He growled and shook his head at me in the mirror. Suddenly there was nothing in my mouth. The taste was gone. He had cut me off from our senses. He looked as surprised as me. We hadn’t known that was possible.
‘You can stop me eating mints but you can’t stop me telling,’ I said.
Ted took a pin from the cushion on the dresser. Slowly he drove the tip into the fleshy part of his thumb.
A red line of fire ran through me and I screamed and wept.
Ted stood before the mirror. His face held Mommy’s expression of clinical interest. Again and again he drove the needle home. ‘I’ll stop when you promise,’ he said.
I promised.
I understand something about life that Ted never has: it is too painful. No one can take so much unhappiness. I tried to explain it to him. It’s bad, Teddy. Mommy is nuts, you know that. She’s lost it. She’ll go too far and end us one day. Better to choose our own way out. We don’t have to feel bad all the time. Take the knife, knot the rope. Go hide in the lake. Walk into the woods, until everything goes green. The kindness of ending. Teddy tried to block his ears, but of course he could not shut me out altogether. We are two parts of the whole. Or we were supposed to be.
Shortly after that I tried to kill us for the first time. It wasn’t a very good try but it showed Teddy that he didn’t want to die. He found a way to silence me. He started playing Mommy’s music when he gave me pain. He gave me so much pain that the music became it, weaving through the air. The agony only stopped when I slipped half way down, into the dark freezer, leaving the body empty. I quickly learned to vanish as soon as the first note was plucked on the guitar.
Ted doesn’t know everything. I still fight him. And I am stronger than he thinks. Sometimes when he goes away, it is not Little Teddy who comes. It is me. When he finds himself with a knife in his hand – those times it is me, trying to do what should be done.
But I wasn’t strong enough. Ted had too good a hold on me. I had to make the cat do it. And that’s how we come to be where we are.
Ted
She must have suspected that it was all about to come down around her. The police had come to the hospital, to Mommy’s old work, asking questions. The children at the kindergarten where she worked now had got so clumsy. Previously Teddy had been the clumsiest and she had saved the big stuff, the stuff that left marks, for him. But recently Teddy wasn’t enough any more. There were too many children being stitched up who hadn’t fallen down.
Mommy had taken a long time to fix me, the night before. I was still shivering in the aftershock. I came into the kitchen for a glass of water. Mommy was standing on her tiptoes on a chair. She had a length of laundry line in her hands. On rainy days like today Mommy ran the washing line across the kitchen, to dry her stockings. Not pantyhose, she would never wear that.
‘Teddy,’ she said. ‘You are tall. Help me get this up here. The goddamn thing won’t go over the beam.’ It was funny to hear her swear in that elegant, accented voice. I climbed up on the chair and threw the line over the crossbeam.
‘Thank you,’ she said, formally. ‘Now go and get some ice cream from the store.’ I looked at her, startled. We had ice cream once a year, on her birthday.
‘But it will rot our teeth,’ I said.
‘Please do not argue with me, Theodore. When you get back, there will be some chores for you. Can you remember everything I am about to say? You must not write it down. And I am going out almost immediately, so I will not be able to tell you again.’
‘I think I can remember,’ I said.
‘There is something I need you to dispose of. I will leave it here, in the kitchen. You must take it out to the woods. You will have to wait until dark to remove it from the house, because you are not allowed to bury things in the woods.’
‘Yes, Mommy,’ I said. She gave me ten dollars, way too much for ice cream.
As I closed the front door behind me I heard her say, in a low voice, ‘Ya, ma ankou.’ It was all getting weirder and weirder.
I got vanilla ice cream. That was the only flavour she liked. I can still feel the numbness of my fingertips where they met the cold tub, see the delicate sediment of ice that covered the lid.
I come into the kitchen and see her. In a way, it is all I have seen, ever since. The sight is inside my eyelids. My mother is floating in air, swaying gently. She is a dreadful pendulum. The laundry line creaks as she moves. Her teeth bite her blue lower lip as if caught in a last moment of doubt.
Her favourite possessions are stacked neatly by her drifting feet. Her little vanity case, packed with the gauzy blue dress, her nightgown, perfume. Her soft suede handbag, the colour of a doe’s belly. A note lies on the case, in her formal French schoolchild’s copperplate. To be taken to the woods, it says.
I had to wait until night. She had told me that. But I did not want to leave her hanging there. I was afraid someone would knock on the door and insist on coming in. Then they would see her. I was not afraid of getting in trouble. But she looked so exposed up there, with her twisted blue face. I did not want other eyes on her.
So I took her down. It was difficult to touch her. She was still warm. I folded her up small and put her in the cupboard beneath the sink. ‘Sorry,’ I said to her, again and again. I cleaned the floor, which had mess on it beneath where she had hung.
I wanted to send all her clothes with her, but I couldn’t find her big suitcase. I did my best by adding a couple of things to the little overnight vanity – everyday things she might need in the woods. I put in her suture kit. I packed the copy of Aesop’s Fables that lay by her bed. She could never fall asleep without a book and I worried about her, lying wakeful in the cold forest.
Night came like a blanket. I put Mommy and her things on my back, and carried her into the trees. She had grown stiff and clammy. Things seeped out of her. She would have hated that. I knew I needed to get her to the forest. As soon as we were under the trees I felt better.
She seemed to grow heavier as we went through the night forest. I gasped and stumbled. My spine felt as though it were being crushed, my knees trembled. I welcomed those things. It was right that this should be a difficult journey.
I buried her in the centre of the glade, near Snowball the mouse. I buried her blue dress in the south corner, her favourite leather handbag to the west, her perfume in the east. As the earth took each thing it became a god. As I laid her down in the hole I felt the earth take her in its arms. ‘I hold you in my heart,’ I whispered. She started to transform. The white trees watched like a hundred eyes.
Lauren whispered in my ear, ‘Get in. We can lie down with her.’
For a moment I thought about it. But then I remembered that if I died, Olivia died too, and Lauren and Night-time, and the little ones. And I found that I didn’t want to do it.
When all the gods were safely in their homes I piled earth back on top of them. Even after they were buried I could still feel them radiating. They shone without light beneath the earth.
Mommy had acted just in time. The police came two days later. I stood outside, under a sun like a burning star. I became a picture for the man for the newspaper. When they searched the house they found nothing, of course. There was a case missing, and some clothes.
Where did she go? they asked me. I shook my head, because I really did not know.
Before she did it, Mommy had mailed a letter to the Chihuahuadachshund-terrier lady. The woman was on vacation in Mexico but she read the letter when she got back. The letter said that Mommy was going away for her health. She was a very private woman, my mother. She was thorough. She did not want to be known, even in death. Perhaps that is the only thing that I ever truly understood about her.
So Mommy is gone, and has never been found. The little girl is still gone too. I do not think that they are in the same place, however.
Lauren was six years old when she first came to me, and she stayed that age for a long time. I never thought of it before, but it’s the same
age Little Girl With Popsicle was when she went.
Eventually Lauren started to grow up. She grew slower than me, but she grew. Her anger grew with her. It was bad.
‘I don’t have anywhere to put all the feelings,’ she kept saying. And I felt so bad, because it was the pain she took from me. I loved her for that, no matter what she did. She hates the body. It’s too big and hairy and weird for her. She can’t even wear the clothes she likes, star-spangled leggings, little pink shoes. They never fit. They don’t make those things in the right sizes. Maybe that time at the mall was the worst. It was so sad for her. I feel as protective towards her as a father. I promised that I would try to be that, for her. I know I’m failing. I’m too messed up to help anyone.
I went to the inside house when I needed comfort. Olivia with her little feet and her curious tail was always waiting. Olivia didn’t know anything about the world outside. I was glad of that. When I was with her I didn’t need to know either.
Nothing is perfect, of course. Not even the weekend place. Sometimes things show up I don’t expect. White flip-flops, long-lost boys crying behind the attic door.
I fall silent. We seem to have reached the end. Lauren is gone. I am so tired I feel I might evaporate like water.
‘Maybe I should have guessed,’ he said. ‘Champ knew.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He likes you. But that day he just went crazy, barking at you in the street. I thought I saw something in your eyes, just for a second. Like someone else was in there. I thought I imagined it.’
‘That was Olivia, my cat,’ I say. ‘She was trying to get out. Never mind. We’ll get to that another time.’
The man gets up to leave, as I knew he would.
‘Who’s looking after your dog?’ I guess I want to keep him there a moment longer, because I won’t see him again.
‘What?’
‘Your dog,’ I say. ‘You’ve been here for a night and a day. You shouldn’t leave a dog alone all that time. It’s not right.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ he says. ‘Linda Moreno is taking care of Champ.’ He sees my look of puzzlement. ‘The woman with the Chihuahua.’
‘I thought she was gone,’ I say. ‘I saw flyers on the telephone poles. They had her face on them.’
‘Went on an Atlantic cruise,’ he says. ‘With a younger man. Didn’t want her daughter to know. The daughter got worried. But she’s back now. Got a nice tan, too.’
‘That’s good,’ I say. I felt a spurt of happiness. I’d been worried about the Chihuahua lady. It was good someone was doing ok.
‘See you tomorrow,’ he says, though I won’t, of course. Then he is gone. He never seems to use an unnecessary word.
The dark comes, or the closest you get to dark in the city. I don’t turn on the lamp by my bed. I watch the lights from the parking lot make yellow squares across the ceiling. When the nurse comes in she shocks me awake in a blaze of white neon. She gives me water, and the name of the hospital is printed on the plastic cup she puts to my lips. I’m not so good with names, and I’m dazed with sleep and painkillers, so it takes me a moment, before I realise – this is her hospital. Mommy worked here, was fired from here for the things she did to the children. It is one of those strange circles in time. But I can’t tell whether I’m at the beginning or the end. The nurse goes, leaving me in the dark again. It comes to me, for the first time, perhaps, that my mother is really dead.
‘It turns out you can’t kill me,’ I say to Lauren. ‘And I can’t kill you. So we have to find another way of doing things.’
I feel for her, try to take her hand. But she’s not there. She’s sleeping, or shutting me out, or maybe just quiet. There’s no way to tell whether she hears me or not.
I think about the Chihuahua lady. I hope she had a good vacation with her young boyfriend. I hope she’s relaxing in her nice yellow house with the green trim.
I turn the cup in my hand. The name of the hospital revolves. Mommy’s place. But she isn’t here. She is at home, waiting for me in the cupboard under the sink.
Something is teasing, tugging at my brain. Something about the Chihuahua lady and her trip to Mexico. I shake my head. That is not right. The Chihuahua lady went on a cruise, not to Mexico. She was in Mexico the first time. The familiar tug in my mind, of having forgotten something. But it is gone.
The orange-haired man appears as I am being discharged. I have to look twice to check, but yes, it is him. I am very surprised and weirdly shy. We told him so much, the other night. I feel sort of naked.
‘I thought you might need a ride,’ he says.
I smell the forest as we approach. It is such a relief to see my street, the dented sign, trees crowding the horizon.
But I don’t want the man to see my sad house; the plywood over the windows, the dusty dark rooms where I live alone with all my others. I want him to go. Instead he helps me out of the car and indoors. He does it quickly and efficiently, not asking me to acknowledge it.
Even when we’re inside, he still hovers in the hall, not seeming to notice the cobwebs and the brokenness of it all. So now I have to offer him something. The refrigerator yields the sour stench of old milk. I feel a twinge of despair.
‘Beer,’ he suggests, looking at the contents.
‘Sure,’ I say, feeling immediately more cheerful. I take a look in the cupboards. ‘I bet you’ve never had a pickle with peanut butter.’
‘You would win that bet,’ he says.
We sit in the broken lawn chairs out back. It is a beautiful day. Dandelion clocks dance in the low sun. The trees whisper in the slight breeze. I turn my face up to it. For a moment I feel almost normal – sitting in my yard in the late summer heat, just like anyone might, having a beer with a friend.
‘Hospital,’ he says. ‘You must have missed being outside. You like the woods.’
‘I did,’ I say.
‘Hey,’ he says, but not to me. The tabby cat steps out of the undergrowth. She looks even thinner than usual. ‘What’s up?’ She slides and curves around the rusty chair legs. He puts some peanut butter on the ground for her and she licks it, purring. ‘Poor girl,’ he says. ‘She belonged to someone, once. They took her claws out then they abandoned her. People.’ The cat lies down at his feet. The sun shows up the dust in her fur.
I try to think of a question a normal person would ask. ‘What’s it like, being a park ranger?’
‘It’s good,’ he says. ‘I always wanted to work outdoors, ever since I was a kid. I grew up in the city.’ I can’t imagine him among tall buildings, on busy sidewalks. He seems designed for great distances and solitude.
‘You and I have talked before,’ he says. ‘At the bar we say hi sometimes.’
‘Oh,’ I say. I am too embarrassed to tell him that I don’t remember much about the times at the bar. I think Little Teddy took over towards the end. He’s not good at talking to grown-ups. Or maybe I was just drunk. ‘I picked that bar to take women to,’ I say. ‘How dumb is that?’ I tell him about my date with the woman in blue.
‘But you kept going there, on your own. Even after you realised what kind of place it was.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yeah, to drink.’
Something is happening to the air between us where we sit. Time seems to stretch out somewhat. I can’t stop looking at his forearm, where it rests on the rusty chair. Pale skin, covered in fine hair that glows in the sun like burning wire.
Fear ripples through me. ‘I’m not like a regular person,’ I say. ‘It’s hard being me. Maybe even harder being around me.’
‘What’s a regular person?’ he says. ‘We do what we can.’
I think of Mommy’s narrowed mouth and her disgust. I think of the bug man, who wants to write a book about how messed up I am. ‘Right now,’ I say, ‘what you can do is go.’
I reach the car, limping, as he puts on his seatbelt.
‘I didn’t mean it,’ I say. ‘Sorry. It’s been a bad month. Year. Life, even.’
&n
bsp; He raises his eyebrows.
‘Please, come back. Have another beer,’ I say. ‘Let’s talk about you, now.’
‘You just got out of hospital. Probably need to rest.’
‘Don’t make me chase your car down the street,’ I say. ‘I just got out of hospital.’
He thinks and then he turns off the engine. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘I got some weird stories, too.’
His name is Rob and he has a twin brother. Growing up, they did all the usual twin stuff. They confused their mother and pretended to be one another, even went to each other’s classes in high school sometimes. Rob was better at sciences and Eddie was better at artsy stuff, English Lit and so forth. So they both got good grades. They stopped swapping around on their parents, though, when they got older, and they never did it to girlfriends. It was a mean trick, they agreed, not to be practised on those you love. Then Rob stopped having girlfriends. He didn’t tell Eddie, even when he met a man who worked in a restaurant in town who made his heart beat fast. They started seeing one another.
One evening the man from the restaurant saw Rob across the street. He was filled with love so he crossed the street and took Rob in his arms. As soon as he touched him, he knew it wasn’t Rob. But it was too late. Eddie beat him until he couldn’t see out of either eye.
The man from the restaurant moved away. His brother won’t speak to him, and Rob says he wouldn’t want him to, anyway. ‘Even so,’ he says, ‘it’s like a missing leg. I had to learn how to walk again without him. I stopped seeing people for a time. Only wanted my dog and the woods. I like early mornings best, when no one is around.’
I think about the story for a time.
I say, ‘If all that hadn’t happened to you, I would be dead.’
‘Well,’ he says, surprised. ‘I guess that’s right.’ We look at each other briefly. Then we sit in silence.
He goes home as evening is sneaking in. The sun falls low, purple shadow wraps around things, readying for night. As I pick up the beer cans I catch a flash of yellow overhead, in my beech tree. Goldfinch song fills the dusk. The birds are coming back.
The Last House on Needless Street Page 26