Leaving Blythe River: A Novel (3 page)

“You need to tell me all about this big trip you have coming up,” she said.

She plunked her elbows onto the table, laced her fingers together, and set her chin on her hands. And just waited, staring into Ethan’s face.

“Oh, you heard about that.”

“Oh, yes. We’re all looking forward to it. Only five days left to wait!”

“But only my mom and I are going.”

“Oh,” she said, and seemed to stumble briefly. “Right. Of course. But I just meant your dad and I are so happy for you guys. How long have you wanted to see Machu Picchu?”

“Just about forever. My mom got me this picture book about it when I was a kid. I was, like, maybe four. She always said we’d go there someday. She said we’d hike the Inca Trail and sleep in these camps that’re over thirteen thousand feet up in the Andes, and wake up to see the sun glinting off the glaciers. It was just one of those big dream things that get stuck in your mind, you know? But I’m not hiking. Which is hard for my mom to accept. She’s disappointed in me.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” Jennifer said.

But it doesn’t really matter what anybody thinks about it,
Ethan thought.
She’s disappointed in me and I know it.

“I think when I was four she just assumed I’d grow up to be an athlete like everybody else in my family. But I’m so not. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“I don’t see why,” she said, her voice oddly light. As if she was trying too hard. But trying to do what, Ethan wasn’t sure. “I’m sure you have other good qualities.”

Ethan snorted. He wanted to look up at her face, but he was afraid of being burned again.

“Yeah, maybe. Maybe someday I’ll figure out what they are.”

“You’re smart. Your dad’s always telling me how smart you are.”

“He says that?”

“Of course he does. So your mom’s hiking but you’re not? How’s that work?”

“Well, first we’re going to spend a few days in Cusco. Getting used to the altitude. And, you know. Sightseeing. And then she’s going to hit the trail, and I’m going to take the train up to Machu Picchu Pueblo, which is right at the foot of the monument. And I’ll get a couple or three days all to myself up there, which should be kind of fun.”

“What about school?”

“That’s one of the best parts. My mom convinced the principal that it would be educational. Like a history and social studies lesson all in one. We wanted to wait and go at spring break, but she couldn’t get off work then. So we’re going now. I’ll regret it when I get back. I’ll have catching up to do. But it’ll be worth it.”

“Of course it’ll be worth it!” she said. “That’s an understatement. Gosh, I envy you.”

Just then something strange happened. Something Ethan would go over untold times in his head in a fruitless search for significance.

Ethan looked up—way up—to see his father smiling down at their table. Literally at the table. Not so much at either one of them.

“Dad? What are you doing here? I thought you had a client lunch.”

“It ended early,” Noah said. “He got called away.”

“Join us!” Jennifer said, too cheerily, too enthusiastically. Ethan thought he heard her voice squeak slightly, the way his own voice used to when it was changing. “Sit down!”

Ethan’s heart fell. Not in a purely figurative sense, either. At least, not by the feel of it. It felt as though his heart had been resting just below his Adam’s apple, and then sank to a place sickeningly deep in his gut.

His dad sat down. And reached both arms out, resting one hand on Ethan’s shoulder, one on Jennifer’s.

“This is so great,” he said. “My two favorite people.”

There was something wrong with Noah’s energy. It was tight, and too artificially cheerful. And there was something wrong with the statement. Because . . . Ethan almost didn’t know where to begin. Wouldn’t his father’s two favorite people be Ethan and his mom?

“We’re your two favorite people?” he asked, mostly without thinking. He almost added, “That’s weird,” but stopped himself in time. Still, it was clear by his tone that he found it weird. Unfortunately clear.

“
Two of
my favorite people, I meant.”

Ethan stared for a moment into his father’s face. The tight facial muscles. The artificial smile. Noah quickly looked away.

“Why are you being . . . ,” Ethan began. But then he decided not to go any further in that direction.

“Why am I being what, Ethan? How am I being?”

“You seem kind of wound up.”

“This is my high-energy time of the day,” Noah said.

Which Ethan realized made no sense at all. His father didn’t have a high-energy time of the day. Ethan had known the man for seventeen years. He would have noticed. Besides, it wasn’t energy. It was something else. More like nervousness. But he didn’t have it sorted out in his head, so he didn’t say any more about it.

“Ethan was just telling me about his big trip,” Jennifer said. “About how he’s going to take the train up to Machu Picchu Pueblo while his mom hikes.”

“Aguas Calientes,” Noah said. “That’s the name of the town. Aguas Calientes.”

“No,” Ethan said. “It’s Machu Picchu Pueblo now.”

“I was there, Ethan. I think I know the name of the town.”

“Yeah, you were there. Then, Dad. You were there
then
. But this is
now
. And now it’s called Machu Picchu Pueblo. They changed the name of it.”

But Noah’s attention had flitted elsewhere. He looked around the room as if he’d lost somebody or something important. A moment later he caught the eye of Charley the waiter, who veered over to their table.

“A menu,” Noah said. “I could use a menu. I’m going to order something, too.”

“Very good, sir,” Charley said, and veered away again.

“I thought you just ate with a client, Dad.”

“Hungry today,” Noah said. “What can I tell you?”

Ethan had a lot more questions in his head, but none that wanted to form into words, and nothing he thought it would help to ask.

He decided to stop asking.

He slipped his phone out of his pocket again and held it down in his lap. The message app was still open, so he typed in:
I’m in the twilight zone
.

What? Tell me

But Ethan never did.

Earlier in the Worst Night of Ethan’s Life

Chapter Three: This is Embarrassing

Three months before his father disappeared

Ethan stood at the check-in line at the airport, shoulder to shoulder with his mom. When the line moved—which was not nearly often enough for Ethan’s tastes—he pushed their bags forward with his foot, sliding them across the linoleum floor.

“At first I thought the late flight was a good idea,” he said to his mom. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“You tired, honey?”

She brushed the hair off his forehead and held her palm there as if feeling for a fever. But probably she was only trying to be comforting.

“Yeah. I’m getting kind of sleepy is all.”

“Oh, it’ll be so worth it, though. It’s such a long flight. Just think how happy you’ll be when you wake up in the morning and we’re about to land in Lima.”

“I guess,” Ethan said. “If this line would ever move.”

And then, just like that—as if the universe had been listening to Ethan’s wishes—the line moved. Significantly moved. Four groups of travelers peeled away from the airline counter nearly at once, and Ethan and his mom found themselves at the head of the line.

“Won’t be long now, honey,” she said. “You can even nap at the gate.”

“I’m not so good at sleeping sitting up.”

“If you’re tired enough, you’ll manage. Oh. That’s us. We’re up.”

Ethan trudged behind her, pulling two bags by their shoulder straps and pushing another with his foot. By the time he made it to the open station—which was a discouragingly long way from the head of the line—Ethan was audibly out of breath. In his defense, they were unusually heavy bags.

“Good thing I’m not hiking at high altitude,” he told his mom.

“Get your passport,” she said. “And don’t you dare tell me you don’t have it, because I reminded you three times.”

“I have it.”

He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. She handed both passports to the airline employee, a tall woman who scrutinized them closely before setting them on her keyboard and beginning to type.

“Destination?”

“Cusco,” his mother said. “With a stopover in Lima.”

“I just need to see your tickets.”

Silence. Ethan watched his mother’s face, startled at the blankness he saw there. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the earth was holding still.

“Tickets?” his mother asked. It was more than just a question. It was a criticism of the request, an accusation of its foolishness. As if the woman had asked to see their sailplanes or their giraffes.

“Yes, ma’am,” the woman said, either ignoring the subtext or too tired and burned out to recognize it.

“They’re e-tickets. Everything is e-tickets these days.”

“No, ma’am. Not everything. Some smaller non-U.S. airlines still use paper tickets on certain flights.”

“But we weren’t given paper tickets!”

Ethan could read the panic in his mother’s tone now. This was not a simple misunderstanding. They were missing something they really would need to board this flight. It dawned on Ethan that they might not be going to Peru that night. It was a nearly impossible chasm for his brain to jump.

“Well, you should have been issued paper tickets, ma’am. Did you book the flight through a travel agency?”

“My husband did.”

“You might want to call him. If you wouldn’t mind moving over enough that I can help the next person while you call . . .”

Swallowing what felt like his heart, Ethan leaned on the counter and watched his mom call home on her cell phone. For too long. With every beat that passed, he could see the irritation and fear grow in her eyes. If his dad was ever going to pick up, Ethan was sickeningly sure he would have by then.

“Damn!” his mother shouted suddenly. She raised the phone as if to smash it on the counter, then stopped herself. “I’ll try the landline,” she said.

More waiting. More of that sense of growing panic.

Ethan made up his mind to let the trip go. To simply release that beautiful dream. It was better than being tense and afraid. Anything was. And if everything somehow worked out, and the dream was handed back to him, so much the better.

“I’m going to kill him,” she said under her breath.

“Not picking up?”

“No. I swear he has the worst timing.”

His mother waved at the airline employee. Tried to talk to the woman. All she got for her trouble was a signal that Ethan and his mother would have to wait until she was finished with the traveler currently being helped.

“Okay,” the tall woman said. “There’s another flight to Lima leaving at ten forty tomorrow morning. You can go home, see if your husband has the tickets. If not, he can contact the travel agency, and you can try to get them in time. I can switch your reservations to that flight right now if you want. We have seats available.”

Ethan’s mom looked into his eyes. Her panic seemed to be fading. Well, not so much fading. Not going away on its own. She seemed to be forcing it into some kind of submission. Breathing it down, one lungful of air at a time.

“That’s not so bad, right, Ethan? It’s less than twelve hours’ difference.”

“Yeah,” Ethan said, still thinking it felt like a big deal. “We’ll manage. Besides. What choice do we have?”

Ethan had no intention of sleeping in the cab, and no memory of drifting off. But the next thing he knew, his mom was shaking him by the shoulder. He looked out the window to see the front of their apartment building.

He stumbled onto the cold street as she paid and tipped the driver. Their doorman came out to help with the luggage, and the cabdriver popped the trunk lid.

Ethan felt strangely vulnerable to the cold, and as though he were walking in a dream.

“Thought you were off to Peru,” the doorman said, apparently to Ethan. “Something go wrong?”

“You might say that. Turns out we were supposed to have paper tickets.”

“Paper tickets? I didn’t think they even had those anymore!”

“Neither did we. But I guess we were all wrong.”

“And the travel agent didn’t tell you that?”

“We’re not sure. My dad made the arrangements. We couldn’t get him on the phone. He’s not picking up.”

Ethan felt his mom move close to his side. It was a comforting feeling.

“Sorry about your trip, Mrs. Underwood,” the doorman said.

“Thanks. I’m going to go upstairs and kill my husband now. He’s still home, isn’t he? He was home when we left. Did he go out that you know of?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Underwood,” he said, lifting the last of their bags. He had one over each shoulder, hung by their long leather straps, and now one in each hand. “I just came on shift at midnight.”

They followed him through the door and across the lobby to the elevator.

“You can just leave the bags here, Robert. Ethan and I can carry them up.”

He nodded and tipped his cap to them, and as he walked away the elevator dinged. They dragged their luggage inside.

Ethan’s mom looked over at him as the doors closed. Pityingly, as though only Ethan were having a bad night.

“You okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah. Just sleepy.”

“I know you’re disappointed.”

“We’ll still go, though. I mean, if you can get those tickets in time.”

“You let that be my worry.”

She stroked his hair back off his forehead, and then the elevator stopped. It made his stomach tip slightly. The elevator always made his stomach tip slightly. It stopped and started too suddenly.

The doors opened. They hauled their bags a few yards down the hallway to their apartment door.

“If he’s in there and just vegging out by the TV with his phone turned off, I swear I’ll kill him.”

She turned the key in the lock and swung the door wide.

“Oh, good God,” she said. Breathed, really. Just a bare whisper.

Ethan couldn’t see around her. Couldn’t see what she saw. Without thinking the action through, he put one hand on his mother’s shoulder and pushed her out of the way.

On the couch he saw his father. And Jennifer. His father was wearing only a short purple silk robe, a robe Ethan was fairly sure belonged to his mother. Jennifer was only wearing one of his father’s big shirts, her long bare legs draped one over the other. They were half sitting, half lying on the couch, Jennifer resting her upper body on Noah’s chest. They were eating something together, something from a bowl. Ice cream, maybe, or yogurt. Noah’s arms wrapped around Jennifer, offering her a spoonful, and she had to take his hand in both of hers to direct the spoon to her mouth.

They looked up.

Jennifer jumped to her feet, using her hands to keep the long tails of the shirt in place.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

It was a strange, disjointed thought, but it struck Ethan that if he and his mother had not walked in, Jennifer would be happy. She would be having fun. Having a great night. She would not be sorry. Not at all.

“I’ll get dressed,” she said, and ran out of the living room, purposely avoiding Ethan’s eyes.

Ethan felt his mother brush by his shoulder. Watched her stomp down the hallway. He heard a door slam. Hard enough to make him jump. And wince.

He looked at his father. His father looked at him.

First there was only silence.

Then Noah said, simply, “This is embarrassing.”

But there was a different truth hiding in plain sight in that moment. It was a truth that Ethan would go over time and time again, just underneath the level of his consciousness. Anytime it reached a level of conscious thinking, he would push it down again. Still it played down there without pause, like a film clip set to run on an endless loop.

It was the look in his father’s eyes. Noah wasn’t embarrassed. Not even a little bit. He looked pleased with himself.

He looked like he’d won.

Ethan couldn’t bring himself to put a name to it beyond that, or to look at it for a moment longer. He turned and ran out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. He expected his father to try to follow him. Try to apologize. Try to keep him home.

Noah never did.

It’s hard to account for everything that happens while a brain is switched to the off position. Maybe Ethan was too stunned to use his brain in a normal way. Maybe he was in a mild state of shock. Or maybe all the thoughts available to him in that moment were thoughts he didn’t want, and refused to allow.