When You Go Away Read online

  "Call me when you know anything."

  Carl hung up, adrenaline in his body, a warm spin in his chest. He'd fix the flipping sprinkler head and avert a Trimble crisis. He'd take a shower. He would get on the horn.

  

  "So you're saying there's no listing for a Graham Mackenzie?"

  "No, sir."

  "I’m not sure how he’d be listed. What about a G. Mackenzie?"

  "No, sir. I have a Gloria and a Greg. But no Graham."

  "All right, miss. Thank you."

  Carl sat back in his chair and pressed the phone against his chest. Zero for two, no listing for Peri in Walnut Creek or Graham in Phoenix. Graham, that slimy SOB, was probably unlisted so Peri's lawyers couldn't find him. Or he put everything in his new wife's name so the IRS couldn't attach his wages or something. He was hiding, that was for sure. Peri had to know where he was, but if Peri was lost somewhere in suburbia, how could Carl flush-out Graham to find her? It was too confusing.

  Carl stood up and went to his junk drawer, digging around until he found his small green address book, something he'd had for decades. He flipped to M and found it. Garnet Mackenzie.

  He dialed and waited, breathing in when she answered. Her voice was the same, that snooty sound he'd never liked, as if she spoke with her lips pinched in disapproval.

  "Oh, Carl. My goodness. How long has it been?"

  Not long enough, he thought, not really knowing why he felt this way about Garnet. She’d been decent enough to Peri and good her grandchildren, never forgetting birthdays, sending them to summer camps at her expense, calling specialists when Brooke was born. But she rubbed him like rough asphalt. Maybe it was the way she carried herself with royal bearing, the widow of a famous Alameda County judge, long dead, his office almost a memorial to his controversial and colorful career. Maybe it was the way she spoke to everyone as if she knew what was right, correcting people’s pronunciation of English or any other language she might have studied at Cal as a humanities major. “It’s Chen-tro, dear,” she would say. “Not sent-ro.” Maybe it was simply the way that her and her husband’s life together hung brighter when put next to his—his and Janice’s.

  "It’s been a long time. Listen, I was wondering if you could give me Graham's number. I need to talk to him about something."

  He could almost hear her biting her cheek. He pictured Garnet, imagined that a maid was dusting her twelve-foot long dining room table as Garnet sat in the parlor, as she called it. Her Piedmont house was bigger than some hotels he'd stayed in. "Well, I can't do that, Carl. I can't just give his number out. He's asked me not to."

  "It's important, Garnet. I need to talk to him about something very important." Carl rubbed his cheek, his face full of the heat rising from his chest. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but as he listened to Garnet’s pause, he thought it might be worry.

  "It's not the children, is it? Brooke? I haven't heard from them since before they moved. I thought they'd have some kind of forwarding on the telephone, but the voice simply says the number has been disconnected."

  "Well, yes. There might be a problem. I. . . “He stopped, as guilty as a father who's left his infant for hours in a hot car. “I haven't heard from Peri since long before she moved. She never hooked up a phone or it’s unlisted, I don’t know. She didn’t leave a forwarding address, that’s for sure. Her brother--you remember Noel--is really concerned. And I just tried to call down to Phoenix, but they don't have a listing for Graham. He must know where they are."

  In another pause of thought, Carl heard the wet swish of a mop in the background, back and forth, back and forth. His face pulsed from the impatient words he tucked away from the receiver, knowing that what he’d like to do more than anything is stick Garnet in the middle of his lawn and turn on the sprinklers, Mrs. Trimble’s rhodies be damned.

  Garnet cleared her throat. "Of course he must know. But you haven’t talked to her?”

  “Not for a while. I’ve—well, we just don’t talk as much as we used to.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s a long story.” Carl rubbed his forehead, the beginnings of a killer headache behind his eyes.

  “I myself spoke with her, well, five weeks ago. I will say that she wasn’t very helpful. I did want to see the children. I am their grandmother.”

  And you think that brings special rights and privileges? Carl wanted to say. His genetic link was worth about a nickel. But that was Garnet, through and through, always raising her own currency. “I really do need to talk with Graham.”

  “Let me do this. I will call him right now and tell him to call you. He's been very busy, on so many business trips, I know that. But his wife should be there. Please give me your number again, Carl."

  He gave her his number, hearing the scratch of her pencil on paper. "It's a real worry, Garnet. We need to find her."

  "I know. I've been worried, too,” she said, and Carl believed her, trusting that the waiver in her tight voice was true. “We'll be in touch soon, Carl."

  He hung up and sighed, standing up and walking to the counter. He rinsed off his lunch plates and stacked them in the dishwasher. It seemed to take a week's worth of eating to fill the whole thing up. Sometimes, he was out of dishes before he even ran the damn thing through. When he was done, he looked back at the phone, imagining that Graham would call him now. But it didn't ring. And it didn't ring some more, even after he'd dusted the living room with Lemon Pledge and folded a pile of laundry.

  He couldn't sit in the house, so he put on his jacket and grabbed his keys, remembering this time to turn on the phone machine. He tucked the cell phone Noel had given him for his birthday last year in his pocket and, in an afterthought, slipped in the old green address book and a pen. He had to be prepared for anything. And who knew who would call, what numbers he’d have to write down? he thought. But it wouldn't be Graham. He shouldn't have expected that loser to call back anyway, no matter how convincing Garnet sounded. The guy had left his wife and kids, Brooke needing both her parents, no one, her illness enough of a struggle for an entire village. But then, Carl sighed, he'd done the same thing himself. But this was different. One of these kids was Brooke, and Graham was far away and didn't know that something awful could be happening to his family.

  Carl turned off the lights and headed for the Corvair. He had to do something. He couldn't just stand still.

  "I really don't know more than that," Melinda said, refilling his coffee. "She looked--she looked ill. She was thin, but it was more than her weight loss. It was her eyes. Big circles under them. Before I could get any more from her, she drove away. In that car she'd bought during the confusion over the alimony." Melinda raised her eyebrows and put down the coffee carafe, giving Carl an apologetic smile. Her teeth were perfectly white and ordered, like tiny polished dominoes.

  "We know the apartment is in Walnut Creek. But did she ever say where it was exactly?" Carl shifted on his seat, looking at his hands around the coffee mug, feeling that same embarrassment over his ignorance he'd felt with Garnet.

  "I think she said something once about it being close to the park. You know, Heather Farms. A place she could take Brooke in the afternoons. But I didn't hear much more than that. I asked though, believe me. We all did, all the neighbors. She stopped talking, Carl. It was like--like she shut down."

  He nodded. She'd shut down with him long before. And here he was trying to fix it now.

  "Wait!" Melinda said. "You could call the movers! I know they put a lot of stuff in storage, but they must have taken a load or two to the apartment."

  Carl nodded. "Do you know what company?"

  Melinda bit her lip, her eyes focused on the bookshelves. "Oh, wait." She slapped her knee with her palm. "That yellow and blue company. Alliance! Alliance Movers."

  He pulled his address book from his pocket and wrote the name down. "That's great. I thought about calling P.G. and E, too. Even if they don't have a phone, they must have heat. And I'll call the sch
ool district. They'll have the kids on the books, sending records and all. The only problem I'll have is convincing them we have a dire need for the information. They might want me to file a police report before they agree to it. And then . . . "

  "And then Peri might . . ."

  "Yeah. If anything is wrong, which I doubt."

  "Of course there's nothing wrong. She's a great mother. I tell all my friends about her. I know I could never be so patient. Brooke is an angel, but she's so much work." Melinda smiled at him, and he felt the ancient pull of tears under his cheeks. His daughter had been given too much for one lifetime, so much of it his fault. He swallowed. When he had last cried? A bad television show with lost children and dead puppies? When Janice died? His own mother? When he’d retired, the whole office stand around him clapping? He wasn't going to do it now, here, in front of this woman of all people.

  "She sure is. I'd better get going. I'm going to get on home. I’m expecting a call from Graham."

  Melinda pursed her lips and shook her head. "I've told Tom a hundred times. I don't understand how Graham could have done what he did. Leaving them like that. Leaving poor Brooke. Maybe the marriage wasn't going well, but still. They shouldn’t have had to move."

  Carl nodded in agreement, grateful that anger was replacing his sadness, and stood up. "I really appreciate your help. Here's my number." He wrote it on his napkin and pushed it toward her. "If you see her again, could you call me?"

  "Oh, yes. If I hear anything, I'll call you." Carl was sure she would and sure also that she'd call all of Peri's friends, telling them about how no one knew where she lived, how her family was distraught and anxious. Soon everyone would know. Poor Peri, he thought. Probably nothing is wrong. But in no time, the whole town will think there is.

  He stood outside of Melinda’s house, the air cool but clear, the stars much brighter on this side of the Caldecott Tunnel. With less light pollution, the Big Dipper spread glitter-white across the sky, the night pooling purple around it. Carl reached into his cell phone and dialed his house, hoping to hear Graham's voice on his message machine. He would hardly be able to bear the sound, but at least they'd know everything was all right. Graham wouldn't ignore a crisis, or at least that's what Carl hoped.

  He pushed the right buttons, and there was a message, but it wasn't from Graham. "Hi. Hello. My name is Rosie Candelero. I hope I'm reaching Carl Randall, grandfather of Carly, Ryan, and Brooke Mackenzie. If not, well, I'm plain sorry, but this is an emergency. Well, see, I live in the same complex with your grandkids, and I'm here right now at the apartment. I hate to say this, but I had to call the ambulance. It's not here yet. Your little one, she's not good. She has a high fever. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that you need to get over here. There's something bad going on. I have no idea where your daughter is. Oh, the ambulance is here. The address is 1425 Walnut Avenue, apartment 4D. Carly says you've never been here. My cell number is 925.555.1376. Got to go."

  Before the message ended, Carl heard a loud knock in the background and Carly's voice, the woman saying, "Let's do this," and then hanging up. He listened to the message again, wrote down the address and phone number on a map he'd found in his glove box, and then stared out the window, wondering if he'd know how to drive after hearing those words, "I have no idea where your daughter is."

  As he started his car and pulled out onto the street, he realized there had been years when he didn't know where Peri was. There had been the weeks and months of her childhood, when she'd been at summer camp or overnights or parties or dates. Most of her time at college. The first year of her marriage, when she and Graham were in Europe for his work. Then there had been the years of fighting and angry silence in her marriage and the year of the divorce when she considered him persona non grata, her life and the kids' out-of-bounds because he was like Graham, a wife-leaving bastard. For the first time, though, he was frightened. Maybe this time, he'd lost her for good.

  FIVE

  "Kids? It's me."

  Carly sat up and wiped her face, watching as Ryan let their Grandpa in the apartment, barely cracking the door so that their grandfather had to squeeze through, his white hair blown up around his face, his cheeks pale. Once inside, he put his hand on Ryan's shoulder, and then looked around the room, taking in the horrible mess, the half-full moving boxes, the furniture still covered in laundry, the lurch of Pyrex and steel bowls and glasses covering the kitchen counter. "God. What's been going on here?"

  Ryan started to tell him, mumbling about Brooke, but then he began to cry, leaning on Grandpa's chest. Carly couldn't believe it. She tried to remember the last time Ryan had cried instead of swallowing down his tears and blinking fast at the hardest moments, even when their father left without saying goodbye. At the sound of her brother's sadness, Carly began to cry, too, but she felt better. Maybe Grandpa was the change that would make things okay. Finally, something good would happen.

  

  They were at Mel's Diner on Main Street, their bags packed and stowed in Grandpa's Corvair, a car so loud and strange looking it made Carly laugh to see it. Grandpa had once told her how he bought it when their mother was little and how it was the one thing Grandma Janice didn't want after the divorce. The big engine sounded like an earthquake, but Carly had always loved driving in it, the top down, her hair blowing up behind her.

  Ryan had finished his second hamburger and second chocolate shake, and Carly had managed to eat an entire double cheeseburger with bacon plus fries. If she hadn't been so hungry, she would have worried about all the fat she was eating because she knew it caused cellulite (she'd read it in the Marie Claire her mother used to subscribe to). It had been weeks since Carly had been really, truly full, sick of the frozen dinners her mother heated up.

  "Okay." Grandpa slid back into the booth. "I talked to your friend Rosie. Brooke's doing better already. They have her on medication, and the fever's down."

  "What's going to happen?" Ryan asked, wiping his mouth.

  "I'm going to meet her and the doctors and some other folks back at the hospital in the morning after I take you two to school. Rosie seems like a real fine lady. And I'm going to call your Uncle Noel, Grandmother Mackenzie, and hopefully your dad."

  "What about Mom?" Ryan said.

  Grandpa shook his head, and Carly realized Ryan had been asking the same question for hours and nobody--not Rosie, not the paramedics, not Grandpa--could answer the question.

  "So, we better get home. I need to set you up and get you all organized for school tomorrow." Grandpa pulled out his wallet and picked up the bill.

  "Do we have to go to school? I want to see Brooke. I want to know what's going on,” Carly said, amazed at herself. For days, all she'd really wanted was space between her and her sister. She’d been desperate to stop smelling in the sweet, cloying scent of her sister's skin and pee, not wanting to look at her peg and her trach plug and the red spots on the backs of her thighs and butt. She'd wanted to storm out of the bedroom and leave the apartment, not even bothering to close the door; she wanted to walk all the way back home where she used to belong, where she'd been happy for so long. Now she'd gotten the space she wanted, a whole two hours, but she already missed Brooke, the way she opened her eyes wider when Carly spoke, the gravelly strangeness of her five-year-old voice.

  Grandpa Carl looked at Carly, his eyes dark like her own. "No. You don't have to go to school. I'll just call them. Ryan?"

  Ryan looked down at his plate. He probably wanted to tag after Quinn and smoke cigarettes. They must cut school all the time anyway, so he wouldn't have to sit through geometry or Spanish and imagine what was happening to Brooke. He could hang out at Broadway Plaza and check out girls in the sunshine and forget about his sister altogether, just like he'd been doing since they’d moved. Thinking about all the time Ryan had left her alone with Brooke made her mad, as angry as she was after the paramedics left, knowing she was the only one who cared. But then Ryan said, "I want to go to the hospital, too. I want to kno
w what's going to happen."

  Grandpa Carl nodded and counted out money and put it on top of the bill. "Well, let's get on home. We have to get you all settled."

  She tried to catch Ryan's eye, but he scooted out of the booth and followed Grandpa Carl out the door and toward the Corvair. Ryan was almost as tall as Grandpa, which meant he was taller now than their father. Just like Maxie the Wonder Dog, their dad wouldn't even recognize them if he saw them again, walking right past them into his new and better life.

  Grandpa's house was dark when they got there, only the sound of sprinklers in the night. "At least I got that fixed," he said. "You don't know the witch who lives next door to me. Don't go in that yard. She probably has an oven like in Hansel and Gretel."

  Carly felt a laugh in her chest but it wouldn't rise up any higher, so she smiled to herself and stepped out of the car, lugging her duffel bag behind her. She wasn't even sure what she had packed other than the clean laundry that had been on the couch. She hoped she'd brought her face soap, but all she could remember was grabbing her toothbrush. It wasn't that she really had any acne yet, but she knew she had to pay attention because she'd turned thirteen in December and that meant hormones and hormones meant zits. That's what Ashley and Kiana had told her, anyway.

  When Grandpa Carl opened the door, holding it for Carly and Ryan, Carly half expected Maxie to run up, wagging her tail, thankful to be back in a real house with them. But there wasn't any sound of claws on hardwood or tile or even the small tick, tick of cat paws walking toward them. The only movement she could see was the steady red blink of the answering machine. The muscles in her back relaxed at the sight of the phone.

  They hadn't been to Grandpa's house for awhile, but she remembered the smell, something clean like 409 spray and Lemon Pledge. He'd always been really neat. Once her father had said something like, "I guess that gene is recessive," to her mother, who hadn't thought it was funny. Grandpa read a lot of books, and the living room was full of them. When she'd been little, she'd liked to pull out the ones about castles and sit on his leather recliner, flipping the pages. Sometimes, she knew he smoked cigars, too, and in his study was a special box for keeping them fresh. He used to have to tell her to stop opening it or what was the point? "I might as well smoke them all now," he'd said