Лиза Макманн - Gone

Turns his head and narrows his eyes.

“Who the hell is Jimmy?”

11:21 p.m.

In the cool dark basement, she whispers, “It’s not Ralph, is it?”

Cabel’s quiet for a moment, as if he’s thinking. “You mean like Forever Ralph? Uh, no.”

“You’ve read Forever?” Janie is incredulous.

“There wasn’t much to choose from on the hospital library cart, and Deenie was always checked out,” Cabel says sarcastically.

“Did you like it?”

Cabel laughs softly. “Um . . . well, it wasn’t the wisest thing to read for a fourteen-year-old guy with fresh skin grafts in the general area down there, if you know what I mean.”

Janie stifles a sympathetic laugh and buries her face in his T-shirt. Holds him close. Feels him breathing. After a few minutes, she says, “So what, then? Pete? Clyde?”

Cabel rolls over, pretending to sleep.

“It’s Fred, isn’t it.”

“Janie. Stop.”

“You named your thing Janie?” She giggles.

Cabel groans deeply. “Go to sleep.”

11:41 p.m.

She sleeps. It’s delicious.

For a while.

3:03 a.m.

He dreams.

They are in Cabel’s house, the two of them, snuggling up together on a couch, playing Halo, eating pizza. Having fun. There is a muffled noise in the background, someone calling out for help from the kitchen, but the two ignore it—they are too busy enjoying each other’s company.

The cries for help grow louder.

“Quiet!” Cabel yells. But the calls only grow more intense. He yells again, but nothing changes.

Finally he goes into the kitchen. Janie is compelled to follow.

He yells out. “Just shut up about your stupid problems! I can’t take it anymore!”

There, lying in a white hospital bed in the middle of the kitchen, is a woman.

She’s contorted, crippled.

Blind and emaciated.

Hideous.

It’s old Janie.

The young Janie on the couch is gone.

Cabel turns to Janie in the dream. “Help me,” he says.

Janie stares. Gives a slight shake of her head, even though she is compelled to try to help him.

“I can’t.”

“Please, Janie. Help me.”

She looks at him. Speechless. Shudders, and holds back the tears.

Whispers, “Maybe you should just say good-bye.”

Cabel stares at her. And then he turns to the old Janie.

Reaches out with two fingers.

Closes her eyelids.

Janie struggles and pulls out of the dream.

Frozen.

Panting.

The world closing in around her again. She struggles to move. To breathe.

When she is able, Janie stumbles on numb toes across Cabe’s basement floor and up the steps, out the door. Across the yards and to her tiny, stifling prison.

Lies on her side, counting her breaths, making herself feel each one, in and out. Staring at the wall.

Wondering how much longer she can hide it all.

SUNDAY

August 6, 2006, 10:10 a.m.

She stares at the wall.

And pulls herself out of bed to face another day.

Janie finds Dorothea in the kitchen, fixing her mid-morning cocktail. It’s the first time Janie’s seen her since they talked.

“Hey,” Janie says.

Janie’s mother grunts.

It’s like nothing happened.

“Any word on Henry?”

“No.”

“You doing okay?”

Janie’s mother pauses and gives Janie a bleary look. She fakes a smile. “Just fine.”

Janie tries again. “You know my cell phone number is here next to the calendar if you ever need me, right? And Cabel’s is here too. He’ll do anything for you, like, if I’m not around or something.

You know that?”

“He’s that hippie guy?”

“Yeah, Ma.” Janie rolls her eyes. Cabel got his hair cut months ago.

“Cabel—what kind of name is that?”

Janie ignores her. Wishes she hadn’t said anything in the first place.

“You better not get knocked up, alls I can say. A baby ruins your life.” Janie’s mother shuffles off to her bedroom.

Janie stares at her as she goes. Shakes her head. “Hey, thanks a lot,” she calls out. She pulls out her phone and turns it on. There’s a text from Cabel.

Didn’t hear you leave. Where’d you go? Everything okay?

Janie sighs. Texts back. Just woke up early. Had some stuff to take care of.

He replies. You left your shoes here. Want me to bring them, or?

Janie debates. Yeah. Thx.

11:30 a.m.

He’s at the door. “Mind if we go for a ride?”

Janie narrows her eyes. “Where to?”

“You’ll see.”

Reluctantly, Janie follows him to the car.

Cabel heads out of town and down a road that leads past several cornfields, and then acre after acre of woods. He slows the car down, squinting at the occasional rusty mailbox, scanning the woods.

“What are you doing?” Janie asks.

“Looking for two-three-eight-eighty-eight.”

Janie sits up and peers out her window too. She says suspiciously, “Who lives way out here in

BFE?”

Cabel squints again and slows as they pass 23766. He glances in his rearview mirror and a moment later, a car zooms by, passing them. “Henry Feingold.”

“What? How do you know?”

“I looked in the phone book.”

“Hunh. You’re smart,” Janie says. Unsure. Should she be outraged or eager?

Or just ashamed that she didn’t think of it first?

Another mile and Cabel turns into an overgrown two-track gravel drive. Bushes scratch the sides of the car and the track is extremely bumpy. Cabel swears under his breath.

Janie peers out the windshield. The sun beats down between the tree branches, making it a striped ride. She sees something blurry about a quarter-mile away, in a clearing. “Is that a house?”

“Yeah.”

After a couple of minutes, Cabel driving agonizingly slow over the bumpy driveway, they come to a stop in front of a small, run-down cabin.

They get out of the car. In the gravel turnaround there’s an old, rusty blue station wagon with wood panels. A container of sun tea steeps on the car hood.

Janie takes it all in.

Bushes surround the tiny house. A wayward string of singed roses threatens to overtake a rotting trellis. A few straggling tiger lilies are opened wide, soaking up the sun. All the other flowers are weeds. Outside the front door sits a short stack of cardboard boxes.

Cabel steps carefully through pricker bushes to the dirty window and peers inside, trying to see through the tiny opening between curtains. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s here.”

“You shouldn’t do that,” Janie says. She’s uncomfortable. It’s hot and the air buzzes with insects.

And they are invading someone’s privacy. “This place is creeping me out.”

Cabel examines the stack of boxes in front of the door, looking at the return addresses. He picks one up and shakes it near his ear. Then he sets it back down on the pile and looks around. “Want to break in?” he asks with an evil grin.

“No. That’s not cool. We could get arrested!”

“Nah, who’s going to know?”

“If Captain ever found out, she’d kick our asses. She’s not going to go easy.” Janie edges toward the car. “Come on, Cabe. Seriously.”

Cabel reluctantly agrees and they get back into the car. “I don’t get it. Don’t you want to know more? The guy’s your father. Aren’t you curious?”

Janie looks out the window as Cabel turns the car around. “I’m trying not to be.”

“Because he’s dying?”

She’s lost in thought. “Yeah.” Knows that if she doesn’t invest in Henry, she can write him off as a problem solved when he dies. He’ll just be some guy whose obituary is in the paper. Not her father. “I don’t need one more thing to worry about, I guess.”