“Gone? What do you – ?” I stared stupidly, knowing in the flash of a microsecond that yes he was indeed gone, he had fled the house, and that we would search the house and search the yard, and call and yell and drive around with the window open, looking, like someone who has lost a dog. But at the same time I refused this knowledge, and my rational brain took the reins from my stunned heart.
“He can’t be gone.” I strode decisively toward her, stepping on a tail and jumping when the screech hit my ears. I continued on without apology. “I was right here at the door all the time. And he couldn’t possibly have gotten out the front door, it’s too heavy, and it sticks.” Ah, the comfort of logic. “He must be in the bathroom, that’s all, or upstairs lying down.”
I reached Mandy and she fell into step beside me as I crossed the sitting room.
“I know, I know, I thought of all that, too. I don’t think he could budge that big door – and I – “
By now we had reached the front door, and I tried the knob with brisk efficiency. “He must be upstairs.” Silly woman. Use your head. “In the bathroom, maybe, Maggie – geez, you have to – “
“I looked in the bathroom, I told you – I looked all over.”
Confident in my logical masculinity, I made a stubborn search of the whole house, methodically, like an idiot, all the while knowing that Mack was not there. That he was outside, and getting farther and farther away with every step. And that my grief when I let this fact sink in was going to hurt worse than anything I could imagine. It was going to hurt so much that I stonily refused to face it, letting Mr. Accountant keep steady, calm, blind control. Mandy searched again, too, and I could feel her impatience at my obstinacy. Finally I looked in the laundry room. I had deliberately saved that room for last. It had the only other door in the house, one that I used when I wanted to hang out clothes on the line outside. It opened into the back yard. The chain was off the hook, and the door was ajar.
That was it. Mr. Logical Accountant was immediately brought to his knees. Panic rushed through me as I threw open the door and bawled Mack’s name like a hungry calf making a desperate call for its mother. Behind me, Maggie poked her head over my shoulder and added her voice to mine. And when that effort brought no immediate result, she impatiently pushed me forward, out into the slanting shadows of the yard.
“Mack!” Our voices rose in unison. We turned, now back to back, and repeated the yell, and as the sound died away Maggie turned to me with a frown. “We’ll have to go look for him. We should split up.”
I nodded feebly, my eyes scanning the yard once more. I was out-of-breath and shaky. Now that Mr. Logic was hiding in bed with his head under the covers, I was left flapping in the breeze, my emotions dancing around me like natives circling a captive at the stake. I swiped furtively at a tear that had sprung into my eye.
Maggie – emboldened, perhaps, by my sudden relinquishing of control – turned into the leader, and began firing orders at me like a drill sergeant with a new recruit. I welcomed it – it seemed to calm me and take away the shakes. “We’ll take our cars. You go east, down to the end of the street, and then out to the highway. I’ll go west, and cover the shopping area. We’ll meet back here in an hour, or when we find him. He can’t have gotten that far. And it will be dark soon.”
Ah, but you’re wrong, Maggie. Due to my stubborn efficiency in the house, Mack was now quite far enough away that it was of no use to be looking. He wouldn’t be out on the sidewalk, or near the roads, or anywhere where he could be easily seen. He’d be avoiding us with every particle of his being, and he was too smart to be caught.
Maggie was already going back into the laundry room, and I followed numbly, locking the door behind me. We trooped back to the kitchen and in a moment she had her purse and keys, and we were out the kitchen door and getting into our cars. I left the door unlocked, in case he would be back. In case he had simply gone out for a walk or something, and would return on his own. Sure.
I watched Maggie quickly pull away from the curb and drive down the street. I backed out of the driveway slowly, and turned right. I could see the back of her blue Chevy in my rear view mirror. One tail light was out. And when she turned, she didn’t put on her signal.
I made my way slowly down the street, going east, as she had instructed. My eyes scanned the sidewalks. I rolled down my window, and the air was chilly. I remembered that Mack had left his windbreaker at the house. We’d found his duffel bag, too, with all his clothes still in it. At the time I had pointed it out to Maggie with patient superiority – see, he had left his clothes, so obviously he wasn’t gone. And now he was out here without a jacket. Without his other clothes. Without anything. I braked at the end of the block – I live on a dead end street, and where the pavement ends are just corn and soybean fields. I turned right onto the last north-south street, and continued slowly down along. There was no other traffic.
I was going the wrong way, I knew. Oh, I was going the way Maggie had told me, but this was not the direction Mack had taken. He had cut across the yard, and gone through the wall of evergreens on the south side of the property, and come out onto Fourth Street. And from there? I didn’t know. But if I opened my heart – if I stopped for a moment, and closed my eyes, and felt for him with my heart, I would feel his presence, I would sense his direction. I would be able to find him in a very short time. I could let my heart go, like when you’re lost on horseback and give the horse his head. Animals have a built in sense of direction, and if you let a horse go, if you just slacken the reins and let him lead, he will always find his way back to the stable. My heart could have found Mack. My heart could have found him in a minute.
So why didn’t I give my heart its head?
Because, deep inside, I knew exactly what was going on. My heart had let me delay, purposely taking too much time searching the house – because I wanted love – at last, at long last, like I had hoped and prayed for for so long. I had found my soul-mate, my life partner, my other half, the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and have a family with, grow old with. But it was wrong – all wrong. Because that person was a man.
I suppose I could have agonized over the fact that that must mean I was gay. I’m not prejudiced against gay people. I don’t have any gay friends – I don’t have any friends – but I don’t think being a homosexual is wrong. It’s just different, that’s all. And I think gays should be able to marry if they want to, and adopt kids, and all that enlightened stuff. If I found out that I was gay, I’m sure I’d be surprised, and go through a period of adjustment, but I think I could cope eventually. After all, there’s no one to be hurt by my lifestyle. My parents are dead. My grandparents are dead. I don’t have any siblings, and I don’t have any friends. No one cares about me, and I can pretty much do as I please. I could still have my career. If I found I was gay I really think I could make a life for myself within those parameters. But I’m not gay. And neither is Mack.
There’s a fantasy I have, that I entertain sometimes, especially when I’m falling asleep. It’s grown and evolved into a whole scenario that I play in my head.
It started as just thinking about what it would be like to have someone, to love someone. And the more I thought about it, the more it developed. It takes place in this house. Sometimes it’s that we’re washing dishes together – we take turns washing and drying. And the kitchen is pleasant and warm and it’s usually in the wintertime, with lots of snow and cold outside. It’s dark outside, because it’s evening, after supper, but inside it’s warm and snug and light, and the kitchen smells good from the meal we had. Lasagna, say. Homemade lasagna. And we’re doing dishes, and we’re together. Me and my wife. And we don’t talk much, but it’s easy and happy and we’re full, and we think of things to tell each other about our day, just little things. The cats are there, full, too, and the dishes clatter and water runs and the suds are high and white. We laugh softly together at silly inside jokes, things no one else would understand. And it just feels so good. So good.
And sometimes I lengthen it, and move it to the bedroom, and we’re getting ready for bed. And she’s taking off her make-up, and putting on face cream or something – those little rituals that are so feminine and so beautiful. And I’m already in bed, sitting up with a book, but I’m not reading, I’m watching her, and thinking about how very much I love her. My heart swells, and I smile and she sees me in the mirror, and smiles, too. Or maybe she says, “What are you smiling about?” and I just say, “You. Just you. Because you’re so lovely, and so precious to me, and I love you so much,” or something like that. It’s different every time, you see. And she moves about the room, putting away her shoes, and hanging up her dress, and I watch her familiar, beloved movements.
After a while she turns off the light, and there’s just the bedside lamp on my side. And she gets into bed – it’s a big four-poster, though I don’t have a bed like that. My parents had twin beds.
And she snuggles next to me, and I put a bookmark in my book, and set it on the table, and I hold her in my arms. I think of that sometimes, what it would feel like to have someone to love and care for, someone who loved me, too. And then children of our own.
Mack. Oh, Mack. Mack, I love you. I don’t know how this happened, or why. But I love you. And I can’t have you. And I have the feeling that you’re very very ill. Ill with something that doctors can’t fix.
I drove around as Maggie had told me to. I covered the area that she told me to cover, and then I went home. The sun had gone down and it was really getting cold. There would be a frost tonight for sure. I shivered as I put the key in the kitchen door’s lock, puzzled for a moment when I felt a lack of resistance when I turned the key. Then I remembered I’d left it unlocked. Unlocked for Mack.
The Boys were in their accustomed places and greeted me with affection, but I only petted them perfunctorily, and instead of lingering to return their greeting, I copied the last moves I had seen Mack make, going into the sitting room and turning on the TV, and sitting gently down on the couch. I could feel the depression coming on strong, a heavy black cloud, and I let it sink over and around me, and pull me down to where I wanted to go. To where I had been headed all along. To the same place that Mack, my Mack, was in now, alone on the highway. To the deepest pit of despair.