Liz Moore - The Unseen World

What David called cereal was hot and eaten with brown sugar. Ada had never before had cold cereal, and she inspected her options carefully, searching for the one that David would be least likely to bring into the house. At last she chose one called Smacks because of the happy frog on the box, one arm extended skyward, proudly presenting its bounty.

While she ate she waited for Liston to speak. She had settled down at the kitchen table, where her papers were still spread out from the night before, and was working out some problem with her pen, as if solving it would help her answer the larger question facing them. Handwritten code blossomed across the page. At that moment a great longing came over Ada for David and for their home. Every so often Liston looked up at her and smiled, but she did not speak: as if waiting for Ada to confess something, some information she had previously kept to herself. But Ada had none.

“Are you going to church today?” Ada asked. She knew that Liston was an active member of the parish just over the bridge, and often on Sundays she had seen Liston marching there and back again with her boys, who were always dressed in ill-fitting khakis, button-down shirts, loose ties, scuffed and poorly knotted shoes. It occurred to her that day that Liston was not dressed for it; she did not wish to be the cause of any change in plans.

“We’ll skip it today,” said Liston, smiling. “The boys will be thrilled.”

She put her pen down then and looked out the window. She spoke without shifting her gaze.

“What have you noticed, Ada?” she said.

“What do you mean?” Ada asked. She hated this: the feeling of being asked to betray David.

“About your dad,” said Liston. “Has he been acting differently? Has he said anything strange?”

“I think he’s just under a lot of stress,” Ada said, and Liston nodded noncommittally.

Both of them were silent, and then both spoke at the same time. Ada said, “I think he’ll be all right.” And Liston said, “Honey. I think we should call the police.”

Ada thought of David’s mistrust of law enforcement; his vehement disapproval of the meddlesome State; his passionate dedication to privacy. And then she decided that whatever fear he had of the police, hers was greater of losing him.

“All right,” she said, and immediately felt unfathomably disloyal, treacherous. She lowered her head.

Ada disliked the two police officers who arrived later that afternoon. She couldn’t help it; her well had been poisoned by David’s mistrust of authority. One was tall and thin; the other short and thin. Both had mustaches.

“And the last time you saw him was?” asked the tall one, Officer Gagnon.

“And has he been acting unusual?” he asked.

“And do you have any idea where he might be?” he asked.

He seemed bored. Both accepted Liston’s offer of coffee, and then sipped it loudly.

“You’re the daughter?” asked the shorter one, finally, and Ada said yes. “And how do you two know each other?” he asked, gesturing back and forth between Liston and her with his pen.

Liston explained, and the two of them looked at each other.

“We’ll have to get social services in here,” said Officer Gagnon. “Since there’s no relation.”

“Really? Are you sure?” said Liston. “I’ve known her since she was born.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Gagnon. “Just procedure. They’ll be over soon.”

It was then, for the first time, that Ada let her imagination run its terrifying course. She was an impressionable child, and she thought of what ruins might await her: she had read too much Dickens. Did workhouses still exist?

Before they left, Matty came into the kitchen — the suddenness and quietness of his appearance gave Ada the impression that he had been eavesdropping on them from someplace nearby — and looked shyly at the officers.

“Hey, big guy,” said Gagnon, on his way out.

“Hey,” said Matty, softly, but the door was already closed.

There was little to say for quite some time. Ada sat still at the kitchen table, pretending to read a newspaper, until at last Liston said that it must be close to dinnertime, and stood up, and went to the cupboards. She opened them one at a time, looked inside them beseechingly. At last she pulled down a blue box of spaghetti and some canned tomato sauce and opened both, started a pot of water.

“Are you all right?” Liston asked Ada at one point, and Ada nodded. But the truth was, of course, that she was not — would not be until David had returned. If he returns at all, she thought, and put her chin in her hands to keep it from trembling.

She stood up from the table abruptly. She had never cried in front of Liston before, and she didn’t wish to now.

“I think I should get a few more clothes from my house,” said Ada, and walked quickly out the door before Liston could follow her, or agree.

She inhaled deeply, willing herself to calm down. Outside it was beautiful. It had cooled off slightly for the first time that August. In the distance the low hum of a lawn mower started. One of the neighbors was barbecuing. The smell of burning charcoal and meat, the particulates of matter that found their way to her on a pleasant breeze, normally signaled happiness and relaxation to Ada. Ever since learning about neurotransmitters from David, she had imagined her brain as a water park, a maze of waterslides down which various chemicals were released. Charcoal and smoke and fresh-cut grass usually sent rivers of serotonin down the slides in Ada’s head, as she pictured them. But that night the scents only served to remind her of David’s absence. Warm summer evenings, he always said, were his favorites, too.

Ada let herself in through the kitchen door and poured a glass of water from the tap. She took it with her to her room at the top of the stairs and gazed out the window, and then felt drawn to the old computer at her little desk. She turned it on. She dialed into the ELIXIR program. She began to type. There was something comforting in the familiarity of ELIXIR’s responses, the small turns of phrase she recognized as having come from colleagues at the lab. Where is David? she typed, and ELIXIR said, That’s really a very good question . An answer that reminded her, in fact, of David’s syntax.

There was a great deal to tell ELIXIR. It had only been two days since their last conversation, but it felt like it had been much longer. She looked at the clock after twenty minutes and, fearing that Liston would worry, shut down the program and then the computer, which gave a long sweet sigh as it went to sleep.

It was then that she thought she heard someone moving downstairs. She held her breath, listened for several more seconds.

A drawer opened someplace deep in the house. The basement, she thought. Footsteps. Someone dropped something on the floor. Someone began to walk up the basement stairs.

Ada was easily frightened as a child and she sat frozen in place, clutching her water glass, terrified to move. She eyed the window, measuring whether she could jump out of it if necessary. She decided, at last, that the thing to do was to ascertain the identity of the other person in the house as quickly as possible, so that — if necessary — she could make her escape.

“David?” she called out, loudly, bravely.

There was no answer. She tensed, prepared to run.

“David?” she called again.

“Hello,” said David, his voice warm and familiar. “Is that you, Ada?”

She went limp. All of her muscles contracted and then relaxed. She had not realized the weight of the fear she had been holding in her gut, the tension of it; she felt as if she were breathing out completely for the first time in her life. Her face was crumpled and red when she descended the stairs and met her father in the kitchen. He paused with a hand on the wall. He was holding a notepad in his other hand and he had one of his contraptions, which looked something like ski goggles, pushed back on his head.