And then they were gone, in a small confusion of thank-yous and promises to call, swallowed up by the reporters’ hats outside.
“That was Dad,” Nick said flatly when he heard the door close. His mother looked at him nervously, afraid to answer. “Is he all right?” She nodded.
“Would someone like to tell me what’s going on around here?” Nora said. “Making cereal,” she added, scoffing.
But his mother’s eyes were filling with tears. “Do you think they knew?” his mother said to him. “I tried-”
“No, just me,” Nick said.
“What?” Nora said again.
“She’s worried about Dad,” Nick said, answering for his mother. “He said he’d be back for lunch.”
Nick’s mother looked up, helpless to correct him.
“Lunch,” Nora said, working at a puzzle.
The phone rang again and Nick’s mother slumped, covering her eyes with one hand. Nick nodded to Nora, who raised her eyebrows and answered it. He led his mother to the couch, sat down beside her, and put one arm around her shoulder.
“When is he going to come back?” he said, almost in a whisper, so Nora wouldn’t hear. His mother shook her head. “But he has to,” Nick said.
“He’s not coming back, Nick,” his mother said wearily. “I wasn’t sure until now.”
Nick looked at her in confusion. “The police will come again. He has to be back before that. They’ll look for him.”
His mother put her hand to the side of his face, shaking her head. “It’s just you and me now. You don’t have to lie for him, Nick. It’s not right.”
But she still didn’t understand; her mind was somewhere away from the immediate danger. “He was here last night,” he said, looking into her eyes. “You have to say that.”
“What are we doing to you?” his mother said in a half-whisper, still holding the side of his face.
“Call Uncle Larry,” Nick said.
“Larry?”
“He’ll know what to say. Before they come back.”
His mother shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, dropping her hand.
“It does. They’ll blame him. Where is he?”
“I don’t know, Nick.”
“I’m good at secrets. I’ll never tell. Never.”
“So many secrets,” his mother said vaguely. “You don’t understand. I don’t know.”
“But he’s safe?”
She nodded.
“Mr Welles won’t get him?”
She looked at him, and then, as if she were starting to laugh, her voice cracked and she sobbed out loud, so that Nora looked over from the phone table. “No,” she said, her voice still in the in-between place. “Not now. Nobody will.”
“Why not?” Nick whispered, his voice throaty and urgent. “Why not?”
Then she did laugh, the other side of the crying. “He’s gone,” she said wispily, moving her hand in the air. “He’s fled the coop.”
Before Nick could take this in, Nora loomed in front of them, her face white and dismayed.
“I’ll take her upstairs,” Nick said quickly. “She’s upset.” It was his father’s voice.
Nora stared at him, more startled by his self-possession than by his mother’s behavior. When he took his mother’s elbow to lead her out of the room, Nora moved aside, stepping back out of their path.
He led her down the hall, but at the stair railing she stopped, slipping out of his hand. “I’ll be all right,” she said softly, her voice coming back. “I’ll just lie down for a while.”
But Nick stopped her, placing his hand over hers on the rail. “Why won’t they get him?”
His mother turned her head, looking for Nora, then lowered it. “He’s not here,” she said finally. “He’s left the country.”
She took in his wide eyes, then looked nervous again, so that Nick knew she hadn’t meant to tell. He felt lightheaded, the same frightened giddiness as that time when their car had skidded on the ice coming down the hill from the cabin, spinning them sideways. Steer into the slide, his father had said aloud, giving himself instructions, gripping the wheel hard until finally they connected with the road again and he heard the solid crunching of snow. There wasn’t time to think, just to steer.
“Mom?” he said, looking into her frightened eyes. “Don’t tell anyone else.”
By the next day his father was no longer unavailable for comment: he was missing. There were more men outside, and Nick saw that one was now watching the back too. Nora moved into the guest room, bringing her things over in a small valise, settling in for a siege. The radio said his father had been distraught at the news of the Cochrane suicide, but how did they know? Mr Benjamin came, and Uncle Larry, and the police again, two men from the FBI. The phone rang.
Each day that week, as the spill spread, the headlines grew larger, so that the mystery itself became the news, begging for an answer. Welles appealed to his father to come out of hiding, implying that he had become guilty simply by being absent. Still, there was a new hesitancy in his voice, as if, having pushed one victim to a desperate act, he did not want to be blamed for another. Walter Kotlar had eluded him after all. There was an article about the rot in the State Department, the pumpkin field again, the China lobby, the unaccountable disappearance, proof of some larger conspiracy. But the story refused to stay political. The mystery seemed too complete for that-it frightened people. Nobody ran away from a hearing. It seemed to belong instead to the tabloid world of personal scandal and WANTED posters and cars speeding away in the night, a more familiar fall from grace. Was he still alive, sitting in some hotel room with his own open window? One day the papers ran some old family pictures. Nick and his mother, she squatting next to him proudly on the pavement as he showed off his new suit to the camera. His father as a young man, smiling. The house on 2nd Street. The car, still parked in the garage. All the pictures of a crime story, without any crime.
All week, as the newspapers grew louder and louder until finally, like a fire out of oxygen, they choked and went out, what struck Nick was the quiet in the house. With all the phones and visitors and black headlines that seemed to carry their own sounds, hours went by when there was nothing to hear but the clock. People spoke in low voices, when they spoke at all, and even Nora walked softly, not wanting to disturb the patient.
His mother was the patient. She spent long stretches sitting on the couch, smoking, not saying a word. Her silence, her intense concentration on nothing at all, frightened him. At night, alone, she drank until finally, her eyes drooping, she would curl up on the couch, avoiding her bedroom, and Nick would wait until he heard her steady breathing before he tiptoed over and covered her with the afghan. In the morning, she never wondered where it had come from. She seemed to forget everything, even what had really happened. She told the police-a relief- that his father had left Sunday morning, just as Nick had said. Yes, they’d played Scrabble. No, he hadn’t seemed upset. When Uncle Larry suggested she get away for a few days until things died down, she said to him in genuine surprise, “I can’t, Larry. I have to be here, if he calls.” The secret, at least, was safe. She had begun living in Nick’s story.
“Are you all right for money?” Larry said.
“I don’t know. Walter took care of all that.”
“You have to know, Livia. Shall I go through his things? Would you mind?”
She shrugged. “It’s all in the desk. At least I suppose it is. The FBI went through it yesterday. I don’t think they took anything away.”
“You shouldn’t let them do that, Livia,” Larry said, a lawyer. “Not without a warrant.”
“What’s the difference, Larry? We don’t have anything to hide,” his mother said, and meant it.
The FBI came often now. In an unexpected seesaw of attention, as the newspapers grew bored with the story, the FBI became more interested. They went through his father’s papers, opened the wall safe, asked the same questions, and then went away, as much in the dark as before. His father had signed a power of attorney for her on Saturday, which seemed suspicious, but his mother didn’t know anything about it. And what, anyway, did
