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The summer when Lydia fell into the lake as a child was the same summer that Marilyn disappeared. Everyone wants to forget these two things, they never discuss them, never mention them, but the shadows of these two things are like bad smells that always linger, and as time goes by, they can no longer be washed away.
Every morning, James would call the police and ask if they needed more photos of Marilyn. What other information could he provide? Who else do I need to call? In mid-May, when Marilyn had been missing for two weeks, the police officer in charge of the case politely told James: "Mr. Lee, thank you for all your help. We have been looking for your wife's car, but I can't guarantee that we will be able to find it." Something was discovered. Your wife took her clothes, packed them in a suitcase, and she took the keys." Even then, Officer Fiske refused to give false hope. "This kind of thing happens all the time. It happens that some people are just so unique." He did not say "not fitting in", nor did he assert that this was the result of "racial differences" or "marital incompatibility", and there was no need for him to mention these. However, James still heard what he meant, so even after ten years, he was still deeply impressed by Officer Fisk.
He told the children: "The police are looking. They will find her and she will be home soon."
Here's what Lydia and Nath remember: Weeks passed and there was still no word from their mother. During recess, other children whispered to each other, and the teachers cast sympathetic glances at them. It was not until summer vacation that they could relax. During the summer vacation, my father stayed in the study every day and let them watch TV outside. From "Space Squirrel" and "Super Dog Mission" in the morning to "I Have a Secret" broadcast late at night, they watched it all day long. . Once, Lydia asked her father what he was doing in the study. He sighed and said, "Oh, loitering." She seemed to hear the sound of her father's soft rubber-soled shoes sliding on the smooth floor, pat, pat, pat. "Loafing means reading or something, stupid," Nath said. So Lydia's imaginary soft rubber-soled shoes became her father's brown flats with gray laces.
So, what exactly is James doing? Every morning he took out a small envelope from his breast pocket. The police took a photo of Marilyn the night she disappeared, promising they would try to find it, and James sent the children upstairs to bed—even forgetting to take off their clothes. Then he found some torn pieces of paper in the wastebasket in the bedroom. He picked out all the shredded pieces of paper from cotton balls, old newspapers and the tissue Marilyn used to wipe her lipstick, and put them together. I always dreamed of another life in my mind, but the reality was exactly the opposite. The bottom half of the note was blank, but James pieced it together and realized she didn't even sign.
He read the note over and over again, staring at the wood grain of the tabletop exposed between the pieces of paper, until the sky changed from navy blue to dark gray. Then he stuffed the pile of papers into an envelope. Every day—although he always promised himself that this was the last time—he would place Nath and Lydia in front of the television, close the door to the study, and take out the pile of papers. While the children watched cartoons, soap operas and competition shows, he would sit there and read notes. Nath and Lydia watched The Fairy Wife, The Deal, and The Truth listlessly and expressionlessly—with Johnny Carson's witty words unable to cheer them up—and drifted into a slumber.
When they got married, James and Marilyn made a promise to forget the past, start a new life together, and never look back. While Marilyn ran away from home, James repeatedly broke the contract. Whenever he picked up the note, he was reminded of Marilyn's mother—who never called him by his first name, only indirectly addressing Marilyn as "your fiancé." On her wedding day, her mother's voice echoed through the courthouse's marble vestibule, as clearly audible as a public address: "This isn't right, Marilyn. You know it's wrong." She wanted Marilyn to be with someone "more like her." marry. After the wedding, her mother never called them again. James thought that when Marilyn returned to her mother's house, eating at her table and sleeping in her bed, she must have felt regret: What a mistake she had made, marrying him when her mother had always been Yes. I had suppressed these feelings for a long time, but now, after revisiting my mother's house and thinking about her, I realized I could no longer suppress them. When he was in kindergarten, he learned how to make a bruise no longer hurt: apply constant pressure with his thumb. The first time you press it, it will make you cry. The second time, the pain subsided slightly. By the tenth time, I could barely feel the pain. So he kept reading the note, trying to recall the past: Marilyn knelt on the floor to tie Nath's shoes; Marilyn turned up his collar and inserted the collar brace; Marilyn walked into him for the first time. office, weak, serious, and focused. At that time, he didn't even dare to look directly into her eyes.
However, the pain didn't go away and his eyes didn't stop crying.
Late at night, when he heard the radio broadcast end and the national anthem begin, he would stuff the fragment of Marilyn's note back into the envelope, put it in his shirt pocket, and then tiptoe into the living room. Children huddled on the floor next to the couch, asleep, their bodies illuminated by test patterns on the television screen. Under the gaze of the Indian at the top of the screen, James carried Lydia and Nas to the bed one after another. Then—since Marilyn was gone and the bed seemed empty, like a wasteland—he returned to the living room, lay on the sofa wrapped in an old sheepskin coat, and stared at the circular patterns on the television until the signal cut out. The next morning it all started again.
Every morning, Lydia and Nath would find themselves back in their beds, suddenly feeling like the world had been righted and things were back on track. It seemed like just walking into the kitchen would see their mother standing by the stove, welcoming them with love, kisses, and hard-boiled eggs. Yet every morning, there was only their father in the kitchen, wearing rumpled pajamas and two empty bowls on the table. The two children looked at each other - she still hadn't come back.
They try to escape into games, prolonging breakfast as long as possible—for example, swapping marshmallows in their cereal, one pink for one orange, two yellow for one green. For lunch, their father would make sandwiches, but they were never done right—either there wasn't enough peanut butter or jam, or they were cut into four squares instead of triangles like their mother's. Even so, Lydia and Nath suddenly became cunning. They said nothing, and even when peanut butter and jelly appeared on the table again, their complaints were not heard.
The only reason they leave the house is to go to the grocery store. "Please," Nath begged as he saw the sparkling lake flashing past the car window on the way home one day, "can we go swimming, just for an hour... just five minutes... just ten seconds?" ." James looked at the rearview mirror and did not slow down the car. "You know, Lydia can't swim yet," he said, "and I'm not in the mood to be a lifeguard today." He turned into the side street, and Nath slid over to the other end of the seat and pinched Lydia's arm. .
"Baby," he whispered, "we can't swim because of you."
Across the street, Mrs. Allen was weeding her garden, and she waved to them as the car door opened. "James," she said, "James, I haven't seen you for a while." She was holding a small rake and wearing pink and purple gloves, but as she leaned against the inside of the garden door and took off her gloves, The sharp-eyed Lydia still discovered the half-moon-shaped stains between her nails.
"How's Marilyn doing?" Mrs. Allen asked. "She's been gone for a few days, right? I hope everything is okay." There was excitement in her eyes, as if - Nath thought - someone was going to give her a gift. Similar.
"We can survive this," James said.
"How long will she be gone?"
James glanced at the children and hesitated for a moment. "Not sure," he said. Nath, who was standing next to him, kicked Mrs. Allen's garden door with the toe of his canvas shoe. "Don't do that, Nath. You'll break your shoes."
Mrs. Allen stared at them, but the two children turned their heads away from her. Her lips are too thin and her teeth are too white. There was a piece of bubble gum stuck to the heel of Lydia's shoe, which stuck to the ground like glue. Even if she was allowed, she thought, she wouldn't be able to run away.
"You two have to be good. Mummy will be home soon, won't she?" Mrs. Allen said. She opened her thin lips and looked at James with a smile, but James did not meet her gaze. "The food we bought must have thawed," James said. But both he and his two children knew that their shopping bags contained nothing but a quart of milk, two bottles of peanut butter, and a loaf of bread. "Nice to meet you, Vivian." He put the bag under his arm, took the children's hands and turned away. The chewing gum on the sole of Lydia's shoe was pulled up and suddenly broke off, leaving a trace on the sidewalk. Next long, dry mark.
Over dinner, Nath asked, "What does 'not sure' mean?"
Their father suddenly looked up at the ceiling, as if Nath was saying "there's a bug on the ceiling," and he wanted to find it before it escaped. Lydia felt her eyes heat up, as if there was a stove in front of her. Nath raised his finger regretfully and poked at his sandwich, squeezing the peanut butter onto the tablecloth, but their father didn't notice.
"I want you to forget everything Mrs. Allen said." James finally said. "She is a stupid woman. She doesn't know your mother at all. I want you to pretend that we have never spoken to her at all." He patted the child. He held their hands and forced a smile, "This is no one's fault, especially not your fault."
Lydia and Nath both knew he was lying, but they understood that it had always been that way.
The weather becomes warm and humid. Every morning, Nath would count how many days had passed since his mother left home. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. He was tired of being indoors with filthy air, tired of the television, tired of his sister, who was staring silently at the TV with increasingly dull eyes. What else is there to say? The disappearance of their mother silently bit into their hearts, a dull pain that spread everywhere. One morning in early June, while Lydia was napping between television commercials, Nath tiptoed toward the front door. Although the father told them not to leave the house, he believed the steps under the front porch still belonged within the confines of the home.
Down the street, Jack sat on his porch, his chin propped up on his knees. Nath hadn't spoken to Jack, not even said hello, since the day he was teased at the pool. If they happened to step off the school bus together, Nath would grab the strap of his bag and walk home as fast as he could. During recess, if he saw Jack coming toward him, he would run to the other end of the playground. The dislike for Jack had begun to form a habit. But now, as he saw Jack first run into the street and then turn around to find himself, Nath stayed where he was. He thought that chatting with anyone—even Jack—would be much better than silence.
"Want a piece?" Jack came over and asked. In his open palm were five or six red candies, fish-shaped, as big as his thumb, held end to end, like a string of sparkling bracelets. Jack grinned, and even the tips of his ears seemed to be moving: "Bought them at the canteen, a handful for ten cents."
Nath was instantly filled with a strong longing for the concession stand, where scissors, glue, and crayons lined the shelves, bouncy balls, Wax Lips candies, and rubber mice were in the jars, and foil-wrapped chocolate bars lined the front desk. The large glass jar next to the counter is filled with ruby-colored candies. When you lift the lid, the smell of cherries wafts out.
Nas bit off the head of a piece of fish-shaped candy, stretched out his hand to Jack again, and commented by the way: "This candy is delicious." He found that when he looked closer, Jack's eyelashes were as light brown as his hair. , the tips of the hair turned golden as soon as they came into contact with the sun. Nath popped a piece of candy into his mouth, letting the sweetness seep into his tongue. He counted the freckles on Jack's face: nine.
"You're going to be fine," Jack said suddenly. He leaned towards Nath, as if telling a secret, "My mother said that a child only needs one parent. She said that if my father doesn't want to see me, it's his loss, not mine."
Nath's tongue froze and became as thick and clumsy as a piece of meat. He suddenly couldn't swallow and almost choked on the syrup in his mouth. He quickly spit the half-melted candy into the grass.
"Shut up," he said through gritted teeth. "Shut up." He spat hard again, trying to clear the cherry taste from his mouth. Then, he stumbled back home and slammed the door so hard that the partition on the door shook. Jack stood at the bottom of the steps, looking sadly at the "little fish" trapped in his hands. Later, Nass forgot what Jack said that made him furious. He only remembered the anger itself - slow but still warm.
A few days later, television viewers were treated to a curious diversion—at least for Ness. One morning, Ness turned on the TV and found that there were no cartoons on. At this time, Walter Cronkite appeared on the screen. He was sitting quietly at the table, as if he was hosting the evening news. However, it was not yet eight o'clock in the morning, and his table was placed outdoors, with the wind blowing from Cape Kennedy. He messed up the papers on the table and his hair. There was a rocket standing on the launch pad behind him, and there was a countdown clock at the top of the TV screen. Awaiting launch is Gemini 9. If Ness had known the word "surreal" at the time, he would have used it to describe the feeling these television images gave him. Seeing the huge sulfur-yellow smoke ejected by the rocket as it launched upward, he slowly crawled to the TV, his nose almost touching the screen. The counter at the bottom of the screen changed and jumped, showing a series of incredible numbers: seven thousand miles per hour, nine thousand miles per hour, ten thousand miles per hour. He couldn't imagine anything flying so high.
Throughout the morning, Ness was engrossed in the news reports of the rocket launch, savoring every new term like sucking candy: rendezvous and docking, orbit map. In the afternoon, Lydia curled up on the sofa and slept, while Nath kept chanting "Gemini", "Gemini", "Gemini". It seems like this is a magic spell. Long after the rocket disappeared in the blue sky, the camera lens was still looking at the depths of the sky where there were white tracks left by the rocket. For the first time in a month, Nath temporarily forgot about his mother. Up there—eighty-five miles, ninety miles, ninety-five miles, the counters read—everything on Earth would fade away, including the mother who ran away from home, the father who didn’t love you, the child who laughed at you—all Things shrink to the size of a pinhead and then disappear completely. Up there, there is nothing but stars.