And, once, suddenly furious: "All right, then! I warned you! We will list High Point Farm with another realtor starting this minute! Please do not attempt to contact us again!" Slamming the receiver down so I felt the thrill of it along my spine.
Yayyyy Mom!
Eventually, though, in February 1980, after we'd about given up hope, a potential buyer made an offer that Morn dared bring to Dad. Only two thousand dollars below the list price. Dad shrugged and said, "Sure. How Soon?"
So, High Point Farm was sold.
So, in March 1980 strangers came to live in the house in which Muivaneys had lived since 1955. Supplanting Mulvaneys as if we'd never been. Hillside Estates people, a family of four plus a nervous little dachshund. Showy silver-gray BMW and canary-yellow Toyota Station wagon. The adults were youngish middle-aged, the children, boy and girl, were ten and twelve. The father was a cardiologist at the new Chautauqua Medical Center, he claimed never to have heard of Dr. Oakley, now retired. It had long been his dream, he told Mom, to breed Black Angus cattle on a "dream-farm" like High Point. Both the children were "crazy for horses"-the girl had already begun riding lessons. The mother proudly described herself as a full-time housewife-mother and something of a perfectionist "bordering on the neurotic." She wore designerjeans, cashmere pullovers in bright, soft colors. She was almost beautiful in a way Corinne Mulvaney had never been. Deftly this woman met Mom's nervous chatter with shrewd questions about soil drainage, house maintenance, which "interesting" pieces of furniture, clocks, carpets, quilts, decorative objects Mom wanted to sell. Where Mom tried to quickconnect by searching out mutual friends or acquaintances, in the hopeful female way, this woman shook her head as if she'd never heard these names, smiled hard and directed the subject back to the purely practical. Can't we befriends? Surely we're meant to befriends -f you're buying this farm I love? Mom pleaded in the face of one who held firm, having no sentiment to spare for strangers. Especially luckless strangers about whom the terrible word bankruptcy was being whispered.
Mom was rebuffed, hurt, chagrined. But after a while, being Mom, philosophical and even approving-"I understand her, of course! She's afraid I might turn out to be the kind of person who'd want to come back and visit, try to be friends. Some kind of crazy thing like that. I don't blame her at all!"
After so many months of delay and frustration, the sale was disconcertingly swift, the closing within fifteen days: the cardiologist and his perfectionist wife didn't require a mortgage but bought the property outright. And this, before they'd even sold their own house and five-acre lot in Hillside Estates. The day we moved into our new home in Marsena, Mom said, smiling, "There! Thank God that's behind us." She made a dismissive gesture in the vague direction of whatever it was we'd left.
The new house was only temporary of course. A tacky "split-level ranch" with glary-white aluminum siding like corrugated metal, "simulated redwood" trim, "picture window," carport on a two-third acre lot. The cement block basement showed peculiarly like bared gums in a giant mouth, only a few scrawny bushes grew around the house and there could not have been more than five spindly trees on the entire property. We were just outside the Marsena town limits, on a country highway where trucks traveled at sixty miles an hour, sometimes more, rattling eveiything not cemented in place, though the speed limit was fifty, and, inside the town limits, thirty-five. There were snuall doomed farms in the vicinity, several with FOR SALE signs out front. There was a large, busy Kmart a half mile away, there was a prosperous-looking Ford dealership, there was a mini-shopping center with 7-Eleven store, Exxon station, car wash. Marsena was a town of 3,400 people and where we'd live pernunently Dad said but the house itself was temporary. He'd been in a hurry, pressed for time, had to make a quick decision on his own. A small down payment and a deal in which he took over the previous owner's mortgage without the intervention of lawyers. Just to find his family an interim house until, with the money realized from selling High Point Farm, he could reestablish Mulvaney Roofing and they could look around for a more suitable house. Maybe build?
Mom in her open-eyed daze, smiling at every surface in the new house, every remark put to her, murmured, "Oh, yes, Michael. That's always been our dream anyway-to build our own house."
High Point Antiques hadn't been abandoned exactly. Like Mulvariey Roofing, it was to be relocated in Marsena.
Except Mom hadn't much space for her precious things in the "split-level ranch" which was primarily a single floor sprawled out in a formula rectangle, living room/dining room/kitchen/"rec rooni"/three bedrooms at the rear of which two were small, meant for children. There was a toolshed beyond the carport only large enough to hold Dad's Toro lawn mower, the tractor, gardening tools, etc., and there was basement space inm-ediately crammed with furniture that couldn't be fitted in upstairs and movers' crates, boxes, barrels that weren't unpacked, and would not be unpacked for a long time. There was an attic no larger than our comcrib at High Point Farm and this too was crammed solid. All the rooms of the new house were full to bursting with familiar things made strange and disturbing by their crowdedness and juxtaposition in this new setting, like an unwieldy nightmare into which an entire life has been shuffled out of impersonal malicious glee. "It's like the inside of a skull," Mom marveled, with her fluttery laugh. "We just have to deal with it one day, one hour at a time. We just have to keep calm and retain our sense of humor. We should think of it as camping out, sort of-not real. Just temporary. Oh, but that basement-I'm afraid even to peek." She shuddered, and laughed.
Mom did peek, though. And more. While Dad was out on business, and I was at school, she'd run back and forth, upstairs and down, checking to see if some beloved item (lamp, watercolor, pendulum clock, quilt, wine-colored crystal goblets, etc.) had been packed and brought along, a dog or two whimpering or yapping at her heels. (We had only Foxy and Little Boots, and of the cats only Snowball, Marmalade, and a pure black barn kitten, Sin, Moni had taken pity on and carried away with her to Marsena. The new owners of High Point Farm had been ambiguous about how they would deal with the evershifting population of semiferal barn cats and Mom dreaded the worst-"What if they hire old Zimmerman to come out and shoot them? What if that nasty old man suggests it? I wouldn't put it past him, or them. But I don't want to know about any of it. Thank God that's behind us.") There was a way she had of running with her eyes slitted almost shut, hair frizzed out gray-laced-with-red like a Hallowe'en wig and there was a way she had of abruptly halting because she'd forgotten where she was going; or, arriving there breathless, basement, attic, toolshed, back bedroom she'd swear she'd never seen before, and the view from the window of an empty weedy backyard ending at a ditch-she'd have forgotten why. She drew up lists of purchases to make in town (one of these, a replacement for poor Feathers who'd died just before the move) but lost the lists and had to draw them up again and this list too she'd mislay, or find crumpled with others in her pocket, handwriting unintelligible. Make new friends (women!) it looked like she'd scribbled on a scrap of paper. Seek Out new church (local!). Naturally it fell to Mom to make arrangements with the telephone conipany for new phones, the gas and electric company, the oil delivery company, the Marsena public school district, the Marsena post office. The First Batik of Marsena-checking account, savings account. "Home owner's protection" for the new Mulvaney property at 193 Post Road, Marsena, New York. She rushed out intending to drive into town but found herself headed into the open country where, taking a wrong turn, she'd get lost for a half hour; or, on her way to the discount stores south of town, she'd find herself cruising the two-block Marsena downtown looking for a fiumiliar storefront-some store she'd been shopping in for the past twenty years, in Mt. Ephraim. In the midst of so much confusion, why not take the animals for their much-procrastinated rabies and distemper shots? And little Sin, rapidly maturing, why not have her "fixed"? It would only save grief later. So single-handed, not even waiting for Judd to get back from school to help, Judd who was always Mom's assistant on these tumult
uous outings, Mom hauled Foxy, Little Boots, Snowball, Marmalade, and Sin to a new vet six miles away-an adventure that would afterward require the thorough cleaning of the interior of the befouled station wagon, disinfectant and three Airwicks! Well, we all had quite a time today Mom would chuckle hoping to entertain her husband and her son when, and if the three of them sat down together for dinner at the same time that evening. Look at my war wounds!-holding Out her arms to show the scratches.
The looks on their faces!
There were those times when the telephone rang, and she could not locate a phone amid the clutter. She rushed, she stumbled-for what if it was Michael Sr., her beloved husband of whom she thought, worried obsessively as the mother of an infant if physically parted from the infant thinks and worries obsessively of the infant even when her mind appears to be fully engaged, if not obsessed, with other matters. Or what if it was news of him? During these mad dashes to the wall phone in the kitchen she hadn't time to faIl but with fantastical grace and dexterity wrenched herself upright in midfall and continued running (dogs whimpering, yapping hysterically in her wake, cats scattering wide-eyed and plume-tailed) before the telephone ceased its querulous ringing-though frequently she was greeted with nothing more than a derisive dial tone, in any case. "Yes? Hello? Who is it? This Is-" wonderrng for a blank moment what her name was before hanging up sadly, like a schoolgirl passed over by thends.
This is Corinne Mulvaney, please don't forget me.
In the weeks following the move from High Point Farm, a dozen times a day Mom had to restrain herself from calling the new woman of the house there. Oh, that woman! That-exploiter! Shrewdly see- ing how trapped Corinne Mulvaney was, with her inventory of High Point Antiques and so much more furniture and belongings than she could ever fit into a "split-level ranch"-knowing how vulnerable Cormne was and how little time she had to sell her things elsewhere, this woman offered to "help out" as if buying an 1840 Cast-iron Gothic Revival settee for $150 or a Colt Willow Ware bed for $200 or the exquisite little German ceramic clock in Marianne's old room for $60 was "helping out"! Oh, how she hated-but no, of course Corinne didn't hate. She was a Christian women to her finger- and toe-tips, to the deepest depths of her soul, she'd managed not to hate even those vicious enemies of Michael Mulvaney's, his former friends at the Mt. Ephraim Country Club who'd almost succeeded in putting him in prison. She'd managed not to hate even the Lundts, Morton and Cynthia Lundt who'd once been her friend who'd not only denied the brutal act their rapist son Zachary had perpetrated upon her daughter but had defended the son and vilified her daughter- even these people Corinne Mulvaney had managed not to hate.
These past few months, Corimme seemed to have lost contact with Marianne. She had an address for Marianne in Erie, Pennsylvania- unless, in the confusion of the move, she'd misplaced it. She had no telephone nunuber. She knew of course that Marianne was no longer a student at Kilburn State and no longer a resident of the Green Island Co-op, or whatever it was called. Probably Marianne had transferred to another college? Was there a college in Erie, Pennsylvania? She'd ask Judd to look it up in the local library. Kilburn State was not a highly regarded college even within the New York State system and the Co-op-----that character "Abelove" with his moist staring eyes and shimmering Christ-locks simply wasn't trustworthy. So it was just as we]l that Marianne had left. Corinne wasn't worried, much-hadn't time to worry about her scattered grown-up children any more than a mother cat about her scattered grown-up kittens telling herself It's nature's way for them to scatter, to leave the nest as Patrick had once said lecturing his family at inealtimes it's the strategy by which nature assures that mammals won't interbreed with their siblings and weaken their genes-expulsion from the Garden of Eden, with a purpose so she wasn't truly worried about Mariam-me, or Patrick either, both would contact her soon enough, she had no doubt.
Rag-quilt lives, both of them!-not what you'd have expected.
These days, Corinne almost envied them.
Then there was Mikey-Junior. Of course, you didn't dare call hitn that now. Marine Private First Class Mike Mulvaney Jr.-no mystery, at least, where he was. When people inquired, in the days when people inquired, his parents would say with pride, if uneasiness, considering the situation in Iran, that their eldest son was a Marine with a special training in electronics; they had snapshots to show of hini in his dress uniform, remarkable photographs of a handsome clean-shaven young man with a somber smile, an air of conspicuous certainty and pride. Or was it the uniform, dazzling in its beauty? When Mike had first visited home, after his eleven-week boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, he'd had a difficult time adjusting to what he called the civilian world; he'd seemed uncomfortable with his own parents, pained at his father's drinking and smoking and even his posture, and eager to return to the Marines. Corinne had been so hurt! So shocked! And she'd let Mike Jr. know.
"How can you look at your own parents like you don't know us?" Corinne had demanded, and Mike Jr. had shifted his muscular shoulders in embarrassment, and looked her in the eye in a way new to him, a way she guessed he'd been trained to do, at the boot camp, as if he was about ready to salute, and said, "Mom, I guess I don't, in some weird way. It's like things are in code and the key's been lost."
Now Corinne looked at her son as if he were the stranger.
This past year, thank God, Mike was coming around. Worried about the farm and what Corinne had passed on to him of his dad's business problems (she'd spared him any news of the drinking, the second arrest, the trouble with that vindictive Judge Kirkland), Mike had begun to call home more often, and even to send postcards. He'd never been one to write letters, but postcards were just right, and they were from such exotic places as Gibraltar, Cairo, Saudi Arabia. Signed with just a carefully scripted Mike, usually. Though once, on the reverse of a card depicting a brilliantly blue Mediterranean Sea, he'd signed Thinking of you & love, Mike.
Michael, who'd long behaved as if he hadn't been missing his eldest son, was much moved by these cards. Especially Thinking of you & love, Mike. So Mike Jr. was growing up, maturing!-it was a miracle, how the Marines had made a man (yes that sounded goddamned corny, but it seemed to he SO) out of a hotheaded, immature kid who hadn't been able to get along with anyone except his drinking buddies. If to be a man is to be in control of oneself; and taking pride in the flict.
He, Michael Mulvaney Sr., the boy's own father, hadn't had the luck, good or bad, of serving in the U.S. armed forces. He might've been drafted into the Korean War-"conflict" was what they called it, in those days-except he'd married young, started having kids young. No telling what Michael Mulvaney might have learned.
What doesn't break you can teach you-right?
In the midst of so much worry about losing the farm, losing the business, Michael asked Corinne to locate the oldest snapshot albumn, dating back to-well, the beginning. They'd sit in the family room, each sipping beer, Michael grinning and laughing and shaking his head, tears in his eyes, lingering over the earliest pictures of High Point Farm, their young-mnarrieds pictures, Mikey-Junior at the age of a week in his beaming mom's aims, Mikey-Junior as a husky toddler gaping into the camera, Mikey_Junior at the age of four atop his first pony-what was that pony's name? Michael said, sighing, clamping a warm heavy hand on Corinne's knee, that long-married gesture meaning We're in this together, "Corinne, d'you think he'll ever come back? Try to work with me in the business? I wouldn't be so hard on him, now. I pushed too much, I guess. God, we could really be a team, Mike and me. If he'd give his old man a second chance."
Corinne laid her hand over Michael's. She said, smiling, "Well. Maybe. We can pray."
Thinking of such things like they'd happened years ago already and not just a few weeks back. For once life begins to accelerate it goes faster and faster. Probably, Patrick could explain that in scientific terms. Some equation of x, y, z.
She'd discover herself sitting on the steps of a basement stairs she didn't recognize. Not High Point Farm-this was
different. No light on, and no purpose in her being there. She might have a cold coffee mug in her hands, or a screwdriver or sponge mop or Windex meaning she'd been going somewhere. But now just sitting here in the shadows, a shell-shocked woman of fifty, vague and smiling into the darkness below where ominous shapes of crates, barrels, upended tables and chairs slyly beckoned. Had she wandered into a mausoleum? Was this the Land of the Dead? "Mother, you aren't here, too, are you?" This was meant to be jokey, bravado. If Corinne Mulvaney could make only one person, herself, laugh- why, that meant everything was under control. Or, stranger yet, she'd find herself shivering outside in some backyard she didn't know. In a chill mist or even light-falling snow. Was it getting to be spring, or just starting winter? A raw suburbanlooking place, nearly without trees, oh how could people stand to live without trees?-you're so exposed to the sky. There was a country highway out front, diesel trucks thundering by. There was a neighboring house, split-level ranch with carport and glary-white aluminum siding, just the other side of the scrawny hedge. Foxy and Little Boots, hackles raised, barking their fool heads off at two psycho German shepherds beyond the hedge. Corinne was trying without success to get the damned tractor started, wanting to plow up some soil for a vegetable garden, flower beds. It was April, unless it was still March, but she was eager to begin. That yearning to feel the crumbly earth, dirt between her fingers. The hell with the tractor, probably it was out of gas. Michael wasn't tending to such things these days. She could use a shovel, a spade, a hoe. Oh, anything! Just to get the hard soil broken and tilled. You can set Out lettuce just after St. Patrick's Day, in theory at least.
We Were The Mulvaneys Page 44