Then She Vanished

Twenty-Two

Late that night I carried leftovers upstairs to my home office, poured a thoughtful bourbon, and cued up Terrell Strait’s A Day in a Life.

The namesake Beatles’ song played softly as Natalie Strait stood in her kitchen, cooking eggs and bacon in large skillets. She wore a dowdy plaid robe and a Padres ball cap snug over her thick hair.

I followed along on the script.

The handheld camera swept abruptly from Natalie to Dalton and Lee at the table, to the family dog begging at Natalie’s shearling-booted feet, then back again to Natalie.

The opening credits rolled.

The dog bounced up as Natalie swung a big skillet off the stove top, pirouetting once on his bandy hind legs.

Next, a smash-cut to the Escondido BMW dealership, where a smartly dressed Natalie swings open the door of a brand-new 5 Series sedan and gestures to the camera to have a look inside. By then, A Day in a Life had given way to a cheerful island-style ukulele that must have been Terrell.

Then another cut to Natalie at the wheel of a BMW convertible, hair flying beneath a BMW of Escondido baseball cap, car engine whining, video trembling, cars and buildings zipping past the windows.

I was surprised by her concentration. Grip firm at nine and three, gloved fingers nimble on the paddle shifter. She kept the RPMs high. Didn’t look away from the road and said little. Squint lines on her face. Gradually, the camera came close in and I realized that Terrell was treating his subject with the same absolute attention that Natalie was giving the road. The ukulele seemed to serenade her as she drove.

Next came a sequence of Natalie at a desk, dressed as she had been for the car shoot — a flattering black business suit and a turquoise blouse. At first I thought this was her dealership workstation but the campaign posters on the wall behind her said otherwise. Distorted guitar came in.

Terrell had positioned himself across the desk, his camera and his mother at eye level. Gone was her chipper breakfast demeanor and her sales-pitch energy for moving Bimmers. This Natalie had gravity, not joy.

Their conversation continued as Terrell’s camera zoomed in and slowly panned across his mother’s desk. It was almost covered by handled boxes of mail, mostly letter-sized envelopes. Natalie’s out-box was almost full as well.

I saw vividly that a mail bomb addressed to the Strait Reelection Committee might very likely have been opened by Natalie.

I paused the video and considered. She had gone missing only one day after The Chaos Committee’s first mail bomb had exploded in city hall. In some ways, she would be an even better target than Dalton. She was a perfect victim of terror: innocent, unsuspecting, and easy to attack. Like anyone else working on a reelection campaign.

The camera pulled back to show Natalie gesturing at the mail with a look of pride on her face.

Natalie’s smile changed from a deployed campaign gesture to a spontaneous display of delight. And pride at a mother’s job, well done.

The next few minutes of video followed Natalie from the reelection committee headquarters to the supermarket, then on to a gym and a huffing workout on the stationary cycle. She pedaled away, talking about her childhood in Ramona, her young girl’s dreams of having horses and maybe falling in love with a cowboy, her great affection for her sister, Ash — short for Ashley — and how they’d walk home from high school with a group of friends. Which was where she’d first seen Kirby Strait.

Natalie churned along, breathing hard and wiping her face with a towel, hair up and skin shining. Her widow’s peak sharp and slanted like an apostrophe. A muscled young man stopped to say he saw her hustling a new red M3 on TV and he was going to come buy it from her. She gave him a splendidly dimpled smile, said she’d be in tomorrow at eleven so bring that checkbook. He smiled, too, but mostly at the camera.

Then dinner at the Strait household, minus Lee who was at practice. Dalton ate almost wordlessly, lost to his phone, a large goblet of red wine at his place; Natalie looked tired doing dishes alone, glancing occasionally at the camera while Freddie repositioned himself for prime begging angles.

The next cut was abrupt and startling:

By then, Freddie had awakened and climbed into Natalie’s lap. She lifted him from the couch to the floor. Then studied her son with a weary expression.

The last scenes of A Day in a Life briefly took us back to the kitchen, where the movie had begun. But there was no Natalie, no family, no Freddie, and no sound, except for the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” playing faintly in the background. Just the empty breakfast nook, places set.

Ditto the BMW dealership, campaign headquarters, the gym, the market, the Strait dining room, and finally the living room, now with a cold fireplace. No Mom. A day in a life emptied of life. I wondered at young Terrell’s patience in refilming these sets without humankind — his vision of a world without his mother.

The outtakes that Terrell had mentioned weren’t labeled as such but I saw the change in her. Natalie was more relaxed and humorous at home in her living room or on the back patio than at work, or at campaign central. She had a self-deprecation that was winning, calling herself a “spaz” without reservation or condemnation, and she seemed to look on most people and things with an optimistic and blameless eye. Maybe from seeing the weakness in herself, I thought. In how fragile a mind can be.