If I Disappear

by Eliza Jane Brazier

If I am thinking like you taught me, Jed should be the prime suspect, the one who threw the rock. He lives the closest to the yellow house. He could have seen me pass. And he has been encouraging me, all along, to leave. Maybe he finally wanted to up the ante. I glance at his open garage and start—his truck is there, parked beside his broken motorcycle. Was it there before? And if he is here, why isn’t he answering the door? I knock again. “Jed?” And then, “I can see your truck.” And, “I know you’re in there.” A funny feeling creeps into my veins, like I am being watched.

  I hang around for a while, walk around the back and look deep inside the garage, hoping he’ll return, but he doesn’t. And I can’t imagine him at your mother’s, I can’t hear him at the shooting range and I can’t imagine him anywhere else. Where is he?

  I slip the rock out of my backpack. I wonder if I could get a handwriting sample, to compare. Before I can stop to question my ethics, I try the front door. It’s unlocked.

  “Jed?” I say again, and then I push the door open. The house is open-plan, so I step into the kitchen and the living room and the dining room all at once. It looks like he has just moved in, bare but for the odd pile: an expensive-looking rodeo saddle on a rack, a seven-foot safe where I assume he keeps his guns. The kitchen is unfinished; there are no doors on the cupboards, and they are filled with prairie-patterned dinnerware and the liquor cabinet is crammed. There is an enormous cross on the wall. A fan swings lazily up above, clicking with every rotation. I don’t know where I will find a handwriting sample—do people use pens anymore? Instead I find myself drifting through the rooms.

  Grace must have left in a hurry, because her clothes are still here. Everything is clean but oddly frozen, and I wonder, Did Grace have a car? Why didn’t she take her shoes, or her toothbrush, or the dresses in their closet?

  But it doesn’t make sense. If something happened to her, if Jed knew, if Jed did it, wouldn’t he have gotten rid of her stuff? Or was this a strategy, a way to make him look innocent? Why would he keep everything?

  I need to confirm that Grace went back to Texas, but I am not sure how to do that. Jed told me she did. Your parents said she left. I could check social media but the only Internet access is inside your parents’ house and your mother doesn’t want me to use it.

  In the bedroom, I find my handwriting sample. There is a letter on the nightstand, tucked into Grace’s Bible, and I read,

  I’m so sorry about the other night. That’s not me. That’s not who I am. It’s like there’s the real me and then there’s this thing, this monster I can’t control. Whatever happens, I hope you can still have it in your heart to pray for me. I understand you wanting to leave. Sometimes I wish you would. Just save yourself the trouble and know that I love you more than anything in this world. I love you. But the truth is, I guess I hate myself more.

  My fingers feel numb, strange, like he has confessed my own secret. I set the note on the bed and force myself to take a picture on my phone, even though the words on the rock are written in block letters and I don’t see an immediate similarity.

  I catch my breath and I scan the room around me, wondering if I should be looking for more evidence, but evidence of what? It’s not a crime to hate yourself.

  * * *

  —

  When I open the door to the staff cabin, I am hit with a chemical smell. The windows are open, so the space is cold, but the floors are clean, the sheets have been washed, the furnace is polished. At first, I suspect your mother. Instead I find Jed standing over the kitchen sink, ringing out rags.

  I startle, feel surprise pulse through me. “What are you doing here?” I think how I just came from searching his house for evidence, while he was here cleaning mine.

  He cocks his head. “I’m sorry.”

  I think of the note, and I feel it like shame and stimulation through me, like I am Grace. Like I am the one he is in love with.

  He sets the rag down. “You okay?”

  “. . . I’m embarrassed,” I answer honestly. “I was going to clean it. I—”

  “It’s okay.” He reaches up and presses his thumb into my chin. Did he kill his wife? Did he kill you? “I just wanted you to know I . . . I think it’s good, what you came here to do. I—I think you’re a good person.” He thought Grace was a good person too. “Maybe I just want to believe that Rachel got away, that nothing bad happened. But I do believe it.”

  I cross my arms over my goose bumps. “Maybe I didn’t just come here for Rachel. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I came for me too.”

  He steps closer to me, invading my space. I don’t step back.

  His words are written on the back of my skull, gleaming and bright: It’s like there’s the real me and then there’s this thing, this monster I can’t control. What if he killed her? What if he . . .

  “Can I?” He lifts his hand, and I feel this tremendous pressure, dead fear, on either side of my skull, and when he touches me, when his fingers brush my cheek, it tightens. Only it tightens so fast that it’s like a high. And he curls his fingers behind my neck.

  What if this is the end? What if this is the vanishing point and I embrace it, fearlessly? What if I dared the world to swallow me, not slowly, over time, but all at once?

  He kisses me, careful at first, like we are trying to find a spark and then it catches and he deepens the kiss.

  “I need something,” he gushes, and I let him push me against the counter.

  When I was younger, I used to dream that I would wake up one morning to find that all the people in the world had disappeared, except for me and the one boy that I wanted, like I couldn’t imagine any other way to get him. And once we realized we were alone in the world, only then could we fall truly and deeply in love, because we needed someone and we had only each other. One gorgeous boy and me, alone in the world. This is exactly what I dreamed about, almost.

  * * *

  —

  The sun goes down and the pitch black is the perfect setting. The fear serves just to heighten everything. We have to be quiet. We have to be fast. Every moment is stolen. Every thrill is ours only.

  We do it in the kitchen first, up against the counter. Then we do it on the living room floor. Then we do it in the shower. My body rises to a crescendo, that stuck-on-the-ceiling, taffy-pulling feeling, and I am afraid I won’t come down, afraid he will leave me trapped. So I beg him to get me where I’m going, to release me, and he does, and I come again and again.

  I haven’t had sex in a long time. I think I was afraid to. Afraid of this feeling, of being at someone else’s mercy, of being exposed and vulnerable and trapped. My body is like frayed wires strung too tight. And if you play them there is always a chance that they will break, and that threat radiates through the whole instrument, brings the night to life. Damaged people have the best sex.

  When it gets too late to keep pretending that the sun will never come up, he kisses me and speaks into my neck. “I don’t wanna leave.”

  I kiss his collarbone. “You better.”

  He kisses me again. And I watch him through the windows, watch him fade into the night. And I’m all mixed up. I don’t know who I am or where I’m going. And I wish I could follow him into the dark.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning, I pass your mother in the garden on the way to the barn. She is knee-deep in blackberry bushes, with a determined grimace, spraying them liberally from a red glass bottle with no mask or gloves to keep the chemicals off her skin. There is no denying that the blackberry bushes are dying, but she will kill everything. The whole garden will have to die to save us from blackberries.

  The doll is sitting outside the greenhouse, where I left it, but its face is splattered with holes. I wave at your mother as I hold my breath.

  After I feed the horses, I look in on Belle Star. She nickers when she sees me now, and I rub her poll and massage her cre
st.

  Your mother drives up on her ATV, bottles clanging, followed by her herd of crooked dogs. They collapse onto the grass as she climbs off the vehicle. I move away from Belle Star, remembering I am supposed to be working, but your mother doesn’t seem to care.

  As your mother approaches, Belle Star backs up, tosses her head and trots out into the pen. “She looks better,” your mother says.

  “. . . Yes.”

  “She should go back in the pasture.” She rests her foot on the red fence.

  “But this proves it was the other horses attacking her.”

  “If they attacked her, it’s because she’s weak. She needs to learn to be strong.”

  “She’s not ready yet.”

  Your mother tosses her head, pauses like she’s considering it. I think she wants me to know that it’s her decision. I think she wants me to feel that I am at her mercy. I think of what Jed said about her: She’s punishing me. Suddenly she beams. “Emmett and I were talking this morning. We’re both so happy you’re here. We’d like you to come stay at the house.”

  I startle, so caught off guard that it takes me a second to figure out what she means. “Stay at the house? Like, live there?”

  “Yes.”

  It strikes me as a weird coincidence that now that the staff cabin is clean, now that it is actually livable, she offers me a place in her house. Almost like she knows Jed cleaned it. Almost like she knows Jed was there, with me. Almost like she knows everything. I feel myself flushing. Does she know I was down by the yellow house? Did she throw the rock? Does she want to keep me close, to keep an eye on me? Does she know I slept with Jed? I know it’s none of her business, but I still feel like I’ve betrayed her somehow. Does she want me to feel that way?

  “I don’t think it’s safe,” she says, “for you to stay in the staff cabin.” She tosses her head again, an oddly girlish gesture. “I don’t want to scare you, but I think there may be rats.”

  There have been rats all along, from day one. Even after being cleaned, the place still stinks of rat shit. They scuttle around the attic, day and night. Sometimes I see them darting between the floorboards, dropping from holes in the ceiling

  She leans against the rail, speculative. “You could stay in Rachel’s room.”

  My heartbeat quickens. Your room might provide the break in the case I am looking for. And I can sneak down to use the Internet to check Grace’s Facebook account, make sure she really is back in Texas. She has me. I can’t say no, but I can still negotiate. I stretch back from the rail. “I think we should leave Belle here.”

  Your mother sniffs, like she knows exactly what I’m doing. She looks at me, her eyebrow arched. “That’s a wonderful idea.”

  * * *

  —

  As soon as I finish work, I pack up my things. I put them in my car and drive across the ranch to your mother’s house. She greets me at the back door, outside the mudroom, where I remove my shoes. Dinner is on in the kitchen. Your father is sitting at the corner desk, humming to himself. After the staff cabin, it’s jarringly cozy. The house is warm, impeccably clean and suburban.

  “Why don’t you set your bag down and wash your hands and come help me finish making dinner?” your mother says, smiling as she leads me into the kitchen. I drop my bag in the corner, next to the stairs.

  “Good evening. Que será, será.” Your father turns from the computer to wave. It looks like he is shopping for another boat for the lake.

  Your mother is cooking and she asks me to chop avocados and tomatoes and peppers, and herbs from her garden. We bring the bowls to the table, where we pray and then we eat. I look around me and I wonder if this was your life. Dinner at the table with the family, a statue of Christ in the living room and, underneath it all, a sense of pageantry, like we have all agreed to play at perfect.

  “Isn’t this nice?” Your mother smiles warmly at me, at your father. “I told you this would work out. We’re so happy you’re here.”

  After dinner we play a board game with patterned tiles. Last night catches up with me and I am so tired. I can’t remember the name of the game and the rules elude me. I lose every round, and your mother gets frustrated.

  “Rachel was good at this,” she says as if I’m not living up to you. But she likes to win, and she and your father smile at the end when the points have been tallied and I have been beaten again.

  Then your mother shows me up the staircase. Your father carries my one small bag. I stop in your doorway. The first thing I notice is the telescope, gold and pointed out the window. I remember seeing it before, not realizing it was in your room. Next, I notice the floors, which are littered with papers, all kinds of papers in files and folders and boxes jammed against the wall. Your case notes. They were here all this time, and I allow myself a moment of pride for being patient, for playing my cards right. This is what I need. This will lead me to you.

  “This is all Rachel’s mess,” your mother says, as if you are still here, still in high school. “But I washed the sheets.” She moves to the door and looks wistfully back at me, crossing her arms. “We’re so happy you’re here.”

  She leaves the door open and goes down the hall. I shut the door immediately. Panic rises up in me, out of nowhere. Nerves bumble along my shoulders. Suddenly, I feel afraid. Suddenly, I want to run.

  What am I doing here, living in the bedroom of a woman who has disappeared? What am I trying to do?

  I pace, feeling claustrophobic in this space, your space. I stop and peer into one of your boxes. I hope to find case files but I am surprised to find school assignments, going back years, every test, every paper, every note. I am always surprised by people who save these things. Do they ever really look back? Do they ever really need to see them again? And the way they are arranged, in piles in the middle of the floor, makes it seem as if someone dumped them here, although your mother claims they’re your mess.

  I start to sift through, but my chest feels tight and my throat feels narrow. I breathe deeply. I sit at your chair, at your desk. I remind myself there is nothing to be afraid of, but then I think, This is instinct. My body knows something my heart doesn’t. Run! Get out now, before it’s too late!

  The gold telescope is in front of me, trained not up at the sky but out at the ranch. I stand up, curious. I shake my hands out, rub my knuckles and walk to the telescope. I bend down, peering through. A face flashes in front of me. I jump back with a start, knocking my ankle on the sharp corner of a box.

  I catch my breath. My heart hammers in my chest. I remind myself that the face is on the other side of the telescope, not in here with me. I force myself to look again. It’s Jed, standing under a tree on the far side of the ranch.

  It takes me a second to piece together that this is not a coincidence. That he is waiting for me, that he knew to wait for me there because he used to wait for you. I wonder how I can get out of your room without your parents noticing. I stick my head out the window, but I am on the second floor, and there is no ladder, no trellis, no pipe.

  It takes me actual minutes to remember that I am not a prisoner, that I can leave for any reason, at any time. I open the door. I walk down the hall. Your mother’s bedroom door is open. I can hear the sound of water running, see the oversized dresser against the far wall. I pass by the open door and walk down the stairs. Your father is still at the computer, still scrolling through dozens of thumbnails of boats.

  “Everything okay, Sera, Sera?” He has picked up this habit and he is not going to put it down.

  “Is everything all right down there?” your mother calls.

  My face heats up. My back hollows. Run. “I left something in the cabin. I’m just going to grab it.”

  Your father scratches behind his ear. “Why not wait until tomorrow?”

  “Emmett, is everything okay down there?”

  “I’m just going to get somethi
ng!” My voice rises so I almost shout. I almost sound hysterical. “I’ll be right back!”

  My hands ache and I press my nails into my palm, wanting to break the skin. And my head spins and my throat narrows and my heart beats in overdrive and I rush to the door before they can chase me, before they can stop me. And I am fifty feet away in the bracing cold before I realize they won’t. Why would they? They have no reason to. I can walk outside alone. I can do whatever I want. I am my own person. I don’t belong to them.

  Still I hurry, past the lodge, out into the ranch, where I find Jed standing under the tree, lit by the moon, like a lost cowboy in search of a love song. In spite of everything, all the evidence surrounding him, I just can’t see him as a killer. He is too busy killing himself to kill anyone else.

  “This is all my fault,” he says.

  “What is?” I say, disoriented.

  “Don’t stay with them.” He steps forward, grips my wrist but presses too hard. I automatically pull away.

  “I have to. I’m in Rachel’s room. There are files. I think they might have clues.”

  “Sera!” He sounds angry. “When are you gonna let it go?” His eyes widen in alarm. He was too loud. He knows it. The valley threw his voice from here to there. The dogs bark in the distance. Out on the highway, another truck roars past.

  He steps back away from me, kicks the dirt. “Shit. Lawd.”

  “What is it?” I step forward softly. “What happened?”

  “Someone was in my house.”

  My bones chill. “How do you know that?”

  He wipes a hand through his hair. His jaw is loose. I wonder how much he has had to drink. “They moved some stuff.” He finds his breath. “They moved some stuff around.”

  I think of the letter. Did I put it back? Or did I leave it out on the bed after I took the photo? I was so distracted, distracted by the words and what he wrote, and I can’t remember. “Maybe you’re imagining it.” I feel the pull of guilt and I know I should confess but I can’t. He’s already mad at me, for not dropping this thing, for taking it too far. And it’s not just that. He’s fragile. I can see that now, like whatever guise of strength he had has been ripped off by our intimacy and now I can see him clearly. I thought he was strong but maybe he is weaker than me. Maybe he is more lost than I am.