The Second Home

by Christina Clancy

  “He’s a—what do they call it these days? A player. How about you, are you married?”

  “No,” Ann said, before Maureen could ask the next question she knew was coming: kids? She lifted the photo to inspect it more closely. “I’m still single.” The boys resembled Noah, and she was surprised by the tenderness she still felt for them. They’d finally grown into themselves, taller and fairer than Noah, but just as solid and broad. They could definitely pass for brothers, although Noah wouldn’t be caught dead in those outfits. He’d be more comfortable in a vintage bowling shirt.

  “They’re handsome,” Ann said. “Brooks still has that little grin.”

  Maureen busied herself putting dishes in the dishwasher. “Brooks doesn’t know how to work a comb. He was just here, in fact.” She opened the door of her refrigerator. “And as I recall, we were more fully stocked before he showed up for the weekend. I’ve got nothing but Sam Adams. Not what you’re used to drinking in Wisconsin.”

  “Oh, I live in Boston now.”

  “Just down 128? How long have you been there?”

  “A while.” She didn’t want to say years—more than a few at that point, long enough that Boston felt like home. Long enough that she could have confronted Anthony sooner.

  “Good! Now it will be much easier for us to stay in touch. I’ve always felt a special connection to the girls who babysat for us, and especially you. When else do we get into other people’s homes and see how they live? It’s such intimate work. And it was so nice not to be the only woman in the house.”

  Maureen gestured for Ann to take a seat at the kitchen table in the breakfast nook overlooking the backyard. It was still decorated in vintage Maureen: bright Lilly Pulitzer fabric on the seat cushions and curtains.

  “I’m so glad I heard your knock. I was in the basement folding laundry when you arrived.”

  “You fold your own laundry?”

  “Look around, my dear. I do my own everything these days. My cleaning lady is long gone. No more ironed linens. Let’s face it, nobody buys clipboards anymore.”

  “Clipboards?”

  “You didn’t know? That’s what the business made. My father even patented the spring clip. With computers and all that, who needs ’em? Anthony tried to think of a way to diversify into laminate, cookbook holders, that sort of thing, but it’s hard to diversify a clipboard. Enough about that. So, I have to ask. What brings you here? It’s lovely to see you of course, but so entirely unexpected.”

  Ann wasn’t sure what to say, or where to begin. “I was in the area.”

  Maureen was instantly skeptical. “My dear, nobody is ever just in this area. You either live here or you come here to visit someone who does. Why, just last week our neighbor called the cops because she saw a strange man sitting in a car. Turned out it was a housekeeper’s husband just waiting to pick up his wife while she cleaned. Of course they were black. It’s awful what goes on right here in this supposedly liberal place. I’m not sad I’ll be gone soon.”

  Before Ann could ask what she meant—gone where?—she felt her stomach twist at the sound of footsteps above her. “Someone’s here?”

  Maureen frowned. “Oh, that’s Tony.”

  Ann’s body flushed with heat and fear. “He’s home? During the day?”

  “All day, every day. He’s sick, Ann. Depressed. I used to be embarrassed to say that word but I decided I didn’t want to be that proud person any longer. Through acting I’ve learned to pay attention to how I’m acting all the time. I became a character in my own life. I decided not to be that character anymore unless I’m on the stage. I’m being me for a change. Tell me, does your family still have that wonderful old house in Wellfleet?”

  Ann decided not to tell Maureen about what had happened to her parents. Any sympathy could derail Ann’s efforts, and her emotions were still so raw, who knew if she could keep from breaking down. “They sure do.”

  “That’s a real Cape Cod house. So much character. I’ll bet they’d sooner die than sell it.”

  Ann shook her head again and choked back the sob in her throat. “That’s true.”

  “What can I say? Our place was built during a bad time for architecture. We hardly go there anymore. We’ve tried to sell it off and on for years to no avail. Nobody wants a house like that anymore. Thirty-some years old and already it’s dated. Your house, it’s timeless.”

  The sound of water flushing through the pipes from the upstairs bathroom practically coursed through Ann.

  “I should go,” she said. She wasn’t ready for an encounter with Anthony—then again, she’d never be ready for him, never.

  “Oh, stay! You just arrived! I can make some egg salad. I want to hear about what brings you to Marblehead and catch up!”

  The footsteps were on the stairs now. Slow, one step at a time. Ann’s stomach churned. That night on Duck Pond came back to her in little snapshots. Anthony’s calves, his wet hair, the moles on his back, his grunts, her protests. Her painted toenails. How many times had she blamed those painted toenails for everything that happened?

  “Don’t let him scare you. He’s not accustomed to visitors anymore, I’m afraid, all cooped up in this house.”

  “Who’s here?” Anthony’s voice was unmistakable. It brought out a feeling of sheer contempt. Her veins felt like they were filled with fire.

  “Tony, you’ll never believe!”

  Ann gripped her beer bottle in her hand so tight she might have been able to shatter it. She looked for the door. If she ran fast she could make a quick exit—

  Anthony appeared in the doorway. He wore a V-neck undershirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants, barely the Anthony she remembered. His belly hung over his waistband, and his hair, what was left of it, was a wiry mess. He had dark bags like black pincushions under his eyes. It was hard for Ann to imagine she’d ever been attracted to him, hard to think he’d ever had power, harder still for Ann to imagine what it must have been like for Maureen to live with him in this condition.

  “Look! Why it’s Ann, honey.”

  “I have eyes.”

  All these years, and here he finally was. Ann was shocked by his appearance, overwhelmed by his decline. She couldn’t look into his eyes, so she fixed her gaze on his bare feet. They were fat, with pads of hair on his toes and thick horns of nails that needed to be cut. It was hard to believe she’d once fantasized about him, swum naked with him. His genetic material had become braided with her own. She’d hated him for all these years, but now that he was standing in front of her, the hate felt different, like it had congealed into something more like pity. He was weak, damaged, pathetic, and she was glad.

  “Well,” Anthony said. “Well, well. This is a trip down memory lane.”

  “It’s his medication,” Maureen said. “His therapist is trying—”

  “Please stop talking about me like I’m not here, Mo. I’m here. I’m so goddamn here I can’t stand it.”

  Maureen frowned. “Of course you are.”

  He looked at Ann. “She says I’m going through a ‘bad patch.’” He used his fingers for air quotes.

  Ann let her gaze rest on the coffee stain above his belly. “I see that.”

  “She also says she wants to divorce me, did she tell you that?”

  Maureen, embarrassed, reached for Anthony’s arm and tried to steer him out of the kitchen. “This is of no concern to Ann. Let’s not—”

  “Ever since she started acting she’s turned into just another artsy kook.”

  “Stop it, Tony,” Maureen said. Her voice was strained, pleading. “Please.”

  Anthony’s chest hair stuck out from the V in his shirt. “You still look good, Ann Gordon.” He stared at her breasts. “You always looked good. Healthy. Wholesome. You could have walked off the set of Little House on the Prairie.”

  “Tony!”

  “Tony!” He screeched, imitating Maureen. “Just think of it, Ann. Mo wants out. She’s cut me off. Now you can have me all to yourself.
Remember when you strutted around our bedroom naked? God, you gave me a hard-on like a torpedo!”

  Maureen looked at Ann in disbelief. “What is this about?” Ann didn’t reply. After a brief silence, Maureen added, “Ann, why are you here?”

  “Yeah, Ann. Tell my wife what this is about. Go ahead. Nothing matters now. She knows I’m no saint, but I’ll tell you something: you were no saint either. You wrapped yourself around me like a snake.”

  Anthony walked to the sink and filled a glass with water as if this were the most normal gesture in the world. He took a drink and made a loud gulping sound.

  “Ann?” Maureen sounded painfully hopeful for a different story. Ann wished she could tell her this was a lie, a mistake.

  “You want to come here and tell my wife I knocked you up, go ahead.” Anthony sounded like a suspect confessing to a crime after realizing the gig is up. “I feel bad, I do.”

  He could have stopped right there. That might have been almost enough for Ann: honesty and remorse. But Anthony set his glass down hard on the granite counter, looked Ann straight in the eyes, and said, “But I still think that kid belonged to someone else.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ann reached into her purse and pulled out a copy of Noah’s yearbook photo. His smile was so sweet, so innocent, it hurt Ann to look at it here. She hated to admit that he was the spitting image of Anthony. Anthony without the bluster. Anthony without the edge. Anthony without Anthony. She shoved it in his face. “Just look.”

  Anthony pushed the photo away. It fell to the floor, and Maureen grabbed it. She looked at it long and hard, her hands shaking. “Oh, Ann,” Maureen said. “How could this be?”

  “It didn’t happen the way he says,” Ann said. “I really need you to know that.”

  Maureen’s expression sank. Suddenly every freckle stood out, and every line in her face seemed visible, worn deep from a lifetime of trouble. “Oh my God.” She showed it to Anthony. “She’s right. Look at this, Tony. Look! There’s no doubt.”

  “What’s with his hair?”

  “That’s how he likes it.”

  “You agreed to stay away,” Anthony said. “I had it all worked out with that orphan.”

  “How is Michael part of this?” Maureen asked. She looked at Ann in disbelief.

  “Now you know why we’re estranged,” Ann said. “He said he was the father.”

  “No,” Maureen said, shaking her head violently. “He wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  “Sure he would.” Anthony stepped closer to Ann, so close that his nose almost touched hers, so close she could smell peanuts and whiskey on his breath. “There are people you can buy, and he’s one of them. I gave that little junkyard dog more money than he’d ever seen in his whole life.”

  “You said that money was for college,” Maureen said. “I’m such a fool. That was my money, from my trust. Anthony, how could you?”

  “I did it for you. So you wouldn’t know. And aren’t you glad? Think of all these years of blissful ignorance you’ve enjoyed.”

  Maureen sank back. “Everyone keeps coming out of the woodwork for money. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Ann?” She was crying, and wiped her face with her sleeve.

  A rage built up in Ann. She looked Anthony in the eyes. “You raped me.”

  Maureen gasped. It was the first time Ann had ever said that word out loud, and it felt both awful and cathartic. Noah and his friends talked about triggers, of not saying words that might upset you at school. But saying that word out loud allowed her to call it what it was. It gave her power and strength after all those years of blaming herself, for thinking she’d asked for it. She could scream it through a megaphone and it wouldn’t be loud enough.

  Maureen sank to the floor and rested her head against the wall. “Oh, Tony. She was our babysitter! She was just a girl.”

  “She wanted it.”

  It occurred to Ann that the person they were talking about—this “she”—was someone else, someone other than who she was now. “I said no.”

  “You said it too late. You want me to say I’m sorry? I am. I got carried away. I got carried away with a lot of things in those days.”

  “It never stops,” Maureen said. “It never, ever stops, not ever! All these secrets you keep. I should have divorced you ages ago.” She picked up a beer bottle and threw it at his chest, and it hit him, but not hard. The beer sprayed all over the room and the bottle shattered on the floor near his feet. The abruptness of the sound changed something in Anthony; suddenly it seemed he wasn’t even in the room with them anymore.

  “I’ve seen the kid, you know that? I watched you walking with him to school.”

  “What?” Ann wanted to clean out her ears. “Where?”

  “In Milwaukee. I saw his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack. His blue hat. I followed you the whole way. It was all I could do not to say something. I just wanted, you know. I just wanted to see—”

  “You had no right. No business.”

  “I was different then.”

  Ann thought about what Maureen had said, how people can become actors in their own lives.

  “I felt bad, I did,” he said. “I never forgot.”

  “You promised you’d leave me alone.”

  “And I did. You promised the same thing, and here you are in my kitchen.”

  “Stop it,” Maureen said. “For the love of God. Stop.”

  “You want me to stop?” Anthony said.

  Maureen nodded her head. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “How about you, Ann? You want me to stop?”

  “I wanted you to stop a long time ago.”

  “OK, I tell you what. I’ll make both of you happy. I’ll stop.”

  He left the room and pounded up the stairs. Each thud of his feet on the steps sounded like an asteroid hitting the earth. Ann wanted to run away but she was so shocked she couldn’t move.

  “I’m sorry,” Ann said to Maureen, not sure exactly what she was apologizing for. Flirting with Anthony, letting it get out of hand? For not telling Maureen a long time ago? She was sorry she’d hurt Maureen, but she was also deeply sorry for her. She had to live with Anthony. At least Ann hadn’t been stuck with him.

  “Why?” Maureen asked. “Why didn’t you tell me before, a long time ago, when it … when it happened?”

  “I was scared,” Ann said, still shaking. “He threatened me. I was young. Young and stupid and scared. And pregnant. And then Michael came up with this plan. He’d say he was the—”

  Maureen interrupted her. “My boys. They’ve had a brother all these years. They don’t even know, they never knew. I never knew.” It seemed to Ann that Maureen was speaking to herself instead of to her. Maureen snorted and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Nobody takes me seriously.”

  “I’m so sorry. You’ve always been kind to me. I can tell it’s been hard. I should go.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying for twenty-five years: I should go. And then he gets better, you know? He can be charming. For all his faults, for all his gruffness, he really could sometimes be a good dad. The boys adored him. I’d try to leave and they’d beg me to stay because he needs someone to look after him. He makes all these threats. The doctors can’t do much. Now here I am.”

  At that very moment the house was rocked by a loud crack that made the walls shake. It stunned Ann and Maureen, who could only look at each other with questions in their eyes. The crack was followed by a heavy silence.

  Maureen’s face turned white. “Oh dear, I thought I hid all the guns.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Michael

  When Michael returned home from work, Deedee took one look at him and knew something was wrong. That couch had thrown him off balance. The couch, and before that, the Starbucks cup and the broken glass over the photo.

  Deedee pointed at the small kitchen table covered in invoices and gestured for him to sit.

  “Avery,” she said, “go upstairs and do your homework.”
>
  Avery looked from Deedee to her father. “I thought you were going to take me to the harbor.” She was a stunning child, everyone said so. She had his thick, dark hair and Shelby’s pale skin. Her features were delicate, and her eyes were big, soft, and brown. At eleven, she was just beginning to shape-shift, like a human anibitz—not exactly a child, not exactly a teenager.

  “I need to talk to Deeds,” Michael said. “I’ll take you to the harbor when you finish your homework.”

  Avery could see that Michael was in no mood to mess around. “Fine,” she said, and she ran upstairs, her small footsteps light and quick.

  Deedee pulled two Coronas out of the fridge. Deedee was short and skinny as a rail, with olive skin, small black eyes, and long, dark hair that had turned silver only in the front, where it hung to the sides of her face. She looked cool, Michael thought, wearing her Yoko Ono circle eyeglasses, leather necklaces, and big rings made with natural stones. She also had a sexy way of moving, crossing her legs, tossing her hair back, sucking on a cigarette when she was drunk. He could see why Shelby was into her. If Deedee were straight, and if she weren’t his ex-wife’s partner, Michael would be into her, too.

  “Can you take a look at the toilet in 2B when you get a chance? It’s leaking. The flange or something is the wrong size.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Deedee reached across the table and playfully tousled his hair and sang a few bars from “Handy Man.”

  When Shelby and Deedee asked Michael to move in with them, they said he could be the caretaker. He lived for free, fixing the occasional leaking faucet and cracked window and working on the gardens. He ran the bed-and-breakfast when Shelby and Deedee went on vacation. It was an unconventional arrangement, but it made sharing custody a hell of a lot easier. Deedee and Shelby encouraged Michael to go out more, meet someone, but he was perfectly happy to spend his time with Avery, and with the women. It was hard to explain to people, him living with his ex and her girlfriend. All that mattered was that it worked.

  “Where’s Shel?”

  “Client.”

  “It’s late for a client,” Michael said. He winked at Deedee. “You know what happens when she works late.”