Among the Missing (6 page)

“It’s just something that sounds rude,” she said at last.

“Dad,” Evan said. “What does ‘pussy’ mean?”

Cheryl and Tobe exchanged glances.

“It means a cat,” Tobe said, and Evan’s face creased with puzzlement for a moment.

“Oh,” Evan said at last. Tobe looked over at her and shrugged.

Later, after the children were asleep, Tobe said, “I’m really sorry, honey.”

“Yes,” she said. She was in bed, trying hard to read a novel,
though she felt too unsettled. She watched as he chuckled, shaking his head. “Good God!” he said with amused exasperation. “Wendell can be such an asshole. I thought I would die when Evan said that.” After a moment, he sat down on the bed and put his fingers through his hair. “That stupid
Playboy
stuff,” he said. “We’re lucky the bird didn’t testify.”

He meant this as a joke, and so she smiled. Oh, Tobe, she thought, for she could feel, even then, his affection for his younger brother. He was already making an anecdote to tell to Carlin and Randy, who would find it hilarious. She closed her eyes as Tobe put the back of his fingers to her earlobe, stroking.

“Poor baby,” he said. “What’s wrong? You seem really depressed lately.”

After a moment, she shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I am.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I’ve been really distracted, with Wendell and everything.” She watched as he sipped thoughtfully from the glass of beer he’d brought with him. Soon, he would disappear into his office, with the papers he had to prepare for tomorrow.

“It’s not you,” she said, after a moment. “Maybe it’s the weather,” she said.

“Yeah,” Tobe said. He gave her a puzzled look. For he knew that there was a time when she would have told him, she would have plunged ahead, carefully but deliberately, until she had made her points. That was what he had expected.

But now she didn’t elaborate. Something—she couldn’t say what—made her withdraw, and instead she smiled for him. “It’s okay,” she said.

•   •   •

Wild Bill had begun to molt. He would pull out his own feathers distractedly, and soon his gray, naked flesh was prominently visible in patches. His body was similar to the Cornish game hens she occasionally prepared, only different in that he was alive and not fully plucked. The molting, or something else, made him cranky, and as Thanksgiving approached, he was sullen and almost wholly silent, at least to her. There were times, alone with him in the kitchen, that she would try to make believe that he was just a bird, that nothing was wrong. She would turn on the television, to distract her, and Wild Bill would listen, absorbing every line of dialogue.

They were alone again together, she and Wild Bill, when Wendell telephoned. It was the second day in less than two weeks that she’d called in sick to work, that she’d stayed in bed, dozing, until well past eleven. She was sitting at the kitchen table, brooding over a cup of tea, a little guilty because she was not really ill. Wild Bill had been peaceful, half-asleep, but he ruffled his feathers and clicked his beak as she answered the phone.

At first, when he spoke, there was simply an unnerving sense of dislocation. He used to call her, from time to time, especially when she and Tobe were first married. “Hey,” he’d say, “how’s it going?” And then a long silence would unravel after she said, “Fine,” the sound of Wendell thinking, moistening his lips, shaping unspoken words with his tongue. He was young back then, barely twenty when she was pregnant with Jodie, and she used to expect his calls, even look forward to them, listening as he hesitantly began to tell her about a book he’d read, or asked
her to listen as he played the piano, the tiny sound blurred through the phone line.

This was what she thought of at first, this long ago time when he was still just a kid, a boy with, she suspected, a kind of crush on her. This was what she thought of when he said, “Cheryl?” hesitantly, and it took her a moment to calibrate her mind, to span the time and events of the last eight years and realize that here he was now, a convicted rapist, calling her from prison. “Cheryl?” he said, and she stood over the dirty dishes in the sink, a single Lucky Charm stuck to the side of one of the children’s cereal bowls.

“Wendell?” she said, and she was aware of a kind of watery dread filling her up—her mouth, her nose, her eyes. “Where are you?” she said, and he let out a short laugh.

“I’m in jail,” he said. “Where did you think?”

“Oh,” she said, and she heard his breath through the phone line, could picture the booth where he was sitting, the little room that they’d sat in when they’d visited, the elementary school colors, the mural of a rearing mustang with mountains and lightning behind it.

“So,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going fine,” she said—perhaps a bit too stiffly. “Are you calling for Tobe? Because he’s at his office.…”

“No,” Wendell said, and he was silent for a moment, maybe offended at her tone. She could sense his expression tightening, and when he spoke again there was something hooded in his voice. “Actually,” he said, “I was calling for you.”

“For me?” she said, and her insides contracted. She couldn’t imagine how this would be allowed—that he’d have such freedom
with the phone—and it alarmed her. “Why would you want to talk to me?” she said, and her voice was both artificially breezy and strained. “I … I can’t do anything for you.”

Silence again. She put her hand into the soapy water of the sink and began to rub the silverware with her sponge, her hands working as his presence descended into her kitchen.

“I’ve just been thinking about you,” he said, in the same hooded, almost sinuous way. “I was … thinking about how we used to talk, you know, when you and Tobe first moved back to Cheyenne. I used to think that you knew me better than anybody else. Did you know that? Because you’re smart. You’re a lot smarter than Tobe, you know, and the rest of them—Randy, Carlin, that stupid … moron, Karissa. Jesus! I used to think,
What is she doing here? What is she doing in this family?
I guess that’s why I’ve always felt weirdly close to you. You were the one person—” he said, and she waited for him to finish his sentence, but he didn’t. He seemed to loom close, a voice from nearby, floating above her, and she could feel her throat constricting. What? she thought, and she had an image of Jenni Martinez, her wrists bound, tears leaking from her blindfold. He would have spoken to her in this way, soft, insidious, as if he were regretfully blaming her for his own emotions.

“Wendell,” she said, and tried to think of what to say. “I think … it must be very hard for you right now. But I don’t know that … I’m really the person. I certainly don’t think that I’m the
one
person, as you say. Maybe you should talk to Tobe?”

“
No
,” he said, suddenly and insistently. “You just don’t understand, Cheryl. You don’t know what it’s like—in a place like this. It doesn’t take you long to sort out what’s real and what’s not, and to know—the right person to talk to. Good
God!” he said, and it made her stiffen because he sounded so much like Wild Bill. “I remember so much,” he said. “I keep thinking about how I used to give you shit all the time, teasing you, and you were just so … calm, you know. Beautiful and calm. I remember you said once that you thought the difference between us was that you really believed that people were good at heart, and I didn’t. Do you remember? And I think about that. It was something I needed to listen to, and I didn’t listen.”

She drew breath—because she
did
remember—and she saw now clearly the way he had paused, the stern, shuttered stare as he looked at her, the way he would seek her out on those Friday party nights, watching and grinning, hoping to get her angry. Her hands clenched as she thought of the long, intense way he would listen when she argued with him. She worked with high school boys who behaved this way all the time—why hadn’t she seen? “Wendell,” she said. “I’m sorry, but …” And she thought of the way she used to gently turn away certain boys—
I don’t like you in that way. I just want to be friends
.… It was ridiculous, she thought, and wondered if she should just hang up the phone. How was it possible that they could let him call her like this, unmonitored? She was free to hang up, of course, that’s what the authorities assumed. But she didn’t. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Wendell, I think … I think …”

“No,” he said. “Don’t say anything. I know I shouldn’t say this stuff to you. Because Tobe’s my brother, and I
do
love him, even if he’s a shitty lawyer. But I just wanted to hear your voice. I mean, I never would have said anything to you if it wasn’t for being here and thinking—I can’t help it—thinking that things would be different for me if we’d … if something had happened, and you weren’t married. It could have been really different for me.”

“No,” she said, and felt a vaguely nauseated, surreal wavering passing through the room. A bank of clouds uncovered the sun for a moment, and the light altered. Wild Bill edged his clawed toes along his perch. “Listen, Wendell. You shouldn’t do this. You were right to keep this to yourself, these feelings. People think these things all the time, it’s natural. But we don’t act on them, do you see? We don’t—”

She paused, pursing her lips, and he let out another short laugh. There was a raggedness about it that sent a shudder across her.

“Act!” he said. “Jesus Christ, Cheryl, there’s no
acting
on anything. You don’t think I’m fooling myself into thinking this appeal is going to amount to anything, do you? I’m stuck here, you know that. For all intents and purposes, I’m not going to see you again for twenty years—if I even live that long. I just—I wanted to talk to you. I guess I was wondering if, considering the situation, if I called you sometimes. Just to talk. We can set … boundaries, you know, if you want. But I just wanted to hear your voice. I think about you all the time,” he said. “Day and night.”

She had been silent for a long time while he spoke, recoiling in her mind from the urgency of his voice and yet listening steadily. Now that he had paused she knew that she should say something. She could summon up the part of herself that was like a guidance counselor at school, quick and steady, explaining to students that they had been expelled, that their behavior was inappropriate, that their SAT scores did not recommend college, that thoughts of suicide were often a natural part of adolescence but should not be dwelled upon. She opened her mouth, but this calm voice did not come to her, and instead she merely held the phone, limp and damp against her ear.

“I’ll call you again,” he said. “I love you,” he said, and she heard him hang up.

In the silence of her kitchen, she could hear the sound of her pulse in her ears. It was surreal, she thought, and she crossed her hands over her breasts, holding herself. For a moment, she considered picking up the phone and calling Tobe at his office. But she didn’t. She had to get her thoughts together.

She gazed out the window uncertainly. It was snowing hard now; thick white flakes drifted along with the last leaves of the trees. Something about Wendell’s voice, she thought restlessly, and the fuzzy lights of distant cars seemed to shudder in the blur of steady snow. Her hands were shaking, and after a time, she got up and turned on the television, flicking through some channels: a game show, a talk show, an old black-and-white movie.

She could see him now very clearly, as a young man, the years after they’d first moved back to Wyoming—the way he would come over to their house, lolling around on the couch in his stocking feet, entertaining the infant Jodie as Cheryl made dinner, his eyes following her. And the stupid debates they used to have, the calculated nastiness of his attacks on her, the way his gaze would settle on her when he would play piano and sing. Wasn’t that the way boys acted when they were trying not to be in love? Could she really have been so unaware, and yet have still played into it?
What is she doing in this family?
Wendell had said. She tried to think again, but something hard and knuckled had settled itself in her stomach. “My God,” she said. “What am I going to do?” Wild Bill turned from the television, cocking his head thoughtfully, his eyes sharp and observant.

“Well?” she said to him. “What
am
I going to do?”

He said nothing. He looked at her for a little longer, then lifted his pathetic, molting wings, giving them a shake. “What a world, what a world,” he said, mournfully.

This made her smile. It was not something she’d heard him say before, but she recognized it as a quote from
The Wizard of Oz
, which Wendell used to recite sometimes. It was what the Wicked Witch of the West said when she melted away, and a heaviness settled over her as she remembered him reciting it, clowning around during one of the times when they were just making conversation—when he wasn’t trying to goad her. There were those times, she thought. Times when they might have been friends. “Yes,” she said to Wild Bill. “What a world.”

“Whatever,” Wild Bill said; but he seemed to respond to her voice, or to the words that she spoke, because he gave a sudden flutter and dropped from his perch onto the table—which he would sometimes do for the children, but never for her, not even when she was eating fruit. She watched as he waddled cautiously toward her, his claws clicking lightly. She would have scolded the children:
Don’t let that bird on the table, don’t feed him from the table
, but she held out a bit of toast crust, and he edged forward.

“It’s not going to work,” she told Wild Bill as he nipped the piece of toast from her fingers. “It’s not,” she said, and Wild Bill observed her sternly, swallowing her bread. He opened his beak, his small black tongue working.

“What?” she said, as if he could advise her, but he merely cocked his head.

“Stupid cunt,” he said gently, decisively, and her hand froze
over her piece of toast, recoiling from the bit of crust that she’d been breaking off for him. She watched the bird’s mouth open again, the black tongue, and a shudder ran through her.

“No!” she said. “No! Bad!” She felt her heart contract, the weight hanging over her suddenly breaking, and she caught Wild Bill in her hands. She meant to put him back in his cage, to throw him in, without food or water, but when her hands closed over his body he bit her, hard. His beak closed over the flesh of her finger and he held on when she screamed; he clutched at her forearm with his claws when she tried to pull back, and she struck at him as he flapped his wings, her finger still clutched hard in his beak.