The Good House: A Novel

by Leary, Ann

  Emily replied, “Nothing, we just were wondering where you were last night. Out until after two in the morning?”

  “Well, I was at … a friend’s.”

  “Mom, you don’t have to be so secretive. Just say it. You spent the night at your boyfriend’s.”

  “Okay, I was at my boyfriend’s,” I said. Because I would rather have them think I had stayed at Frankie’s, that I had spent the night anywhere but passed out on the cellar floor. The whole night, which had seemed so amusing only a couple of short hours ago, now seemed like a dark, dark tragedy. A jackpot. I had passed out in the cellar, with spiders and who knew what else crawling all over me. I thought of the spongy feet and greasy fur and beady black eyes of mice. I thought of the way snakes sidle about with their lashing tongues and quickening tails, the way they like to heat their cold scales in warm, dark places.

  “So you and Frankie are a … couple?” Emily giggled.

  “Emily,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Mind your own damn business,” I said, and turned on my heel and went back up to my room. I pulled my boots from my closet, an action that sent the dogs (always so annoyingly underfoot) into leaping and ecstatic displays of joy. Downstairs, I grabbed my coat and the dogs’ leashes and out we went into the bright midday sun. There was still snow on the ground, but the sun had melted the top layer and warmed the air. Everything around me shone with the reflected sun’s intense glare. I shielded my eyes with my hands and decided not to leash the dogs for a walk on the road, but, instead, to take the short wooded path to the river.

  Each step was torture. The hard cellar floor had made my back tighten up, and I was trying to discern whether it was my back muscles or my kidneys that were screaming spasmodically with every breath I took. My doctor had recently told me he wanted to check my bone density, but now I realized there was no point. I could feel every bone and vertebra in my back and legs disintegrating like chalk with every step. A few more steps and I could very well be just a fully clothed but deflated pelt of human flesh lying there on the path, blinking up at the sky. And my head. My fucking head. Well, it served me right. The cellar’s dirt floor was where I belonged. It was fitting. Had Emily discovered me there, she would have reported back to Tess and I would never be allowed to baby-sit, or even hold, little Grady again. Babs, the terrier, is a yapper, and every time she let loose with one of her shrill yips and yikes, it took every ounce of will I could summon not to plant my boot in her ass and send her flying into a snowdrift.

  When we finally arrived at the riverbank, the coolness, the washing, rushing sound, the smell of salt water and fish and something else—perhaps the wet marsh grass peeking out through the snow? Or maybe the sand? Did sand have a smell? Well, it all made my head light, and my muscles, even my aching, dissolving bones seemed to take hold, to get a grip. Everything evil, all the self-doubt and self-loathing, seemed to wash down into the sand below my feet. Ahead, standing as vertical and still and proud as a statue was a great blue heron, perched on a rock. I caught my breath at this vision, which put the dogs on high alert, and in an instant they saw it, too.

  “No. Molly, Babs,” I cried out, but they raced off, causing the giant bird to lower its head, shrug its great winged shoulders once and again, and then launch itself into a slow, flapping ascent across the semifrozen water. The great bird soared over us and we all stared at it, Molly, Babs and me, blinking, blinking into the dazzling sun, and then the sky was made blurry by my tears, and I won’t say I was suddenly aware of God’s presence or that I had one of those “spiritual awakenings” they carry on about in AA. It wasn’t anything like that, no. But I think that for a moment then, like the line in the carol, my soul felt a sort of … worth. A sense of being worth something. I guess it was because the bird seemed so hulking and prehistoric, yet it somehow flew. And I had behaved dismally and primitively last night, yet, amazingly, nobody knew. I had my sweet dogs, and the river, and my beloved daughter in the house. I had everything. I still had everything. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, I was awake and alive and I still had everything—I had more than enough for me.

  I resolved, then and there, to stop drinking again. I would go back in the house. I would make my daughter’s favorite meal. I would call Grady just to hear him babble over the phone. I would not drink today. I would not drink tomorrow. I would not drink the next day, or the next.

  When I returned to the house, I found a big beautiful spruce tree propped up next to the front door. Onto one of the branches had been speared a piece of yellow lined notepaper with the hastily scrawled words “Merry Christmas, Hildy. Call if you want help putting it up. Frank.”

  Frankie had given us a tree every year, for as long as I could remember. Even when I was married to Scott, Frankie always gave us our tree. I considered it a nice way of thanking me for all the business I sent his way through my clients—mostly newcomers to town with lots of need for Frankie’s services. But this morning, I was so moved by his gesture that my hand shook when I lifted the note from the tree. True, my hands always shake when I’m hungover, but this was different. I was all soppy with love for the man who had cut down this tree, just for me. Dear Frankie.

  I entered the house and Emily said excitedly, “Frank Getchell dropped off the tree. Let’s decorate it today.”

  “Okay, but I have to go into the office for a little while. Let’s do it tonight. Call Tess and see if she wants to bring Grady up to help. Michael’s away on business this week.”

  “Okay,” said Emily. Then she said, “You should call Frank and see if he’ll help, too.”

  “I will,” I said after a short pause. “I’ll see if he wants to stay for dinner.”

  When I got to the office I did call Frank, but of course, there was no answer. No machine. I did some paperwork and checked out the MLS listings, but there was nothing new on the market. I told Kendall that I was going to close the office the following week and then reopen the Wednesday after New Year’s Day. This week, I told her, she could just come in mornings to open mail and check messages and call me if there was anything important. I wanted to spend some time at home with my family.

  I left the office around three and headed up to the rise. I passed the McAllisters’, but the house was dark and still. They had gone to their house in Aspen for the holidays, as they did every year. Linda was taking care of the dog and horses and she had told me how bitterly Rebecca had complained about going, the day they left.

  “I don’t even ski,” she had hissed at Linda as they packed the car. “I spent my winters in Florida, riding, when I was a kid. I hate Aspen.…”

  “It must be rough,” Linda had said, laughing as she told me this. I had laughed with her, but now, passing Rebecca’s house, I felt sorry for her. I had ever since I saw her on Peter’s beach all alone that day. All alone in the cold.

  I drove past the McAllisters’ and on up the rise to Frankie’s tree farm. There were cars and trucks parked up and down his driveway. With all the fresh snow covering the antique toilet garden in front of his house, the whole place looked very quaint and picturesque. College boys, home for the holidays, were making a little extra cash with the tips they were handed after dragging the trees down the hill to the parking area and loading them onto the cars that were parked there. I walked around the back of the house and up the path a short distance to where it opened up into a field of spruce trees. There I found Frankie standing next to a bonfire, collecting payment for a tree from a family I recognized but couldn’t quite name. I thought the husband had gone to school with Tess, but I wasn’t sure. They all greeted me as if they knew me and I greeted them warmly, and when they left, Frankie and I just stood there, looking up the hill at the trees and the families, watching our breath leave our mouths in modest little puffs.

  “Thanks for the tree,” I finally said.

  “Sure, Hil,” he replied.

  “Well, when you finish here, do you think you might be able to come and help us set it up? It’s pretty b
ig.”

  “Yup,” Frankie said. “If you want it set up before dark, I can send one of the boys—”

  “No,” I said. “You come. Whenever you’re done here. Stay for dinner … if you want. Tess might bring Grady, my grandson, up.”

  Frank said nothing. This was something I remembered about Frankie. He was one of those rare individuals who said nothing when he didn’t know what to say. Not only that but when you spoke to him, he would look in your eyes for only a second, if that, and then he’d look away. That’s why I always had such a hard time reading him. Now we both just stood gazing up at the hill. After my invitation had dangled awkwardly unanswered for several minutes, I turned to leave and said, “Or just send one of the boys.”

  “No, Hildy,” Frank said. “I’ll come. Maybe around six.”

  “Okay.” I smiled. “See you then.”

  * * *

  When Frank arrived, Tess and Grady were there and, of course, so was Emily. I ignored the amused glances I caught between the girls. I had made a lasagna that afternoon, and after Frank placed the tree in the stand, he and I went into the kitchen while Emily strung lights on the tree and Tess tried to keep Grady from pulling them off.

  In the kitchen, I asked Frankie whether he’d prefer wine or beer.

  “What’re you gonna have?” he asked.

  “Sparkling water,” I said cheerily.

  “Oh,” said Frank, glancing toward the living room, where the girls were. Emily was having a glass of wine. There was an open bottle on the counter, so he said, “I’ll just have a glass of that wine, if you don’t mind, Hil.”

  “No, not at all. I hate it when people don’t drink because of me.” I poured him a glass and then began preparing a salad.

  Frankie watched me, then whispered quietly, “So you never drink when the girls are around, huh?”

  I laughed and said, also in a whisper, “No, and now I’ve given it up completely again.”

  I watched Frankie working this over in his mind. His face took on a rather grim expression, and I laughed again and said, “It’s not because of the other night. I had fun that night. I just … need to give it a rest is all.”

  Frank nodded and little Grady came tottering into the room. “Gammy!” he exclaimed.

  “Hi, Grady, my love. Frank, have you ever seen a more gorgeous child?”

  Frank smiled and looked Grady up and down. Grady was looking Frank over, too, which made Frank chuckle and say, “Yup, he’s a keeper.” Then he asked Grady to give him five and they slapped palms. He asked Grady how old he was and Grady sort of stood and drooled.

  “He’s two,” I said, answering for Grady.

  “Where do you live?” Frank asked Grady.

  “Frank, he’s two!” I exclaimed, laughing. “Haven’t you ever met a baby before?”

  “Well, I thought by the time they can walk, they’re pretty good talkers.”

  “Only the geniuses, and thank God Grady’s not one of those,” I said, pulling the child from the dog’s water bowl, which he had begun to drink from. I lifted Grady up and started nuzzling his neck with kisses, which made him shriek with laughter.

  “Who’s your favorite in the world?” I asked.

  “GAMMY.”

  “Who do you love more than that Nancy person?” I laughed. I winked at Frank and mouthed the words the other grandma.

  “GAMMY,” Grady squealed.

  “Here, Frank, hold him while I finish this salad.”

  Frank set down his glass and reached out his strong arms for little Grady. Grady enjoyed being held by Frank, enjoyed studying this new face. I finished making the salad and we had dinner and then we all decorated the tree. When we were finished and the wine was gone, Tess and Grady left and Emily went up to bed. Frank got ready to go, too, but I said, sort of abruptly, “You can stay if you want.”

  Frank said nothing. He was thinking.

  Then I said in a nicer tone, “I want you to stay,” and Frank smiled and grabbed me tight and kissed me with great urgency, hard and strong, the way I like it.

  sixteen

  I sold one house in February, just outside the Crossing—a split-level ranch that went for well under the asking price—and I was in negotiations for somebody to buy some commercial office space in Manchester, but other than that, business continued to be slow. The Dwights had pulled their listing and were planning to list the house again in the spring. I told Cassie that I thought they were making a huge mistake. She had stopped in the office one day in February to talk about it while Jake was at school.

  “We just couldn’t move now. The school here isn’t great, but at least it’s a familiar place for him to go each day. If we moved to Newton, he would have been home all day and he would have regressed. And he would have driven us out of our minds.…”

  “But you should have let me help you find a rental here.”

  “Hildy, we need to just move once. Jake really does best when things stay the same.”

  “Okay, so when do you want to list it again?”

  “We were thinking June. That way, if it sells right away, we can plan to close right before school starts in Newton.”

  “But, Cassie, houses don’t usually sell right away. Not in this market.”

  We’re going to have to try our luck,” Cassie said. “Not that we’re the luckiest people in the world.”

  “Okay, we’ll plan to list it June first. And I’ll call the buyers.”

  By the beginning of April, I had a few clients who were looking in Wendover. One family—two Boston lawyers and their six-year-old daughter—was looking for a house that could be converted to a “green,” ecofriendly house. This was a first for me, believe it or not. These people wanted to live “off the grid” in a house that would be powered by wind and solar energy. They wanted to gut it and replace all the old materials with ones that didn’t “off-gas” toxins into the air they would breathe. The wife had suffered miscarriages before they had removed some toxic carpeting and mold from their apartment in Boston. Only then were they able to conceive. Now, for the health of their child, they wanted a house that would be “clean and green.” The wife was very enthusiastic about this. Honestly, she seemed a bit obsessed. It was easy to show them homes, though, because they didn’t really care how a house looked on the inside. They were more interested in its “orientation”—whether it faced north or south and what kind of light it would receive. I talked to them about looking at some land. It can be much cheaper to build a place like this than to try to convert an older home.

  “Oh, but we’ve always loved the charm of the old New England homes.”

  “Well,” I said, “the really old ones are pretty well insulated, which should help with energy conservation. The colonists who built them needed to conserve heat, so they’re usually built with small windows so that heat can’t escape.”

  “Yes, but now that we have thermal-pane windows, we would like to install those and add extra windows to allow the sun in to heat the place. And solar panels in the roof…”

  You see what I have to deal with. They want it old, but they want it new.

  * * *

  I was seeing Frank, very quietly. We never went out. Neither of us liked to, really. Frank always came to my house, always at my bidding. We’d see each other by chance. I’d drive past him and he’d honk and slow down. If we were on quiet back roads and there were no cars behind us, he’d back up and smile at me, ask me how I was doing. I would say something like “Stop over for some chili tonight, if you feel like it.” He always felt like it. Sometimes we’d watch movies and sometimes we’d watch the fire and chat. I know I have said that I know everything that goes on in this town, but Frank really knows everything. He has the fire department scanner, for one, which I believe he keeps at the snoop setting, where you can hear every dispatch in this and the five surrounding towns. He knew that the O’Briens were divorcing, that the Halsteads were expecting a baby, and that poor Ethel Quinn had inoperable brain cancer. He had kept me
apprised of the Santorelli property out on Grey’s Point. As soon as the siding went up, I planned to approach them with a proposal.

  And, amazingly, Frank knew all about Rebecca and Peter. I found this out late one warm afternoon in early May when we were walking the dogs through Frank’s riverfront lot, the one next to my house. Frank reminded me that he had seen me skinny-dipping one night the summer before, and I started laughing. “I was a little drunk,” I said.

  Now that I didn’t drink anymore, it was easy to laugh about my former ways. I was like those people I used to listen to in meetings. That lady who drank alone, who disgraced herself on occasion, was gone. She would not return, as long as I didn’t drink. Instead of feeling diminished by this knowledge, it empowered me. I wasn’t that person anymore. And I felt better. I was losing some of that extra weight around my middle. I had Frankie around a lot and I felt less lonely.

  We wandered down to the beach. The sky had taken on a sort of dusky hue, and the sea, still ice-cold from the winter, glittered with multitudes of tiny whitecaps that disappeared, one after another, with a great whoosh as they were churned onto the sand.

  “It’s the golden hour, Frank,” I said.

  “The golden hour. Haven’t heard that since the war.”

  “Really, you guys knew about the golden hour in Vietnam?”

  “Yeah … it’s a medical term.”

  “No it’s not. It’s a filmmaking term. Rebecca told me about it. It has to do with the fading light at the end of the day.”