When She Was Gone

by Gwendolen Gross

  A squirrel, that strange squirrel bark.

  “No,” said Abigail, confusion rising in her, almost like nausea, pressing her breastbone, making her dizzy. “No, she’s there today, isn’t she? I mean, she’s working for the rest of the week?”

  “Um? Maybe you should talk with her? I mean, who is this?”

  “Her mother,” said Abigail, feeling strong suddenly, feeling stern. This silly rodent of a girl had clearly not been outside that little office at the front of the ugly industrial building today. She clearly didn’t know anything about Linsey.

  “Oh, I thought so,” said the girl. “She decided not to work this week—isn’t she going to college tomorrow or something?”

  Now Abigail wasn’t only confused and stern, she was also unsure what she was supposed to say. So she simply said, “I know.”

  “Right, then, so can you give us the address at college? I mean, so we can send her her last check?”

  Abigail recited the address. It was visible as a card in her memory, the box number already assigned. Just yesterday, she’d sent a little postcard there, one with a picture of the town square, so Linsey would have a tiny bit of home with her when she arrived, so the box would have something waiting for her. She liked to have things waiting for Linsey. She still left notes in her clothes sometimes, little love notes in the pockets, the way she’d written tiny poems on the lunch bags Linsey carried to elementary school, small enough so only Linsey really noticed, light blue pencil or even yellow, Linsey’s favorite color. Her little girl, her sunshine.

  If Linsey was not at work, where was she? Sometimes she babysat for Reeva, down the street, but it wasn’t on the calendar. Abigail walked into her daughter’s room, knocking first, though the door wasn’t latched. She half-expected a sleeping form in the bed, a woman’s body curved around a teddy bear. Her daughter’s scent was in there, lilacs, crushed green, sassafras, milk. The bed wasn’t made, the teddy bear hung on to the edge as if he’d been climbing down on his own. The trunk was in the corner, almost filled: the extra-long sheets; the pillow; a new laptop; the new nylon underwear buried among the cotton Abigail had bought for her, forgetting her daughter was now private about underwear; a framed family portrait with Frank and the boys (Abigail had already found the old portrait, with Joe and Linsey and herself, pregnant, though she hadn’t known it, with the lost boy, slid between the cardboard backing and the front photo. She’d been surprised by how tender it made her feel, mostly toward Joe, Joe before they each lost a necessary piece); and on top, two new sweaters, the lilac cashmere one Frank had spent way too much on as a surprise, and the old moss-colored wool one that used to belong to Joe, which Linsey appropriated and wore when she went out on the weekends, never when she went to visit her father—there was always a chance he’d ask for it back. It was vintage 1950s, and still held the vague odor of his clove cigarettes and occasional pipe. Abigail was afraid to go near it.

  She dialed the Sentrys’ number—maybe Linsey was babysitting—but got the answering machine. Reeva Sentry made her uncomfortable—she fit into the neighborhood in all the ways Abigail did not. Her Christmas lights went up at Thanksgiving. She had window boxes themed for Halloween and Easter.

  Abigail tried Linsey’s cell phone, but voice mail picked up right away. “Call me, baby, okay?” she whispered, trying not to sound wretched.

  Afraid. That was it—she was afraid now. She was afraid because she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She knew what it was like to lose yourself in panic. She remembered the night her son died, her first son, the one she’d lost at two weeks’ old when Linsey was only five—she was still bleeding from birth, her breasts were enormous and painful. Her baby hadn’t cried out to be fed and she’d slept six straight hours. She woke because of the heat and weight of her milk, her uterus throbbing, the floorboards smooth and cold as Popsicles, the light of early winter morning gray and gentle, and she’d stumbled into his room, mumbling, good baby, what a sleeper, thank you, baby, for the sleep, but now you need to nurse. She’d been the one to find him and she’d been the one to call an ambulance, knowing it was far too late; she’d been the one who had to express her useless milk in the shower, who’d made milk for a year and a half after he was gone, her body still hopeful. She’d been the one who’d mourned so deeply she lost herself, who’d left her little girl alone in the world, who’d fallen into her bed and stayed there for almost eleven months, unable to leave, unable to walk farther than the bathroom, unable to bear her husband’s hands—too rough, too old, his voice too deep and his eyes too reddened—unable in all the ways of the world.

  She’d come back to them, but too late for Joe. Not too late for Linsey, who seemed to forgive her daily, all along, who brought her little projects—bouquets of dried flowers, acorns glued in collages with dandelion leaves and milkweed seeds—into her mother’s sickroom. She sat on the square of sun by the closet and worked quietly. She kissed her mother’s hair, not her face, as if she knew such direct sweetness was intolerable. Abigail’s mother had come. She hadn’t kept the details, but she remembered the fear that stayed with her all those months, the fear of looking up, the fear of what she might find, though she’d already made the worst possible discovery. And soon after she recovered, the fighting started. And soon after the fighting, the long division of divorce.

  Abigail wandered down the stairs, trying to be casual about it all. If it doesn’t know you’re afraid, it might not attack. She stood by the phone, tracing numbers on the cacophonous sheet taped up to the wall. More than half the numbers were Linsey’s friends. She dialed the ex-boyfriend’s parents, hanging up without leaving a message. They were awkward with her since the breakup. Or before. They were people who served milk in tall glasses at supper and used cloth napkins. She tried Timmy. It was for the best. She’d wanted her daughter to have a pure first year of college; she’d wanted her not to make things bigger than they were simply because of distance. She’d wanted safety.

  There were dozens of scratched-out names, dozens of friendship dead ends. She tried Bethany’s cell number, but she got a message, a recording of some loud music, then giggling, no polite instructions whatsoever. They were still so young. She called Markos, who had had a crush on her daughter since the third grade, and whom Linsey had tortured with chaste friendship. Maybe. There were things Abigail didn’t know about her daughter. She’d learned this last year with the drugs. She’d found the pot and the single tab of acid in Linsey’s room in a little wooden box Abigail had brought her from the honeymoon in Greece. Olive wood, with monkeys carved on the lid, it had a gorgeous smell all its own. She’d wanted to put Linsey in rehab right away, she’d overreacted, she was so scared of losing someone else, but they’d gone to counseling instead. Linsey said she’d only used pot twice; she hadn’t even tried the acid. Abigail had decided to believe her.

  “Hey,” said Markos. “You ready?”

  “Excuse me,” said Abigail. “It’s Linsey’s mother, not Linsey.” She wasn’t used to caller ID protocol, even though they had it, too—she always said hello and allowed the caller to announce herself, even if she’d read the name on her phone.

  “Oh, Mrs. Hart,” said Markos, because he still didn’t remember. She didn’t correct him, Stein. “You having a party for Linsey or something? She thought you might—” And that hurt, because she hadn’t even thought about it, she’d been wrapped up in planning Frank’s vacation time and the boys’ soccer camp and the days they needed to drive Linsey to drop her off. She hadn’t been that generous. She hadn’t thought enough about how her daughter felt.

  “No, I mean, that’s a nice idea. But I was just wondering whether she’s, um, hanging out with you today? She was going to be at work—at least, I thought—” She swallowed twice. She was not going to give him the whole story. She just needed him to tell her where her daughter was.

  “Mrs. Hart? Oh, well, I thought Linsey wasn’t leaving for a few days? I have until September seventh, can you believe it? Colum
bia starts way late—and it’s not like we have far to drive or anything.” She’d forgotten he was going to Columbia, she’d thought it was Yale. She was glad it wasn’t Yale—she liked Markos and thought Yale was too self-important for him. Then, she was a little worried about her daughter at Cornell. So big, anonymous. She’d leaned toward a small, liberal arts college herself, Oberlin, or Grinnell, Wesleyan, or Antioch. She’d liked the warmth of those places, the safe feeling they gave her on their college tour, junior year.

  “So she’s not with you?”

  “No, man, I wish she was. I have no idea what stuff to pack. I have so much stuff.” There was something plaintive in this. “Will you tell her to call me anyway when she gets back? I tried her cell yesterday but her mailbox was full or something.”

  “Fine,” said Abigail. She hung up. Her gut hurt. She wretched slightly and stood over the sink, waiting. She called Linsey’s phone again. Voice mail. Then she dialed her husband’s number, because Frank would know what to do.

  444 SYCAMORE STREET

  Timmy was running. He had hated the running workouts for crew, grudgingly pounding the stadium steps and flocking through the neighborhoods with his whole team, like starlings, but now he needed to burn. If he sweated enough, if he hurt enough, he might shed the cells that touched her, he might be able to soften the pain enough to stop its screaming.

  He had loved Linsey Hart since fourth grade, since she told him the pointillism project he’d labored to make wasn’t the epic failure he thought. Mrs. Greenberg the art teacher had sighed and told him it was interesting, but even at age nine Timmy knew “interesting” was a doubtful proposition.

  When they finally kissed, just two years ago, it was very different from the kisses of ordinary girls. It was far from perfect—they’d caused the horrible music of tooth on tooth, and then when he went in for a second attempt he’d accidentally bitten her lip, but it was the kind of love worth working for. Now they were experts at kissing, and not just kissing—she was the first girl he’d slept with, and he wasn’t sure he ever needed to sleep with another; his body missed her body the way another body might miss water when parched.

  Timmy was packed for college. His mother wasn’t at all nervous, not like Linsey’s mother, who had pried them apart like halves of a walnut for nut meat. It was wrong. Just because Abigail had made a mistake marrying her college sweetheart and grown bitter at the loss of her own possibilities didn’t mean Linsey and Timmy couldn’t grow together, even by being apart. He’d thought about waiting to enroll at Berkeley—even though he’d applied early and already had his uncle Geoffrey, a gallery owner in San Francisco, arrange for a coveted tiny share apartment in an old Victorian in Berkeley just three blocks from campus—he’d thought it was a mistake to leave her. They hadn’t had sex until two weeks before Abigail made her proclamation, and once they had, he couldn’t have enough. She couldn’t, either. There was nothing old-fashioned about it, and it was far more than anything the music or the TV or the movies or the videos promised—it was better, and it hurt to want something so much. They’d skipped almost a week’s worth of classes, coming back to his house after homeroom to tear at each other with need, or to gently explore everything about this way they made something no one else had ever invented.

  His chest burned with breathing. Timmy nodded as Mr. Leonard the music teacher passed on his bike, his basket filled with library books and a neatly folded paper bag.

  He’d be Tim when he got to Berkeley. He was weary of his diminutive by the time he was ten years old—only four foot six, but bored of being Timmy, the y like a tag of infantilism. His dad was Tim, though, and he couldn’t have the same name as his dad, even though they’d named him that way. Timmy went to sleep-away camp that summer he was ten, and told everyone he was Timothy, though half the time he didn’t remember to respond to calls across the pond or the music tent and people thought he was aloof. He’d made a best friend, James, and they’d spent all free periods in the cabin, discussing video games that were verboten at camp, the junk foods they missed. Then one afternoon James had laughed too hard at Timmy’s joke, and had leaned in toward Timmy’s mouth with his own, crushing him lip to lip. Timmy screamed, embarrassed, a little girl’s scream, and left the cabin. He’d always felt it was his fault, the ruined friendship, the fault of the Timothy appellation. But in California he would be Tim, never mind his father. If his uncle called him Timmy it could be pleasant nostalgia. Timmy had grown up a while ago, even before he’d finally had his mouth on Linsey’s smooth skin. It was going to be freedom to let his name match—one hard and simple syllable.

  Timmy had packed one suitcase and one backpack. His flight was booked and his parents were already in California, stopping to approve the apartment and visit Uncle Geoffrey for a few days before going to a Peace Corps reunion in Rarotonga. The house was already on the market. They’d spent years at home because of him—he knew they thought of it this way even if they never said it—and now they could go back to being expatriates, to being helper people, to being away.

  He never realized before how many women of his town were runners. Jogging strollers passed him as mothers he’d seen under baseball caps in the stands pushed past, faces hard, fully inside themselves. Who had kids in high school and kids in diapers? In this town, the women folded around their children like envelopes around letters. His mother was disdainful—not that she didn’t care, but she didn’t think her whole life should be getting him from one place to another, only to be ripped and cast off when he was delivered into adulthood.

  Dr. Sill ran by in the other direction on Maple, his arms pumping. He’d been Timmy’s elementary school principal, a sweet-faced man with caterpillar eyebrows and a great grin who stood outside the school waving as parents dropped off their charges. Timmy had read in the local paper that now that he was retired, Dr. Sill was writing children’s books.

  Everyone did something. Everyone had a spot. Timmy belonged inside Linsey, beside Linsey, linked to Linsey. If he could leave, maybe he’d have back the half of his arms that belonged to her.

  Before he and Linsey had sex—and as much as he loved her before, the glue of being together the way they’d been made it impossible to separate, too painful, too much tearing—he’d always wanted his own away, and Berkeley was away without having no family anywhere. Besides Linsey, there’d be nothing left in this town for him. If Linsey ever came back to this town. If Linsey followed orders.

  He passed the last of the little Italian delis on the corner of Spring and Ivy. In middle school they’d gone there in packs for slushies after the last bell. Linsey would be there with her friends getting Ring Pops and making her mouth scarlet with sucking.

  He had been running every day this week, his last week. He ran halfway down her block, peeking over the fence at that kid Geo’s mosaic—bottle caps and glass. Geo had taken pictures of them together—the kid was always out with his ancient camera, and at first it had seemed innocent enough but recently it made Timmy nervous—his every action potentially arrested. Geo was odd, but Timmy was sure he was brilliant, poor thing, some sort of genetic trick played on him so his parents, natural parents, were white, while he was black. In Berkeley, Timmy thought, no one would blink. In this town, people were very small about difference, about seeking otherness.

  Sometimes he ran at night and went past her house and looked to see if she was in the window. The last time they’d been together on purpose she had worried the whole time about whether they might be found out. They met in the woods by the boulder kids painted with initials every year; theirs had been on twice but now were buried by new lusts and pairings. The woods smelled of old oak leaves, of the musky tannic river, and of beer. They’d had sex, Linsey pressed up against Timmy on the rock, then he’d pushed her down into the leaves. They’d both worried about ticks afterward; she’d worried about being found out—it wasn’t good, for the first time. Since they’d been together, he’d learned to taste her joys like lemon and coconut; her sa
dnesses were metallic, stale. She’d tasted of sorrow that last time, and he’d let her walk back up the hill to her house alone. He’d almost wished someone else would meet her on the way, someone else would take her from him, someone else might even hurt her, so he didn’t have to do the hurting all alone.

  DAY TWO

  36 SYCAMORE STREET

  With the window open, the kitchen smelled of summer: the cedar deck was wet, and waves of odor lifted from it in bands as the sun struck. Unkind sun, Reeva thought, late-summer sun, never reaching the mildew under the boards, but scorching her hanging plants between the dousings of storms. Green rot.

  “I told you I don’t want toast,” muttered Tina, Reeva’s fourteen-year-old daughter. “I only eat fruit for breakfast.” She rummaged in the fridge, then opened a granola bar and ate it standing over the sink. Reeva resisted the urge to smooth Tina’s cowlick.

  “I need money,” mumbled Steve, opening Reeva’s purse.

  “Steve,” said Reeva, without moving toward him. “It isn’t polite to dig in my purse without asking.”

  “I asked,” Steve said, but he kissed her cheek before leaving the room. At sixteen, he knew the power of a kiss.

  She loved them too much as she watched them leave for camp. Steve collected his backpack, cheese sticks, soda sneaked from the basement party storage; both older kids wore earbuds and iPods, insulating their ears from her ordinary kitchen. Tina was there but just barely, scoffing at the toast Reeva still made for her, butter and seedless raspberry jam. Her youngest, her imperfect, beautiful Johnny, seven years old, was making a sculpture out of twist ties from bread bags, humming to himself and leaving the bread to stale.

  “Johnny? You want breakfast?”

  He didn’t look up.