Housewarming

by Jennifer Bowen

  “You called her Sophie,” John prompted, nodding at Lilah. “Didn’t you notice?”

  Kara’s eyes shot up, meeting his. “No, I didn’t.” Had she?

  “Daddy, is that a dolly?” Lilah bounced up and down, oblivious to the worried faces exchanged above her.

  John cleared his throat, discarding the slip-up. “It’s a statue I found outside, buried like treasure. I just cleaned it up a little.”

  Kara stepped back. Had she really called Lilah “Sophie?” John must not have heard right, because Sophie wasn’t even on her mind. Her thoughts went to the day they moved in when she had caught herself calling Lilah that as she stood on the driveway. Why had she said it again?

  “You said you found that outside?” Kara asked, pushing away the slip-up he had noticed.

  He seemed to ignore it too as he replied, “It was buried in the front yard under a thornbush.”

  “That’s weird. It’s not like it could’ve been there for very long, right?”

  “Maybe it was buried before the house was built.”

  “I wonder how old it is.” Kara peered closer. To her unexperienced eye, however, it could’ve been an antique or a new statue from a garden center.

  “I don’t know,” he said, turning it over in his hands.

  Lilah hopped around. “Daddy, let me see!”

  Kara held out her hand. “Can I see it?” John gave it to Kara, who saw it wasn’t chipped, but felt how rough the material was. Kara studied the clay girl’s face; she had been sculpted to be pretty, but the eyes ruined the effect. It was as if they had been made too wide or the pupils too small in contrast. Hair had been carved, long grooves giving the impression of it falling just past her shoulders. A bonnet rested on her back. She wore a simple dress and gripped a closed umbrella in her clasped hands. Kara frowned at the frog beside the girl. Its hunch was lopsided and it too grinned with curved, wide lips carved below large, buggy eyes. Kara turned the statue upside-down to see if there was a maker’s mark, but there wasn’t.

  “Can I see it now, Mommy?”

  “Yes, I guess you can.” Kara placed it carefully in Lilah’s hands. She asked John, “Disappointed?”

  He shrugged. “Nah, I have plenty of ground here to find real buried treasure.” His eyes twinkled. “We need a metal detector now,” he commented before leaving the room.

  Kara peered out the window. The rain had slowed to a steady sprinkle and the sky had lightened to gray-green. “Looks like we survived our first storm in Gracie Town.”

  “Mommy, is she mine?” Lilah asked.

  “I guess, but you have to be extra careful with her. She’ll break if you drop her. Daddy found her in the ground.”

  “I know.” Lilah combed a finger over the ridges of the umbrella. “The lady told me too.”

  “What lady?” When Lilah didn’t respond right away, engrossed with stroking the humps of the frog’s eyes, Kara asked again, “What lady, Lilah?”

  Her eyes rolled up, connecting with Kara’s. “The lady with the yellow hair like the dolly used to have.” She rubbed the palm of her hand over the statue girl’s carved hair. “The lady in the woods.”

  “Did you see someone in the woods?” Had the movement Kara had caught from the great room windows been the lady? “Was it a lady visiting next door…with Marvin?”

  “Maybe.”

  Kara wrinkled her brow. “But, Lilah, that doesn’t make sense. How can a lady in the woods have known about a statue buried in our yard? When did you see her?”

  Lilah shrugged.

  “Maybe you had a dream about a lady and a doll?” Kara suggested. Lilah had to be confused, or maybe even making it up.

  “Maybe.”

  “You know you aren’t supposed to talk to strangers, right?”

  “Yeah.” Lilah cradled the statue in her arms and headed to the doorway.

  “Lilah, look at me.”

  The bluest full moons looked up at Kara.

  “I don’t care if you think someone is friends with next-door. You don’t speak to them unless someone you know really well, like me, Daddy, or Jack is with you. I don’t want you going into the woods without one of us.”

  “Why not?” She narrowed the moons to slits. “Jack goes by himself.”

  “Because Jack is a lot older than you and he knows better what to do if something happens. Okay?” But did he? Had she taught him well not to talk to strangers?

  Lilah hesitated before finally nodding.

  “Say ‘okay’ so I know you understand, because there will be consequences. Do you remember what consequences are?”

  Lilah shook her head, her eyes back on the statue. She wriggled, the talk never-ending. Kara was losing her fast.

  “Consequences are a punishment for when you do something bad. Like we take away the dolly for a week. Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kara relented with the lesson on stranger danger. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen and I can fix her up for you.”

  Lilah plopped down on a chair at the table as Kara rifled around in the junk drawer. Finding masking tape, she said, “Here, give me the doll. I don’t like how rough she is. You don’t want to get scratched or cut.”

  Kara wrapped tape around the statue girl’s mid-section. She did a crude job and the tape hid a good chunk of the dress, but you could still see all of the frog and the upper and lower parts of the girl.

  “When you hold her, only hold onto the taped part. When you put her down, put her down gently.”

  “Okay.” Lilah pulled the statue from her mother’s grasp and ran from the room.

  Kara turned to the playroom door, satisfied it was still closed, then went out the backdoor. She walked to the end of the deck and leaned on the railing, looking out at the trees, as if she’d spot a blonde passing through. The sun hid behind clouds, darkening the woods. Even with straining her eyes, she couldn’t see beyond the cluster of overgrowth crowding the trees. She hadn’t thought to ask the Foremans if they had children; perhaps, the blonde was a relative of theirs.

  Kara went back inside and found Jack lying on his bed, leafing through a comic book. “Lilah told me she was approached by a lady in the woods. Were you there?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see a lady outside? A blonde?”

  “No.”

  “You know how you’re not supposed to talk to strangers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You and Lilah are not to talk to anyone your dad and I don’t know. Okay? That includes anyone you see with Marvin next door.”

  “I can’t talk to him?”

  “You can talk to him. We know him. You just can’t talk to strangers, even if they’re in his yard. Okay?”

  “Um, alright. But won’t it be weird if I’m talking to him and someone’s with him and they say something to me, but I don’t answer back?”

  Kara thought for a moment. Okay, maybe that sounded strange. But, no matter, you never knew who people really were, and especially meeting a stranger in the woods…

  “I don’t care if they think you’re weird. Don’t talk to anyone your dad and I don’t know. Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t see Lilah talking to a blonde lady?”

  “No. She probably made it up.”

  Kara nodded, wondering the same. She sighed, combing her hand over his cowlick. “And stay out of the unfinished room downstairs.”

  “Okay. I don’t go in there anyway.”

  “I found the door open today.”

  “I didn’t open it.”

  She believed him. Maybe it had been John. “Alright, good.” She left his room and paused in the hallway, looking into Lilah’s bedroom. Lilah sat on her bed, balancing the statue on her stretched-out legs, moving her hands over it.

  Kara walked away without a word and returned to the kitchen. Like a magnet, her eyes were drawn to the playroom. The door was open a crack, a band of sunlight framing the edge of the doorway.r />
  “What in the world?” She looked in the room and saw no one was inside. She closed the door and waited, watching it. After a short moment, the door creaked, opening an inch. She pushed it open the rest of the way and looked around the room, seeing nothing aside from the wood planks leaning against the walls and the nails scattered on the floor. She closed it again, pulling tightly on the doorknob, and waited…five…fifteen seconds. It didn’t open.

  She backed away, zeroing in on the door. It stayed shut. Mentally, she added the shoddy doorjamb to the repair list.

  “So, the skylight has a leak, after all,” Kara said later that night, flipping off the bathroom light and crawling into bed beside John. “The corner of the window is a little wet.”

  “Okay,” John replied with a yawn, turning to his side. “I’ll figure out what we need to do to fix it. Hopefully, it doesn’t rain in the meantime.”

  “Do you think Marvin will help, or have you talked to Tom yet about it?”

  “Tom?”

  “Shannon, who I met today at the café, her boyfriend.”

  John yawned again. “Oh, no, I haven’t talked to him yet. But yeah, either way, it’ll get fixed.”

  The kids had been in bed for a couple hours. From the silence of the baby monitor on the nightstand, Lilah was still sleeping well. After Kara and John had been quiet for several minutes, Kara started to wonder if he had fallen asleep. But then she felt him adjust and readjust his position.

  Lying in the dark, her thoughts shifted, taking root in what he had said earlier. She hadn’t heard the flub earlier that day (Sophie), but she believed him. Finally, after he had been still for a few minutes, she approached the subject with caution, asking quietly, “Why did I say it, John?” The air conditioning cycle ended with a click, making the room feel terribly intimate.

  The crickets outside the closed windows mocked her. He’s not going to answer you, they chided. Kara almost said his name to make sure he’d heard her when he finally spoke.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. He was on his side, his tee-shirt-covered back to her.

  She hesitated. “Have you ever heard me call Lilah that?” She refrained from mentioning the other name.

  “No.”

  She was quick with a reply, “Good,” because the moment was awkward and it was a subject they didn’t discuss. They said nothing else. She closed her eyes, but instead of seeing a blank canvas on the backs of her eyelids, she saw a pale face and blue lips.

  Her eyes flipped open.

  She stared at John’s back for a long time. Eventually, she saw the rhythmic rise and fall of it as he slept. She turned to her side, facing away from him. She didn’t dare shut her eyes for a long time, not until she was fairly certain she wouldn’t see Sophie’s slack face.

  Chapter Six

  The screeching end of the scream woke Kara.

  Lilah.

  Kara’s eyes flipped open, but she closed them again just as quickly. Her bedroom was far too bright. The curtains looked like they would burst into flames for all the brilliance the morning sun offered.

  She rolled to her side. John was not beside her. She glanced at the clock and widened her eyes. It was nearly ten. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in so late, even though she didn’t feel like she had slept at all. She was groggy and her eyes burned. What was it she had dreamed? She couldn’t remember.

  She sat up as realization came to her: she hadn’t heard Lilah during the night. She looked at the nightstand, seeing the baby monitor’s green “on” light glowed. She trained her ears, but all she heard was the hollow knocking of a woodpecker outside.

  She padded through the kitchen, calling, “Hello?”

  “Hello?” John called back.

  She found him in his office. He sat at the scuffed, walnut desk they had purchased a few years ago second-hand. “I overslept,” she told him. “Did Lilah wake up last night?”

  “She was fine at breakfast an hour ago.” He glanced up and smiled. “I guess no nightmares last night.”

  “Really?” The nightmares had become the norm for the last several weeks. She smiled wearily. “I can’t believe I slept in so late. You shouldn’t have let me.”

  “Why?” He had returned his attention to his computer screen and was typing.

  “Are you working today?”

  “Just a little. I want to get something done before tomorrow.”

  She started to leave, but remembered the unused pool in their backyard. “I think we’ve tortured the kids enough. Any chance of opening the pool today?”

  “This brilliant guy here was smart enough to dump in chemicals yesterday. It’s all set.”

  “Ah, now we just have to make sure we have swimsuits.”

  “If not, who cares? Our pool, our rules,” he joked as he typed.

  “Still, I’m gonna check to make sure I have suits for everybody. Jack and Sophie are gonna be over the moon.”

  They both heard it this time.

  “Sophie,” he repeated her slip-up, no longer typing. The name hung there, naked.

  Her hands covered her burning cheeks. “Did I say it?” She knew she had.

  He nodded, his face serious.

  “Oh.”

  “Have you been thinking about her lately?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. No more than usual.” Her answer sounded stupid. Had she been thinking more about her? Was there a place somewhere deep down inside her where she harbored something unexpressed? She and John hadn’t discussed Sophie for years, and to be honest, Kara hadn’t thought there had been a need to. She had accepted the loss long ago. Hadn’t she?

  He turned slightly toward her in his chair, but didn’t fully face her. His expression pained, he asked carefully, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She replied, the words rushing out, “No, I’m alright. It was just an accident.”

  “It’s alright. We can talk about her if you need to.”

  She picked up on it, the singularity of the situation: if I need to.

  It was clear. He didn’t need to; he didn’t want to discuss his first legitimate child with her. Did she need to talk about her? Should they feel something after so much time had passed?

  “It was just a slip-up. I’m fine.” She turned to go.

  “Have you found a place for the memory box?”

  She shook her head, picturing the white box packed away in one of the cardboard boxes in the bonus room amid the clutter. “Probably in our room. I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  His voice low, he suggested, “You might feel better if you did.”

  The statement sounded absurd. She might feel better? Well, I’m glad he’s over it and has moved on, she thought sardonically. But she had moved on too…hadn’t she? She had grieved years ago. That was over and done with.

  “I’m going to look for swimsuits.” Soberly, she left the room. She packed away the slip-up, blocking it from her thoughts. She wasn’t going to go back to that place, not now.

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, Kara, Jack, and Lilah climbed the wide, concrete steps that led to the front door of Grace School, a white clapboard nineteenth-century two-story. Opening the door, their noses were struck by a mixture of pine and mothballs. The entrance hall opened up to a polished wood staircase, their treads covered in worn floral carpeting. Kara had just turned to look into the adjoining room when the director, Joyce Chandler, joined them.

  Unsmiling, the middle-aged woman jumped right into it after Kara introduced themselves. “The official school season starts in two weeks. That’s when you’ll see Grace School functioning at full capacity. Not only do we offer pre-kindergarten preparation, but we also have a number of before and after-school programs. We’ve been operating as a school for over seventy years. We’re an institution to Grace Township. Are you originally from here?”

  “No, we just moved in from Cosgrove.”

  The woman gave Kara a once-over and nodded curtly. “Unfortu
nately, I’m pressed for time. My staff is here, however. They’ll give you a tour.”

  Kara watched her take to the stairs, gliding up as if she were an old Hollywood glam star, until three female teachers, all looking to be college age, came around the corner. By contrast, they were all smiles as they led the Tamesons through the building, explaining they were normally closed during the summer, except for random special events. The group tromped through classrooms, the musty smell of the remains of the house’s library, dining room and living room hardly subtle under pine air fresheners, their sneakered feet rough and loud on original hardwood floors. Lining the walls hung student drawings and colored pages torn from coloring books. Lilah’s face lit up and even Jack seemed curious about the different play stations that were filled with beads, blocks, and puzzles.

  “Can I see your doll?” They were at the end of the tour and Miss Fiona was bending toward Lilah. “I had a huge collection of them growing up. I had rag dolls, porcelain dolls, plastic dolls, paper dolls…”

  Lilah met the ponytailed teacher’s eyes, hugging her new statue tighter. They all waited while she mulled the idea over, her hesitation so long it hinged on awkwardness. Just as Kara was about to prompt her to show the teacher, Lilah swiftly turned the statue around, revealing the faces of the grinning clay girl and frog.

  “Oh,” Miss Fiona said, her smile lessening. She gave the other teachers a look before straightening and took a step back. Recovering, she said with a smile, “How sweet.”

  Kara looked down at the statue, which Lilah had flipped around again. She suspected Fiona thought it was ugly like she did, or perhaps, she found it strange a child carried around a statue.

  Miss Jill squatted in front of Lilah, saying kindly, “We hope to see you again.”

  Miss Lisa said with a perky smile, “We have lots of dolls here you can play with too.”

  Outside, the Tamesons crossed through the blacktopped parking lot. Immediately forgetting the awkwardness of their goodbyes with the staff, Kara’s attention turned to the residence next door. As pretty as Grace School was, it was dwarfed by the grand, two-story brick American Federalist-period house that was set further back from the street. Kara’s eyes ran past the surrounding iron fencing, drifting over the wraparound porch and the dentil molding peppering the upper perimeter of the second floor. She was gazing at the upstairs windows when the lacy curtain twitched and a face appeared.