Stillwell: A Haunting on Long Island

by Michael Phillip Cash

  chapter 2

  Monday

  The next morning, Paul woke, still on the couch, the sound of his kids stirring filling the room. Veronica and Jesse were embroiled in an all-out fight by the bathroom. His son was banging on the door trying to evict his twin.

  Paul sensed his son’s anger and went upstairs to check out the scene. He put his hand on Jesse’s wiry shoulder. “Go to my bathroom.”

  “No, make her get out.” Jesse’s face was crimson, his eyes shiny with anger and frustration.

  Stella popped her head out. She was half dressed, wearing what appeared to be purple pants with a bright red shirt. Multicolored socks covered her feet. She looked like a circus character.

  “Stella, you can’t wear that. Go change.”

  “Why? I like it,” she insisted.

  Jesse started kicking the bathroom door with venom.

  “Stop!” Paul shouted, losing patience.

  “You always favor the girls. You always go easy on them. I hate you!” He ran to his bedroom, slamming the door.

  Paul followed him, his own anger boiling over. “Go to my bathroom.”

  “He won’t,” Stella said softly, following him and trailing her striped socks behind her. “He said Mommy is in there. He’s scared.”

  “Stop, Stella. Mommy is not in there.” He bent down and held her by the shoulders, and with his eyes soft, he said, “You have to stop saying that. Tell Roni to hurry.”

  “She’s not doing anything in there. She just wanted to make Jesse crazy.”

  Jesse was having an epic meltdown, Veronica was hiding in the bathroom, and Stella was dressing like a transvestite. He didn’t know where to start or what to do. This was Allison’s job. He brought home the bacon. She handled all this. He came home, and they would be sitting anesthetized by TV or buried in homework. This was her territory. In his line of work, he was usually showing houses all weekend, so she took the kids to everything. She knew their friends, did the playdates, took them to petting zoos. The only time he went on outings with them was when long weekends interrupted sales or during a slow spell, usually midwinter, when looking for homes died down. They vacationed hard, though , he thought with a smile, remembering those trips to the Caribbean or cruises where they crammed two weeks of activities into five days.

  The phone rang and Paul shouted, “Veronica, get the phone!”

  He heard a muffled shout, “I’m in the bathroom. I can’t.”

  Stella ran for the kitchen. “I’ll get it.”

  Paul shrugged and knocked on Jesse’s door. “Jess, open up.”

  “Go away.”

  “I’m not going away. Open up,” he said more seriously now. There was a long pause. “I’m gonna count to three.”

  “Dad, I’m not five anymore!”

  “OK, one, two...”

  “It’s Nonni!” he heard Stella shout. “She wants to know—”

  “Not now.” Paul shouted back. The door opened a crack, “What’s up, Jesse?”

  Jesse sat on the edge of his bed. He was a skater and loved the whole Tony Hawk scene. He had on skinny jeans with a plaid button-down. His blond hair lay lank over his eyes.

  “She knows I have to get ready too. Mom would have had her out of there. Veronica always wants to hog the bathroom. Then if Stella gets in, forget it.”

  “Use mine.”

  “No.” His son’s lower lip trembled.

  “Why? We’ll call it the boys’ room. You and I can share.”

  His son’s face was a study in misery. “I can’t,” he whispered. Paul waited. “Her perfume. The room smells like Mom. I don’t want to go in there.” His thirteen-year-old voice cracked and almost disappeared.

  “I miss her too.” Paul looked bleak. “I’ll speak to Roni.”

  He left and entered the kitchen. Stella was sitting on the counter chatting with his mother, twining the telephone cord around her small fingers. Her brown hair was in a sloppy side ponytail. He’d have to fix that before she left for school.

  “It’s Nonni,” she said then smiled up at him. Bouncing her legs back and forth, she looked like a forest sprite. Her small, triangular face beamed as she spoke to her grandmother.

  When he stared blankly back at her, she said slowly as if he were an idiot, “On the phone, Daddy. It’s Nonni; she’s checking up on you.”

  He kissed her upturned nose, admiring her elf-like face. He then took the phone and made short work of his conversation with his mother.

  “I don’t have time, Ma. No, we’re fine. He’s OK. Adjusting.” There was a period of silence, and Paul didn’t know if he could talk even if he wanted, so he nodded mutely. He was miserable. “Got it. I know. If I need you, I’ll call. Right. Love you too.”

  Breakfast was another disaster. They didn’t have the right cereal. Didn’t he know that Stella couldn’t tolerate whole wheat? He pulled her hair when he brushed it. Mommy never did that. Roni had a bad taste in her mouth and wasn’t hungry, and Jesse stared at the waffle as if he had never seen one.

  Exasperated, he demanded, “Tell me what would make you happy?”

  Since they all knew that there was nothing in this world that would alleviate their pain, Paul thought later it was a decidedly dumb question.

  One by one, the kids kissed him good-bye. Paul was relieved that they went back to school. It would be healthy for them, he thought. They could talk about other things like Twitter, Angry Birds, and whatever else kids talk about these days.

  He called the housekeeper, Mirabelle, to set up a new schedule. He was a shrewd negotiator with everyone but his maid. If she wasn’t cleaning the right way, he would just tell Allison, but now there was no buffer. He had to step up and tell Mirabelle exactly what he needed. She would come three times a week. Could she cut him slack on the price? She was very sorry, but her time was money, and if she was going to take care of his hellhounds and add food shopping and laundry to her load, someone was going to have to pay for it. Paul wasn’t in the mood to haggle with someone who spoke broken English. But when it came to talking money, she somehow understood everything. He would just have to make the numbers work. He needed to get out there and sell something. He locked the house and forgot to put on the alarm then had to return. Satisfied, he also took out the garbage and headed to his office.

  ====

  His commute was only minutes, but it seemed strange to be heading to work. It had a foreign feeling, like he hadn’t been there in ages. As he put on the radio in his car, he twisted the dial, looking for his station. For some reason it wouldn’t catch a signal. At the light he searched, stopping where the static seemed to die down. There was a garbled voice repeating what seemed like a mantra. Raising the volume, he leaned forward. It was unbelievable. The harsh noise caused a shiver to race up Paul’s spine. It continuously repeated, “She’s mine, she’s mine, she’s mine…” Paul flipped the radio off, sitting rigid until a horn honked impatiently. He missed the light, causing a minor backup. Pressing the gas, he made a hard left and tentatively turned the radio on again, but the station was gone. In its place was the clear voice of a radio announcer talking about the ballgame. Shrugging, he pulled into the parking lot at work. He looked for his name on a metal sign identifying his spot but noticed they had placed him in the rear and put a new boy wonder, the nephew of the current owners, in the parking space up front. Well, that’s not promising, he thought to himself as he took his briefcase and walked into the building. He stepped in gum and cursed loudly as it held fast to his shoe. His ankle twisted, but the shoe was stuck to the pavement. He bent over and removed the loafer, swore once again, and scraped the sticky, pink gum from the sole of his shoe. “I needed this,” he muttered under his breath. His shoe continued to stick to the ground and he wondered if it was a sign that he should have stayed home today.

  The door had an old bell that tinkled when he opened it that made him feel foolish, as if it was announcing his return. He sensed all the faces of his colleagues turn to look at him as he w
alked past their cubicles, their sympathetic smiles making his insides turn to ice. Allison and he had agreed not to make a grand funeral. His wife had been specific that she didn’t want anything dragged out for either him or the children. “Normal,” she told him. “I want life to be normal as soon as possible.” She stroked his arm as she told him, “You’ll see, you will need to get back to living as soon as possible.”

  As if, he thought bitterly. He wanted to sneak into the room so he ducked his head, not wanting to hear the condolences that ripped the pain anew. He nodded, without making eye contact, heading straight for his cubicle.

  It was in an old building, one of the pre-Revolutionary War cottages that dotted the island. It had a faint wood-smoke smell and was always damp. Paul put in many hours there, searching out leads. Up until Allison got sick, he was the most prolific agent. He had pulled back a bit and now had to reestablish himself. New plants decorated the front entryway. Had he been gone that long? Everything to him was a blur.

  Molly was there; she was a senior agent and his selling partner. In fact, she had trained him. She sat cross legged at her desk, her bohemian-style dress floating around her ample form. “Oh Paul, hon. I was so sad to hear about Ally.” She got up and waddled over. “I have missed you so much.” She wore colorful shoes that never quite matched her outfits.

  Paul winced but let her hug him. She was harmless, a sweet person, a bit ditsy, but good company overall. She belonged in Malibu, not Oyster Bay, but her father owned a casting agency for commercials in Lindenhurst so she stayed on Long Island, never getting married. On weekends she and her father would hit every casino in the Northeast just because they could. Everything about her was big: her hair, her dresses, her boobs, oversized sweaters, but most of all, her heart. He truly liked her. They had great chemistry and an easy partnership. They had worked together for years. She was good with rentals, and he made the monster sales that fed them both. She couldn’t survive without him. He appealed to the new kids coming in looking for homes better than Molly’s hippy, dippy ways.

  “It wasn’t long. She only suffered at the very end.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She raised a hand that sported one-inch-long cherry red nails that reminded him of fangs. She teased her hair a bit. “I want to remember your wife in all her glory. She was a beautiful girl. Sweet. It’s a shame.” Her blue eyes welled.

  Paul’s office was a mess. Papers piled so high he couldn’t see his desktop. The last time he was here, Allison was alive and in treatment. He remembered leaving work thinking everything was going to be OK. They just had to get through this next round of radiation or chemo. Bleakly, he moved one pile of paper to the other side of his desk and then back again. He didn’t know where to start. A few of the other agents wandered by, and he had to relive that conversation about fourteen times. Yes, it was a blessing. Yeah, the kids are sad. Such a terrible thing to happen to one so young. How many times would he have to let others feel better, so that they could be socially correct and stab him in the heart. “It’s enough!” he wanted to shout. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. IT HURTS!” He longed to stand on his desk and scream. Eyeing his stack of memos, he couldn’t concentrate on anything. He glanced at his wristwatch, a Breitling, Allison’s tenth anniversary present to him; he noted the time. She always called him about now. They would discuss dinner, plans for the kids, sweet, stupid stuff that they always shared. He thought back to careless conversations where he barely listened because he was busy. How dare he not have time for her? Why did he squander minutes they might have shared? How stupidly wasteful was he? He never realized there was going to be a limit. Well, that call wasn’t going to be coming today. He’d have to think about feeding the kids later. He stared angrily at a family picture taken last summer. They had gone to Martha’s Vineyard and had a volcanic fight. Allison wanted to spend the day with the kids, and he insisted they go to a client who invited them to his vacation home. Allison begged for family time. The business had taken over his life and he had hardly any time for them. The entire week dissolved into a tense showdown filled with pregnant silences. He wished he could go back and fix their last carefree days together. He didn’t know it was going to be their final one as a family.

  “Harrison’s trying to steal your thunder. I have a bunch of leads. I’ve been saving them for you.” Molly looked around. “You have to catch up. You need a couple big sales. You don’t want them giving your desk away.”

  “What, Molly. Do you know something? I noticed they stuck me in the rear of the parking lot.” Stopping what he was doing, he turned to look her in the eye. He needed his job, now more than ever.

  Molly shrugged then glanced around to make sure nobody could hear them. “Fanny’s nephew is chomping at the bit to get your contacts. You have to step it up. I know this business. It’s dog eat dog. They won’t waste space on someone not pulling in numbers.” She put a stack of pictures of homes with scribbled phone numbers on his desk. “Just sit there and call. I heard Melissa Andrews has been looking for you.” She rolled her eyes. “That’ll be a catch if you can nail that. She wants to sell her in-laws’ place. Messy business. Even if the commission is huge, I don’t like this sort of sale. Hard to sell a murder house. I could never do it alone. The Thompson one sat for over two years until some Texans bought it. They weren’t afraid of the ghosts.”

  “Don’t start that stuff with me, Molly. I have enough with Stella.”

  She rolled right next to him and whispered, “What? Has Stella seen something? You must tell me.”

  “Nothing. Imagination. I don’t want to talk about it. I gotta get to work.”

  He worked right through lunch, cold calling, every so often a frigid pit of hopelessness settled in his stomach. Acid jumped to the back of his throat reminding him to take antacids. This was a new thing. He had never suffered from indigestion. Allison’s illness had brought him a lasting present, chronic acid reflux. Standing, he tried to relieve the pressure under his breastbone. The back of his throat burned, and he chomped on Tums like they were candy. He knew that he was speaking to people, wrote their info, but as soon as he hung up the receiver, he couldn’t remember what he had said. He looked at his computer screen, knowing nothing was registering. It was like the grief hung over him as a constant reminder. His chest hurt with the ache of a lifetime. He remembered when they lowered the casket. His heart had shattered, breaking into tiny shards of glass, and a great emptiness enveloped him. Every time he envisioned the mental picture of her last days, he clenched his eyes shut, opening them gradually, hoping nobody else saw his agony. He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at nothing.

  His work phone lit up and he read his sister’s name on the computer screen.

  “Hi, Lee, what’s up?”

  “What the hell, Paul! Is your cell on?”

  He looked all over his desk and couldn’t find it. Reaching behind, he felt it in his jacket pocket. “I must have forgot to turn it on this morning.”

  “Dad and Mom are going nuts. They’ve been trying to reach you. The school called them because they couldn’t get you. Jesse’s in the principal’s office.”

  “Shit.”

  “You have to go. I have to make up hours. I’m sorry, but I can’t go for you. Mom and Dad had to go for the consult on the cataract surgery. They’ve put it off too long.”

  “I know,” he said as he slipped on his jacket. “I’m sorry. I’ll go get him.”

  ====

  The middle school was in the next town. Just next to the high school, it was ranked number two in the nation for education behind some school in Westchester. The standards were high, especially since 99 percent of the kids that graduated went to college. The teachers and faculty meant business.

  After a lengthy talk with the dean, he went into the principal’s office. While Jesse sat sullenly outside, they decided that he had to finish the day.

  “We are so terribly sorry about Mrs. Russo. She was a wonderful lady,�
� the principal said. She was very professional, her salt-and-pepper hair in a neat bob. She had on thick, trendy glasses that were oddly smudged with grease.

  Paul cleared his throat but couldn’t take his fascinated gaze off the incongruous, filthy eyeglasses. How could she look so professional and incompetent at the same time? He resisted the urge to grab the glasses and wipe them on the tail of his shirt. She spoke, but all he focused on was the cloudy lenses.

  “It is natural for Jesse to be acting out, but he was too disruptive in class and his English teacher asked for us to deal with him.”

  “What? Oh yes, I understand. I will talk to him tonight.”

  “Mr. Russo…” She paused leaning forward. Paul recoiled automatically, moving backward still caught in the cloudy stare. “We’d like to suggest grief counseling for the twins.”

  Heat rose from his neck to his face. It was hard enough dealing with the kids, but now the system wanted them to see a shrink. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “A grief counselor will help them cope,” she told him gently. She wrote down a number on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “Stacey Friedman has done a great job with many of the children in our community who have suffered losses. Make an appointment, Mr. Russo. It will do them a world of good.”