My wife is gone and I feel a pain in my heart as real as the day she died. It stabs through me like a skewer through fresh meat. I want to die.
“Don’t go, don’t go,” I hear myself saying. “Don’t leave me. I’m sorry.”
It’s a sorrowful echo from my past. Don’t go, don’t go.
The loss drives me down and I fall, nothing to catch me, nothing for me to catch. I go down the way my Suburban yielded to gravity. When my knees tap the ground, the darkness recedes. It runs away from me in all directions like I’ve knocked over a bucket of light. It spreads along the ground and then takes off. It soars upward and catches the sky. It closes over my head, catching me inside of its balloon.
Inside of my house. The home I’ve tried to make for my kids. Here I am for the first time since the morning I drove to work, then drove to the brink of death.
It’s brighter than I remember it being. The sky outside is broader, the salt air sharper in my nose. The acrylic wall of the enclosed patio, which the years have turned cloudy with sand scratches, is as clear today as the day it was installed. Beyond it, I can see the curve of the earth, the Pacific drooping toward the horizon.
At my fingertips I can see the loops of the slate blue carpet, brushing against the whorl of my fingerprint. I can see that there are three strands in each loop.
The empty kitchen is ahead. Behind me, the door to the garage. To the far right, the living room, the front door, the stairs to the bedrooms. To the left, the dining room table, and Marina and Dylan are standing over an open file, thick with unique pieces of paper that won’t stack neatly. Marina is holding one tissue-thin piece of pink, from a triplicate work order. I recognize it.
“There has to be an explanation for this,” Marina says to her brother through tears.
“What if this is the explanation? The concrete for our new patio foundation was poured the day Mom disappeared.”
Marina puts the sheet down and looks around. “There was something about it in the sheriff’s report.”
Dylan holds up the papers. “Dad told them it went down on the fifteenth. On Monday. But the signature at the bottom was for Tuesday. The sixteenth.”
“So he forgot what day it was. I do it all the time, signing papers off by a day.”
“Maybe that’s what the sheriff thought. But what if the job was delayed? Look at the picture again. As of the wee hours of Tuesday, December 16—no concrete.”
Marina is denying these facts with every muscle in her face. “This signature isn’t even his. Who’s Sam Raglan?”
My kids are far more upset about the minutiae than I would expect them to be.
When I arrived at the Rincon Monday afternoon, with Dylan and Marina in tow, Sam was already gone and the wood forms that should have held the concrete were empty. There was a voice mail on my cell phone. Garrett, Sam here. Concrete crew got hung up at their last job, so we won’t see them until tomorrow. But you’re first on their schedule, coming at seven. Call me if you’re around—if not I’ll be back at six to see it through for ya. Later.
I can’t remember if I ever called Sam back.
Marina sinks into a dining room chair. “What are you thinking?” she asks her brother.
“You know what I’m thinking.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Why? So you can tell me it’s impossible? That I’m being unfair to Dad?”
“He loved Mom.”
“It’s possible to love someone and kill them too.”
“How can you believe that about Dad? It’s crazy.”
“You wanted to hear me say it.”
“That doesn’t make it true!” Marina shouts this.
And wanting something different can’t make the truth untrue, I say. It pops out of my mouth like a thing that’s been buried alive and has finally fought its way out.
Dylan clears the silence. “What we know for sure is that Dad was here when he said he wasn’t.”
“Dad’s car was here.”
“But if Mom was in her car driving up to . . .” Dylan drifts off, his mind chasing a distracting thought.
On the kitchen counter, Marina’s cell phone starts to ring.
“What?” she asks.
He looks to Marina’s phone. “You should answer that.”
“What are you thinking? Mom’s driving to Monterey. Dad’s here. What?”
My son is staring at the water for answers. “I don’t know.”
Marina’s tears have dried up, but the stress shows in the lines of her brow and the bags under her eyes, markers of a much older person. She pushes back the dining room chair and gets up to retrieve her phone.
Dylan says, “I’ll see if I can figure out who Sam is.”
Marina reads the caller ID. “831? Where’s that?”
“Monterey,” her brother says. “Weird timing, don’t you think?”
“Hello?” Marina turns to look at Dylan. “Yes, this is Misty’s daughter.”
My memory begins to return.
I said I was ready. Am I? My house is gone and I’m racing up the Pacific Coast Highway in my wife’s car. Dylan was the one who set me on this road. He was the first to imagine me in the driver’s seat of Misty’s sedan. The first to remind me that I can’t wish the truth untrue. The children teach the adults to remember.
Clouds hide the moon and all the stars. I can’t see anything beyond the headlights, but I know what’s coming.
Lena Rochester wears large cocktail rings even in the daytime, silver and turquoise things that look overlarge on her aging stature. She has dressed for this occasion in an expensive duster jacket. It’s storm gray, flecked with silver threads and all the blues of the ocean. Her knit pants move like water, and a mass of silver balls forms a heavy necklace at her slackening throat.
Before she approaches the front door of the beach house, she crosses the lawn and goes to stand in front of Misty’s memorial stone. She bows her head and lets her hulking gunmetal-gray purse, trimmed with links of hammered silver, slide off her shoulder. She clutches it in front of her, exactly as she did the day we set the stone. I remember she didn’t like the inscription. In Memory of Misty / Wife, Mother, Friend. I didn’t mean anything by leaving off Daughter, there just wasn’t enough room.
Marina notices from the living room window and takes the chance to prepare for the personality that looks so intimidating, that sounded so detached over the phone. How do you prepare to meet a grandmother who died before you were old enough to remember her? This was the story I told.
Lena bends down and touches the top of the stone with her accessorized fingers, then turns back to the house. As her pointy shoes click up the red tile porch, it’s impossible not to see her in the role of real estate agent, which the Rochesters have performed for generations. But there is also a softness about her, something tender to balance the sharp business acumen, starting with her fading blue eyes and the snow-white hair that cups her cheeks like angel hands. All the dark Rochester looks came from her husband’s side of the family.
I never noticed the softness before. I’m relieved to see it and wonder if it’s new, or if I’m changed.
Marina opens the door before Lena has the chance to knock. My beautiful girl is nervous. She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks into the house as she pulls the door wider. “Come on in,” she says.
But Lena is frozen on the porch. She raises her skin-loose hand to her lips and forgets her manners, staring and staring at Marina, and then finally breaking into a hearty laugh. She drops the big purse and flings her arms wide and finally mounts the steps to the house, then throws herself at Marina’s neck. They’re the same height. Lena grabs her shoulders and rocks her back and forth, then plants her bright-red lips in my daughter’s thick hair.
“I see her in your eyes,” she says. And her own sparkle wet.
Marina doesn’t resist any of it. But in the grip of her grandmother’s hug she does shoot a look of surprise at her brother. Dylan has just come out of the kitchen with an avocado and tomato sandwich in one hand and a table knife hilt-deep in mayonnaise in the other.
Lena pulls away. She turns to her grandson, smiling like the day he was born. “You must be Dylan.”
She grabs hold of Marina’s hand, tugging her across the living room so she can be close to them both. Lena’s shaking her head. She glances briefly at the sticky knife, decides not to risk it smearing on her duster. But she reaches out and cups his bent elbow.
“I brought pictures of you as a baby,” she says happily. “I would have recognized you on the street.”
I believe she tells the truth. I imagine she’s been checking out faces on the street for seventeen years, hoping.
Dylan is grinning. “Make you a sandwich?” he asks, showing her his.
“No, thank you. I’m too excited to eat a bite. But you must give me the number of your hairstylist,” she says. “Your look is just spectacular.”
The locals call this place Mortuary Beach, and I am here to save my children.
I park Misty’s car on the shoulder of Highway 1, under the low branches of an old, salt-whipped tree. The sun isn’t shining even though it has recently risen. The winds are spitting sleet across the windshield, and clouds press down heavily. The beastly surf rattles its cage, daring me to come closer.
I take what’s mine and leave what I want others to find. Her purse. Her wallet. Her medications. I close the door and leave the empty car unlocked. Why frustrate the search?
The old monastery sits just there on the other side of the highway. I stand on this skinny strip of asphalt, the only thing separating life from death. I could turn in either direction. Strange hope swells in me, but then settles back into the sea. Yesterday I might have looked for refuge in that place where they believe God welcomes sinners and liars. But not now.
Like the unwitting visitors who make the mistake of taking their eyes off the water, I put the monastery at my back and face my fate. I point my body home. I follow the ribbon road, jacket lapel turned up around my ears, shoulders hunched, thumb asking for a ride.
It’s the only way to protect Marina and Dylan from a life without either of their parents.
Lena’s hunger eventually returns as the afternoon turns to evening and the setting sun turns the living room pink. Gold light sprays the overflow of Lena’s Mercedes Benz: scrapbooks and loose photo prints and memorabilia that Dylan and Marina helped her carry into the house. Misty’s school pictures, dance recitals, family Christmases, our wedding. Dylan holds on to an image of him and his mother sitting in front of a paned window, looking at each other.
“You keep that,” Lena insists. She turns to Marina, who’s looking through our wedding album for the second time. “Next time I come I’ll bring her dress. If we’re lucky that style won’t come back for years, but you should have it. We might be able to take off the sleeves and reinvent it, don’t you think? Maybe slim down the skirt? There’s enough fabric there to make dresses for all the bridesmaids! Your mother was such a beauty, no one was looking at the dress, thank the stars. Do you have a boyfriend, sweets?”
Dylan snorts. Marina blushes.
“Well, when all this dust settles you’re going to have to get out more. That’s all there is to it. Your father kept you cooped up with responsibilities that no young woman should have to . . .” She catches herself. Exhales an exasperated puff. “That was gauche. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry that your father’s in this state.”
“I agree.” Dylan looks at his sister. “You need to get out more.”
“So do you,” she shoots back.
“All in due time, right?” Lena says, looking at Dylan. “Your issues are hardly your fault. These things are inherited. We know that now. Your poor mother—we all could have done better by her if we’d known more even twenty years ago.” Her silence lasts longer than any since she’s set foot in the house. When she snaps out of it, she says, “Your dad did the best he could, I imagine.”
“He looks so young.” Marina shows Dylan our wedding portrait, which involves Misty laughing with her head thrown back and me watching her, bewitched. Our arms are linked together.
“Not much older than you are now,” Lena says. “I didn’t see much of him after she died. Funny how we keep an image of a person in our head. That’s the man I think of. But not so happy. Maybe we can pay him a visit before I have to leave.”
Dylan heads upstairs, snapshot of his mother in hand, to retrieve a framed shot of us surfing together just last winter.
“You aren’t driving back tonight, are you?” Marina asks.
“No, no, sweets. I’m not your age anymore. I’ll get a hotel.”
“You can stay here if you want.” Marina says it like it doesn’t matter, just in case Lena declines. “I can make up the master.”
“Why, thank you. I might just take you up on that.”
I love my daughter’s smile. It’s been hiding.
“Would you two like to go out for a bite to eat or should I order in?” Lena asks discretely while Dylan is out of earshot.
Marina almost answers reflexively, then she stops and thinks. “You’ll have to ask him. He’s been different, since Sara. I can’t explain it.”
Lena sinks back into the sofa cushions. “Ah, Sara. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wondered if I misjudged her.”
“What?” Marina looks up from the photos.
Dylan hits the landing at the base of the stairs with both feet and Lena startles. He leaped at least four steps. He hasn’t done that since he was thirteen. She places her hand over her heart. “Oh! You keep that up and I’ll be visiting your father by ambulance this evening!” Dylan hands over the framed print, enlarged to an eight by ten. Marina took the shot of her brother and me in our wetsuits standing on the stony shore right outside the house, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders and boards flanking us like two more people.
“Oh my,” she says. She might be talking about the wrinkles, deepened by my squinting into the sun, or the gray hairs marching backward on my head, or the drooping skin under my eyes. She taps the glass over my face with her finger. “Now, I might not have recognized him on the street. I could never understand why he cut us off. But this . . . if this is what his sorrow looked like, well . . . poor man.” Her eyes snap to Marina, full of fresh concern. “I hope he was good to you kids. I hope he didn’t—”
“Never.” Marina holds her hand up to stop the thought. “He’s a really good”—she chokes up—“a great dad.”
“And that’s a relief to this old heart.” Lena shakes her head and draws her granddaughter into a sideways hug.
Dylan takes back the photo and sets it over the fireplace. “What did you say about Sara?”
“Oh, right. Now, she’s the one who called me down—I told you that, didn’t I?”
Marina closes the wedding album and wipes her eyes. “No. I thought she was at the sheriff’s office.”
“Where?”
“Ian said they could hold her for two days—”
“Hold her? Is she under arrest? For what?”
Marina looks to Dylan. She hardly knows where to begin, so he does it for her.
“They’re looking into the possibility that Mom didn’t kill herself.”
“Didn’t . . . oh my stars! Are you saying she’s alive? Did someone find her? No, no. Listen to me, she would have called. You mean . . .” She closes her pale-blue eyes and takes a breath. “Did they finally find her after all this time? Can I finally bury my daughter?”
Dylan looks at his feet.
“No,” Marina says quickly. “He only meant that there’s some new evidence. They’re checking it out.”
“Like, um, it appears Sara and Dad had an affair.”
“Why yes, we all knew about that.”
“And Sara was here the night Mom went missing. She wrote Mom’s suicide note. And her prints were on . . . something that had Mom’s blood on it.”
Lena is staring at Marina as if her words were foreign.
“Sara?” she finally croaks. “I never thought Misty actually killed herself because of Sara. She would have lived for you two, if not for the illness. It wasn’t fair, what Barb and Stan did to her. We lost two daughters that way. Stan was the elder brother, you know, and Barb never resisted her husband. He still has so much power over her. But maybe . . .”
“Why did you wonder if you were wrong about Sara?” Marina asks.
“Well, I don’t know now.” Lena tries to remember. “I guess I always thought she was a victim of Misty’s moods, but we were all so frightened for your mother then. She had such a promising future with her dancing, and then one day we realized she had problems far worse than a teenage phase. She and Sara were like sisters—so it was easy to blame Sara if Misty was upset about something. You know how girls can be, sweets. I guess it started there, and then got to the point where we all believed what we wanted to. It didn’t help that Sara was of her own mind regarding her career.” Lena wags her finger at Dylan. “I dare you to tell your great-uncle Stan that you plan a future in gaming, young man. He’ll cut you off before he meets you. I never even thought we’d been unreasonable until after Sara was gone for good. I wanted her to come talk to me about Misty, see, so I wouldn’t forget the stories.” Lena composes herself. “But murder? Not even at the lowest point would I think Sara capable of that.”
“Yeah, I don’t buy it either,” Dylan says.
“I saw you looking at Mom’s memorial stone before you came in. Had you seen it before today?”
“Why sure, I was here when he put it in. The whole family was. Well, everyone but Sara. It was a moving service, really. Christmas Eve. It felt nothing like Christmas, though. Sunny and sad. You poor, poor babies. You were an angel, Marina. You”—Lena frowns affectionately at Dylan—“not so much. I think you knew. Yes, I think you knew.”
“Sara wasn’t there?” Marina presses.
“It would have been awkward, even before we knew about the affair. Her absence was expected. I can’t blame her for staying away. Your father was still very insistent then that they’d find Misty’s body, though I shudder to think what that would have been like. It was fitting for the ocean to have her. But he believed. That memorial stone has a compartment in the back for ashes—did you know that?”
They don’t. By the time they were old enough to have understood, I didn’t see the point of showing them. Dylan walks over to the window and has a look in the direction of the memorial.
“I really objected to that notion. Misty belongs to the sea. Keeping ashes in a garden rock—it’s what people do with their pets! And this, my dears, this has become a rather gloomy conversation, don’t you think? Let’s eat. I’m finally starving. Dylan, do you like Vietnamese?”
I don’t think Lena notices that his fingers are shaking, or that he closes them into fists and puts them in his pockets to hide them. But Marina sees.
“Can you bring something back?” he asks.
“Of course,” Lena says, rising. “Marina, I just read this review of a little hole in the wall in Carpinteria, a five-star beef pho.”
“That sounds good. What do you want?” Marina asks her brother.
“Answers,” he says. “With a side of shrimp.”
I had five hours to reinvent my world before I had to face the questions. Five hours back from Monterey to Santa Barbara in the twenty-year-old Toyota Corona of a UCSB student with a final to take that afternoon. I don’t know what he was doing in Carmel. He didn’t care what I was doing hitching a ride there. I was so thankful for his silence that I didn’t even mind George Strait and Shania Twain singing us down the road. They kept his mind off me. He got me all the way to Isla Vista for twenty bucks and a Jolt soda, and in exchange let me have several sheets of three-ring notebook paper from a binder crammed under the passenger seat.
At ten thirty in the morning I made a phone call to Misty’s dance studio and asked the woman who answered if Misty had been there. I asked her to please call me if Misty showed up.
Other than that I spent the hours writing a love letter to my wife. In barely legible writing, jostled by nerves and an old highway, the fickle ballpoint pen coming and going. No doubt a love letter like that one has never been written in the history of men adoring women. A catharsis, an apology, a plea for her forgiveness.
When Dylan finds it in the back of the memorial stone while his grandmother and sister are out, I suspect he will call it a confession.