He's Gone

by Deb Caletti

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” Nathan says. He looks at me and at Desiree and the mess around us as if he doesn’t know what to think.

  “We’re done here,” I say. I grab my own purse and I leave them there. I get the hell out of that place. He flirts; it doesn’t mean anything. He always talks about his wife. Always. Desiree Harris is just a woman.

  She’s just a woman, and she does not have the answers I need.

  Please, I say to whoever might be listening. Please, no.

  My stomach churns. I am sick with fear. Because I can feel my fingernails in his skin. Even right then I can feel them digging in.

  As they say, the ink was barely dry on Ian’s divorce papers when we got married. It had been nearly four years since we met at that baseball game. He didn’t want an actual wedding, not without his daughters there, and so we went to the courthouse in the city. I wore a cream-colored dress, and he brought me a bouquet of white roses as a surprise. Ian’s old friend, Simon Ash, and his wife, Theresa, stood up for us. It was the first time I’d met them. My family wasn’t there—Abby wasn’t—and it bothered me. But I kept my mouth shut. These were more red flags that I ignored. Maybe they should make those flags in another color.

  I didn’t know then what I know now, that emotional rescue is, at the heart of it, a lack of respect. If you’re the one being rescued, it’s a lack of self-respect. If you’re the one rescuing—lack of respect for the other person. You’re demonstrating your belief in your own weakness or in theirs. It’s insulting.

  Not that I was with him only because he was rescuing me. I loved him. Oh, I did. My heart ached with it. I didn’t see him clearly, not at all, but I loved him. His eyes got teary, too, when he said his vows. Forever, he said. You could believe a day like that could bring a whole new start. He’d been short-tempered and critical since his divorce, but who wouldn’t be? His daughters wouldn’t speak to him. His father had died. I was the equivalent of having all your eggs in one basket. I was the basket. No wonder he started imagining that men were interested in me when they weren’t. No wonder he accused me of flirting. Toby and Renee noticed this about you from the beginning, he’d say. I’ve never been a flirt. In high school, I blushed when boys talked to me. Ian was just experiencing temporary insanity. In no time, he’d go back to being the man I fell in love with. His behavior made some sense, if you thought about it. The security of marriage would cure him. Oh, the arrogance in the idea that your love can cure. Good luck with that.

  The whole mess—we were clichés, all of us. First, Mark and me. We played out the typical woman-leaves-husband story. In this sordid tale, she tries to leave and he attempts to destroy her for it. During the divorce, he keeps being the asshole he was in the marriage and devises lengthy, expensive legal maneuvers, while she keeps being the victim she was in the marriage and falls apart. There is a separation agreement, a parenting plan, one restraining order, one divorce decree, and a partridge in a pear tree. He gets an apartment and schemes revenge, and she stays in the family home and leans too much on the children for emotional support, ensuring their need for later therapy. He dates bimbos, joins a gym, gets a fresh new look (hair, tattoo), and throws himself into new, weird, short-lived interests (astrology, singles bars, religion). She reads self-help books and tries to be more assertive and marries the first post-husband man she sleeps with. He buys the children expensive gifts he can’t afford but doesn’t show up for birthdays or school events as promised; she struggles with money, gets a puppy, and sews Halloween costumes involving hundreds of sequins, which still does nothing to alleviate her guilt. He disappoints; she hovers. The children (or child, in our case) trudge back and forth and eat two Thanksgiving dinners in one day and vow never to marry unless it is for forever.

  And Ian and Mary performed the man-leaves-wife drama. Here, he cheats and hides it, and she finds out but pretends not to know until he finally confesses, after which she tries to meet him at the door in a trench coat with nothing on underneath. He halfheartedly “tries to make his marriage work” while she goes to Nordstrom, maxes out their credit cards, and then sees an attorney secretly after a session of “couples counseling.” In this version, he gets an apartment and marries the first woman he sleeps with, and she reads self-help books and joins a gym, gets a fresh look (hair, tattoo), and finds new, weird, short-lived interests (yoga, online dating, religion). Their children rally around her and don’t speak to him, even on Thanksgiving, and vow not to marry unless it’s for forever.

  After Ian and I wed, we morphed into yet another tired and overused contemporary family story. We were the “blended family.” There are usually two versions of this, too, I’ve found. In version one, the kids don’t accept the new partner, and in version two, they do. In our first scenario, the children blame the new wife for every change they see in their father, from a too-fashionable style of sunglasses to a never-before-seen assertiveness. The new wife gets chilly hugs and the-way-Mom-does-it-better stories, as the daughters (usually daughters) act like mini-wives, scheming to rid the house of the intruder who is monopolizing Daddy’s time, money, and affection. They give sentimental gifts involving old photographs, ruffle his hair in ways that seem disconcertingly seductive, and deliver information back to Mom that requires her to phone Daddy immediately after their weekend with her “concern.” Daddy (he’s always “Daddy”) alternatingly plunges into grief or walks around unaware, little bluebirds of Daddy love tweeting around his oblivious head. If during one visit they don’t step on the backs of the new wife’s metaphorical shoes or don’t pull the metaphorical chair out from under her, he’s sure that all the bad feelings are now in the past. He magically forgets everything that came before; it’s a clean slate in his mind. He’s performed some misplaced act of contrition on their behalf, sure of their goodness. Next time, they will step on the backs of her shoes and pull the chair out from under her. This is the stuff of fairy tales.

  In scenario two, the children are fond of the stepparent but must hide those feelings from the real parent as if they are potentially world-endingly nuclear. Which, of course, they are.

  Yet, in spite of the clichés, there are the snapshot moments where the pain of it belongs to no one but you. The banality shatters, and what is suddenly, horribly there is all yours. Like watching war on television, or some earthquake, any tragedy—it’s just another war or earthquake or tragedy, until you see that dead arm with a watch on it or a child’s shoe sitting among the rubble.

  Example: That second Christmas Eve after our separation, Abby was celebrating with Mark and his family at his parents’ home, and Ian was still with Mary and their children at his. I should have at least made other plans, but I stupidly hadn’t foreseen the danger. I wasn’t alone but ALONE, me and that cheap, scrawny tree I’d bought at Safeway because it was all I could afford and all I could wrestle onto the top of old Blue Beast. The weeping and aching that came that night were so old and so far in that nothing felt worth that kind of agony. Even with fists in walls and heels in ribs, leaving Mark felt like a mistake.

  Example: Bethy and Kristen finally agreed to see Ian after we’d been married for several months. They met him for one hour, over lunch, at a Greek café near his work. Mary had dropped them off, and she waited in her car to pick them up. He’d hoped it was a first step, a new beginning. Maybe they would look at him and remember that he was their dad and not some villain. But they’d come to deliver news. Kristen’s middle school graduation was coming up, and they thought it best that he didn’t come. It would make their mother too uncomfortable. That night, he sat up alone in the dark again. I brought him a blanket and a pillow. It was obvious he would be sleeping on the couch. His voice was miserable but angry, too. He glared at me from across the room. I am missing so much of their lives, he’d said.

  Example: Abby likes Ian. We’d take her and her friends to dinner, and we watched movies and went on hikes. He practiced with her for her driving test. They have a good relationship. After we married, we
lived in my old house for almost two years until Abby finished high school. She made waffles and watched TV on our couch, just as she always had, and the same stuffed toys were on her bed: Ginger-Man (an orange-brown bear), Bibby, her old monkey. But she never came into our bedroom to tell me something she’d forgotten or to ask if I knew where her headband was. She avoided our room. There was, after all, a different man beside me in our bed, and it was Ian there with his bare shoulders above the sheets, not her father. Or we’d be watching a movie downstairs, and Ian would fart. Abby would leave that room then, making an excuse about homework or calling a friend. We both felt this—the uneasiness of it, the awkwardness, the wrongness. There are intimacies that belong only within a family. A real family. Her discomfort and mine, it told me there were ways he would always be a stranger to us.

  Love—well, of course I loved him, but there were things I didn’t see, and things I didn’t understand or know yet. In the chaos and rush of rescue, one cannot slow down for long enough to see clearly and understand. Love—long-lasting love—requires more information. It requires time. When you’re drowning, though, there is no time. You are blinded by the waves over your head and the panic of trying to breathe. When you’ve turned love into survival, the outstretched hand is what matters most.

  The noise in my car is getting louder, but I can’t think about that now. I feel like someone’s chasing me, and I keep watching my rearview mirror to determine if it’s true. I must get home as fast as possible. I need to hurry. As soon as I am home … What? I don’t know. I just need to get there and lock the door behind me.

  It’s late when I arrive. One of those flyers has blown off a telephone pole, and Ian stares up at me from the gravel parking strip. I pick it up and crumple it. I shove it deep into my pocket. Most of the houseboats are dark, except for Kevin and Jennie’s—they’re probably up with their baby. Maggie and Jack’s bedroom window flickers with television light. I think I hear footsteps behind me on the dock, but when I look over my shoulder, I see no one.

  Our own porch light is on, but it’s obvious that Abby has already gone to bed. I open the front door. I try to be quiet about it. Pollux, my dear dog pal, my forever friend, little sugar boy, he sleepily trots up to greet me. I drop my purse by the door, that meaningless cuff link still inside.

  Bed, sleep—how I crave it, even if that dream is there waiting for me. Fine, come. Let me look. I’m running out of options, aren’t I? It’s time to face the facts, no matter what they are.

  “Dani.”

  The voice and the figure startle me. I let out a little scream. I put my hand to my heart.

  “Dani, it’s only me.”

  “Jesus, Ma,” I say. “What’re you doing here?”

  “How can I not be here? You went to the police station today, baby kid. You met that woman. A girl needs her mother.”

  I can see a couple of my quilts on the couch. A pillow. A mug. Abby has set her up comfortably. “You’re staying over?”

  “Yes, I’m staying over. Well? Does she know where he is? That Desiree woman?”

  My mother looks small in the dark. Without her boots on, she’s shorter than I remember. It’s age, I realize. She’s shrunk. Who would have thought it was possible? She’d always been so commanding.

  “Nothing,” I say. “It was a dead end.”

  “Your father called. He said he put some missing-person ads in the classifieds. Who reads the classifieds anymore?”

  “He’s trying to help.”

  She grasps my arm. “Dani,” she whispers intently.

  “What, Ma?”

  “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “I went to a psychic.”

  I groan. “I can’t do this now, Ma. I can’t.” Dear God, she loves that stuff. Any hint of the mystical, and she’s in with both feet, wallet in hand. She’s had every kind of brief spiritual fling over the years, with Reiki and past lives and even with an ancient spokesman from beyond. What was his name? Something Indian. An old woman channeled his voice, which must have been a ton of laughs. My mother still has a crystal hanging from her rearview mirror, and it glints dangerously on sunny days. In my opinion, it’s more likely to cause an accident than provide good energy. A few years ago she told me my aura was yellow, but I’m sure it was just her cataracts.

  “You need to listen.”

  “I’m so tired. I’ve never been more tired in my life.”

  Her grip tightens. Her hand is a claw on my wrist. “It was that place over on Eighty-fifth, have you seen it? I’ve always been curious about it. They have that sign with the big painted eye? FORTUNES TOLD.”

  “Ma, it’s above an espresso place. I don’t see how you can commune with the spirits above the noise of grinding coffee beans.”

  “She doesn’t commune with the spirits. She reads tea leaves.”

  “Perfect. Regular or decaf? I hope it’s one of those teas that promise a new mental state. Calm or Refresh or Awake. Have a cup of tea, gain a new outlook, and tell your future.”

  “Don’t make fun. You don’t know.”

  I’m losing patience. “Ma, please. Can’t we discuss this tomorrow?”

  “It can’t wait. She told me that I was keeping a secret. That it’s not healthy. I need to say it before it gives me a heart attack.”

  “Your heart is fine. Your doctor told you that three weeks ago. The heart of a fifty-year-old.”

  “All night, I’ve felt these flutters.”

  “Caffeine, Ma. Anxiety. I’m going to bed.” I pull away, but there’s that grip again.

  “Wait.”

  “Ma, please.”

  “I have been keeping a secret.”

  “What?”

  “I have.”

  I sit down at the edge of my couch, on top of my quilt. I rub my eyes, making dark circles of mascara, but so what. “All right, okay. You know, so you don’t have a coronary tonight.”

  She sits down, too. She takes my hands. Her eyes are piercing. They glow keen and urgent in that dark room. “What?” I say. “I’m adopted. My father is not really my father. That milkman we had back in California—”

  “This is serious.”

  “Fine. Go ahead.” I don’t want to hear it. I am suddenly nervous. The thought in my head, the one that’s screaming loudest, is: What has she done?

  “I saw them,” she says.

  It isn’t what I’m expecting. Something in my rib cage falls. My heart accelerates. Maybe I’ll have the coronary tonight. “Them?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to be hurt, and then once I didn’t tell, it became harder to tell. I couldn’t tell after I didn’t tell! But now it might be important. She might know something. I saw them the day before he went missing.”

  “Who, for God’s sake?”

  “Mary. I saw Ian and Mary. Together. I’d been walking around Target, looking for birthday gift ideas for Stephanie—what do you get a sixteen-year-old? I was in there for hours.”

  “You saw Ian and Mary in Target?”

  “No, I was starving after I was in Target that long, and I went over to that bakery, you know, over by the car place. The one with the good butter cookies? They make sandwiches now. First, it was only a bakery, but now they do lunch. Aunt something? I can’t think of what it’s called.”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Aunt … Aunt what?”

  “Never mind! Just tell me.”

  “It’s going to drive me crazy. Starts with a B.”

  “Auntie Bee’s, Mom. That’s the name. Auntie Bee’s.”

  “Right! That’s it. I knew it was Aunt. I ordered my sandwich, and I’m waiting for them to wrap it up, and I see them. Ian and Mary. Well, obviously I know him, but I recognize her from that time we saw her at your old grocery store, remember? She got in line right behind you. It was supposed to be intimidating.”

  “I remember.”

  Mary.

&
nbsp; Here it is. After all this time, after it seemed like the past was receding and the girls were at least coming to our house, his new life still can’t compare to his old one. How could it? I believe that, I’ve believed it for a long time. His criticisms of me are all the evidence I need. I’m glad there’s an answer here, but I’m sick, too, sick with hurt and regret. He’s with Mary. They wouldn’t keep such a thing from their children, though, would they? They wouldn’t let their daughters worry. But this—it’s another possibility now; there are more questions to be asked, and with that comes relief. I think, Thank God.

  “Her hand was over his, Dani. They were sitting at a table together, and I saw it. I can’t tell you how furious I was. I said a loud ahem! and he looked up.”

  “He never told me this. He never mentioned it. Are you sure he saw you?”

  “Oh, I’m sure, all right. He took his hand back. Snatched it back, the prick. I got my sandwich, and I told the cashier, I said, ‘Once a cheat, always a cheat.’ Loud enough for them to hear. I was so damn mad, Dani.”

  “He didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, no wonder. Of course he didn’t mention it! I slammed out of there so hard, the bells bashed against the glass door. I’ve never been so angry. I had my keys in my hand.…” She purses her lips together tight. She shakes her head, reliving her fury.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Well, maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. He deserved it.” She mimes slicing the air with something pinched between her fingers.

  “Don’t tell me.”

  She slices the air again. “Mr. Perfect’s perfect car.”

  “No.” I am hoping for a denial, but she only folds her arms and raises her eyebrows in challenge. “You keyed his car? Oh, Mom, tell me you didn’t key his car.”

  “He’s lucky I didn’t do worse, the bastard.”