At the bottom he glides into a wide swale and swivels around to watch Mike whipping down as gracefully as a swan doing figure eights on a pond. At one point Sam is shocked to see Mike tumble, but miraculously nail an acrobatic recovery, then continue to ski down. He almost wonders if what he has just witnessed is some sort of hallucination. When Mike is at the bottom of the final slope and traversing toward him, Sam exclaims, “Wow, that was close! That could’ve been the finale of your midlife crisis.”
“Talk about a reversal,” Mike says breathlessly. “Me instead of you.” He grins wildly. “But then Gina wouldn’t be able to kick me out! She’d have to nurse me!”
“Or bury you,” Sam says.
And then he finds himself remembering Luc’s pale disconcerting gaze, the tottering way he walked into a room with his head bowed, the slight waddle to his gait, the one soccer game against Bowdoin that Sam had watched and Luc scoring a goal, and everybody jumping all over him, hugging him as children hug a father while Sam remained quietly in the stands, not wanting to attract attention but brimming with pride and just yearning to embrace him. Yes, he supposes this love, in all complexity and depth, does resemble love for a child (if he’d had one), but of course, it’s so much more. They are two people reaching to one nother over a gap, or maybe climbing the face of Black Diamond Fall and losing hold and trying to save a fatal fall, and at some point just having to let go as, at some time in the future, someone will have to let go of him. But then there is the placid, surprisingly intimate look in Luc’s eyes when he is finally freed from the river, when he lies at final rest in Sam’s arms.
PART THREE
When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new—
What hope? What help? What music will undo
That silence?
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
February 23; Norwich, Vermont; 4 degrees, snow and gusting winds
The children have always loved macaroni and Vermont cheddar—well into adulthood—and Eleanor, who has cooked hardly anything in weeks, loses herself for a hour or so, making the meal for her daughter’s arrival. The house fills with the smells of melted cheese and organic semolina pasta, and at some point, Janine wanders into the kitchen, smiles weakly at her mother and nods with appreciation.
But Janine finds herself unable to eat much when they sit down to an early dinner. Giles has taken out a bottle of Chianti from the old wooden card catalog where they store wine, but one look of disdain from his daughter makes him reconsider. Eleanor watches him open the drawer and carefully replace the wine from where he’d prized it. If only she could have the same effect on her husband! But they often say the oldest child can evolve into the parent feared by all.
The table is set for three, not four—once again Luc is conspicuously absent.
With a glance at his empty spot, Janine says, “It’s become more and more of a reality as I’ve been here.”
“Now you know what . . . well, what we’ve been living with,” her father says.
“I guess I just figured because, you know, he was at school . . . it wouldn’t be all that much different.”
“Except, of course, we don’t know when he’s coming home . . . from school,” Eleanor says.
“Or from anywhere,” Giles mutters.
“Of course,” Janine says. “Foolish of me to think otherwise. Denial, I suppose.”
He’ll come home, Eleanor grimly thinks, one way or another. Because they’ll find him eventually. Whether it’s living or dead.
Janine sighs and puts down her fork, ruminative. Her eyes are the same shape as Luc’s, only not as pale in color. Yes, he did always have a wraith-like look in his eye—could that have been the portent of something? First, the alarming head injury, now the second unfathomable disappearance. Despite herself, Eleanor is reading anything into everything and what she might find faintly reassuring—seeing her son’s gestures, expressions, all genetically linked to her daughter’s gestures and expressions—she also finds disturbing, reminders of his fuller being, extant or not. She can’t imagine how a mother of an only child can go on after losing them. Even before this, when she heard such stories, she would switch off. Because to feel the reality of their pain would be unbearable. Wouldn’t most of these mothers want to, yearn to, die themselves? Wouldn’t they cease to fear death and long for it? To put an end to the unrelenting misery?
“You all right, Mom?” Janine has reached across the table and has been tightly holding her hand. And Eleanor realizes this is because she’s been crying, emotions all run together, indistinguishable from one another.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
Eleanor glances at Giles, who looks inconsolable; she knows by now that he’s blaming himself for his own failures to reach his son, his casual cruelty, and that her bitter criticism of him has at last wormed its way into his heart. She regrets making him suffer more than he needs to. It’s hard to speak but she manages, “Just gotten used to . . . the fact that it’s Dad and me here. You’re . . . well, proof there’s more to it. And it brings me back to him. To Luc.”
Janine gently releases her hand and slowly sits back in her chair, the still steaming square of mac and cheese barely touched. “But do eat something, Jan,” Giles coaxes.
She glances at him with a frown. “I’m not really hungry, Dad.”
“Make your mother happy.”
Janine shoots Eleanor a guarded look of questioning.
“Eat what you want or what you can,” Eleanor amends and Janine delicately consumes a forkful and says with false brightness, “Good as always.”
When she was a child, Janine often picked at her food whereas Luc would be ravenous, and if he were here now, he would certainly be polishing off every morsel and then heaping his plate with one or two helpings more. Eleanor can’t believe this is happening not to anybody else, but to her. It seems so wrong and obviously so unfair. Can’t I trade this in for something else? She asks the dark façade of Providence when the phone rings. Grabbing the cordless handset that she placed on the floor next to her, Eleanor identifies the caller. “It’s the cop, Jenkins,” she says, glancing at her watch and panicking. “I had a feeling it was going to be tonight. I can’t bear answering it. I can’t bear to hear it.”
“I’ll take the call,” Giles offers with an unsteady voice.
Somehow in the midst of her desperation, Eleanor realizes that the last thing she wants is to get the bad news from her husband; she will associate the moment she hears of her son’s fate to her husband’s wretched lips uttering the words. And so she picks up finally, light-headed and breathless.
Jenkins says immediately, “Good evening, Mrs. Flanders. Glad you’re in.” “We’re all here,” she says, glancing at Janine and Giles, needing them to help her face the news.
“It’s not about Luc,” Jenkins says. And once again a reprieve comes, the instant relief almost narcotic.
She meets the terrified eyes of her husband and daughter and repeats, “It’s not Luc.”
Jenkins continues, “Detective Kennedy and I are outside your son’s apartment. And we’re watching an altercation between Elizabeth Squires and Charlie Taft.”
“An altercation,” Eleanor repeats automatically.
“We’re parked a bit down the street.”
“Hang on,” Eleanor hears Kennedy say. “Looks like they’re splitting apart now.”
A few beats of silence and then Jenkins contradicts, “No they’re not.” And then, “Mrs. Flanders, do you happen to know how well Charlie Taft and Elizabeth Squires know each other?”
“Unfortunately I can’t comment on that. I’ve met Charlie Taft only once. And Elizabeth Squires
only twice.” Then something occurs to her. “Wouldn’t this whole ordeal with Luc have brought them closer together?”
“Possibly,” Jenkins says.
Janine, in the meantime, has grown agitated, rubbing her hands nervously together. Reaching across the table, she says, “Mom, let me speak to him?” Eleanor reflexively resents her daughter’s involvement in the conversation. But Janine is persistent and trills her fingers impatiently. “Mom, I really need to talk to him.”
Afraid of what her daughter might say, Eleanor glances helplessly at Giles, who says, “Go ahead, Elle.”
“I will give it to her!” Eleanor says testily. “But I want to listen to both sides of the conversation. So just hang on.” She hands the phone to Janine and hurries into the hallway, where another cordless handset is standing upright on a small wooden table. Grabbing it, she returns to the kitchen, hits the talk button and says, “Go ahead.”
Leaning her head to the side and tossing her fine mane of hair away from her ear, Janine says with great composure, “Hello, Mr. Jenkins, I’m Janine, Luc’s sister. Sorry to barge in.”
“Not a problem,” Jenkins says.
“I’m on the other extension,” Eleanor announces.
Janine continues, “I do know Taft and Squires a bit more than my mom.”
“Okay,” Jenkins says. “Please tell me everything you know.”
“Taft is a player and Elizabeth used to give Luc grief about it. Like Taft was . . . let’s call it a bad influence on him. And something else: Taft dated somebody I know who now goes to NYU. According to her, he’s sadistic. One of these guys who can find a woman’s weakness and exploit it to his own advantage.”
“I understand,” Jenkins says. “Wait, so are you suggesting they might be having an . . .intimate relationship of some kind? And he—Taft—is somehow exploiting her?”
“No, I’m pretty sure she has no use for him. And I certainly don’t think they’d bond over Luc’s disappearance.”
“Well, they are together tonight. And they’re arguing. Like they know one another pretty well.”
“Well, they’re probably arguing about my brother.”
“Really? How so?”
“Maybe Taft somehow came between Luc and Elizabeth.”
“I see. So what is your take on your brother’s current relationship with Elizabeth Squires?” Jenkins asks her.
“I don’t have a take. All I know is she’s always been kind of stalkerish.”
Even though Eleanor has thought the same thing herself, she finds herself once again defending Elizabeth. “But can that really be true?” she interjects.
Janine looks over at her with stark sadness. “Mom, you don’t know enough about this, I’m sorry.” Eleanor is unable to determine if Janine is commenting on her current understanding of what is going on or her capacity for understanding what is going on.
Jenkins is saying, “Stalkerish? How so?”
“Luc told me she went through his things, his drawers, his papers. That one night he woke up and she was reading his diary. She was holding her phone and was going to use the screen light to read it. After that, he just kept the diary hidden. In my opinion, that kind of behavior can drive people away.”
“This is very helpful, thank you, Janine, ” Jenkins says. “I may want to ask you some follow-up questions.”
“Anytime.”
Once the phone call has ended, the two women stare at each other. At last Giles says, “Why didn’t you tell us what Elizabeth did?”
“That she went through Luc’s shit?”
“Yes, exactly,” Eleanor chimes in.
“It’s really not so unusual, Mom,” Janine says sadly. “People in relationships do these sorts of things when they start to question how devoted the other person is.”
“She probably felt that way because Luc has always been so secretive and shut down,” Giles points out.
“What you don’t know is he confided in me about her,” Janine points out. “And his impression was Elizabeth defines her life according to the guy she’s with.”
“Many women do,” says her father.
“Well, I’d rather be alone than have to mold myself to a guy.”
And then Giles asks, “Janine, are you trying to tell us something about . . . your relationship to other women?”
Eleanor and Janine look at one another in surprise and actually burst out laughing. Then Janine says with deliberate gentleness, “Oh, Dad. That question . . . I want to say it’s dumb of you, but . . . shit, we’re all in a bad way here, aren’t we?”
Giles foolishly tries to defend his remark. “Well, I don’t know any other women who obsess over hockey the way you do. Who when they watch the Bruins, they wear not one, but two jerseys, Bergeron and Marchand.”
“Yeah? Well, I love those guys. However, if either of them were my boyfriend, I’d whip him into shape.” Then, more philosophical, Janine says, “But no. I’m not gay. However, men are definitely wary of me.”
It occurs to Eleanor that perhaps a few of Elizabeth’s softer qualities might help her own daughter find men suitable for dating. “Does anybody want more of this?” She points to the glass casserole dish of perfectly baked macaroni and cheese.
“I’m good,” Janine says, looking down appraisingly at the substantial leftovers clinging to her plate.
Eleanor doesn’t even wait for Giles’s response; she assumes he is finished eating. She grabs his plate, reaches for the nearby potholder, picks up the casserole and pushes back from the table. She takes out a box of foil wrap and prepares the hardly touched meal for the refrigerator. It occurs to Eleanor that putting the meal away is like preparing a body for burial, and like so many of her activities these days, this one seem final, like last rites. Just the other day, believing that viewing slides of her son might somehow precipitate his return to her, Eleanor scrolled through several carousels of family holidays and summer sojourns, lazy days of balmy weather around their cabin on Lake Fairlee. She’d projected the pictures on the living room wall and kept a cardboard box next to her into which she dropped the slides. Hearing the sound of the slides hitting the bottom of the box reminded her of the sound of dirt being thrown onto a coffin. Yes, her sense of mourning is aching, pervasive. Two days ago she broke down and wept over a little big-eared mouse that had gotten stuck in the children’s bathtub and couldn’t climb out and slowly perished, its body desiccated from starvation and thirst.
“I mean, maybe it’s the amnesia again,” Janine says once they’ve moved into the family room and are sitting in front of a blazing fire. “Maybe he just hitched a ride, went somewhere else like he did the last time and . . . I don’t know, is flying under the radar now? Maybe flipping burgers someplace?”
“He didn’t have his wallet with him,” Eleanor says. “No ID.”
“Exactly! So once again living without a name.”
“Yes, and maybe he’s become somebody’s slave!” Giles says angrily. Both women stare at him. “Look, I’m sorry, but how can that be: He’s living somewhere without his name?”
“Because he did it once before,” Janine says.
Giles refutes, “He was fifteen then and fresh off that injury. He’s responsible now. He’s a man. I think it’s ridiculous to speculate that he’s gone anywhere.” Glancing at Eleanor, Giles says softly, “I just don’t think he’s alive anymore, Elle,” his words like rock salt subsuming the fire roaring up before them. “The snow is deep this time of year. He could be in it anywhere and we won’t know until spring. Until he thaws.”
As she watches the flames in the fireplace flicker and crackle, a now familiar weariness comes over Eleanor, the fatigue of having to live every waking moment with the tangible possibility of catastrophe. She wants to get up and go straight to her bedroom and take a Xanax; she wants to wait for the gently falling curtain of
chemical relief, her nocturnal escort away from the reality of Luc being gone but which, she knows, will once again break upon her as predictably as daylight.
At last Janine says, “Too long to wait. We can’t live like this.”
“We have to,” Giles says. “We have no other choice.”
February 23; Carleton, Vermont; 2 degrees, snow and sleet, heavy winds
Taft is wearing a heavy sweatshirt emblazoned with “Newport.” Standing a foot away from him wearing a pair of white earmuffs is Elizabeth Squires, her vehement words punching the air in frosted plumes. At last, Taft pulls the hood of his sweatshirt down over his face and, looking druid-like in the bitter darkness, stalks away from the building. Elizabeth stands there watching him leave and then hurries in the opposite direction, arms crossed against the severe, windy cold. She walks right by the unmarked car, and her aqua ski parka looks momentarily iridescent beneath the nearby streetlamp. Jenkins and Kennedy watch this unfold from inside the vehicle.
“Stalkerish,” Kennedy remarks, “interesting. Let’s try on the fact that something else went down on the night of February eleventh, that they know more than they’re saying.”
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