Mumma's House

by Ike Hamill

  “Speaking of which,” June said, “I have work tomorrow. Can Gus hang out with you and the girls?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you. Some of my clients don’t like kids in their houses.”

  “I feel the same way sometimes,” Auggie said. “Now let me get to my spider patrol before the girls freak out.”

  “I thought they liked spiders.”

  “Izla likes spiders. Millie’s heart stops at the sight of them.”

  June nodded with raised eyebrows, filing away the information.

  Auggie dragged the vacuum through the hall door, into the den of spiders.

  # # # #

  For dinner, they pulled the tiny table out from the wall and put up the flaps. Even with that, everyone was cramped in and smiling as they banged elbows.

  “Did Gus show you his rock wall, Izla?” June asked.

  Isla’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth.

  “People call me EYE-luh,” she said, pronouncing her name carefully.

  June looked to Auggie for help. He only smiled and nodded.

  “Your dad was calling you Izla before,” June said.

  “Yeah,” Isla said. “Dad isn’t people. People call me Isla.”

  June nodded.

  Gus jumped in. “I didn’t have time to show them the rock wall. Maybe tomorrow. We have a lot to do outside.”

  “You have a lot to do helping me upstairs,” Auggie said. “I did the kitchen and the guest room all by myself. Tomorrow we have to do Uncle Jules’s room, Uncle Travis’s room, Aunt Sophia’s room, and we have to turn on the water to the upstairs bath.”

  Auggie ticked off the items on his fingers.

  “Uncle Travis is coming?” Millie asked.

  “Nope,” June said. “That’s where Deidra and Henry will stay.”

  “And Sam and Penny,” Gus added.

  “Who is Uncle Travis?” Millie asked.

  “He was Mumma Peggy’s son,” Auggie said.

  June wiped her mouth as she shook her head. “No, no, no. You always get that wrong. Mumma Peggy and Travis were brother and sister. You’re thinking of Mumma Peggy’s mother, who was the first Mumma. She never had any other name.”

  “That’s impossible,” Auggie said. “Are you telling me that she came out of the womb being called Mumma?”

  “I’m just saying that she never had any other name to this family,” June said. “Even on letters and stuff, she and her husband were always just referred to as Poppa and Mumma.”

  “What about the deed?”

  “It’s in Mumma Peggy’s name.”

  “I rest my case,” Auggie said.

  June shook her head.

  “So you’re really going to argue that our great grandmother didn’t have a first name other than…”

  Auggie trailed off when he noticed the kids. Gus was looking at Millie with raised eyebrows. Millie was looking at Isla. Then, a moment later, both Gus and Millie were looking at Isla.

  “What are you three cooking up?” Auggie asked.

  June paused with a chunk of bread a few inches from her mouth. She even stopped chewing while she waited to see what Auggie had uncovered.

  The older kids stared at Isla until it dawned on her what they were waiting for.

  “Oh! We want to stay in Uncle Tommy’s room tonight,” Isla said, clearly proud of herself.

  “No!” Auggie and June said at the same time.

  Isla’s face fell into pouty disappointment.

  “Why?” Millie asked.

  “Uncle Tommy’s room is off limits,” Auggie said. “I’m not even allowed to clean in there. He is very particular about his things.”

  “But we’re the only ones here,” Millie said. “How does he get to make the rules when he doesn’t even live here?”

  Auggie looked to June for help.

  “He lived here long before any of us. He was even here before our mother, and she lived here more than seventy-five years ago,” June said.

  “Is that true?” Auggie said, looking up at the ceiling. “Mumma would have been…”

  “Just because he’s not here all the time, it doesn’t mean that we can invade his space.”

  Gus put up a finger, like he was asking permission to pose his question. “Then why can we go into Uncle Travis’s room? He’s even older than Uncle Tommy.”

  June blinked slowly at the question before she formed an answer. “Great Uncle Travis doesn’t really claim that as his room anymore. We just call it that because he was the original permanent resident of that space.”

  “That’s not exactly true, is it?” Auggie asked.

  June raised her eyebrows and shot him a look.

  “Okay,” Isla said. Everyone turned back to her. “We’ll stay in Uncle Travis’s room then.”

  “It’s not clean,” Auggie said.

  “We’ll go clean it right now,” Millie said, pushing her chair back.

  Auggie looked to June again. He was disappointed in her reaction to the idea.

  “You have to clean the whole thing and change the sheets in both beds, and vacuum everything.”

  Gus’s face lit up. “Seriously?”

  Auggie shrugged and gave in too. “I guess I’ll turn on the water upstairs then. At least I won’t have to use the bathroom under the stairs anymore. Anything I try to do in there ends up being a hook shot.”

  The kids all laughed.

  # # # #

  Millie had the covers pulled right up to her nose. Next to her, Isla was already half asleep.

  “This was your idea, Mill.”

  “No, it was Isla’s idea.”

  “Don’t blame your sister. I saw the look you gave her. You’re the one who cooked this up. If you don’t want to stay up here, then don’t. You can come downstairs like I planned all along.”

  “I don’t want to come downstairs. I want to go home.”

  “You want to drive seven hours in the middle of the night?” Auggie asked.

  Millie nodded. Her eyes disappeared below the blanket.

  The door creaked open as Gus came back from the bathroom. He jumped onto the other bed and the springs groaned.

  Isla giggled.

  When Millie didn’t reappear from under the blanket, Auggie stood up. He leaned over and kissed the top of their heads.

  “Goodnight all,” Auggie said. “Sleep well and sweet dreams.” He made sure the door to the hall was wide open before he turned off the overhead light. With all the light from the bathroom, it was still as bright as an operating room. Auggie waited to see if Millie would stay put. He was pretty confident that she would. She would be strong, if only to save face in front of her sister.

  # # # #

  “Tell us a story, Gus,” Millie whispered.

  “About what?” Gus asked.

  “A ghost story,” Isla mumbled.

  “No!” Millie said between clenched teeth. She jabbed a finger into her sister’s back.

  Across the room, Gus’s bedsprings squeaked as he shifted position.

  “Ummm,” Gus said. “Do you guys know about the other Andrew?”

  “No,” Millie said.

  “Nuh-uh,” Isla said. Millie poked her again for no reason.

  Gus’s voice was sing-songy when he started talking again. It was his story-telling voice.

  “Andrew was Allison’s only son and he lived here about the same time as our parents. He was the last person who kept a horse in the barn. Nobody knew where he got the horse. Some people said that he found it in the woods when it was just a baby. Other people said that he got the horse when the mare down at the Yettin’s farm had a baby out of season.”

  “What’s a mare?” Isla asked.

  “It’s a girl horse,” Millie said.

  “Either way, he fixed up a stall in the barn and used his bicycle to go get hay, one bale at a time, so he could stock up for the winter. The horse grew really big over the winter and the next summer Andrew made his own harness so he and the horse cou
ld bale their own hay with the rusty farm equipment that’s in the back shed.”

  “What was the horse’s name?” Millie asked.

  “That’s the thing—he wouldn’t tell anyone the horse’s name. They all just called him ‘horse’ because Andrew would only whisper the name into the horse’s ear when nobody else was close enough to hear. They said that Andrew and the horse could do anything. They could jump, or rope, or even do tricks. He rode the horse all the way down to the fair one year and got the blue ribbon.

  “One day Mumma Claire got really mad at Andrew and the horse. I think she said that there were too many flies in the barn, and she said that the horse would whinny in the morning and always woke her up. She said that the horse couldn’t live there anymore. Allison got really mad and said that Mumma Claire had no right to make the rules and they had a big fight. Andrew got his stuff together and jumped on the horse and rode away.”

  “Where did they go?” Millie whispered.

  “Nobody knows where they went. They would send back postcards, but the marks on them didn’t match where they were coming from. It was like they bought postcards but didn’t send them until they had already moved on.”

  “Where did the horse sleep at night?” Isla asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gus said. “But back here, at home, Mumma Claire still couldn’t sleep. She still heard the horse whinnying every morning and she said that the damn horse was still there. Everyone told her that Andrew and the horse were gone, but she didn’t believe it. By then, Mumma Claire couldn’t really walk well enough to go look for herself, and she said that Andrew would hide the horse even if she did go out there. Not even the postcards could convince her that Andrew and the horse were gone.”

  “I hate her,” Isla whispered.

  Millie poked her, but not very hard. Millie kinda felt the same way.

  “Allison started to hate Mumma Claire too. Allison saved up all her money, and some say she even stole money from Mumma Claire, and she took all that money and was going to hire a private detective to track down Andrew and tell him to come home. But she never got the chance to do it. That same week, someone told her to watch TV at eleven thirty, so she got everyone in the house to stay up.”

  “Stay up?” Millie asked. “Why didn’t they just watch it the next day?”

  “You couldn’t back then, I don’t think. Anyway, everyone stayed up and the guy came out and said that they had a special guest, and the guest was Andrew and the horse. And the guy on TV asked what the horse’s name was and Andrew said it was Horace. Everyone had thought that he was calling it ‘horse’ but he was really saying Horace, and that was especially funny because it was also the name of Mumma Claire’s dead husband. The horse had been born right at the same time that Horace had died. Once everyone knew the name, they realized that Horace the horse was really Horace reborn and that’s why he kept waking Mumma Claire up.”

  “What?” Millie asked.

  Her sister stirred. Millie realized that Isla had drifted off to sleep.

  She whispered really quietly so Isla wouldn’t wake up all the way. “The horse was her husband?”

  “It’s called reincarnation. It’s when someone dies and comes back as an animal or whatever. Mumma Claire got so upset that she got sick and died too.”

  “What did she come back as?”

  Gus was silent for a moment.

  “I don’t know. Anyway, after that they didn’t get anymore postcards and Allison gave up on trying to track down Andrew and Horace. She said that it wouldn’t honor Mumma Claire’s memory or something.”

  “But she was dead?”

  “Yup.”

  “And are Andrew and Horace still alive?”

  “Nobody knows, but that was a long time ago. Horses don’t live as long as people, so probably not.”

  # # # #

  June folded her legs underneath herself as she settled on the futon. She balanced her glass of wine on the armrest.

  “You think they’re okay?” June asked

  Auggie was looking towards the stairs.

  “They’re whispering about something,” Auggie said. June’s stereo was playing light jazz. It was the kind of music that Auggie’s wife, Kate, called “weather music,” because it was like the constant background of the Weather Channel.

  “How can you hear them?” June asked.

  “I can’t. I can feel them talking.”

  “Should you go check on them?” she asked. She didn’t bother to offer to check on them. They were upstairs and June didn’t go upstairs. She would be just as likely to check on them if they were on another planet.

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Auggie said. He put his feet up on the coffee table. With only socks on, she couldn’t possibly object. It seemed like she wanted to anyway.

  “What is the big draw about sleeping upstairs?”

  “Don’t you remember when you and Jules would have given your left arm to sleep out in the treehouse? It’s the same thing.”

  “No! A treehouse is a place of mystery. The sounds of the night and the thick, cool breeze. That’s like camping out. It’s a real adventure. Sleeping upstairs in Travis’s dusty old room is about as exotic as sleeping with your head at the wrong end of the bed.”

  “Why don’t you do it then?” Auggie asked. He regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. In a few days, his sister would be fending off rude jabs from every side. She didn’t need to warm up her defenses when it was just the two of them.

  “Forget I said that,” Auggie said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she said with a sigh. She took a deep draw from her wine glass. “I know, I’m turning into Mumma Claire. You remember when she wouldn’t even leave her room?”

  Auggie nodded and looked down. This was getting dark.

  “Hey, what did you think of Jules’s new girlfriend?”

  “His what?”

  Auggie sat up straight. “You haven’t… Oh, shit, you haven’t gotten the card?”

  June shook her head, confused.

  “Crap, I should have brought it. I just assumed that you would have gotten yours. This is terrible. Maybe I can get Kate to bring it. I guess he’ll be here soon enough. You won’t have to wait very long. He’s bringing her, right?”

  “Auggie, what are you talking about?”

  “Her name is Wind and she has to be as old as Allison, maybe even older.”

  “Wind?”

  “It’s short for Windermere. They met at one of his dance retreats and they said on the card that he introduced himself when she was helping him get up after doing the splits.”

  “He did the splits or she did?”

  “Unclear,” Auggie said. “Either way, it’s horrifying. I shouldn’t make fun, but holy shit. After all that talk about having kids last year and he hooks up with someone old enough to be his mother?”

  “Maybe they’re going to adopt.”

  Auggie giggled. “It would be a race—would his kid be out of diapers before she’s ready for them?”

  June shook her head.

  “Everyone deserves to be happy.”

  “Really? Everyone?”

  June thought it about for a moment and then joined Auggie in laughing. “Maybe not everyone.”

  After a moment, June’s face got serious again. “He’s bringing her here?”

  Auggie nodded solemnly. “I think so.”

  “With all the vultures descending? Oh, I pity that poor old woman.”

  They laughed again.

  # # # #

  “Hey,” Millie whispered. She wasn’t sure if Gus was still awake. Next to her, Isla was deep in sleep. Her slow breathing was pretty much all that Millie could hear.

  “What?” Gus whispered back.

  “How come you don’t sleep up here?”

  “It’s cold up here. Mom doesn’t want to heat the whole house.”

  “But even in the summer you don’t, right?”

  Gus didn’t answer for a while. Millie
was about to ask again.

  “No,” Gus said. “I stay downstairs with my mom.”

  “But you don’t even go in any of the other rooms?”

  After another pause, he said, “No. We like to live simply.”

  “Oh.”

  At home, her father said the same thing but it had a much different meaning. At home, they all had their own rooms, and a living room, and even a play room. Her mom sometimes brought home little magazines that showed houses that were for sale. She would fold them open and then circle the interesting ones. From the outside, the houses looked enormous. Some of them had tall columns up the front and big, curved windows over the front door.

  Her father always said that a life in a house like that would be too complicated. He wanted to live simply. That didn’t stop them from putting in a swimming pool. For her birthday next year, her father had promised that Millie could invite over all her friends to go swimming at the same time. Usually, he only let her have over one or two, so he could keep an eye on them.

  She couldn’t even imagine if they all lived in one cramped room, like Gus and Aunt June. They would drive each other crazy. Isla squirmed and shifted. Millie opened her eyes and then squeezed them back shut. For a minute, she had forgotten that she was upstairs in the spooky old house. Gus had talked them into the idea and then pretended that it was their plan all along. She had only gone along with it because she felt bad for him. Living in the middle of nowhere, he had nobody to play with. There were no neighbors who might come by for play dates, and he couldn’t walk to the store with his mom.

  The creak of a floorboard shattered the silence.

  Millie held her breath for a moment and then ducked fully under the covers. Her breath heated up the air pocket in the space behind her sister’s back. She didn’t care. She would rather suffocate than face whatever was walking in their room.

  # # # #