Chapter 15

Friday, February 21, 2014

Alex

Colleen knocks on the door, and there she is, right when she said she would be. She called earlier to say that Eric was taking the kids to New Hampshire to go skiing, so could she bring over Indian takeout? The answer, of course, was, Yes please, always, anytime. Now she’s standing at my door, holding a big paper bag from the place in Newburyport. Plus, two bottles of Kingfisher beer to go with it. Without makeup, her eyes look puffy, her face exhausted but open and childlike. I wish there were something I could do for her, but I have a feeling that just eating Indian food with her is the best I can offer.

“Hungry?” she asks, smiling weakly.

“Yes! That smells amazing.” I am starved. I spent the day wandering around Home Depot studying tools and supplies and discussing my projects with various sales people, trying to figure out what I need and how to start. I feel like I deserve a big meal. We rip open aluminum foil coverings and tear lids off containers, then fill paper plates with steaming curries, rice, naan, samosas, dosas, and an extra greasy order of pakoras. The spice is fragrant and strong, and the food is satisfying. It’s not India, but it’s good for now.

Colleen takes small bites and eats as though the process is exhausting.

“Try to eat,” I say. “It really will help.”

She glances up at me with nobody-asked-you eyes. “How are the projects going?”

I clear my throat. “The wiring is done,” I say, digging through the bag for napkins. “So, the house is no longer a matchstick waiting for a flint.” I suddenly realize that this was the wrong thing to say. “Oh, Colleen. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says, pushing rice around with her fork. “Good that it’s done. That’s a big deal.”

I nod. “It is. A big deal with a big price tag. Next, I need to fix the roof and install new windows, but I may have to wait until spring for those. But now that I have twenty-first-century electricity, I’m daydreaming about new appliances. Maybe even a washing machine.”

“Oh, that’s exciting,” Colleen says. “Can I help pick things out?”

“You’re welcome to ogle with me,” I say. “But at the end of the day, I can’t go too crazy. I’m on a budget.”

“That’s renovation math for you,” she says. “Dreams divided by bank account. I wish we could pitch something in, but we’re tapping into the college funds to rebuild our house.”

“Wow, Colleen,” I say, putting a samosa on her plate. “That’s a bummer.”

She shrugs. “Eric still insists that the insurance company owes us money. But until they pay up, Ethan’s and Maddie’s futures are lending it to us.”

I shake my head in sympathy.

Colleen uses a plastic fork and knife to slice her samosa into manageable pieces. It doesn’t work too well.

“You’re allowed to eat that with your hands,” I say.

“It’s too greasy,” she says. Then she pauses and looks at me quizzically. “I’ve had a lot of extra time for thinking lately.”

“That sounds dangerous,” I say.

She nods. “I think a lot about money. You have some of Mom’s jewelry, right?”

“Sure, packed away somewhere,” I say. Our father distributed it among the three of us after I turned eighteen, before I went to college. He put a pile on the kitchen table and told us to divide it among ourselves; he didn’t care who got what as long as nobody was complaining. None of us wanted to take anything; it felt too much like we were taking pieces of Mom. I ended up with a couple of necklaces and bracelets. Classics of gold and pearl—pretty enough, but not really anything I’d ever wear.

“Why?” I say. “You think it’s worth something?”

“I have some gold pieces,” she says. “I’m going to take them to a jeweler. Just to see.”

“I always thought they were fake,” I say.

“I don’t know,” she says, wiping her fingers on a paper napkin. “Sometimes I wonder if she came from money. She seemed different from other people. Not just because she was from California or because she was an artist. She . . . carried herself differently. Not in a snooty way, just a little more refined or something. Poised, I guess. Do you remember that?”

“I’m not sure,” I say.

“She’d mention things,” Colleen continues. “She took dance classes when she was young. Not ballet, but, like, manners class. What’s that called? With white gloves. Cotillion. And something about how oyster forks are the only forks that ever go to the right of the plate.”

“Why would that even come up?” I ask.

“Dad brought home oysters one time,” she says. “We didn’t actually have oyster forks, she was just teasing, like, ‘Don’t forget, Colleen, oyster forks go to the right of the spoon.’ ”

“That’s funny,” I say.

Colleen nods. “I didn’t understand when we were little. But it’s kind of coming back to me now.” She dips a piece of samosa into the sweet brown tamarind sauce. “Like I said, I have extra time to think.”

“Like I said,” I say, “sounds dangerous.”

Our mother is a puzzle, but the pieces are contained only in memory, an unreliable medium that shifts and changes beneath our very touch. There might be a picture, but we will never see it unless we figure out what the pieces are and how they fit together. And most days, I don’t know how to start.

“Hey,” I say. “Do you remember that Mom liked jazz?”

“Sure,” she says. “She used to stay up in that attic room for hours, painting, and all we’d hear was muffled clarinet music coming through the ceiling.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I say.

“Sometimes I’ll be at a doctor’s office or at a party and hear something she used to listen to, real classic jazz like Thelonious Monk or Duke Ellington,” she says. “Then I feel like I’m back there for a moment, downstairs, while Mom is in the attic, painting.”

“That’s a nice memory,” I say. “Can I borrow that?”

She laughs a little. “Help yourself.”

After dinner Colleen and I toss the plates and napkins in the trash and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. Then Colleen goes to the other room and brings me something from her purse. “I picked this up for you. I have a friend who works in adoption services.” She pulls a stack of papers and a booklet from her purse and puts them on the table.

“What is it?” I ask. She nods at the papers, so I touch them, look at them, not lifting them off the table. It’s an adoption application and a booklet about how to apply. “Colleen . . .”

“I know what you’re going to say. All you do is fill this out, and then somebody contacts you and walks you through every step. You’d have plenty of time before . . . you know, you actually get a child. This is just the beginning.”

“Thanks, I know how it works,” I say. “There’s an application and an interview and somebody takes a dental pick and scrapes at all the messy little corners of your life to determine, Oh, you don’t have this, and you aren’t that . . .”

“It’s not that bad, Alex,” she says. “My friend said you’d be an excellent candidate. And with this company, you pay a fee and everything is included. The legal fees, the home visit . . .”

I laugh to myself. “First of all, those fees? Can run into tens of thousands of dollars before you’ve even bought a box of diapers. I don’t have that. And the home visit, that’s when they send someone over to examine the house, to make sure it’s appropriate for children. Does this house look child-appropriate to you?”

Colleen sighs. “It could be. The schools around here are excellent. So, you tell the social worker you’re renovating. Everybody understands a work in progress.”

I grit my teeth. I don’t owe her an explanation, but she’s not going to leave me alone until I give her one. “It’s not in the cards for me, Colleen. I don’t have a partner. They’ll want to know what kind of support system I have. And I don’t even have a job right now.”

“You could get a job any time. You work in health care. They’re always saying there’s a shortage of nurses.”

My sister does not quit, and now we are shouting over each other. “I don’t have a plan, Colleen. I can’t say to them, Well yeah, if you find a kid before I sell this house, then sure, I can stay and fix up a room and find a job and get, oh, I don’t know, a stroller and a car seat and a nanny. But hey, adoption people, I’m not going to stick around if this process is going to drag on for a couple of years. So, if you need me, I’ll be in India—”

“Stop, Alex. Don’t even say it,” she cries. “Why are you giving up? If you want a child, fill out the application.”

“You don’t get it,” I say. “I’ve moved on. Why can’t you?”

“I didn’t know this was a thing until two weeks ago,” she says.

I take a deep breath and try to speak calmly. “If I was going to adopt, or try to, or even start the process, I’d have to decide that this is what I’m doing.” I point frantically toward the ground. “This place, this town, this house, this way of life. But I don’t want to. This house was not my plan. It would feel like I was giving in.”

Colleen stands by the table, holding herself up, a hurt look on her face. “Is having a child the same as giving in?” she says. “Do you feel like I gave in? Like I settled for something?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, Colleen. Was there something you wanted to do that you put off to raise your family? Is some part of your soul dying under the weight of your gleaming marble counters? Because I feel like mine might.”

“You are not the only person with a soul, Alex. Mine was taken out from under me in ways that you cannot understand. And you act like I’m insulting your moral integrity by bringing this over.” Colleen picks up the application and rips the sheets apart, then throws the pieces around the room. “If you don’t want to fill this out, don’t do it, but stop acting like you’re the only person who has pain.”

The look on her face is angry as she picks up the shreds of paper. “Don’t,” I say. “I’m sorry, Colleen.”

“Forgive me for trying to help,” she says, still scooping up the paper. “Forgive me for trying to bring something good into this family. After everything else . . .”

“Colleen, you don’t need to—” I take the papers from her hand and shove them into the trash. Suddenly the lights in the dining room flicker and blink. Then they flicker and blink again.

“What’s that about? New wiring shouldn’t do that,” Colleen says.

“It’s fine,” I say, because I think I know what’s coming. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You need to call the guy and have him look at this,” she says.

“I’ll call him tomorrow,” I say, gently easing her away from the light switch. “It’s okay for now. Hey, Colleen, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay, I get it,” she says, and she throws her jacket on, grabs her purse, and dashes to the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I catch her before she goes out. “Thanks for dinner.”

“You know, Alex, this house . . .” she says. “I know it wasn’t in your plan, but it’s an amazing coincidence, isn’t it? Your own house, and it’s right here. Near your family. It could be that everything’s falling into place for you.”

“Maybe,” I say, but I don’t meet her eyes.

She scoffs. “But if you don’t want to be here, I’m not going to hold you back.”

I smile sadly. “Thanks,” I say.

We each smile a little and say our disappointed goodbyes. Then I close the door behind her, switch on the dim porch light, and watch her get into her car.

There is a knot in the pit of my stomach, a place in my body that knows that if I return to India, I will let people down. But I also know that I cannot live my life for anybody but me.

“It is not fair!” I shout out loud to the closed front door and the empty room. “This has been going on for twenty-five years, and it is not fair.”

Before I turn back toward the room, the lights behind me flicker and blink, on, off, on, off. Oh, God, I think. I woke it up again. I shudder as the house begins to feel cold and small, and the shadows around me grow strange and alive.

And then it begins. It starts the way it usually does, with the sound of footsteps running up and down the hallway upstairs. A child’s footsteps, I realize, or at least, something small. Something small, running. That could be squirrels in the attic. Couldn’t it?

Then, in the living room, men’s voices. Snippets of whispers, their sources unseen. No matter how hard I listen, I can’t figure out what they are saying. Maybe it’s not human at all; maybe it’s animals behind the walls, making their nests and having their babies in whatever insulation is left. With this house, anything is possible.

I press my hands to my head to ward off a spasm of vertigo that I know will have the room spinning beneath me, which I am pretty sure is the beginning of a panic attack. I don’t know how long I will be able to convince myself that these sounds are just coming from the house; I already only half believe it. I drift through the rooms, past the dining room and into the kitchen. The voices are upstairs now, muttering and flustered. Then, a child’s low cry rings out. I hate that part.

“Stop, stop, stop,” I whimper.

But it continues. And I stand with my back to the kitchen counter, gripping my head, refusing to believe what I am starting to believe. The sounds taper off into an uneasy quiet, and the dining room lights flicker again. The air around me is ice cold. The lights dim and blink.

I peel my hands off my head and look around. Suddenly—the lights are on and steady. The house is quiet, but it’s a quiet I can’t trust. “Hello?” I whisper meekly.

In that moment, the water in the kitchen faucet, inches from where I stand, switches on. I gasp, shudder, and cover my mouth.

Water streams from the spout, evenly and without malice. See? Just like Dad’s, another old house with bad plumbing, old pipes, and crumbled stop valves. My hand shakes as I reach instinctively toward the handle to switch it off, then change my mind, then repeat the dance like my hand itself doesn’t know what to do. Finally, I switch it off and quietly berate myself for being spooked.

On top of everything else, I need a plumber.

I feel my lungs tighten, and my breath becomes shallow and fast. I feel like I am drowning. “You can breathe, you’re just hyperventilating,” I whisper. “Get a hold of yourself.” And I will. But eventually, I will have to walk upstairs alone, turn the lights off, lie there in the dark, and try to sleep.

Oh, calm down, I tell myself, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s only wind, rodents, wiring, squirrels in the attic, bugs in the walls.

The one thing it is not, I decide, is ghosts. I refuse to let this become a ghost story. But I’m not sure my shaking hands buy that.