Daniel rises and begins to spread cream cheese on half of an everything bagel, but the board is silent and so he decides he should leave. Before he does, he bows to the group, half-smeared bagel in hand, and when the door shuts behind him, the pleasant-looking people laugh.
But seriously. Seriously. Where is Marion?
Has anyone heard from her? No?
What are we going to do without Marion? The lawyers are concerned.
The lawyers are always concerned. A risk-averse type. I suppose we’ll have to find someone to clean up.
I wonder where Marion’s gone off to.
Have we reached out to Nathan?
I sent an email, and texted. He didn’t get back to me.
We shouldn’t pry.
We shouldn’t? The lawyers seem to feel that it’s important we locate Marion. Something about the audit, something about accountability and transparency and irregular deductions. I don’t know. I stopped listening.
Well, it seems slightly crass. Let’s leave Nathan Palm alone.
Of course, there’s always the children.
A conversation about their mother could be helpful. A gentle conversation. We are, after all, concerned about their well-being. Right?
Right. Let’s check in with the Palm girls. But can we take a different approach from Daniel’s? Keep this calm and quiet.
And I’m sure we can find someone to step into Marion’s shoes until she returns.
I agree. I mean, she is only part-time.
Denise Gets a Tour of the Brownstone
Denise has never been to the brownstone before. Nathan had to text her the address. From the living room windows, he watches her approach the house. She holds her phone out, looks up and down, checks the number of each house she passes, and also navigates the buckling sidewalk. There’s a cigarette in her right hand, but she flicks it into the gutter before opening the gate to the front yard of the Palm brownstone and slips the phone into her jacket pocket. Nathan opens the front door before she has a chance to ring the doorbell. He’s not afraid of seeming eager this time.
Inside, Denise looks at the molding and the stairs, crafted from mahogany and inherently grand. After years of polishing, the wood in the house no longer requires maintenance. It gleams on its own, the rich red banister in particular. The oils from sliding palms have given it a natural sleekness. There are bay windows in the front of the house, and a smaller bay window in the dining room, and the kitchen, which juts out into the backyard, is bright. The rest of the house is dark. Chandeliers, or the vestiges of chandeliers, ornament the ceiling of each room. Two chimneys run up the east side of the brownstone, and one fireplace still works. Denise asks Nathan questions about wallpaper and renovations. Nathan’s surprised; he always is when Denise doesn’t act like she’s twenty-two. He forgets that she is his age. He forgets that she has some social ability.
There are a few things he really likes about Denise: her thick straight hair, her barefaced distrust of the nuclear family, the way she wears T-shirts, her lack of interest in him, her lack of interest in anything besides Northern Renaissance paintings. He likes her apartment, her flat stomach, her taste in music. He likes that she would never think of going to a gym or running or biking anywhere. She never discusses what she can’t eat. She still smokes and has never talked about either her habit or quitting that habit. She just smokes.
She is another trust-fund artist. She never would or could worry about money, and Nathan finds that a rare thing in a person. It is a strange life in the United States to be absent of motivation. In New York, it is even more difficult to explain, though certainly more common. No one will ever sympathize with them. They understand that, Nathan and Denise, and yet they both wish they had finished college with a degree in economics. They wish they were more needed by their families. Nathan has made the attempt to be needed by having a family of his own, but he’s not sure it’s working. Denise has never tried.
“It’s a nice house,” she says. They are in the master bedroom.
“Thank you.”
“Where are your kids?”
“School. I don’t think they know what’s happened. What’s happening. I mean, not that I do either.”
After a pause, Denise asks, “What did she take?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s look.”
She walks into the closet. He watches from the doorway as she slides hangers to the left and cocks her head like she’s at the sales rack of a department store. He momentarily wants to kick her out of his room, out of his house.
“Jesus,” Denise says, and she holds up a large, shapeless floral dress.
“There’s a belt that goes with it—it’s not that bad.”
“It’s that bad.”
She opens drawers; she looks for empty spaces, but there are none. Marion’s things are all here.
“Does she keep other stuff anywhere? Have you noticed anything else missing?”
Nathan shakes his head, trying to understand what this might mean. If she took most of her clothes, that would mean she’s left him. If she took a few things, she is visiting someone. Her leaving behind everything: he can’t think about what that means.
“What about the basement?” Denise asks.
This time Nathan follows Denise as she trots casually down the stairs. In the kitchen, she finds the door to the basement and descends. Nathan closes his mouth and breathes through his nose. The previous owners had cats, and the smell lingers on in the poorly ventilated parts of the house.
“Where the fuck is the light?”
“Just wait a fucking second.”
Nathan finds the light switch, and Denise is illuminated. Nathan looks at her and then looks around. It takes a moment to register that something is different. He hasn’t been down here in a while because of the smell. Boxes have been sliced open, and their contents spill onto the floor. An old dollhouse of Ginny’s has been emptied of its tiny furniture. Cans half full of dried paint have been overturned; one oozes a plastic puddle of pink onto the dirt floor.
“Is it always like this?” Denise asks.
Nathan shakes his head and steps into the mess. He thinks about yesterday morning. He was working on the third floor. He didn’t know where Marion was, but now he understands that she was here, making this peculiar mess.
“Is that a door over there?” Denise asks.
“It opens into the front yard.”
Denise steps over the mess to the heavy door. “It’s unbolted, you know.”
Nathan is swiftly furious. Marion left the basement door unlocked. Anyone could have gotten in. Her daughters slept vulnerable, unprotected. The fury feels good. Nathan no longer feels entirely to blame.
“I wonder what she was looking for,” Denise says.
Marion at Fourteen