When We Disappear

by Lise Haines

  I walked over and turned off the set. Mona stood there, locked down, watching me. I put my arms straight down by my sides, holding my hands out as if to say, I’m doing everything I can here.

  Liz had said not to run the water in the sink, especially the hot water, when one of us was taking a shower, or the temperature would drop. Maybe this was about filling the coffee pot. But I thought I had used cold water like I always do. Maybe it was nothing.

  I waited for Mona to correct me, to bring up some infraction. But she said, “You left the book of national monuments out on the kitchen table, open to one of the pictures. Why that book, that particular picture?” She asked this in a prosecutorial tone I didn’t understand, though I was relieved that she was talking with me at all. I wanted to be extra careful to get the answer right. Maybe she meant something I did years ago. I searched my brain but had no memory of this. “Which picture?” I asked.

  “The bison in Yellowstone, in the National Monuments book.”

  “The bison. I’ve always been crazy about that one. But I don’t remember—”

  “When you left for New Jersey. You left it open on the kitchen table, weighted down by the green carnival-glass salt and pepper shakers from the stove.”

  I would have done anything to retrieve this memory. It was clearly significant to her. But I couldn’t. So I reached for anything I could. “It must have made me think of your photography. You do unusual things like that.”

  “Unusual?” She laughed.

  “The bison look like they’re running off the page.”

  “It’s called cropping,” she said, her voice elevating, the anger brimming.

  “You’d know better than me,” I said. I felt the muscles in my jaw working, tension collecting around my temples.

  “That’s good to hear. Because I’m contributing to the expenses here, and I told Mom I should have a say on whether you stay or go.”

  I took a shaky breath, thinking of Liz’s cautions to go slow with her, that I could lose her if I didn’t. “Look, I … I’ll be paying back every cent you put in. With interest. And I’m serious about seeing you through college. Without debt. Whether I understand photography or not, I recognize talent when I—”

  “I don’t get why you think we need you,” she said, displaying that mix of horrible and triumphant emotion she had become so good at.

  I felt that sorry headache move across my skull. “I know making up a boyfriend your mother doesn’t have was a way of getting me to go away. I know you’re angry that I left, that things have been tough. I really do know. This job should—”

  “She goes on dates,” Mona said. “There are better men.”

  I looked at the worn linoleum. “Who wouldn’t want to ask your mother on a date? She’s beautiful. But we have a lot of years in, Mona. There’s no one else I can talk to the way I can talk with your mother. I think she feels the same way about me. I’m as in love with her now as the day we met. More.”

  I thought I saw a tear run from the edge of one eye. Maybe it was the angle of the light, the sun clearing the buildings. I wanted to comfort her. But when I pushed away from the bed, my sleeve snagged the package of cookies on the table and knocked it off the edge. I watched it drop. Oreos rolled out across the floor. I startled her as I came close in order to chase them. We both looked at the last one as it came to rest near one of her shoes. I pushed my hands into my pockets.

  “We save the Oreos for Lola,” she said. “And the lion’s share of fruit and most of the milk.”

  “I’ll get more Oreos and fruit and milk when I go out later. Please sit down so we can talk,” I said.

  “You sit down,” she said, like she was ordering a dog around.

  I cleared my throat and began again, out on that ledge where she thought I belonged.

  “Maybe you think I can read you the way I used to, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m doing everything I can to stay even-tempered here and get through this with you. Tell me what I can do to make things right,” I said.

  “You can tell me about the day you slammed into another car when we were on our way home from the racetrack.”

  My temples felt as if she had lit a match to them.

  “I thought you’d forgotten,” I said. “You’ve never brought it up.”

  “I was supposed to bring it up?”

  “No, I don’t mean—”

  “I was in the front seat. I was nine. How would I forget that?”

  “I had to get to a phone,” I said.

  It’s possible I told her that day, or some other Sunday like it, that when a horse is a strong competitor weights are sometimes added to the saddle to make the race a closer one, to push for a photo finish. The faster the horse, the heavier the weights. As I dropped into one of the kitchen chairs I saw how much weight she had taken on, what she had seen, what she knew. But she wanted me to say it.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “There’s not a lot to tell. We were returning from the races, and I was tired and I must have nodded off for a moment. The car drifted over the yellow line. We hit … I hit a car on the other side of the road. The other car hit a pole. I stopped to help.”

  “Stopped to help who?” she said.

  “A woman and her daughter. Their door locks were jammed, and I didn’t have my crowbar in my trunk, so I couldn’t smash their windows. I … we hurried to a pay phone, where I called the police right away.”

  “You could have found a branch in the woods.”

  “I didn’t think.”

  “And the woman and her daughter?”

  She knew, I knew, everything said and unsaid, but I seized up.

  “We drove to a body shop,” she said as if she were trying to pry a pit from a rotten piece of fruit. I wished she would ask, just ask what she wanted to know.

  “That was probably our mechanic,” I said. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think we were due for service. There was a body shop next door.”

  “It was a Quonset hut with a sign over the door that read, ‘Dave’s Body Shop.’ You handed the man who met you at the door your winnings from the track. Seven thousand six hundred and eighty-eight dollars. Maybe you don’t remember anything that small,” she said.

  She glared so hard at me it was almost as if she were smiling. I tried to think if I had seen any Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. It always got worse if I didn’t treat it immediately. We both had that kind of headache. I would be better prepared if I could think straight.

  “We got into another car, a loaner, and drove home, and you said if I told Mom what had happened, it would be very bad for her since she was pregnant. And when she lost that baby, Richard, can you imagine what I thought?”

  “Oh, no,” I said, never having made that connection, never having that thought.

  “I wondered if I had said something in my sleep. Or if I had given Mom some hint without realizing it when I was awake. Did she pick up something in my body language, some clue? You start to wonder, you know? Especially when you’re nine.”

  “Mona, I …” It felt as if she were standing on my head, the weight of her life ready to snap my neck in two. I didn’t know how a man could break any further. If she could just wait until things settled, until I was able to show her a better life, get her the help she needed.

  Tears ran down her face. “It must have been awful for the mother and her little girl when the smoke started to fill their car and we pulled away. You didn’t even go out on the road and try and flag anyone down. I can’t tell you how many times I wondered who they were and why they had to hit the pole and why we didn’t. You ever wonder that?”

  “Sure. Sure, I’ve thought about that, Mona. But I always tell myself at least you were all right.”

  “And they were all right, isn’t that what you said? We were all all right, weren’t we?” She began to hyperventilate.

  “Take deep breaths,” I said.

  “And what did Mom say … when you finally told her? Because once she lost the bab
y … I mean, there was no reason … not to tell her, right? You must have … said something then. But I … can’t remember you telling me … I could finally let that secret go.”

  “It’s been so long I can barely …”

  The room got quiet, her breathing worse, and a rolling, drumming sound started up in my head. If the elevated train went by, I didn’t hear it. If the ice down by the lake broke apart or someone was firing a high-powered rifle in the neighborhood, I couldn’t hear that either. I saw Mona move her mouth, a slash of fury, but I didn’t hear anything she said after that. Maybe it was a trick of light, but she seemed to disappear. All at once the kitchen and living room, everything was soaked, flooded in light, that’s all I knew, that light. And then I heard her shoes running down the stairs, running down the block, running out of herself, out of me, as far from everything as she could possibly go.

  I heard the sound of a train as if my ears had popped. It roared in my brain, and I wept for the first time in a very long time.

  When I realized, when I looked over at the clock on the stove, I knew Liz and Lola could be home any minute. I went over to the sink and washed my face and smoothed my hair back and found the bottle of Tylenol, thinking I should buy another bottle to replace the tablets I used. It was possible they were Mona’s or she was counting each one even before it was swallowed. I’m not here to rob you, I wanted to shout. I’m here to take care of you. Let me take care of you. But I guess that’s what she’d been feeling all along, that I was robbing her of something she couldn’t get back, couldn’t put back in the bottle.

  As I shut the medicine cabinet. I heard Liz buzz to get in, and I went over and leaned on the button to the downstairs door. My senses cleared, and I bent down to gather up the Oreos, trying to force them back into the package.

  “Richard, my hands are full!” Liz called through the door.

  “Just a minute!” I pushed the crumpled package of cookies to the back of a cabinet.

  “Richard! Can you get the door?”

  I ran back to the door.

  “Let me take those,” I said, grabbing her bags.

  “I should have had my keys out,” she said.

  “I was just throwing some clothes on. Where’s Lola?”

  “She got invited to an overnight with a sweet little girl named Tina in her dance class. Her mom said they’d loan her a nightie and things, so I’m going straight down to the yard and get to work.”

  “All the metal’s out, stacked and ready to go.”

  “That’s great. You all right?” she asked and touched my neck. Her hand felt so cool on my hot skin I didn’t want her to pull it away. But she did, and I said, “Headache. Took something for it, but I’m still in a fair amount of pain.”

  She looked over at Mona’s open bedroom door. “She’s out early for a Saturday. Did she say where she was going?”

  “Gone before I knew it.”

  “She does that sometimes.”

  I cruised the neighborhood, driving down around the lake, looking for Mona. Finally I had to head over to the gas station. After that I took a couple more passes up and down the blocks where I imagined she’d be, though how could I know? I kept thinking I could make things right with her despite everything.

  I knew Liz might need the van soon, so I drove over to the A&P to get those grocery items, only once I was there I realized I had been in a daze. I had spent most of the money I had on gas for the van and would probably have to borrow from Liz to take the L on Monday, so the groceries would have to wait. I pulled into a parking spot just to stop for a moment to catch my breath, and a woman came up to the car and signaled so I’d roll my window down.

  When I did she said, “Where’s your handicap permit?”

  “My what?”

  She pointed to the blue sign I hadn’t seen.

  I looked in the side mirrors and began to back up.

  “My mother is a paraplegic, and it’s assholes like you that make her life more difficult.”

  Stopping the van, I said, “I’m sorry. I just—”

  “Who gives a shit if you’re sorry,” she said.

  A car waiting for the spot began to honk.

  “No one. Not a fucking soul,” I said and rolled up my window and maneuvered my way out.

  I pulled down a side street under the tracks, turned the engine off, and tried to clear my mind. It was important not to get ahead of things. That’s what I told myself when I was wandering around at night in New Jersey. There was little I could do if Mona talked to Liz. And maybe the only way Mona could get through this was to talk to her mother. Maybe I should just go to Liz and tell her. But I worried with everything she’d been through the last couple of years she wouldn’t hold up under the stress. I rammed my forehead into the steering wheel and felt the pain splinter and multiply.

  I sat up, locked my jaw. In two weeks I would receive my first paycheck. I would endorse this to Liz and tell her all I needed was enough to ride into work and back and to have the other suit taken in. I knew they had coffee at work and a refrigerator, so I could bring my lunch. I didn’t need anything else. I was, after all, someone who knew how to clean his teeth with a supply of baking soda carried around in a pack. I had made meals out of free creamers and crackers I’d gotten with a cup of soup the day before.

  My forehead felt bruised, and I tried to remember this myth I had read about once. A daughter is born out of a god’s head or forehead. I wondered if it hurt this much. And then I told myself that falling apart was a form of indulgence. The important thing, no matter what, was to be strong for the family. That’s what Sor had said.

  I turned the key in the ignition, checked the mirrors, and was about to pull out into the lane when I saw a runner. He was a tall, lean man, and he approached from a few hundred feet. The closer he got, the more familiar he seemed. I didn’t want to be reminded of the image of Mr. Kaminski, but someone like him was running toward me. I felt the way his slim weight moved down the block. He kicked his heels up and kept his shoulders back. I felt as if I had crawled inside someone else, just for a moment. And then he was gone.

  Liz worked most of the day down in the yard. After a long walk around the neighborhood looking for Mona again, I had to start reading the company manual. It was already downloaded to the laptop the new firm provided. I worked for a while on the demographic I was covering and started to expand on some of the ideas I had pitched at my interview. My headache loosened a little but stayed around.

  When I took a break I reminded myself I never intended to hurt anyone and that this should make a difference. Once we got to the restaurant, driving back from the racetrack that day, I was sure I hadn’t gotten up from that table until I was sober. I had my share of coffee. I tried all of the doors on Mrs. Kaminski’s car. I looked for a crowbar. I sped to a phone.

  What if I had stood out on that dark road with my young daughter waiting in our car? What if I had tried flagging someone down on the road? Maybe no one, not a soul, would have been brave enough to pull over for some strange man and I would have wasted time. Or worse, maybe no one would have seen me in my dark clothes around the turn at night and taken me out while Mona sat there and watched. And then, when the other car blew up, Mona would have been sitting right there. Our car might have gone up too. … I had to stop. Stop.

  All these years I had never thought of finding a heavy branch. How was that possible?

  I wanted to go down and take another look at the sculpture. It was unlike anything Liz had done. This was not a piece that would be poured or polished. This was something she was making out of scraps she cut and fitted together until it grew skyward. But I knew better than to disturb her. I waited until eight at night, when she was working entirely by the one floodlight she had brought out to the yard, and took her a coffee.

  That’s the way she liked to work, hours on end, without concern for the cold, for her body. She wore fingerless gloves and an old jacket that was torn and spattered and fit snugly under her welding ap
ron. She often wore the same heavy shop apron whether she made eggs or burnished metal. Maybe she liked the weight of it.

  She pulled her mask up long enough to set the mug down.

  “I got a text from Mona. She’s staying with a friend tonight,” she said.

  Maybe Mona was finding a way to calm down. I could try to explain things to her in a way I hadn’t yet if given another chance.

  “Do you want to get the dinner started?” Liz said. “I’m close to wrapping.”

  “Sure,” I said, though I was no good in the kitchen.

  “There’s one chicken breast left from last night. If you pull the meat off that and cut it into pieces and sauté some onion and carrots in a little oil, not too much, and at the very last add the chicken, that should work. Keep the flame low. There should be plenty of pasta leftover to go with that. We’ll save the Parmesan for the girls. I corked the rest of the champagne, and we can finish that.”

  I got dinner started, though I kind of burned the carrots and onions, and after a while she came upstairs, hung her work clothes on a couple of pegs in the kitchen, and jumped into the shower. I was surprised to see her put on something nice. The air was overly hot and then chilly, but she seemed unfazed in a light spring dress with yellow flowers and a cardigan. She had combed her hair, leaving it wet, and as we sat down at the table I watched the occasional drop of water soak into the fabric, dotting her shoulders and breasts while we ate. She was as beautiful as the girl I had met at the carnival grounds.

  She talked in an animated way about the conversation she’d had with her boss. It looked like she would be moving into suburban foreclosures in the next month or so. I was still worried about this kind of work. Some of the companies were getting more aggressive, trying to boot the owners out while they occupied their homes.

  The champagne was flat, but we made a toast or two, and soon the bottle was done.

  “Don’t go away,” she said, putting her knife and fork down. As if I would go somewhere. She got up from the table and searched around in a cabinet over the stove and brought down a quarter of a bottle of gin, probably left over from before I’d left. We didn’t have lime or much in the way of ice cubes, but there was a small bottle of tonic in a side pocket of the fridge, also probably left over from a couple of years ago. Liz had never been much of a drinker.