Among the Missing by Dan Chaon Read Free Book Online Page B

of the last eight years and realize that here he was now, a convicted rapist, calling her from prison. “Cheryl?” he said, and she stood over the dirty dishes in the sink, a single Lucky Charm stuck to the side of one of the children’s cereal bowls.
    “Wendell?” she said, and she was aware of a kind of watery dread filling her up—her mouth, her nose, her eyes. “Where are you?” she said, and he let out a short laugh.
    “I’m in jail,” he said. “Where did you think?”
    “Oh,” she said, and she heard his breath through the phone line, could picture the booth where he was sitting, the little room that they’d sat in when they’d visited, the elementary school colors, the mural of a rearing mustang with mountains and lightning behind it.
    “So,” he said. “How’s it going?”
    “It’s going fine,” she said—perhaps a bit too stiffly. “Are you calling for Tobe? Because he’s at his office.…”
    “No,” Wendell said, and he was silent for a moment, maybe offended at her tone. She could sense his expression tightening, and when he spoke again there was something hooded in his voice. “Actually,” he said, “I was calling for you.”
    “For me?” she said, and her insides contracted. She couldn’t imagine how this would be allowed—that he’d have such freedomwith the phone—and it alarmed her. “Why would you want to talk to me?” she said, and her voice was both artificially breezy and strained. “I … I can’t do anything for you.”
    Silence again. She put her hand into the soapy water of the sink and began to rub the silverware with her sponge, her hands working as his presence descended into her kitchen.
    “I’ve just been thinking about you,” he said, in the same hooded, almost sinuous way. “I was … thinking about how we used to talk, you know, when you and Tobe first moved back to Cheyenne. I used to think that you knew me better than anybody else. Did you know that? Because you’re smart. You’re a lot smarter than Tobe, you know, and the rest of them—Randy, Carlin, that stupid … moron, Karissa. Jesus! I used to think,
What is she doing here? What is she doing in this family?
I guess that’s why I’ve always felt weirdly close to you. You were the one person—” he said, and she waited for him to finish his sentence, but he didn’t. He seemed to loom close, a voice from nearby, floating above her, and she could feel her throat constricting. What? she thought, and she had an image of Jenni Martinez, her wrists bound, tears leaking from her blindfold. He would have spoken to her in this way, soft, insidious, as if he were regretfully blaming her for his own emotions.
    “Wendell,” she said, and tried to think of what to say. “I think … it must be very hard for you right now. But I don’t know that … I’m really the person. I certainly don’t think that I’m the
one
person, as you say. Maybe you should talk to Tobe?”
    “
No
,” he said, suddenly and insistently. “You just don’t understand, Cheryl. You don’t know what it’s like—in a place like this. It doesn’t take you long to sort out what’s real and what’s not, and to know—the right person to talk to. GoodGod!” he said, and it made her stiffen because he sounded so much like Wild Bill. “I remember so much,” he said. “I keep thinking about how I used to give you shit all the time, teasing you, and you were just so … calm, you know. Beautiful and calm. I remember you said once that you thought the difference between us was that you really believed that people were good at heart, and I didn’t. Do you remember? And I think about that. It was something I needed to listen to, and I didn’t listen.”
    She drew breath—because she
did
remember—and she saw now clearly the way he had paused, the stern, shuttered stare as he looked at her, the way he would seek her out on those Friday party nights, watching and grinning, hoping to get her angry. Her