When She Was Gone (6 page)

The wind blew hard, dusting him with piney soil. Sometimes trash collected in the spot between the fences. Sometimes Geo found Cody Stein's homework or the prescription label for Tina Sentry's acne medication.

Today, there were some new papers in the crease where the fences narrowed into an oblique angle, and Geo rescued them. A bill from the milk truck that delivered to the Sentrys' house where there was always a gaggle of kids and the mother wore a leather blazer and swore sometimes in front of them. A water-stained scrap of box from a frozen shrimp Creole entrée. A note, folded and folded again, wet so the ink bled through the white side of the paper, so the thin blue printed lines had swelled into the spaces between them.

“Mom” he read. He peeled it open and examined both sides, but “New” and “L” were all he could make out. He refolded and tucked this into his pocket. Geo wadded the other trash in his hand as he made his way to the cans behind the garage.

“THIRD TIME, GEO,” his mother called out from the back door.

“Can I have a soda?” Geo asked, because he was bored. He already knew the answer, and she didn't even bother.

“Wash your hands,” she said. “Cookies? I want you to help me tie on some beads.”

26 SYCAMORE STREET

S
he was home by three, still abuzz from Margaret's inexorable enthusiasm and three iced tea refills. Maybe she wanted to open a
gift
shop, she thought, fingering the things she loved on the shelf in the hallway, the tiny cloisonné boxes, the carved wooden birds from a roadside stand in Vermont, which had sold rabbit meat, eggs, maple syrup, and the glorious little painted birds: a chubby robin, a slightly haughty red-winged blackbird. She had been with Joe when she bought them.

Or maybe a restaurant. A tea shop. The women of this town would like that, a proper English tea. Margaret always stretched the frame of her world; Margaret always reminded her of the possibilities still there for the grasping. There was a business proposal course at the community college—none of this was too hard for her, it was just the sum of it that seemed daunting. For now, they'd agreed, she'd try out something part-time—to eavesdrop on the small business world, to wind the gears of something before trying to make it tick.

The bus would be back soon from camp, and Linsey would get a ride home from someone at work; the empty
house would be full. She went upstairs and changed back into jeans. Passing in the hall, she sniffed; the boys' room felt stuffy, so she opened the windows, airing out the crushed-grass, sour sweat as best she could, waving her hand, ineffectual. She looked in their drawers, always embarrassed to be prying, but she needed to keep them safe from their own curiosities. She found pennies; gum wrappers; a thousand tiny plastic party favors—superhero wobbly heads, ball-and-cup games; hardened, unwrapped licorice; collector's cards with their peculiar Japanese characters; a picture in Toby's drawer of the basketball team Toby had quit while Cody kept at it. Nothing dangerous. She still regretted not paying more attention to Linsey's drawers when it mattered, to Linsey's teenage hiding places. Leaning her face against the screen, she could almost smell September out there, the leaves letting go of green.

Since it was summer, Frank would come home early. He came home early as often as possible. He played catch with the boys in the backyard. Connect 4 with Toby, over and over, at the dining room table. He took Linsey shopping for the things she needed that Abigail had not managed to find for her, or with her. He mixed piña coladas and planter's punches for her, and sometimes for Linsey, and brought them out to the yard, where mother and daughter sat with their feet in an old tin tub that used to hold Linsey's vast collection of Beanie Babies before she donated them to the day care in Paterson where she now worked. The school was in a warehouse in a horrible neighborhood with a gun shop two doors
down and loitering lost men on the street, but Linsey and her coworkers traveled with buddies and pepper spray. She could give the kids attention they wouldn't otherwise receive. She was there right now, but her mother was already ahead, thinking about the evening, swatting the invisible mosquitoes, wondering whether they had any bendy straws for the boys' virgin version of the punch.

Never mind the phone,
she thought, as it rang.
Let it ring,
she had to put away the three baskets of laundry waiting on the landing.
Let it ring, let it ring,
and then she dashed across the landing to the master bedroom to answer it anyway, because Abigail had a hard time ever letting the phone ring.

“Is Linsey Hart there?” asked a young voice, a bright bird sound. Maybe it was the new roommate again. Linsey had talked with her for two hours just last week. They had texted and talked on Facebook relentlessly. Preparation for friendship.

“No,” said Abigail. “She's at work. May I ask who's calling?”

“Oh,” said the voice. Chipmunk, really, but sweet. Very young, maybe someone from high school. “No, I mean, this is the day care—I didn't realize she had two jobs. It's just, we thought she might come in today to pick up her last check. But we can mail it to her.”

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? Columbia 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.