Girl at the Edge

by Karen Dietrich

  After some discussion, they compromise by putting on the Home Shopping Network. It’s just past midnight, and the host, a dark-haired woman in a red pantsuit, is announcing the special deal of the day—a delicate diamond and sapphire ring for four easy payments of $71.55. A running tally appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, recording the number of rings sold. It ticks rapidly, dozens of people from all over the country phoning in to buy jewelry at midnight.

  My mother and Shea are both turned away from me, the light of the TV screen bouncing off them as they sleep under a white blanket. I can see the shapes of their bodies, mounds of snow glowing in artificial moonlight. Clarisse is already asleep, her hair tangled and still smelling of chlorine. When I came out of the shower, Clarisse was already snuggled in our bed, the blue fuzzy blanket she brought from home pulled up to her chin.

  I hate being the last one to fall sleep in any kind of group sleeping situation so that’s exactly what always happens to me. Shea would call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but that’s sounds so mystical. It’s just that I try too hard to fall asleep first, and then my mind stages a revolt and does the opposite. You know that saying, The heart wants what it wants? Well, in this case, the brain wants what it wants, and in this case, my brain doesn’t want to fall asleep.

  There are too many things to think about. What will I feel when I see the house where my father grew up? What will his bedroom look like? Did Ella keep it in original condition, a shrine to his childhood? Or was it turned into a home office, a den, an exercise room, or a guest bedroom? Will it have a distinct smell? Smell is most closely connected to memory for me. I might smell Ella’s house and it will lock into my body somehow. Will I be trapped in the scent of her house, my life reduced to a constant search for the smell?

  Like the small bottle of perfume that my mother wears only on special occasions when she has to get dressed up, like weddings or holiday parties. She never wears too much to make it overpowering, just dabs a touch between her breasts before she gets dressed. When I was younger, I would sit on her bed and watch her get ready for these occasions, and I thought she looked so glamorous—in black pantyhose and heels and a bra, but nothing else.

  When she opened the perfume bottle, the room took on the scent of musk and amber. As I got older, I stopped watching her get ready because my body started looking more like hers, more like a woman, and the act took on more of a voyeuristic quality. But still, to this day, when I smell a hint of that perfume, those subtle, warm notes, it takes me back to being a little girl and sitting on my mother’s bed. You can’t control it, the way scent connects to memories, to moments in time. You can’t break the association no matter how hard you try.

  I look over at Clarisse, damp spots on her pillow from her swimming pool hair, her chest moving gently as she breathes—up, up, up, then down. I sync my breathing with hers, and I close my eyes. I focus on the Home Shopping host’s voice as she talks about diamonds—the cut, the color, the clarity—ways to measure what is precious in this world.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  In the morning, the four of us walk through the hotel lobby, which smells like burnt coffee. There’s a flat television screen on the wall projecting a news program with the sound turned down, the closed captioning crawling across the bottom of the screen in its typewriter font, the black bars seemingly rising from nowhere, just appearing as if from some higher power. It’s easy to forget that an actual person is behind those captions, an actual person transcribing all the words. If you watch long enough, you’ll see a mistake made here or there, the transcriber backspacing and correcting, a document edited in real time.

  There are single people and couples and children sitting around in the lobby, pouring coffee, taking selections from the fruit basket, reading newspapers, waiting for family members to come downstairs. We walk quickly, and Clarisse and I both try to make ourselves smaller, less noticeable, in case the boys from Massachusetts are here. I don’t look around at all but instead focus on the thunderbird logo on the glass door ahead of me.

  Shea asks my mother, “Why don’t we just get our coffee for free here?” and my mother tosses her head back ever so slightly, rolling her eyes just a bit. Nothing too exaggerated, as though she doesn’t have the physical energy. “Oh, that’s right…you’re such a coffee snob. You prefer gas station sludge to anything from a hotel.” Shea puts one arm around my mother’s shoulders and uses the other to poke her in the ribs a bit, making my mother jump just slightly, an illusion really, as her feet never leave the ground.

  Outside, the sun hangs high like a ball of fire in the sky. There are no clouds, nothing but blue on the horizon for as far as the eye can see. It’s just a typical day in Florida, the kind of day I’m so used to, although it feels different somehow. The air smells stronger, a more pungent mix of salt and brine. The seagulls cry louder, their shrill keow keow keow reverberating across the sky. I’m already on sensory overload when the crosswalk shrieks and the little white walking man lights up, our signal that it’s safe to cross.

  After coffee and donuts at the Shell station, we cross back to the Thunderbird and get in the car. Dana Apple’s office is about fifteen minutes away so we’ll be there soon. There isn’t much time to get nervous. My mother calls Dana from her cell phone to confirm that we’re on our way. It sounds like a secretary has answered because my mother refers to “Dana,” not “you.” My mother is wearing a black cotton tank top and black linen shorts with a thin black-and-white-striped scarf draped over her shoulders like a shawl. She is the woman in mourning for this visit. She knows that the details of her appearance could possibly get back to my father. If it does, I hope he is told how beautiful she looks, her hair delicately secured in a knot on top of her head.

  Dana’s office building is nondescript—just a square, white, one-story building with a red, Spanish-tiled roof. The sign in the parking lot is nondescript too, plain white with blue block letters describing the tenants as LAW OFFICE and DENTIST. The parking lot has two cars in it other than ours, possibly Dana’s and her secretary’s. “Of course,” my mother says, “that’s probably her Mercedes.” My mother isn’t the type to make snide comments about certain professions, but she has been known to conjure a bad attitude in times of stress, a kind of protective coating she wears when needed.

  My mother parks, and the four of us get out of the car and make our way to the entrance. The front door of the building is unlocked, and inside the lobby are two interior doors—one marked DANA APPLE and one marked RALPH ROGERS, DMD.” There is a large potted plant between the two doors, and I reach out and touch one of the waxy reddish leaves. It’s a bromeliad, I think, a staple of indoor tropical plants, with familiar spiky points that almost look like a pineapple plant. They might be related to the pineapple, I can’t remember. In the plant world, there are so many connections, so many variations. Plants can be more difficult to decipher than people.

  My mother knocks on the door, and we stand and wait. Will Dana think it’s strange that it takes four people to claim a butter dish? I didn’t think much of my own appearance at the hotel. I just threw on a pair of cutoff jean shorts, a gray T-shirt, and black flip-flops. I don’t feel as beautiful as my mother or Clarisse, who is wearing a turquoise tank top and white circle skirt, the kind that fans out when you spin around.

  Dana Apple opens the glass door swiftly to greet us. She is taller and older than my mother, probably in her late forties. She has a very short haircut that draws all your attention to her face, her eyes specifically, which are brown behind wire-rimmed glasses. “Ms. Gibson?” Dana asks, probably wondering if it’s Shea or my mother she should be addressing.

  My mother extends her right hand and says, “Hi. I’m Mira.” They shake hands rather stiffly.

  “Mira. Nice to meet you,” Dana says, making eye contact the way that lawyers are probably trained to do. Their profession is mostly about trust—getting juries and judges and clients to trust them enough to get what they want. “And yo
u are…” she says to Shea.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” my mother says. “This is my partner, Shea. This is my daughter, Evelyn, and her friend Clarisse.” She gestures toward each of us as she makes the introductions, and we each nod when it’s our turn.

  “Fabulous. Nice to meet you all,” Dana says. “Come on in and have a seat.” She holds the door open for us while we pass. My cheeks are burning because I know Dana is paying special attention to me, fixing her glassy eyes on me. She doesn’t realize that Clarisse is a murderer’s daughter too, another spectacle, another freak of nature in the sideshow.

  Inside the office, there is a large desk, and Dana walks behind it and sits down. There are two chairs positioned right in front of the desk, and three more lined against one wall. My mother sits in one of the chairs in front of the desk and taps my arm and motions for me to sit in the other so that we’re both facing Dana. Shea and Clarisse take two of the chairs along the wall. I cross and uncross my legs a few times, trying to find the most comfortable and flattering pose for Dana. I end up with one of my legs crossed underneath me, sitting on my ankle in a sort of half crisscross applesauce, the way they taught us to sit in kindergarten. It’s like the lotus position in yoga and meditation, except you don’t have to get your feet to rest on your thighs.

  Dana Apple opens a file folder and then makes more eye contact with us, dividing her attention between my face and my mother’s. “This is in reference to the execution of the estate of Ella Joyce Hayes,” she says in a more official-sounding tone of voice. “Mrs. Hayes has instructed the following items bequeathed to her granddaughter, Evelyn Emerald Gibson: one Limoges butter dish.” She breaks character for a moment and adds, “This is all just a formality, as far as the language that is used in the document.” She smiles at me, as though to set my mind at ease. As though my mind is in need of easing.

  “I have something for you to sign, Ms. Gibson, Mira,” Dana says, and then slides a piece of paper across the desk to my mother, who starts rummaging in her purse for a pen until Dana hands her one from her desk drawer.

  My mother signs in cursive and then slides the paper back to Dana, who walks over to a tall mahogany cabinet in the corner. She fishes a key from her pants pocket, and unlocks the cabinet. She pulls out a shoe box. “The butter dish is inside,” she tells no one in particular, as though she’s talking to the air. “It’s all wrapped up in bubble wrap so it’s secure.” She hands me the box. “If you’re the type of person who likes popping bubble wrap, then you’re in luck, Evelyn.”

  “Great, so we’re all set now?” my mother asks.

  “Almost. I understand that Evelyn would also like to see Mrs. Hayes’s home?”

  “Oh, right,” my mother answers. “Well, I just don’t want to be a bother, that’s all. I mean, I think Evelyn would be fine without seeing it.”

  “Of course it’s no bother at all.” Dana smiles at me—a pitiful smile, a smile I’ve received so many times from people who know about my situation. People who know what my father did and where he is.

  We follow Dana’s silver Mercedes for about ten minutes until we arrive at a small house on the corner of Gulf Boulevard and Sandpiper Drive. Dana pulls into the sun-bleached driveway, and my mother pulls in behind her. The house is pale pink with mint green shutters, a house that might belong in Candy Land, a home Princess Lolly might call her own. There is a white ceramic birdbath in the front yard. The grass is cut very short, in various shades of yellowish brown, while the neighbors’ yards are bright green.

  Clarisse squeezes my hand before we get out of the car. Dana unlocks the front door, and we all file into the small foyer.

  “The house is going on the market soon, after the estate sale, but the floors haven’t been professionally cleaned yet so you can leave your shoes on,” Dana tells us. The heels of her black pumps make a click-clacking sound on the terrazzo floor of the hallway, which leads to the living room. There’s a circular shag carpet in robin’s egg blue at the center of the room. There are two pale yellow chairs, one light blue throw pillow on each. There is an empty birdcage on a large stand in front of the sliding glass door, which leads to the tiny backyard. My mother opens the slider and walks outside, into the sunlight that is streaming between the slats in the vertical blinds. Shea gives Dana a small nod and then follows my mother outside.

  I feel myself anchored to one spot, slowly turning in place, taking in the room via a 360-degree panorama. There aren’t any photographs on the walls, just several paintings of birds—great blue heron, wood stork, spoonbill, and white ibis. Each painting is large enough to hang alone on each of the four walls. And each painting has a small brass nameplate beneath it, identifying the bird with genus, species, and common name, like you’d see in a museum. Dana clears her throat to remind me that she’s still here so I’m not startled when she talks.

  “Ella painted them herself,” she says, stepping toward me slightly. She’s the museum guide coming out of the background to assist me. “Ella was quite an artist, actually.”

  The birds in the paintings are all wading birds—the kind that eat fish, spending a lot of their time wading in shallow waters, looking for food. They have the most delicate legs, like twigs. Their legs bend backward, like knees in reverse. Ella has captured each bird mid-stride in the water, in various states of balancing on one thin-footed leg. We have wood storks that roam the inlet in Pass-a-Grille. Large and white with dark beaks, they move so gracefully they barely break the water as they stroll the edge.

  “And as you may have guessed, Ella was also very much a bird enthusiast,” Dana says.

  “What will happen to the paintings?” Clarisse asks.

  “They will be sold at the estate sale, with the rest of her remaining things.”

  “Can’t Evelyn have them?” Clarisse asks, throwing Dana off her polished guard.

  “Well. It’s not that simple, actually,” Dana begins. “Technically, Evelyn is a next of kin, but because she’s a minor, she can only legally receive property that Ella specifically bequeathed to her. Ella had a daughter but she is deceased and she didn’t have any children. Ella’s son is…incarcerated…and because the estate is not settled, the executrix must sell property to satisfy the—”

  “It’s fine,” I say, interrupting. I turn to face Clarisse. “I don’t want them anyway.”

  “Well then, feel free to move about the other rooms,” Dana says, clearly hoping to lighten the mood.

  “How do you know so much about the Hayes family?” Clarisse asks Dana. I walk toward the three bedrooms, each one with the door currently closed. There must have been one for Ella, one for my father, and one for this dead sister. I call to Dana without turning around. “What was Ella’s daughter’s name?”

  “Her name was Ruth,” Dana answers. “But everyone called her Ruthie.”

  I choose the door in the middle first. As I open it, I hear the soft creaking of the hinges, begin to feel the change in temperature—the room gets the most sun exposure this time of day. There is a twin bed against one wall, and the walls are painted peach to match the comforter, which is white with peach flowers. It has slatted windows you crank open and closed with a small silver handle.

  I look out through the frosted window glass and see my mother and Shea in the backyard sitting on two redwood chairs with green plastic cushions. Their eyes are closed, their faces angled toward the sun. Shea’s left hand hangs from the chair, her fingers grazing the bright grass.

  I choose the door on the left next. As I open it and walk inside the room, I hear a snippet of Clarisse grilling Dana in the living room. “Did Ella visit her son often?”

  This was surely Ella’s room. It’s fully furnished and still decorated with what looks like a grandmother’s touch. It’s strange to think of her as a grandmother though. She never got to meet her only grandchild, after all. But she knew I existed, so isn’t that enough? If a grandchild falls in the forest and her grandmother doesn’t see her, does she still make a sound?
r />   Ella’s room is all shades of blue and green, the bed covered in an afghan with thick stripes of alternating dark blue and light blue. The nightstand is actually a folding tray, the kind that comes in a set and is used for eating in front of the television. On the tray, there’s a small silver lamp topped by a pale green lampshade with dark green fringe along the bottom edge. In one corner, there is a light wood chest of drawers and in another, a blue recliner. The floor is the same speckled terrazzo throughout the house, surrounding the bed in a sea of candy-colored confetti.

  I quietly open the top dresser drawer, but it’s empty. There are no personal effects—no clothing in the closet, no snapshots, no jewelry box—as if the room had been sanitized after Ella’s death, staged to look as though no one ever lived here.

  My mother and Shea have returned to the living room, saving Dana from Clarisse’s interrogation. I hear the low tones of small talk—nice shoes, oh, you’re a preschool teacher?—that sort of thing.

  I choose the door on the right last. A bright sliver of sunlight beams from the bottom of the closed door, and when I open it, I understand why. The room is completely empty, the walls white, the windows bare. This must have been my father’s room, any trace of him wiped clean to ward off the evil spirits that may linger.

  The sun pours in at an angle, casting my shadow on the floor. My body appears stretched, exaggerated. If I were one of Ella’s paintings, the tiny brass nameplate below me would read Projection of a Girl in an Empty Room.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When we return to our room at the Thunderbird, I take the shoe box into the bathroom and lock the door. I turn the exhaust fan on so no one can hear the sound of me tearing into the packing tape that seals the box, the rustle of the bubble wrap in my hands as I free the butter dish from its protective cocoon. Someone wrapped the item with extreme care, making me wonder if Ella herself prepared this gift for me, her old hands delicately handling the same materials I’m touching now.