place was set for Carey at one end, her usual seat on the rare occasions the family ate together.
“Am I late?” Carey asked. “I didn’t know you were making dinner.”
Gwen acted surprised. “Really? Guess I should feed my family more regularly,” she said, glancing at Carey’s skirt.
“Bet you had a busy day,” Brian said. “Usually I can set my watch by you.”
Something folded within her. Dismissed from her clockwork job: unsprung. She worked on establishing a neutral face, the kind of mask her mother had been wearing for years.
“I was pulled in to help on a big project,” she lied. “Sorry I didn’t call.”
Her parents exchanged a look. “You’re an adult,” her mother said. “No need to call. It’s helpful in the sense that keeping dinner hot is helpful. But that’s what microwaves are for. Convenience. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”
Her mother smiled with exaggerated patience. “The chicken’s probably a little dry.”
Carey smoothed her skirt with both hands and sat down at the end of the table.
“Forget all that,” her father said. “You’re a go-getter, kiddo, getting the hang of the working world. That calls for a toast.”
Gwen snorted into her glass of pinot grigio. Brian ignored her, filling Carey’s empty glass. Her mother held out her own goblet for a refill; she drank, made a face, then took another sip.
“To Carey,” her father said. “Our little girl is all grown up.”
“She’s twenty-eight,” her mother said. “So, yes, she is, isn’t she?”
Carey barely listened. Her mind circled back to her lack of job, to the restaurant, to Ben’s passport, to Ben, to herself in Mexico, to Mike. Where was he now? Had he seen the news? She rose slightly from her seat, as if to call him, though of course she didn’t have his phone number. She had told him, years ago, to stop calling. Her parents mistook the gesture and lifted their wine glasses. Carey followed suit.
“Cheers,” she said, clinking glasses. “And thanks. You’ve helped me a lot.”
Gwen’s gaze softened. “We’re glad about your job, honey. Really.”
Carey sat down and launched into a too-detailed story about the project she’d allegedly been working on as Dave Appel’s assistant. Databases, spreadsheets, coding, line items. Her mother’s expression glazed over, probably running mental inventory of her stock at Finer Things, and her father nodded at each description, reaching for seconds of chicken. Carey said she’d most likely be home late all week, so they shouldn’t wait on her for dinner.
“You can help us celebrate tonight, then,” her mother said.
“Oh?” Brian asked. “What are we celebrating?” His wife’s eyes registered hurt, disbelief, and seconds later she slipped on the invisible mask.
“Would you believe I forgot the vegetables,” she said. “Excuse me.” Her tone indicated that this was the social gaffe of the season. She carried her nearly full plate to the kitchen. The lid of the stainless steel garbage can clanked open and shut.
Carey took in the tablecloth, the white tapers lit and gleaming in silver candlesticks. Cloth napkins instead of paper. Usually they dined separately, in shifts on the stools surrounding the kitchen island. If they ate together, the meal came from boxes and bags: pizza, rotisserie chicken, sandwiches in butcher paper. Gwen, an excellent cook, had catered to her husband and only child for many years. Once the gift shop took off, she rarely touched a pan. In junior high, Carey mastered the art of microwave cooking. Microwaved scrambled eggs for dinner were her specialty.
Now Carey chewed the chicken, which was in fact dry from reheating. She drank more wine to wash it down. Her father was doing the same.
“Mom’s in a good mood,” Carey said.
Usually sarcasm made her father laugh, but he didn’t answer. His eyes were on the kitchen door, awaiting his wife’s return. His face drooped like a basset hound’s whenever he was tired or upset. It looked that way often, she’d noticed since moving home.
“Brian?” Carey stage-whispered. She often called her parents by their first names and had for years. “Are you in the dog house, or am I?”
He tousled his own hair for a long moment. “That’s a good question,” he said.
Gwen’s high heels drummed on the polished hardwood floor, and she swept into the room wearing her beige trench coat with the oversized black leather belt. She carried a Tuscan-style bowl filled with fingerling potatoes and fresh green beans. Out of season in April. A product of—where? Mexico? She set the bowl in front of Carey.
“I have lost my appetite,” she said. “But no sense in letting perfectly good food go to waste.”
Carey attempted and failed to catch her father’s eye; he was staring after his wife’s retreating form as if willing her to turn around. But he said nothing, and returned to his meal with studied interest. The kitchen door slammed, and the garage door rumbled upward.
“Potatoes?” he asked Carey, offering the bowl.
She shook her head, waiting him out.
“I seem to have forgotten an anniversary,” he finally said. “That’s the only thing I can think of.” Their anniversary was four months ago, in December. Carey was still in Chicago then, failing to convince Nicole, her oldest friend, that she’d find a way to make rent.
“I’d be mad, too. You’re four months late, and the woman can hold a grudge. Believe me.”
“I got her a card,” he said, waving his hand. “This is the anniversary of when we met. No, wait. Not today, yesterday.”
“Then she forgot, too,” Carey said.
Brian forked more potatoes into his mouth than was polite. He chewed and chewed as the Jetta’s engine revved, the noise fading in the distance. He swallowed his food and took a long sip of water, not wine. Finally he looked at his daughter as the house’s silence covered them both like a layer of dust.
“And then she remembered,” he said.
Carey wasn’t hungry but brought a bag of potato chips to her room, anyway. She logged on to her usual chat room, where Benson689 and three other users were idle. She searched for the ad she’d noticed a few days before. TheOldSchool.com, a high school reunion website, offered a free trial for chat room users. Carey clicked “yes” to the offer, “yes” to the terms of agreement. Yes, yes, whatever you say. Next screen.
She went to the University of Wisconsin reunion page and scrolled to Ben’s year and name. She searched these types of sites for him occasionally, as if to confirm that he actually was dead. Like his murder had been a mistake, it had never really been him, and here he was listing his likes and dislikes and current career and family if applicable.
His name was listed with a parenthetical shushing: (Deceased.)
Carey exhaled hard and fast, like she’d been punched in the gut. What did she expect? That his email would be linked, that he’d want to get in touch with classmates and talk about the old times? God. She was as bad as people who earnestly used Ouija boards.
She moused up the alphabet. Since she was here, she rationalized. Since the chat room was quiet. Since she had to, she did not acknowledge, not fully.
There was Mike Gibley. His name was highlighted, hyperlinked, an active user. Mike was Ben’s classmate, roommate, best friend. After Mexico, Mike continued to email her, though she’d stopped answering. He’d kept calling until she told him not to.
His profile said he lived in Chicago. Business degree, cum laude, minor in computer science. He liked artisan pizza, whatever that was, and craft beer, ditto. The band Counting Crows was high on the list of favorites. He