Carter picked up Blue from James Harris’s house in the morning.
“It’s all going to be fine, Patty,” he said.
She didn’t argue. Instead she made Toaster Strudel, and told Korey she couldn’t wear a choker to school, and had to listen while Korey told her she was practically a nun, and then her daughter was gone, and Patricia stood in her house, alone.
Even though it was October, the sun warmed the rooms and made her sleepy. Ragtag found a patch of sunlight in the dining room and collapsed onto it, ribs rising and falling, eyes closed.
Patricia had so many projects—finish with the kitchen cabinets, pick up all the newspapers and magazines on the sun porch, do something with the saltwater tank in the laundry room, vacuum the garage room, clean out the closet in the den, change the sheets—she didn’t know where to begin. She had a fifth cup of coffee and the silence in the house pressed down on her, and the sun kept getting hotter and warmer, thickening the air into a sleep-inducing fog.
The phone rang.
“Campbell residence,” she said.
“Did Blue get to school all right?” James Harris asked.
A thin sheen of sweat broke out across Patricia’s upper lip and she felt stupid, like she didn’t know what to say. She took a breath. Carter trusted James Harris. Blue trusted him. She had kept him at arm’s length for three years and what had that achieved? He was important to her son. He was important to her family. She needed to stop pushing him away.
“He did,” she said, and made herself smile so he could hear it in her voice. “Thank you for taking him in last night.”
“He was pretty upset when he showed up,” James Harris said. “I’m not even sure why he chose to come here.”
“I’m glad he thinks of it as a place he can go,” she made herself say. “I’d rather him be there than out wandering the streets. It’s not as safe in the Old Village as it used to be.”
James Harris’s voice took on the relaxed quality of someone who had plenty of time to chat. “He said he was scared you’d gone next door and called the police, so he hid in the bushes behind Alhambra for a while. I didn’t know if he’d eaten, so I heated up some of those French bread pizzas. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Is there something going on at home?” James Harris asked.
The sun coming through the kitchen windows made Patricia’s eyes ache, so she looked into the cool darkness of the den instead.
“He’s just turning into a teenager,” she said.
“Patricia,” James Harris said, and she heard his voice shade earnest. “I know you got a bad impression of me when I moved here, but whatever you think, believe me when I say that I care about your children. They’re good kids. Carter works so much and I worry about you doing this mostly by yourself.”
“Well, his private practice keeps him busy,” Patricia said.
“I’ve told him he doesn’t have to make every dollar in the world,” James Harris said. “What’s the point of working if you miss out on your kids growing up?”
She felt disloyal talking about Carter behind his back, but it was also a relief.
“He puts a lot of pressure on himself,” she said.
“You’re the one with pressure on you,” James Harris said. “Raising two teenagers practically by yourself, it’s too much.”
“It’s hardest on Blue,” she said. “He has such a hard time keeping up at school. Carter thinks it’s attention deficit disorder.”
“His attention is fine when it comes to World War II,” James Harris said.
The familiarity of discussing Blue with someone who understood him relaxed Patricia.
“He spray-painted a dog,” she said.
“What?” James Harris laughed.
After a moment, she laughed, too.
“Poor dog,” she said, feeling guilty. “His name is Rufus and he’s the school’s unofficial mascot. Blue and Slick Paley’s youngest spray-painted him silver and now they’ve both got Saturday school for the rest of the year.”
Just saying it out loud sounded absurd. She imagined it becoming a funny family story next year.
“Will the dog be okay?” James Harris asked.
“They say he will,” she said. “But how do you clean spray paint off a dog?”
“I just bought a new CD changer,” James Harris said. “I’ll ask Blue over to help me hook it up. If it comes up, I’ll ask him what happened and let you know what he says.”
“Would you?” Patricia asked. “I’d be grateful.”
“It’s good talking this way again,” James said. “Would you like to come over for some coffee? We can catch up.”
She almost said yes because her first instinct in every situation was to be agreeable, but she smelled something clean and cool and medical and it took her out of her bright, sunny kitchen for a moment and suddenly it was four years ago and the garage door was open and she could smell the plastic incontinence pads they used for Miss Mary. For a moment she felt like the woman she had been all those years ago, a woman who didn’t have to constantly apologize for everything, and she said, “No, thank you. I have to finish cleaning out the kitchen cabinets.”
“Another day, then,” he said, and she wondered if he’d heard the change in her voice.
They hung up and Patricia looked at the locked garage room door. She smelled the carpet shampoo she used to use in Miss Mary’s room, and the pine-scented Lysol Mrs. Greene sprayed after Miss Mary had an accident. Any minute she expected to see the door swing open and Mrs. Greene come up the steps in her white pants and blouse, a balled-up bundle of sheets in her arms.
She made herself stand up and walk to the door, the smell of Miss Mary’s room getting stronger with every step. She took the key off the hook by the door and watched her hand float out on the end of her arm and insert the key into the deadbolt. She twisted and the door popped open and it swung wide and the garage room stood empty. She smelled nothing but cool air and dust.
Patricia locked the door and decided to clean all the newspapers off the sun porch and then finish the kitchen cabinets. She walked through the dining room, where Ragtag lay sunbathing, twitching one ear as she passed. On the sun porch, light bounced off newspapers and glossy magazine covers, dazzling her. She picked up the papers Carter had left on the ottoman and walked back through the dining room to the kitchen. As she stepped into the den, a voice behind the dining room door said:
patricia
She turned. No one was there. And then, through the crack along the hinges of the dining room door, she saw a staring blue eye crowned by gray hair, and then nothing but the yellow wall behind the door.
Patricia stood for a moment, skin crawling, shoulders twitching. She felt a muscle tremble in one cheek. There was nothing there. She’d had some kind of olfactory hallucination and it made her believe she’d heard Miss Mary’s voice. That was all.
Ragtag sat up, eyes focused on the open dining room door. Patricia put the papers in the garbage and made herself walk back through the dining room to the sun porch.
She picked up copies of Redbook and Ladies’ Home Journal and Time and hesitated briefly, then walked back through the dining room to the den. As she passed the open dining room door again, Miss Mary whispered from behind it:
patricia
Her breath stopped in her throat. Her knuckles cramped around the magazines. She could not move. She felt Miss Mary’s eyes boring into the back of her neck. She felt Miss Mary standing behind the dining room door, staring madly through the crack, and then came a torrent of whispers.
he’s coming for the children, he’s taken the child, he’s taken my grandchild, he’s come for my grandchild, the nightwalking man, hoyt pickens suckles on the babies, on the sweet fat babies with their fat little legs, he’s dug in like a tick, he’s dug in like a tick and he’s sucking everything out of you patricia, he’s come for my grandchild, wake up patricia, wake up, the nightwalking man is in your house, he’s on my grandchild, wake up patricia, patricia wake up, wake up, wake up…
Dead words, a lunatic river of syllables hissing from between cold lips.
“Miss Mary?” Patricia said, but her tongue felt thick and her words were barely a whisper.
he’s the devil’s son the nightwalking man and he’s taking my grandchild, wake up wake up wake up, go to ursula, she has my photograph, it’s in her house, go to ursula…
“I can’t,” Patricia said, and this time she had enough strength to make her voice echo off the den walls.
The whispers stopped. Patricia turned and the crack in the door stood empty. She jumped at the sound of fingernails tapping, but it was only Ragtag getting up and trotting out of the room.
Patricia didn’t believe in ghosts. She had always considered Miss Mary’s kitchen-table magic something that might be interesting to a sociologist from a local college. When women she knew said Grandmama appeared in their dreams and told them where to find a lost wedding ring or that Cousin Eddie had just died, she got irritated. It wasn’t real.
But this was real. More real than anything she’d experienced over the past three years. Miss Mary had been in this room, standing behind the dining room door and whispering a warning that James Harris wanted her children, that James Harris wanted Blue. Ghosts weren’t real. But this was real.
She worried for a moment that she was confused again. Her judgment was thin ice and she hesitated to trust it. But this had been real. It wouldn’t hurt to make sure. After all, she was only a housewife. What else did she have to do?
wake up, patricia
“How?”
wake up, patricia
“How?”
go to ursula
“Who?”
ursula greene