“Six three one. This is the place.”
They get out. The sound of cicadas hits them along with the heat, as if the temperature itself is a life-form. They are on the east side of town—east and west separated by highway 35, a north/south artery commonly known as the NAFTA superhighway. The area used to be predominately Black, but the last ten years have seen the blooming creep of gentrification. first the artists, then the restaurants, then the strollers, housing prices rising, driving out the existing community. In some ways it is the history of the United States played in perpetuity as a meme. The manifest destiny of wealth to spread and absorb. The word “reclamation.”
Story and her boyfriend—Felix?—moved into a sublet on Holly Street near an artisanal restaurant that used to be a Laundromat. It’s a small white clapboard house that needs a paint job. The lawn, Remy notices, has surrendered to the heat and lies sickly yellow beside the cracked concrete walk. The house has been squeezed between two adjoining homes, one a modern remodel, the other a dilapidated Craftsman with a FOR SALE sign by the curb.
“We could buy that one,” says Hadrian, already taller than his mother at twelve.
“She’d love that,” says Margot, wishing she’d thought to bring a gift or a bottle of wine. Do you bring alcohol to your adult children? she wonders. Is that a thing?
They approach the house. The shades are drawn. There are lights on inside.
“You told her we were coming?” Remy asks for the third time since they landed.
“Again, yes,” says Margot, a hint of annoyance coming into her voice. “I texted, but I didn’t hear back.”
Remy knocks. The front lawn is sunlit and hot, and they stand sweating, waiting for the kids to answer.
“You—”
“She knows,” says Margot. “Maybe we should have gone to the hotel first.”
Hadrian goes to the living room window, peers in.
“Hadrian,” says Remy.
“I’m just looking.”
“This is Texas. Black men shouldn’t look in people’s windows in Texas.”
“He’s twelve,” says Margot.
“You don’t think they shoot twelve-year-olds here?”
Margot checks her watch. In her head she’s already heading to the airport to fly to DC. She steps past Remy, tries the door. It’s unlocked.
“Mistake,” says Remy.
“I’ve got to pee,” Margot tells him.
She steps inside. There is no entryway. The front door opens into the living room. The decorations are a mix of post-college IKEA assemblage, his and hers. Margot recognizes a few heirlooms—Grandma’s trunk, covered with a linen doily, Story’s childhood armoire. Several black-and-white photos in cheap frames line the walls—the boyfriend’s work? On her way to the bathroom, Margot passes two suitcases and a leather overnight bag but doesn’t notice them. Why would you?
Remy and Hadrian enter behind her in time to see the bathroom door closing. Even though it’s his stepdaughter’s house, Remy feels nervous at the trespass. He closes the front door quickly. Inside, the air-conditioning is on. The coolness is welcome, but with it comes a smell—a subtle sourness, like milk that has turned. He looks over at Hadrian, but the boy has his phone out already. So Remy follows the smell to the kitchen door, opens it.
The smell is stronger inside. Remy can see that the kitchen table has been set for dinner. Plates full of food, forks half-buried. Pots sit on the stove, dishes in the sink. But it’s the chairs that get his attention, both set at forty-five-degree angles from the table, frozen as if in mid-move. The story they tell is one of simultaneity, a mirror dance, chairs slid back in harmony and abandoned at once.
Remy examines the table. Chicken and potatoes, maybe. A potpie. There is a bowl in the center of the table, wrapped in a dish towel. Remy looks inside, recoils. It looks like rice at first, but the rice is moving.
How long does it take for maggots to grow? he wonders. Three days? A week?
“Babe?”
He turns. Margot is standing in the doorway.
“They’re not home,” he says.
“I know.”
“They haven’t been in a few days.”
“What’s that smell?”
Remy is trying to process what it means. A spontaneous getaway? Late for an outing. We’ll do the dishes later. A medical emergency—we should call the hospitals, he thinks.
Margot sees the maggots. “Oh my God.”
He takes her arm, leads her back into the living room. “When did you talk to her?”
“Thursday?”
“On the phone?”
“She texted.”
Hadrian calls out from the sofa, eyes still on his mobile screen. “What’s that smell?”
“Dishes,” says Remy.
Margot thinks about the exchange with Story. Thursday was US v Valice, a federal racketeering case. And then administrative meetings. She texted Story from the elevator.
Excited to see you.
An hour went by and then a response.
Who?
Very funny, she wrote. Did you pick a restaurant yet? I can have Barbara make a reservation.
She waited for a response, but nothing came. Then, as she put her phone in her robe pocket, it buzzed. She pulled out the phone, looked at it.
Ha ha ha.
What did that mean? She texted back, but got no reply. For some reason she thought about the silliness from her daughter’s youth. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. This obsession with skinniness, the oversize sweatshirts hiding weight loss, dinners unfinished, lunches uneaten, and then the realization that Story was literally starving herself to death.
Where did my daughter go? she wondered, sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, the girl who stood on that stage and sang with such bright innocence? And then she saw the number on the scale and nearly fainted.
“The police,” she says. “We should call the police.”
As if on cue, her phone rings. The number is unlisted. She answers.
“Judge Nadir, this is Chuck Malcolm. Is this a good time?”
“It’s—I’m not sure. We’re in Austin visiting my daughter, but she’s not here. And there are dishes on the table and bags packed in the living room. And I haven’t talked to her in five days.”
“You’re worried.”