Set This House in Order

by Matt Ruff

  What services would she want? A small ceremony, Mouse guesses—just her helpmate, Dr. Eddington, a few other close friends and associates, maybe Andrew. Burial rather than cremation—Mouse has an intuition that the doctor would want to continue to occupy space in some way, not be scattered on the winds or compacted into an urn. So, burial: in a plain casket, in an inexpensive plot, but in a cemetery that allows actual headstones. The marker will be a simple one, no fancy etching or flowery epitaph, but still imposing somehow, maybe a darker-colored stone, something to catch the eye…or bark the shins of anyone who tries to walk by without paying the proper respect.

  Mouse half-smiles, imagining this, until she realizes that the grave site she is mentally picturing is actually her grandmother’s, and the thoughts she is imputing to Dr. Grey are based on statements her grandmother once made, when she talked about how she wanted to be buried.

  The memory drives Mouse away for a few minutes, long enough for Malefica to tap the Buick’s brakes and wake up the driver of a Toyota that has been riding their back bumper for the past few miles. The Toyota backs off; Malefica grins and reaches into the glove compartment for a celebratory shot of vodka. But the flask is gone, and Malefica gives way to Maledicta, who curses a blue streak at the meddling Duncan.

  —and Mouse wakes up again, the Buick stopped behind Dr. Eddington’s Jetta at a Bridge Street traffic light.

  Andrew’s landlady is standing sentinel on the porch as they drive up to the house. It’s more than her usual watchfulness; she is pacing back and forth as they come into view, and runs down to the sidewalk to meet them.

  “Dr. Eddington,” Mrs. Winslow says, as the doctor gets out of the Jetta. She nods reflectively, as if his arrival is a clue to a puzzle she has been working on.

  “Hello, Mrs. Winslow,” Dr. Eddington greets her. “Is Andrew here?”

  “No,” she says, shaking her head now. “No, and I’m worried about him. He never came home from work, and he hasn’t called…”

  Mouse says: “Maybe he’s still with Julie.”

  Dr. Eddington and Mrs. Winslow both look at her.

  “He and Julie drove off somewhere together this morning,” Mouse explains. “They never came back to work.”

  Mrs. Winslow gets a very complex expression on her face. “Well,” she says, after a moment, “I believe I have Julie’s number. Please, come inside. Both of you.” As they are going back up the walk, she says to Dr. Eddington: “I gather you’re here to deliver bad news.”

  “Yes, unfortunately…” He tells her about Dr. Grey.

  “Poor woman,” Mrs. Winslow says. “Andrew’s going to take it very badly, I’m afraid.” She sighs. “I know there’s never a good time for a thing like this to happen, but I wish it needn’t have happened just now.”

  “Is something else going on with Andrew?” Dr. Eddington asks.

  “Yes, I think so.” Mrs. Winslow is looking at Dr. Eddington as she says this, but Mouse gets the feeling that the comment is really directed at her.

  They go inside, to the kitchen at the back of the house, where Mrs. Winslow puts on coffee and water for tea. While the coffee brews and the water boils, Mrs. Winslow excuses herself and goes upstairs. She returns just as the tea kettle starts to whistle.

  “There’s no answer at Julie’s house,” she tells them. She pours coffee for Dr. Eddington, and tea for herself; Mouse politely declines both.

  “So,” says Dr. Eddington, “Andrew’s been having problems?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Winslow says, and Mouse braces herself, certain now that Mrs. Winslow is going to start complaining about her. But instead, Mrs. Winslow speaks a name that Mouse has never heard before: “It’s got something to do with Warren Lodge, I think…have you been paying attention to the news reports about that?”

  Dr. Eddington nods. “A number of my patients have been following the story. I take it Andrew was too?”

  “We both were. I thought I was the most affected by it, and perhaps I was, at first. But on Sunday evening Andrew came home a few hours after Lodge had his accident, or killed himself, or whatever it was that really happened. Andrew had already heard about it, and he was in a state of…shock, I guess. I was pretty shaken up myself, so I didn’t think much of it at first. But ever since then, he’s been different. Distracted—more than usual, I mean. I’d been meaning to talk to him about it…and then today around five-thirty, when he hadn’t come home yet and hadn’t called, I started to get a bad feeling, and it occurred to me—Andrew was in Seattle when Warren Lodge died. So maybe he didn’t just hear about it. Maybe he saw it.”

  “That could be,” Dr. Eddington allowed. “But if he’d seen something, why wouldn’t he tell you about it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who is Warren Lodge?” asks Mouse. Mrs. Winslow looks at her like she’d forgotten that Mouse was at the table, and once again Mouse braces herself for a rebuke. But Mrs. Winslow only hunches her shoulders, and in a calm voice tells Mouse a terrible story.

  “So you think Andrew saw Warren Lodge get hit by the van?” asks Mouse, when Mrs. Winslow is finished.

  “More likely he came across the scene of the accident after it happened,” Mrs. Winslow guesses. “Or maybe it was something else entirely, I don’t know. Something happened to him on Sunday. I—” She breaks off in midsentence. There is a pause as she cocks her head, and then she is flying up out of her seat. “Andrew?” she calls. She dashes up the hall towards the front of the house. Dr. Eddington flashes Mouse a quizzical look—he didn’t hear anything—and the two of them go after Mrs. Winslow.

  When they catch up to her she is on the edge of the porch, peering up the darkened street like a sailor scanning the horizon for landfall. For a moment Mouse thinks Mrs. Winslow is imagining things, but then she sees him: Andrew, still about a block away, walking in the middle of the street.

  As he comes closer Mouse can see that he is disheveled, his shirt misbuttoned, his hair sticking up on one side. His appearance might almost be perceived as comical, but something about it gives Mouse the creeps. In one hand Andrew grips a bottle, but he doesn’t move like he’s drunk; he moves like he’s on autopilot, sleepwalking. He swings the bottle absently in his fist, as if unaware that he’s holding it. His expression is blank.

  It looks as if he’s going to go right past the house without stopping, but as he comes in line with the Victorian’s front door, he jerks up short, hitting the end of an invisible leash, and executes a neat quarter-pirouette—another comic touch that isn’t funny. Still blank-faced, he threads the gap between Mouse’s Buick and Dr. Eddington’s Volkswagen and hops up on the curb.

  Missing the walk, he stumbles onto the lawn and stops short again. His eyelids flutter, and behind them, some higher level of awareness sparks to life. Mouse, thoroughly unnerved now, finds herself hiding behind Dr. Eddington.

  “Andrew?” Mrs. Winslow says. Andrew looks at her, befuddled, still not all there yet. “Mrs. Winslow?” he says, slurring the words.

  Mouse shifts her weight from one foot to the other, causing the porch to creak. It is a small sound, but Andrew hears it; his head pivots in Mouse’s direction.

  He sees Dr. Eddington.

  “Andrew…” Dr. Eddington begins, but Andrew is already backing up, shaking his head. He stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk, and lets go of the bottle in his hand; the crash of glass, like the firing of a starter pistol, throws him into full motion. He turns and bolts back out into the street.

  Mrs. Winslow leaps off the porch and chases after him, but by the time she reaches the street, Andrew has already got a substantial lead. She calls his name one more time, her voice cracking, then hurries to an old Dodge sedan that is parked in front of Dr. Eddington’s Jetta. There is a jingle, then a clatter, of keys; Mrs. Winslow curses and bends down to the ground.

  While Mrs. Winslow is retrieving her keys, Dr. Eddington turns to Mouse and says: “I’d better go with her. Can you stay here in case Andrew comes back on his own?”


  “OK.”

  Mrs. Winslow has managed to unlock the sedan and is behind the wheel now, trying to start the engine. Dr. Eddington runs up on the passenger side and raps urgently on the window; the sedan’s engine roars to life, and for a moment there is some question as to whether Mrs. Winslow is going to let Dr. Eddington in or drive off without him. Then the front passenger door pops open, Dr. Eddington slips inside, and, before he can shut the door again, Mrs. Winslow backs up, ramming the rear end of the Dodge into the front of the Jetta. She reverses, hits the gas, and roars off in pursuit of Andrew, the Dodge’s passenger door still flapping like an unlatched gate.

  “Well, fuck!” a voice exclaims. Mouse doesn’t acknowledge it. She takes a seat in Mrs. Winslow’s porch swing.

  Andrew never does return to the Victorian, but over the next half hour, the sedan comes back twice. Each time, Mrs. Winslow slows down just long enough for Mouse to stand up and shake her head; then the Dodge peels out again, heads off on another search. Finally—it’s getting late, after nine-thirty now—the Dodge comes back a third time and parks haphazardly. Mrs. Winslow gets out, and marches into the house with barely a glance at Mouse; Dr. Eddington, looking a bit haggard from the ride, comes up the walk more slowly.

  “You didn’t find him,” says Mouse, more observation than question.

  “We thought we spotted him out by the elementary school,” Dr. Eddington says. “But by the time we got the car turned around”—he looks back at the Dodge, which has a brand-new dent in the right front fender—“he’d disappeared again. Still no sign of him here?”

  Mouse shakes her head.

  Dr. Eddington climbs the steps and leans heavily against the porch railing. “So,” he says, “how are you holding out?”

  “Fine,” says Mouse. “Do you think…will Andrew be OK?”

  “He should be, once he has a chance to calm down.” Dr. Eddington inclines his head towards the front door. “Mrs. Winslow is calling the police right now, so they’ll be looking for him…though quite frankly, I think it might be best if he comes back on his own, once he’s himself again.”

  “This isn’t supposed to happen to Andrew, is it?” asks Mouse. “I mean I know he’s like…like me…but he told me he doesn’t have blackouts. He’s supposed to be…more stable.”

  “He’s supposed to be. But the thing about Andrew is…” Dr. Eddington hesitates, choosing his next words with care. “He, his people, should really still be in therapy.”

  “He seems OK to me,” observes Mouse. “Except for tonight.”

  “There are some important aspects of Andrew’s own history that I don’t believe Andrew is aware of,” Dr. Eddington says. He shakes his head at the question in Mouse’s eyes. “Sorry, I can’t get into details. Let’s just say the initial course of treatment with Dr. Grey…didn’t reach the intended outcome.”

  “Oh, I know about Dr. Grey having her first stroke while Aaron was still building the house. He told me about it himself: how he had to finish it on his own, with some help from you…” But Dr. Eddington only looks at her, tight-lipped, and Mouse realizes there’s more to the story than she’s heard. “Well,” she continues, “maybe after tonight Andrew will make an appointment with you, like Dr. Grey wanted him to.”

  “I hope so,” Dr. Eddington says. “Tonight could be a blessing in disguise, if Andrew doesn’t get into too much trouble before we find him…”

  “The way Andrew was acting tonight,” says Mouse. “Is that…is that what I’m like, when the Society takes over?”

  “It frightened you.”

  Mouse nods.

  Dr. Eddington smiles warmly at her. “I’ll tell you what,” he says. “I’m forty-three years old, I don’t smoke, I’m not overweight, and there’s no history of cardiovascular disease in my family. So the odds are I’m not going to have a stroke while you’re in my care.” He looks out at the dented Dodge, parked catty-corner by the curb. “About car accidents I can’t be so sure,” he adds, “but after tonight I think I’m going to stick to doing my own driving.”

  Mouse smiles too, moved more by his concern for her than by his sense of humor.

  “Wow, almost ten,” Dr. Eddington says next, checking his watch. “You have work tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” says Mouse. “I guess.”

  “You may want to think about going home, then.”

  “Oh no. I should stay…”

  “If Andrew does come back tonight, it may not be for several hours yet. I’ll probably stay a while myself, but—”

  “Mrs. Winslow doesn’t want me here, does she?”

  Dr. Eddington laughs politely at this notion. “At the moment I’d say Mrs. Winslow is too focused on Andrew to even notice other people”—he glances at the Dodge again—“much less want them gone. You’re welcome to stick around; there’s just not a lot for you to do here, especially if Andrew stays out all night…”

  “Maybe I should take a turn looking for him,” Mouse suggests.

  “If you’d like. We pretty much covered the town, but maybe you’ll have better luck.” Dr. Eddington smiles encouragingly. “You know the number here, if you do find him?” Mouse nods. “Here’s my home number, too,” Dr. Eddington says, handing her a card. “Ordinarily I have a rule about patients not calling me after eleven, but tonight I don’t think I’m going to sleep much, so even if you don’t find Andrew, if you feel like you need to talk to someone later on…”

  “Thank you,” says Mouse. She hops down the steps, then turns around, unable to help herself, and tells him: “You remind me of my father.” Dr. Eddington blinks, looking surprised but flattered too, and before he can say anything Mouse runs to her car.

  She doesn’t know Autumn Creek well enough to conduct any sort of systematic search. If she does find Andrew, it will be by blind luck. Still—and maybe it is only Dr. Eddington’s parting smile to her that makes her feel this way—Mouse is unusually optimistic. She has an idea where she might look first: Maynard Park, the same park where she ran to hide on the day Andrew broke the news about her multiplicity. There’s no particular reason why Andrew would hide there himself, but Mouse is moved to give it a try.

  The intuition does not pan out. The park—at least the open, lit part that Mouse feels comfortable walking around in at night—is deserted. Andrew might be hiding back in the trees, but Mouse cannot quite bring herself to go poking around in there in the dark. Feeling a bit cowardly, she returns to her car and drives back up to Bridge Street.

  And that is where she spots him: on Bridge Street, at the Metro bus stop, hiding in plain sight. Mouse can hardly believe it. He must have just gotten here: the bus shelter is bracketed by street lamps, and Andrew is visible from a block away. There’s no way Mrs. Winslow could have missed him.

  Mouse worries that Andrew will run when he sees her car coming, but in fact he pays no attention as she drives by, turns the Buick around, and pulls it up to the curb just beyond the bus stop. Even after she gets out and starts walking towards the bus shelter he ignores her, not in a calculated way, but in the casual way you do when a stranger joins you in a waiting area and you don’t feel like talking.

  Still concerned about spooking him, she stops outside the shelter and calls his name: “Andrew?”

  No reaction. Andrew is looking the other way, staring into the distance, as if trying to summon a bus through sheer concentration; his hands beat an impatient rhythm against his thighs.

  Mouse moves closer. “Andrew?” she repeats.

  His hands stop in midpatter; his head jerks around.

  “Hey,” Andrew asks her. “Do you know what time the next bus is due?”

  His voice is different: higher in pitch, quicker in tempo.

  “The next bus?” says Mouse. “No, I—”

  “There’s supposed to be a schedule,” he complains, indicating an empty rectangular frame fastened to one of the bus shelter’s support posts. “It’s really very irresponsible that there’s supposed to be a schedule but
there isn’t one.”

  He’s not slurring his words anymore. Mouse can still smell alcohol on his breath—a lot of alcohol—but his fast-forward diction is crisp and distinct. He’s neatened himself up, too: his shirt has been rebuttoned and the tail tucked in, his hair smoothed back down.

  “Where are you going?” Mouse asks him.

  He regards her suspiciously for a moment. Then he shrugs, and says: “Michigan.”

  “What are you going to Michigan for?”

  He sighs and looks away. “So you don’t know when the next bus is due?”

  “Actually, I don’t think there are any more buses tonight.”

  “No more buses?” He jerks his head back around, outraged. “Why not?”

  “Well…it’s late,” says Mouse. That doesn’t satisfy him, so she stumbles on: “It’s late, and these buses are mostly for commuting back and forth to the city…”

  “And? So?”

  “So…most people don’t commute this time of night.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Oh, right.” He slaps out a quick percussion riff on his stomach, then asks, with forced casualness: “What city?”

  “Seattle,” says Mouse. Just in case: “Seattle, Washington.”

  “Right.” He nods, like he knew it all along. “How far is that from Michigan?”

  “A long way. About two thousand miles.”

  His reaction to this news is difficult to interpret. He seems to go blank for a second, and then, just as abruptly, he’s nodding, frowning, and drumming his hands again. “So…I guess that’s too far to walk, huh?”

  “Uh…yes,” says Mouse. “Yes, it would be.”

  “A plane ride, though,” he says slyly. “A plane ride could take you that far…right?”

  “Sure.”

  Frowning: “But plane rides are expensive.”

  “Yes, they are,” says Mouse. “Why do you want to go to Michigan?”

  He pats his back pockets, looks momentarily confused, then nods, reaches into one of his front pockets, and pulls out a wallet. He opens the wallet and takes out a small wad of bills: a few twenties, some tens, and some singles. “Is this enough for a plane ride to Michigan?”