The Vanishings (8 page)

“You gonna be all right?”

“I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“You want me to come down there and look after you? Far as I know I didn't lose any family but maybe a couple of other friends.”

“Don't worry about me, Bub. I usually ride the school bus with a black girl who knows all about this stuff. I'm going to try to find her. I hope she's still around.”

“Good luck,” Bub said. “This is really wacky, you know?”

That seemed to Vicki a pretty mild thing to say about the craziest thing that ever could have happened in history. She hung up and turned all the way around. From where she stood she could see her mother's bedclothes in the chair, her father's T-shirt in the bed, and the door to her and Jeanni's bedroom down the hall.

Vicki didn't know what to think. Part of her was glad her family was right. She wouldn't wish her own feelings on anyone, especially on people she loved. Loved. Yes, she realized, she loved them. Each of them.
All of them. She only hoped they
were
in heaven. It wasn't like they were dead.

But they might as well have been. She had become an orphan overnight. And all of a sudden all those so-called friends of hers, the waste-oids who hid from their feelings and their problems behind a buzz of booze and pot, didn't interest her in the least. The girl she wanted to find was the one she often sat with on the bus, the one who had tried to explain to her what had happened to Vicki's parents when they “got saved.”

Vicki looked in the phone book under Washington. There were dozens of them, and she didn't know Clarice's father's name. She dialed every Washington whose name began with an
A
or a
B
and about half of them whose names began with a
C,
but none knew a Clarice Washington. Then she remembered that Clarice had said her mother worked at
Global Weekly
magazine.

Vicki looked up that number and dialed. She was told that Mrs. Washington was not in yet and that no, they could not give out her home number. “Is it an emergency, young lady?”

“It sort of is,” Vicki said. “I'm a friend of her daughter Clarice, and I need to talk to her.”

The woman at the magazine told Vicki she would call the Washington home and pass on her message. “I'm sure she'll call you,” the woman said.

T
HERE
was no clock in the basement of the Washington home where Lionel and his uncle slept soundly. Lionel never had to worry about getting up on time. His father made some racket before he pulled out at six every morning. Then Lionel's mother made sure everybody was up and in the process of getting ready for school by the time she left at seven. “I don't know what you kids are going to do when you're out on your own,” she often said. “I'm creating monsters who don't move till they're told.”

It seemed too bright, too late when Lionel awoke. He had always been a slow riser, in a cloud until he got up and moved around, went to the bathroom, got breakfast. This morning he didn't feel like moving. He merely opened his eyes, squinted at the sun
rays that had somehow found their way through the tiny basement windows, and watched the dust dance in the columns of light.

Lionel was on his back, staring at the floorboards, wiring, and ductwork in the basement ceiling. This was a scary place in the dark of night. He never slept here alone.

Lionel had a vague recollection of André slipping out of bed, sometime after midnight, he guessed. André sometimes sneaked out of the house for a smoke. Because André always slept so soundly after that, Lionel's father once wondered aloud if André was smoking something stronger than tobacco. And when André spent more time than necessary in the tiny bathroom in the basement, even Lionel wondered if he was taking drugs.

When André came back from whatever he was doing, he would collapse onto the sofa bed with Lionel and wouldn't seem to move a muscle for hours. It was not uncommon for Uncle André to still be sleeping, in the same position, even after Lionel's mother had come down to roust Lionel out of bed. They might argue or crab at each other—usually just in fun—and they were never quiet. But Uncle André would remain dead to the world.

Once, Lionel's mother had made the mis
take of trying to rouse André too. He was so out of it and so angry that she just apologized and never tried again. He got up when he got up, and that was often very late in the morning. This morning Lionel couldn't even hear André breathing. He turned to make sure his uncle was alive.

There he lay, on his stomach, his face turned away from Lionel. The slow, rhythmic heaving of his back told Lionel that André was fine. But he sure was quiet.

Lionel heard the phone ring upstairs. His mother or Clarice would answer it. They always did. Lionel's father often urged his wife to let the answering machine screen calls when they were trying to get ready for work and school or when they were having a meal or sleeping. But Lucinda Washington made it clear to the family that she hated answering machines. Theirs was off as long as anyone was in the house. The last one out could turn it on “so it can serve the purpose it was designed for,” she would say. “Not so we can screen calls or get lazy. It's for catching calls when we're away, period.”

This morning the phone kept ringing, and Lionel heard no footsteps upstairs. Maybe it was earlier than he thought. He sat up, feeling that fogginess and heaviness that made him move so slowly every morning. No one
was answering the phone. What time was it, anyway?

Lionel groaned and whipped off the blankets. Uncle André did not stir. Lionel felt the chill of the basement as he moved stiff-legged toward the stairs. Passing a window, he noticed his father's pickup truck in the driveway, blocking the garage door where his mother's car was parked.
It
is
early,
Lionel decided.
Who'd be calling at this time of the morning?

Lionel was in his underwear, and his mother didn't want him “parading around that way, now that you're a teenager,” but he thought she might forgive him if he answered the phone for her. But why wasn't she or Dad answering it? They had an extension phone on their bed table.

The phone rang and rang, but Lionel was in no hurry. The phone was never for him anyway. He would answer it only because it woke him and there was nothing else to do. Anyway, he was curious.

The kitchen was at the top of the stairs. The lights were off. No one was up. He reached for the phone. It was Verna Zee from his mother's office. “Hi, hon,” she said. “Lionel, isn't it?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Is she there?”

“Who?”

“Your mother, of course.”

“Um, I think so. She's not up yet.”

“Not up? She's usually the first one here.”

Lionel glanced at the wall clock, stunned. It was late morning. “Uh, I'm pretty sure her car's still here. You want me to wake her?”

“No. I work for her, not the other way around. The only reason I let the phone ring for so long is that I know someone's always there if the machine doesn't pick up.”

“Um-hm.” Lionel wished he were still in bed.

“It's just that on a big news day like this, I'd expect her before now.”

“Um-hm.” Lionel had no idea what Verna was talking about, and neither did he care. Big news for adults was rarely big news for him. “You want me to tell her you called?”

“Please. Oh, and I also have a message for your sister.”

“Which one?”

“Clarice. Her friend Vicki called and wants Clarice to call her. You know her?”

“No, but I've heard 'Reece talk about her.”

“Well, she sounds real anxious to talk to Clarice.” Verna gave him the number, and Lionel promised to pass along the message.

Lionel didn't want to know why everyone was sleeping in. He just wanted to enjoy it.
He could head back downstairs and catch some more sleep. If the phone didn't wake anyone, why shouldn't he? He glanced at the calendar. It was no holiday. Nothing was planned but work and school. He had started back downstairs when he stopped and turned around.

Wait,
he thought.
I could be a hero. I could be the one who keeps everybody from being even
more
late.

Lionel went from the kitchen through the dining room toward the stairs that led to the upstairs bedrooms. He opened the door when he noticed something in his peripheral vision. On his dad's easy chair lay the oversized terry cloth robe. Lionel stopped and turned, staring at it. He had never known his father to take his robe off outside the bedroom. Though he slept in pajamas, he considered it impolite to “walk around in public in them,” he always said, referring to his own family as the public.

Maybe he had been warm. André and Lionel had gone to the basement while Dad was still sitting there, nearly dozing. Maybe he shed his robe while half asleep, not thinking. But that wasn't like him. He had always taken great pride in “not being one of those husbands whose wife always has to trail him, picking up after him.”

Lionel moved into the living room, where he noticed his father's slippers on the floor in front of the chair. The robe lay there neatly, arms draped on the sides of the chair almost as if Dad's elbows still rested there. When Lionel saw the pajama legs extending from the bottom of the robe and hanging just above the slippers, it was obvious his father had disappeared right out of his pajamas and robe.

Though Lionel was always unhurried and deliberate in the logy mornings, now it was as if life itself had switched to slow motion. He was not aware of his body as he carefully advanced, holding his breath and feeling only the pounding of his heart. The harsh sunlight shone on the robe and picked up sparkling glints of something where Dad's lap should have been.

Lionel knelt and stared at his father's tiny contact lenses, his wristwatch, his wedding ring, dental fillings, his dark brown hearing aid, the one he was so proud of because he had saved until he could afford one that would truly blend with his skin color.

Lionel's hands shook as he forced himself to exhale before he exploded. He felt his lips quiver and was aware of screams he could not let out. He crept forward on his knees and opened the robe to find Dad's pajamas
still buttoned all the way up. Lionel recoiled and sat back, his feet under him. Suddenly it hit him. He lowered his face to between his knees and sobbed. If this was what he feared it was, he knew what was upstairs. Empty beds. Nightclothes.

But would everyone be gone? He didn't want to horrify himself. He didn't want to see everything that had been left behind, just as he was. He just wanted to know whether he was alone. Lionel ran to the stairs and bounded up two at a time. Little Luci's bed was empty. So was Ronnie's.

Lionel was out of breath. He didn't want to panic, but he couldn't control his emotions. It was too perfect that in Clarice's tiny room, her open Bible lay on her pillow. He imagined her there, as he had noticed so many times, lying on her stomach, reading.

The master bedroom was more than he could bear. His parents' bed was still made, his mother's bedclothes draped on one side where it was clear she had been kneeling in prayer. How Lionel wished he had been taken to heaven with his family and that he had been found reading his Bible or praying when Jesus came.

Only for the briefest instant did Lionel wonder if he were dreaming. He knew better. This was real. This was the truth. All doubt
and question had disappeared. His family had been raptured as his church, his pastor, and his parents had taught. And he had been left behind.

He had wanted to believe his Uncle André when he said that living a good life was one thing but that all this about pie-in-the-sky by-and-by and heaven and the Rapture was just so much mumbo jumbo. Lionel realized that he believed even more than André did, but since he had never done anything about it, he had missed out.

Uncle André! He was still in the basement, and for all Lionel knew, was still sound asleep. Tears streaming down his face, Lionel hurried back down, forcing himself not to look at his dad's empty clothes on the chair on his way to the kitchen and the basement stairs. On the table he noticed the message he had just written to Clarice from her friend Vicki. He grabbed it and bounded down the steps.

Lionel yanked on jeans and a shirt and was lacing up his sneakers as he called out to André. “You'd better get up, man,” he whined, feeling the sobs in his throat. “We're in big trouble.”

But André didn't stir. Lionel sat on the edge of the couch and stared at his unconscious uncle. How he would like to blame
André, anybody, for his own failure. But he couldn't. He knew everything his family knew. He had simply not bought into it. The question now was, was it too late? Was there any hope for someone who had been left behind?

He suddenly felt older and wiser than his uncle. And André didn't seem all that cool and wise anymore. Lionel knew something André didn't, that they had both been wrong, dead wrong. What was the use of waking André now? He would learn the truth soon enough. Let him sleep in ignorance, Lionel decided. This news would ruin the rest of his life.

Lionel trudged back up to the kitchen and slumped into a chair near the phone. Was anyone from his church left behind besides him and André? He called the church, and the answering machine picked up, the pastor's voice announcing when Sunday's and Wednesday's services were scheduled. He concluded, “And remember: Keep looking up, watching and waiting, for the time of the Lord draweth nigh.”

Lionel stood to hang up the phone as the announcement continued about leaving a message after the tone, but suddenly someone picked up the phone. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Yes!” Lionel said. “Who's this?”

“This is Freddie.”

“Freddie, this is Lionel. Who else is there?”

Freddie was chairman of the trustee board, the committee that took care of the church and also supervised the ushers. Freddie was often at the church, working or organizing the maintenance.

“Nobody, Lionel. Nobody else is here but me. Old Mr. Hazel's clothes are here, but he was the only one in the building last night, playing night watchman when the trumpet sounded.”

“When the
what?”

“Oh, I didn't hear it, Lionel. If I'da heard it, I'd be gone and so would you. But you're calling just like everybody else who's calling this morning. You missed it just like me, didn't you? And you're the only one in your family left, aren't you?”

“I am. Well, except André.”

“Is he there?”

“He's still sleeping.”

“Get him up and let me talk to him!”

“No, I'm going to let him sleep, Freddie.” Lionel didn't dare ask how a man so dedicated to the church could have missed the Rapture.

“I'm coming over there then,” Freddie said.
“We, you and I, we both learned a hard lesson today, didn't we, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'm going to talk some sense into that uncle of yours, and we're going to be ready for all the people who come to this little lighthouse looking for answers.”

Everybody in Lionel's church referred to it as the little lighthouse at one time or another. “So nobody else from the church got left behind but us three?” Lionel asked.