All Things Cease to Appear (52 page)

Who
were
they, she wonders, her parents? Who was Catherine Clare? There are just a few pictures to choose from. Here she is in the garden, in a white sleeveless dress. Here by the fire. Here on the front porch, smoking, a look of knowing in her eyes—of what, exactly, Franny can’t be sure. There are pictures of parties, with strangers holding drinks, poised with their cigarettes and dark countenances like writers on book jackets. And here is her father, young and thin in his professor duds, a tweed jacket, argyle socks, penny loafers. Something about him—aloof, indifferent, the expression on his face more like arrogant. The dark eyes, the unsmiling mouth. An ambiguity, she thinks.

Was he really so unhappy?

Maybe she’s reading this into it. Or possibly that’s her own story about her father, the one she’s been making up all along.

—

LATE IN THE AFTERNOON,
a truck with
Hale Brothers
on the doors stops out front. She steps onto the porch, shielding her eyes from the sun.

I got a cord of wood here, the driver calls. Where do you want it?

Around back. I think I saw a shed.

He nods and turns the truck around, then pulls down alongside the house and parks. Another man’s in the passenger seat, squinting, motionless. Back inside, she stands at the window and watches the driver go about his business, his plaid coat shifting as he moves back and forth to the shed, tossing armfuls of logs onto the pile. The other guy doesn’t get out to help, just sits there looking straight through the windshield.

After an hour, at sundown, the driver comes to the back door, cradling wood in his arms like a baby. I was told to light the stove.

Yes, please, come in.

He walks past in his big coat and she can smell his day: horses, woodsmoke, cigarettes, sweat. He takes off his wool hat, stuffs it in his pocket, wipes his forehead with his sleeve and shakes out his flattened hair. She’s already noticed his good looks, and when his blue eyes roam over her she realizes she’s still dressed in the old scrubs and her favorite T-shirt from college, her hair in a ratty ponytail. His glance pauses on the vodka bottle next to the pickle jar. Having fun?

Sort of.

Cold in here, ain’t it? Let’s see if we can’t do something about that. He crouches before the stove—pushing in the wood, crumpled newspaper, the match—and it immediately flashes to life, warm and yellow. He closes the door and secures the crank. That should hold you.

Well, thanks.

You bet.

Do I owe you?

She took care of it.

Okay.

He takes her in again. You okay?

She shrugs.

You don’t look it.

It’s just kind of hard being here, that’s all.

Somebody should’ve burned this place down a long time ago, he says. I grew up in this house. I’m Cole Hale. You don’t remember me, do you? I used to babysit you. Back when we were kids. I knew your folks. Your mother was really nice to me.

Slivers of memory come back, a boy in a plaid coat, dirty boots, socks with holes.

He pushes the hair out of his face, more out of habit than necessity. I see you’re all grown up now.

So are you.

Yes, ma’am. Only I’m old.

How old’s old?

You don’t need the gory details.

She did the math in her head. Maybe thirty-nine?

Just about.

That’s not old.

It’s a whole lot of years, though. They sure go quick. He smiles at her and everything stops.

The jar’s got an inch of vodka left and she holds it up. You wouldn’t want one of these, would you?

I gotta get him home. He nods toward the truck outside. That’s my brother Wade.

Is he okay?

He’s been over in Iraq since the invasion. It didn’t go too well for him.

That must be hard.

It’s worse than that, but he’ll be all right. You gonna be okay out here on your own?

I’ll be fine.

Fine ain’t much good, is it, Franny?

She shakes her head. I think I remember you, she says.

Well, that’s good news. I remember you, too.

She stands there waiting for him to hug her, and when he does his arms feel good, strong. For a minute, they hold on to each other, then he puts his hat back on and heads out the door.

2

I’ve been waiting for you my whole life,
he wanted to tell her. But you can’t tell anybody that. Anyway, she’s probably got someone. Christ, she might even be married, though he hadn’t noticed a ring. And her beauty just complicates things. What he knows about beautiful women: they always seem to know it. His ex-wife used to wield her beauty like an AK-47 and never didn’t get what she wanted. For a long time he thought that was enough in a marriage, him trying to make her happy. Turned out it wasn’t.

Predictably, his brother asks, Was she nice?

Yeah. She was nice, all right.

Pretty?

That, too. Very.

You gonna call her?

Now, why would I do that?

’Cause she’s pretty. That’s usually a good enough reason.

She’s just up here for a couple days.

It don’t take long.

Okay, Romeo, I’ll keep that in mind.

He pulls into the driveway and gets out and goes around to the other side to roll Wade out of the truck. The new chair is better, worth every penny, but they’re both still getting the hang of it. He pushes him up the ramp and gets him in the house. You okay there, Captain?

Oh yeah, I’m right as rain. He shakes his head like it’s the dumbest fucking question he’s ever been asked.

You want something to eat?

A beer.

What else?

I’m not hungry. Though a beer might taste good.

We’ve been over this, Wade, you gotta eat.

I sure wish I was, but it ain’t likely.

He brings his brother a beer. What’s on?

Thanks. Oh, just the usual shit.

I gotta get Lottie. It’s my night.

You go on ahead. I’ll be fine. Give that sweet little niece of mine a kiss.

There’s that leftover chicken, you get hungry.

Already preoccupied with the show, he waves Cole off.

—

THE LAST TIME
he was in that house it was with Patrice, back when they were seventeen.

After the murder, his old house had become a town landmark, and a popular destination on Halloween. Kids would drive down the road past it and sometimes they got out to look in the windows, later claiming they’d seen ghosts and no end of weird stuff.

It was raining that night. He didn’t want to take her to Rainer’s, and at her place her mother made them leave the door open. They couldn’t get up to much on her noisy canopy bed. They drove around a while and ended up at the farm.

There’s nobody here, he explained, we can be—

Alone, she said.

By then it was all overgrown. Lilacs were climbing up the clapboards and you could get dizzy from the smell of them.

She looked at him. Do you think he did it?

I’m not sure.

Travis thinks so. So does his father.

You spend too much time with him.

We’re just friends. Are you jealous?

Yes.

He remembers how much that admission pleased her.

She was standing there in the foyer, listening attentively, and he pulled her close and kissed her, already ahead of himself and wanting to get her clothes off, but she said, No, wait. I want to go up first. I want to see.

He couldn’t stop her. Halfway up she paused, listening to the rain and wind gusting in off the fields. These sounds were familiar to him.

With her delicate fingertips she traced along the wall in the hallway. A minute later she said, It’s pink.

It was the daughter’s room. They changed everything.

She stepped across the hall and stood at the door of the cursed room.

Don’t, he said.

Why not?

I don’t want you to.

She nodded. How could somebody—

Nobody knows. Nobody has the answer for that.

People are strange, she said. Scary.

Not everybody. Most people are pretty good, don’t you think? He took her hand, watching the shadows on her face.

I know why we’re here, she said.

We don’t have to.

But she took his hand and led him downstairs, to the room where he’d watched his granddad die. There was a couch in here now, instead of the old man’s bed. Slowly, he undressed her. Kiss me, she said, and he eased her back on the cushions and they kissed for a while and then she said, Come on, do it.

Are you sure you want to?

Hurry up, before I change my mind.

They were just getting going when he heard someone upstairs, pacing back and forth across the floor.

Do you hear that? she whispered.

They lay there frozen, clutching each other. Now whoever it was started down the stairs.

He’d never gotten dressed so fast in his life. They ran outside, jumped in his truck and drove off.

And he hadn’t been back since.

3

IT’S HER SUSPICIOUS NATURE,
she thinks, digging through the closet, that keeps her from getting close to people. Something she picked up from her father, maybe because they’d moved so much. He was overly cautious and critical, nothing ever good enough for his daughter. He’d buy them a house in some new town, rip out the old kitchen and hack up the cabinets, doing everything with the ferocity of a crazy person, only to be dissatisfied with the outcome. Deciding it was hopeless. She’d come home from school and see the sign.

He tried hard, but she knew he wasn’t like the other dads. Detached from the regular world. Their quiet dinners, watching
The Cosby Show
while they ate. Hours of homework afterward. Luckily, in the eighth grade, a concerned teacher suggested boarding school and even helped Franny with the application. It’s for the best, she told her father once she got in. For both of us.

Drunk, suddenly weary after the long day, she climbs the stairs, half expecting some zombie to wander out. As she passes her mother’s door, she does exactly the wrong thing and opens it. Like an actress on a stage, she stands there in a wedge of light, awaiting some dramatic turn. But the room is quiet and dark. Defiant, she flicks the light switch and an ugly overhead fixture floods the room. I just want something to read, she says into the emptiness, crossing the worn Persian rug to the bookcase, where a dozen or so volumes lean and wait. And something else. A large, heart-shaped box like the ones you get on Valentine’s Day.

She opens it warily, expecting to find long-decayed chocolates—but instead there are envelopes, five or six of them, stuffed with letters. She closes it back up and brings it with her.

From the doorway she surveys the room once more. A room where a murder occurred, she thinks.

Leaving on the light, she gently closes the door, as if her mother is in bed with a cold, resting.

It’s too late to take a shower and the bathroom’s too cold anyway. Mary has laid out a towel and a bar of soap, and Franny’s touched by the courtesy. She washes quickly, avoiding her reflection, her persistent beauty, and hurries into bed, pulling the covers up to her neck. She props herself up on pillows and angles the lamp. Then she opens the box.

The letters aren’t addressed, the envelopes blank, so she assumes they were never read by anyone but their author, who’d written them on lined paper torn sloppily from a spiral notebook.

Exile

September 12, 1978

Dear Mother—

Greetings from Siberia.

I know I have written to you about this before, but you’ll forgive my redundancy. I have no one I can confide in. Remarkably, to no one’s surprise but my own, I have no true friends, no trustworthy allies. It has become undeniably clear to me that, in marrying George, I have made a severe error in judgment. I am tired of making excuses for him. I used to think he was maybe overworked or worried about his career. That glum face he puts on. Now I just think he’s strange.

I know you have told me to hang on for Franny’s benefit, that money will be difficult—that it will be nearly impossible to find anyone to love me with a three-year-old. But I must confess that my emotions outweigh practical reason. I understand your argument, Mother, and know that you have made many compromises in your own marriage, but I am not as strong as you—

October 9, 1978

Dear Mother: A Thank-You Note

Thank you for helping me to keep on my toes about my weight. It is always so good to know where one stands in life. I have tried to cut down my intake of calories. Sometimes I even feel a little light-headed and have to remind myself to eat something. But it is, of course, all for the best. I know my husband prefers me this way.

Thank you for teaching me such self-control, such persuasive endurance.

On another note. I have come to the conclusion that you are right after all, it’s better to be married than divorced. There is still such a stigma attached, I think, even now. There is one divorced woman in this little town. I have seen her eating in the café, picking at her salad. It’s sad.

Therefore, I must thank you for encouraging me to stay married to George even though he:

a)  has no clue who I am

b)  has no true interest in understanding my needs

c)  has not even an inkling of what I think about or dream about

d)  secretly finds me repulsive

e)  hates me even more than I hate myself.

October 21, 1978

Mother,

I made that recipe you sent for the chicken piccata. It came out rather well. George even mustered a compliment; he is so picky about my cooking.

October 25, 1978

Dear Mother,

I have been walking a lot. The landscape is at once consumingly bleak and somehow uplifting. I suppose one has a kind of religious experience when looking at the sky.