When She Was Gone (22 page)

Toby took it out, opened the lid, looked inside at the little talismans of his sister's life, holding them like religious objects: a baby tooth, a gold heart charm—

“MEME!” screamed Cody, diving atop his brother. It was a word from Speakey, their lost language. They'd used it as babies to mean Mom, or even milk; embarrassingly enough, it meant their mother's breasts. But after that it meant
mine,
it was the first word of their division.
Meme,
Cody said, all the time; he'd wanted everything.

“MEME!” his brother yelled again, boring his hands into Toby's, grabbing for everything. Toby managed to scratch just above his brother's collarbone, and watched the welt rise with disgust and satisfaction.

“Why did you take it? It's not yours, what did you do?” Toby relinquished his grip on the box, but he held the charm, the tooth, gripping them in fists he tried to use. Cody was all knees and elbows, all harm. Something made contact with Toby's hip, and it hurt, but not enough to stop his fury.

“Fuck you,” said Cody, suddenly still, staring at Toby's face. Toby's eyes stung. For once, his brother was paying attention. “I loved her, too.”

“Never said you didn't,” said Toby, the tooth cutting into his palm, his hip throbbing.

“You act as if she belonged to you.”

“Quit saying things like that. She's not dead.”

“I don't know,” said Cody, standing up, taking the box with him. “Those guys usually chop up their victims.” He left the room with the box, and though Toby was tempted to follow him, he was too bruised to go on with this.

“She's not dead,” he told the gold heart charm in one hand, the tooth in the other. He let his guilty, thieving brother go.
Meme,
he thought. He would have taken the box himself if he'd had the chance.

3 CEDAR COURT

G
eo's mother had gone out to meet a friend; his father was at work. Merry thudded around her room, reciting the last of her summer poetry reading list, Louise Gluck, “You have only to wait/they will find you,” hollering it as if volume could help her absorb the material into her blood. He'd promised his mother he would tell her when he was going, so she could watch, but he couldn't do it if he knew she was watching, so he'd have to tell her afterward, he'd have to disappoint her just this much. Otherwise he'd never make it.

Geo perched atop his father's still-spring-crusty Wellingtons to spy on his neighbors through the mudroom window. First the boys ran into the house with their father behind them, Mr. Stein carefully locking his car with a key, though surely it had a remote. He could see Mrs. Stein through the window, talking with Timmy, then Timmy and Mrs. Stein sequestered in the backyard as if they'd be safe there—from what, Geo didn't know, perhaps the scrutiny of the vigil or the ears of the twins.

Then Cody left for some practice or other, yelling unintelligible good-byes to his house as he circumnavigated the
girls on the lawn and slammed the door of the car pool Volvo. Boys with shin guards and numbered shirts cluttered the backseat. They waved at the girls—one of the girls called out, “We don't know anything! But we're praying!” It worried Geo, this perky discussion.

Then Reeva Sentry walked up to the front door with a bouquet of flowers—lilies, Geo noted, that would smell like rot as soon as they began to droop. When no one answered the door, Reeva turned to the group and said something to her daughter, Tina. Tina was swishing her short skirt as though there were invisible bulls to tempt. Reeva's face soured, but she walked up the driveway to the backyard where Geo knew Abigail and Timmy conferred.

Geo's heart slammed against his chest in anticipation. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or terrified that he'd convinced his mother to let him go alone.

At least his mother hadn't reported the fence-slat incident to the police yesterday as she handed over the note to the detective in the blue, short-sleeved button-down. At least the detective—who'd asked him where it came from, who'd asked him what he knew of Linsey Hart, and who had watched his eyes so intently Geo was afraid to look around the living room, as if he was hiding something in the ottoman, the piano, the wedding photo on the mantel, his battered shoes by the French doors to the office—at least the detective hadn't asked him about the welt above his collar. He had, however, asked him about friends. About Cody, and Toby, about whom he played with and what they said. And he
thought about play, about how glad that in a few years he'd be old enough to be with people without the expectation of engaging in their sorts of play, or sports—that he wouldn't have to like football or soccer or lacrosse. He'd be old enough so conversation was sufficient, or simply being together, the way he'd been with Minal. He'd probably loved her.

He had friends, but no one like Minal. No one with whom he felt no need to talk to fill the empty space between faces. For much of fourth grade he'd been what one might have called best friends with Donny Apple, a round-faced boy almost as tall as their teacher, Miss Bestie. Donny's face grew plum in gym class, and in third grade Cody and Banks and the other boys who seemed to feed on teasing the way catfish fed on bottom scum had razzed Donny. Stole his lunch sometimes. Stuck Post-it notes on his back that read
KIK ME
or
FAT ASS
. Sometimes they got detention. There were three all-school assemblies that year about zero tolerance and antibullying, but Donny would never squeal, and mostly, they never got caught.

By fourth grade Donny was so big no one messed with him anymore. It was as though turning red with exertion or having a face shaped like a playground ball were no longer offenses.

Geo liked Donny because Donny drew elegant sketches of robots and spaceships and sometimes, when he thought no one saw his doodles, of the other kids in class. He gripped his pencils with Cheetos-stained, bent fingers, pressing into the yellow edges of the wood as though it might fly off without mammoth pressure. He got Rebecca Boolie's nose perfect,
not quite upturned, but open at the bottom. He drew a picture of Toby Stein, capturing the
O
expression he always held in his mouth during recess kickball games.

Donny came over to Geo's house, and they played Yahtzee and Clue and Jenga at the table. Geo's mother brought them oatmeal cookies and Donny picked out the raisins, hoarding them in his fist under the table, then handing them to Geo like a secret. Geo told him his mother wouldn't care, but Donny was afraid of causing offense.

Donny's house was in the fanciest part of town, where the Victorians sat on one-acre lots like spiders fat in their webs. His mother was an executive trainer and left the house before daylight most mornings. His father was some kind of traveling salesman—Geo never knew what he sold, but he was only home twice a month for two days. The nanny was from Poland, a young woman with short blond hair and tired eyes, and halfway through the year's friendship she was replaced by her sister, who had boyfriends over to the house and whose eyes were so green she looked as though she'd come from another planet, not another country. Most of the house was immaculate, bronze statues in the living room that looked out from tiny holes in their eyes—Donny told Geo they were like giant pupils, those holes—and curtains the maid vacuumed every day. Seven people lived in the house: Donny; his brother, Ralph, who was twenty; his mother; the nanny; the maid; the cook, and his wife, whom they all called Auntie, and who never came out in daylight. She knit in the basement apartment, coming up once in a while with a new
sweater made from alpaca wool or silk yarn, cowl-necks, cabled cardigans, all absurdly colorful for school.

The best part of Donny's house was the swimming pool in the back, inside what used to be a greenhouse, and which still smelled green. The second best part of Donny's house was the dining room table, which the maid and nanny referred to as “the pile,” and which they were not allowed to organize. The table was piled at least four feet high with objects and papers. Once, Donny had asked his mother for a copy of his birth certificate, to prove to Geo that he had been born in Manhattan, though Geo had asked for no such proof, and his mother, who was home at seven
PM
for once because it was Parents' Night at the school, reached deep into the pile with her eyes closed, like a diviner led by a rod, and pulled out Donny's birth certificate. “Donald Purpose Exeter Apple II” it read. He had been born in Manhattan, but that impressed Geo far less than the pile. Gas bills, a pleated red silk lampshade, a plum pit, a fish skeleton mounted on a slab of mahogany, an avocado tree sprouting from a pit in a cracked clay pot, several of Auntie's sweaters, Donny's first-grade plaster cast of his face, Ralph's report cards, a blood test report from when Donny's mother was pregnant with Donny, a Havahart mousetrap smeared with peanut butter, every drawing the boys ever brought home from school, sepia photo portraits of Donny's grandparents, passports, dollar bills, euros, yen, credit card bills, pot holders, a pulled wisdom tooth, what looked like a urine sample, pill bottles, a rubber doorstop, chocolate coins, several copper pots.

Donny wasn't going to be in his class this year. They'd see each other on the playground, but Geo knew he'd have to invite himself over if he wanted to see the pile again, if he wanted to play chess in the basement.

•   •   •

Geo had never noticed the flagstones on the Steins' walkway, the way they were a smooth mosaic, a serpentine shape of irregular triangles, hexagons, lopsided ovals, and cement. He recognized a girl from the middle school who wrote articles for the student paper. She waved with her hand low, as if to only salute his feet.

“Hi,” whispered Geo. He didn't have time for any of them.

“Cool photo in the paper!” said the boy in the group, with what might have been appreciation, or might have been contempt; Geo couldn't tell.

His feet were heavy, but he wasn't going home until it was done. The steam of the day's heat lifted off the flagstones' smooth surfaces in bands, and the door looked a thousand miles away, only Mr. Stein had seen him coming, somehow, he'd been looking out his own window the way Geo had been looking out of his. It wasn't supposed to work that way, but it did. Mr. Stein was like that.

He opened the door when Geo's hand lifted toward the bell, as if to prevent the dangerous music.

“Hello!” said Mr. Stein, his voice rowdy, loud. But Geo noted how the lines on his forehead, an ocean of waves, a horizon, made it clear he was not feeling well. Maybe he was
nauseated, or about to cry. His eyes were large and watery behind the glasses, which he pushed up to rub at the bridge of his nose.

“How may I help you, young neighbor?”

Geo was going to tell him,
Your son hit me
. He had practiced those exact words in his head, with or without the prologues,
He probably didn't mean it,
or
My mother really wants me to tell you,
but in the minute it took to walk to the door, he'd decided just to say it.
Your son hit me.

“I have something to tell you,” he said, unable to go through with his plan. Mr. Stein put the glasses back on his nose. There was an ink stain on the pocket of his button-down shirt. Laundered, maybe sprayed for the stain, but still, it was there, a blue ballpoint ghost. He wondered whether Mr. Stein wrote all day. His own father had calluses where he peeled labels from the machine and adhered them to bottles and boxes of medications. His own father seemed very young, compared to Mr. Stein.

“You do? Well, then, come in,” said Mr. Stein. “Would you like some coffee? No, of course not. How about a soda?”

Geo did want a soda. He wanted the shrill sugar sensation in his throat. He wanted to drink instead of speaking. He followed Mr. Stein into the kitchen. Heart-shaped backs on wire chairs, like an ice-cream parlor. He sat down and felt the cold glass of the table under his fingertips.

“It's about your stepdaughter, about Linsey,” he said.

“Okay,” said Mr. Stein, gulping slightly. Geo paused.

“Did you want that soda? Would you like something?
Some cookies? I don't know what we have . . .” Mr. Stein opened the fridge and left the door balanced on the weight of its own booty: unsalted butter, pickles, fudge sauce, seltzer, and crackers in the door. Geo wondered why anyone would put crackers in the refrigerator. Now Mr. Stein was opening the cabinets, all of them, like undressing, making the kitchen nude for Geo. His back was to the boy. He kept talking.

“You wouldn't want crackers? I think we have some peanut butter. Where do we keep the cookies?”

Geo waited, because he hadn't decided how to say it, he hadn't even planned to say it, but that ocean of forehead changed the subject for him. Finally Mr. Stein was done, and he sat on one of the heart chairs across from Geo with an empty glass in his hand. All the doors were still open.

“Okay,” he said. “What would you like to tell me?” He held his hand up to his throat. Mottled, pinkish, soft skin for a man. He needed to shave.

“It may not be important,” he said.
He wanted to say, Please keep breathing. Please don't have a heart attack. It may not be important.

“Okay,” said Mr. Stein, again.

“I found this paper—”

The doorbell rang.

“I just thought it was trash—”

The doorbell rang again. Mr. Stein waved his hand at it, as if he could stop the ringing with a swat.

“My mom gave it to the police. But before she did I was looking at it, and I realized—”

“Realized what, Geo?” There was a cheering from outside, or perhaps it was jeering, either way, it was distracting Mr. Stein.

“Goddamn kids!” he snapped. Geo flinched.

Three rings, overlapping.

“Well, I'm not
one hundred percent
sure. But—”