If I Disappear

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If I Disappear Page 16

by Eliza Jane Brazier


  He doesn’t catch the mistake, and I don’t correct him. “You never really wanted to find her anyway. Why would you? You don’t care about anything, except where your next drink is coming from.” I snap around and walk away, through the parking lot, out toward the deserted Main Street.

  When I am too far away, he calls out, “Hey!” He snaps his fingers. “Hey, hey, Sera!” But it’s too late. “Don’t you need a ride back?”

  I keep walking.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  I put my hands up. “We’re done, right? Case closed. I don’t need your help anymore.”

  He shakes his head and walks in the other direction.

  * * *

  —

  There is no bar in Happy Camp, the man behind the counter at the convenience store tells me. The Snake Pit, which was once the apex of all local crime, was shut down five years ago, so the criminals could scatter, I guess. To make them harder to find. I buy a forty and I take it down to the river, where I sit in a break in the brush and drink with determination.

  Did I want to disappear? Or was I secretly hoping someone would come looking for me? Did I wish something bad happened to you just to save me from the bad thing happening to me? And what do I do now?

  I think of the last person, the only person, who ever really cared about me. I think of the baby, and when I take my phone out of my pocket, I am surprised to see a signal. So surprised that I call him before I can stop myself.

  “Sera?” He still has my number saved.

  “I didn’t want to have a baby,” I say so fast, I wonder if it’s really me saying it.

  I can feel the pressure as his breath escapes his lungs. “Yeah, I figured.”

  “Everything was happening so fast and I . . . I thought we were supposed to do it. I thought we were supposed to get married. I thought we were supposed to have kids.”

  “We were supposed to.”

  “But who said it? Who says?”

  He sighs. “Sera, as much as I love spitballing with you, the great thing about not being married is I’m not contractually obligated to.”

  “I wished it.”

  “Wished what?”

  “I wished I wasn’t pregnant. What if God granted my wish?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Him.”

  “Everything is so fucked up,” I say, and then I can feel the enforced silence, feel that he didn’t and doesn’t want to reveal anything.

  I gaze across the fast, muddy river. “I don’t know where I belong.”

  “No, Sera, you just don’t want to belong. This is all your choice.”

  “Is it? Because it feels a lot bigger than that.”

  “Do you know what I think your problem is? You never had any friends.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean, like, girlfriends.”

  I think about all of the time I have spent chasing you, and I think he might have a point. I kick a rock. “Sometimes I forget how great you were.”

  He groans and then he sighs. “God, why the fuck are you doing this to me?”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Thanks, Sera. Gee, thanks. I feel a fuck-ton better now.” We are quiet and I listen to the river running. I thought this call would cure something, but I don’t want to go forward and I don’t want to go back. “Are you still in the woods?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing out there?”

  “I’m working at this ranch. I told you, remember?”

  “Sure.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “The same shit. The same shit we used to do. God. You know, sometimes I do miss you.”

  “Sometimes I miss me too.”

  There is nothing left after that, so I say goodbye before the signal drops and I look out across the river and I wonder how I can make the right choice by leaving him and regret it forever at the same time. And I wonder what the fuck I am going to do now.

  * * *

  —

  My eyes snap open. I drifted off, but now I wonder. I could stay. Your mother and your father like me. Every day they tell me, “We’re so happy you’re here.” And Jed likes me, and I like Jed, and maybe together, we would both be happier. We’re both lost, but what if we found each other? I think about your list of names, your best friends, the ones you lost. Maybe I have been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe you didn’t disappear so I could save you. Maybe you disappeared so you could save me.

  I get up off the dirt, feeling embarrassed, even if there is nobody around, is never anybody around. My signal has vanished, so I throw away the rest of my beer and walk back up toward the coffee shop.

  I startle when I see Jed’s truck pull out of the lot, but he is too far away to stop and I watch him slip behind a bend in the road. Maybe he was waiting for me, but I’ve missed him.

  I hurry into the coffee shop. The bell dings over my head but the shop is empty.

  “Hello?” I call but there is no response. I wonder if Tasia forgot to lock the door. I walk to the counter. There is a small kitchen in the back with a phone on the wall.

  “Hello? Tasia? I’m going to use your phone.” I pick it up quickly, before anyone stops me. I call the ranch.

  I am caught off guard when your father picks up, am irritated by his goofy voice as he jokes, “Happy Camp? All the way in Happy Camp?”

  He agrees to pick me up and I set the phone on the cradle. The coffee shop is still empty. It feels a little eerie with no one here. I wonder if Jed was in here alone.

  I scan the windows, then duck behind the counter. I don’t know what I’m looking for but I can’t help looking. I find an empty flask, a pack of American Spirits and a handgun. I am so used to guns out here that it barely registers.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jump so fast, I feel impact. Tasia walks in from the back of the store, fixing her hair.

  “Sorry. I had to use the phone.”

  “Ask next time.” I don’t point out that there was no one here. “I’m about to go on break.”

  I want to ask for her friendship but I can tell this is not a good time, so I say, “Thank you,” and walk out. I hover in the street, checking out a billboard of events that have already happened.

  Your father is there faster than I expected. His SUV gleams black and my mind darts to that night with Jed, the car that ran us off the road. It was black and the headlights had a similar feline quality. But it wasn’t your father; of course it wasn’t. Jed is right. I need to stop seeing ill intentions everywhere.

  “I’m really sorry.” I climb into the front seat and buckle my belt. My stomach is already soupy in anticipation of the drive. “To make you come all the way down here.”

  “No problem. Beep, beep.” I’m not sure what that means. Your father is the type to make a joke in tone only, so you know where the laugh is expected but you rarely know why.

  My head swirls as he accelerates into the first curve. I read once that motion sickness is caused by conflicting signals from your eyes and your ears. If you focus on something inside the car, the dashboard or a book, your eyes think you are not moving, but your ears know that you are. And the brain’s reaction is to believe it’s being poisoned, and the nausea is caused by the brain’s desire to vomit out the poison.

  This is how I feel about your disappearance. My brain is telling me that I was wrong, that you left, found a way out, but something else—my heart, maybe?—is telling me that’s not true, and the conflict is poisoning me, making me sick. I grip the side of the car.

  “You feeling all right, pard’na?” Your father is so annoying.

  “Yeah, fine. Just a little carsick.” Your father drives like a maniac, rushing into the corners and then braking quickly, like he didn’t know they were coming, like he hasn’t driven this road a million
times before.

  “Stare at a point in the middle distance,” he says with the singsong gravitas of a quotation, but it is not immediately apparent who he is quoting. He smiles and a twinkle twitches his eye. Then he dives headlong into another turn and rushes to slow through the curve. “You know, Addy’s really happy you’re here. We both are. We’re so happy you’re here.”

  “That’s great,” I say. “I love it out here.” It’s not a lie. This place may be isolated but it never feels empty. The spaces that would be populated with people are instead filled with mountains and trees and flowers and streams. There is something sustaining about it, something that makes me feel healthier than I have in years, in spite of everything.

  “We hope you’ll stay with us a long time.”

  My stomach flips. I grip the bar of the door. “Can I ask you something?” We are closing in on the ranch.

  “Well, Sera, you just did.” I hate your father.

  “It’s about your daughter. I . . . I was wondering what happened to her.” Your father is the only person I haven’t asked.

  His face stiffens, like we have finally landed on something that isn’t a joke. And without a joke his face is hard and strange.

  “Addy said she thought she had . . . passed?” I don’t mention that others have said you are still alive. If it was all a hoax, your parents are the ones you pulled it on.

  He accelerates and aims the car off the road. I cling to the door handle as we careen off the highway, toward the edge of the mountain. He drives to a stop at the end of a turnout. My heart is pounding. My body senses physical danger. He snaps off the engine.

  He says nothing for a while. It is impossible to fathom what he is thinking. Although I know he is a father—I know he is your father—he is such a stagy character, it’s hard to empathize with him; it’s hard to see him as a father who’s lost his only daughter. Finally, he exhales, and as expected, it’s an exaggerated sound.

  “It was Easter Sunday,” he says. “We were all gathered round the table: Homer and Clementine and Tasia and Moroni and Jed.” My heart skips, overwhelmed. He is the first person to go straight to the details. He is making a meal of it. “I could tell something was amiss, right from the get-go.” There he stops, like that is the end of the story.

  A long time passes before I say, “What happened?”

  “It was before dessert. Rachel disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared? She just walked out?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know whether she walked. You wouldn’t get far on foot out here,” he says in a silly voice, and I don’t know if all of this is a joke. I know your mother is unbalanced but I’ve always thought your father is just goofy. Now it strikes me that he is possibly batshit crazy. “Addy made brownies.”

  “And you all just did nothing? You didn’t look for her? You didn’t call the police?”

  “She did it all the time.” He strokes the steering wheel. “Ever since she was a little girl. She would just disappear. It was kind of a game for her.”

  “But she always came back.”

  “Always came back,” he repeats.

  “Was she ever gone this long?”

  “That”—he flicks his key chain—“is a very good question.”

  “Was she?” I repeat, undaunted.

  He shakes his head, looks out over the river to the opposite side, where deer have gathered on a natural salt lick. It’s majestic, picturesque. It’s beautiful, like everything here is, except us. We don’t fit.

  “This is a funny place. People just snap.” He snaps his fingers. “One day they’re peachy keen. The next, they’re acting a little . . . shall we say, erratic?” He gives me a withering look, at odds with his words, at odds with the moment. Your father is a matching game where nothing goes together. “And then swish!” He wriggles his fingers. “They’re gone.”

  “Was there anything she was upset about? Was there anything unusual that might explain why she would leave?”

  “Nothing above the usual unusual,” he jokes, and then he starts the car abruptly. Whatever moment I had of lucidity, of seriousness, is gone. “Hey, don’t you worry about Rachel. We’re just so happy you’re here. Addy and I are so happy you’re here.”

  He steers back toward the highway as another car appears around the bend. Instead of waiting, he sails in front of it, then brakes to cut the car off more effectively and the horn blares and your father ignores it. And I think: You’re dead. And I think: They killed you. And I think: That’s crazy.

  I am at the end of the line. I am at the last of your clues. I have talked to every available person on your list. I have met your family. I have talked to the police. I have ridden your horses. I have lived on your ranch. I have taken apart and cleaned every window. The only thing I haven’t done is get inside your yellow house.

  I think of the house. I think of the windows. I realize how easily I can take them apart.

  * * *

  —

  As we pull up the drive, I feel bile clawing up my throat. I hear the phone ringing in the lobby. I think, Are they ever going to get that? But I feel too sick to say it. Your father drops me off in front of the staff cabin.

  “Thank you.” I stagger out of the car. “Thank you for driving me.”

  “You need to watch yourself, getting lost all the time,” he says in his silly voice. “All the way in Happy Camp!” He hits the steering wheel for emphasis, sweeps his eyes over an imaginary audience, then peels away fast.

  My heartbeat is drumming in my ears. I wait until his SUV disappears behind the lodge. Then I take the trail to your house. I am careful to stay in the woods. I pass Jed’s house. I drop down the path to the creek, swing smoothly down the switchbacks. I follow the fire road around the bend and your house appears; a patch of sunlight turns the apex of the roof a deep red. I remember all the pictures you took, of Bumby, of the house, but I’m not sure if I ever saw the interior. I wonder why you said it was yours if you lived with your parents. Most of all, I wonder what is inside.

  I step onto the porch. I try the door first, but it’s still locked, so I move to the windows. I have been taking apart the same windows all week, in the lodge, in every cabin. They are all the same make. These screens are missing pull tabs but I take the Buck Knife out of my pocket and use it as a counterweight until I pop one out. I set the screen down on the porch, then move to the window. I place my fingers exactly as I have a dozen times this week, and I press hard, deep with my shoulders, and I try to open your window. It doesn’t budge. I try again, press hard with my shoulder. And again. But it doesn’t move. It looks the same as every other window, but there is something different. I step back and peer up at it. It’s almost like it’s sealed. I try another one, and another. I try every window on the first floor. Not one will budge.

  I step back from the house, breathing heavily. I gaze up at the eaves and I am so frustrated, so tired of getting nowhere, of always being wrong, of dead ends, out here and out there. Why can’t I just break through?

  I look around me, the meter rising in my veins, clogging them, packing them with adrenaline. What if I broke the glass? They do it all the time in movies. What if I hit it as hard as I can? What if I kicked it?

  I punch it once, as hard as I can, without even stopping to think. My knuckles soften but I don’t even make a dent. What am I thinking? I’m lucky the glass didn’t break; I could have severed an artery. And if I had managed to break through and not injure myself, what would I have done then? Crawled through the hole my fist made? I need to get ahold of myself. I need to think.

  Pop! An enormous rock zings past my head, hits the yellow wall so hard that it leaves a mark, then topples to the floor at my feet.

  I gasp, wheel around, so the yellow house is behind me, pressed beneath my fingers. I scan the scene, but there is no one there. There is, I remind myself. They are j
ust invisible to me.

  “Hello?” I say. Was that rock intended for me? Were they trying to hit me? Will they try again?

  Oddly, in the face of actual danger, I feel calm, brave even. I step forward on the porch. “Is anyone out there?” I say as if there’s a chance the rock grew wings.

  I can’t hear anything over the babble of the river. But I think, There must be, there must be someone out there watching me.

  “You can talk to me,” I start. “You can tell me—”

  I jump as three birds dart into the air. I hurry forward in their direction. I hear an engine—out on the highway or up the fire road—hear it roar and then cut out, like it has disappeared around a bend.

  I wait. My heart pumps in my shoulders. Then I look down at the rock, my evidence. It’s hefty enough that it’s hard to lift. Whoever threw it must be strong. Or they must have been close. I flip it over in my hands and see one word written in thick black marker. My heart rate rises. My blood rushes with the river. The message thrills me.

  RUN.

  Episode 57:

  Last Call

  Before she disappeared, Leah made one odd phone call, to her best friend, in the middle of the night. It was after three in the morning but Leah didn’t apologize. She spoke like it was any normal time. She complained that she had been feeling sick all week. At four oh one a.m., she said she needed to lie down.

  I go to Jed’s house. I knock on the front door, call softly, not wanting anyone outside to hear. I have hidden the rock sealed in a plastic bag in my backpack, just like you taught me. I will preserve the evidence.

  Jed doesn’t come to the door. There is no sound inside. I step back, try to see the whole house at once. And I question myself.

 

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