by Nicole Seitz
The s in house lingered on his tongue like the hissing of a snake, and my mouth dropped open. Rainey got over her pouty self, and her bottom lip reared back like a smiling dog’s. Her eyes went wide. “Where is she?”
“They say she’s in the attic,” said Poppy.
“She is in the attic,” said Grandma Mona from the sewing room. She’d been listening in on us this whole time.
“Why?” I ask. “Why’s she in the attic?”
“ ’Cause that’s where she died.”
“Somebody died here?” I was thinking this wasn’t such a great idea. I had known about ghosts, but I didn’t like the idea of somebody having to die to become one. “Let’s go,” I said. “Can we go now? Go back to the motel?”
“Oh, honey, she’s harmless,” said Poppy, pulling me into his lap. He was resting on a step three up from Rainey.
“I thought people go to heaven when they die,” I said.
“Yeah, hebben,” Rainey echoed.
“Well, sometimes they do,” said Poppy. “And sometimes, they don’t. Like if they’ve been real bad or if they have business to tend to.”
“Was Gertrude bad?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not for me to judge, but the story is, she tried to kill her husband, your great-uncle Remorse. For some reason, Gertrude thought he was two-timing her, and . . . well that’s just not something we know for sure. But what we do know is one afternoon, she put a pot of boiling oil up on a rafter in the attic. Then she called him to come up there for something, luring him into a trap, you see. Next thing you know, Aunt Gertrude’s the one lying on the floor, covered in grease, not Uncle Remorse. Burned three-quarters of her body, it did, and she died not long after that. Died a painful, terrible death from all those burns.”
I covered my mouth and spoke through my fingers, horrified. “She was really trying to kill him?”
“Legend has it,” said Poppy. “Funny how life works, isn’t it? Had the pot fallen the other way, Uncle Remorse would’ve been killed instead of Gertrude. Word has it that Gertrude is still so mad about the whole thing, her ghost stays up in the attic, trying to figure out what went wrong.”
“What do you think went wrong?”
“Truthfully? I think God works that way. All things work for good for those who love the Lord. I’m guessing Uncle Remorse loved the Lord a little more than Aunt Gertrude. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been working so hard to kill him, now would she?”
“You believe she’s still up there?” I asked.
“I don’t know, honey. Your Grandma Mona seems to think so. Some folks need a good reason to up and leave the earth, I guess. If she’s not in heaven, I suspect that old attic looks better than the alternative . . . down there.” He pointed to the ground and said, “And I’m not talking about the basement.”
“I don’t want to go in the attic or the basement,” I said.
“Me too,” said Rainey.
Poppy closed his eyes and laughed. “Now girls, this is all good and fun, all right? There’s nothing scary about this house. There is nothing at all going to hurt you here. I can promise you that.”
Rainey and I looked at each other and made a silent secret pact not to go anywhere near the attic or the basement.
“Come on down, honey,” Mama called us from the back of the house. “Uncle Fritz is gonna show us the garden in the back. You won’t believe it. It’s all grown up and even prettier than I remember it.”
Couple things I’d just noticed. One, Mama actually sounded happy for the first time in a week. I wondered what all had happened while Rainey and me had been sitting here having our wits scared out of us. Last time I saw Mama she was looking upset. Or was she? Second, Mama’d just called him Uncle Fritz which, in my book, if he looks like Grandma Mona, would make him Mama’s brother, and I had no idea she even had one. I looked up at Poppy all alarmed with my suspicion, and he whispered to me, “We’ll talk about this later, all right?”
“But she said—”
“I know it, honey. In a little while. We’ve got some things to explain to you, and we will.”
And here I’d thought Mama was an only child. My whole life I was thinking this. She’d never once talked about an Uncle Fritz before—even in her childhood stories—and neither had my Grandma Mona. Neither had Poppy. It made me nervous and wondering, heaven knows, what else had they been keeping quiet?
Chapter Nineteen
UNCLE FRITZ
We were standing in the garden behind the house on Vinca Lane, all of us family, Fritz even. It seemed a lot less scary out there with the sunlight and nobody’s dead eyes looking out at me from portraits on the wall. Blue gingerbread doodads covered the back of the house, and a blue trellis hung over the walkway, covered in jasmine. The smell was next to heaven. Uncle Fritz stooped down and showed Mama an herb garden with rosemary, chives, and basil. It was in little squares all nice and neat, a different herb in each square. Then the strawberries. They covered the ground, flopping all this way and that, and Rainey went to grab one and Uncle Fritz said, “Eat all you like, they’re perfect for pickin’ right now. And look there. You see that tree? Know what it is?”
“Oranges?” I said.
“It’s a peach tree,” he said. “They’re not quite ripe enough yet, but I tell you what. Soon as they are, I’ll have you out here to help me pick ’em. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” Rainey said, tickled to be included.
“Wonderful. I’m hoping your mama takes me up on my offer too. What do you say, Priscilla? This house is just sittin’ here, empty. I’m only up the street a couple blocks. You should stay here while you’re in town. Stay as long as you like. There’s no reason to be in a motel. Truly.”
Mama looked around at us all and then at the flowers, and her eyes softened, almost like Rainey’s, sweet-like. Then, they firmed up again and she said, “No. Thank you. But no, we’re fine where we are.”
Fritz looked at Mama and put his hands up, “I won’t press you, then. Just know you’re welcome . . . and entitled to be here whenever you decide.”
“I appreciate that,” said Mama.
“Can I talk you into some tomato sandwiches though? They’re all ripe, and I’ve been trying my best to can ’em and make sauce, but they’re coming out my ears now. They’re nothing fancy, but good.” “Thank you. That would be very nice. Rainey, what do you say, are you hungry?”
“I like-a eat,” said Rainey. She was sitting on the walkway, running her fingers through the chives like hair. She smiled and Mama seemed to melt. She was so proud of Rainey, and rightly so. She loved Mama so much. Rainey was her heart. I was more of the one she dealt her troubles to. Her confidant. But lately, since she’d found out she was expecting a baby, she’d quit talking as much to me. If I was honest, I was starting to feel a little closed off. Maybe it was having Grandma Mona and Poppy around. I hoped that was it and I could get some time alone with Mama soon.
The kitchen had old appliances in it, but they’d been kept nice. It felt a little like walking back in time. Grandma Mona got so excited, oohing and aahing over every little thing, the toaster, the fridge, the stove, the linoleum on the floor. And she had a story for each one. She was almost like a child again.
“You see this mark on the wall, Janie? This is where a pot of lima beans started a kitchen fire. I kid you not. Your Poppy was frisky back in the day.”
“Oh, come on, Mona.”
“No, she’ll like this. I bet it’s hard for her to imagine us young . . . and in love.”
I looked at Grandma Mona and tried to imagine her young. It was harder than picturing her in love because for a split second, I saw her eyes light up when she looked at Poppy. His cheeks flushed red, and Grandma Mona kept on. “I was fixing supper one evening. Your Poppy had just come back from a trip out west. He’d been gone for three or four days, and things had gotten quiet around here.” She looked at Mama. “Priscilla was, oh, ’bout eight or nine years old at the time. She liked to spend
time sitting up in the window seat in her bedroom upstairs. Didn’t you, Priscilla? You’ll see it in a little bit, girls. Anyway, so she was quiet. I think Grandma Macy was out taking a walk or something. Anyway, I’m standing here cooking and your Poppy walks in, grabs me around the hips, and kisses me on the neck. Liked to scare me to death.”
“She jumped so high, she knocked the pot of beans over and grease spilled out. I spent the next few minutes fighting a blazing fire like you never seen. Liked to burn the whole place down.”
“It wasn’t quite that bad, Grayson.”
“For sure it was.” He reached his hands up high to show how big the flames had gotten, stood up on his tippy toes and everything.
“That’s what your kisses used to do for me. Start fires.”
“Oh Mona, stop it. There’s children in here.”
“You like the kiss,” said Rainey, pointing to Poppy and giggling. I was thinking in my head I knew how they wound up having Mama, what with all that kissing going on. I was sort of surprised they didn’t have more children.
After lunch, Rainey and I explored the rest of the house. The downstairs had the living room, sewing room, kitchen and dining rooms, a little tiny bathroom, and that same gladiola wallpaper everywhere. It was faded in places close to the windows and dark in places where the sun didn’t shine. We climbed the stairs slowly with fear and reverence, passing the portraits of Adolph Macy, Madeline Macy, and Gertrude the ghost, and hoped we wouldn’t be seeing her anytime soon.
I was surprised to see how light and bright the upstairs was. It was even nicer than the downstairs, and I couldn’t decide which room to stay in longest. There were four bedrooms, two on the front and two on the back of the house. There was one bathroom for every two rooms. The ones on the front overlooked the yard and Vinca Lane. I could see all the houses on the street from there, including the yellow one with the old lady who liked to sweep and snoop. These rooms had great big beds like Mama’s at home except taller, and they were covered in patchwork quilts I imagined were sewn in that very room downstairs. I was right. Mama and Fritz followed us after a few minutes and walked in each and every one, explaining things as they went.
“Mama and Daddy’s room,” said Mama, standing with her hand on the doorframe.
“You can go on in,” said Fritz, so we all did. Poppy and Grandma Mona were somewhere outside, probably settled into the rocking chairs on the back porch.
“Daddy used to keep his billfold right here,” said Mama, running her fingers along a dark wood dresser beside the bed. “And every night, he’d put his change out like this, lined each piece up, one after the other. I’d count them for him, and he’d tell me what a rich man God had made him. You know, just this minute, I realize he wasn’t talking about money.”
She turned to look at Fritz and he smiled at her, a kind, knowing smile. Rainey was sitting on the bed. She flopped back onto the quilt. “Your Grandma Mona made that quilt, Rainey. She was always in that sewing room. I can’t imagine how much it must have hurt her to leave it behind when we moved to Yuma. Far as I know she never did any more sewing.”
I’d never heard Mama say anything in a kind way about Grandma Mona before, so I studied that quilt like it was treasure. It had squares of blue and lavender, and green diamonds. Embroidered on it in cream-colored thread was a great big sprawling tree.
“Come on, let’s go look at the other rooms,” said Fritz. Rainey got off the bed, and she and I led the way.
“Look in here!” I said. We’d come into a room across the hall that looked out over the garden. Green light filled the air, putting a hue on everything, the walls, our faces, a trundle bed. It felt cool and calming to be in there.
“Oh, this was my room.” Mama’s eyes glowed green with the rest of her. Then they welled up with tears. “My goodness, I can’t believe how hard this is. I can’t believe how many years it’s been.”
“Sometimes when you come home like this after so many years, it makes you wonder why in the world it took you so long,” said Fritz.
“You’re right. You’re exactly right,” said Mama. “ ’Course, you would know about that, wouldn’t you? I can’t imagine what it was like for you when—”
“It was hard,” said Fritz. “I can’t tell you how much.” And my ears perked up because sitting on that window seat where my mother used to sit when she was my age, looking out over that garden, I could hear in Fritz’s voice that something had changed. And if I got real quiet and still like I did with Mama sometimes, they might even forget I was here and open up about the secrets they’d been keeping from me. About how Fritz was the uncle I never knew I had. And how Mama could go from being sad to happy in no time flat.
Chapter Twenty
THE INVITATION
Sitting there in the green room, trying to be invisible, didn’t work. Mama and Fritz didn’t spill any family secrets. Instead, we just joined Poppy and Grandma Mona again on the back porch. They were walking around the garden so Mama and Rainey took the rocking chairs. Rock, rock, rock, rock . . .
“You sure I can’t change your mind about staying here?” said Fritz to Mama. A nice cool breeze blew through my hair. “I mean it, it’s no trouble, and it’d do the house some good to have company. I’m not here as often as I’d like.”
Mama rocked. I thought about how he’d put that . . . about the house needing company. I pictured it blue and ornate and lonesome . . . with a soul, even. Mama rocked some more. Then she looked over at Rainey and me standing beside her.
“I get Mama’s room,” I said.
“I get Mama room too,” said Rainey. Poppy and Grandma Mona creaked up the steps to show us a ripe tomato.
“I . . . I don’t think so,” my mother said.
“But Mama . . . please? We’ll be good, I promise!”
“Priscilla, for heaven’s sake, take him up on his offer,” said Poppy in her ear. “You’ve lost all your money, remember?”
“Please, Mama?” There must have been something about the way Rainey begged, because Mama changed her mind right then. I don’t know if it was because she was born special or what, but Rainey seemed to pull more weight with Mama than I did.
She breathed out. “Well, all right. If you promise it’s no trouble, Fritz, I guess it can’t hurt. It can’t be worse than sleeping in a tiny motel room. I haven’t rested well since we left home. Even before then. Yes,” she looked up in Poppy’s warm eyes and said, “it would be nice to spend some time here again like old days. Maybe get my head on straight.”
I was looking at Poppy and wondering if he was thinking the same thing, that this offer to stay was like a miracle, what with Mama losing all her money and such. It made me feel good about what I’d had to do, taking it and all. Made me feel like I’d played a real part in bringing us here.
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” said Fritz. “Your daddy’s pleased, I’m sure.”
“I just can’t tell you how much, Priscilla. Thank you, Fritz,” said Poppy. “Having us all here in the old house, well, it’s more than I could have imagined.”
“It’s settled, then,” said Fritz, pulling a red cap out of his back pocket and pulling it over his pepper hair. “I’ll be stopping back with some groceries for supper in a little while.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Mama.
“Not at all. You just make yourselves at home.”
And then, Fritz was gone, and Mama and I were standing there, looking at the jasmine, smelling it. Poppy and Grandma Mona had rediscovered the rocking chairs, and Rainey was chasing a happy yellow butterfly. If I didn’t know better, we looked like some family out of a storybook.
I had never had an uncle before. Never had a blue gingerbread house before, neither, but even though Mama had brought us here in an ailing sort of way, I had the strong suspicion I was going to like it here. And I hoped for her sake we’d stay for a while.
The manager at the grocery store, knowing Mama had lost her change purse, offered to pay Rainey r
eal money for bagging groceries and taking them to people’s cars. That second night in Forest Pines, she came home with twenty dollars and a bagful of leftover deli meat, cheese, and two loaves of bread. Mama stuffed them in the fridge and declared we’d be eating sandwiches for a while.
“Are we staying, Mama?” I asked.
“Janie wanna stay,” said Rainey. “We stay here?”
“Oh, goodness, I’m not sure. Maybe a short—” But before she could finish her sentence, Rainey and I were jumping up and down, hollering. We were excited about something for the first time in a long time. We went running through the house, claiming the trundle bed in the upstairs green room. She got the top part, and we pulled out the undermattress for me, almost like our bunks at home. We played upstairs in all the bedrooms, lying in all the beds, trying on clothes left over in closets and chests, and pulling books off the shelf. A few were left over from Mama’s childhood: Anne of Green Gables, Catch22, Heidi. We never showed our faces again until it was time to eat. Uncle Fritz came over for supper that night. He brought a pork roast, butter noodles, and sliced tomatoes and onions. Mama had a pitcher of iced tea waiting, and we had a real nice time for a while, all of us in the dining room.
And then Rainey spoke up.
Sitting there at the old oak table with fancy plates hanging on the wall, Rainey looked over at Uncle Fritz in between mouthfuls of noodles and said, “You look like Grandma Mona.”
I was shocked she’d said it so brazen and equally happy she’d brought it up. I watched his face to see what he’d say. I wasn’t sure if he could understand her or not, so I repeated for him, “She says you look like Grandma Mona.”
Fritz looked at Rainey, baffled or amazed, like she was real smart and had figured out a puzzle. In his confusion, he looked even more like his mama, who was sitting beside him on the right.
“Oh gracious, here we go,” said Grandma Mona. And she picked up her plate and carried it to the kitchen. “Call me when y’all are done. I’ll be out back.”