Something was wrong with the car. Adam had managed to get it back from the end of the Neck to his grandmother’s driveway, only stalling a couple times on the way, and fortunately not when he was passing anyone walking on the road. But he was probably going too fast when he turned into the driveway, to keep from stalling again, and halfway down he’d hit something hard, a rock or a tree root. The car juddered once, twice, and then the engine cut out.
He released the clutch, pumped the gas pedal, shoved the gearshift into neutral, forward, and reverse. Nothing. After trying the ignition a few more times, he climbed out of the car and kicked one of the tires. An oily taint of skunk drifted toward him, strong enough that when he heard a raspy scuffle he started around to make sure a white stripe wasn’t waddling toward him out of the woods. Only a chipmunk diving behind a tree stump. Overhead, a flock of starlings flew into one of the pine trees and began jeering.
Already a light scatter of brown needles lay across the hood. In the brief time it had been sitting in the driveway, the car had taken on the fixed look of something that had been there for decades. He opened the trunk, not so much expecting to find something useful there, but because, like kicking the tires, it seemed to be what you did when your car broke down. As he was lifting the hatch, he noticed something yellow at the back of the trunk.
It was a small spiral notepad. He opened it, startled by the round, childlike handwriting, then saw his mother’s name penciled on the inside of the cover. Where had it come from?
Mostly it seemed like a notepad of lists. What a surprise. She’d been keeping lists since she was born. Names of girls. Boys’ names. Names like Champ, Scout, Taffy, Rex that appeared to be dog names. A page of knock-knock jokes. Lists of ice cream flavors, apparently in order of preference. Then he reached the last page.
How to Be a Better Girl
close mouth while chewing
say please and thank you
keep hair out of face
change underwear every day
do not slurp soup
do not ask for seconds while others are eating firsts
The mention of underwear was so cringifying that it took him a moment to understand that this was a list of reminders. Judging by the reasonably steady handwriting, and the confident spelling, she must have been about nine or ten. Which meant this list was composed after her mother had left. A list of reminders, in other words, that a mother should have given a daughter about good manners (close mouth while chewing, say please and thank you), reminders that he himself had been given, plenty of times. But since her mother wasn’t there, she’d had to supply these reminders for herself.
At the thought of a lonely child reviewing her own bad behavior, a choking sadness all but overwhelmed him. He leaned against the car, gazing up at the trees. Then he stiffened and glared at the notepad. What was it doing in the trunk, tossed in as casually as an extra pair of sneakers? He looked at the list again, and then closed the notepad and set it back where he’d found it. Or where it had been meant to be found.
Radioactive, this pathetic list. Should not be touched by human hands.
BY THE TIME he opened the screen door, it was past noon. The sun had shifted and inside the kitchen it seemed nearly dark. He washed his hands and dried them on a dish towel before opening the refrigerator and drinking directly from the milk carton.
In the living room, the tray still sat on the picnic table, the strawberries shriveled and the butter now melted in its saucer. His useless phone lay on the sofa where he’d left it. But there was a fresh box of doughnuts, and his grandmother was awake and clutching the armrests of her chair. Looking, if possible, even worse than she had earlier. Her thin hair stuck up in different directions, and the lenses of her pinkish glasses were more smudged.
“I think I need to call a tow truck,” he said, halting by the picnic table.
She stared over the tops of her glasses. “Your mother was here.”
“I know. I have her car. I ran over something and now the car won’t start. I think I did something to it.”
He lifted the lid on the box of doughnuts and selected a chocolate glazed. As he bit into it, he realized his grandmother was still staring at him.
“So what happened?” he asked through a mouthful of doughnut. “Did she say she was sorry for last night?”
His grandmother pulled a tissue from her sleeve. “Yelled at me.”
“She yelled at you?” Adam was stupefied.
“Said you’re leaving as soon as she finds that dog. Said she doesn’t care what happens to me.” She paused to wipe her nose. “Said she’d make arrangements for me.”
“She said what?”
“Wants to stick me in an old folks home. Leave me there to die. And it won’t take long,” his grandmother said with a choleric sniff, “I’ll tell you that.”
“I don’t believe it.”
She turned partway in her chair, her mouth an angry horseshoe, long chin hairs catching the light from the window beside her.
“I mean,” he said, “I don’t believe my mom would say something like that.”
But he did believe it. He pictured her sitting in the lake, laughing, her bra showing through her wet blouse. Preparing a sauce full of garlic to feed to an octogenarian who was deathly allergic. Bullying that same octogenarian until she practically fell into her plate. She had lost her mind. She was having some kind of nervous breakdown, triggered by having to deal with the woman who’d deserted her. Who had left her to scold herself for chewing with her mouth open and slurping soup. Away from her clients and her office, her garden, her small talk with neighbors, her book club, her shrink friends having wine on the patio, all her usual ways of controlling everything, his mother was having some sort of psychotic episode. From an overdose of self-pity, she had become someone who could—unintentionally, for sure—try to kill a sick old woman because of unresolved childhood issues. (Hadn’t he heard stories like this all his life?) Or at least park her in a place that would kill her.
She would, of course, be incapable of recognizing any of this about herself. Even think it.
Half ashamed of these thoughts, but also half convinced by them, he dropped the doughnut back in the box and shoved the box off the table. “She’s crazy,” he said.
He was sorry for his mother. He was sad she was so screwed up. But she couldn’t be trusted. Not right now.
His grandmother gave a harsh hiccup. “Just get a gun and shoot me.” She was eyeing the box of doughnuts on the floor.
“Don’t say that.”
“Get a gun and shoot me,” she repeated. “I’m not leaving this house.”
Adam shook his head. “No one’s going to make you leave.”
“She will.” Horrifyingly, her glasses fogged up as she started to weep.
“No, she won’t,” he said, keeping the picnic table between them.
His grandmother hiccuped again. “What can you do about it?”
“I’m going to stay here.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that this was what he’d intended to say all along. He’d probably known since the first evening, when he and his grandmother sat up drinking cognac and speaking French; he’d known more definitely since last night, when he helped her off the bathroom floor, bathed and dressed her, and brought her tea, and then told her what had happened to him, and she, without meaning to, but even so, had made him feel better.
It was the first clear emotion he’d had in a long time: that he wanted to stay here by the lake, with his grandmother.
“I’ll stay,” he repeated, his throat swelling as if he had gulped too much water at once.
His grandmother blew her nose. A sly smile seemed to cross her face, which he hoped he’d imagined. It didn’t matter. It was done. He’d said what he said and there was no going back. But before he could say anything else, there was a thump on the deck, just outside the screen door, followed by barking.
Freddy had returned.
It must be a sign, Adam thought, blood leaping in confusion. A reward for the pledge he’d just made.
Crying, “Freddy!” he threw the door open.
In a great golden heave, Freddy bounded into the room. Fur stiff with mud and pine resin, radiating skunk, trailing twigs and a long pair of bulrushes from his tail, he hurtled past Adam like an angelic beast from a medieval tapestry and launched himself straight as a thunderbolt at the old woman in her chair.