When She Was Gone Read Free Page A

the cellophane as he came to the door. He heard her coming, but let her ring the bell anyway.
    â€œFor you,” she’d said. “Um, for the mail.”
    He’d wanted to swipe the crumb from the corner of her mouth. He’d wanted to tie the lace of her pink sneaker, unlooped and dangerous.
    â€œThank you,” he said, taking a single brownie, not the whole plate.
    â€œNo,” said Linsey. “All of them.”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “Except this one’s for you.” He removed another, just three left. The brownie tasted of cocoa, and vaguely metallic, like mix. Not unpleasing.
    â€œDid you make them?”
    Linsey was eating again. “Mmm,” she said.
    â€œDo you want milk?”
    â€œI have to go back,” she said.
    â€œI could give you a lesson,” he said, and Linsey looked puzzled, though she’d been eyeing the piano through the curved glass of the turret.
    â€œNo,” she said. “I play flute. Bye.” She turned and ran, and Mr. Leonard watched with trepidation, but she didn’t trip. The brownies had come on a paper plate, so there was nothing to return.
    â€¢   •   •
    Now Mr. Leonard watched Linsey leave her porch. She’d slung her little black backpack over one shoulder and she looked small under the weight of the morning light. The zipper wasn’t closed all the way; he imagined the contents spilling out like food from an interrupted mouthful. She stepped out to the street as if waiting for something. Then she started down Sycamore, sneakers almost silent on the sidewalk. She walked past Mr. Leonard’s house, and then she was gone.
    The houses were quiet, his and hers. He fingered the keys without pressing for a while, then allowed himself a Lully minuet, softer than it should be, but innocent. It was almost nine by the time the twins slammed open the door, running for the camp bus. Mr. Leonard was playing a requiem now; he felt like something was ending. Cody and Toby kicked the screen door on the porch and let in the quick, hot breeze. A single yellow leaf fell from the dogwood in front of their house. As the boys shoved each other along toward the bus, legs long and brown, one face pinched, the other open, the note in the mailbox stirred. The breeze broke the tape’s kiss with the iron, tugged the corner free from the lid. Mr. Leonard didn’t see the paper as it floated free, then landed with fateful precision, the edge slipping between the floorboardsof the porch. The door opened again, Mrs. Stein calling after her boys, “I love you! Have fun!” and the note fell into the lightless land between the porch’s latticed-in legs and the concrete foundation of the house.
    Later, when they came to question him, Mr. Leonard would try to be faithful to the morning. He remembered the note, but assumed they already knew. He remembered a lot of things, but only answered their questions. By then, the word “vanished” had wafted into his windows like the stray spittle that worked its way from rain through the screens. But vanished, Mr. Leonard thought, was a relative term. Linsey knew where she was, he thought, Linsey knew what she was seeing and hearing, what tastes touched her tongue.
    He’d seen her seeing him. It wasn’t as if he could help himself—it wasn’t as if he was really living in his body—sometimes at the piano, sometimes inside the music. Mr. Leonard knew something about Linsey, something secret. But then, he had secrets of his own; he understood, and he wasn’t telling.

26 SYCAMORE STREET
    A bigail Stein listened to the hissing of the trash truck as it turned the corner from Cedar Court, the cul-de-sac. She loved that the twins were gone for the long camp day, dashed out to the bus at the curb like birds toward a handful of tossed crumbs. During the school year, they were home or on the Mom bus to sports by 2:56 PM —but camp went until four