced on it. Maybe he’d try to find that feeling he’d had at the Gas-n-Go. There was always the garage.

  Sam was still entranced by his Game Boy when they pulled up. His mother hadn’t taken the garbage can in. Arlene’s car was tucked under the chestnut, but Meg’s was gone. There were another two hours before dinner. He took the spot closest to the back door.

  “Be careful getting out because the grass is going to be slippery,” he announced, then waited to make sure their doors were closed.

  They piled inside the house, leaving him alone with the rain and the empty gray lake. A branch from the Wisemans’ oak lay across the dock, its leaves riffling in the wind. Suddenly he was tired, having delivered them, his mind fending off all thoughts, as if, now that the drive was over, he was shutting down. He wanted to lie on the couch, nothing else. He dragged the branch off the dock and left it in the grass.

  Inside, the kids were explaining the movies to his mother and Arlene, Rufus wagging his tail and nosing between their legs, begging for attention. He hung up his windbreaker and set the keys in a nut dish on the mantel—right beside an old Acushnet his father had put a smile in, who knew how long ago. The ball’s dimples were overlaid with crazing as if it were porcelain. In the bottom of the dish was a steel ball mark, the three cloverlike rings of Ballantine ale. Purity, Body, Flavor. He could see it cupped in his father’s large palm along with his keys and tees and change, could see his father set it down and stand back so Ken could read the green. “Take your time,” his father counseled, and Ken double-checked, made sure of the break. On those long, walking mornings, the two of them said little. His father had want
ed to teach him patience. Ken wasn’t sure he’d learned. He pinched the ball mark up and slipped it in his pocket, pretending to inspect the logs on the hearth. It wasn’t all pretending. Maybe he would build a fire later—another thing his father had taught him.

  His mother was asking the kids if they’d had fun. They crowded around her like a queen. “And did you all thank your Uncle Ken for taking you to the movies?”

  “Thank you, Uncle Ken!” they hollered, Sam pawing him obnoxiously, and he wished he had a picture of it.

  “You’re quite welcome,” he said.

  11

  In the Wal-Mart Meg came upon her own future.

  She and Lise had split the list. Lise had gone off to look for more Kool-Aid Koolers. Meg was trolling the automotive and hardware departments, searching for outboard oil, when a woman in a bright two-tone uniform popped out from around a corner and asked if she needed any help.

  The first thing she noticed was the woman’s skin, rucked and papery around her mouth, nearly pleated. She wasn’t old. Her long, dark hair was full and real, maybe the gray touched up a little. She was Meg’s age, but gaunt and drawn, her face dried and shriveled, seams deep as scars, that hollowed-out shell of the recovering alcoholic Meg had seen again and again in rehab, two- and three-time losers come back for another try at sobriety, worn down from the struggle. The booze weight came off, leaving just the weathered skin, stringy as beef jerky. Her eyes were watery and too large.

  “I’m looking for motor-engine oil,” Meg said. “I mean, outboard engine. For a boat.”

  It didn’t seem to register, but then a flare of recognition lit the woman’s face, as if her synapses needed the extra second to catch up.

  “That is gonna be … right …” She raised one finger and led the way to the next aisle, Meg reluctantly following—like Scrooge, she thought, but this spirit was already showing her what lay in store for her. She would eat up her savings to make the house payments, and without a degree this was the kind of job she’d end up getting.

  “Here!” the woman said cheerfully. “Anything else I can help you with today?”

  “No thank you,” Meg said, and then lingered there, fingering the plastic bottles as if choosing between brands. They only needed enough for the week.

  She beat Lise to the checkout and paid, then stood by the gumball machines waiting, sure she’d see the woman again.

  She didn’t. Lise returned with a flat of blue Koolers and they escaped.

  “It must be the water around here,” Lise said in the car. “Every time I go into that place there are more weird-looking people.”

  “I know,” Meg said.

  But the first thing she did when they got back was to go upstairs and close the bathroom door, turn on the light and lean over the sink and look at herself in the mirror.

  12

  Sam didn’t like the downstairs bathroom because too many people could hear you. He went upstairs, but Aunt Margaret was in there, and then while he was waiting for her, he noticed Sarah’s watch on the dresser. He moved away from it in case Aunt Margaret would think he wanted it. Their car was right under the windows. He could jump on it to escape and not break his legs.

  He didn’t say anything when Aunt Margaret came out, went invisible standing by the curtains. She saw him and stepped back, a hand on her heart.

  “Jesus,” she said, “don’t scare me like that. Next time say something, okay?”

  The bathroom smelled and the toilet was warm, and he thought that he was sitting right where she was. It made him feel strange, like he’d seen her naked.

  When he was done he flushed and put the lid down like his mother said to. He came out and looked around the room to make sure no one was hiding on him. He went to the dresser and picked up the watch, followed the stuttering orbit of its second hand. He cupped it against his ear, listened to it tick. He liked how small it was, how alive. Sarah didn’t even wear it. He hung it from his belt loop to see what it would look like. Downstairs, someone passed the door, and he put the watch back down on the dresser where he found it and turned away.

  No one came up. He stood in front of the dresser with his arms behind his back, looking down at the watch, the second hand clicking between the numbers. He watched it go around exactly a minute, then went downstairs.

  13

  At five the dip came out and the children attacked, dropping chips for Rufus, who was too stiff to ferret them from under the chairs. The boys ducked down and swept them free, and Rufus licked the floor until Emily told him to stop. Arlene stayed out of the way, tucked into one corner of the glider with her gin and tonic, the wind nipping through her sweater. Rain beaded the screens, tiny bright windows. The flags on the docks were soaked. The storm showed no sign of letting up, or letting go its grip on their conversation.

  The front wasn’t supposed to move until Wednesday, which was fine with Arlene. She’d spent a delicious afternoon with her book, at one point drifting off under the afghan, and now the clamor of the children seemed an imposition. She could retreat to her room, but that would be antisocial, and she felt she’d already segregated herself enough. She hoped it wasn’t noticeable.

  She genuinely liked spending time with her grandnieces and -nephews. In a way they were a substitute for her students, an echo of or link to her life’s work. But there were certain things about that world she didn’t miss, and noisy boys were one of them. Girls, in her experience, weren’t a problem. She couldn’t help but see the children through professional eyes, and she worried that it distanced her from them. When Margaret and Kenneth were little, they’d all lived in Pittsburgh and saw one another weekly, so they were familiar. This was different. At most they saw one another one week of the summer and one major holiday. Arlene sent them birthday cards and bought them savings bonds, but occasionally she realized that she knew little about them personally. For their part, they seemed wary of her, if not mistrustful. It was Emily’s attention they wanted, Emily they asked to play Monopoly. She supposed it was the lot of an aunt, a great-aunt, but couldn’t help feeling slighted, her simplest feelings hurt.

  “Did I tell you about my toad?” Emily asked the porch at large. “Well,” she said, and launched into the story.

  She told it as if she’d discovered gold by the road. The boys wanted to catch the toad. They went out in the rain and looked at the edge of the grass, came back and spilled more chips.

  “That’s enough,” Lisa decreed, and Sam took a last handful.

  Without the chips, the porch suddenly lost its attraction, and the children disappeared inside, Kenneth letting them get by before emerging with a beer. Arlene wanted another gin and tonic but thought she shouldn’t with Margaret sitting there.

  “Now that we’re all here,” Emily said, as if calling them to order, “I’d like to canvass everyone and see how we’re doing with our lists.”

  No one volunteered. Arlene hadn’t had time to do hers but could ad-lib in a pinch. She’d never pressed her Maxwell claims on the cottage, knowing they wouldn’t be honored, and now she felt even more of an outsider, included only out of propriety. Like Emily, she waited for Kenneth or Margaret to start.

  Kenneth turned to Margaret as if looking for permission. Margaret nodded for him to take the floor.

  Finally he said, “If we’re supposed to put them in order, our first choice would be the cedar chest.”

  That was that, Arlene thought.

  “That’s fine,” Emily said, “but I really need you to write your choices down. I don’t want this to turn into a group discussion. Do you think you can have that for me sometime tonight?”

  “I haven’t gotten around to mine either,” Margaret said.

  “Does everyone need a little more time?” When none of them answered, Emily said, “Please, by bedtime. I’d like to take care of this.”

  Released, Arlene went into the kitchen and poured herself another drink. She took the last Lucky from the pack on the windowsill. The chestnut was dripping, so sh
e tucked herself into a corner of the garage door, under the gutter, and lit up. It was freezing for August. The downspout gurgled, water bubbling out onto the lawn.

  She imagined what her mother would have thought of her daughter-in-law breaking up the cottage. It wasn’t that the furniture was so carefully chosen that it would be a shame to separate it, but that each piece had been salvaged from other houses sold long ago and carried the air of a place well remembered and of people dearly missed. Opening the cedar chest, Arlene would see it as it had been, butted up against the foot of the bed in her grandmother McElheny’s guest room, redolent of her grandfather’s army blanket from World War I. The room with its iron bed and gilded cross on the wall would lead her into the upstairs hall, past the mirror that surprised her at night and to the top of the stairs. Below, the rest of the house awaited her, every room decorated the way it had been when she was seven. In the backyard, through their grandmother’s sunny kitchen, Henry might be throwing a ball to himself or sitting in the cherry tree, whittling a stick. Kenneth couldn’t remember that, and certainly not Ella.

  They would remember this place, she thought—and her, or so she hoped.

  Of her great-aunt Martha she could recall her solid frame and dark dresses, a clasp purse with a gold chain, her feet wedged into tiny shoes so that when she came home from church she pulled them off in the living room and kneaded her toes. One Christmas she backed into a table and knocked the eggnog over, Henry saving their mother’s punch bowl, a sweet flood covering his good shoes. Martha had laughed as she apologized for the size of her behind, and no one held the accident against her. When Arlene thought of her, she saw a good-natured, down-to-earth lady in middle age with a winning sense of humor. She’d take that if it were offered.