The Searcher(31)

Cal fetches Mart’s cookies and shoots the shit with him till Mart gets bored, whistles for Kojak and heads off up the field. The tires are back in shape, for the time being, anyhow. Cal packs away his jump-starter and goes inside. At least the house is undamaged, as far as he can see.

The sandwiches he brought to the river seem like they were a long time ago, but he doesn’t feel like cooking. Yesterday’s restlessness has built itself into outright worry, the sharp buzzing kind he can’t pin down, let alone crush.

It’s still early in Seattle, but he can’t make himself wait. He goes out back, where the reception is less crappy, and phones Alyssa.

She answers, but she sounds blurry and breathless. “Dad? Is everything OK?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I had a minute, so I figured I’d go ahead and call now. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh. No, it’s fine.”

“How ’bout you? You doing OK?”

“Yeah, everything’s good. Listen, Dad, I’m at work, so . . .”

“Sure,” Cal says. “No problem. You sure you’re OK? That flu didn’t come back?”

“No, I’m fine. Just got a lot on my plate. Talk to you later, OK?”

Cal hangs up with that worry getting bigger and more fractious, gathering speed as it prowls his mind. He could probably use a shot or two of Jim Beam, but he can’t make himself do it. He can’t shake the feeling that some emergency is heading towards him, someone is in danger, and he needs to keep all his wits about him to have a chance of fixing things. He reminds himself that anyone else’s danger isn’t his problem, but it doesn’t take.

He bets the damn kid is watching him from somewhere, but Mart is out in his field doing something with his sheep; if Cal shouts, he’ll hear. Cal walks the perimeter of his garden, tramps his back field and circles his patch of woodland, without finding anything but a couple of rabbit holes. When he replays that phone call in his head, Alyssa’s voice sounds wrong, worn and beaten down, worse every time.

Before he believes that he’s actually going to do it, he’s phoned Donna.

The phone rings for a long time. He’s on the verge of giving up when she answers.

“Cal,” she says. “What’s up?”

Cal almost hangs up right there. Her voice is absolutely, totally neutral; he doesn’t know how to respond to that voice coming out of Donna. But hanging up would make him feel like such a damn fool that instead he says, “Hey. I’m not gonna hassle you. Just wanted to ask you something.”

“OK. Go ahead.”

He can’t tell where she is or what she’s doing; the background noise sounds like wind, but it could just be the reception. He tries to figure out what time it is in Chicago: noon, maybe? “Have you seen Alyssa lately?”

There’s a slight pause. Every conversation he’s had with Donna since the split has been peppered with these pauses, while she evaluates whether answering his question would fall within the new rules she’s single-handedly established for their relationship. She hasn’t communicated these rules to Cal, so he has no idea what they are, but he sometimes catches himself deliberately trying to break them anyway, like some shitty little kid.

Apparently this question is allowed. Donna says, “I went out to them for a couple of weeks in July.”

“Have you been talking to her?”

“Yeah. Every few days.”

“She seem OK to you?”

The pause is longer this time. “Why?”

Cal feels aggravation rising. He keeps it out of his voice. “She doesn’t sound too good to me. I can’t tell what it is, if she’s just overworked or what, but I’m worried about her. Is she sick or something? Is that Ben guy treating her OK?”

“What are you asking me for?” Donna is fighting hard to keep that neutral voice, but she’s losing, which gives Cal a tiny bit of satisfaction. “It’s not my job to be you guys’ go-between any more. You want to know how Alyssa is, ask her yourself.”

“I did. She says she’s fine.”

“Well there you go.”

“Is she . . . Come on, Donna, give me a break. Is she getting shaky again? Did something happen?”

“You ask her that?”

“No.”

“Then go ahead and ask.”

The heaviness seeping through Cal’s bones is so familiar it makes him tired. He and Donna had so many of these fights, the year before she left, fights that went on forever without ever getting anywhere or even having any clear direction, like those dreams where you run as hard as you can but your legs will barely move.

“Would you tell me?” he asks. “If there was something wrong?”

“Hell no. Anything Alyssa doesn’t tell you, she doesn’t want you to know. That’s her choice. Even if there was something, what are you gonna do about it from there?”

“I could come over. Should I come over?”

Donna makes an explosive noise of sheer exasperation. Donna always loved words and used plenty of them, enough to compensate for Cal’s shortages, but they never were enough to contain what she was feeling; she needed her hands too, and her face, and a mockingbird’s array of noises. “You are unbelievable, you know that? For a smart guy, my God . . . You know what, I’m not doing this. I don’t do your thinking any more. I gotta go.”