Eric tried to speak, swallowed hard, took a deep breath and said, “In the kitchen.” He walked slowly, attempting to make no sound, and he stared, fascinated, as each step revealed more of the room: first, the pantry, next the can-opener beside the bulletin board, then the cabinets and stove, and finally the refrigerator and freezer, its doors part way open. Spoiled meat oozed gray slime from the white package’s seams, and mold choked the vegetable drawers.
“Somebody’s been in the house. Front door was unlocked,” he said. “Dad always double checked before we left. He’d unplug appliances, turn the main water off, close the curtains.” Eric shut the refrigerator. Putridness wafted past him. “He was a careful man.”
Leda’s shoe squeaked on the linoleum; Eric jumped. It sounded, for an instant, like his father’s shoe. Every line in the kitchen spoke of his father. Eric could see his dad’s hand in the smudges on the cupboard handles, in the way the three plates, three cups and three sets of silverware—remnants of the last breakfast they had eaten before leaving to the mountains—rested in the sink, in the color of the walls, each barely visible brush stroke a picture of Dad painting. Dad had said, “From the top down, son. You’ll leave dribbles that way,” when they had worked together on it two summers ago. Dad’s presence smothered the room.
Leda exhaled, and Eric jumped again. “This his?” she said as she lifted a blue and black flannel shirt from a basket around the corner in the utility room.
“Sure.” He backed away until his rump hit a counter. Was Dad wearing that shirt when he left the cave?
he thought. Was he? Eric tried to picture the last moment when he’d seen Dad at the exit to the cave holding his bicycle. He saw the graffiti on the wall, the feel of the wool blanket under his hand, the shapeless hump of his dead mother under the blanket, even his dad’s last words, “I’ll be back before sunset,” but Eric couldn’t remember what Dad had worn.
“Yes,” he said, but did it mean Dad had been here? The thought brayed in his brain. Clearly he wasn’t in the house now. The broken window would be fixed; the door would be locked; the dishes put away. But had he been here? Where was he? Balanced perfectly, the feelings that this was no longer his home, and the… the… he couldn’t come up with the word to describe the emotion… the anticipation? the hope? the dread? that his father had left some sign teetered precariously within him.
“Let’s do the rest of the house,” he said, and walked out of the kitchen, not waiting to see if she followed. He looked into the rooms in order. Diffuse light filtered through glazed glass in the empty bathroom. A purple throw rug, centered exactly in front of the sink, still sported a speck of dried toothpaste from Eric’s haste to leave the house almost six weeks earlier. He tried the faucet—his throat seemed petrified with dryness—but the fixture creaked when he spun it, and nothing came out. His closed bedroom door swung open easily. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling; rock group posters covered the walls; books and knick-knacks lined the tops of the dresser, the desk and nightstand. A wadded up sheet and some dirty clothes blocked the path to the bed. Only the gaps in the bookcase that represented the comics he’d packed when they’d left the house for the cave, the dozen empty hangers in the closet and a fine layer of dust made the room any different than it had been earlier in the year. But, like the rest of the house, it felt weird, as if aliens had come and stolen everything, replacing it with this well done but not quite right duplicate. Eric couldn’t imagine himself on that bed anymore. He could barely recollect what it was like to live in this room. And still every element screamed, Dad! Dad had given him that book; Dad had hated that album; Dad had helped him with that homework; Dad criticized that pair of pants; Dad had sat on the edge of this bed late at night asking about Eric’s grades. When the door was shut, it was to keep Dad out. When the door was open, it was to invite Dad in. No part of it lived or died or moved that it wasn’t measured in some way by Dad’s inescapable scale. Eric remembered with amazement that when he’d left the cave a few days ago, it was with the thought that maybe he could rescue Dad, that Dad needed his help, but now that Eric was home again and could feel again the atmosphere of his Dad’s house, the idea seemed ludicrous. How could a son rescue a dad?
Dad lived removed and remote from the world of the son, his only connection through a thread of rules and expectations. Dad passed laws. Dad rendered judgement, then Dad moved on. Something touched his arm, and he whirled.
“Sorry,” Leda said. “I didn’t mean to rush you.”
Concern colored her features, but all Eric could think was that for the instant he’d feared it was Dad’s hand on him, that when he turned, Dad would be there. And what would he say? Would his abandonment of the cave be a mistake? Would Dad glower over him and say, “You left mother alone?” or would he, magnificently, like a god, forgive him, take him in his embrace and make it all right again?
“This is your room?” she said. “Nice models.”
“I used to do them when I was a kid.” He touched the wing tip of a bright red tri-plane above him. It turned slowly clockwise on its thread.
In the hallway, in front of his parents’ room and its closed door, Eric paused with his hand extended, not quite touching the doorknob. Leda stood beside him. A swish of drapes from the living room told him that a breeze had picked up outside. He clenched his jaw and put his fingers on the cool metal, but didn’t turn it. How many houses, he thought, have neatly closed their doors on tucked-in corpses? All the possibilities frightened him: the door opens on a covered form on the bed. Eric pulls back the blanket and finds Dad, or the door opens and Dad is sitting on the edge of the bed, or the door opens and the room is empty—Dad has left no sign. A scream circled in the back of his throat. If there was a chance that devils packed the room, he could hardly be less fearful. Trepidation filled him, like a cold, heavy metal. Finally, he turned his hand into a fist and rapped lightly on the door. “Dad?” he said. The breeze outside calmed. Nothing made a sound. Only Leda’s breathing prevented the hallway from being dead silent. He gripped the knob, twisted it, and pushed the door.
The door swung open on an empty room. Blankets were folded tidily away from the pillows. Family pictures sat on the dresser. On Dad’s nightstand, the television remote waited for someone to pick it up. Eric walked to the side of the bed feeling like a time traveler— the closed drapes belied the world outside. No evidence of change existed here: a TV Guide, slippers, a robe hanging in the open closet, an open paperback face down on his mother’s nightstand, some clean towels resting on a chair. All seemed like relics now, like a carefully designed set or a museum display. And the fear didn’t vary. His chest strained against it. His throat ached with it. Goosebumps flashed down his arms.
“No one’s here,” Eric said. It was all he could do to speak.
“Try the next room?”
“Okay.”
In the office, Eric used his finger to draw a line in the dust on the bare desk top. Then, disturbed by the messiness, he wiped the whole desk clean with a tissue that he dropped into the otherwise empty waste basket. Photographs lined the room, mostly pictures of his dad receiving various awards and commendations from work: Journalist of the Year (three of them), Colorado Editor’s Choice Award (seven of these), Denver Jaycees Community Service Award (just one), and other photographs of Dad shaking hands with or standing next to politicians or celebrities. Twenty-five or so pictures of Dad, surrounding him in the office.