Nicolai Houm - The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland

The unexpected success of Jane’s latest book spurred her on. She wanted to work harder, write more and faster, speed up her publication rate, say yes to invitations, and generally carry on doing whatever was needed to make a name for herself because there seemed to be a genuine interest in what she was writing—she no longer felt that to be a writer meant holing up in some dark cubbyhole and making stuff up. On the days she didn’t teach at the university or attend some event out of town, she typed away on a new novel. She could hear when Julie came through the door after school, but more and more often just called out a greeting from her upstairs study; the front door seemed to open in the middle of the most important sentence so far. During the frenetic hours before Greg came home, her conscience was always on its way to Julie. She had been an only child herself and knew just what the tense quietness downstairs meant.

One Thursday at the beginning of May, Jane felt she needed to meet Julie after school and spend a few hours with her before she had to go to the weekly hour of piano playing with Mrs. Gurzky (this was a Greg project). Jane’s longing had an urgency she hadn’t felt since Julie was very young. She must save what she had written and hurry out. Later, this appeared to be a portent, a sign so unmistakable that, in her capacity as creative writing instructor, she would have called it foreshadowing .

Probably, her longing had sprung from three recent events. For one thing, a few days earlier, Julie had preferred to be driven to a friend’s house rather than going with her mother to buy a new swimsuit, a choice Jane saw as confirmation of her daughter’s growing independence. Secondly, Jane was off to the Newberry Seminar in Chicago the following day, and had to spend several days without seeing Julie. Thirdly, she had drunk so much coffee throughout the morning that her brain seemed to lay exposed and trembling, like a dish of jelly on a picnic table.

In the handout on “Safe Delivery and Collection,” parents were told to park behind the tall fence around the yard on the western side of the school. However, Julie would come out through the main entrance on the opposite side of the building. Jane squeezed the car up against the curb on Chadbourne Avenue, along with other parents who either felt like irresponsible slobs or actually were. While she waited in the car for the clock to show 2:37 pm, the eccentric end point of the school day at Randall Elementary, she was upset with herself for not collecting Julie more often. It was always Greg who played with her and Jane who helped with dull homework; Greg who joined in ball games and Jane who cooked complicated Mediterranean food with a glass of Chablis in her hand. She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t taken pleasure in things like sitting on the floor with Julie and fussing with the nylon hair, bristling with static electricity, of a small, plastic pony.

When Julie and her friends came out of school, Jane was brimming with coffee-induced expectation. She had rolled down the car window but managed to hold back from shouting. This was how Julie looked when she didn’t know her mother was watching her: whispering and whooping, dancing about in tight jeans, knock-kneed when she giggled. Jane recalled this moment of childhood: the taste of eraser in her mouth, multicolored nylon bags dangling from thin shoulders, the way one had to swing one’s hair out of the way of the straps, the yelling and squeaking of sneakers on a stone floor becoming a mass of sound that built behind her, higher and higher until she was ejected through the door and the sound turned into rustling in the treetops.

They drove along Lake Monona. Julie was in the back. No one seems to know exactly when a child is old enough to sit in front. The grass was green along the water’s edge but the bleakness of winter lingered in the lake and the sky above. Julie was deep into one of her long tales about an episode from her school day, something Amy had said to Joe just at the moment Joe was tipping forward and back on his chair so that the teacher was just… and he just, and then she just… Jane watched in the mirror as the eagerness to tell bubbled in the corners of Julie’s mouth, nodded and agreed when it seemed appropriate, but was aware that, in her head, she was inside the scene she had been working on before leaving her study.

“Mom?”

Jane often reflected on how she would like to have about three hours to surface after being immersed in her fictions, something like the pressure equalization that divers need.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Where are we going?”

“I thought it might be a good idea to go look for that swimsuit.”

“OK. But Dad and I have already been looking online.”

She switched on the blinker with excessive force as she changed lanes.

“So, what’s the upshot? Do you need a swimsuit or don’t you?”

Julie didn’t answer for a while, then: “I don’t.”

“Terrific!”

The rush of coffee had squeezed the blood out of her fingers.

Julie sat gazing at the water. Her lips were moving slowly.

“Are you tired?” Jane asked carefully. It actually meant I am tired, just so you know .

And Julie knew. She shook her head.

Jane took it further and said in a fluting voice, “Well then, we’ll have time for a little stroll in the botanical garden, won’t we?”

“Why?” Julie had earned the right to a little resistance.

“It’s so lovely at this time of year.”

Julie turned to look out through the window.

“Can we call Dad?”

“Of course.”

Jane tried to reach behind her back to hand over her cell phone and almost dislocated her shoulder. The pain felt so up-to-date somehow.

“Julie! Come on, take it.”

“Oh.”

When Greg answered, he seemed to be inside a cardboard box together with the entire editorial staff.

“Dad, you’re on loudspeaker.”

“Hiya, is that you?”

“We’re in the car.”

“Wait, let me…”

A drawn-out, scraping noise, then silence at last.

“There. Welcome to the copier room. What are you up to?”

“We’re going to the botanical garden,” Julie said. “It’s so lovely at this time of year.”

Thanks, Julie, Jane thought.

“Jane? Are you there?”

“I’m driving the car.”

“Do you know what Clive said?” Greg asked rhetorically.

They were driving through a tunnel. Jane and Julie stretched their necks like alert animals.

“He said from now on, there will be fewer feature articles. They’re no longer prioritized. Just as I thought,” Greg continued.

“What did you say to that?”

“That I don’t give a shit because I have a boat that’s perfect for perch fishing. With a rotating chair on deck.”

“Julie is here too, in case you had forgotten.”

“Says you ?”

Compared to Greg, she had always been poor at controlling her speech in their daughter’s presence. She might make rude comments about strangers within Julie’s hearing. Why don’t you just fuck off? You look like it’d do you good . She had asked herself if, by sharing her bad as well as good sides, she was trying to get closer to Julie as she grew older. Best of luck! You’ll need it, with that hairstyle . Would she become the kind of mother who hung out with her daughter in the mall, both in matching pink hoodies?

There was just one other car in the parking lot in front of the grounded spaceship that was the Bolz Conservatory. Between the pillars at the main door, an older man stood, pointing at a sign that blocked the entrance to the greenhouses. He seemed deeply disappointed.

Jane rolled the window down.

“Closed for emergency repairs,” quoted the man. He spoke so loudly she had to retreat from the window.