Alix Ohlin - The Missing Person

“You’ll have to drive me,” she said. “I spent my last dime on the taxi ride here.”

I drove Daphne, in silence, back to the Michaelsons’ house, where nobody was home, and followed her inside. The doors to the bedrooms were open, and in one of them was an entire wall of trophies, shelf upon shelf of little gold and silver men, knees bent, arms bent to hold bats or sticks or balls. The Michaelson kids, I had to admit, were pretty good at what they’d chosen to do, which was more than either Wylie or I could say. Daphne went into her room, sitting down in her chair with a magazine, and didn’t seem surprised when I stepped inside. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, but leaving her alone didn’t seem like the smartest thing. I don’t know what I expected — a cache of pills piled behind the curtain, or a purse bristling with razor blades — but everything looked exactly as it had before.

Daphne crossed her legs and looked at me severely. “I’m quite disappointed in you,” she said. “Perhaps I’ll have better luck with Wylie. He always was the one with gumption.”

“Gumption?” I said.

“And personality. You, on the other hand, have no personality, and I am highly disappointed.” She was staring at me fixedly, more Joan Crawford now than Lana Turner, and then she leaned forward and started scratching her right ankle with manicured fingernails.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, wondering if she bought her own clothes, or sent David out for them, or simply wore the same outfits she’d bought when she was less ill, back in the seventies. She kept on scratching. By now she was tearing rips and runs in the sheer white hose, but she didn’t appear to notice. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. I’m disappointed. That’s what I keep telling you.”

“Right. But you also seem kind of, well, itchy.”

Daphne lifted her hand and gazed at it in momentary wonder, then raised it to her cheek and started scratching there. I noticed the droplets of blood swelling through the torn hose at her ankle, and angry red streaks smearing the makeup on her cheeks. I went over and held both her hands in mine.

“Please stop that,” I kept saying, as if she were a child or a reasonable person.

“Disappointed!” she kept saying back. Then she pulled away from me — she was much stronger than I ever would’ve guessed — and cowered behind her chair, looking as if she thought I might shoot her. Momentarily annoyed that she was afraid of me, of all people, I went into the kitchen and searched around for phone numbers. In the directory by the fridge I found the number of David’s law firm, but he wasn’t there, and I didn’t know what kind of message to leave. I also didn’t know where Donny or Darren might be. For some reason, whether habit or the absence of any other options, I opened the fridge door, as if help might be waiting for me there. There were four rotisserie chickens and about a side of beef. Then I heard a car pull up in the driveway.

When Donny came through the front door, his doughy face was almost unrecognizable, marked grimly by stress, and only his blue, knee-length surf shorts seemed familiar. For a second, standing in the hall, he looked eerily like his father. I could see him struggling to come up with an explanation for my presence, and failing.

“Your mom’s here,” I said, “and she’s a little upset.”

“A little upset!” Daphne called from her room. “Ha!”

I trailed Donny down the hall, and saw her, back in her chair, tearing pages from a magazine and stacking them on the floor. Even her mania had a certain order to it.

“Mom?” Donny kneeled down next to her. “It’s okay. Dad’s coming.”

“Oh, now that’s a relief,” Daphne said. “All my problems are solved.”

Donny looked at me. His big muscled arms were on his mother’s lap, the weight of them holding her still. “She hasn’t done this in years,” he said.

“I’m the star of this particular show,” Daphne insisted.

“Hold on, Mom,” he told her. He left the room and came back with a large glass of water and a palmful of pills.

She studied him with the exact expression of a dog that has misbehaved while its owners were away: guilty and anticipating, even craving the punishment. She took the pills all at once, gulping them down dry, then drinking the water as a chaser, splashing a lot of it down her chin. “Ah,” she said afterward, smiling up at him.

“Good girl,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” He took her by the arm, as if she were a physical invalid, and walked her into the bathroom without paying me even the slightest bit of attention.

I wandered back into the living room, wondering whether I should stay or go. I could hear the shower start, and murmuring voices. Then the phone rang, and after a while I picked it up and said, “Hello?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s — Lynn. Lynn Fleming.”

“Lynn, it’s David. Is Daphne there?”

“Yes, she’s — she’s in the shower. Donny’s helping her get cleaned up. He gave her some of her pills.”

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “What a crazy goddamn escapade. She hasn’t done this in about a decade.”

“That’s what Donny said.”

There was a moment’s silence, during which I could hear traffic and car horns, and I guessed he was out looking for her somewhere. Then he said, “What are you doing in my house?”

“She came to Wylie’s apartment, and I was there.”

“What the hell did she go there for?”

I closed my eyes and said the only thing I could think of. “It’s all my fault,” I told him.

“I imagine you’re right,” he said, and hung up.

Finally the shower shut off and Donny led his mother into a bedroom. Feeling like I should leave, but unable to make myself do it, I sat down and listened to their muffled voices. Daphne was giggling, a sweet, girlish sound with a seductive tinge to it. Several minutes later Donny came out and sat down on a couch opposite me, seemingly not surprised that I was still there.

“Your dad called,” I said. “I told him she was back.”

He nodded. “Darren’s out looking too.”

“Where do you even start when something like this happens?”

“Anywhere,” he said. “Hospitals, police, shopping malls. She likes malls.”

He picked up a remote control from the arm of the couch and turned on the television, muting the sound. It was set to ESPN and showing golf. A man in a blue sweater vest missed a putt and smacked his palm on his forehead. Donny tsked at the screen.

“Did she do this when we were kids?” I said.

Without moving his eyes from the screen, Donny shrugged and slumped down on the couch, his head resting on the back of it, his muscular thighs spread parallel to the floor.

“I dunno,” he said. “I do remember one time, at your party. Remember? The one when your mom had that big piñata? Oh, my mom was pissed.”

I didn’t understand this, although I had vague memories of that party, which was full of drunken adults. I was fourteen and already acutely embarrassed by how my parents and all their friends behaved. Wylie was twelve, still on the pudgy side, and into skateboarding; he had an asymmetrical haircut all my dad’s friends from work teased him about. At one point everybody started warbling along with the radio, which was such a hideous display that I had to retreat to my room. I didn’t even remember the Michaelsons being there. “She was pissed off because of the piñata?”

“Dude!” Donny said, talking to the TV. After a second he said, “No, she was pissed off about my dad and your mom hanging out too much at the party. And I remember your dad — you know how he talked, we used to call him the Professor — he was all ‘Daphne, why don’t we discuss this rationally,’ and my mom was all ‘Fuck rationally!’ I remember your dad’s face, it was like he never heard anybody say ‘fuck’ before, ever. Anyway, then she took off and it took us a whole day to find her. In Grants. Can you believe that? Grants. It’s like an hour and half away. My dad asked her what the hell she was doing there and she said, ‘I always wanted to have a drink in Grants.’ After that they upped her meds.”