20.

RACHEL PULLED THE BENZ off Lakeshore and onto Parkside Drive. She’d had it washed on the way to the house. Sometimes it was best to leave it dirty, because when it was too clean, too shiny, it made her feel embarrassed. Made her think about people living in alleys, eating out of garbage cans. Most days she could get away with not thinking about things like that. We all have a choice in this life. Look at her; she had lots of excuses, lots of reasons to fall through the cracks. She could have made a mess of her life. But not everyone from a broken home grew up to be a broken person. Some decided on something better for themselves. Set their rudder for a better shore and hoisted sail. Straight into headwind, straight into a storm if need be, but onward.

Still, last night something inside her had felt unsettled. A small crack on the surface. Nothing big or dramatic, but still worth watching, like a hairline fracture on a windshield. It was the Easy-Bake Oven that had started it. Emma had been in the laundry room packing things up in there, and Rachel had been in the playroom, although she didn’t like to call it that anymore. Playroom somehow seemed embarrassing now. It shouldn’t be; everyone was a kid at one time or another. But still, there it was, playroom plus childhood equalled shame.

It had been so humbling, that it should be there in the playroom, behind the old orange sofa that Grandma had refused to throw out. As soon as she saw it, Rachel had remembered – that was where she had stashed her dad’s tie that day so long ago. She had thought about that tie often, had known it wouldn’t be difficult to find as Grandma never threw anything out. Luckily she didn’t buy new stuff much either, or her house would have looked like an episode of Hoarders. She had thought about looking for it often, but somehow, it had always been enough to know that somewhere in the basement her father’s necktie was safe.

Perhaps it had been talking about her dad trying to finish the basement before he died that had made her turn the lights off. It was an embarrassing accident. She didn’t want to deal with Emma, so it was easier to pretend it never happened. Emma had always been good like that. If anyone ever wanted to play “stick your head in the sand and make like whatever’s happening wasn’t,” Emma was game. She didn’t like confrontations. Rachel had only seen her fight for something once in her life. But that had been stupid. Emma had taken on the biggest bully in school for no apparent reason at all. Still, that was it. The only time Rachel saw Emma ever take a stand. So there really was no reason to explain about the lights. It was better to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Rachel was in the driveway now. It had only been a minute since she turned off the Lake, but that minute was gone. She remembered what she had been thinking; turning the lights off in the basement, the Easy-Bake Oven, her dad. But she couldn’t remember being in the car during that time. Couldn’t remember her feet on the accelerator or hands on the wheel. She knew she put the turn signal on, and pulled onto Garden Avenue, then onto Indian Road. She must have done all these things, but all she could remember was that one minute she was on Lakeshore Boulevard, and the next, she was home.

She should have just left the stupid Easy-Bake Oven at the house last night, instead of lugging it up the stairs, hoping Emma wouldn’t see, and then bringing it to her condo. She should have never looked inside. The tie was gone. Gone. Why would Grandma keep the stupid toy all these years in a corner full of old tennis rackets and roller-skates so heavy with dust it was like they had grown moss, yet be bothered to reach inside, pull out the tie and put it somewhere else? Where? Where was it now? Idiotic, that she had brought the dirty old metal oven up the stairs and into her car. Once she had it home in her bedroom, she had opened the door to the oven again to look. Of course it hadn’t been there. What had she expected? Magical thinking. Clearly, she’d been spending too much time with Emma.

Rachel pulled the keys out of the ignition, picked up her briefcase, and walked from the car toward old number 66. She brought her laptop from home with her this time. She had been up since six a.m., so she was prepared. She had a new to-do list, and a plan in place for the day. She would leave Emma to continue packing up the house, while Rachel attended to the endless paperwork that needed to be done in order to finish sorting out her grandmother’s affairs. She still had to call the insurance company. She had meant to do that yesterday. What happened to the time? That day, too, like the drive from the Lakeshore, was also a blur. She’d have to go by the bank sometime during the day to close the account. She also had to look up the protocol online for cancelling Grandma’s health card, her passport, old age pension, and birth certificate. And of course Robertson would have to be contacted to sort out the ridiculous mix up with Wanda and the will. Then later this evening, Sam would be flying in. There was no need to pick him up, as he said he’d take a cab. At least that was one less thing to worry about.

Even before she was up the steps to the house, Rachel could hear voices laughing inside. The fact that Emma was up at all at this time of day was a shocker, but already up and chatting away to someone? Maybe one of the repairmen had come early. Rachel had hired a crew to come by to do the basics, but most of the work she had ordered was for outside. There were repairs to be done to the disintegrating old wood fence, and to the concrete on the walk and the stairs up to the house. The dangling eaves would need to be fixed as well, of course.

She almost knocked. It was the laughter that threw her off. She was on the outside not knowing what was going on inside her own house. Or, at least half of it would be hers soon. She fished in her purse for the key and opened the door.

Emma was wearing Grandma’s purple terry-cloth bathrobe again. It slid off one of her shoulders, leaving a wide, deep V in the front, which showed off her cleavage. She was sitting at the kitchen table laughing, and dipping cut up strips of toast into a soft-boiled egg. Soldiers. That’s what Grandma used to call it when she made their toast like that. “Take your soldier for a yolk dip,” she’d tell them.

Lester was sitting across the table from her. Clearly, he had come to the house like a white knight to save Emma, the damsel in distress. He looked up at Rachel. He was wearing jeans, but no top. That was the worst part. Lester always had a nice chest – not too much hair, but not totally hairless. Some men shaved these days. So silly. What woman wants full body stubble burns? His hair was a mess and that was what really stood out to Rachel. When he had been with her, Lester was always fussing with his hair. He had never let her touch it. She used to call him egomaniacal when they were fighting, and a peacock when things were good. “Oh here he comes strutting his stuff,” she’d say, and they’d laugh, just the two of them for a moment, and no one else. In those moments, he was Rachel’s boy. Rachel’s Lester. Hers.

“Oh shit, what time is it?” Emma pulled the bathrobe up on her shoulders when she saw Rachel come in. No “hello,” “good morning,” or anything like that, more like she had been caught in the act.

“Hi Lester, how are you doing?” Rachel said, putting her briefcase on the floor and hanging up her coat as if it were another day at the office. Someone had to be normal, show some sense of decorum.

“Rachel!” he said, as if surprised. Oh come on. He knew Rachel would be walking through that door any minute. She bet that’s why he kept his shirt off. He knew what effect that would have on her.

“I like how big your eyes get when you look at me naked,” he had said to her once, back when they were living together. Rachel had hated him for saying that. It was one thing to be putty in a man’s hands, and another for him to point it out. That was then. Time had passed. Rachel was older, wiser, stronger now.

“Don’t let me interrupt your breakfast. I’ve got some calls to make this morning,” Rachel said as she headed into the dining room.

“Coffee? You want some?” Emma, overcompensating for her guilt, but Rachel wasn’t in the mood. It was too early in the morning for the drama of the Emma show.

“No,” Rachel yelled, adding “thank you” as a barely audible afterthought.

“Lester came over late last night to check on me,” Emma yelled now from the kitchen. Coward. “He said he wanted to help out today so –”

Let her talk. Rachel knew how to turn it off. She could no longer understand English, she told herself. It was just sound, with no meaning attached. It worked. It always worked. It was a trick Rachel had invented long ago. At first it had been her own thoughts that she couldn’t turn off, as they rambled through her mind in the dark of her bedroom during that time after Wanda had left. She had tried to make her mind stop thinking, but it never worked. So she had come to the idea that if she tried, she could convince herself that she was listening to a foreign language, and she could tune it out. It had taken a bit of practice, but eventually she had it down to an art. All the chatter of her thoughts had become noise, like an adult speaking in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Eventually she had also learned how to do it with voices outside of her head. Of course Emma’s was the first. Blah, blah, blah – oh what interesting sounds. What a musical language. No meaning, no meaning, just sound bubbling in her brain like a creek in spring.

Rachel took out her phone, glad that she had remembered to bring her charger with her this time. She dialed the number to Robertson’s office, and had him on the line within seconds. What a difference a day, and modern technology, made.

“I’m sorry, Rachel, there’s nothing that can be done about it now. The law’s pretty clear.” And then, after Rachel suggested incompetence on his part, “These things happen, Rachel. I’ve been in this situation before, so don’t worry. We have an associate who’s an ace at tracking people down. I spoke to her yesterday, and told her to go by the house to see you. She’s very good. If your mother’s out there, we’ll find her. And if she isn’t, well, we’ll find that out too.”

“And of course that will be an extra expense on your final bill, won’t it?”

“We’ll keep it reasonable,” Robertson said. “Give us a couple of days, to see what we come up with.”

Rachel hung up the phone. She would not be daunted. A dark cloud was only a dark cloud, not a storm. Wanda would be located. The first time she had disappeared, Wanda returned on her own. This time, she’d be rooted from wherever she’d been hiding all these years – whether she liked it or not. The house would be sorted. On schedule.

Emma stood in the entranceway, looking sheepish. Rachel tried not to think of her in bed with Lester the night before, under the covers giggling in the dark house. This house – half hers.

“I just wanted to let you know that the funeral home called just before you came this morning,” Emma said. “Well, they said they can’t get the minister you wanted. They can’t seem to find anyone. But don’t worry, because I’ve got an idea…”

Why hadn’t they called her on her cell? Rachel was the executor. They had all her numbers. Cell, home, office. Who calls the home of a dead woman to tell her there’s a glitch in her funeral arrangements? The notice hadn’t even gone in the paper yet, that was further down on the list. Maybe they could do the funeral early next week. They could do the cremation this week as planned, and hold off a few days. It wasn’t like they were going to do an open casket. Lucky for the funeral home, or they’d really get an earful. Could you imagine if that had been their plan? How would they keep her fresh all this time? She still hadn’t managed to get over there to sign the contract. Maybe she should just agree to hand all the arrangements over to Sam; she had so many other details to attend to.

Emma stopped talking and sulked back into the kitchen. Rachel heard the table being cleared, dishes being washed, the fridge door opening and closing. Lester left Emma to the clean up, and walked down the hall toward the bathroom. He was likely preening for his next appearance.

An hour or so later, there was a knock on the front door. Emma was closest at the time, but Rachel bounded up and toward the door, noticing how Emma cowered a bit as she passed her. Emma was always so scared of everything.

Through the peephole, Rachel saw another face she didn’t recognize. A woman this time, in a light grey business suit. The woman looked professional, hair all pulled back into a neat bun. Likely a Jehovah’s Witness coming to convince them all that there was such thing as a God. How could human civilization come so far? We’ve landed on the moon, sent satellites out to the edges of the solar system. How much proof do we need? All that’s up there is space, dust, gas, planets, stars, black holes and dark matter, like a web holding the whole apparatus together. But God? Some guy in a long white beard looking down on us all? No. In thousands of years, not one scrap of verifiable evidence has been found to support their claims, besides the odd face of Jesus, burned suspiciously onto the surface of a tortilla, or a slice of toasted Wonder Bread.

Rachel opened the door. “Yes? Can I help you?” she asked the woman.

“Are you Rachel? Or is it Emma?” The woman removed her sunglasses. They were oversized, like Jackie O’s. That should have been the tip off: Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t wear sunglasses. And they certainly don’t come to the door already knowing your name. How did she know their names? Rachel didn’t like to be at a disadvantage.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I should have introduced myself. My name is Ms. Fletcher. Nina. You can call me Nina. I got a call from George Robertson, and I was in the area. He said we should get started on your case right away.”

Rachel blinked in the sunlight.

The woman seemed to be able to read her thoughts. Whoever she was, she was astute.

“Finding your mother so you can settle your grandmother’s will,” she said. “Oh, yes of course,” Rachel said. “That was fast. Yes, it is a rush. Please, come in.” Rachel ushered the woman into the house. After that, the two exchanged the requisite pleasantries. It’s getting warm outside, isn’t it? Can I get you coffee, tea, water? Rachel was relieved when Nina said no. She didn’t want to waste time fiddling with coffee filters or tea bags – she wanted to get this show on the road. Apparently, Ms. Fletcher did too, as she looked at the empty kitchen chair. It was the same chair that Lester had been sitting in.

“May I?” She sat down, and opened her briefcase without waiting for an answer. On a pad of yellow paper, Rachel saw the notes. The woman’s writing was messy, but still you could make out a few of the words. “Mother.” “Wanda.” “Dead or Alive.”

Rachel sat across from the woman, looking quick at the light switch. She didn’t need to touch it; looking was enough. She looked once, only once.

“So when was the last time you saw you mother?” Ms. Fletcher asked.

“When she lived here,” Rachel replied, immediately feeling like an idiot when she noticed the look of puzzlement her cryptic statement was met with.

“After she brought Emma back,” Rachel tried again. No, no. That didn’t help. She was giving this woman the wrong impression and coming off like a flake.

Nina’s purse began to buzz.

“Excuse me,” she said, adding, “My daughter just learned to text.” Nina opened her purse and glanced at her phone. Rachel took the moment to compose herself.

“I was eleven, Emma was ten,” Rachel said. “It was 1977.” Better. That was better. She started to feel more herself and answered the rest of the questions with her usual level of clarity. Facts, they were Rachel’s business. She put together facts and made sense of them. What was the probability that Wanda would be found? It was too early to say. There were too many variables not yet accounted for. One of which was this Ms. Fletcher. So far, Rachel liked her. She was cool, unaffected, and efficient. She didn’t try to console Rachel, or heaven forbid, do something ridiculous like reach across the table and pat her hand. No. She was there to do a job, and so far seemed to be doing it well. If appearances were any indication, Ms. Fletcher would up the probability of getting this mess sorted in time considerably.

“Oh my God! Nina? Nina Buziak?”

Rachel turned around. Behind her, Emma was standing in the doorway, staring at Ms. Fletcher as if she had seen a ghost. Buziak? Where did she get that name? And how did Emma have any connection to this calm, competent woman sitting at their grandmother’s kitchen table.

Ms. Fletcher’s composure faltered for a moment. Her brow furrowed, she took a deep breath as if winded as she looked towards the door.

“Emma,” she said. That was all. No emotion was betrayed on her face, yet her voice suggested recognition, and something else that Rachel couldn’t put a label on.

“What are you doing here?” Emma asked, now starting to giggle.

Nina was about to reply. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, as she stared behind Rachel to the doorway where Emma stood. Lester was standing next to Emma now. At least he had put a shirt on.

“Oh my God.” It was apparently Nina’s turn to call out the name of the lord now. It became clear to Rachel that something was going on that she didn’t understand. Details and information that it seemed everyone in the room was privy to, except her.

“Lester,” Nina said, still staring. “Lester – Templeton? It’s Templeton right?”

Lester smiled.

“Yep, that’s right. Templeton. It’s me.”

Emma walked over towards Nina, as if she was going to touch her. Make sure she was real.

“Nina Buziak,” she repeated. Rachel was getting frustrated. Okay, clearly everyone here knows everyone’s name. Enough already.

“So, you all… You all know one another?” Rachel needed to say something to insert her presence once again into the proceedings. Just when it seemed things were beginning to move forward, that this Nina Fletcher, or Buziak or whatever her name was, actually had the ability to solve the Wanda dilemma and put things back on track, all it took was for Emma to merely enter the room for the whole process to slide into chaos.

Lester beamed. Nina looked decidedly flustered and uncomfortable.

“We all go way back,” Emma said, giggling again.

Great, Rachel thought. That made it clear as mud. Way back where? Okay, enough staring and giggling and making no sense. Time to get the morning back on track.

“Anyway, Ms. Fletcher…” was all Rachel managed to get out of her mouth, when there was a knock at the door. “Oh, for Chrissake, now what?” Rachel said, not meaning to say it out loud. She was on her feet, pushing past Lester with a slight shove that felt cathartic, and moving to the door.

The peephole showed two men standing on the porch in overalls. The repairmen. She had been eager for them to come. They were supposed to be at the house half an hour ago. Still, she resented their presence now. It took her from the kitchen, and the conversation that continued on without her. Rachel opened the door and gave the men their instructions: paint the garage, then repair the fence and the eaves. Check back with her after that to see what else. Was she barking at them? They looked frazzled and confused, like they wanted to linger and tell her their life stories. No, instead, they began to ask stupid questions about what kind of paint she wanted them to use, and how she wanted them to secure the eaves. Had she considered replacing them altogether? Because to them, it looked like it would be just as much work to repair what was up there than to tear the whole thing down and start new. Then they began to argue about the possible costs of a new installation versus the relative length of time repairs would likely last until they would have to be done again.

“For fuck’s sakes, just fix the thing.” Oh. That didn’t come out right at all. The men both stood staring at her, speechless. One turned to leave.

“No! I’m sorry,” Rachel said, feeling insincere. Apologies in general were a waste of time. If you did something and it was a mistake, it would become apparent by the fact that you didn’t do it again. Apologies always seemed like sucking up, a way to get off the hook. “I’m sorry,” Rachel repeated. “My mother. Our mother died a few days ago. This was her house. We just want to clean it up enough to sell.” She had no idea why she lied. Things were happening too fast. There was no time to think clearly. Instead, she felt like she was flying on instinct, doing whatever her impulses dictated. It seemed as if, with each breath, the probability of her taking a misstep was increasing exponentially.

The men seemed relieved by her explanation, as expressions of condolence passed over their faces. That was worse. She should have left it at the swearing. Now she got pity. Pathetic.

“Sorry,” she said again, in spite of herself, then closed the door.