When She Was Gone (23 page)

“I want to hear,” said Mr. Stein, over the ringing. “Please, but I have to get that.”

He picked up an apple pie, still wrapped with blue-tinted plastic, and went to the door. For a minute, Geo just sat, holding the rest of his story under his tongue. Then he went to the door, too, certain his mother had come to get him.

Someone was standing by the door, but Mr. Stein had passed him. He was standing in front of the group of kids on the lawn, holding the pie as if to offer them some.

“That's enough,” he said quietly. His face was plum. “You can all go home.”

“Man,” said the boy, but he picked himself up off the grass.

Tina Sentry was drawing on her friend's arm with a felt-tip marker.

“We're just, like, showing our support,” said the friend, without looking up at Mr. Stein.

“I said, go home,” said Mr. Stein. He lifted the pie above his head and smashed it on the ground. It made only a small, squishy sound, but his rage was apparent. The pie exploded against the grass and a fat slice of cooked apple splatted on Tina's pen-clutching fist.

“Fine!” she said, and jumped up. The girls dispersed like crows fleeing a tossed stone, cawing contempt and disbelief. They gathered their things and walked toward the sidewalk, leaving candles lit on the lawn.

Geo could smell the cinnamon. He came out on the stoop and stood beside the person who had rung the bell. It was Jordan from Starbucks, with whom he'd shared photographs and ideas, who was on his list of suspects he'd made with Timmy. Geo had seen Jordan walking down the street with a cello case on wheels, standing half in the doorway, a look like drowning on his face. As Mr. Stein returned, Jordan started saying something Geo missed, but he heard the rest, the man's voice bare and almost crying.

“Pardon me,” said Mr. Stein, wiping his hands and looking at Jordan quizzically. “They were just so noisy, chattering on, and they were ruining the grass.”

Jordan was breathless. He continued as if Mr. Stein hadn't said anything.

“So I need to use your phone, because his wasn't working, because I need to call the police. I have to call them, because he was—” He looked over at Geo, into Geo's eyes, in that aggressive way that hurt, the way kids sometimes looked at him, as if they might read him, as if he had words through his eyes on the back of his skull. Geo looked down.

“He was”—as if Geo didn't know how to spell—“D-E-A-D.”

26 SYCAMORE STREET

H
is mother had been walking in the backyard again last night. Toby knew because his father's weight made the floorboards speak when he got up and went to the window. Toby had gone out to the bathroom, which faced the backyard, to see what his father was watching. In the past, once or twice, it had been a raccoon, once a skunk when the local paper had reported a rabid one wandering, and his father told them to stay out of the backyard. But this time it was Mom, pacing, barefoot. He could feel his father watching the same things he was, and last night it had been his mother, wandering the backyard in sweatpants and a moth white shirt that belonged to his father, a button-down he'd worn and left unbuttoned by the back steps when he got home from work. His father was usually meticulous, but this thing with Linsey had thrown him off balance.

When Mom was wandering outside, something was missing, something else, besides Linsey. It was as if the house was part of his mother's body, lungs or arms, attached, integrated, essential to her operation and vice versa. Symbiotic, he thought, imagining his mother as a sucker fish held fast to a shark. His dad thought he was being quiet when he wandered, but Toby
could hear it all, the shuffling steps down the stairs, the kiss of the fridge opening, the wine his father poured to the brim of a juice glass, even the drinking. Then there was the click of the oven, a metal spoon stirring something in a metal pan, he thought, strange sounds, until Toby fell asleep.

This morning Toby had risen early, even though Cody was still breathing deeply across the room, his nose whistling occasionally, one leg out of the blankets and vulnerable, hanging over the edge of the bed. His skin glinted like a fish in the silvery light.

Downstairs usually smelled like coffee in the morning, but this morning his father was doing something complicated in the kitchen. There were baking sheets and rolling pins and the warm burnt smell of something buttery baking.

It was going to be the first day of school tomorrow. Linsey wasn't home. He usually remembered about her right when he woke up, but today he'd forgotten, thinking about his new class, about the lunch Mom usually made for him, about the note she usually put in his lunch box, about the things he wouldn't have tomorrow because his mother was so distracted. He hoped his father would take the day off tomorrow, too, because it was going to be a minimum day, early dismissal. He felt odd coming down so early, as if he might bother his father in his private bear mode, hunting, gathering, mumbling, like sleepwalking, owning the house with the rustle of his thick legs in a flannel robe. His dad had never been unkind to him, hardly ever got angry, but he did get that look on his face, he did say, “Oh, I'm disappointed,”
which was worse for Toby than getting slapped. Linsey's father slapped her, once or twice, she'd told him. Linsey was gone. He felt sorry for himself, like an orphan somehow. Until yesterday, he knew she was coming back for sure—now he didn't know anything.

“You're making pancakes?” Toby guessed.

“Croissants,” said his father, with a French accent.

“You can
make
those?” Toby wrinkled his nose. The timer went off, and his father pulled out a baking sheet of hand-rolled flaky half-moons from the oven.

“There's tons of butter in there. Lots of rolling out and chilling of the dough. Just what I needed.” He smiled and slid two onto a plate for Toby. “I needed to chill out, and I need to eat butter.”

“Did Mom come in yet?” If he said it, he wasn't alone in knowing. He worried she'd move her bed outside, she'd leave them, too.

“She's sleeping. These are amazing with raspberry jam.” His father set the whole jar in front of him, and handed him a tiny silver spoon from his mother's special set in the dining room hutch. Why were these out, just for breakfast? They usually only came out at Thanksgiving.

“So, croissants and a candy bar okay for lunch tomorrow?” His dad was grinning. There was a mostly empty wineglass on the counter, the dregs like purple ink.

“Yes,” said Toby, relishing this conspiracy.

•   •   •

By afternoon his father was asleep in a chair in the living room. His nose buzzed with snores and Toby wanted to ask for the same sort of attention he'd had this morning. He wanted to feel important, but he didn't want to interrupt what was obviously an important restoration.

His mom was outside with some visitors; his brother had gone somewhere without telling or inviting him. This had grown common over the last few days, and it was a trial and a relief to Toby, separation.

“Um,” whispered Toby, to his dad, but then the doorbell rang.

He heard everything, though he hadn't listened on purpose. That was how he thought of it, lately, with all the uproar and so many phone calls and visitors and the strange suspicion that had taken up residence in his house. His mother hadn't checked their room in the past day or two, but he knew she was doing it, prowling through their things and leaving them in the same places, but with the dust disturbed. He didn't mind. It was something like his own listening, his need to know.

It was Geo from Cedar Court at the door; he heard from the living room. He'd always admired his neighbor a little—six months older, so much taller, and always absorbed in strange projects in the backyard. What he admired, maybe, was the way Geo didn't seem to need anyone, didn't bounce around at school like a magnetic particle seeking mutual attractions. Toby knew the boy was different, that Geo wasn't bothered by the same things, that he didn't care about sports
and brought pomegranates or cold asparagus for lunch without worrying about being weird and that his skin was dark and his family's was light. But Toby was different, too, only he found ways to be the same—the Boy Scouts, playing soccer. He was fine at the ordinary work of being a boy, but he was better, somehow, at secret things, at learning from what people said or didn't say when they thought you might not hear them.

There was something in the conversation between his father and Geo that made his neck ache. Odd, perhaps it was being jealous, or perhaps he thought someone wasn't telling the whole truth, but then the doorbell rang again, and that guy Jordan came in and started talking about Mr. Leonard being dead, and it didn't matter anymore.

“Okay,” his father said. “We'll call, don't panic.”

Toby couldn't stay secluded another minute. He darted from the living room to the bottom of the stairs, stomping three times to sound as if he was descending. He'd seen his father smash the pie.

“What's going on?” he asked Geo, who stood with his hands around a glass of 7-Up, as if the pale liquid might warm him.

“They're calling nine-one-one,” said the other boy.

“Nine-one-one is not for fun,” said Toby, reflexively. He'd learned that in kindergarten. There had been so much talk about the police and the detective that the gloss of the law was dulled for him recently. They'd called the police for Linsey; they'd followed the orders and they'd checked and
checked, and still her room was empty, still he had a place in his chest the size of a fist that hurt for not having her back.

“Is Mom still outside?” Toby asked his father, who held up his hand while the call went through. He wanted her to come in. He wanted the family contained.

“My neighbor found another neighbor,” he began on the phone, his voice slow. “Can you boys wait in the kitchen? Sorry.” He pointed toward the swinging door.

And Jordan ushered them into the kitchen, where Geo looked at Toby and Toby looked at the floor. They stood for a minute like statues afraid of pigeons landing, and then his father stepped back in, his face quiet.

“You need to tell them exactly what happened,” said Toby's father, putting his hand on Jordan's shoulder. Jordan was shivering, which was strange, because the room was too warm; the central air never worked well in the kitchen, too many windows.

“That guy Mr. Leonard is dead?” Geo asked. “I liked the music,” he said. “He was old, right?”

“Not very,” said Toby's father. “Mostly, he was very sick.”

“Was it like cancer like Johnny Sentry's grandmother?” Toby had to fill the room with something, with talk, with his voice, because his father wasn't paying attention. He hadn't minded a few days of being invisible, but with Geo here, he couldn't help wanting his father's soft and heavy hand to touch his back, or at least to garner the big brown gaze. He wanted the morning back.

“Or was it something else? Like the flu? Did you know people used to die of the flu?”

“They still do,” said Geo. “I guess I'd better get home?” He stepped lightly, strangely silent for such a tall boy. Even he wasn't looking at Toby.

“Is your mom home?” His father walked Geo to the front door. Geo seemed unsettled, and suddenly Toby wanted to talk this over with him, a dead neighbor, something other than his sister, something they could stretch out over the hole of her missingness.

“I've never been in your backyard,” said Toby, almost wanting to go, almost wanting to ask for a playdate, as if they were five years old. It was weird, this guy was dead next door, and he wanted to go back with Geo to Cedar Court and check out the stuff he had in his house. To maybe make friends with him. Because it was clear there was something special about the boy, something that maybe made Toby like him, or at least his dad liked him, and his dad had good taste in people. And maybe if he went to Geo's house, he'd stop feeling so muted, so soundless.

“Where's Mom?” Toby asked, though he knew she must still be out back.

“Yes,” said Geo, and then he left.

“She's in the backyard with Mrs. Sentry and Timmy,” said his father, sighing and leaning on his knees. Toby worried about his dad.

Then the phone rang.

His father's whole body moved at once, a leap, to pull the
receiver off the wall. The kitchen stool behind him tipped onto the floor, and he didn't turn around, just walked into the family room for privacy. Toby watched him go, watched him shut the door, but he didn't move closer, he didn't go into the office to pick up the other phone, and not because he was worried about being caught. He sat and spread raspberry jam on a leftover croissant, which was sweet and light and buttery and so good Toby stuffed his mouth, filling it. He wanted more. He let his father talk without listening, knowing, for the first time, that some things were more important than hearing everything, some things were okay unwitnessed, left alone, that his father would eventually share everything he needed to know.

Toby walked into the backyard.

“I wish I did,” said Mrs. Sentry, incongruous, laughing like a strange dog howling.

“Honey!” said Toby's mother.

“Dad says the phone is for you,” he said.

Abigail sat up suddenly, spilling her mint iced tea. The glass cracked on the stone step beside the grass.

His father was pushing past him, holding out the phone, which he'd switched to speaker.

“Mrs. Stein?” It was that detective, Mr. Barq, his voice broadcast to the audience of Mrs. Sentry, Geo, Timmy, Toby, his father and mother. “I have news.”

DAY FIVE

36 SYCAMORE STREET

I
t was an absolute humiliation, even if no one knew; on her way to pick up Johnny from his first day of school, Reeva sneezed and wet herself. She was taking Charlie's midlife crisis two-seater BMW to spite him, because yesterday he'd been taking time off, and then this morning he told her he needed to go into the office. After the Steins' yesterday, Reeva had gone to Kings to pick up the repulsive pork chops Charlie liked so much, and apples for apple-onion chutney, the thought of which made her gag, but still, he loved them, and lately, he'd been so loving to her, and she'd imagined they might even cook together, sipping wine. Sure, he had to work, but she felt betrayed, as though he'd offered her himself, at least for a few days, that he'd be here for the first day of school, that she wouldn't have to feel so alone, and then: oh yes, duty calls.