The Missing

40

Tears spill out from my closed eyes and run down my face, hot with fever. They refused to let me see Papa afterward. I’m not sure I would have wanted to see him, but it wasn’t something they even considered. It was simply out of the question. That told me he must have been terribly battered. I imagined his crushed skull, cheekbones and nose smashed in so that nothing remained of his face but mangled flesh. It was too much to take, so I decided early on to think about it as little as possible. Preferably not at all. Instead, I created other images. The same way I created other explanations. It escapes me.

Mama’s words have dispelled the fog. Exposed what I’ve worked to repress. Exposed the wedge that was driven between us that night, and the divide that has grown over the years. But her confession isn’t the only thing overwhelming me. There’s something else.

A hand reaches out from behind to rest on my shoulder. I want to touch it, but I can’t. I blame the numbness in my limbs, but I’m not sure that’s the whole explanation.

“I’m so sorry, Greta. For hitting you that time. And afterward… for shutting you out, leaving you alone so long. That was a terrible thing to do. Unforgivable. But I hope you’ll be able to… I… I’m so sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever said that properly.”

Tears are still coursing down my face, slowly, quietly, as old, frozen emotions dissolve and ebb away. Tears of sorrow and anger, but also of shame. I missed my father, grieved for him so fiercely my whole body ached. And yet. Life after him, without him, was so much easier. Calmer. No moods, no nightly arguments. Mama was nicer. And happier. It was a relief. And I’m ashamed to admit it.

Mama’s hand first squeezes, then caresses, my shoulder. She gets up and asks the psychologist where the bathroom is. When she comes back, she has refilled the water glass for me. In her other hand, she’s holding a damp washcloth. She kneels down and gently cleans my face, wiping away the blood and tears. I look at her hands. Those hands! The hands that… I close my eyes and see two hands, palms out, shoot through the air and shove a man’s body so hard that he falls. The same thing I saw when I fixed my eyes on the water of Lake Malice. Except the man I see now doesn’t fall into a well, but out a window. And the hands I see aren’t mine, but my mother’s.

“Mostly superficial cuts,” she says. “But you have a fever. And you’re going to have big bruises here, on the side of your neck and on your shoulder. Does it hurt?”

I flinch and grimace when she touches the place where the oar struck me.

“You did the right thing. Absolutely the right thing.”

The voice from the other side of the room sounds harsh. Mama’s hands stop moving. The psychologist has turned to stare out the row of windows facing the deck. I signal that I need to lie down again, and my mother helps me. Then she goes back to washing my face, not stopping until I cautiously push her hand away. Again, she goes to the kitchen, and when she comes back, she has another glass of water. She hands it to the blond woman, who takes it without speaking. Mama crosses her arms and sighs audibly.

“This isn’t the first time, this situation with Greta, is it?”

The psychologist drinks all the water in one gulp.

“No. But she’s the first one to get pregnant. As far as I know.”

So Alex has had other lovers before me. Or maybe even at the same time? Who knows. I look inside myself for some sort of reaction to this fact but find none.

“It was when my mother was in the hospital that I found out about the affair. I heard about the baby later, after my mother… after she died.”

Mama goes back to the sofa and sits down on one end.

“I’m sorry.”

The psychologist twirls the glass in her hand, staring as if it might contain answers.

“He wasn’t sorry. Watching other people suffer, hurting them himself, that’s the breath of life to Alex. He’s good at it, and he does it every way he can. With his words, with his actions, with his hands.”

This is her husband she’s talking about. My ex-lover. Her words conjure up images in my mind, send shivers through my body. So I’m not alone in experiencing those repeated episodes of pain and humiliation. What has he subjected her to—this woman he’s lived with so long? I think of the cardigans and jackets she used to wear when I went to her office. Rarely any bare skin, even though it was summer. Suddenly, I understand.

And yet, the thought races through my mind, and yet you married him and stayed with him. Why? The next second, I picture a little fair-haired girl with dimples. And I know why.

“It was worse in the beginning. Before I understood the codes and learned to submit. Nowadays he hardly ever…”

The psychologist raises her arm and clenches her fist, then slowly lowers her arm again to cup her hand over her mouth.

“. . . grabs me.”

“When did you realize you needed to submit? When did you start believing there was something wrong with you, that you were to blame for the way he treated you?”

At first, I think I’ve misunderstood. Surely Mama can’t be the one saying things like that. I turn to stare at her, but she isn’t looking at me. She seems to be calmly straightening her clothes, smoothing imaginary wrinkles. And the psychologist reacts. The hand clasped over her mouth drops to her lap, and she stares at my mother for a long moment. Then her eyes seem to cloud, and her face softens.

“I know exactly,” she says. “It was the first time he said…”

She stops, pressing a hand to her throat. I see the gold ring on her left hand. I see how she’s trembling. Mama leans forward and tilts her head to one side. Her voice is gentle.

“What did he say?”

“You’re sick in the head. Fucking sick. Something is all twisted up in there. I don’t remember exactly when or where, or what I had done to annoy him that time. But I do remember how it felt when he said that. The words shot right through me, silencing me. I walked around all day in a daze. Everyone I met, the woman standing in front of me in line at the grocery store, the father who picked up his child at the same time I did from preschool… Today my husband said I’m sick in the head. What do you think about that? That’s what I wanted to ask them. But of course, I didn’t.”

I see Alex’s grinning face in front of me. Hear the words he spoke. I think you’re a little crazy. Not exactly right in the head.

Supporting herself on the arm of the chair, the psychologist slowly gets to her feet.

“That night, when I laid my head on my pillow, I finally understood why those particular words hit me so hard. Why I fell silent instead of defending myself. What he’d said… That wasn’t some accusation grabbed out of thin air, not some dumb insult. I’ve never been… have never felt entirely…”

Standing there, she aims a small kick at the stack of newspapers and pieces of wood, scattering them across the rug. Then she takes off her white sweater and runs her hands up and down her pale arms.

“Deep inside, I knew he was right. What he said was true.”

She shifts position, resting her weight on one leg. The blue fabric of her dress clings to her body, revealing a flat stomach and jutting hip bones. In spite of the heat, she wears her blond hair loose, the strands framing her face. She has no makeup on. We couldn’t be more different. Or more alike.

“So that was the moment I understood. I knew that no one else would ever put up with me. Since then, he’s done his best to remind me that without him I’m nothing. And I… Well, I’ve done what I can to… cooperate.”

The psychologist turns so the sun streaming in the window lights up her left arm and cheek.

Mama’s face is a mask of grim resolve.

“Until now,” she says, managing to make it sound like a statement and a question at the same time.

The psychologist looks at her. Then her gaze shifts to the edge of the rug and the bulge over the ax handle. She looks at Mama again.

“Exactly,” she says hesitantly. “Until now.”

I sense a certain bewilderment in her. And I wonder what is going to happen next. Where do we go from here? Where can we go? Then I don’t have time to think or feel anymore. Because at that second, there’s a knock on the door.