In the months since Anne began attending Western Washington University, Abe and Ruth had received no more than a half dozen phone calls from Bellingham, vague briefs and assurances regarding her opaque life up north, invariably accompanied by a request for financial relief. Never mind that she and Gonzo had been to Seattle for no less than four concerts in the interim, a mere ferry ride away, and had not bothered to call upon them, or even offer them the opportunity to hop a ferry themselves so that they might treat them to dinner or write them a check.
Abe blamed Gonzo, of course, Gonzo, the freeloader (though his parents were wealthy); Gonzo, who had failed to accrue the necessary credits at SCC to transfer to WWU but followed Anne up to Bellingham anyway, where, despite Anne’s lame assertions, he used her as a meal ticket and a benefactor; Gonzo, who protested inequity ceaselessly, preached a new world order, but practiced only sloth. Abe had given up hope that Anne would outgrow Gonzo. He was certain that the useless malingerer would hurt his daughter, and only then would they see the end of him.
When Anne finally did come from Bellingham for break, it was no surprise when Gonzo accompanied her. Rather than gracing his own parents with his ineffectual presence, he stayed on the farm with Anne, all too comfortable lounging on the sofa, kicking his feet up on the coffee table, eating for three days at the Winter table, and never lifting a finger around the farm. Abe hardly engaged the boy, who made little effort to ingratiate himself or even avoid Abe’s notice, as if lazing about the house and grazing upon the fruits of Abe’s labor were his birthright.
Worse than the boy’s imposition on their hospitality, or the impunity with which he helped himself to whatever he pleased, was the way Gonzo managed to methodically vanquish fifteen-year-old Karen’s once-good judgment (as he had with Anne before her), right in front of Abe’s ears. They all but worshipped him, waiting breathlessly on his every word as though it were gospel. What was all Gonzo’s self-important dogma but machismo dressed up in long hair and counterfeit sensitivity? None of it even the least bit creative or original or even timely, merely the warmed-over counterculture gruel of 1967, an ethos rooted in disengagement and political contrarianism, antiauthority, antiestablishment, a total disregard for the social contracts and sensible order that previous generations had constructed on their behalf so that they need not know the poverty and struggle of their forebears. Why did Abe permit the wayward son of a wealthy stockbroker, an unmitigated self-made failure, an ideological clown, to hypnotize his daughters?
Only once during their stay did Abe manage to procure an audience alone with Anne, and it was only by accident. In the kitchen at seven a.m., Abe was sipping his coffee and reading the Sun. Ruth, having cleared his plate, was already out planting bulbs. The rest of the household was still sleeping—especially Gonzo, who never arose before eleven—when Anne crept into the kitchen, surprised to find Abe there.
“Oh, Dad, hey.”
Abe knew he should have attempted a softer landing, offered at least some morning pleasantry or novel commentary on the weather, anything. But he was brimming with intent. Abe made little effort to modulate his volume.
“He’s not worthy of you, damn it.”
“Good morning to you, too,” she said, pouring herself a cup of black coffee.
“I mean it, Anne. You’re wasting your time with this rascal. He has no prospects, he’s a walking cliché, he’s not even good-looking so far as I can tell under all that hair.”
“Says you.”
“I don’t want him filling Karen’s head with all that baloney.”
“Karen’s no dummy, Dad. She knows the score.”
“And what might the score be?” said Abe.
Anne sat down at the table as Abe lowered his newspaper. “Do we have to fight, Daddy?”
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but I don’t like to see my daughter wasting her life with a man—no, no, he’s not even a man, he’s a boy—who is so obviously beneath her in every way.”
“You sound so bourgeois, Daddy. Royce is great. He’s thoughtful, and he’s caring, and he’s good to me.”
“I don’t see it,” said Abe.
“Maybe you just don’t recognize it,” Anne said.
But Abe knew what he saw, and that was a charlatan with a guitar and a dirty leather hat, though he was powerless to convince his daughters as much.
By the fifth day of their stay, Abe was more than ready to bid Anne goodbye in the morning. As much as he loved his eldest daughter, as much as he wanted to save her from her lapse in judgment, he could not endure her bad decisions and was tired of feeding her boyfriend. Upon the final night of Anne’s stay, unable to sleep, Abe found himself in the kitchen after midnight, rummaging through the refrigerator, when he heard voices on the back porch. Anne and Royce, he assumed, probably out there smoking reefer, though he could not smell it. If that was the case, if Abe could catch them in the act, he would finally have the definitive reason he so yearned for to throw Royce Holiday out on his ear. He was almost hoping he’d catch them smoking a joint. But when Abe proceeded to the porch for an inspection, he found Anne and Gonzo locked in an embrace, necking arduously on the porch swing.
Abe cleared his throat with aplomb.
When they broke off their embrace suddenly, and Anne spun around to face her father, Abe found that it was not Anne at all. It was Karen. Stunned by this realization, it took him a moment to find his voice, and when he did it was taut with rage and confusion.
“Go to your room this instant,” he commanded Karen.
Karen complied, swiftly and without protest.
Royce Holiday was still caught like a deer in the headlights as Karen darted through the screen door and up the stairs. It was the first time Abe had seen Royce Holiday without his dirty leather hat, which had tumbled to the ground by his feet at some point during their canoodling. Only now could Abe see that the boy was prematurely balding.
“You think you’re a pretty smooth operator, don’t you, Mr. Holiday?”
For once, Royce Holiday had no answer.
“You think you’ve got everything figured out, eh, Gonzo?”
Here, Abe nearly succumbed to the urge to pull him out of his seat by the shirt collar and commence whaling on him, but somehow, he managed to control his fury, perhaps because he feared he might beat the life out of Royce Holiday. Rarely had such a violent impulse possessed Abe.
“What’s your father gonna think when he finds out you violated a fifteen-year-old girl, huh, wise guy?”
“But I didn’t—we just—it wasn’t—”
“What’s your girlfriend going to think when she finds out you made a pass at her kid sister?”
“I didn’t make a pass at her. She was the one—”
“Shut your mouth and listen, Royce,” said Abe. “One more word and I’ll knock your front teeth out.”
Indeed, Abe’s fist was clenched.
Even in his shock and dismay, Royce Holiday could not belie a hint of smugness, a defiant glint in the eye that seemed to dare Abe to unleash his violence and watch his father sue him for everything he had.
A second wave of violence welled up inside Abe. It took all the restraint he could summon not to slap the hubris right out of Royce Holiday.
“This is what’s going to happen,” said Abe. “You’re going to get up out of your seat and you’re going to leave this house immediately. No explanations, no goodbyes. You’re going to walk up that driveway, and I don’t ever want to see you again, do you understand? You will not speak to Anne or Karen from this moment forward. You will not see them. You will not so much as write them a postcard. If I find out you do, there will be consequences, young man.”
“But she’s the one who threw herself at me,” said Gonzo.
Royce Holiday didn’t see the blow coming and neither did Abe, a hard slap across the face that spun Gonzo around in the swing and brought him to one knee on the porch. Before Abe could visit further violence on the boy, Royce covered up with both arms, scurrying down the steps and up the driveway at a sprint, floppy hat in hand.
Abe marched upstairs and woke Anne out of bed, sparing her no details regarding recent events.
“Where is he now?” said Anne. “Is he hurt?”
That she could still express concern for him after what Abe had just told her angered Abe anew. He did not raise a fool.
“Just what the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded.
“I love him,” said Anne.
“Not anymore you don’t!”
“I’m an adult, Dad! You no longer get to decide who I—”
“What’s all the commotion?”
It was Ruth, standing in the doorway now, and behind her, skulking in the shadows, Karen.
“Our Mr. Gonzo was on the porch taking advantage of your daughter,” explained Abe. “And I don’t mean Anne. The other one.”
Ruth turned to Karen in disbelief. “Is this true?”
Karen replied with a telling silence.
“Where is he now?” said Ruth.
“Halfway to Fletcher Bay is my guess,” said Abe. “With a very sore face.”
“You didn’t hurt him?” said Ruth.
“I’m sorry, Anne!” blurted Karen. “It just sort of…happened.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Anne.
“Who’s to say it’s not her fault?” Abe said. “According to Royce, she started it.”
“It’s Royce,” said Anne. “Every time.”
“You mean it’s not the first time?” said Ruth.
“Unbelievable,” said Abe.
“Relax, it’s harmless,” said Anne. “It doesn’t mean anything to him.”
“Of course it doesn’t!” shouted Abe.
If she really loved him as she claimed, and Abe had every reason to doubt it, how could she forgive him so easily, when it had taken Abe months to forgive Ruth after Leonard Haruto?
Anne left for Bellingham in the morning without saying goodbye.
Abe and Ruth awoke just in time to see her pulling away in the ’67 Rambler they’d sent her off to college in, a cloud of dust in her wake as she disappeared up the driveway.
When Karen came downstairs for breakfast, long after her sister had taken leave, Abe greeted her with stony silence. He could barely look at her as they ate, Karen mostly pushing food around on her plate.
“How could you?” Abe finally said with a forkful of eggs. “Have you no shame at all? Your sister’s boyfriend?”
“You don’t understand,” said Karen.
“Oh,” said Abe, dropping his fork. “Don’t I? Just what in the hell is it that I don’t understand? Even if the boy threw himself at you—and he claims it was the other way around—is that any excuse to oblige him? You might have pushed him away or offered any kind of resistance. But that’s not what you did, is it? Instead, you brought shame on yourself and your sister, on me and your mother. So, what am I failing to comprehend?”
Even as Abe berated Karen, he was admonishing Ruth, too, for the impropriety he’d sworn he’d already forgiven.
“I didn’t raise a tramp,” said Abe, regretting it immediately.
Karen pushed off from the table, upending her chair, and stormed out of the kitchen and through the back door into a steady drizzle. Ruth pushed her own plate away and removed herself from the kitchen without a word, leaving Abe seated alone at the breakfast table, flummoxed. How was he the bad guy? He couldn’t possibly be expected to condone such conduct, could he? Let alone under his own roof! It was a slap in the face for all Abe’s hard work and sacrifice, everything he’d tried to impart to his children about personal responsibility, and loyalty, and common decency. But the more he stewed at the breakfast table and rationalized his own vexation, the more the shame crept in. He’d been too hard on her. She was just a teenager, she was impressionable. Obviously, the Holiday boy was the real culprit. He had no business raising his voice at her like that or calling her a tramp.
It was four in the afternoon when Principal Roe called to inform Ruth of Karen’s absence from school. She’d been scheduled to deliver a speech fourth period but never returned from lunch. Ruth called Abe at the office, but neither of them felt any reason to panic. Karen had continued to demonstrate a flair for “acting out,” whether that meant phone calls from the principal or cigarette butts in the garden beds. She routinely snuck out at night without any real consequences. It was easy to imagine Karen skipping out on a speech or a test. After all, Gonzo had already convinced his daughters that academic achievement was a dead-end street, that conformity to the rules in any guise was an offense against the new world order, that adults were phony, all the Holden Caulfield crap he’d repurposed to his own selfish ends. So her absence on a Wednesday was hardly grounds for panic. She was probably in Seattle, smoking cigarettes.
But when Karen didn’t return to the farm by dinner, Ruth began calling her friends’ houses to make inquiries; Tara Hewson, Lynn Gary, the Munger girl, Kristen or Kirsten. Nobody had seen Karen after third period.
Once eleven o’clock rolled around, Ruth and Abe were indignant. If she’d missed the late ferry or had decided to sleep at a friend’s house (God forbid, not another grown man), the least she could do was call. They’d been so lenient as it was, so forgiving with their ever-moving boundaries, so understanding and accommodating of Karen’s irascible and unpredictable behavior of late, for the child to disregard their authority altogether came as a slap in the face.
But by one a.m. that indignation had turned to concern.
“Should we call the sheriff?” said Ruth, beside him in bed.
“Don’t you think she’s at a friend’s house?”
“What if she’s not? What if she’s stuck in the city?”
“Okay, maybe we should call,” said Abe.
Three days. Three agonizing days with the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office on alert; calls to friends’ houses made time and again; students pulled from classes and questioned; ferry workers and business owners canvassed; Xeroxed flyers posted on reader boards and telephone poles, as though Karen were a missing pet; endless speculations chased down blind alleys; and no answers, nothing. For all anyone knew, Karen had vanished.