"Just the two of us," I confirmed with a smile, and nodded in appreciation as I took a mouthful of wobbly egg.
"Seems lonely."
On that she was right.
Four months later, the whole big house lady lost her mortgage battle and
disappeared in the night with her three kids. Her house has remained
empty. The living room window still has a child's picture of a butterfly
taped to it, the bright Magic Marker sun-faded to brown. One evening
not long ago, I drove past and saw a man, bearded, bedraggled, staring
out from behind the picture, floating in the dark like some sad aquarium
fish. He saw me see him and flickered back into the depths of the
house. The next day I left a brown paper bag full of sandwiches on the
front step; it sat in the sun untouched for a week, decaying wetly,
until I picked it back up and threw it out.
Quiet. The complex was always disturbingly quiet. As I neared our home,
conscious of the noise of the car engine, I could see the cat was
definitely on the steps. Still on the steps, twenty minutes after Carl's
call. This was strange. Amy loved the cat, the cat was declawed, the
cat was never let outside, never ever, because the cat, Bleecker, was
sweet but extremely stupid, and despite the LoJack tracking device
pelleted somewhere in his fat furry rolls, Amy knew she'd never see the
cat again if he ever got out. The cat would waddle straight into the
Mississippi River – deedle-de-dum – and float all the way to the Gulf of
Mexico into the maw of a hungry bull shark.
But it turned out the cat wasn'd even smart enough to get past the
steps. Bleecker was perched on the edge of the porch, a pudgy but proud
sentinel – Private Tryhard. As I pulled in to the drive, Carl came out
and stood on his own front steps, and I could feel the cat and the old
man both watching me as I got out of the car and walked toward the
house, the red peonies along the border looking fat and juicy, asking to
be devoured.
I was about to go into blocking position to get the cat when I saw that
the front door was open. Carl had said as much, but seeing it was
different. This wasn'd taking-out-the-trash-back-in-a-minute open. This
was wide-gaping-ominous open.
Carl hovered across the way, waiting for my response, and like some
awful piece of performance art, I felt myself enacting Concerned
Husband. I stood on the middle step and frowned, then took the stairs
quickly, two at a time, calling out my wife's name.
Silence.
"Amy, you home?"
I ran straight upstairs. No Amy. The ironing board was set up, the iron still on, a dress waiting to be pressed.
"Amy!"
As I ran back downstairs, I could see Carl still framed in the open
doorway, hands on hips, watching. I swerved into the living room, and
pulled up short. The carpet glinted with shards of glass, the coffee
table shattered. End tables were on their sides, books slid across the
floor like a card trick. Even the heavy antique ottoman was belly-up,
its four tiny feet in the air like something dead. In the middle of the
mess was a pair of good sharp scissors.
"Amy!"
I began running, bellowing her name. Through the kitchen, where a kettle
was burning, down to the basement, where the guest room stood empty,
and then out the back door. I pounded across our yard onto the slender
boat deck leading out over the river. I peeked over the side to see if
she was in our rowboat, where I had found her one day, tethered to the
dock, rocking in the water, her face to the sun, eyes closed, and as I'd
peered down into the dazzling reflections of the river, at her
beautiful, still face, she'd suddenly opened her blue eyes and said
nothing to me, and I'd said nothing back and gone into the house alone.
"Amy!"
She wasn'd on the water, she wasn'd in the house. Amy was not there.
Amy was gone.
