Adam Haslett - Imagine Me Gone

The invigilator is hungry, Michael said, petting her flank.

After supper Alec did his hyperactive-playing-then-crying sequence, and Dad took him up to bed, and he screamed that it was unfair. Mom had left the dishes for Dad to do and was reading a book by the dim yellow light of one of the oil lamps. We each had our own (except Alec) to carry from room to room and another by our beds. You turned up the oil-soaked canvas wick with a key on the side and, once you’d lit it, placed the curvy glass cover back in its metal holder. It was hard to make out the different shades of color in the Brueghel puzzle with it, but I didn’t feel like reading so that’s what I did until we played Boggle, and Alec came down again whining, and Mom said it was time for all of us to go to sleep.

After a few minutes I could hear the two of them through the floorboards. Mom started in her loud whisper. Totally different from her normal voice, faster and much more intense. I could make out some of her words but not all. Dad responded quietly like he usually did, in a much lower voice. I couldn’t make out any of his words, just the flat tone that didn’t change, which wasn’t how he normally talked either. Mom said something about furniture, and God bless it, which is what she said instead of swearing. Dad didn’t make any response to that. And then Mom’s voice got louder. You’re just going to sit there? You’re not going to say anything!

I was lying on my side and I wrapped my pillow around my head so it would cover my other ear but I could still hear her: It’s Michael who tells me! I ask a thousand times and I have to learn about it from the children! Dad said something I couldn’t hear, low and quiet again. Whatever it was just made her angrier, which didn’t seem fair, that every time he spoke she got angrier. And then what? she shouted. Another year, another two years, and all our lives, mine and the children’s, hanging on whether you talk these people into doing what you want them to do? Goddamn it, John! she shouted. It sounded like she hated his guts.

My door opened and I heard Alec sniffling. Why don’t they stop? he said. My blood was pumping in my ears as loud as when I held big seashells up against them. Just go back to bed, I whispered. But he was crying now, not the whiny give-me-attention crying but scared crying. He never went into Michael’s room when he got upset like this, only into mine. He was standing at the edge of my bed now.

And you sitting here not saying a damn word! she yelled. You think it’s my fault! You think I’m being unreasonable! This isn’t how people live. It’s a fantasy!

Why won’t they stop? Alec sobbed. Shut up! I whispered. Just be quiet. Dad said something short in the same flat, low voice.

Before Mom could start yelling again, I ripped off my covers and ran down the stairs into the living room, and shouted, Stop it! Stop it! I’m trying to sleep!

Mom was standing over the couch above Dad. She wheeled on me, her eyes wide with fury. Dad only moved his head to look at me. His face was pale and had no expression. Alec stood on the stairs behind me, still crying. Christ! Mom said to Dad. Look what you’ve done now!

Stop it! I shouted. He didn’t do it! You did! It’s not fair!

Oh, good Lord, she said with a sigh. This is nothing for you to worry about. Really, Celia. You don’t need to worry. Take them upstairs, would you? she said, and Dad stood up and walked toward me, holding his arms out to pick me up, but I was too big for that now, which he didn’t even seem to remember, so instead when he got closer his arms went down onto my shoulders, and he turned me around toward the staircase.

All right now, he said, as calmly as if he were napping and wanted us to be quiet.

Why do you yell at him, Mom? I said.

That’s enough now, Celia, really. Please. Just go upstairs with your father.

I shook his hands off my shoulders and stomped back up the steps, pushing Alec ahead of me. Down the hall, Michael was peeking out from a crack in his door, which he closed as soon as we reached the landing.

Get back into bed, Alec, Dad said, I’ll be there in a minute. He followed me into my room holding one of the oil lamps, and waited for me to climb into my bed and pull the covers up and then he sat on the edge of my mattress, facing the shaded window, so that I could only see the side of his face in the light of the lamp, which he’d put on the bedside table. My heart was beating fast and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a long time. He reached his big hand down onto the side of my head and ran his fingers through my hair and over my ear until he had the back of my head in the palm of his hand. His thumb rubbed against my temple.

Why do you let her yell at you like that?

Your mother’s upset. She’ll be all right.

I didn’t want to, but I started crying a little as he rubbed my scalp. But why are you always arguing? You think I don’t hear you, but I do.

He looked away, his shadow flickering on the wall behind him and across the ceiling above. He held my head, but didn’t say anything. His shadow seemed darker than no light at all, because when there was no light there was nothing to compare the darkness to. I had stopped crying. I wanted him to say something more. But he just rubbed my head, staring at the white grain of the shade, and then he patted me on the arm and rose to leave.

August 27

Dear Aunt Penny,

Greetings. I hope this letter finds you better off than we are. Our journey is proving to be a rough one. It started with the town car Dad had hired to drive us from his friend’s house in Armonk to the West Side piers breaking down on the Henry Hudson in ninety-five-degree heat. You can imagine how frazzled Mom was! The minutes to sailing ticking by, steam billowing from the engine, the five of us and the defibrillator on her leash standing on a little wedge of road at the top of an off-ramp sweating like heifers. It took them forty-five minutes to send another car but we made it to the pier in time. As you know, Mom has been driven to distraction waiting a whole year to move since Dad announced his plan last summer, but she held him to his promise that we’d travel by ship. She so wanted us to experience the way she used to go Europe as a young woman, and certainly we were all very excited about it.

I don’t know when you’ll receive this letter. We’re now on day four of our eight-day crossing to Southampton but I haven’t figured out how their supposed “daily mail” system works (it hasn’t exactly been a priority, for reasons that will become clear). But I know you’re always curious for news of the family so I wanted to bring you up to speed. Unfortunately, as we were on our way to dinner the first night, Mom tripped on one of those raised metal doorjambs that I guess are meant to keep water from rolling in off the deck (not all that effective, as we’ve learned). If it had been a simple stumble I think she would have been okay, but she got her other leg caught up too and was whipped down onto that metal flooring pretty hard. The ship’s doctor threw around a lot of vocab—“fractured tibia,” “subluxated knee,” “contused femur”—but I don’t know what any of it means. Basically, I think she broke her leg. The cast sure makes it look that way, together with the pulleys it’s raised up with. Suffice it to say, Mom is basically out of the picture. We visit her when we can but there’s been a lot else going on.

For one thing, Alec is currently missing. We lost him at a lunch buffet the day after Mom’s accident and haven’t been able to find him since. Weirdly, the crew isn’t all that responsive, even to Dad, who as you know isn’t shy about demanding things from service people. They say it’s a big ship, this kind of thing happens all the time, and that he’ll find his way back to our cabin eventually. It is true that there are plenty of couches in the lounges for him to sleep on and that he’d have no trouble feeding himself with all these dining options. And as long as we assume he hasn’t fallen overboard, how far could he really have gone? Still, it’s been forty-eight hours now and I can tell that Dad’s miffed by it. Obviously, we haven’t told Mom. That’s the last thing she needs, trying to heal her shattered leg. Celia said Alec’s probably just trying to get attention and that the best thing is to ignore him and let it blow over.