All Things Cease to Appear

  Right, George said.

  Then what?

  Then I found her and she—

  A sound erupted from his belly, a kind of guttural hiccup, and he let the words gush out like puke. She had that…thing in her head…and there was all…the blood.

  He grabbed the wastebasket and retched into it while Lawton sat there and watched. Deputy Burke came in and took it away. It was one of those gray metal things they used in grammar schools.

  You all right, George?

  He was nothing close to all right. Burke came back into the room with another wastebasket and set it down. He stood there a minute looking at him, then went out again and shut the door.

  What time did you leave the house this morning?

  The question seemed impossible to answer. Six-thirty, he managed. He’d had an eight o’clock class. He could remember the sky, the thick clouds. The drive to work. The usual traffic. People in their cars behind fogged windows. My wife, he said. They were sleeping.

  What time she usually get up?

  I don’t know. I guess around seven.

  Your wife work?

  He shook his head. Not up here. She’d worked in the city.

  What as?

  She was a painter—she did murals, restoration.

  Lawton made another note. What you all do last night?

  Nothing, he said.

  Nothing?

  We had dinner and went to bed.

  Any alcohol with dinner?

  A little wine.

  What time you go to bed?

  George tried to think. I guess around eleven.

  Let me ask you this. Your wife—she a heavy sleeper?

  No. Not especially.

  How ’bout your daughter? She sleep pretty good?

  George shrugged. I guess.

  Lawton shook his head and smiled. We had a heck of a time with ours. I don’t think even one of ’em slept through. Not the whole night. Then they’re up again at the crack of dawn. Lawton looked at him evenly, and a whole minute seemed to pass before he went on. Small kids can be rough on a marriage, he said. I don’t think people give themselves enough credit. But I think it’s harder on the women, don’t you?

  George looked at him and waited.

  Women got such a keen sense, don’t they? The tiniest little whimper and they’re up.

  His brain was beginning to hurt. The overhead lights, buzzing tubes of fluorescence. He tried to look the sheriff in the eye.

  See, that’s the thing I can’t get my head around here, George. You go to work, right? Your wife’s sleeping, your daughter’s sleeping. The house is quiet. And sometime after that—that’s what you said, right?—when they’re still asleep, this incident occurs. You agree with that?

  I don’t know what else to think.

  Let’s assume this happened sometime after you left the house, after six-thirty and before your wife and daughter woke up—say, between seven and eight. Would that be fair? We do need to narrow this down.

  All right.

  So let’s say it’s around quarter to seven. This individual’s outside someplace, maybe he even sees you drive off. He finds the ax in your barn, right? He walks a hundred or so feet to the house and breaks in through the kitchen door. We don’t know why. Maybe a robbery, that’s possible, we don’t understand the motive yet, but that’s the setup, am I right?

  George thought it through. He nodded.

  By now it’s around seven. You’re still in your car, driving to work. You get to campus, park your car, go up to the office. Meanwhile, back at home, somebody’s murdering your wife? Lawton waited a minute. Do you accept that scenario, George?

  What choice do I have?

  That’s what you said, isn’t it? It’s what you told us.

  George just looked at him.

  Somebody broke that window. Somebody came up those stairs. Somebody came into your room. And your wife didn’t wake up?

  So?

  That doesn’t strike you as odd—a young mother like her?

  She was sleeping, George said. The pain in his head sharpened. He feared it might make him blind.

  Somebody brought an ax into your home, Lawton said, slowly rising from his chair. They carried it up the stairs. They entered your room. They stood over the bed, looking down at your dreaming wife. They raised the ax like this—he raised his arms over his head—then brought it down, and bam! He slammed his hand down on the table. One blow. That’s all it took.

  George began to weep. Can’t you see? I’m sick over this. Can’t you see?

  Just when he thought he’d secured Lawton’s sympathy, the sheriff walked out.

  It occurred to him that he needed a lawyer.

  —

  WHAT THE SHERIFF PROMISED would be a brief interview had turned into five hours. Lawton and Burke took turns asking him the same questions over and over again, hoping George would break down and confess to murdering his wife.

  We’d like to interview your daughter, Burke said.

  We’ve got people who know how to talk to kids in these sorts of situations, his partner added gently.

  And get the answers they want, George thought. I don’t think so, he said.

  Burke scoffed. She was in the house. She might’ve seen something. I’d think you’d want to know.

  George didn’t like the look on his face. It’s not happening, he said. I won’t allow it.

  The cops exchanged a look. Burke shook his head and got up and walked out. A moment later, the phone rang.

  Yell-o, Lawton said a bit too happily. He listened and replaced the receiver. Your parents are here. Apparently, your daughter’s tired. He looked at George carefully. She wants to go home.

  Yeah, George said. Me, too. And he meant those words with all his heart. But neither of them had a home now. That was over.

  Your folks got you all a room at the Garden Inn.

  He nodded with relief. He couldn’t imagine going back to that house tonight—or ever.

  Lawton walked him out. In the anteroom, his parents were waiting on plastic chairs. At first glance, he hardly recognized them. They looked old. Franny was squatting on the floor, playing with a rubber stamp that declared Official Business across a piece of scrap paper.

  She’s getting ink all over her hands, his mother said, displeased, her French accent more pronounced than usual. Frances, come up from that dirty floor.

  She pulled Franny onto her lap. It was only then, with the child between them, that she looked at him directly.

  Mother, he said, and bent to kiss her. Her face was cold. His father stood up, grim, and shook his hand. They looked at him; they would not look.

  Daddy, Franny cried, reaching out, her little fingers straining, and he suddenly remembered who he was. He pulled her up into his arms, grateful for her affection, and when she clung to him it somehow gave him the strength to say good night to Lawton, to be a gentleman.

  We’d like to see you here first thing in the morning, he said.

  What for?

  We need to finish this.

  I don’t have much else to say, Travis.

  You could think of something else. We’ll expect you at eight-thirty. If you want, I’ll send a patrol car around to pick you up.

  That’s all right. I’ll be here.

  They crossed the parking lot in silence and got into his father’s brown Mercedes, an older model that smelled of cigars. His mother had brought a bag for Franny, clementines and Lulu biscuits and a couple bottles of milk. Catherine had gotten her onto a cup, but she still took a bottle at night. Thinking about it now made his eyes water. He didn’t think he had the courage to raise her alone.

  As they drove to the hotel, Franny fell asleep. No one spoke. He put her on his shoulder when they walked into the silent lobby and rode up in the elevator. His mother had arranged for two rooms. Why don’t you let Franny stay with us? she said. We’ll be right next door. I’m sure you need the rest.

  No, he said. She’ll be with me.


  His voice was cold, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Their faces bleached and cautious. Wanting to know. Wanting a reason this had happened in their family. The potential embarrassment. They wanted the facts. Intimate details that were nobody’s business. They couldn’t help being suspicious—he guessed it was only natural. Maybe he should even forgive them.

  No. He hated them for it.

  Suddenly his parents looked like strangers, refugees who’d been thrown together with him until whatever end awaited them all. They turned into their room and closed the door. Through the wall he could hear their muted conversation, though he couldn’t imagine what they were saying to each other. When he was a boy, his bedroom had been next to theirs, and they often talked late into the night. George would fall asleep trying to decipher the conversation. His father would sit on the bench at the end of the bed, pulling off his shoes and socks, while his mother sat up in her nightgown, her face greasy with wrinkle cream, the newspaper open on her lap. As parents they’d been strict, rigorous. His father, the disciplinarian, occasionally used his belt. George could remember the shame of it.

  The room was clean, innocuous, with two double beds. He set Franny down as gently as he could, but she woke, slightly alarmed. Daddy?

  I’m right here.

  For several minutes the room intrigued her, the paisley bedspread, the wine-colored drapes, the matching shag carpet. She stood up on the bed and started jumping. For a second, while she was suspended in midair, a smile lit her face; then she dropped to all fours like a puppy and rolled up in a ball. Come here, you big lump of sugar. He pulled her into his arms and held her.

  You cry, Daddy?

  He couldn’t answer her. He cried raw, lonely tears.

  She turned away from him, hugging her stuffed rabbit, and shuddered a little. Her eyes were open, fixed on some spot across the room, and it occurred to him that she hadn’t asked for Catherine since they’d left the Pratts’, not once. He found it strange. Maybe somewhere inside her little head she understood her mother wasn’t coming back.

  He pulled the blankets up and kissed her cheek. Mercifully, she fell asleep.

  He sat down on the other bed, watching her. It was just the two of them now. He tried to think. The curtains swam, ghostlike, in some unexplained breeze. It was the heater beneath them, he realized, not without relief. He went to the window and adjusted the temperature and looked out into the night, the dim parking lot, the distant lights of the interstate. It had been a long, cruel winter. Again, it was beginning to snow. He pulled the heavy drapes across the cold glass, making the world out there disappear, and turned on the TV, muting the volume. A commercial ended and the nightly news came on. He was both surprised and not that his wife’s murder was their lead story: footage of the farm, the empty barns, an ominous shot of the unutilized milking contraptions, a dreary photograph of the house from the assessor’s office with the word Foreclosure stretched across it like a police banner. Then a picture of his wife that had been in the local paper, taken at the Chosen Fair, an annual tradition in which everybody came together to eat corn dogs and fried dough—one of the few levelers in a town of extreme wealth and poverty with little in between. Catherine, in overalls, a moon and a star painted on her cheek, looking angelic, almost childlike. Finally, a photo of him—his ID picture from the college, which made him look like an inmate. He could see what they were doing; it didn’t take much.

  He switched it off and went into the bathroom. The light was overly bright, the fan roaring. He turned it off and peed in the dark. He washed his hands and face. Unwittingly, he looked at his new reflection—the whites of his eyes, the curve of his lips, his vague outline—and it occurred to him that he was beginning to disappear.

  He removed his shoes and put them on the carpet and lay down on the bed fully clothed, pulling up the bedspread. What would they do next, arrest him? They wanted to question him again; what more could he tell them? He’d come home, found her, grabbed Franny and run out. Obviously, they were hoping for a confession. He had seen it happen often enough in movies, and the next thing he knew he’d be shipped off to some prison in chains. It could actually happen, he realized. Shockingly within the realm of possibility, it terrified the hell out of him. He didn’t think he could bear it.

  Just before six the next morning, he heard someone knocking. His mother stood in the doorway in her robe, drawn, withered. His father wanted to talk. He’d been up all night and had concluded that they should ignore Sheriff Lawton’s request and return to Connecticut immediately. Since George knew nothing, his mother emphasized, another meeting with the sheriff’s office would not be productive. Once they got to Stonington, they’d arrange for a lawyer. It was still early. They had time to stop at the farm to get a few things. George could take his own car and then they could drive in tandem to Connecticut. They’d be out of the state before Lawton even got to his office.

  It was cold, the sky white, the landscape drained of color. Evergreens, distant fields and barns, unmoving cows, sunless horizon. The house on Old Farm Road seemed defiant, dressed in police tape. A notice had been pinned to the door. Look, he said to his parents. I’m sorry about all this. I’m really very sorry.

  George’s father nodded. We understand, son. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened. A terrible thing.

  They waited in the car with Franny while George went in through the porch, just like he’d done the day before. He kept his gloves on. He knew not to touch anything. The surfaces had been dusted for prints, and a fine silt remained. This was a crime scene now, and even the most ordinary objects seemed to pulse with collusion: a plastic doll ruined with ink, candlesticks ornate with wax, one of his wife’s blue pumps sticking out from under the couch. These things he saw in flashes as he crossed the floor to the stairs, trying not to make a sound, as if someone else were already here, as if he were the intruder. He stood for a moment, just listening. He could hear the trees blowing around in the wind, Catherine’s wrangling chimes. He was sweating, his face, the back of his neck. Overcome with a sudden nausea, he wondered if he’d be sick.

  Again, he looked up the staircase.

  He had to go up. He had to.

  Clutching the banister, he climbed to the second floor and briefly stopped in the hall. It was cold, the air practically shaking with it. His daughter’s room was a bastion of innocence, the pink walls and stuffed animals flaunting their betrayal, and he could sense an awful strangeness, some lingering malevolence. He wanted very badly to leave. It was as if this house, this strange farm, wasn’t even his. It belonged to those people, the Hales. He knew it always would.

  In Franny’s closet, he found a small suitcase and filled it with whatever he could—clothes, toys, stuffed animals—and stepped back into the hall. The door to the master bedroom was ajar, an invitation that he didn’t think he could answer. Instead, he started for the stairs, hearing voices outside. On the landing, he saw they’d gotten out of the car. His mother was bouncing her granddaughter from hip to hip, singing a song. Franny had her head back, laughing. It didn’t seem right, he thought, annoyed. It wasn’t right for anyone to be happy, including his daughter, and he knew Catherine would admonish such behavior at a time like this.

  When the phone rang, it seemed incredibly loud. Who could possibly be calling? He looked at his watch: ten to seven. The phone drilled through the empty rooms. After ten rings it stopped.

  The silence seemed to be listening.

  Then something stirred at the end of the hallway. Wind, sunlight, a vicious shimmering—and he thought, wildly, It’s her. Yes, yes, it’s her! Standing there in her nightgown by the bedroom door, her delicate hand on the knob, a halo of light around her head. Let me show you, he almost heard. Her hand reaching out. Come.

  In that moment the world went silent. Again he looked out at his parents, his daughter, and saw them all fiercely animated, but could no longer hear them and knew they existed in separate worlds. And understood, too, what was required of him now, wh
at she wanted, his dead wife, and he fumbled down to the room they had shared. He would end his own life, he thought, if she wanted him to. It was what he deserved. For not protecting her, for his misguided impression that she’d be happy here and for all of the other things he’d done to make sure she never would be. And then he felt something, like a cold hand on his chin, making him look. There it was, the bed. They’d taken the bloody sheets, the blanket. Now it was just the mattress, the outline of the stain, an uneven circle like a lake on a map. Again he heard the wind, the bare branches of the trees. Again that distraction of sunlight. Cathy, he whispered. Is that you?

  —

  THEY DROVE one car after the other. Franny lay across the back seat sleeping, breathing heavily. It was four hours through sleet. He had to concentrate, to focus. How could he go on? All that blood. Her pale, lovely arms, her delicate wrists.

  They’d had dinner; she hadn’t eaten. She’d been cold, distant. Shoving the plates into the sink. Her shoulders raised. I know about you, George.

  What?

  I know what you did.

  Ruined, he thought. A wasted life.

  I can’t stay here, George. I can’t stay here with you. I have to go.

  He wanted to hit her but instead said, If that’s what you want.

  You don’t have a fucking clue what I want.

  He had washed his hands over and over.

  He had pressed his ear to the door and opened it silently. She looked up in her white nightgown, her skin already so pale, and lowered her brush.

  —

  THE SOUND APPEARED, stretched long and black across the horizon. There was no sleet here at the shore. He pulled over at an overlook and stumbled out onto sand that nearly swallowed him. He got to his feet and ran across the cold beach like a man in the desert who has at last found water, vaguely aware that his parents were screaming at him. He felt almost as though it was the very end of the world, and there was nothing left, neither day nor night, heat nor cold, laughter nor joy. And he belonged here. He belonged in nothing.

  He wanted to feel something, the water in his hands, the smell of it, of life, the salt, the cold sunlight. Distantly, he felt the water rising up his legs, his hips. Make me clean, he thought. Baptize me.