The Missing Read online

  The birds flew from their nest and pecked their way along the walk. Their heads were black, and their chests white. Their song was a giddy warble, and their name finally came to her: chickadees. Meg took off her slippers and stood. Why not? What was stopping her? With Maddie leaving next year, and a son already gone, what did she have to lose?

  The wet grass drove nails of cold through the soles of her feet. Her goose bumps transformed into eggs, and the paper in her hand was so heavy she dropped it. She was forty-five years old and she’d never been skinny-dipping, never sneaked into a movie, smoked a joint, broken a dish on purpose. She wanted her feet to sink. She wanted to roll across the lawn like a kid. She wanted to take the week off from work and play with her husband, actually play, so that when they went to bed at night their stomachs hurt from laughter.

  She wanted to call up to his window like a liberated Juliet, and tell him they were better than this. Fenstad, David, Maddie—every one of them. They were blowing this Popsicle stand. She turned, and seriously considered doing just that, but something stopped her. Something about the birds. She couldn’t place it. They were pecking at the ground. Little chickadees. Pretty things. One of them swallowed a berry. Her berry. And then she remembered.

  Meg Wintrob’s heart beat a little faster. Couldn’t birds sense poison? What were they doing? But then again, they ate the dry rice thrown at weddings and then drank water until their stomachs exploded. Or was that a myth? Her heart raced, pumping blood to her face so that it flushed Valentine’s Day red. What were they doing?

  All the berries were gone. There must have been five or six of them. Oh, no. She massaged her forehead. On the ground, one of the birds stopped pecking. It flapped its wings, but not fast enough to fly. It hopped along the walk, weaving in a dizzy zigzag. The thing looked drunk, and it would have been funny, would have reminded her of a rummied-up Woody Woodpecker, had she not known what was happening. Its wings stopped flapping, and it began to drag its body by its small feet. She touched its soft feathers, and then cupped it in her palms and felt its slow breath.

  She shouldn’t be upset. This bird was a moron. It deserved to die rather than reproduce, and bequeath its fool genes to another generation. Its instincts were all wrong. Birds should know not to eat poison. Then why was she crying?

  The bird didn’t try to wriggle free from her hands. Its hollow-boned chest expanded and contracted very slowly. Without knowing it, she matched its breath in a show of sympathy. She’d killed it. She’d killed the retarded bird.

  Meg bent down until the tip of her nose touched its beak. It didn’t fight. Her breath hitched. They’d been through two dogs, four or five rabbits, and countless goldfish. Except for the dogs, she’d never shed a tear. But this bird, it was getting cold. It was getting stiff. She wanted to put it back where she’d found it. Pretend she’d never seen it. But she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t let it die alone. She held on for another couple of minutes, until it stopped breathing. Then she eased it onto the ground.

  She wiped her hands against her robe. She was crying in the middle of her front lawn. Neighbors driving by slowed their cars to look. She covered her face with her hands and pretended to be shielding her eyes from the sun. She was wearing a ten-year-old terry-cloth robe with frayed sleeves because her good robe was in the laundry pile. Her hair was a mess. Her feet were cold. Why were they so cold? Oh, right, she wasn’t wearing slippers. The bird, the pretty bird. A chickadee.

  On the street a car slowed. Fenstad’s boss and the CEO of the hospital rolled down his window. “How are ya, Meggie?” Miller Walker called. He was one of those jerks who invented nicknames for people like “my main man at arms,” and “Fennie-boy,” and “Meggie.” At the annual Christmas Ball he always made a big show of pinching her ass, and then pretending it was a huge joke. She grinned a fake grin and waved gaudily, hoping he was too far away to see her tears. Then Meg Wintrob pivoted so fast her hips throbbed, and hurried back inside.

  Fenstad Wintrob peered through the foggy window. His muscles ached like he’d been sparring a few rounds with Mike Tyson instead of dreaming. He was a restless sleeper. He kicked and moaned and babbled, but never remembered it in the morning. Poor Meg. Every once in a while she showed him some bruise he’d left on her arm, or woke him during the night because he’d hogged all the blankets. He hadn’t heard her get out of bed this morning, which was unusual. They were both light sleepers. But then again, he knew from recent experience that when she wanted, Meg could be sneaky.

  He watched as she climbed out from underneath the porch. She did it in a single, fluid motion. Her legs unfolded and slipped out, and her body followed. Then she slapped the wet newspaper against the wooden steps. Three quick, hard strikes from which drops of water spun in small arcs. He felt like less of a man watching her, his own wife.

  Fenstad was lean, wiry, and of medium height. Except for his dark green eyes, he was average-looking in every way. But he was an attentive listener, and he never broke eye contact. For this reason the memory of his face lingered in peoples’ minds, even when they’d met him only once. They could recall, for example, the laugh lines cut into the sides of his cheeks and his large hands that made him appear far stronger than his stature implied.

  He was a calm man. Meg, on the other hand, was restless. Even when happy, her fingers tap-tap-tapped against wooden surfaces, steering wheels, her own thighs. Unexpected things soothed her. Frozen Snickers bars, for instance, or rainy days, because she didn’t feel bad about not getting outside. Right now, though, she seemed relaxed. Her hair was a frizzy mess around her shoulders, the way he liked it. She was looking out at the road, daydreaming. Her posture was loose, as if the morning dew was a solvent for the glue that lately had locked all her joints in fixed positions. She looked approachable. Sexy, even.

  He was startled suddenly by the sound of a loud buzzer, which was quickly followed by a moan, and a slap, and then silence. Maddie’s alarm. When she was young he used to wake her. “Rise and shine,” he’d say, and then he’d open her blinds so that the sun shone across her bed. Now only Meg entered her room because she slept in the nude. She spent at least an hour in the bathroom every morning, spraying herself with womanly scents and dabbing her eyes with blue shadow. She had a boyfriend, too. Enrique Vargas ate dinner at the house once a week, and Fenstad had to smile and make small talk with the kid who was probably screwing his daughter.

  Fenstad shook his head. And then there was David. How had he managed to raise two kids who both dyed their hair like circus clowns?

  Down below, Meg tossed something onto the walk. It sprayed out like pebbles. He thought about joining her on the steps. He could surprise her with a kiss on the back of her neck. But she was snappish in the mornings. It was best to keep a distance.

  He remembered now that he’d had a nightmare last night. In his dream the house had been cavernously huge. Scores of rooms had led to more rooms, all converging, mazelike, onto the front hall. The rules of Euclidean geometry had not been obeyed: Floors had been slanted, corners were greater or less than ninety degrees, and ceilings were high and occasionally rounded. The rooms had converged on the front door, which a large, growling dog had guarded. It had looked like his neighbor’s German shepherd, only its eyes had been wild. He’d seen them clearly; green irises that had dilated in wavelike motions irrespective of the light. He’d known just by sight that the wretch was either rabid or insane. A sign on the front door had read “Hazmat,” and outside, men in white plastic suits had loaded his neighbors into black sedans. That’s when Meg and his daughter, in mid-conversation, had entered the room. He’d shouted for them to stop, but he was a phantom in his own house, and the women didn’t hear.

  The dog went after Meg first. It was about 180 pounds, and its open jaws had looked like a steel-toothed bear trap. Before she had the chance to run, it sank its teeth into her calf. She fell, and blood pooled all over the Persian rug. Maddie pulled her mother’s arms to free her. Fenstad flinched at the memor
y, even now. Flinched that his mind had produced such a thing. Maddie had pulled, and the dog had pulled back, like two animals fighting over a bone.

  That’s all he remembered. But it wasn’t so surprising to him now that he felt lousy this morning. The dream lingered in his mind. He felt guilty for having dreamed it, and frightened for her, too.

  Just then, the bedroom door flew open, and Meg burst into the room like something was chasing her. Immediately he thought about the dog. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying, and her feet were bare.

  He furrowed his brows. “What?”

  She put her head on his shoulder. He led her to the bed, where they sat.

  “What is it?”

  She shrugged. There were dark circles under her eyes. The belt on her robe had come loose, and he could see her small, pert breasts. She’d left the house without underwear or pajamas, and he wondered, with a snap of fury, if any of the neighbors had spied her shaven crotch.

  “Graham Nero? Has he been bothering you again?” Fenstad asked.

  She sniffled and shook her head. “A bird,” she said.

  Did she want a bird? Had a bird attacked her out there? Was this the first sign of a brain tumor? He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. Instead she leaned over his hips and peeled back his wet towel. He should have guessed, but the gesture was so unexpected that even after he felt her tongue, her lips, it took him a moment to be sure.

  He closed his eyes and moaned. It had been years since she’d done this. He’d forgotten how much he liked it. He decided that if he looked at her or petted the back of her head, he would ruin the moment. She’d feel exposed. So he smiled, and thought how wonderful it was that after all these years she could still surprise him. A woman who hated mornings. In their entire married life he could count on two hands the number of times they’d made love before breakfast.

  She smelled like sweat and salt, scents she would bury after her shower with two spritzes of White Linen perfume. Her robe was open. She never believed him when he told her he liked her best in shorts and T-shirts. The things she didn’t understand about him. He loved her because she was comfortable in her own skin, because she let him watch when she pleasured herself, which she’d only learned to do after Maddie was born. Because she’d carried his children in her womb.

  She worked faster, and a bubble of pleasure caught in his throat. He wanted to cry out but did not. He tried to still his lips, to keep quiet, to watch her. She worked, faster and faster. When he reached his limit, he pushed her back against the bed. They made love. He didn’t hold out for as long as he wanted. He was too close. There were sparks, and release. Maddie was just down the hall, and neither of them made a sound.

  Afterward, they lay down next to each other.

  “Not bad,” he said, and by that he meant fantastic. Her breath was heavy. The exertion had made the dark green vein along her forehead visible. He thought about the dog in his dream, and put his arm around her as if to protect her from it. Tonight, there would be flowers. Tonight, he’d take her to dinner.

  She wiped her mouth and leaned on his chest. She was a small woman, but the joints of her elbows were sharp against his ribs. “A bird died outside. It died in my hands.”

  He waited for her to say more. What was she talking about? He hadn’t seen any birds.

  “There’s poison ivy under the house and I picked the berries and threw them on the walk. A bird ate them. It died in my hands.”

  Her normally unflappable voice cracked. He thought she was trying to tell him something. Was this about Graham Nero? Some elaborate way of explaining what she’d done? Birds didn’t die from eating berries.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked. The rankle in her tone surprised him.

  He blinked and tried to think. “Sounds like a dumb bird.”

  Her eyes narrowed into slits of fury. Should he have said, Thank you or Great blow job, babe! You’re aces with me? This was ridiculous. She was his wife. Why did he need to say the right thing?

  “So cold, Fenstad,” she said, and at first he thought she was talking about the temperature, and then, from the look on her face, he knew, and he felt himself sink. So disappointing. “You should have been born a trout,” she said. Then she turned and started into the bathroom. “You’d have been happier as a fish. We both would.”

  The water started running, and he did not get up for some time. The sheets were wet, and he was suddenly ashamed, like he was a dog that had pissed the bed. Down the hall Maddie clopped across the hard wood floor. Skinny like her mother, but loud and graceless as an ox. “Nobody woke me up!” she hollered into the ether. “Why didn’t anybody wake me up?” Then she was off, down the stairs and in the kitchen, where she would suck the juice out of a sliver of grapefruit, toss the pulp, and declare herself full. Then she and Meg would fight until he left for work, and neither would notice that he was gone.

  Don’t you know there are people out there with real problems? he wanted to yell. Don’t you understand how lucky we’ve been? But the human psyche is the same as its immune system. When it has no enemies to fight, it invents them.

  Fenstad waited for Meg to come out of the shower. The door opened in a cloud of steam. Her skin was bright red, like she’d been trying to scald his touch from her body. She shrank from his hand as she passed him, as if his touch was repulsive.

  He entered the bathroom and shut the door. It was so hazy with perfume that he sneezed. He closed his eyes and thought about how she had looked on the front lawn. So uncertain. Like she hadn’t known if she would go to work today, or how she’d found herself in Corpus Christi, or whether she’d go back inside at all. A pause, as if her person was a mask she wore every morning, but she’d left the house without it, and for an instant been free. He thought about that, and then he thought about the black German shepherd in his dream, and the satisfying sound its teeth had made when they’d crunched on her bones.

  FOUR

  The War Between the States

  At the same time that Lois Larkin discovered she’d accidentally abandoned her least favorite pupil to the desolate Bedford woods, Meg Wintrob was flipping through the pages of the double September issue of Publishers Weekly. She circled in red marker the young adult books she planned to acquire. So far she’d picked JT Petty’s Scrivener Bees, and Stefan Petrucha and Thomas Pendleton’s Wicked Dead.

  Corpus Christi’s library had been built in the 1970s, which explained why it was such a god-ugly heap of cinder blocks. Her office was a Plexiglas enclosure in the center of the main floor. One door opened onto the reference section, and the other led to the children’s library. She had all the privacy of a goldfish.

  The cheese and tomato sandwich she’d packed for lunch was wilting on her desk, but she didn’t feel like eating it. The Great Chickadee Fiasco had soured her stomach. It was less about the bird now than about Fenstad. There are certain things you don’t insult, and a man’s performance in the sack is one of them. It had been cruel. She had been cruel. That was the problem: When it came to Fenstad, sometimes she couldn’t help herself. He was so cold that she got tired of hugging him and started pinching him, just to be sure he still felt.

  “Aheem. Aheem!” Albert Sanguine ticked at a library-volume whisper. Albert was sitting at the Internet terminal that faced Meg’s desk. She watched his head twitter, and then become still as he focused on the screen. He was wearing a strange getup, even for Albert. Wingtips, a black turtleneck, and camouflage army pants with pockets full of what looked like junked L. L. Bean catalogs.

  Meg picked up her sandwich. She’d had the bright idea of going gourmet, and adding balsamic vinaigrette, which had made the bread soggy. Right now Fenstad and Maddie were probably cursing her.

  “Aaaheem! Aaaheem!” Albert ticked again. She wasn’t sure if he was clearing his throat or having a spasm, but his voice was getting louder, so she struck her pen against the Plexiglas. He waved his acknowledgment with a shaking hand while his eyes remained focu
sed on the screen.

  Years of booze had rotted out Albert’s nervous system, and he now had alcohol-induced Tourette’s. After state cutbacks, the mental institution in Bangor had booted all its nonviolent patients, no matter how severe their conditions. Four of them were Corpus Christi natives, and when they returned home Fenstad set up a mental health clinic at the hospital for them. When they weren’t at his group meetings, they were hanging out at the only other public place that would have them: the library. A few of them lived in subsidized housing near the Motel 6, the only part of Corpus Christi that wasn’t solidly upper middle class. They survived on disability benefits and charity. At the library they spent their time reading books, surfing the Internet, and napping on the leather reading chairs that the Walker family had donated. People complained, but the way Meg saw it, the library existed for the public good. So long as they didn’t bother anybody, they had a right to be here, too.

  Albert was her favorite. Like a connoisseur savoring a 2001 Burgundy, he smelled new books before opening them. More importantly, he returned them on time. He was a voracious reader, and over the years he’d researched subjects that ranged from thermodynamics, to hematology, to his current obsession, Civil War camps. This last month he’d been stuck on the blight in American history that was Andersonville, Georgia. Thirteen thousand Union soldiers died there during its two years of operation. Nearby farmers had remained silent, even while mass graves began appearing like potholes along the camp’s periphery.

  Meg wasn’t keen on supporting Albert’s more macabre interests, but when he got ideas in his head he was adamant, and there wasn’t much she could do to dissuade him. “Why the Civil War?” she’d asked last week. Without looking up from The Trials of an Andersonville Prison Guard, his head and hands shaking, he’d told her, “It’s like an organism with immune disease. Aheem. AHEEM. It’s a body that attacks itself.”