No Hiding in Boise Read online

  “Are you?” she says with a little wince.

  “I am. I don’t really know what to think … about that night. But I’m assuming the pieces of the puzzle will come together at some point.”

  Or they won’t.

  That’s the kind of thing that sends people to padded rooms—having a bunch of puzzle pieces that don’t fit together at all.

  ANGIE

  THINGS BETWEEN CALE AND I got worse when I went back to work. I think he would have preferred I become a stay-at-home mom. His salary would cover our expenses; I didn’t absolutely need to work. But I wanted to. I wanted a career. I wanted my own income. A part of me would never be okay with relying on a man for my lifestyle. I shudder at the idea of having to ask permission to buy a pair of shoes.

  When I went back to work, it became obvious that Cale and I would have to split responsibilities with Evie more than we had before. I couldn’t work full-time and continue to do everything I was doing for her. She had to go to day care. Someone needed to drop her off and pick her up. There were meals to prepare, baths to give, clothes to wash, diapers to change, appointments to make—all the boring, usual things that go into caring for a small human being.

  I cried my first day back at work, and Cale was quick to say, “You can quit, you know.” I didn’t want to quit though. My body just wasn’t used to being apart from Evie’s. I liked having time to myself—that’s how I came to see work. The ability to sit at a desk and eat my lunch with two hands was a luxury.

  I made the mistake every modern woman does and tried to do it all at first. I woke up early to get myself ready for work, then got Evie ready for day care. I dropped her off, then went to the office. I pumped breastmilk every three hours—a logistical nightmare. I ran out of the office by four forty-five to get Evie from day care by five o’clock. Then I came home to give her a bath, put her to bed, and make dinner for Cale and me. I was, in a word, exhausted.

  After a few weeks of this, I had it out with Cale. We were in the kitchen. I was doing the dishes after putting Evie to bed.

  “You need to do more,” I told him. “I know you hate fatherhood, but you need to do more.”

  I wasn’t normally this direct with him, but I simply didn’t have the energy to craft my words in a way that considered his feelings.

  “I don’t hate fatherhood,” he said.

  “It sure seems like you do.”

  He sighed, hung his head. “Ang, I’m just tired, okay?”

  “You always say that. Tired, tired, tired. Don’t you think I’m tired?”

  “I know you—”

  “You’re depressed. You’ve been depressed since Evie was born. You need to do something about it. Go on medication. Talk to a therapist. Something. It’s affecting our lives.”

  “I’m not depressed,” he said.

  I waved the white dish towel over my head, signaling my surrender.

  “You are impossible to talk to.”

  I walked past him, went downstairs to our bedroom. Surprisingly, he followed. As I changed out of my work clothes, he sat on the bed, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “I know I’ve been off,” he admitted.

  It was the only time he would admit it to me. He’d had a few beers with dinner. It seemed he risked honesty only when he was slightly drunk.

  “I’m just working through some stuff,” he said.

  His offering of this tiny morsel of insight made me hungrier for more. Ravenous, really.

  “What stuff?” I asked.

  I was standing there, naked except for a pair of threadbare underwear that he often referred to as my granny panties. I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t become one of those women who loses all interest in sex and romance after having a baby, but that’s exactly who I’d become.

  “Just some stuff,” he said. “I’m working through it, okay?”

  I let my arms fall by my side in defeat.

  “Why won’t you talk to me?” I asked.

  “Why won’t you trust me to work through what I need to?”

  We were always at this stalemate.

  ARIA HAD SAID to give it to the new year. The new year came and went. Then, before I knew it, it was Evie’s first birthday. Cale hadn’t changed. He had some good days, weeks even, when he seemed happier, more engaged, less distracted by whatever “stuff” was bothering him. Those days, I was quick to think, “Okay, we’re better. Things are better.” But then I’d lose him again. That’s what it felt like—like he was by my side, and then he’d disappear into some dark forest, lost.

  A few months ago, right before Christmas, I decided Evie was old enough for us to actually enjoy a little family trip. Up until that point, it had seemed like more trouble than it was worth to travel. But she was sleeping through the night, eating regular food. She was fun to be around—smiley and playful. It wasn’t overwhelming to go places with her anymore. She just required a few diapers, a sippy cup, some snacks.

  When I was a kid, my parents took Aria and me to Seattle around Christmastime. I had fond memories of it—the tree and lights at the Public Market, everyone bundled up and holding cups of hot cocoa, a light dusting of snow on the ground. It was pure Americana, and I was nostalgic for that. I knew Evie wouldn’t remember it. It wasn’t for her, really. It was for Cale. I was hell-bent on showing him a good time. I persisted in thinking his mood was within my control.

  The moment we arrived at our gate at the airport, I knew I’d made a mistake. I’d fallen into the social media trap, lured by images of what seemed like idyllic trips that other families were taking. Yes, they joked about the challenges of traveling with a young child, posted photos of themselves looking bug-eyed and exhausted on a plane with a maniacal toddler in their laps, using hashtags like #prayforme. I thought it was cute, though. I thought Cale and I would look at each other and laugh. I thought it would bond us.

  So stupid. Truly.

  There was something wrong with our plane. They needed to replace a part, so we were told we’d be in the terminal, waiting, for two hours. I had already presented Evie with every snack I had in my backpack, whipping out a new package of crackers or cookies like a juggling clown. She wasn’t having it. I tried my phone. YouTube videos were a last resort in these situations, and I was already there.

  At first, she quieted. Then, when “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” came on, she threw my phone and said, “No!” Something about the song had deeply offended her, apparently.

  Cale went to her, grabbed her by both wrists, lifted her out of the chair I’d attempted to confine her to.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “She wants to walk around,” he snapped. Even though I continued to do the majority of the childcare, he had this way of making me feel like I was doing it all wrong.

  “Walk ’round,” Evie said, completely oblivious to any tension.

  He stomped off with Evie in his arms. She loved when he held her, because he didn’t do it that often. I told Sahana he was setting her up for a future of chasing after unavailable men.

  The plane flight was even worse than the waiting for the plane flight. We didn’t get Evie her own seat because babies under the age of two can sit on your lap for free. I guess I was an idiot for thinking she would do that—sit on my lap.

  I had her occupied on my lap for a little while, every muscle tight with my attempts to keep her behaving well—not for the sake of the other passengers, but for Cale. She was— still is—obsessed with the Fisher-Price little plastic people, so I put those on the tray for her. When she played with them, I thought, I’m brilliant. I’ve got this. But parenting is the ultimate humbler. It is impossible to feel confident for longer than three seconds.

  Without warning, Evie threw her plastic people in all directions. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one hit the woman across the aisle from us. And one hit Cale right in the face. I thought he was going to scream at me in front of this plane full of people. I thought his outburst would necessitate an emergen
cy landing. Airlines don’t take any chances with possibly unstable people anymore.

  Cale unbuckled his seat belt, even though the seat belt sign was on. He stood up and climbed over me to get to the aisle. Then he went to the bathroom at the back of the plane. When he was still gone after a half hour, I started to worry that he was causing a line to form. I let Evie walk ahead of me to check on him. Someone else came out of the bathroom, so it was obvious he wasn’t in there. I looked up the aisle. He wasn’t there. It was like he’d made himself disappear with sheer willpower alone. But no, he hadn’t disappeared. As I approached the bathroom, I saw there was a little standing-room area for the flight attendants. That’s where he was, just leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. It was the best escape he could manage.

  It was afternoon when we got to Seattle, and Evie still hadn’t napped. I thought she would nap on the plane, thought the white noise of the engines would lull her to sleep, but that didn’t happen. By the time we got our rental car, which took an inordinately long time because they had forgotten to include the car seat, Evie was a manic mess, laughing hysterically one minute and then bursting into tears the next.

  “She needs a nap,” I told Cale.

  “You think?” he said with his unique brand of biting sarcasm.

  We decided to drive around for an hour or so. Evie will sleep on car rides. That’s one of the few things we’ve been able to count on with her. So we drove. It could have been a good opportunity for us to talk. But he was silent. Aggressively silent.

  “You’re tired?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  That was all I got.

  We drove up the I-5 freeway to Everett, then turned around and drove back. I’d booked a room at a waterfront hotel, near Pier 66. Evie woke up right as we pulled into the parking lot, and I thought we could reset, start anew. Cale did not share this sentiment.

  For the entirety of the trip—just two days—he was quiet. His jaw was visibly clenched; I could see the muscles pulsing. In a way, I understood. It wasn’t fun. We had Evie in a Pack ’n Play at night, something we hadn’t tried before, and she kept standing up and saying, “Hi, Mama. Hi, Dada,” like she was so excited at this idea of all of us sleeping in the same room. I kept going to her, placing her on her stomach, patting her back. But she kept popping up. It felt like a game of Whac-A-Mole. At one point, I attempted to get in the Pack ’n Play with her, but it required way too much contorting on my part and seemed to make Evie more excited. Eventually, I lay on the floor next to the Pack ’n Play, so I could be there if she decided to pop up. She did pop up, so many times. When she finally stayed down, it must have been after two in the morning.

  The next day, I tried to make jokes about needing an IV drip of coffee, but Cale was in no mood for jokes. It wasn’t just Cale and I who were tired; Evie was too. She was whiny and cranky when we went to breakfast. We ended up asking for takeout. A huge storm moved in that afternoon. There was no dusting of snow in Seattle this year, just sloppy, wet rain. I’d forgotten the umbrella, so the three of us ran back to the hotel, Evie against my chest, Cale holding her stroller over his head. There was nothing to do but hang out in the room. I suggested going to a brewery or something, but Cale said, “You think we should drink beer and then drive in this rain?” He’d become so adept at making me feel like an idiot.

  Evie was better on the flight home than she was on the flight there. But it didn’t matter at that point. Cale was spent; I was spent. The trip had failed to achieve what I’d wanted; if anything, it’d made things worse.

  I probably shouldn’t have tried to talk to him the night we got back. We were both so, so tired. I couldn’t help it though.

  “Are we going to be okay?” I asked him.

  We were both in bed, lying flat on our backs, staring at the ceiling, listening to the white noise in Evie’s room over the monitor. Or that’s what I was doing. Maybe he was already falling asleep because he responded with, “Huh?”

  “Are we going to be okay?” I repeated.

  He let out a long sigh, a sigh that said I was exhausting him.

  “We’re not good,” I said. My heart was beating fast with this finally released truth.

  “Ang, it’s just a phase,” he said.

  “Is it, though?”

  “You’re making too much of this.”

  “What is ‘this’? Your depression?”

  “Ang, come on.”

  “You’re depressed. Sahana says—”

  “Don’t bring Sahana into this,” he interrupted.

  It was a fair request.

  “I’m just worried,” I said, though that wasn’t all of it. I was angry, frustrated, fed up.

  “You don’t need to worry. I’m fine.”

  I couldn’t just let it end there, where it always did. This time, I did what the toddler books advised—I set a consequence.

  “If things aren’t better by summer, we need to see a counselor,” I said.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you,” he said.

  I rolled over, comforted by the fact that I’d created a deadline for us. I just had to make it until June, then we could get help. Sahana already had a marriage counselor in mind for us, someone she said was “the best of the best.” She’d told me to be patient, that many men are resistant to confronting their depression.

  After that talk, he had more good days. On the bad ones, I just thought of summer and the “best of the best” marriage counselor. That kept me going. Now summer seems like this far-off, exotic place. The future, in general, seems like this far-off, exotic place—a place where I don’t know the language, a place where I get lost.

  By summer, Cale may be back with us—or as “with us” as he’ll ever be able to be. There’s no telling how his mind or body will function. By summer, I may be a widow. On the bad days with Cale, I daydreamed of single parenthood, of being on my own with Evie. In my fantasies, I breezed through the world, light and airy without the weighty burden of Cale’s mood. There was no more tiptoeing around the house, no more energy spent trying to understand or solve his angst. I was free, liberated. Is that how I’ll feel if he dies? Free? I don’t know. Maybe by summer, I’ll know.

  TESSA

  I DECIDE TO PACK my suitcase while Ryan is at the gym. He’s already back to his usual routine, including the Saturday morning two-hour gym session. I told him I’m going to see my mom, so it’s not a secret I’m leaving. But I’m packing much more than necessary because I think I may not be coming back.

  When I told my mom about the shooting, she reacted in just the way I’d predicted—hysterically.

  “What do you mean you were there?” she said.

  There was panic in her voice.

  “I worked at that bar, Mom. Ray’s. I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t approve and—”

  “And you were there?”

  “Yes. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I was just so—”

  “Oh my god,” she said. “Are you hurt?”

  “Mom, it was a week ago. I’m fine. I’ve been fine.”

  “How could you be fine?”

  She was shouting.

  “Physically, I’m fine. Nothing happened to me.”

  “Nothing happened to you?”

  The pitch of her voice was higher than I’d ever heard.

  “Mom, can you calm down?”

  “I’m driving up there.”

  I hear her calling to someone—probably her boyfriend, Rob—in the background: “It’s Tessa. I’ve gotta get to Boise.”

  “Mom, wait,” I said. “I’ll come to you. I’ll drive there.”

  “How can you be okay to drive?”

  “It was a week ago,” I repeated.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think you should drive.”

  “Do you hear yourself? I don’t think you should drive.”

  That quieted her. I heard her breathing—rapidly, then slower.


  “I want to come there,” I told her. “I want to get out of Boise for a few days.”

  “Okay,” she said, relenting finally. “I’ll have your room all set. Will you be here by dinnertime? I’ll make some pasta.”

  “Yeah, I just have one thing to do before I leave. I’ll be there for dinner.”

  “And maybe some garlic bread?”

  This was just like my mom, transferring her anxieties to food preparation.

  “Sure, Mom. Sure.”

  I DON’T REALLY want to see Ryan before I go. I told him last night I’d be leaving while he was at the gym. I told him it would be just for a few days. There’s no need to make it dramatic. Besides, maybe I will come back—to him, to Boise, I don’t know.

  The one thing I want to do before I head out of town is see Joyce.

  It’s just before ten o’clock, and downtown is bustling with people going to the farmers market. Still, I manage to find a parking spot on the street. A bell dings when I walk through the door of the coffee shop, and Joyce looks up from a table in the back and gives me a little wave. It was nice of her to remember to get a table in the back.

  I don’t order anything. I just sit across from her, in the chair she’s left for me, the chair facing the door.

  “It’s good to see you,” she says.

  “You too.”

  It feels like the service for Jed was a year ago, like the shooting was a century ago. But then, if I close my eyes, it feels like I’m still in the storage closet.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “Good,” I say.

  I reach to the middle of the table, grab a sugar packet from the little plastic container. I turn it over in my palm.

  “I told my mom,” I say. “I’m driving to Bend after this.”

  Her eyes widen. “Oh, good. Wait, that is good, right?”

  “Yeah, I think so. It will be good to get out of town for a few days. And I haven’t seen her in so long.”

  “She’ll want to comfort you, I’m sure.”

  Joyce looks down at the table, just for a second, but enough for me to feel her sadness at the fact that she will never get to comfort her child again.