He's Gone by Deb Caletti

Author:Deb Caletti [Caletti, Deb]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-345-53436-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

That noise in my car is getting worse. I try to ignore it as I drive on the floating bridge over Lake Washington. You don’t go get your car fixed when your husband is missing. The waters of the lake are choppy on one side of the bridge and still as glass on the other, yin and yang. I pass the pricey lakefront communities and make my way toward the foothills of the mountains, which are now home to repeating, ever-multiplying suburban neighborhoods with names like The Highlands, High Point, Manor Grove—images of upper mobility and lofty outlooks. Did I mention that our old neighborhood was called “Tuscany”? What degree of self-delusion did it take not to laugh at that sign (with its cascading waterfall) every time we passed it? There’s a QFC and a Bartell Drugs right down the street. There’s a Supercuts.

Mary still lives in the house that she and Ian had owned in “Tuscany,” and Bethy has stayed close by. She now resides in a nearby apartment complex. It’s mildly shabby and has another grand name, Forest Ridge. I park under one of the carports and walk up the dim green stairs. It’s a place for people in transition—kids in their twenties and newly single fathers, one of whom, I’m guessing, is right then bringing out his recycling. He looks out of place in his elegant clothes and expensive shoes; I hear the wine bottles clatter into the bin. Bethy went to college for a year, but then she quit. She works at the same video-game company where her boyfriend, Adam, has a job. Ian helps pay for this place, this apartment where Bethy now lives with Adam and their cat, Missy, but it isn’t my business. I see Bethy’s and Kristen’s cars down below, parked next to each other. He paid for those, too.

Music is playing behind the door, which is marked with a brass 5. The sound is turned down at my knock. The clothes I’ve chosen (boots and a newish skirt and shirt) are doing nothing to help me. They are only clothes, after all, and I’m on my own. Bethy lets me in, and the smell of just-fried food makes a run for it out the door. The music had been from a video game, I see. Controllers have been set down in an abrupt muddle of cords on the coffee table, and the television screen shows two now-frozen futuristic warriors, one woman and one man, dressed in red and black and holding enormous complicated weapons at their sides. Remember how thrilled we were at Pong? I want to say to someone, but there is no someone here. Remember Kerplunk and Lite-Brite and Which Witch? There are losses upon losses, aren’t there?

“Bethy.” I reach out to hug her. She endures my embrace as if she’s being tortured but will never give up state secrets.

Adam doesn’t move from his spot on the couch. There’s a bag of Doritos open on the table and an empty plate with crumbs on it.

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