Gone (2 page)

Now it’s over, the buzz has died down, but things are still hard. Getting on track again, and facing the reality of a blind and crippled future—it’s hard. Having a mother who’s a drunk is hard too. Thinking about college, where sleeping people are everywhere . . . and a boyfriend, whose doubts and fears only come out in his dreams. Life in general . . . yeah. All of it.

Really.

Fucking.

Hard.

Janie and Cabe do the dishes together. Cabel washes, Janie dries. It feels so homey. She grips a plate tightly, wiping it with the towel. Thinking.

Wants to know if he’ll voice his dream fears.

And so she blurts it out. “Do you ever think about what it’ll be like? You know, if we stick together, and me all blind and hobbling around, dropping and breaking dishes ’cause I can’t hold on to them. . . .” She puts the plate in the cupboard.

Cabel flicks his fingers at her, spraying her with water. Grinning. “Sure. I think I’m pretty lucky. I bet blind people have great sex. I’ll even wear a blindfold so it’s fair.” He bumps his hips lightly against hers. She doesn’t laugh. She steadies herself and then grabs a stainless steel skillet by the handle and starts drying it. Stares at her contorted reflection in it.

“Hey,” Cabe says. He dries his hand on his shorts and then strokes Janie’s cheek. “I was just joking around.”

“I know.” She sighs and puts the pan away. Throws the towel on the counter. “Come on. Let’s go do something fun.”

1:12 p.m.

She focuses her mind.

It’s cold in the water, but the afternoon sun is warm on her face, her hair.

Janie bobs in place, knees bent, arms straight but not locked, trying to balance. The life vest knocks about her ears. Her well-toned arms are like sticks shooting from the
vest’s enormous sockets. Janie’s glasses are safely stowed inside the boat, so everything is blurry. It’s like looking through a wall of rain.

She takes a deep breath. “Hit it!” she yells, and then she is yanked forward, knees knocking, arms shaking. She grips the rope handle, knuckles white, palms and muscles already sore from two previous days’ efforts.
Lean back
, she remembers, and does it.
Let the boat pull you up
.

She straightens, sort of.

Wobbles and catches herself.

Her bum sticks out, she knows. But she can’t help it. Doesn’t care, anyway. All she can do is grin blindly as spray slaps and stings her face.

She’s up. “Woo hoo!” she yells.

Megan is a gentle driver at the wheel of the little pea-green speedboat. She watches Janie in the rearview mirror like the good mothers watch their children, her brow furrowed in concern but nodding her head. Smiling.

Cabel faces Janie, in the spotter position at the back of the boat, grinning like he does. His teeth gleam white next to his tan skin, and his brown hair, streaked with gold from the sunshine, flips wildly in the wind. His nubbly burn scars on his belly and chest shine silvery brown.

But they are both just blobs to Janie from seventy-five feet away. Cabe yells something that sounds enthusiastic but it’s lost in the noise of the motor and the splash.

Janie’s legs and arms shiver as they air-dry and then get slapped with spray again. Her skin buzzes.

Megan keeps them close to the willow-treed shore. As they approach the town’s beach and campground, Megan eases the boat into a wide semicircle, turning them around. Janie tenses into the turn, but it’s only a mild bump over the wake. Once they straighten out again, Janie moistens her lips, and then, determined, she gives Megan the thumbs-up.

Faster.

Megan complies, and speeds toward the dock near the little red-brown shellacked cabin, one of six dotting the shore at the Rustic Logs Resort, and then she continues past it. Exploring new territory.

I am such a badass
, Janie thinks. She squints and makes a daring and ultimately successful attempt to cross the wake again as the two in the boat cheer her on.

By the time Janie senses it, it’s already too late.

A woman lies sunning herself on a water trampoline, skin gleaming from tanning oil and sweat. Janie can’t make out the scene, but she’s all too familiar with the warning signs. Her stomach twists.

Janie flies past the woman and becomes engulfed in darkness. There’s a three-second-flash of a dream before
it’s all over and she’s out of range again. But it’s enough to throw Janie off-kilter. Her knees buckle, skis tangle underneath her, and she flips forward wildly, water forcing its way into her throat and nostrils. Into her brain, it seems, by the way it burns. A ski slams into her head and she’s forced back under the water. She’s not slowing down.

If you fall, let go of the rope
.

Der
.

Janie surfaces, coughing and sputtering, her head on fire. Amazed that the oversize life vest is still attached, though she’s all twisted up in it. Feels queasy after swallowing half the lake. She wipes the water from her stinging eyes and peers through the blur, disoriented, wishing for her glasses. Ears plugged. When weeds suddenly tickle her dangling feet, she
eep
s and her body does a little freak-out spasm of oogy-ness, after which she tries not to think about being surrounded by big yellow-orange carp . . . and their excrement.

Blurg. Not fond of this, hello
.

Boats whine in the distance.

None of them sounds like it is coming to rescue her.

Finally she hears a muffled chugging. When the motor cuts, Janie calls out. “Cabe?”

It’s still the only name that feels safe on her tongue.

1:29 p.m.

In the boat, Cabel wraps a towel around her. Hands Janie her glasses. “You sure you’re okay?” His eyes crinkle and he’s trying not to grin.

“Fine,” Janie growls, peeved, teeth chattering. Megan checks out the bump on Janie’s head, and then hauls in the tow rope.

Cabel coughs lightly and then presses his lips together. “That was quite, uh, quite the display, Hannagan.”

“Are you actually laughing at me? Seriously?” Janie rubs her hair with a towel. “I almost died out there. Plus my brain is now infested with plankton and carp shit. You’d better watch it, or I’ll blow a snot rocket at you.”

“I’m . . . eww. That’s disgusting.” Cabe laughs. “But seriously, you really should have seen yourself. Right, Megan? I wish we had a video camera.”

“Dude, I am so Switzerland,” Megan says. Rope stowed, she revs up the engine and swings the boat around, back to the dock.

For the second time today, Janie’s not laughing.

Cabel continues over the noise. “I mean, the flip was one thing, but the drag, that was something entirely out of control. Your legs were flying. Remember rule number one of water skiing?”

“I know. Sheesh. When you fall, let go of the rope, I
know. There’s just a lot of shit to remember when you’re out there.”

Cabel snorts. “A lot . . . yeah, a whole lot of shit to remember.” He laughs long and hard, wipes his eyes and tries to get control of himself. “Shouldn’t ‘let go of the rope if it’s drowning you’ be sort of an automatic response, though? Basic survival technique?”

She glares at him.

He stops laughing and gives her a helpless, innocent look. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he says.

“Go suck a mean one,” Janie says. She turns away and squints through her glasses, locating the sleeping woman on the trampoline, now a tiny island in the distance.
You still don’t catch it all, do you, Cabe?

He probably never will.

“Get over yourself, Hannagan,” she mutters. “You’re on vacation, damn it. You’re relaxing and having fun.” It sounds wooden.

“What’s that, sweets?” He slides over to her on the bench seat.

“I said, it
was
kinda funny, wasn’t it?” Janie looks into Cabel’s eyes. Smiles sheepishly.

With his finger, he catches a drip of water from her chin. Smiles. He brings his finger to his lips and licks the water. “Mmm,” he says, nuzzling her neck. “Carp shit.”

1:53 p.m.

Cabel nods off on a blanket under a shady oak.

Janie sits, chin on her knees, staring at her toes. Listening to the rhythm of the soft waves washing up on shore. After a while, she gets up. “I’m going for a walk,” she whispers. Cabel doesn’t move.

She slips a long T-shirt over her swimsuit, shoves her toes in her flips, grabs her cell phone, and walks behind the cabin and through the little parking lot, up the steep driveway to the main road. Across the road there’s a field and a railroad track. The rails glint in the late afternoon sunshine. Janie walks along the track and thinks, glad to have a quiet place where she can let her dream guard down.

After a while, she stops walking. Sits on the track, feeling the hot metal against the backs of her thighs through the thin cover-up. Opens her phone and dials memory #2.

“Janie—what’s going on? Everything all right?”

Janie gently waves a bumblebee away. “Hi. Yeah. I’m just doing a lot of thinking. About what we talked about . . . you know? Lots of time to think on vacation,” she says, and laughs nervously.

“And?”

“And . . . you’re sure you are okay with whatever I decide?”

“Of course. You know that. Did you make up your mind, then?

“Not really. I’m—I’m still deciding.”

“Have you talked to Cabel about it?”

Janie winces. “No. Not yet.”

“Well, I don’t blame you for wanting—and needing—to consider all of your options.”

Janie’s throat grows tight. “Thank you, sir.”

“You know the drill. Call me anytime. Let me know what you choose.”

“I will.” Janie closes the phone and stares at it.

There’s nothing more to say.

On the way back, she picks up a train-flattened penny from the track and wonders if one of the vacationers down the hill placed it there. Wonders if some excited little kid will come back for it. She sets it on the railroad tie so whoever it is will be sure to see it. Walks slowly back to the cabin to drop off her stuff. And then it’s back outside, under the tree.

She watches Cabe sleep. Later, she dozes too, whenever she can get a chance while she wearily dodges Cabel’s dreams, and the dreams of a sleeping child somewhere, probably in the cabin next door.

There is no getting away from it all here. Or anywhere.

No escape for her.

5:49 p.m.

A whistle blasts and the train rushes past up at the top of the hill. Everyone who was sleeping awakes.

“Another busy day at the lake,” Cabel murmurs. “My stomach’s growling.” He rolls over on the blanket. Janie can’t resist. She snuggles up to his warm body.

“I can hear it,” she says. “And I smell the charcoal grill.”

“We should really get up now.”

“I know.”

They remain still, Janie’s head on Cabel’s chest, a nice breeze coming off the lake. She squinches her eyes shut and holds him, takes in the scent of him, feels the warmth of his chest on her cheek. Loves him.

Breaks a little more inside.

6:25 p.m.

Janie hears the click of the cabin’s screen door and sits up guiltily as Megan walks over to them. “I’m sorry, Megan—we should be helping you get dinner.”

“Nah,” Megan grins. “You needed a nap after all that skiing and drowning. But your cell phone is beeping inside the cabin. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Thanks. I’ll check it.”

Cabel sits up too. “Everything okay? Where’s Charlie, anyway?”

“In town picking up some groceries. It’s all good.
Relax,” Megan says. “Seriously. It’s been a tough time for you guys—you need the rest.”

Obediently, Cabel sinks back down on the blanket as Janie gets to her feet. “Be right back,” she says. “It better not be Captain with an assignment or I’m quitting.”

Cabel laughs. “You wouldn’t.”

6:29 p.m.

Voicemails.

From Carrie. Five of them.

And they’re bad.

Janie listens, incredulous. Listens again, stunned.

“Hey, Janers, dammit, where are you? Call me.”
Click
.

“Janie, seriously. There’s something wrong with your mom. Call me.”
Click
.

“Janie, seriously! Your mom is stumbling around your front yard yelling for you. Didn’t you tell her you were going to Fremont? She’s totally drunk, Janie—she’s wailing and—oh, shit. She’s in the road.”
Click
.

“Hey. I’m taking your mom to County Hospital. If she blows in Ethel, you are so dead. Call me. Jesus. Also? Shit. My phone battery is dying, so maybe try the hospital or something . . . don’t know what to tell you. I’ll try you
again
when I have a chance.”
Click
.

“Oh, my God.” Janie stares at her phone, not really seeing it. Then she calls Carrie.

Gets Carrie’s voice mail. “Carrie! What happened? Call me. I’ve got my phone now. I’m so sorry. I was—taking a nap.” It sounds hollow. Careless. Frivolous, even, when Janie says it aloud.
What was I thinking, leaving my mother alone for a week?
“God. Just call me.”

Janie stands there, all the breath being sucked out of her, replaced by fear.
What if something’s really wrong?

And then anger.

I will never have a life as long as that woman is alive
, she thinks.

Squeezes her eyes shut and takes it back, immediately.

Can’t believe she would be such a horrible person, think such a horrible thing.

Charlie walks into the tiny cabin kitchen with a brown bag of groceries and stops short when he sees the look on Janie’s face. “Are you okay?” he asks.

Janie blinks, unsure. “No, I don’t think so,” she says quietly. “I think . . . I think I have to go.”

Charlie sets the groceries down hard on the counter. “Cabe!” he shouts through the screen door. “Come ’ere.”

Janie sets her phone down and pulls her suitcase from the wardrobe. Starts throwing her clothes in her suitcase. She looks at her disheveled self in the mirror and rakes
her fingers through her dark blond tangles. “Oh, my God,” she says to herself. “What the hell is wrong with my mother?”

And then it hits.

What if her mother really is dying? Or dead?

It’s both fascinating and horrifying. Janie imagines the scene.