Beatrice is unexpectedly helpful. She reaches out for Jane’s hand and says in an upbeat voice, “Come on. We’ll have fun upstairs. It’s boring here.” This is the older sister of Jane’s dreams.
“Go play with the girls,” Tom says to his son, who resists. He says he would rather stay with the adults, but he is eventually persuaded to the second floor. The adults then have one of those pauses that happen when they’ve gotten their way. But Nathan is confused about why he wanted Jane to leave. He felt like he should make her leave so that the sensitive questions could be asked, but he never wanted to answer those questions. Also, he misses her.
“So how are you doing?” This is Tom.
Nathan sucks his cheeks in and puts his glass on the coffee table. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. He opens his hands, splays them, stretches the fingers, and brings them back together with a light clap. He raises his eyebrows.
“Oh, you know. You know, it’s just hard.”
Tom and Anna are serious now; they are concentrating on empathizing deeply with Nathan. They are saying that Nathan is not alone with their faces of concern.
“You had to have known this was coming, right?” Anna says.
“No, well, not really. I don’t know what you mean.”
Anna explains: “Partners don’t just take off with no word. It’s not normal. If, God forbid, God forbid, Tom left without any warning, I would be going crazy.”
Anna keeps her gaze steady on Nathan, and Nathan understands that despite her warmth, he is being held responsible for his marriage’s sudden ruin. He wonders if Anna knows about the woman in Dumbo. Or worse: Nathan tries to recall if he ever made a pass at Anna.
“I am going crazy,” Nathan says.
“I’d have called the police,” she says.
Nathan almost tells Anna that he has. He catches himself. They’d ask more questions, and he might answer. He shakes his head sadly, as if he knows the help of the police is not available to him, but he’s thought about it. “No, Marion hasn’t been snatched or something. A crime hasn’t been committed.”
“You don’t think so?” Anna says.
“Of course not. I don’t…I don’t know why she left me. And why she didn’t tell me why. Let Marion tell you when she comes back. She knows.”
“Come on, come on.” Tom’s late but here to defend his wife.
“Maybe it’s your fault,” Nathan continues. “You guys could be such snobs to her.”
“Come on,” Tom says.
“Marion never went to college. She knew you all judged her for that.”
“What you’re saying is simply not true. I am angry with her now, for leaving you and her daughters, but I always respected her.”
“Fuck you.”
After fourteen years with Marion, Nathan can only swear and throw things when he is angry. She laughed when he tried to express himself any other way. It is difficult, especially for a poet, that when Nathan feels angry or attacked, he is not more eloquent. But his rage now dismantles his vocabulary, and so he can only swear at the Fishers when they easily express themselves. Nathan thinks about what it will be like if Marion never comes back, and exhales all the oxygen from his lungs but can’t sufficiently refill them, and sweat beads on his brow and lower back.
Anna and Tom shift in their seats, eager to accept this as a moment of catharsis from which they will be able to move on to dessert; Nathan refuses to be saved.
“Fuck you both. Jane! Jane, we’re leaving.”
“I think you should stay,” Anna says. “Let’s talk about this.”
“I don’t know why Marion left, and neither do you. It’s fucking condescending that you would invite me and my daughter over to your house to figure it out.”
“That was never my intention.”
“Jane!”
“I think you have a lot of nerve to come in here and eat our food and lash out like this. I know this is a hard time for your family, but we haven’t done anything except be your friends.”
“Jane. Get down here right now.”
“But if we’re being honest, Nathan, and I feel that we are, I have to tell you something.”
“I am going to count to three.”
“We do have a vested interest in finding her, just like you. Nathan, sit down.”
Nathan looks at Anna and can’t read her. Gone is the Brooklyn earth mother in organic threads walking the dog at five in the morning. This is an entirely different sort of woman standing with her hands on her hips, peering at him through round tortoiseshell glasses. Tom still sits but looks at his wife with something like awe and fear.
“Marion has chosen a very poor time to disappear. Despite what you may think, I like your family and I like your daughters and I like you. I like Marion too, but I feel very angry with her right now. As you know, the school is being audited.”
“Anna, what does this matter?”
“Marion’s disappearance is upsetting to you and your family, but it could be disastrous to the school. Do you get that?”
Jane appears in the doorway of the living room. “Daddy, what?”
“We’re going for ice cream,” he says. “Get your coat.”
“I’ll do it,” Tom says, and he scurries away. Jane follows.
Anna continues once Jane is gone. “We think Marion has been embezzling from the school. She emptied a few accounts before she left.”
Nathan pictures the cash in the shoebox.
“You made a mistake. Or Marion…” Nathan can’t finish the sentence. Tom returns with two coats and Jane.
“Any information about Marion’s whereabouts would be helpful. That’s all,” Anna says quietly, so as not to be overheard by Jane. “And it seems like the least the Palms can do. Considering.”
“Are you fucking with me?” Nathan asks. Anna smiles and shrugs.
Nathan and Jane abandon the Tupperware for the cookies in their escape from the Fisher brownstone. Nathan reaches for Jane’s hand, and Jane skips a little to keep up. Anna watches the Palms from her stoop until they turn the corner.