Carthage. Joyce Carol Oates
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Estes asked if there’d been anything to lead them to “suspect”—anything? When they’d last seen Cressida?
“No. It was an ordinary night. Cressida was seeing a friend from high school and she hadn’t had to tell us, we would have known, she’d have been back home by eleven P.M. at the latest. It was just—an ordinary night.”
Zeno hadn’t liked Evvie Estes pitching that word to them—“suspect.”
Zeno and Arlette were seated side by side on a sofa. Zeno clasped Arlette’s hand firmly in his as if to secure her. Earlier, Juliet had helped Arlette locate photographs of Cressida to provide to police and media people, to be shown on TV and posted online through the day; Zeno assumed that these photos would be shown on the 6 P.M. news, during the interview. And he hoped that the interview, which was being taped, about fifteen minutes in length, wouldn’t be drastically cut.
“All we can hope for is that Cressida will contact us soon—if she can. Or, if she’s been injured, or lost—that someone will discover her. We are praying that she is in the Preserve—that is, she hasn’t been—taken”—Zeno paused, blinking at the possibility, a sudden obstacle like an enormous boulder in his path—“taken somewhere else . . .” His old ease at public speaking was leaving him, like air leaking from a balloon. Almost, Zeno was stammering, as the interview ended: “If anyone can help us—help us find her—any information leading to her—her whereabouts—we are offering ten thousand dollars reward—for the recovery of—the return of—our daughter Cressida Mayfield.”
Arlette turned to stare at him. Ten thousand dollars!
This was entirely new. This had not been discussed. So far as Arlette knew, Zeno had not thought of a reward before this moment.
Uttering the words “ten thousand dollars” Zeno had spoken in a strangely elated voice. And he’d smiled strangely, squinting in the TV lights.
Soon then the interview ended. Zeno’s white shirt was sticking to his skin—he’d been sweating again. And now he, too, was trembling.
Of course the Mayfields could afford ten thousand dollars. Much more than this, they could afford if it meant bringing their missing daughter home.
“ZENO? WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”
“Back to the Preserve. To the search.”
“You are not! Not now.”
“There’s two hours of daylight, at least. I need to be there.”
“That’s ridiculous. You do not. Stay here with us . . .”
Zeno hesitated. But no no no no. He had no intention of remaining in this house, where he couldn’t breathe, waiting.
I KNEW. AS SOON AS I saw her bed wasn’t slept-in.
I knew—something had happened.
AT 4:08 A.M. that Sunday morning Arlette awakened with a start.
The strangest sensation—that something was wrong, altered. Though in the shadowy interior of her bedroom—her and Zeno’s bedroom—here was comfort, ease. Though Zeno’s deep raspy rhythmic breathing was comfort to her, and ease.
Must’ve been a dream that wakened her. A swirl of anxiety like leaves spinning in a wind tunnel. She’d been pulled along—somewhere. Waking dry-mouthed and edgy believing that something was changed in the house or in the life of the house.
Or—one of her limbs was missing. That was the dream.
What was the phenomenon?—“phantom limb”? In that case an actual limb is missing from the body but you feel the (painful) presence of the (absent) limb; in this case, nothing was missing from Arlette’s body, so far as she knew.
It was mysterious to her, this loss. Yet it seemed unmistakable.
After this hour she would not ever feel otherwise.
WITHOUT WAKING ZENO she slipped from their bed.
Sometimes in the night when they awakened—through a single night, each woke several times, if but for a few seconds—Arlette kissed Zeno’s mouth in playful affection, or Zeno kissed hers. These were kisses like casual greetings—they were not kisses meant to wake the other fully.
How’s my sweet honey Zeno might mutter. But before Arlette could answer, Zeno would sink back into sleep.
Zeno was deeply asleep now. What subtle and irrevocable seismic shifting of the life of the house Arlette had sensed, Zeno was oblivious to. Like one who has fallen onto his back he lay spread-limbed, sprawled, taking up two-thirds of the bed in his warm thrumming sleep.
Arlette had learned to sleep beside her husband without being disturbed by him; whenever possible, her dreams incorporated his audible breathing in the most ingenious of ways.
Zeno’s snoring might be represented, for instance, by zigzag-shapes like metallic insects flying past the dreaming wife’s face. Sometimes, Arlette was awakened by her own surprised laughter.
That night, at dinner with friends, Zeno had consumed a bottle of wine himself, in the interstices of pouring wine for others. He’d been in very good spirits, telling stories, laughing loudly. He’d been tenderly solicitous of Juliet and refrained from teasing her, which was unlike the girls’ Daddy.
Through their long marriage there had been episodes—there had been interludes—of Zeno drinking too much. Arlette understood, Zeno had been drinking tonight because he felt guilty: for the relief he’d expressed when Juliet’s engagement had been broken.
Not to Juliet of course but to Arlette. Thank God. Now we can breathe again.
Except it wasn’t so easy. It would not be so easy. For their daughter’s heart had been broken.
Juliet had spent the evening with them. Instead of with her fiancé.
That is, her ex-fiancé.
Helping her mother prepare an elaborate meal in the kitchen, helping at the table, smiling, cheery. As if she hadn’t a life elsewhere, a life as a woman elsewhere, with a man, a lover from whom she’d been abruptly and mysteriously divided.
It was a small shock, to see the engagement ring (of which Juliet had been so proud) missing from Juliet’s finger.
In fact Juliet’s slender fingers were ring-less, as if in mourning.
At the dinner table, three couples and the daughter. Three middle-aged couples, a twenty-two-year-old daughter.
And the daughter so beautiful. And heartbroken.
Of course, no one had asked Juliet about Brett. No one had brought up the subject of Brett Kincaid at all. As if Corporal Kincaid didn’t exist, and he and Juliet had never been planning to be married.
It’s God-damned sad. But not our fault for Christ’s sake.
What did we do? Not a fucking thing.
He’d been drunk, muttering. Sitting heavily on the bed so the box springs creaked. Kicking a shoe halfway across the carpet.
Juliet should talk to us about it. We’re her God-damn parents!
When he was in one of his moods Arlette knew to leave him alone. She would not humor him, or placate him. She would leave him to steep in whatever mood rose in him like bile.
It was an asshole decision, to enlist in the army. “Serve his country”—see where it got him.
Anyway he won’t pull our daughter down with him.
Arlette didn’t stoop to retrieve the shoe. But she nudged it out of the way