by Rick Hautala
“You know,” she said, pulling back and looking him squarely in the eyes, “this isn’t going to work out unless you’re with me on it.”
John bit down onto his lower lip and nodded.
“And I realize,” Julia continued, “that coming back home — to stay — isn’t exactly easy on you. I know it isn’t quite what you wanted to do —”
“Not quite,” John said with a snort. “That could be called the understatement of the day.”
“But your dad needs us. He may be too proud to ask, but I can tell, and I’ll bet you can, too. It means a lot to him that you would come back and help him like this.”
“It means a lot to you, too — doesn’t it?” John said.
Julia considered for a moment, then nodded agreement.
“And I know, in some ways, you’ve been so — so pushy about this because you want to make up, somehow, for what happened to your grandmother.” He wagged his forefinger in front of her face. “Uh-huh. Just this once, don’t deny it, all right?”
Julia was silent for a long while. Then she nodded.
“I promise you I’ll try to make it work, okay? For you and Bri and me.”
“And your father?”
John nodded, but a flicker of resentment crossed his face.
“For him, too. Come on, let’s give Bri the grand tour so she can start getting settled in her bedroom. She is getting the best bedroom in the house, you realize.”
Julia forced a laugh and gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. “You’re just saying that because it was your bedroom when you were a kid.”
“That’s right, and look what a fine, upstanding person I turned out to be.”
II
“Is it true what” — Bri paused before saying the next word, as if her tongue wasn’t quite used to forming it yet —”Granddad said?”
“What?” John asked. “What did he tell you?”
He was leading the way up the stairs with Bri and then Julia following behind. Julia more or less remembered the house from the few times she and John had visited before, and she hung behind, wanting Bri — more than anyone else — to be excited about this move.
“About the ‘church wood,’ “ Bri said.
When they reached the upstairs landing, John turned and looked at her. For an instant, in the dim glow of light from the ceiling fixture, his daughter’s face looked ... different, somehow. It was fuller, more mature. Her eyes were cast into shadow that — for no more than a heartbeat — made her look almost like a different person entirely.
“Church wood?” John said, his voice catching in his throat. “I don’t know what that is.”
Bri nodded. “He said this house was made from wood gathered from a whole bunch of buildings that had been torn down and stuff, and that some of it was made from what was left of one of the churches after it burned.”
Julia shook her head, confused, looking from Bri to John. “I’m sure back in the old days, when this house was made, they did stuff like that — recycled wood from other buildings. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well ...” Bri cast a nervous glance down the length of the hallway. Trimwork that had needed new paint at least ten years ago and faded wallpaper gave everything an unnerving gloom. Thick dust had gathered in every corner. “Granddad says that — even back when he was a boy, his mother said she could still hear the organ music playing late at night ... that the wood echoed with it.”
Julia snorted a laugh and shook her head. “Come on. He’s making that up to tease you. Let’s take a look at your room. We won’t unload the truck ‘till the rain stops, so we can take time now to figure out where we’ll put everything.”
“Is it true, though?” Bri asked, her brow creased with concern. “Or was he just, like, trying to freak me out? He told me his wife — dad’s mother — heard it sometimes, too — especially in winter.”
John and Julia looked at each other, each of them knowing the other was thinking that John’s mother very well might have heard organ music resonating throughout the house. By the time John had left the island to go to college, his mother was so far gone with her drinking that she might have seen pink elephants dancing in the hallway, too.
“Look here, Bri,” Julia said, placing her hands firmly on her daughter’s shoulders and looking her squarely in the eyes. “I don’t know your grandfather a whole lot better than you do —” She saw that John was watching her. “But I’d say he’s just ribbing you.”
Bri couldn’t repress a shiver when she looked down the length of the dimly lit hall again. “Yeah, but —”
“No yeah-buts,” Julia said. “Sure, there are going to be unfamiliar sounds in an old house — creaking floorboards … squeaky doors … stuff like that — but that’s to be expected.”
“Even a new house,” John added. “These days, with construction and materials so shoddy, you hear all sorts of weird noises.”
“But that sounds so ... creepy,” Bri said, her voice hushed with awe.
“Don’t get yourself worked up about it,” Julia said, pushing to the front. “Let’s take a look at your bedroom.”
She led the way down the hallway toward the farthest door. Bri hesitated before following her and John. When she turned and looked down the stairs, her heart gave an extra-hard thump in her chest when she saw her grandfather, sitting in his wheelchair at the foot of the stairs, gazing up at her. He was smiling, but the thinness of his face and the hollowness of his gaze made it look more like a grimace of pain. Very slowly he raised his hand and, placing his forefinger to his lips, made a soft hissing sound.
It took effort for Bri not to say something. All she could think was, Is he trying to warn me about something? She knew already that, for the first night, at least, she was going to be lying there in bed, staring at the ceiling half the night, waiting to hear the soft, wavering notes of ghostly organ music.
III
“You’re not having second thoughts, now, are you?” John asked. A trace of a smile danced across his lips, but he tried not to let it show.
Julia’s face, he thought, was a perfect copy of what Bri’s had been as she surveyed her new bedroom. Frank had called out for someone — anyone — to come downstairs, and Bri had gone, reluctantly, to see what he wanted. Julia was pacing back and forth across the hardwood floor of the bedroom where they would be sleeping, her eyes scrunched up as she tried to assess its possibilities.
Her first — and practically only — thought was that she was angry at herself for one slight miscalculation. If they were planning on staying here with Frank for however long, then she was damned well going to have to do a bit of “paint-’n’-paper” work. She couldn’t figure out why John hadn’t reminded her what a sorry state the house was in. She had been expecting simply to move into the house … that the house would easily absorb them and all of their possessions — at least the ones they hadn’t put into storage. It had never even crossed her mind that, especially in the years since his wife died, Frank wouldn’t have kept things up.
“No … Not at all,” she said, shaking her head as she paced back and forth. “Although it does feel kind of funny, thinking we’ll be sleeping in the same bedroom your parents used all those years.”
“Well … you do look a bit ... discouraged,” John said.
Julia looked at him, took a deep breath, and let her shoulders drop. Her lower lip began to tremble, but she didn’t know whether to turn away from him or collapse into his arms and let all her frustrations out in a single, big sob.
“Okay … Yeah, I ... I guess I am — a little let down.” She forced her voice to stay steady. “I don’t think you realize how hard this all is for me, too. Do you realize that in all the time since we decided to do this — the whole time we were discussing it —”
“Arguing about it, really,” John said.
“Whatever ... I don’t think you ever once thought about how all of this was going to impact me. I mean … think about it. You’ve got it ea
sy, compared to me and Bri. You’re coming back to a place you know well — the house you grew up in and all. There are still people around who know you. Everything’s familiar to you.”
John smiled as he came over to her and put his arm around her shoulder. He tried to pull her close, but she resisted.
“Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?” she asked, looking at him, her expression firmly set.
John nodded. “‘Course I do.”
“You’ve got a job lined up and everything,” she said, “and what do I have to look forward to? Taking care of your invalid father and an antique house that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in years.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” John said, his voice even and low. He glanced at the doorway, to make sure Bri wasn’t out in the hallway, listening. “I never wanted to come back here in the first place.” He wagged his forefinger at her and he waited, watching for her reaction.
Julia turned away from him and walked over to the window. This room had the same ocean view as Bri’s except for a large maple tree in the front yard that blocked some of it. Her breath came in a long, shuddering gasp.
“You really can’t admit that by forcing the issue you may have made a colossal mistake, can you?” John leaned one arm on the wall and, cocking his hip, regarded her with an icy stare that penetrated the back of her head as she stared out at the rain. “In all the years I’ve known you,” he went on, “I’d have to say that’s your one real flaw.”
“Oh? And what’s that?” She turned to meet his stare.
“You’re so damned hardheaded. Once you commit to something — no matter what happens, you can’t admit it when you’re wrong.”
“So you think coming back home to help your father is wrong?” Her voice was quivering now.
John nodded. “In a way — yeah. I’ve said all along I think the best thing would be to put him into a nursing home where the staff could take care of him twenty-four-seven.”
Julia started shaking her head gently, but he went on.
“And don’t say it — I know you’ll say what happened to your grandmother was the exception, not the rule. The one thing you haven’t accepted is that things change. The days of families, parents, children, grandparents — everybody living together in the old family homestead like this is ... is some half-assed romantic notion you’ve got.” He raised his arms, indicating the dingy bedroom with a wide sweep. “Well, babe, this is it. This is the reality that’s going to throw cold water right into the face of your romanticism.”
He turned and strode out of the room, his footsteps sounding heavily on the stairs as he went back downstairs to the living room. Julia pressed her face against the cold windowpane, staring at the rain splashing on the glass in front of her eyes. She finally was able to let go of the emotions inside her, and hot tears rolled down her cheeks.
IV
A short while later — after she had composed herself — Julia came downstairs. She put her best face on in front of Frank and Bri, but the iciness between her and John remained even after the hour or so they spent dashing back and forth in the rain between the house and the car to get what they needed for the night.
Frank hadn’t gotten any extra groceries for his guests. There was a half-used package of hot dogs, a can of B&M baked beans, and two cans of Pabst lined up for his usual Saturday night supper, but there wasn’t much else in the house to eat.
“Hilda, the woman who does my cleanin’ for me, usually gets me groceries on Monday,” he said. That was the closest he came to apologizing.
Julia caught herself wondering if Hilda’s shopping was as skimpy as the alleged cleaning she did.
“I reckon you could drive on down to Pottle’s for a few things,” Frank said. “‘Less you feel like hauling on into Falmouth to the Shop ‘n’ Save.”
Neither prospect appealed to either John or Julia, but finally — because John wanted to avoid anyone who might recognize him at Pottle’s — Julia drove down to the corner store. Half an hour later, she came back grumbling about the outrageously high prices at the corner store.
“Fella’s gotta make a livin’,” Frank said. “Y’could have gone to Falmouth if you wanted bargains.”
“His prices are almost double what we pay in Vermont,” Julia said as she unloaded a head of lettuce, some tomatoes, hot dogs, and rolls onto the counter. She tried to simmer down while she and Bri made a salad and heated up the hot dogs and beans.
Supper was a tense affair, and Julia found herself thinking if this was how it was going to be, there was no way things would work out. Every time she started a conversation, either John would not pick up on it or Frank would cut her short with a ... well, it might not have been meant as a nasty remark, but she was so sensitive, it sure felt that way.
Throughout the meal, Bri kept thinking about her cat, Bungle, who had died a week before the move. He’d been hit by a car in front of their house. The image of him, lying dead on the sidewalk, his fur matted down by the rain, kept rising in her mind, and she kept choking back tears. The few times someone — usually her mother — directed a comment at her, she would shrug and say, “Huh?” forcing whomever to repeat their question.
Frank seemed to be the only person who enjoyed this “traditional” Maine Saturday night supper of beans and hot dogs. After the tension of driving across three states, and the worse tension of their argument earlier in the bedroom, Julia ate so little she was sure she would be looking for something to munch before bedtime.
“Good meal,” Frank said, pushing his wheelchair back from the table and tossing his wrinkled napkin onto his empty plate. He reached to pick up his plate to bring it over to the sink, but Julia quickly stood up and took it from him.
“I can get that for you,” she said.
He looked at her, his expression dancing somewhere between irritation and gratitude.
“I ain’t no invalid, you know,” he said softly. “A little something like this ain’t gonna keep me down for long.” He slapped himself on the thigh.
Julia went over to the sink and rinsed his plate under the faucet, then put it on the counter next to the pans. She wanted to say something to establish her role as helper, not nurse, but she was still so tense from what they’d all been through today that she said nothing and went back to the table to get her own plate.
“Mind if I smoke?” Frank asked, reaching into the pocket of his cardigan and fishing out a battered corncob pipe and pouch of tobacco.
“It’s your house,” John said, so Frank rolled open the pouch and filled the bowl. Within a few seconds, he had the tobacco stoked and, grunting his thanks, rolled his wheelchair into the living room.
They spent the evening watching television, the intermittent conversation going about the same as it had at supper. When bedtime rolled around, there was a brief discussion about who would sleep where until they got the bedrooms set up. Finally, Bri agreed to roll out a sleeping bag on the rickety bed in her bedroom —”Just this one night,” she insisted, and John promised she would set up her bed first thing.
Frank, of course, retired to his bed in what used to be John’s brother’s bedroom. Even if he had offered to let Julia and John sleep there, which he didn’t, they would have refused. Once Frank bid them good night, and Julia had settled Bri in her room, she and John folded out the couch hide-away bed in the living room and made it up with sheets from the linen closet.
“These smell nice and fresh,” Julia said as she tossed open the contour sheet so John could catch the other end.
John hesitated for a moment, looking at her with his eyebrows raised. “Umm,” he said, holding the sheet to his face and inhaling deeply. “Kind of surprising.”
They spread the top sheet and a heavy quilt over the bed, and while Julia worked the pillows into the pillowcases, John stripped off his clothes and went to the downstairs bathroom to brush his teeth. Julia put on her nightgown and then collected both her and John’s clothes and put them in the laundry room.
“You want the curtains open or closed?” John asked when he came back into the living room.
“Either way,” Julia said.
“Let’s leave ‘em open, then,” John said.
He stood by the window for a while, staring outside. In the distance, a blinking light flashed rhythmically — the lighthouse on Great Diamond Island. Off to the right, Julia could see the small yellow rectangles of a few neighbors’ windows. Rain pattered against the glass, turning the view into a bubbly blur.
“Cozy, isn’t it?” she said. That wasn’t really what she was feeling, but she was tired and didn’t want to start an argument with John, or say anything that would get him upset. Turning off the light, she came over and stood beside him, looking out. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close, making a soft sound in the back of his throat and glanced down at her.
“I —” she started to say, but he nudged her to silence by pulling her close.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he whispered, his breath warm against her ear, “but you’ve got it all wrong.”
“Huh?”
“I was the asshole. Ever since we got here, I’ve been acting like a —”
“You already said it,” Julia said with a laugh, “like an asshole.”
“Thanks for agreeing so quickly,” John said, giving her a good-humored shake.
“John, I —”
“You were supposed to say, ‘No, honey. You weren’t acting like an asshole. I totally understand …”
“I was joking. I know how stressed out from the drive you are,” she said. “I could have been a little more understanding myself. But what you said earlier — do you think it’s true?”