Stephen Dixon - Frog

She’s OK, everything in place, in the same position, far as he can tell, she was in when he last looked in on her an hour ago. About an hour and fifteen minutes now. Nobody to call. The town hall, but he’s just about sure nobody’s there to answer. Looks outside the bedroom window that faces the front. Doesn’t seem to be any fog around. Bug light above the front door and the living room floor lamp he was sitting under give off enough light to tell. But the roads always get the fog worse than their house. Denise would also have called, if she was going anywhere but home after the movie, to make sure everything was all right with Olivia. Something’s wrong. He’s almost sure of it. There’s just no reason for her not to be home by now. He thinks that even if there was an accident on the road that prevented her car and others from going around it — on one of the two narrow bridges, for instance — she would have got the trooper to somehow call him or gone into someone’s home to call herself. No, that’s going too far — both those. Olivia stirs, turns her head over to the other side. She probably did that several times in the last hour, stuck her foot out of the crib and brought it under the covers too. He hopes she wakes up. He’d love to pick her up, wrap a baby blanket around her and hold her to him till she fell asleep again. Maybe singing to her; probably just quietly. Maybe she has to pee. She doesn’t wake up. He pulls the covers back, feels inside her diapers. Dry. If they were wet he’d go downstairs to run warm water over her washrag, change her in the crib.

He goes downstairs, sits in the living room chair under the lamp, picks up the book he’s been reading, stares outside. Mosquito buzzes his ear. He jerks his head back, looks around for it, sees it, holds his hand and the book out on either side of it and slaps. Got it, but nothing’s there when he looks at the book and his hand. Spreads his fingers wide, looks at his lap and the floor, stands and brushes off anything that may be on his chest. Doesn’t see how he could have missed it, since he didn’t see it fly away, but it’s sometimes happened. It’ll be back. He goes to the window. Private road leading to the secondary road roughly a quarter of a mile up the hill. Right on that road to the general store and main country road 2.3 miles away. Mosquito again, once around his head, and when he holds out his hands to slap it, though there’s much less light here, it darts away and seems to go up the fireplace chimney, but he’s lost it in a darker part of the room for a few seconds, so that could have been another one. Right on that road to White Hill. Movie’s probably been over an hour and three-quarters by now, longer if it started on time. So it’s been almost an hour and a half since she should have been home, and longer if she left the movie early because she didn’t like it, let’s say, or wasn’t feeling well. He can see only a few feet of road going up the hill. Can see some sky through the trees. A dark blue with a streak of bright light. Good. Must be a clear night and full moon or no more than a day before or after one. Better for driving. Some full-moon nights, which they don’t get the effect of in front of the house because of the tall trees, it’s almost as if streetlights lit the road. They usually say something about the moon when it’s full. Just that there is one and it looks nice over the bay from their deck and lights the path and garden behind the house as electric overhead lights would and maybe something about its face. But it’s rained or has been cloudy or misty the last three days. Slippery roads? No, they were dry this afternoon when they drove to the lake to swim, though some puddles on the road when the culverts under them must have got clogged. Denise, get home now, come on, will you? Oh shit, where is she? Way past midnight. She’s been tired lately because of the pregnancy. Quiet upstairs. Very quiet inside this room and around the house. Baby inside kicks hard now. It could have kicked so hard she lost control of the car for a few seconds and crashed. He should have gone with her. Of course he couldn’t. Then convinced her to stay home. “If the movie’s that good and been reviewed so much,” he should have said, “it’ll be coming around New York for the next year.” Some men could have stopped her car. The old trick of pulling alongside her car and pointing to the back wheel as if something were wrong with it — just the driver visible, the others lying on the seat or floor — and she should stop. He’s warned her about it, but a while ago, so she may have forgotten it or only remembered it once she got out of the car. Read about it happening to a woman in New York, another somewhere else, and that’s just what he’s read. They’d stop, if she did, and jump out after she stepped out to look at her wheel or just rolled down her window, and do who knows what to her. “I’m pregnant,” she could say and that might work with some of them but excite one of them even more. “You’ll kill the baby,” she could say and they could get so guilty or just want her out of the way so she can’t identify them that they’d kill her and dump her into a ditch along the road or drive into the woods along an old quarry or clammer’s road and dig a hole and bury her or cover her up with brush and leaves. It’s happened. It could happen. He hasn’t heard of it happening around here, but no area’s exempt, especially one with so many transients. Campers from the national park who were out for a good time and got carried away. Maybe it has happened around here, since he doesn’t know what’s in the local papers between Labor Day and July 1. He can’t hear any cicadas, or whatever are the summer’s last noise-making insects of that kind. Maybe the phone’s dead or off the hook. Goes into the kitchen and picks up the receiver. Working. He looks outside. No lights coming down the road. Thinks he heard something outside — an animal walking, or a person, or falling tree branch hitting the ground. He goes out the kitchen door and looks. Nothing. “Anybody here?” Holds his breath to listen. Not even car sounds from far off. If a car were approaching their road from either way, he’d be able to hear it from here even if it were a half-mile away. Thinks so. Or maybe just from the top of the road. Very few cars on it at this time. Maybe none. Maybe there won’t be one till five o’clock or so when the lobstermen drive past their road to the point a mile away. Who to call? No one. The phone’s ringing and he runs to the kitchen to get it. Olivia cries. Oh God, he thinks, what to do? “Mommy Mommy, Daddy,” she screams. Phone rings probably scared her. He picks it up. “Denise?” “No,” a woman says. “Is it something immediately urgent?” “Well…” “Anyway, please, whoever it is, hold for ten seconds — a minute at the most. I have to see about my daughter. OK?” “I guess.”

He runs upstairs. “Where’s Mommy? I want Mommy,” Olivia says. “She’ll be home very soon. She went to a movie. You knew; we told you. Listen, I have to get the phone downstairs. Someone’s on it. It’s very important. That’s what woke you up — the phone ringing. Stay here, sweetheart.” “No.” “I’ll be right back up.” She holds out her arms. “Carry me.” “I can’t. Stay in bed.” “Carry me downstairs. I don’t want to be here alone.” He picks her up, grabs a blanket out of the crib and throws it around her, goes downstairs, sits at the table with Olivia on his thigh, picks up the receiver and says “Excuse me, you still there?” “Yes,” the woman says. “Is this Mr. Tetch?” “What is it, my wife?” “I’m Officer Ragnet, state police. There’s been an auto accident and your wife’s been hurt.” “Is she seriously hurt?” “Yes, I’m sorry.”