Homebodies

by Joan Schweighardt

  Homebodies

  A Novel

  Joan Schweighardt

  New York

  PREFACE

  When my intrigue with my neighbors the Arroways (a pseudonym for the true family name contrived for reasons which will shortly become apparent) first began, I spoke of it only to my closest friends. But in the course of transforming it into something more tangible (this book, specifically), it became necessary for me to explain myself to a good many persons, the result of which was that I was made to suffer condemnations ranging from the raised brow to a long-winded lecture on lawlessness (the latter delivered by my publisher, who, upon its completion, accepted the manuscript anyway).

  What can I say of my indiscretions? I am an old woman and I get around slowly. A meal that might take you an hour to prepare will take me two. A book that you will complete in a few days will take me a week—for I have acquired a fondness for dozing between chapters. I saw no reason to take the roundabout path when I was certain I was cunning enough to keep my way along the shortcut.

  Now, before I retreat (or, more accurately, before I decline from my rank as confidante, for, as you will note, I have diligently retained the remarks of the others concerning me, even when they were less than benign), I would like to say a word to the Arroways themselves: My dears, should this project fall into your hands, and should you recognize yourselves therein, I entreat you not to deal too harshly with me. This effort, which will cost you no more than a moment’s embarrassment, has given me a raison d’être this past year. And as far as next year is concerned, you need not worry; now that I have come by a like-minded assistant, I plan to press onward, perhaps as far as the end of the road.

  —Martha T. Bowker

  SHERRI

  Sherri flicks her cigarette onto the lawn and exhales deeply to try to get all of the smoke out of her system. Her breath generates another cloud. She can’t tell whether it’s more smoke or just the cold. Either way, it’s fascinating to watch. She tilts her head skyward and continues to pump out crisp, rhythmic puffs. She wonders if this is the way clouds are formed. She wonders if God smokes too.

  She gets a little dizzy and stops. Her gaze descends and settles on the car. There is still some snow on it from last week’s storm. She is waiting for her sister to pick her up, but Lizzie promised to come in the morning, and it isn’t morning anymore. She walks over to the car and wrestles with the door until it opens. (It’s out of whack; you have to hit it with your hip a few times to get it to pop.) She slides in and wonders if maybe she should drive herself. But the keys aren’t there. She remembers having seen them on the table by the telephone, beside the pad.

  She gets out of the car and goes back into the house and rereads the words on the pad: Nice overweight problem girl wishes to meet nice problem man, can be overweight or not. She wrote it yesterday, before the thing happened to Daddy. She didn’t know if she should write Nice problem man or just Nice man. Everyone has problems. She was just about to call it in. She was going to ask the Ad-visor what she thought about the problem part. But just then she heard Clunk. The Ad-visor said, “Hello, hello.” Sherri left her hanging and ran to the bathroom door, crying, “Daddy, are you okay?”

  He was in the shower. She could hear the water running. She shouted: “DADDY, ARE YOU OKAY?” He still didn’t answer. She didn’t want to go in because she didn’t want to see him naked. Then she thought of Lizzie, who had been to college and always knew what to do. She ran back to the phone and hung it up to get rid of the buzz. Then she picked it up again and dialed. Lizzie’s machine announced that the family was out. Sherri ran back to the bathroom. “DADDY, ARE YOU OKAY?”

  She ran back to the phone. A list of emergency numbers was scotch-taped to the wall. She dialed the hospital and explained the situation. The woman on the other end promised to hold on while Sherri opened the door and looked. Her calm voice infused Sherri with courage.

  The door was unlocked; she found Daddy lying in the tub. His eyes were open, but it seemed to Sherri that they weren’t looking at anything. The shower was coming down on his face. She put a towel over his private parts so that she wouldn’t look at them accidently. Then she turned off the water. She never realized his legs were so skinny. She tried to make him sit up, but his torso was too heavy for her. Then she saw his fingers move. She ran back to the phone. “HE’S ALIVE!” she screamed.

  She was elated. At first she thought he wasn’t. She couldn’t deal with any more deaths. She lost her mother and her niece already. She told all this to the woman on the phone, but the woman only asked if Daddy could speak. Sherri said she didn’t think so. The woman asked if he could get up. Sherri didn’t think he could do that either. The woman said to cover him with something warm and stay with him until the ambulance arrived.

  Sherri ripped the bedspread from her bed. She put it over him, but the wet came up through it anyway. His eyes were still unfocused. His fingers were still moving along the side of the tub. They reminded Sherri of the big, hairy spiders she always sees at Lizzie’s house. They seemed to be trying to get out of the tub, but they kept slipping back. They were scaring her. She couldn’t take her eyes off them. She doesn’t like spiders. She doesn’t even like to think about them.

  Someone knocked at the door, and Sherri ran to answer it. There were two men with a stretcher there. The ambulance was in the driveway next to the car. Sherri was disappointed to see that the sirens weren’t on. She brought the men into the bathroom and asked if she could come to the hospital with Daddy. They removed the bedspread and the towel and then everyone looked at Daddy’s private parts. They said she could come if she wanted to. But then she remembered that she’d told Lizzie’s machine to call her back.

  Later, the phone rang, but it wasn’t Lizzie. It was the hospital. The man on the line told her that Daddy had had a stroke, that that’s why he fell down in the tub. Sherri asked if he was going to die. The man said he didn’t think so. He told her she could come in the morning. She hung up the phone and laughed. Daddy wasn’t going to die after all. That was good news. Maddy died so little. When Mom died, she had her beads in her hands in the coffin. Sherri didn’t know who put them there. Her mother prayed a lot, but never with her beads. Sherri had wanted to remove them and stick her mother’s knitting needles in their place, but Pete, Lizzie’s husband, wouldn’t let her.

  Sherri was afraid to sleep in the house alone last night. She was afraid her mind would get going and the voices would come or that she would dream about blood or teeth. Once when she was little, Lizzie played a joke on her. Sherri had told her that she had had a dream wherein her mouth was full of lots of extra teeth and then all at once all the teeth popped out and flew across the room. The dream had really scared her. Then, later, when she was down in the basement looking for the Sorry game, Lizzie came down on tiptoe. Sherri turned around and she was right there! Lizzie stuck her thumb in her mouth and all her teeth came flying out and hit Sherri in the face. Sherri screamed. Lizzie laughed. They were plastic teeth from Halloween.

  Once Lizzie did something else too. That was back when they were both sleeping in the big bed before Mom bought the two new ones. Lizzie had been talking about God. Sherri, who was afraid of Him, asked her to stop. Lizzie said, “Don’t be afraid because God is the light.” That made Sherri look up at the ceiling, at the big tit-shaped fixture that was hanging there. She was afraid it would come on by itself. She heard her sister laughing. Then she heard her say she was going to the bathroom to pee.

  Lizzie took a long time to get back in bed. Sherri didn’t see what she was up to because she was still looking at the light. Then Lizzie started talking about Him again. “Oh, look!” she said. “He hears us.” Sherri looked where Lizzie was looking, at the dresser on Lizzie’s side of
the the room. The crucifix there was glowing in the dark! Sherri was so scared she thought her eyes would pop out! Then Lizzie turned toward her very slowly, and she saw that Lizzie’s face was glowing too! She screamed and screamed. She heard Lizzie laughing in between. Mom ran in and put the light on and spread her fingers over Sherri’s mouth to shut her up. She said, “What the hell did you do to your face?” Lizzie said, “Day-Glo.” Mom said, “Go wash it NOW!”

  Mom held Sherri in her arms like a baby until Lizzie came back to bed. Sherri liked that; it made it all worth while. And the next day, Mom took all Lizzie’s Day-Glo paints and glitter paints and threw them out. But Sherri went in the garbage and retrieved them. She had to wash off the little jars because there were eggs and coffee grinds all over them. She gave them back to Lizzie. Then she took the rag into the bedroom and washed off the crucifix carefully, so that she wouldn’t get Him mad.

  The crucifix hasn’t glowed since then, but last night after the hospital called, Sherri was afraid it might. Any number of strange things could happen if she couldn’t hear her father snoring upstairs. She called Lizzie again, and this time she was in. Lizzie said, “What’s up, Sher? I’m sitting down to eat.”

  Sherri said, “Daddy’s in the hospital with a stroke.”

  Lizzie didn’t answer. Sherri thought maybe she hung up. But then Pete got on the phone. He said, “What happened, Sher?” Sherri could hear Jake in the background asking his mother the same question. She told Pete what happened. He said he would call the hospital and call her back.

  Pete called back and said that Daddy’s condition was stable and that Lizzie would come for her in the morning. Sherri said, “Could she come and get me tonight?”

  Pete said, “She’s too upset to drive, but I could come and get you if you want.” But then Lizzie said something to Pete and he said, “Can you sleep by yourself tonight? If you get scared or anything at all, just call.”

  Sherri slept on the sofa. To keep from thinking about scary things, she thought about Pete. She never had a husband herself; that’s why she wrote the ad. But she didn’t call it in. After they took Daddy away in the ambulance, it didn’t seem like a good idea anymore.

  Sherri takes the keys and goes out and starts the car. Daddy always says that she can’t drive because of her medication, but she knows she can. She puts it into reverse and backs to the end of the driveway. When she applies the brakes, her chin hits the steering wheel and bounces up again. She puts it into drive and inches toward the garage. This time she applies the brakes gently. She laughs. She is ready to go. But then it occurs to her that Daddy might ask her how she got to the hospital without Lizzie. She could say she took the bus; Daddy can never tell when she’s lying. But then she thinks that Daddy might get up and look out the window and see the car in the parking lot. She gets out of the car and slams the door.

  The car used to be Lizzie’s. She sold it to Daddy for next to nothing when she got a new one. That was a long time ago. It was pretty back then. But Daddy messed it up. Springs are popping out of the seats. The door on the passenger side doesn’t close all the way. Nor do the wing-windows. They hiss when you drive. They make Sherri think of snakes. There’s a folding chair and some tools and a stepladder and Daddy’s old army coat in the back seat. No one could possibly sit back there. Since Mom died, Daddy just uses the car as an extra closet.

  The year before Mom died, Daddy had an accident. Right on their street! He was just going along slowly when he bumped into a parked car. After that, he only drove on Sundays when Mom could take him to the parking lot at the mall to practice. But he never drove on the street again anyway. He never told the neighbors he hit their car. When they see him outside, they wave, but he doesn’t wave back. It wasn’t even raining out. He was so embarrassed, he didn’t tell anyone except Mom. But Sherri heard Mom telling Lizzie once. Mom was crying then. Sherri didn’t know why. The house is close to the stores. There’s a bus stop right on the corner. And when they have to go far, Lizzie takes them. Mom told Lizzie that Daddy cried when he hit the car. She said the only other time he cried was when his mother died.

  Lizzie drives up in her Jeep, finally, and rolls down the window. Sherri peeks in to see if the kids are hiding on her in the back seat, but there’s no one there. “Are you ready?” Lizzie asks.

  “I’m ready all right.”

  Lizzie drives fast, but she keeps her eyes on the road. “You look crabby,” Sherri says as Lizzie hits the blinker and turns onto the highway.

  Lizzie glances at her. “Do you realize how serious a stroke can be?”

  Sherri shrugs. She doesn’t know what a stroke is.

  Daddy is sleeping. He looks fine to Sherri except for the tubes extending from various parts of his body. One of them is coming out of his nose. Sherri thinks its function must be to suck up excess snot. She thinks it’s a good idea; she doesn’t see any handkerchiefs around, and Daddy goes right through tissues.

  Lizzie goes out to consult with the nurses. When she returns, she announces that the doctor will be in in a minute to talk to them. Sherri watches her pace. When she stops pacing, she goes to stand in the corner. Sherri sees her shoulders begin to jerk. When her shoulders jerk like that she is either laughing or crying. Sherri doesn’t think she would be laughing.

  Lizzie’s shoulder motion ebbs and she starts pacing again. Sherri takes out her cigarettes, but Lizzie sees before she can get one into her mouth. “No!” she shouts. Then the doctor comes in.

  Dr. Taslimi is so small that Sherri can see right over the top of his head. He is nice and shiny and brown—like polished wood. The bald spot on his head is so round that it looks like he’s wearing a yarmulke. Lizzie asks him a lot of questions and nods when he answers them. When he leaves, her shoulders shake again. Lizzie never cries out loud anymore. She just jerks her shoulders and screws up her face. Sherri suspects she doesn’t know how to let it out. She wants to make her sister stop, but she doesn’t like to kiss another girl. The nurse comes in and tells them to go home.

  On the way, Lizzie touches Sherri’s hand. Sherri looks down and sees her sister’s thumb stroking hers. It makes her feel funny. She wishes it would stop. Lizzie always touches people. Sherri and Jake don’t like it. Lizzie says, “Daddy’s going to need a lot of care when he comes home. Do you think you can manage?”

  “What do I have to do?” Sherri asks. She notices that her pointer and her middle finger are yellow. She moves them closer together so that Lizzie won’t see.

  Lizzie eases her head back and stretches her neck. “You’ll have to help him bathe and take him to the bathroom.”

  Sherri says, “I can do that,” but she pictures that she can’t.

  Lizzie says, “I’ll come as often as I can to do my share. It’s just so hard with the kids and with us being nearly two hours apart.”

  “When is he coming home?”

  Lizzie’s fingers leap away from Sherri’s hand as fast as startled spiders. “Didn’t you hear a word Doctor Taslimi said?”

  Sherri’s room is downstairs and Daddy’s is up. Lizzie says they have to switch. Sherri doesn’t like Daddy’s room; it’s little and it smells funny. But Lizzie says Daddy won’t be climbing the stairs for awhile. When Sherri opens the door for them to go in, Lizzie exclaims, “You’d better find that key now that he’s not here!”

  “Okay,” Sherri answers, but the truth is she doesn’t think there is a key anymore. It seems it’s been lost forever. Besides, the things she’s afraid of at night are the things that get in without a key, or the things that are already in the house, especially down in the basement. No one ever comes to the door except the mailman and when she and Daddy order pizza.

  “Look at this place!” Lizzie exclaims. “You live like animals, for God’s sake!”

  Sherri looks. It looks the same as it always does except bigger without Daddy stretched out on the sofa in front of the television set. “Do you feel up to making the switch?” Lizzie asks.

  Sherri doesn’t, but
she can see that they are going to do it anyway. Lizzie has already taken off her coat and is standing with her feet apart and her hands on her hips.

  Sherri removes her coat too and throws it on the sofa. Lizzie looks her up and down. Sherri looks too. She is wearing brown polyester stretch pants and a powder blue acrylic sweater. The fabric of both is beaded from too many washings. Lizzie says, “Your top is stained.”

  Sherri smiles. “I know.”

  They begin by taking all the clothes from Sherri’s closet and placing them up on Daddy’s bed. Then they carry all Daddy’s closet stuff down. “Where’s your bedspread?” Lizzie asks.

  Sherri thinks for a minute and remembers that it’s still in the bath tub. “I don’t know,” she lies.

  Lizzie begins to strip Sherri’s bed and make it over with Daddy’s sheets. “Go in the basement and find some boxes so that we can do the dressers,” she says.

  “Can you go with me?”

  “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Sherri leaves the basement door open in case she has to come up quickly. She doesn’t look at the picture on the furnace, but she sees it anyway, in her head. The man in the picture has his arms spread out like he’s just seen a ghost. His features are contorted with horror. The top of the picture is covered with dust. Its function is to make children afraid to come near the furnace, but there are no children here anymore.

  Sherri walks past the manikin, but she doesn’t look at that either. Mom used to use it when she sewed. It has breasts and hips like a woman, but instead of a head, it has a little wire knob that is shaped like a light bulb. Instead of feet it has wheels. Sherri can feel it staring at her. She gets the boxes and hurries to the stairs fast in case it starts to roll across the floor and tries to block her way. She thinks she hears it starting up on the concrete. She runs like hell.

  “Make enough noise down there?” Lizzie asks. She is looking at Sherri’s diary, flipping through the pages hastily.