Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet (classic fiction txt) 📕

very likely. He could use all of it if need be. He risked a brief glance at Susan’s face: astounded. Almost stricken. He had blindsided her. He felt a surge of elation.

“Hal, that’s . . .”

“Come on, Dad,” said Casey. “What do you know about missing persons?”

“Actually a fair amount,” said Hal. His eyes were dry and his head was almost spinning—or would be if he lay down—so he was gratified at his own lucidness. “I’ve been tracking down delinquent taxpayers for years. It’s part of my job.”

He mainly supervised the process these days, of course. A technicality.

Sal was picking all of the bay leaves out of his leftover soup and placing them one by one, with a wiping motion, on his placemat. Hal found himself captivated by the process. Its repugnance was bold. Practically courageous.

Was Sal insane, actually?

“Honey, we should talk about this,” said Susan.

“You need someone you can trust,” said Hal, a bit severely. He knew himself for a liar, because she could not trust him now, not when he was angry. Not at all. But honey? The nerve of the woman. “You need a known quantity. There’s nothing more to discuss.”

There was a silence, the guests chewing their food. Possibly they were simply bored. Hal noticed again that his beer bottle was empty; at the same time Nancy reached for a saltshaker and knocked her wineglass over. Red wine flowed and then dripped over the edge of the table.

“I’m getting up anyway. I’ll get something to clean that with,” said Hal.

“Daddy, I think it’s brave of you,” said Casey softly. “I do. Volunteering like that.”

He felt a rush of tenderness toward her as he rounded the end of the table behind her chair and looked down at the golden cap of hair on her head, neat and small and shining—but then she too was deceiving him, albeit to a lesser degree. From now on, in his nightmares, she would say “I’m a slut” . . .

Not words to reassure a parent. No indeed.

It was settled: he would fly away from all of it and that would leave the field wide open, he reflected as he went into the kitchen. He had already forgotten what he came for . . . a rag? A rag for cleaning up the spilt wine. And a beer for drinking. He didn’t care if he drove home at all; he would be happy to fall asleep here. Too drunk to drive would be, the more he thought about it, a very neat solution . . . of course Susan had her own car, but he could claim he did not want to leave his here, didn’t want to have to come back for it in the morning. He would get so goddamn drunk no one could reason with him.

Then he would get into a plane and leave the field wide open; the field was crammed with paralegals, all of them stoutly armed with condoms.

Possibly, he reflected, Susan and Robert had an Oedipal relationship. She was, after all, twice his age.

Here also he would leave the fat, ugly men on phone-sex lines, grunting and jerking off as they listened to his baby girl.

It was all crumbling. No one had his back anymore, no one was with him. Not a single person. All he felt at his back was a cold wind, a falling-off into nothing. As he left, an abyss yawned behind him. He’d nearly been swept in.

Before him, the ground would be more solid. Anyway there was nothing more Susan could do to him once he was far away—nothing she wasn’t already doing.

His own bed, slow and lavish afternoons.

• • • • •

Although she made the arrangements for him dutifully he could feel Susan’s shock reverberate throughout the day. It was gratifying, in a minor way. She had not let him pass out alone at Casey’s as he preferred to, had insisted on sleeping alongside him in the guest room. But still he had crept away from the dinner early, three glasses of wine and two rapidly quaffed beers under his belt behind the two whiskeys, and collapsed on the edge of the bumpy futon. He slept so heavily he did not even register her presence when she came in later, and in the morning he got up stealthily, leaving her fast asleep with her back turned to him. He rinsed his face, brushed his teeth with toothpaste on a finger, and kissed Casey’s forehead before he left, stopping at a gas station to chase three aspirin with a can of V8.

He was glad of the shock. He would not like to see Susan get comfortable with his gesture, adjust to it easily. He wanted her to recognize this as a private venture whose meaning was locked up to her and out of sight, a gesture belonging solely to him.

He drove home and packed a suitcase with a few changes of casual clothing, a shaving kit and some work boots. All he had for sneakers were worn-out Converse hightops, probably fifteen years old. He packed his passport, which he was relieved to see was still good, a phone card, a cheap camera. The dog regarded him patiently as he ordered the items in the case; he felt a stab of affection or regret, hard to say which.

But Susan would take good care of the dog, he did not need to worry. In fact the dog would probably be right here, watching calmly and every so often blinking, as she and her boyfriend thrashed and moaned on the bed.

Would the dog observe a moving tableau, slow and graceful with soft shadows and a gentle light—and therefore chilling to Hal if he saw it himself? With the dog as his proxy, would he have a connection to this? Or maybe the dog would see a labored, awkward contact, something Hal could watch with contempt or disgust, almost entirely unmoved. Would a dog perceive any difference?

Dogs had the habit of watching when you