And then I don’t know what I would have done.
Since college, Kelly and I had barely kept in touch. For a while I had kept approximate track of her through mutual friends and the alumni newsletter. I moved out West because the dry climate might be better for Daddy’s health, got a graduate degree in planning and a job with the Aurora city government. Left Daddy alone too much, then hired a stranger to nurse him so I could live my own life. As if there was such a thing.
From sporadic Christmas cards, I knew that Kelly and her family had lived in various parts of Europe; Ron was an attorney specializing in international law and a high-ranking officer in the military, and his job had something to do with intelligence, maybe the CIA. I knew that they had two sons. In every communication, no matter how brief, Kelly mentioned that she had never worked a day outside the home, that when Ron was away she sometimes went for days without talking to an adult, that her languages were getting rusty except for the language of the country she happened to be living in at the time. It seemed to me that even her English was awkward, childlike, although it was hard to tell from the few sentences she wrote.
Last year I’d received a copy of a form Christmas letter, run off on pale green paper with wreaths along the margin, ostensibly composed by Ron. It was so eloquent and interesting and grammatically sophisticated that at first I was a little shocked. Then I decided – with distaste, but also with a measure of relief that should have been a clue if I’d been paying attention – that Kelly must still be ghost-writing.
For some reason, I’d kept that letter, though as far as I could remember I hadn’t answered it. After Kelly’s call, I’d pulled it out and re-read it. The letter described the family’s travels in the Alps; though it read like a travel brochure, the prose was competent and there were vivid images. It outlined the boys’ many activities and commented, “Without Kelly, of course, none of this would be possible.” It mentioned that Kelly had been ill lately, tired: “The gray wet winters of northern Europe really don’t agree with her. We’re hoping that some of her sparkle will return when we move back home.”
I’d thought there was nothing significant in that slick, chatty, green-edged letter. I’d been wrong.
Kelly’s house was very orderly and close and clean. She led me down a short hallway lined with murky photographs of people I didn’t think I knew, into a living room where a fire crackled in a plain brick fireplace and not a speck of ash marred the dappled marble surface of the hearth. Heavy maroon drapes were pulled shut floor to ceiling, and all the lights were on; the room was stifling.
Startled and confused, I paused in the arched doorway while Kelly went on ahead of me. I saw her pull the white fur jacket closer around her, as if she were cold.
“We haven’t lived here very long,” she said over her shoulder. She was apologizing, but I didn’t know what for.
“It’s nice,” I said, and followed her into the night like, winterlike room.
She gestured toward a rocker-recliner. “Make yourself at home.”
I sat down. Though the chair was across the room, the part of my body which faced the fire grew hot in a matter of seconds, and I had started to sweat. Kelly pulled an ottoman nearly onto the hearth and huddled onto it hugging her knees.
I was quickly discomfited by the silence between us, through which I could hear her labored breathing and the spitting of the fire. “How long have you lived here?” I asked, to have something to say.
“Just a few months. Since the first of April.” So she knew it was summer.
“How long will you be here?” I knew it was sounding like an interrogation, but I desperately needed to ground myself in time and space. That was not a new impulse, though I hadn’t been so acutely aware of it before. I was shaking, and the heat was making my head swim. It seemed to me that I had been floating for a long time.
I understand now, of course, how misguided it was to look to Kelly for ballast. She had almost no weight herself by that time, no substance of her own, so she couldn’t have held anybody down.
Abruptly, as often happened to me when I was invaded by even a hint of strong emotion – fear, pleasure, grief – I could feel the slight weight of my father’s body in my arms, the web of his baby-fine hair across my lips. I closed my eyes against the pain and curled my arms into my chest as though to keep from dropping him.
Almost tonelessly Kelly asked, “What’s wrong, Brenda?” and I realized I’d covered my face with my empty hands.
“You remind me of somebody,” I said. That surprised me. I wasn’t even sure what it meant. Self-stimulating like an autistic child, I was rocking furiously in the cumbersome chair. I forced myself to press my palms flat against its nubby arms, stopping the motion. “Somebody else who left me,” I added.
She didn’t ask me what I meant. She didn’t defend against my interpretation of what had happened between us. She just cocked her head in a quizzical gesture so familiar to me that I caught my breath, although I wouldn’t have guessed that I remembered anything significant about her.
Absently she picked two bits of lint off the brown carpet, which had looked spotless to me, and deposited them into her other palm, closing her fingers protectively. I noticed her silver-pink nails. I noticed that her mauve stockings were opaque, thicker than standard nylons, and that the stylish high-heeled boots she wore were furlined. I wanted to go sit beside her, have her hug me to warm us both. I was sweating profusely.
I think I was on the verge of telling her about my father. I think I might have said things to her that I hadn’t yet said to myself. I’m still haunted by the suspicion that, if I’d spoken up at that moment, subsequent events might have turned out very differently. The thought makes my blood run cold.
But I didn’t say anything, for at that moment Kelly’s sons came home. I flinched as I heard a screen door slam, heard children’s voices laughing and squabbling. It was as if their liveliness tore at something.
Daddy died while I was out. He hadn’t wanted me to go, though he would never have said so. He hadn’t liked the man, any man, I was with. When I came home – earlier than I’d intended though not early enough, determined not to see that man again – I’d found my father dead on the floor. If I’d been there I could have saved him, or at least held him while he died. I owed him. He gave me life.
Struggling to stay in focus when the boys burst in, I kept my eyes on Kelly. The transformation was remarkable. Many times after that I saw it happen to her, and I was always astounded, but that first time was like witnessing a miracle, or the results of a spectacular compact with the devil.
She filled out like an inflatable doll. Color flooded into her cheeks. Her shoulders squared and she sat up straight. By the time her boys found us and rushed into the living room, bringing with them like sirens their light and fresh air and energy, she was holding out her arms to them and beaming and the white fur jacket had slipped from her shoulders onto the hearth behind her, where I thought it might burn.
I stayed at Kelly’s house for a long time that first day, though I hadn’t intended to. When Kelly introduced me as an old friend from college, Joshua, the younger child, stared at me solemn-eyed and demanded, “Do you know my daddy, too?” I admitted that I did, or used to. He nodded. He was very serious.
We had a picnic lunch outside on the patio. I watched the children splash in the sprinkler and bounce on the backyard trampoline, watched Kelly bask like a chameleon in the sunshine. She was a nervous hostess. She fluttered and fussed to make sure the boys and I were served, persistently inquired whether the lemonade was sweet enough and whether the sandwiches had too much mayonnaise, was visibly worried whenever any of us stopped eating. She herself didn’t eat at all, as if she wasn’t entitled to. She didn’t swat at flies or fan herself or complain about the heat. She hardly talked to me; her interactions with the children were impatient. She watched us eat and play, and the look on her face was near-panic, as if she couldn’t be sure she was getting it right.
&nb
sp; I was restless. I wasn’t used to sitting still for so long without something to occupy me – television, a newspaper, knitting. At one point I got up and went over to join the boys. I tossed the new yellow frisbee, spotted Clay on the tramp, squirted Joshua with the sprinkler. I was clumsy and they didn’t like it; my intrusion altered the rhythms of their play. “Quit it!” Josh shrieked when the water hit him, and Clay simply slid off the end of the trampoline and stalked away when he discovered I’d taken up position at the side.
Somewhat aimlessly, I strolled around the yard. Red and salmon late roses climbed the privacy fence; I touched their petals and thorns, bent to sniff their fragrance. “Ron likes roses,” Kelly said from behind me, and I jumped; I hadn’t realized how close she was. “That’s why we planted all those bushes. They’re hard to take care of, though. I’m still learning. Ron buys me books.”
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
“They’re a lot of care. He’s never here to do any of it. It’s part of my job.”
Clay appeared at my elbow. He was carrying a framed and glass-covered family portrait big enough that he had to hold it with both hands.
“Clay!” his mother remonstrated, much more sharply than I’d have expected from her. “Don’t drop that!”
“I’ll put it back,” he said lightly, dismissing her. “See,” he said earnestly to me. “That’s my dad.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, what acknowledgement would be satisfactory. I looked at him, at his brother across the yard, at the portrait. It had been taken several years ago; the boys looked much younger. Kelly was pale and lovely, clinging to her husband’s arm even though the photographer had no doubt posed her standing up straight. The uniformed man at the hub of the family grouping was taller, ruddier, and possessed of much more presence than I remembered. “You look like him.” I finally said to Clay. “You both do.” He grinned and nodded and took the heavy picture back into the house.
I sat on the kids’ swing and watched a gray bird sitting in the apple tree. It was the wrong time of the season, between blossom and fruit, to tell whether there would be a good crop; I wondered idly whether Kelly made applesauce, whether Ron and the boys liked apple pie. “My dad put up those swings for us!” Joshua shouted from the wading pool, sounding angry. I took the lemonade pitcher inside for more ice, although no one who lived there had suggested it.
Being alone in Kelly’s kitchen gave me a sense of just-missed intimacy. I guessed that she spent a good deal of time here, cooking and cleaning, but there seemed to be nothing personal about her in the room. I looked around.
The pictures on the wall above the microwave were standard, square, factory-painted representations of vegetables, a tomato and a carrot and an ear of corn, pleasant enough. On the single-shelf spice rack above the dishwasher were two red-and-white cans and two undistinguished glass bottles: cinnamon, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Nothing idiosyncratic or identifying. No dishes soaked in the sink; no meat was thawing on the counter for dinner.
I remember thinking that, if I looked through the cupboards and drawers and into the back shelves of the refrigerator, I’d surely find something about Kelly, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to make such a deliberate search. Now, of course, I know that there wouldn’t have been anything anyway. No favorite snacks of hers secreted away. No dishes that meant anything special to her. No special recipes. In the freezer I’d probably have found fudgsicles for Clay and Eskimo Pies for Josh, and no doubt there was a six-pack of Coors Lite on the top shelf of the refrigerator for Ron. But, no matter how deeply I looked or how broadly I interpreted, I wouldn’t have found anything personal about Kelly, except in what she’d made sure was there for the others.
I set the pitcher on the counter and moved so that I was standing in the middle of the floor with my hands at my sides and my eyes closed. I held my breath. It was like being trapped in a flotation tank. I could hear the boys squealing and shouting outside, the hum of a lawnmower farther away and the ticking of a clock nearby, but the sounds were outside of me, not touching. I could smell whiffs and layers of homey kitchen odors – coffee, cinnamon, onions – but I had never been fed in this room.
I opened my eyes and was dizzy. Without knowing it, I had turned, so that now I was facing a little alcove that opened off the main kitchen. A breakfast nook, maybe, or a pantry. I rounded the multi-colored plexiglas partition and caught my breath.
The place was a shrine. On all three walls, from the waist-high wainscoting nearly to the ceiling, were photographs of Ron and Clay and Joshua. Black-and-white photos on a plain white background, unlike the busy kitchen wallpaper in the rest of the room. Pictures of them singly and in various combinations: Ron in uniform, looking stoic and sensible; Clay doing a flip on the trampoline; Joshua in his Cub Scout uniform; the three of them in a formal pose, each boy with his hand on his father’s shoulder; the boys by a Christmas tree. I counted; there were forty-three photographs.
I couldn’t bring myself to go into the alcove. I think I was afraid I’d hear voices. And there was not a single likeness of Kelly anywhere on the open white walls.
Later, a grim and wonderful thought occurred to me: it would have been virtually impossible for a detective to find out anything useful about Kelly. Or for a voodoo practitioner to fashion an efficacious doll. There was little essence of her left. There were few details. By the end, it would have been easy to say that she had no soul.
For the rest of that summer and into the fall, I spent a great deal of time at Kelly’s house. It started with lunch on Saturdays, always a picnic lunch with the boys on the patio, sandwiches and lemonade and chips. She never let me bring anything; she seemed to take offense when I tried to insist.
“Why don’t you and I go somewhere for lunch, Kelly? Get a sitter for the boys or take them to the pool or something.”
“The pool isn’t safe. I don’t like the kind of kids who go there.”
Kelly and I never seemed to be alone together. Her sons were always there, in the same room or within earshot or about to rush in and demand something of her. I chafed. I didn’t much like the boys anyway; I found them mouthy and rude, to me but especially to their mother, and altogether too high-spirited for my taste.
“It’s nice to see a mother spend as much time with her kids as you do,” I said once, lying, trying to understand, trying to get her to talk to me about something.
“We’ve always been – close,” she said, a little hesitantly. “They both nursed until they were almost two. Sometimes Josh will still try to nip my breast. In play, you know.”
A little taken aback, I said, “You seem to enjoy their company.” I didn’t know whether that was true or not.
She shrugged and laughed a little. “I think I’ve inherited my father’s attitudes toward children. They’d be fine if you could teach them and train them and mold them into what you want. Otherwise, they’re mostly irritating.” She laughed again and shivered, hugged herself, passed a hand over her eyes. “But I don’t have to like my kids in order to be a good mother, do I?”
For a long time, I didn’t see Ron. He was always at work when I was there, and, no matter how late I stayed, he worked later.
“Come with me to see this movie. I’ve been wanting to see it for a long time, and it’s about to leave town, and I don’t want to go alone.”
“There’s a movie that the boys want to see. One of those Kung fu things. I promised I’d take them this weekend.”
Kelly’s roses faded, and the marigolds and petunias and then chrysanthemums came into their own. The apple tree bore nicely, tiny fruit clustered all on the south side of the tree because, Kelly speculated, the blossoms on the north side had been frozen early in the spring. That distressed her enormously; her eyes shone with tears when she talked about it. The boys went back to school.
“Now you have lots of free time. Let’s go to the art museum one morning next week. I can take a few hours off.”
“Oh, Brenda, th
e work around here is endless. Really. I have fall housecleaning to do. I’m redecorating Clay’s room. There must be a dozen layers of wallpaper on those walls. My first responsibility is to Ron and the children. You’re welcome to come here, though. I could fix you lunch.”
One crisp Wednesday in late September I had a meeting over on her side of town, and I didn’t have to be back at the office until my two o’clock staff meeting. Impulsively, I turned off onto a side street toward her house.
I had never been to Kelly’s house on a weekday before. I had never dropped in on her unexpectedly. I had seldom dropped in on anybody unexpectedly; I liked to have time to prepare, and was keenly aware of the differences between people in private and people when they met the world, even the small and confused part of the world represented by me. My heart was skittering uneasily, and I felt a little feverish, chilled, though the sun was warm and the sky brilliant. The houses and trees and fence rows along these old blocks had taken on that sharp-edged quality that autumn sometimes imparts to a city; every brick seemed outlined, every flower and leaf a jewel.
I parked by the side of her house, across the street. I opened and shut the gate as quietly as I could. I stood for a while on her porch, listening to the windchimes, catching stray rainbows from the lop-sided paper leaf Josh had made in school and hung in the front window. She had moved the plants inside for the winter, and the porch seemed bare. Finally I pushed the button for the doorbell and waited. A few cars went by behind me. I touched the doorbell button again, listened for any sound inside the house, could hear none.
When I tried the door, it opened easily. I went in quickly and shut the door behind me, thinking to keep out the light and dust. I was nearly through the front hall and to the kitchen before I called her name.
“In here, Brenda,” she answered, as though she’d been expecting me. I stopped for a moment, bewildered; maybe I’d somehow forgotten that I had called ahead, or maybe we’d had plans for today that I hadn’t written in my appointment book.
The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books) Page 47