by Nancy Geary
After she’d hung up, she remembered something else, and redialed.
“Erin, it’s your mother, and I’m sorry to bother you, again, to take up so much time on your machine. I just . . . I wish you were at home so we could speak. You’re not alone. I want you to know that I love you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Grace felt fortunate that the weather had cooperated. The day was mild but slightly overcast. Not everyone would feel the need to rush to the beach. She opened the cigar box that doubled as her cash register and checked the change. Aside from the collection of singles, twenty in fives, and a roll of quarters that constituted start-up money, she counted six twenties, five tens, a check for $133, and an assortment of loose change as well.
She’d arranged her wares in a semicircle: lamps, appliances, and other household bric-a-brac on a table, old clothes and several fur coats hung from wire hangers on a coatrack, jewelry and handbags displayed on a small side table, framed art propped against the side of the house, and furniture, including a wicker settee with one torn pillow and matching armchairs, arranged attractively on the grass. She hoped no one would notice the flaws, the nicks and chips, tears and faded patches, but if they did she was prepared to adjust her prices accordingly.
Her advertisement in the local papers had specifically said, No Early Birds. The kind ad agent, a woman whose voice made her sound elderly, had advised her on the appropriateness of including that direction. “Otherwise you’ll get people knocking on your front door before you’re even dressed. From what I hear, tag salers can be vultures.”
Despite the prohibition, the first cars had pulled in more than ninety minutes before her yard sale officially started. Those people had surveyed the tables, walked through, and plucked their selections with surgical precision. Several Bakelite bracelets were the first sale of the day. A print from the Venice Biennale, some garden tools, a transferware platter, and two bicycles quickly followed. Although her advertisement had also specified Cash Only, an elderly man had convinced her to accept his personal check, drawn on a bank in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as payment for a strand of freshwater pearls. “My wife has always wanted a set of these,” he said, flashing a toothless grin. “We’ll have been married forty-one years this November,” he added, his voice full of pride. “And you know what she’ll say when I give her this present?”
Grace didn’t reply.
“She’ll say, You never stop surprising me. That’s right, that’s exactly what she’ll say.” He chuckled. “The day I do is the day she should take me out back and shoot me.”
The current lull in shoppers had allowed her to run inside for a cup of tea. She removed the tea bag, adjusted her folding chair so that from her seat she had an unobstructed view down the drive, and sat. She stared at the meniscus of the brownish yellow liquid. A brand called Wellness. As if a steeped bag of herbs would help.
A maroon Oldsmobile parked by the hand-printed sign at the end of the drive. A middle-aged couple alighted and approached Grace. The man wore a striped golf shirt and carried a Styrofoam coffee cup and a small paper bag stained with grease. His wife wore her hair tied in a colorful scarf, tight white pants, and a loose peach sweater. She proceeded to weave in and around each table, touching books, jewelry, the backs of chairs, everything and anything that her hand could reach. Grace watched, fascinated, wondering what would compel a total stranger to finger the used contents of a fifty-eight-year-old woman’s house. Perhaps she was blind.
“Excuse me, but did you notice that one of these napkin rings is chipped?”
Grace looked up. A young, slender man in blue jeans and a Nike running jacket stood in front of her. Although he didn’t strike her as the tag-sale type of shopper, he’d been browsing since before she’d gone inside for tea.
“See, right here.” In one hand he held four porcelain napkin rings tied together with garden twine. She remembered buying them in a small town in Mexico decades before, a place they’d taken the boys for spring vacation. The trip had been a disappointment, the four-star hotel obviously mislabeled, and the beach dirty. But the vibrant colors of the napkin rings had caught her eye as she’d perused stands filled with local goods in the marketplace. Only when she got home did she notice that a small gold sticker marked MADE IN CHINA hadn’t been removed from inside one of the rings.
“I’ll give you a dollar for all four,” the man said, without waiting for her reply. “You’ve got them priced here at fifty cents apiece, but, like I said, one’s chipped, and what am I going to do with only three?”
“Why don’t you take them as my gift?” Grace remarked.
The man looked confused. “I said I’d give you a dollar.”
“I’d rather you just took them.” She didn’t want to haggle. She wanted the yard sale run on her own terms.
He stared briefly at the rings in his hand, then at her, and back at the rings. Dropping them on the table as if they’d become radioactive, he turned on his heels and quickly ran down the driveway.
“Thank you for stopping by,” she called after him.
It was nearly four o’clock, and nobody had come through in more than an hour. Despite the fact that much remained to be sold, Grace pulled the sign from the driveway. Her outdoor shop was closed. The dump would be the repository for all that remained. As she walked back up the drive, she surveyed the scattered objects, her belongings that had been fingered, studied, and rejected throughout the day. A rose-painted demitasse had fallen and broken into dozens of pieces. Whoever had knocked it off the table lacked the courage or generosity to confess to the transgression.
She collapsed into her folding chair and, inadvertently, sipped from her teacup. The long-cooled liquid tasted bitter.
“I don’t know how you did this,” Bain remarked from behind her. “I couldn’t stand even looking out the window, watching people paw through our stuff.”
A violation. She’d felt it, too, watching people pick up the remnants of her home, examine the objects, and then reject them or haggle over a dollar here, a quarter there. Other than the pearl purchaser, the buyers acted as though they had done her a favor, taking her belongings off her hands for a fraction of their value.
“It was too much to bring with you—with us,” she corrected. “And it seemed a pity to have it go to waste.” She handed him the cigar box, filled to overflowing. “Can you count it for me?” Her voice cracked. She felt tears burn her eyes.
He reached for the box, but paused before taking it. “No, you deserve the glory. You can count your booty.”
She tried to smile but knew her expression looked forced.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. When he furrowed his brow, his bushy eyebrows almost touched.
“Wrong? Nothing.” She felt weary, sick. Should she tell him? How many more days could she continue to hide her secret? She’d harbored the notion that there would be one night when she would kiss him and drift off into eternal slumber, that she would never have to say good-bye or see his pain. But morning after morning she awoke to face another day, and, with it, the pressure to disclose the truth mounted. She knew she’d been acting strangely. And this yard sale was further evidence. All the effort and hours of work to sell no more than a few hundred dollars’ worth of items when they could have given the valuables to the church, taken a tax deduction, and brought the rest in two trips to the dump. Her conduct hardly fit Bain’s business-oriented model of rational economic behavior.
“Grace, tell me what’s wrong?”
Willing the conversation to end, she didn’t reply.
“I know how hard this move is for you. Believe me, it’s killing me to see you like this.”
Did he know? Could he tell? She knew the point of no return was drawing near. She imagined she could feel changes occurring in her body, her systems shutting down. But there was no good way to announce her disintegration to him. I may be dying, sounded too glib, too facile. She wondered if there was a book that could provide some guidance, a candy-coate
d solution packaged neatly in an $11.95 trade paperback, maybe even a large-print edition. She wished she had someone, something to tell her what to do.
But that was Bain’s role. Throughout their life together, he’d been the guide. He’d played the part of adviser, leader, instructor. Without turning to him now, without trusting him with her secret, she had no one.
Grace cleared her throat. “I want to have a party.”
“What?” Bain appeared confused by her non sequitur.
“A party. Once all the furniture is gone. Maybe the night before the closing. A celebration to mark the end of our years here. It will be a chance to say good-bye.”
“In an empty house?”
“Please, Bain. Let me do this.” She looked at the stuffed cigar box still in her hand. “We can use the proceeds from this yard sale to get some wonderful champagne. I’d like one more chance to fill the rooms of this house with life.”
He glanced briefly toward the ocean, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek. She thought she saw his eyes water and his cheeks glow with moisture, but perhaps it was only the damp sea air.
“This house will always be full of your life,” he said, his voice soft. “Jay Marx can’t get rid of your spirit that easily. I suspect, my darling, that your ghost will haunt his family long after we’ve all joined the dearly departed. But if a party is what you want, go ahead.” Shaking his head, he picked up a lamp, two bookends, and a blender that hadn’t sold from one of the display tables, and loaded them into the trunk of his car. “What the hell. Let people think we’re odd to entertain under the circumstances. We’ll never have to see anyone again if we don’t want to.”
“Thank you,” Grace murmured, although her voice was too quiet for him to hear.
The sky was darkening as Bain wedged the last few items into the back of the car and squeezed the door shut. Exhausted, Grace lay down on the grass, feeling the newly cut blades against her bare ankles. He flopped down beside her, draped one arm across her torso, and closed his eyes. “You’re a remarkable woman,” he whispered.
“Let’s see how well I did before we compliment me,” she replied as she dumped the contents of the cigar box out on the lawn and began to tabulate the day’s haul. First she separated the bills into neat piles. Then she moved on to the loose change. When she finished counting, she lay back flat, cradling her head in her hands and staring up at the sky. A flock of geese in V-formation flew overhead, and she watched the power of their flapping wings.
And then the most remarkable thought occurred to her. Could it be? She flipped through the reel of her life to confirm its truth, and laughed aloud at the realization that it was. This was the first money she’d ever made, the first cash that was solely derived from her efforts, labor, and organization. At fifty-eight, she could finally say that she’d earned something. Six hundred forty-three dollars and seventy-five cents suddenly felt like a million.
She propped herself up on her elbows and was about to share her discovery with Bain when she heard the popping, puttering sound of a muffler sorely in need of replacement. He did, too. They both stared in the direction of the noise.
A badly rusted Volvo station wagon pulled up to the house. The driver’s-side door opened, and Erin climbed out. His hair was down to his shoulders, and he had the early growth of a beard. His wrinkled shirt hung out over his blue jeans. Seconds later, India and Deshawn tumbled out, scampered to their father, and hung on to his legs. He was barefoot. From inside the car, Grace heard a baby crying.
As she approached her son, she could see dark circles under his eyes. His cheekbones were decidedly more pronounced than the last time he’d visited. She extended her arms. “What a wonderful surprise!” She put her arms around Erin’s neck and held him tight, feeling his ribs and the bones in his shoulders.
He buried his face and murmured, “I thought I could manage, could get through this, but I can’t.”
“Erin, I must say your timing is far from perfect,” Grace heard Bain speak from behind her. “Did it occur to you that we’re moving shortly? If you’d called—”
“Stop,” she interrupted. Her forcefulness surprised her. “You’re here now. And we’re thrilled . . . thrilled to see all of you.” She felt the soft touch of little hands on her body, as her grandchildren shifted their grasp from their father and clung to her instead. “Come inside,” she said to Erin. “The children must be starving. You get your bags, and I’ll get the baby.”
“Are you sure this is okay?” he asked. “After I got your message, I thought—”
“Of course,” she said without hesitation. “This is what home is for.”
As she reached into the backseat, unbuckled Namid, and lifted his plump body into her arms, serenity washed through her. She kissed his cheeks and the top of his head, smelled the sweet, distinctive scent of baby skin, and whispered that everything would be just fine. Calling to India and Deshawn, she hurried toward the house, bouncing Namid on her hip to quiet his tears.
She would deal with Bain later. She knew he’d come around; he just needed a bit of time to process this unexpected turn of events. He was a man who liked order, and four houseguests—even family—at this particular time in their life hardly comported with his sense of that. But with the closing just two weeks away, there was nothing for them to do but enjoy their last days at home. Erin’s company wouldn’t disrupt that.
Besides, regardless of how Bain felt, for now she had to focus on the task at hand. Her son, whatever his faults, needed her, and her grandchildren did, too. And even though the tragic events saddened her, she relished the chance to mother again.
It was just the distraction she needed.
Chapter Twenty-four
Two days had passed in a fleeting moment, so consumed was Grace with feeding, tending, and caring for India, Deshawn, and Namid. The older children seemed eager to accompany her on even the most mundane errands—carrying bags from the car to the dump, shopping for more butter, milk, and baby formula—and to find genuine pleasure in her company. They played Monopoly and hopscotch, flew kites, baked brownies from a mix, and made drip castles from wet sand. They told knock-knock jokes, blew air down their straws to make the juice bubble, and then collapsed on the floor in peals of laughter. Grace found herself giggling, too.
Although Namid was old enough to walk, he seemed content to watch the goings-on around him from the security of Grace’s arms. He even smiled when she sang her out-of-tune rendition of “Down in the Valley.” Erin mumbled apologetic thanks, an occasional comment, or a halfhearted instruction to one of his children. Mostly, though, he hovered like a shadow. He, too, seemed only to want her nearby.
Was it her tragedy or his that had made them more intimate? Had they all reached a tacit agreement to put the difficulties behind them? And why was it that this family had to fall apart for them to enjoy one another’s company? Several times she’d almost raised the subject, wanting to wonder aloud, but decided against it. An unspoken sweetness was better than none at all, and she refused to mourn the years passed or lost. She couldn’t look back.
On the third evening, Bain went to the Elliotts’ for a dinner party. Grace had welcomed the excuse of her grandchildren to decline the invitation, and after feeding India, Deshawn, and Namid, she surprised them with a Dumbo videotape. Now three sets of legs stuck out from the cushion of the sofa as they sat in front of the television fascinated by the tale of the baby elephant ridiculed for his oversize ears.
In the far end of the room, Erin sprawled on a love seat. She joined him, picking his feet up, settling herself, and allowing his legs to drop into her lap. They listened to the sound track in the background.
“Am I allowed to ask about what happened?”
For seventy-two hours, she’d wondered whether Erin would volunteer details of what had transpired, of the disastrous course of events, but he’d said nothing.
“I don’t mean to pry. I just wonder whether you’d like to talk.” She smiled. “I know it�
��s not something you’re used to, at least with me.”
He shrugged. “It’s painfully short,” he replied.
“Maybe short is worse,” she offered. “There’s no time to prepare.” Was she consoling him or herself? she wondered.
“I guess that’s right.” He began. It had been a day like any other, until he announced that he’d made appointments for the three children to see the local pediatrician. They needed checkups. Namid was behind in his vaccines, and the other children hadn’t been examined in more than a year. Marley objected vehemently. She’d been furious, accusing him of undermining her and her beliefs by adhering to Western medicine, but he knew her concern was primarily selfish. He’d had to let their health insurance lapse, and they couldn’t afford to pay.
“You should have called us,” Grace interjected.
“I couldn’t ask you and Dad for money. Not again. Not this time.”
“But health insurance, Erin, you mustn’t let that go.”
He closed his eyes. “I know. I know I’ve made some very bad, some very stupid choices.”
She rubbed his shin. “Go on,” she coaxed.
Erin sighed, exhaling resignation and exhaustion. Then he continued. He’d insisted on the doctor’s visit. He still had a little credit on a Visa, enough to cover the appointments so long as no one needed any extra tests or blood work. As Marley stood on the porch glaring at him, her hands on her hips in a posture of defiance, he’d loaded the children into the car and driven off. When he returned less than two hours later, she was gone. He found a brief note to that effect, as if he needed written confirmation. She’d taken her clothes and a few personal objects, but not much else. Not even a photograph as far as he could tell.
“She did manage to stop at the bank and empty what little there was in our savings. It wasn’t much, three hundred bucks or so. And I haven’t heard a word since. I’ve tried calling a couple of friends.”