Songs for the Missing (22 page)

“How are
you
doing, Grace?” Fran asked loudly, bending to kiss her cheek and present her with the mints.

“Fran, really, you didn’t have to do that. Goodness. Thank you. As for me, I’m afraid the news isn’t good. Dr. Ray says he wants to test my . . . my . . . oh gosh, what do you call it? You know.” She appealed to Betty, who didn’t know. “My thing. My liver. He wants to check my liver function. Did I tell you, we saw you on TV the other night. Everyone was very impressed.”

Fran stepped aside and Lindsay bowed down and hugged her grandmother.

“How tall are you now?” she asked, patting her shoulders. “My God, she’s an Amazon.”

There weren’t enough chairs for them to sit so they stood around her, catching up. The room was furnished with pieces from the old house—the cherrywood secretary where his mother kept her checkbook and stamps, the marble-topped table from the front hall, the hutch from the dining room, complete with dishes he’d eaten off as a boy. On top of his father’s dresser, beside a black-and-white photo of his parents cutting their wedding cake, stood a framed portrait of Kim and Lindsay in matching bumblebee dance outfits, springy heart-topped antennae poking from their heads. There were other shots of Kim on the walls, alone or with Lindsay, even a few with all the grandchildren, pictures of himself and Rich as kids, and one of his mother as a little girl in a belted winter coat and a muff, standing on the running board of a long touring car. Normally her gallery didn’t bother him, but now instead of a comfort the past was just loss, and he suggested they go outside and find a spot by the pond before they were all taken.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to help your old mother up. I’ve been having trouble with my legs.”

As Betty set the folded blanket on the bed and helped him lift her, he was surprised by how light she was. Her ankles were thick with fluid, but her upper body was a husk.

“Did you want a chair?” Betty asked.

“We’re okay,” he said automatically. His mother could walk, she was just slow and a bit unsteady, and had been since her sight had deteriorated.

“If you need me for anything, just buzz the desk.”

“Thank you,” Fran said, and took her place, giving his mother her elbow to hold.

Suspended between them, his mother bent forward at the waist, as if looking down at her feet as she lifted one and then, with effort, the other. She was wearing brand-new white Nike trainers, which they encouraged here for safety, but which looked utterly foreign on her, a woman who considered jogging silly.

“I don’t know,” she said after a few tentative steps. “A chair might be easier.”

“Would you rather have the chair?” he asked.

“If it’s no bother. This thing with my legs has been getting worse. It has to do with the . . .” Her good hand fluttered, searching for the word. “With the blood getting down there. I can’t think of it now. I have to wear these socks all the time.”

“Compression hose,” Fran said.

“Even when I’m sleeping.”

“It could be phlebitis.”

“That’s not it.”

“They’re probably worried about blood clots.”

“You’d know better than I would,” his mother said, as if the condition was temporary. “I swear it’s something new every week around here.”

Betty helped them get her into the chair, kneeling to set her shoes on the footrests, and he rolled her down the hall, Lindsay walking ahead to press the oversized button that activated the door. He had to hunch to push the chair, and couldn’t avoid the pink, mottled patches on his mother’s scalp, the blue veins encased in waxen, almost translucent skin. He recalled his grandmother Biggs the last time he saw her, at his grandfather’s funeral, shriveled in a wheelchair, her face a lumpy net of wrinkles behind her veil, but powdered, her cheeks and lips artificially red. He and Rich stood before her in their church clothes—white shirts and clip-on ties, hard shoes. She reached out for them to each take a hand, then pulled them close. Her voice was a raspy whisper. “You need to be good for your mother,” she said, as if it was a secret. “You’re all she has now.” At the time and for years afterward he wanted to think it wasn’t true, but honestly it always was. Since his father died they were all she had, just as she was all they had, like it or not. He hadn’t always been good, though that was a long time ago. Surely by now he’d paid for his sins against her.

Outside, families strolled the paths, the grandchildren conspicuous, at the periphery. Mostly there were couples, a single child visiting a parent, and he was glad Fran and Lindsay were there.

The koi pond was the centerpiece of the grounds, spring-fed and murky green, the thick orange and white fish rising to kiss the surface. The path snaked through stands of bamboo and cherry trees along the manicured banks. As he’d thought, their favorite spot was taken, but after a short walk they found a bench in the shade of a Japanese maple and Fran spread a blanket on the grass.

“Delicious,” his mother said of the chicken salad, though she managed only a few bites. Lindsay opened the mints and poured her a handful. “Oh, that’s too many,” she said, and, sucking each one until it was gone, proceeded to eat them all.

Somehow—as if she subscribed to a satellite radio station dedicated to their old lives—she had news of neighbors and childhood friends he could no longer recall. Daniel Shostak’s father had passed away. The Normans’ youngest daughter, who went to Case for astrophysics, was interning with NASA in Cleveland this summer. Her interest in others reassured him, though she regularly groped for what she wanted to say. The gaps were noticeable, and she prolonged them by circling the missing word until they were all stumped.

“That’s what happens when you get old,” she joked, but it seemed clear that she was foggier than usual, and he racked his memory of his last visit for signs he might have missed.

The afternoon was long, and as hard as they all tried to avoid it, ultimately they had to talk about Kim. While he’d kept his mother informed, he hadn’t gone into any real detail regarding the investigation, not merely because he didn’t want to upset her, but because he knew she would have her own ideas on how it should be handled—as if the police actually listened to them. Now when she brought up the possibility of her paying for a private detective, Lindsay asked if she could go get a water from the machine inside, and with a finger Fran signaled that she’d go with her.

“Do you think it’s too late?” his mother asked when they were gone.

Though he was sure it wasn’t her intention, the question hurt him. It was unfair of her to lay the matter out so plainly.

“I’m not sure what bringing in someone from outside would accomplish at this point.”

“That’s just it, you don’t know. Someone from outside might see things differently.”

He wanted to tell her this wasn’t TV, but said he’d consider it, and thanked her for the offer.

“If you’re worried about the money—”

“I’m not worried about the money.”

“Because you and your brother are going to get it all anyway. You might as well use it when it can make a difference.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Please do,” she said. “I may not be of much use anymore, but I can at least do this for her.”

Her offer was sincere and not the ultimatum he might have seen it as in the past. As the oldest grandchild, Kim had been her favorite. From the beginning she’d seen herself in her, taking credit for her facility with numbers and love of drawing, even her good skin, and while Fran chafed at her claims, he could see some merit to them. The two were at once headstrong and defensive, at the mercy of their own showy emotions yet intensely private, blowing up and then retreating into themselves. Like Kim, his mother would always be a mystery to him.

While they were alone they talked about the tests Dr. Ray wanted her to take. So far the doctor was dumbfounded (her word). Her symptoms were consistent with someone exposed to benzene or some other industrial solvent over a long period. She made it sound like a riddle, her case one of a kind. He didn’t ask if she’d told the doctor about her drinking, as if those years had no effect on her liver, and then, in midthought, realized how cold he was being. Directly across the pond a father and son were playing chess on a bench, their legs crossed, jaws propped on fists like twins, and he wondered what they weren’t saying to each other. Every family here, he thought, somehow they were all trying to keep the illusion of normal life going. At this point what couldn’t be forgiven?

He held tight to the idea through the rest of the afternoon and then dinner in the ballroom-like dining hall, using it to soothe his impatience to get back to Kingsville and Kim. Visiting his mother wasn’t an inconvenience, it was a privilege, and he needed to be grateful. After dessert Fran and Lindsay were ready to go, but followed along as he took her outside a last time to watch the fireflies rise from the garden.

“Are there many of them?” she asked, peering into the twilight.

“Lots.”

“All we can do is hope,” she said. “Isn’t that right?”

They said good-bye in her room. He was the last, bending down so she could kiss him, her wrinkled palm soft on his cheek.

“Bless you, dear,” she said.

“I’ll talk to you this week,” he promised.

In the car, headed down the drive, he thought this was the one unpardonable thing—leaving her there, the same way J.P. and Nina and Elise had abandoned Kim. He imagined bringing her home to live with them. They could convert the den. Fran could recommend a nurse.

They turned onto the highway, swooped around the first curve, and the home vanished. It was dark in the hollows, and the longer they drove the more far-fetched his plan seemed.

“Thanks for coming,” he told the car at-large.

“You’re welcome,” Fran said.

Lindsay was already lost in her iPod, and he took advantage of the privacy.

“How did she seem to you?”

“Okay,” Fran said. “A little hazy, but that’s normal.”

“Is it?”

“For what she’s been through.”

“I don’t remember her being that bad.”

“Maybe she was having a bad day.”

“Maybe,” he said vaguely, as if he didn’t believe it. He tried to picture a world without her, and without Kim. It didn’t seem possible.

They passed the entrance for Devonwood and he flicked on his high-beams. The hills were black on both sides, the sky deepening. He wondered when the fireworks were starting.

“When are the fireworks supposed to start?” Fran asked.

“Don’t do that!” he said, laughing. “I was just thinking that.”

“Great minds.”

“Freaky minds is more like it.”

It was fully night by the time they reached the CVS and got on 90. The high lights threw shadows over Fran—silent beside him, absorbed in thought. They’d driven the route too many times with the girls in back, coming home from the old place or a Sea Wolves game, the two of them fighting, or when they were small, slumped against each other, snoring. At home he would carry Kim inside while Fran shouldered Lindsay, waiting until they were safely asleep to go out and close the doors.

A local unit must have just gotten back from Iraq—the overpasses were lined with signs. They crossed into Ohio (THE HEART OF IT ALL, the billboard said) and took the first exit, stopping at the top of the ramp, facing the Conoco. A truck was coming so they had to wait, the turn signal tinking. In the bright strip of the window, half-obscured by signs, a heavy guy in a red shirt was working the register—Kevin.

Minutes later as they sped along the dark flats of Route 7, headed north toward the lake, a green spider of light blossomed just above the horizon, then faded, followed by a burst of silver half lost in the trees.

“Look,” Fran encouraged Lindsay, though from this distance they were no more than blotches of color.

He imagined the crowd down by the harbor, their faces tipped toward the sky, mouths open in anticipation, each new explosion tinting the surface of the water, and he wished they were there and part of it. Impossible. That belonged to the past too, when their greatest cares had been braces and grades and makeup. They dipped down to cross the bridge and all they could see were faint traces of color edging the clouds like heat lightning, but as they crested the hill a single shell corkscrewed up, leaving a skimpy trail of sparks, and a huge orange chrysanthemum bloomed at eye level right in front of them, glittering, its center a delayed white flash that reached them seconds later as a muffled thump. Along Harbor families had turned off their porch lights and set up lawn chairs on their walks. There were no other cars, and cruising through with the rockets floating up beyond the end of the street, flaring and resolving into separate embers and then just smoke drifting on the wind, he thought he should be enjoying the show more. It was something they’d remember.

“Anyone want to stop?” he asked before the turn onto State.

Lindsay didn’t answer.

“I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Fran said.

At home Lindsay put Cooper out, then disappeared upstairs. It wasn’t that late, but Fran was tired.

“You must be too.”

“A little,” he admitted.

Like every night, she offered him a pill. This time he surprised her by accepting it. As he washed it down at the sink, he silently apologized to Kim. In bed, in the dark, with Fran asleep beside him, he thought it wasn’t working and wondered if he needed another. He replayed the day from the beginning, a reflexive form of torture, sinking into his newest memories as if they were a dream. Now that it was over and he was alone, the whole thing seemed strange. The morning came back vividly, minute by minute, like scenes from an unsettling film. Coffee on the deck, the woman at the CVS, the geraniums by the flagpole. He was just bending down to kiss his mother’s sunken cheek when, mercifully, he was gone.

Head Check

The first day of school, everyone stared at her like she was an alien. She verified it with Micah to make sure she wasn’t being paranoid.

“What did you expect?” Micah said. “You’re like a celebrity.”

In the halls faces turned to follow her. People seemed surprised to see her, as if she should have stayed home—as if she should still be out looking. Mrs. Buterbaugh, her guidance counselor, caught her on the stairs and said she could come by her office anytime, never once mentioning Kim. Mr. Czepiel, her chemistry teacher, wore a ribbon on his pocket. In her new homeroom more than half of the girls had pink bracelets. She knew maybe four of them.