Alex pointed to a small gas heater—ridiculously small, it seemed—that squatted in the corner near the hot-water heater and was connected to an array of copper pipes. There were several wooden crates lined up on the floor between the door and the heaters. Alex lifted the lid on the nearest one, sending up a cloud of dust.
“Is that something of ours?” Sarah asked.
Alex turned his head and sneezed loudly, making Brian giggle.
“It is now,” Alex said. “A lot of junk that’s been down here forever.”
They left the room, and Alex closed the door. He stepped across the hall and opened another door, revealing another totally dark room. When he worked the light switch, nothing happened.
“We need a flashlight,” he said, and turned toward the stairs.
“I thought we knew where the movers put everything.”
“I guess not,” Alex said, smiling. “I was upstairs with you, making sure they put the furniture in the right rooms without breaking anything. I’ll be right back.”
He climbed the stairs. Sarah and Brian stood alone in the hallway, saying nothing. Sarah heard Alex’s footsteps on the floor above them.
“Mom, I’m scared down here.”
“There’s nothing to be fri—”
Suddenly, a muffled roar erupted from the furnace room. Brian launched himself against Sarah’s leg and hung on with both arms.
“It’s just the furnace, honey,” Sarah said, putting her hand on his head. But she’d jumped at the noise, too.
Sarah heard Alex on the landing and saw that he was replacing the bulb at the top of the stairs. When he came down, he brought a flashlight and a paper sack that tinkled faintly with light bulbs. He followed his flashlight beam into the dark room and put a new bulb in the ceiling socket.
Sarah clicked on the light.
The room’s walls were lined with vacant, dusty shelves that had apparently been used to hold jars of preserves. A few empty jars were scattered about as reminders of times past.
They moved down the hall to the next room on the left: the kitchen. Everything in here wore a fine coat of dust—the linoleum floor, the sink, and the countertop, even the drab curtains over the windows. The cupboard doors stood open, displaying bare shelves. There was an old stove and a refrigerator, both of which had been pulled away from the wall and disconnected. Four wooden chairs had been placed upside down on the scarred, white-painted wooden table.
Sarah pictured the warm, clean house above them and tried to guess which room they were under. The family room, she thought, or possibly the dining room.
“Did somebody live down here?” Brian asked.
“Sure,” Alex said. “Probably in the old days the rich people lived upstairs and their maid and butler or maybe the gardener lived down here.”
“Are we rich, Dad?”
“Not hardly.”
“So there’s no one down here now, is there?”
“No, Brian. Just us.”
The room next to the kitchen was the bathroom. There was a yellow-stained porcelain sink, a toilet, a bathtub that stood on metal feet, and an empty medicine cabinet with a foggy, cracked mirror.
They stepped across the hall to the bedroom. Alex clicked on the light to reveal a bare mattress and box springs, a battered wooden dresser, and a wooden wardrobe, which stood against the back wall.
Sarah walked into the room. It felt cold and musty. She drew her fingers through the thin film of dust on the closed door of the wardrobe.
“I didn’t know this was down here, did you?”
Alex shrugged.
“This is cedar,” Sarah said. “You know, this would go well in our bedroom.”
“You want to drag that thing upstairs?” Alex groaned.
“I don’t mean now. …” She tried to tug open the door, but it seemed to be stuck. She brushed dust from her fingers. “Sometime, though.”
“Sometime,” Alex said.
They left the bedroom and walked down the hallway, which made a sharp turn to the left—into darkness.
Alex walked ahead of them, lighting the way with his flashlight. He stopped partway down the hall and changed a light bulb in the ceiling. His flashlight showed a door on the right and another at the end of the hall. The far door led to the outside. Alex walked to it, found the light switch, and turned on the hall light. Then he checked the lock on the door.
“Is anything wrong?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Alex said.
There was a window in the door partly covered by a heavy curtain. Alex shone his light through the window, faintly illuminating concrete steps leading up to ground level; then he pulled the curtain all the way closed.
“I remember now, the movers used this door,” he said. “So I guess they put everything in the living room.”
The living room was the last room in the basement and the one nearest to the outside door. The room was long and narrow, extending under the entire front of the house. Cardboard boxes were stacked three high along the east wall. Most of them had been marked with a black felt-tip pen: “Basement.”
“I didn’t know we had so much stuff down here,” Alex said.
He tried to open the nearest box, but it was sealed with fiber tape.
“This would be a lot easier if we’d have marked the Christmas boxes.”
“Next time,” Sarah said.
“Right. I’ll need a knife.” He started out the door, saying, “I saw something in the furnace room.”
Alex returned in a few minutes with a box cutter. Its thick handle was dented and pitted with rust. Alex loosened the screw, slid the rusty single-edged razor blade forward, then retightened the screw.
“Hey, that’s neat,” Brian said. “Can I see it?”
“This isn’t a toy, Brian,” Alex said, and he slit open the first box. “What is this stuff?”
Sarah leaned over his arm. “Oh, I think those were Ted’s.”
Alex gave her a look.
“Okay, okay,” she said, feigning defense. “I’ll get rid of everything this spring. We’ll have a big yard sale, okay?”
Alex spread his hands in a mock-defensive gesture of his own. “Hey, I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to,” she said, and gave him a playful punch in the arm.
Alex opened nearly every box before they found the ornaments and the tree stand. Sarah stacked two boxes onto his arms, picked up one herself, and followed him into the hallway. Brian lingered behind, then came hurrying after them. They carried everything upstairs to the living room.
“Did we get the door?” Alex asked.
“I’ll do it.”
Sarah set down her box, walked to the laundry room, and started to close the basement door. Then she stopped, listening, her head turned sideways to the dark landing.
There was no sound.
But she’d heard something before, a muffled noise from below.
She listened for a few more moments, then shrugged, shut the door, and slid the thick bolt into its metal socket in the doorframe. She gave the bolt a half twist, setting it solidly in place.
It was probably only the furnace, she thought.
She hurried back to the warm, secure living room.
9
ALEX SET THE DEEP metal bowl of the tree stand near the bay window. He secured the four legs so that they were parallel to the floor, then loosened the four screw clamps inside the bowl.
It took all three of them to right the tree with its trunk in the metal bowl.
Alex lay on the floor, reached under the lower branches, and tightened the four clamps around the base of the tree. His job was made harder by Patches, who thought Alex was playing a new game and crawled under the tree, tickling Alex’s nose with his tail. Sarah and Brian tried not to laugh at his awkward predicament while they told him to “tip the tree this way some, now back the other way a little bit” until it was exactly vertical. Sarah brought a pitcher of water from the kitchen, and Alex emptied it into the stand
.
Brian had already searched through the cardboard boxes and found the fluffy cotton sheet of “snow.” He helped Alex position it on the floor around the legs of the tree stand.
Then all three laid out the strings of colored lights on the carpet, plugged the strings together, and plugged the end one into the nearest electrical outlet. The dark strands jumped alive with bright, elongated globes of green and red and blue and yellow and white.
“Hey, cool!” Brian said.
Sarah didn’t think it was cool enough, and she was anxious to get the lights off her carpet. They checked for dud bulbs, replaced the few they found with good ones, and unplugged the lights.
“I need something to stand on,” Alex said, eyeing the top of the tree.
Sarah got the step stool from the kitchen. Then Alex stood on it and began placing the strings of lights on the tree, starting at the top and wrapping them spirally downward. When he was finished, Sarah stuck the end into the wall socket, and the tree burst into multicolored lights.
“All right!” Brian exclaimed.
“Looking good,” Alex said.
“We missed a spot,” Sarah put in.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, you know.”
“Yes, it does.”
“It does?”
“Of course. Doesn’t it, Brian?”
“Yeah.”
“See?”
“Okay, okay,” Alex said, smiling.
Sarah pointed out the few “dark spots,” and Alex adjusted the lights accordingly. Then Sarah turned out the tree lights, and they began removing the square, flat boxes of ornaments from the cardboard cartons, handling each box as carefully as if it contained eggs.
Sarah and Brian had accumulated enough ornaments to decorate the tree several times over. There were shiny colored-glass globes, tiny wooden toys, and hollow spheres with miniature scenes inside. There were stars, Santas, angels, and animals. There were a few homemade ornaments and a few with a history—“Remember this one, Mom?”—some fancy, some plain, and some so ugly they were cute. Brian showed one to Alex that made him laugh out loud.
When they were satisfied that the tree was hung with just the right number of ornaments, they began draping on the tinsel. They did this carefully, a few strands at a time, so that it hung freely—enough to add sparkle to the tree but not so much that it looked messy.
Patches sniffed at the tinsel, then batted one of the lower ornaments with a padded paw.
“Is that going to be a problem?” Alex asked Sarah, nodding toward the big cat.
“It hasn’t been before,” Sarah said.
As if to confirm that fact, Patches meowed once and ambled out of the room.
Now Alex stood on the step stool and placed the star-shaped ornament on the very top. He stepped down and was about to turn on the tree lights when Sarah stopped him.
“What for?” he asked, bewildered and amused.
“Yeah, Mom, why?”
“Because this is our first Christmas tree together and our first tree in our new house and it deserves something special, so you guys just wait for a few minutes.”
Alex and Brian looked at each other and shrugged. Sarah spent the next quarter hour making hot chocolate in the kitchen. Alex used the time to carry the empty boxes and leftover ornaments down to the basement, setting them in the storage room rather than carrying them all the way back to the basement’s living room. By the time he was finished, Sarah was filling three big mugs with hot chocolate and topping off each one with a marshmallow.
They carried their mugs out to the living room, and Alex plugged in the lights. The tree came alive with bright colors, which were multiplied by the shiny ornaments and tinsel. Now they toasted the tree with raised mugs; then they sat cross-legged on the floor and sipped their drinks and admired their beautiful work.
Later, Sarah took Brian upstairs and tucked him in bed.
She kissed him on the forehead. “Good night, pumpkin. Sweet dreams.”
“Good night, Mom.” Then, “Mom?”
“What, hon?”
“I really like our Christmas tree.”
“Me, too.”
“I think it’s the best one ever.”
Sarah smiled. “Me, too.”
Later still, after Sarah had finished brushing her hair, she turned out the bathroom light and found her way through the dark, almost-cold bedroom to the bed. She snuggled up to Alex, and he held her in his arms.
“Mmm, you’re nice and warm,” she said.
“Warmer than you think.”
He kissed her forehead, then the tip of her nose, then her lips. She kissed him back and moaned softly as she felt his tongue seek out hers. Then his lips pulled away from hers and brushed over her chin to her throat, and his left hand found its way to the front of her nightgown and settled lightly on her breast. She clung to him and whispered his name in his ear.
They made love. Slowly, at first, and then with increased passion, and Sarah felt her body release control, give itself up to ecstasy.
Alex clung to her, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths. She stroked the back of his neck and thought how much she loved him, how much she needed him.
She drifted into sleep.
Much later she awoke with a start to loud whispers and shadows moving about the room.
Sarah raised herself on her elbows and listened to the winter wind moaning outside, forcing itself through the pine trees and pushing against the house, trying to find a way in. The old house groaned, and its windows chattered from the cold.
Beside her on the bed Alex snored softly. Sarah eased her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes.
She had a difficult time falling back to sleep.
The next day was Saturday, so Alex and Brian were both slow to get out of bed. Sarah, though, had a full day ahead of her at the shop, so she had already showered and dressed and finished her coffee and toast by the time Alex and Brian wandered into the kitchen.
“Are you leaving already?”
“I’ve got an eight o’clock appointment,” Sarah said.
“Are you coming home for lunch?”
“I doubt it. It looks like you two guys will be on your own all day. Do you think you can handle it?”
Alex looked down at Brian. “What do you think? Can we have fun without your mom around?”
“I guess,” Brian said tentatively. “We could watch cartoons.”
“Satisfied?” Alex asked Sarah.
“Not really,” she said, and kissed him good-bye.
Outside, the sky was overcast, and the breeze had a sharp edge. Sarah ducked her chin into her coat to keep her face out of the wind, lowered her already watering eyes, and walked around the house toward the garage, digging in her purse for the key to unlock the side door. She raised her eyes and stopped abruptly.
The side door to the garage, which should have been shut and locked, now stood wide open.
Sarah hesitated, then went forward, shaking her head as if to scold Alex. He must not have closed it all the way last night, she reasoned, and the wind blew it open.
She entered the garage and pulled the door shut behind her.
The big overhead heater was roaring merrily in the far corner of the garage, trying to keep pace with the cold air that had been pouring in through the door. Sarah walked around the front end of the Wagoneer. When she put her hand on the door latch, she noticed that the side window was open. In fact, it was rolled all the way down.
She frowned. Hadn’t she closed it last night? When she’d parked the Wagoneer, Alex and Brian had been standing by the side door, she remembered, so she’d felt slightly more rushed than usual because she didn’t want to keep them waiting.
So maybe I forgot to close things up, too, she thought. She smiled to herself. I guess we’re both getting absent-minded in our old age.
Sarah pulled open the car door, then stopped.
She stared down at something on the seat—three things, actually. At first
she thought they must belong to Brian. Toys, perhaps. They were the size of Ping-Pong balls, but misshapen and fuzzy and gray. She reached down to pick up the nearest one. Then her fingers jerked back when she saw something attached to the fuzzy ball.
A tiny pink foot.
Sarah grimaced and leaned in for a closer look, keeping her hand high on the back of the seat. All three “balls” were the bodies of mice. No heads, just the bodies.
“Yuck,” she said, shuddering with disgust.
She stepped back out of the car, then walked around the front of Alex’s Celica to his workbench, which was flanked by an old power mower and a new snow blower. The workbench held only a toolbox and a row of coffee cans that were filled with nails, screws, nuts, and bolts. The wall beside it was hung with saws, rakes, shovels, a thick coil of yellow electrical cord, the “weed eater,” and the electric hedge clippers.
The sight of the clippers made Sarah smile in spite of herself. She remembered the one and only time that Alex had used the old-style hedge clippers, used them for less than an hour before he’d gone right out and bought the electric clippers. As far as she knew, he’d never used the old clippers again. They’d hung above the workbench, then-wooden handles forming an inverted “Y” below their long, sharp blades. She noticed now that the old clippers were no longer on the wall. She wondered if Alex had stored them away, out of sight.
Sarah squatted down and looked under the bench. There were several paint-spattered tarps folded up next to a dozen or so paint cans, most of which had been opened and resealed. Next to the cans was a cardboard box containing paintbrushes, rags, and stirring sticks. She shook out a rag and took it back to the Wagoneer.
“Darn you, Patches,” she said.
Sarah used a flat paint stirrer to push the mouse carcasses onto the rag. She gingerly folded up the morbid contents, then stepped outside. The cold wind whipped open the flap of her coat. She carried her bundle to the side of the house and dropped it in the large plastic trash barrel near the side steps. She’d suspected that the old house had mice, although she hadn’t seen any before this morning. And she could picture Patches busily carrying his three kills out to the open garage last evening while the three of them were preoccupied on the front porch with the Christmas tree.
Night of Reunion: A Novel Page 6