When He Vanished

by T. J. Brearton

  Unless the driver of the SUV is his girlfriend, or wife — he hasn’t said yet — Rainey.

  Silly, I tell myself. No reason to think that at all — except that Bruce seems to show up after each SUV sighting.

  Twice. It’s happened twice. And the first time a whole night passed before Bruce appeared.

  As I start thinking again how I need to invest in a tinfoil hat, I feel a tug at my arm. “Mom . . .” Russ is whispering. Apparently a lowered volume makes begging more acceptable. “Can we have both? I think it’s a good idea. Ice cream and cake . . .”

  I ignore him, focused on Bruce, hoping to be unobvious as I try to see the rest of the tattoo that emerges from his collar. Is it a prison tattoo? Why was he shot? What happened? Is Rainey his wife, girlfriend, mistress, or parole officer?

  “Is your — is Rainey with you?” My awkward question is meant more to elicit information about the nature of their relationship than whether or not he’s involved in strange highway chase scenes.

  “No, I’m going to head off to go pick her up in a little bit — just have a few things left to do around here. That’s why I came by your place. I’m looking at houses for sale.”

  “Oh yeah?” At least the answer eliminates the possibility she’s driving around with tinted windows. “Seen anything you like?”

  “Ah, one or two. You certainly get more bang for your buck out here, that’s for sure. Be nice to get something with some good acreage, you know? Settle back into the quiet country life. After city living, you know . . .” He flaps a hand and glances at Russ with another grin. “Anyway, you guys probably need to get going. I’ll get out of your way.”

  After he nods at me and walks past I get a whiff of something, like motor oil, like boats, and then he turns and walks backwards a few steps. “Looking forward to tonight.”

  “So are we.” My smile is real but I’m thinking about Bruce buying property in our town. Won’t John be pleased.

  * * *

  By the time I finish up the shopping, Russ is practically climbing my body, talking incessantly about Bruce, bullet holes and ice cream. Bruce is nowhere to be seen as the clerk bags up my items. I didn’t see his pickup truck when we entered the grocery store and I don’t see it now.

  He’s left, or is leaving, Florida for reasons unknown, though it could have to do with the scar on his stomach, like he said. I have no reason to disbelieve that the shooting happened. I’ve seen more than one gunshot wound and the scar has the right characteristics: a darkened dip on the skin, almost like a birthmark, with more texture indicating it’s at least a few years old, the skin stretching around the harder tissue as Bruce perhaps packed on a few middle-aged pounds. But when he told me he was looking for property it felt like a lie.

  CHAPTER FOUR / THE DINNER

  “So . . .” Bruce’s blue eyes shine with candlelight. “Here we are.” He raises a wine glass. “To family and friends, one and the same.”

  “Hear, hear.” Rainey is dark-haired and dark-eyed, a kind of tough look to her, wrinkles starring her eyes. I find her pretty in a natural way; she doesn’t wear make-up or jewelry and is dressed in a simple black V-neck sweater and jeans. If anything, she looks a little underweight, like she recently got over a bad illness. Bruce is in the same clothes from earlier; the white shirt has acquired a small dark stain on the lower sleeve. John raises a glass of Pepsi and the four of us toast then sip.

  The kids are tucked away in Russ’s room with a movie playing — I’ve already fed them. And I’ve tried to anticipate our music needs and put together a Pandora station that I guessed Bruce and his lady friend might like. Waylon Jennings sings about holding Bobby McGee as Bruce gives John a sidelong look. “You don’t drink, Johnny?”

  John stabs a floret of broccoli with his fork. “Not for twelve years.”

  “Good for you. Good for you, man.” Bruce sets down his glass and takes hold of Rainey’s hand. “You know what they say though — a glass or two of wine each day is good for the heart.”

  John pops the broccoli in his mouth and looks at me. I find myself regretting the wine. Five minutes into dinner and it’s already a tender spot.

  I take over. “How did you two meet?”

  “We actually met on the job,” Bruce says.

  “You were both in law enforcement?”

  Rainey nods. “It was my company.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Security company.”

  “Wow, okay. I see. It was — did you own it, you mean?”

  Bruce answers. “She ran the whole thing. She was the eyes and ears. I mean if that company was anybody’s it was hers. You got some people sitting in a boardroom somewhere miles away? No, it ain’t their company. We’re the ones on the street. We’re the ones dealing with the day-to-day. And if it wasn’t for Rainey . . . I don’t know.”

  I’m looking at them but keeping watch on John in my periphery. I imagine what he’s thinking as he takes another bite — Bruce saying they were in law enforcement is misleading. People hear that and they think: cops. But I also know there’s pride in a badge, whether it’s for public good or for a private firm. Putting your life at risk is putting your life at risk; pride is understandable.

  “Well that’s very nice,” I say. “So no plans to do something like that up here?”

  Bruce frowns, shaking his head. “No, no. That chapter of our lives is over.” He eyes John. “Right? I mean isn’t life like a book? You finish the chapter, you turn the page. Done. Like you — you had your drinking chapter. Is it okay if I ask about that? You just — you had a hard time with it, or what?”

  I wonder how John will respond. He tends to be pretty matter-of-fact about his past drinking, but it’s also highly personal.

  “Yeah I had a hard time with it,” John says. “I think I stopped just in time. Before it got any worse.”

  “Before it got any worse,” Bruce repeats. “Smart. Well, that was always you, John. You always knew what to do. Bang-boom, you cut it out. Good for you.”

  I sense my husband biting his tongue. Across our many talks about his alcoholism, he’s never given me the impression there was anything bang-boom about quitting.

  I jump in again. “So how was the property hunt? See anything you like?”

  Bruce takes a drink, blots the corner of his mouth with his napkin and glances at Rainey before answering. “I saw a couple of places that were all right. Not what I’m looking for, though. We want a fresh water source, for one thing. And it’s got to have some arable land.”

  “Oh, I see. Yeah. You want to be able to live off of it?”

  “Yeah, want to be able to raise crops. Hunt. Things like that, you know.” He takes Rainey’s hand again and gives a squeeze. “Right, hon?”

  Rainey’s dark eyes flit between me and John. “How about you two? How did you guys meet?”

  John answers ahead of me. “Well, the old-fashioned way, I guess. We had a mutual friend who introduced us. We went out on a couple of dates, then I met Melody and we just — you know — we took it from there. The rest is history.”

  Bruce looks a little embarrassed. He’d commented before on the resemblance between John and Melody; now he knows they’re not blood-related. But he handles it with a knowing nod. “That’s great, that’s great. Instant family, huh?”

  “Yeah. Exactly. A joined family is an instant family.”

  “How was that?” Rainey asks. “Was it hard to pick up a relationship with a child in the middle?”

  I have a prepared answer and put my hand over my husband’s to silence him. “Well, you know, I think it’s always going to have challenges, but I think when a man has a son or a woman has a daughter it’s a little easier than it might be otherwise.”

  I watch Rainey, expecting this logic to resonate among polite company, but she becomes distant. We’ve just stumbled into another briar patch: Bruce and Rainey have their own story. Only, they’re not talking about it and a silence slips over the table.

  I aim
for safer territory. “Who’s your . . . um, financier on the house buying? We used Carrie Seward over in Lake Placid. She was great with it. We were able to close on this place in a hurry.”

  Bruce and Rainey exchange uneasy looks. So far this dinner is all elbows and knees. And it’s so rare we have company.

  “I don’t, ah,” Bruce says. “We don’t really . . .”

  “Oh,” I nod quickly. “You’re just looking.”

  Or maybe they’re millionaires and don’t need financing. You never know with people. But middle-class folk like John and I had to get pre-approved for a mortgage before a realtor would even bother showing us around.

  “Yeah, we’re just seeing what’s out there before we get serious about anything like that,” Bruce says. His eyes find me and I catch a hint of something — chagrin? Maybe not quite. It’s possible that these two are the opposite of millionaires and that maybe credit approval and house-buying isn’t really even in the cards for them.

  “My mother was left a house on Lake Ontario,” I say. “My grandfather bought it cheaply, way back in the day. On Henderson Harbor. John and I got married there.”

  “Really,” Bruce says. “Lake Ontario, huh?”

  “It’s a little place, not winterized,” I explain. “We call it the lake house but it’s not much more than a camp. John’s been doing lots of work on it lately. It took some damage this winter. Lots of storms, and then the lake was up — washed away a good section of the lawn.”

  “Wow,” Bruce says. “Still, must be nice to get away. Change of pace, anyway.”

  “It is. It’s nice to have.”

  “That’s what we’re looking for.” Bruce’s voice holds a tremble. “A change of pace. Big time.” He turns and looks at Rainey and I’m suddenly aware of the tears in his eyes. This innocent little dinner, and it’s like everyone has shown up with gaping wounds. “Rainey is sick,” he says softly.

  “I was diagnosed two months ago,” Rainey follows.

  Both John and I have stopped eating, just listening. I seek John with a sideways glance but he’s fixated on our guests.

  “We really struggled at first with the diagnosis.” There is pain in Rainey’s face. “But we decided to take it, to make the best of it.”

  I’m dying to ask what sickness they’re talking about. Cancer? Something else? But it’s like John and I have faded into the anonymity of a watchful audience.

  “When something happens that’s life-changing,” Bruce says, “then you have to change.”

  I feel as if my heart is being squeezed. John pulls his hand from mine and finally looks at me.

  What the hell did we get ourselves into? is written on his face. First it’s awkward comments about drinking, then clandestine house buying — and now this bombshell. But I give John a little encouraging nod and touch his leg beneath the table. It’s all right.

  There is a commotion coming from Russ’s room — like Russ and Melody are arguing. I’d chosen a movie I thought would keep their attention equally and set them up with popcorn and drinks, but the bond is unraveling.

  Bruce and Rainey remain eye-locked with each other and no one says anything for a good fifteen seconds — an eternity. The door to Russ’s room bangs open and someone thuds across the floor — probably Melody — and another door slams shut. Rainey finally looks off in that direction and smiles in a sad way.

  It’s got to be cancer. Just like that friend of theirs — Andy something. Just like John’s own mother.

  I consider getting up to deal with the kids, but I don’t. I’m rooted to the spot. The kids can deal with their own problems for the moment.

  “That’s terrible, Rainey. I’m so sorry . . .”

  She nods and looks down at her food. Then she lets go of Bruce and picks up her fork, spears a piece of chicken and eats it. I have to force myself to stop staring. Whatever it is isn’t affecting her appetite. So not ovarian cancer, I guess. But I’m no oncologist.

  The whole thing suddenly strikes me as bizarre. While it’s ridiculous and inappropriate to doubt them, and I’m usually no cynic, I can’t help it. As if any minute now our table guests are going to pass around a cup and ask for donations. Something. Bruce just showing up, mentioning the passing of a mutual friend, inviting himself to dinner, now dropping a bomb about Rainey’s unspecified morbidity. There is an air about the two of them even if this story is true — and why wouldn’t it be — there’s some hidden agenda in the telling, some scheme. As if Bruce decided to share it after finding out I was a nurse practitioner.

  I quickly banish these thoughts. People experience tragedy — the most awful things. I should know; I have patients at the hospital whose life stories would be rejected by Hollywood for being too incredible. John’s own past is heartbreaking and I have a few sad things trailing me, too. The wine is just getting to my head, my judgment affected by the strange events of the past couple of days.

  “We don’t make it a big thing,” Bruce says at last. “We’re just grateful for what we have, glad to be back in the area where we both grew up.”

  Another silence develops. Even the kids have gone quiet.

  “This is delicious, by the way,” Rainey says.

  “Oh, this is great,” Bruce adds.

  At last the levee breaks and Russ’s door crashes open again with a bang. “Mom?” He’s headed this way.

  I push back from the table. “Excuse me.”

  “Sure,” Bruce says.

  Melody’s bedroom door swings open as I stalk down the hallway. My daughter stands there like she’s been counting the seconds until authority arrives, about to burst as she jams a finger at Russ. “He had his hand down his pants. While we were watching—”

  “I did not! I had an itch!”

  “Mom, he was touching his balls.”

  “All right. Quiet. Both of you. Right now. I told you, we have guests . . .”

  Bruce calls from the other room, surprising me. “It’s all right! I do that!”

  And he and Rainey cut up laughing.

  * * *

  John is washing dishes as I put two plates in the sudsy water. “Well. That was interesting.”

  “Holy shit, right? I was waiting for them to ask us to sell Amway or join their cult.” If anything, he seems relieved.

  “She’s sick? Did Bruce tell you what it was? I never got a moment alone with her. Did she say anything when you were showing her your office?”

  “No. And I didn’t, you know, feel . . .” He wipes his hands on the rag hanging beside the sink.

  I rub at his lower back. “Well, at least when we said goodbye, nobody invited themselves for another dinner.” It’s a joke, but he’s not laughing.

  “I just . . . I mean . . . is she terminal? The way they were acting . . . But what do you say? Can you ask someone how long they have to live? How do you ask that? I can’t believe I didn’t even know she was sick.”

  “Why would you? You haven’t been in touch with him.”

  “Yeah . . .” He clears his throat. “Just something you’d think you’d know.”

  I move away and grab a dishrag, soak it and wring it out. John is acting funny again; there’s still something he’s not telling me.

  “Well I guess some people are just different,” I say. “They have a different way.” I use the rag to wipe up the counters. “They seemed nice enough, though.”

  John tuts and gives his head a shake. “I was waiting for that.”

  “John, everything we talked about — his mother’s abusive boyfriends, his need to be the center of attention — he’s a sad man. And now he’s with a woman who’s sick with something. They had to shutter their business, it sounds like. They’re back up here, starting over.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “What do you mean? You think they’re lying?” I almost hope he does.

  John studies the floor. “Maybe you’re right. You’re probably right. But I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m being the asshole now —
I really don’t want to see them again.”

  “That’s fine with me. We invited them in, showed them hospitality. There’s no more obligation.”

  “Sounds like an ad,” he says, cracking a smile. “Bruce and Rainey . . . try them for free, no money down, no obligation to buy.”

  “Stop,” I say, but feel the humor tugging the corners of my mouth.

  John sweeps me into a hug and spins me around, just lifting my feet from the floor. When he sets me back down, we stay wrapped up in each other’s arms. I can feel the muscles in his back, the knobs of his spine as I run my fingers over his shirt. I’ve never once considered John a weak person and the extent of his suffering doesn’t change my mind, only makes me think that whatever it is he’s not completely sharing, or can’t, is bigger than I understand. With time, I figure, it will come together.

  “Maybe he was looking to bury the hatchet,” I say as John lets go. “He might not even consciously remember all of what happened with you guys. He probably has a different picture of high school than you do — remembers things how he remembers them. But maybe somewhere inside he realizes he’s done you wrong. So he shows up, he flatters you, he praises you . . .”

  “Nah, I think it’s like you said. We did our part. Let’s leave it.” He gives me a peck on the lips and starts away. “I’m going to get to work. Maybe get some actual writing done this time.”

  “Good luck.” He’s probably right. Better to let the whole thing go. I’m not the type to believe in omens — not literally, anyway, not after I escaped the cult of my mother — but if that dinner wasn’t an indication of a relationship better left untended, what else is? And the way Rainey was looking around my house, like she was planning to crib my decorating . . . or the way Bruce took so long in the bathroom . . . They were too familiar, too comfortable too soon, even for my tastes.

  Anyway we have enough going on in our lives to keep us plenty busy. It’s Saturday night and I have a shift tomorrow from noon until midnight. John has a deadline for a new book and he’s been struggling with it. Keep things simple, that’s our motto. After a bit of a rocky start we learned to pace ourselves, make some sacrifices. I had to let some of my old relationships wither a little. John learned to trade his beloved solitude for community interaction in order to be married and have a family.