House of Wonder

by Sarah Healy

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t really discussed it with them yet. But I think they’d consider moving out there.”

  “That’s really perfect, then,” I said again, perhaps less convincingly this time. Because as we talked about the process doctors went through to find a job, I noticed Bobby’s observant glances, his lingering stare. He would start his new position, wherever it might be, in July.

  And when I had heard enough, when my lips could no longer manage my smile, I nestled my head back against his chest and let my eyes slip shut. I felt his fingertips move slowly up and down my back. Lying as still as I could, I let my body become limp and heavy, as if with sleep. After several minutes, he whispered quietly, “Jenna?” I said nothing, but took a rustling breath. “Jenna?” he asked again. When I didn’t respond, he carefully slid his arm out from underneath me and lifted himself out of my bed. Though I kept my eyes closed, I heard the clink of his belt as he pulled on his jeans. Then he left the room. I waited to hear the front door open and shut, but the sound of his footsteps traveled to the kitchen, where there was the distant rumbling of our old drawers opening, then shutting again. Then the floorboard creaked as he came back to the bedroom.

  I lay there when he stepped in, like I used to when my parents’ marriage was in the process of imploding. Warren would go to his planes, becoming lost in their wires, in their wings. I would go to my room and close my eyes and to all the world, I’d look like a girl asleep. Then next to me, I felt the weight of Bobby’s hand on the bed, and the warmth of his lips on my forehead. He moved quickly then, out of the room and the house.

  I heard his car start, its old engine awakening grumpily. I sat up, opened my eyes, and next to me on the bed was a piece of orange paper folded in half. It was a xeroxed copy of a note from Rose’s preschool that I had left on the counter, announcing a family potluck in honor of Thanksgiving. I had gone last year; dozens of families had made awkward small talk with plates full of six different kinds of pasta salad teetering on their laps. On the back side of the note, Bobby had written:

  I didn’t want to wake you, but I have to be at the hospital early.

  And don’t go to this potluck. It sounds terrible.

  Let me take you and Rose out to dinner instead.

  I’ll call you tomorrow.

  Love,

  Bobby

  I laid it on the pillow next to me, sliding my hand under my cheek as I stared at it. I would save it, of course, as a memento of the one and only night I would spend with Bobby Vanni.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Break-O-Lean

  1972

  “Sing for them, Silla,” urged her father, as he sat with the executives from Millhouse. They were shooting the advertising campaign for their new instant meal-replacement shake. As the corporate sponsors for the Miss Texas pageant, Millhouse had awarded Priscilla Harris with a contract, which meant that today she was sitting on a cold, windy beach in a red bikini, surrounded by men who looked like they were dressed for the golf course. “That’s how she won,” said Lee Harris, speaking to the executives. “Go ahead,” he urged. “Do ‘Snowbird.’”

  Priscilla, whose hair was being sprayed into a windproof helmet by the only other woman in the vicinity, didn’t sing. “Daddy,” she pleaded quietly. But Lee Harris had already moved on, enjoying the company of the men. When he met the Millhouse executives, he shook their hands and patted their backs like they were old college pals. Lee Harris liked men. He liked sitting at dinner tables full of men, smoking cigarettes and making excuses to call over pretty young waitresses. He liked that he was still handsome enough to make them blush.

  “You said the packaging was going to be red and white?” he asked the youngest of the Millhouse executives. He was the one who seemed responsible for more than sitting in a folding chair and smoking cigarettes.

  “Yes,” the young man answered, his eyes moving toward the stack of Break-O-Lean cans arranged on a small table. “She’ll be holding one in the shot.”

  “That’ll look nice with her hair and bathing suit,” Lee offered, his index finger tracing Silla’s form, several yards away.

  The young man didn’t bother telling him that, yes, that’s why they had chosen a red bathing suit. That’s why the foreground of the photograph would have the red and white life preserver. That the tagline for the campaign was “How Miss Texas Saves Calories.” The young man also didn’t tell Lee that he thought the concept was all wrong, suggesting that the drink would retain calories rather than help eliminate them. And he didn’t tell him that his daughter made a poor spokeswoman for a diet drink. That though she was sexy as hell, they needed more of a Twiggy than a Marilyn. Instead, he said, “Can I get you something to drink?” as he sidestepped over to a cooler and pulled out a Coca-Cola.

  Lee thanked him as he took the bottle, damp and slick.

  The young man’s gaze flickered back to Priscilla in her red bikini. “Would she like a drink?” he asked quietly.

  Lee’s chin lifted as he called out, “Silla, you thirsty, honey?”

  Priscilla looked across the line of seated men, then back at her father. She nodded. The young man handed Lee another bottle and Lee walked as quickly as the shifting sand would allow toward his daughter. She took the bottle and with his hand now free, Lee grabbed hold of the flesh of her stomach. “You’re going to need that Break-O-Lean,” he said loudly, giving her stomach a shake. “I’ll bet you can talk these fellas here into a year’s supply.” Smiling, Lee glanced back at his audience; the men emitted a few amused chuckles.

  But Silla shrank forward, as if her body was caving in on itself. She tried to turn her back to the men. The hairdresser, who was now circling her with a bristle brush, gave her a sympathetic look, but Priscilla stared purposefully at the sand. Just get through it, she told herself. Just get through it.

  Lee, making his way back to his seat, quipped, “The blue skies will be nice for the photo, but Lord, it’s cold!”

  And Priscilla sat in her bikini, her pale skin rough with goose bumps from the brisk air. Just get through it, she told herself, steeling her body against the wind and the stares. Just get through it, she repeated over and over as she stared down at the sand.

  So when the photographer was ready, Priscilla stood and gave her most winning smile, channeling warmth and youth and radiance as she held up the red and white can. And when it was over, when the photographer announced that he was all set, Priscilla finally exhaled and let the smile slip off her face. When she looked up, the young executive—the one who she would learn was named Stewart Parsons—stood in front of her, holding his jacket open. She smiled at him, then lightly bit her lower lip, just the way Cal had always liked. “Thank you,” she said, as she turned to let him wrap the jacket around her.

  After the men all shook hands, Silla slid back into her father’s car and turned the heat on high, holding her fingers in front of the vents as she leaned back in the seat, feeling emptier than she ever had. The road traveled along the gulf for a ways and she looked out at it. She had been born near here, near that gentle expanse of water. Looking at it, you’d never believe that it played host to some of the most violent storms anyone had ever seen: monstrous meetings of wind and water. The hurricane of 1900 took eight thousand lives in Galveston alone. And as they flew over the bumpy, windswept road, Silla let her head rest on the back of the leather seat, feeling it rock gently from side to side as the road dipped and swayed. As she saw a sign with the name of a town she hadn’t been back to in seventeen years, she no longer had the will to keep herself from thinking about what she had tried so hard not to know.

  “Daddy,” she said slowly, the dare in her voice only just hidden by her easy, languid words, “why don’t I remember Mama’s funeral?”

  As she turned her head to look at him, the expression on his face was one she’d never forget. She wouldn’t have been able to describe it at the t
ime, but later, once she was a mother, she would be able to place it. It was the look of a child who had been caught. Caught doing something just awful.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Search and Rescue

  M aggie and I sat at the table, our elbows splaying apart the printouts that lay scattered across it. I flexed my toes, which were covered by Gordo’s warm, soft belly. “You know you can’t just blow him off,” said Maggie. Our meeting about work had become a conversation about why I hadn’t spoken to Bobby since our night together.

  When he’d called on Saturday morning, I had let it go to voice mail. I did the same when he called that evening. On Sunday, I answered. I told him I wasn’t feeling well.

  He paused for a moment. “Do you want me to come over?” he asked.

  “It’s okay,” I said quickly, realizing that I was playing sick with a doctor. “I think I’m just run-down.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I’d said. “I’m going to take it easy today.”

  Now I pushed up and leaned back in my chair, though my eyes were focused on nothing. “I know,” I said to Maggie.

  “I mean, if you don’t want to get involved with someone who’s probably going to be moving across the country, I guess I get it. But you owe him an explanation.”

  “I know. I just needed to think it through. Before I talked to him about it.” I had spent the last couple of nights trying to convince myself that I could keep on seeing Bobby when I knew the next several months would be a countdown. But I kept coming to the same conclusion.

  “Is he definitely going to move?”

  “No. But he should,” I said. “Gabby could be closer to her mom and his parents have been wanting to move somewhere warmer for his dad’s arthritis. They could all go out there. It makes sense.”

  My thoughts occupied the pause until Maggie spoke again. “Is Duncan back in New York yet?” And I knew the path her thoughts had taken in the silence. But it was too easy to blame Duncan—too neat. I thought of my mother. How my father’s leaving seemed to be a manifestation of her worst fear rather than the source of it, as if she had suffered from an emotional mutation. Mutations are caused by two things, Warren might say. Natural chance or external influence. The lottery or a lightning bolt.

  “Would you ever . . . ?” began Maggie.

  “No,” I answered quickly, before she could ask if I’d ever move with Bobby. “Not with my mom and Warren here.” Not anymore.

  I reached down and slid my fingers over one of Gordo’s velvet ears. He moaned in appreciation. I was about to ask him if he needed to go out, about to tell Maggie that I was going for a quick walk, when my cell phone rang. My mother’s name was crisp white on the black screen.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, answering it.

  “Jenna,” she said. And at once I could hear her panic, the tempo of her words like a heartbeat. “Linda Vanni just called me at work. She said there are two police cars in front of our house.” Her breath seemed to catch. “She says they’re taking things out in boxes.”

  “What?”

  “Jenna.” My name was spoken like a plea. “Warren’s there by himself.”

  “I’ll go right now,” I said, standing suddenly, the action providing some small relief. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” And I hung up the phone.

  Maggie half rose from her chair, her face alert. “What’s going on?”

  “I gotta go,” I said. “The police are at my mom’s house. I have to get over there right now. Warren’s alone.”

  Without another word, I slid my computer into my bag. “Can I do anything?” Maggie asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll call you later.” Tapping my thigh and giving a brisk whistle, I called Gordo.

  Gordo kept time with me as we rushed down the stairs. I snapped on his leash and walked him quickly to the back lot, where he hopped without prompting into my wagon.

  As I lowered myself into the driver’s seat, I pulled out my cell phone, scrolling for my father’s cell number. Though I hadn’t yet heard from him, I knew he was back in the country; he wouldn’t have missed Russell’s party.

  My knee bounced through the first, second, and third rings until there was a voice. My father’s voice. “Hey, kiddo!” he said. “How’ve you been?”

  “Dad,” I said, as I threw the car into reverse and pulled efficiently from the parking space, “Warren might be in trouble.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, his voice sobering immediately. “What’s going on?”

  I stared down a length of the street, waiting for a break in the traffic. “The police are at Mom’s right now,” I said.

  “The police?” he asked, confused and shocked.

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for weeks,” I said. “There’ve been these thefts in King’s Knoll and everyone in the neighborhood thinks Warren had something to do with it.” I zipped onto the street, cutting off a minivan and eliciting a loud honk. “Didn’t Lydia tell you any of this?”

  I heard a voice in the background, the tone insistent though the words were indiscernible. My father made a shushing sound.

  “Are you at work?” I asked, though I was sure that he wasn’t. He would never shush a colleague.

  “No,” he said. “We’re coming back from driving Alexandra to school. She was down for the weekend.” His tone was a reluctant confession before he returned with urgency to the matter at hand. “But, Jenna, what are the police doing at your mother’s?”

  I stared up at a red light. “I don’t know,” I said. “Mrs. Vanni told Mom that they were carrying out boxes.”

  “Did they have a warrant?!”

  “I don’t know, Dad!” I snapped, not understanding how this had happened, how we had become a family that had to make sense of a police search. “When are you going to be home?”

  “Wednesday,” he said. Then he paused. “We’re going to spend a couple of nights in Newport.” Stewart Parsons was not a man who readily revealed guilt, a characteristic not bred in the boardroom but almost certainly nurtured there.

  I watched the steady stream of cars cross the intersection in front of me. “Mom can’t do this by herself, Dad.”

  There was a hard breath. “All right,” he said. “I’ll make some calls. It’s time to get a lawyer.”

  I heard rumbles from Lydia in the background. Stewart, this was supposed to be our vacation! I, however, felt a modest amount of relief. Much could be accomplished via my father’s phone calls. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, hanging up just as I merged onto the highway that would take me back to Harwick.

  I drove unaware of the act of driving, relying on the muscle memory of returning home to bring me there. When I approached the KING’S KNOLL sign at the entrance to the development, I turned in and craned my neck over the steering wheel, anxious and terrified to glimpse the house. But it sat there, as it always had, proud and battered. The police cars were gone, the driveway empty save for Warren’s Civic. Pulling in next to it, I stepped quickly from the car and opened the gate. Gordo hopped out, his claws hitting the pavement, and he looked up at me, seeming to sense my gravity. We walked side by side into the house.

  Warren was sitting at the kitchen island with his back to me. His only movement came from the strumming of his fingers on the counter in front of him. Gordo rushed him, his body wagging wildly, his tail clanging as it glanced off the objects around him. He nudged Warren’s leg with his snout and Warren chuckled softly, patting Gordo on the head. Hey, boy. Hey. Gordo looked at me, as if to say, See? Everything’s okay! Reaching for the stool next to Warren, I pulled it out, its feet bucking against the linoleum. I sat down and looked at my brother.

  “War,” I finally said. “What happened?”

  His face tensed a bit. “Detective Dunn came,” he said, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

  I glanced a
round the room, which appeared largely untouched—my mother’s baubles and knickknacks undisturbed, the drawers and cabinets shut. I had imagined upturned tables and slit couches. “Mom said they left with boxes.”

  Warren’s brows drew together and he almost smiled. With the most minute of movements he was able to express volumes. “One box,” he said, his fingers galloping over the counter.

  I had visualized flashing lights and police tape, camera flashes and sirens and detectives on their hands and knees. But in truth, it had been a quiet affair, with Detective Dunn carrying off a single box. “What was in it?” I asked.

  Warren’s pointer finger lifted millimeters off the counter, in the direction of a piece of white paper next to the sink. Sliding from my seat, I took three steps, just enough so that I could reach it, so that I could take it by its edges. It was a plain document with black type and crisp boxes. Detective Dunn’s name appeared on it. In the largest box was written: picture frame.

  “A picture frame?” I asked, confused. “What kind of a picture frame?”

  Without looking up, Warren’s head shook slowly from side to side, like the pendulum of a clock. “I hadn’t seen it before.”

  My heart started pumping as my mind turned from path to path, searching for an explanation. There were very few. Only two people lived in this house. “War, you’re not . . .” I remembered how when we were little, and would find our way into mischief, Warren would always try to assume all the blame. Who drew on the floor? Who broke the lamp? Who spilled the juice? Sorry, he would whisper, while his lithe fingers tinkered with a plane. I’m sorry.

  “You’re not trying to protect anyone, are you?” I asked now.