The Season of Us

by Holly Chamberlin

  “You didn’t have to grow up here,” Gincy said grimly.

  “Yeah, but just because you didn’t like living here, Mom, doesn’t mean that everyone else hated it.”

  Gincy couldn’t help but smile. “How did you become such a reasonable person with such an opinionated person for a mother?” she asked.

  “Dad.”

  A few minutes later Gincy turned the car onto Crescent Road, and a moment after that she pulled into the driveway of Number Nineteen.

  The houses on Crescent Road were almost identical, having been built in the early 1940s as a housing development. Number Nineteen, like its neighbors, was a fairly small, two-story structure. On the ground floor were the kitchen, living room, powder room, and one small bedroom that had been Tommy’s until he finally left home. On the second floor were the bedroom once belonging to Gincy, her parents’ room—well, now her mother’s room—and a full bathroom. In truth, the bathroom was hardly much larger than the powder room; the tub was very short, and as far as Gincy knew her parents had never used it for anything other than bathing their children when they were young.

  A small garage housed the lawn mower, the snowblower, and the Gannons’ single car, a fifteen-year-old white Suburu. The small front yard was now bare of grass. Two evergreen bushes, one on either side of the door, provided the only ornamentation. The backyard, not much bigger than the front yard, was equally as bare of decoration. Every summer the small gas grill was rolled out onto the square of concrete just outside the sliding glass door off the kitchen. With it came a round, green plastic table and four chairs. There was a maple tree in the far corner of the yard. Mrs. Gannon had never gone in for planting flowers. “Why bother?” she said. “They only die and then you have to start all over again.”

  “That’s Uncle Tommy’s truck,” Tamsin noted, as Gincy parked next to the old Ford pickup. “I recognize the bumper sticker. I Brake for Beer.”

  “It’s in worse shape than it was back in the summer. It needs a paint job,” Gincy said. “And look, the wheel wells are almost entirely eaten out by rust!”

  “Maybe he can’t afford a paint job, or to fix the rust problem. Can you fix a rust problem? I’ll have to ask Justin. He knows all about that sort of thing.”

  Dad would have gotten Tommy’s truck repaired for him, Gincy thought. With his own hard-earned money. She wondered how often—if ever—her parents had said no to the adult Tommy. She remembered her father trying to discipline her brother when he was young. He would scold, appeal to reason, even punish Tommy, though never physically, but the discipline never seemed to take. By the time Tommy was in high school, her father had pretty much lost what little good influence he had had over his son. At least, he had stopped trying to change his behavior. When Tommy was suspended for a week in junior year for having locked a cafeteria worker into the industrial freezer for a half an hour, Ed Gannon had simply shaken his head and apologized to the victim, who miraculously had not pressed charges.

  Here goes nothing, Gincy thought as she rang the bell on Number Nineteen. Tommy opened the door almost before she had taken her finger off the bell. He gave her a brief smile. Tamsin launched herself into his arms, and he hugged his niece tightly.

  Tommy, Gincy noted, looked more haggard than usual. The smell of stale cigarette smoke clung to him, and his complexion was muddy. “I’m really glad you came, Gince,” he said quietly when Tamsin had released him. “I was starting to get . . .”

  Gincy frowned. He was starting to get scared of losing his meal ticket. And then she reprimanded herself. Above all, be kind. It was such a simple notion, and yet one of the most difficult moral guidelines to follow. Why?

  “Where’s Mom?” she asked.

  “She’s resting.”

  “You didn’t tell her we were coming, did you?”

  Tommy shook his head.

  Gincy went into the living room. A quick survey told her that nothing at all had changed. There were the same old crocheted doilies on every suitable surface. There was the same drab upholstery and faded area rugs; the Gannons had never gone in for carpets or for bare wood floors. There were the lampshades that had been repaired several times, and not very professionally at that. There was the arrangement of plastic mums, faded from the original dark orange to a muddy brown. The walls were the same off-white they had always been. The framed prints on the walls—scenes of forests and waterfalls and fields dotted with cows—had been hanging there since Gincy was a child. The colors in the prints were “off”; Gincy had always suspected that her mother had cut the images out of an old magazine and put them in frames from the Dollar Store.

  All the same as it had ever been. For Gincy, the house had always lacked any sense of color and light, any sense of style and beauty. Well, she thought now, that wasn’t a crime. And she had succeeded in creating her own home of color and light and style and beauty, so why should her mother’s decorating choices still bother her? They shouldn’t. But they did.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Gincy told Tommy and Tamsin. And a minute or maybe two was all she needed to determine that the house, at least the first floor, had been let go. It wasn’t in a dangerous state, and no one would get ill living at Number Nineteen—and there were no leaking ceilings—but it needed a very good cleaning and some small though fairly important repairs. She tried to recall her impression of the house six months ago, when she had been in Appleville for her father’s funeral. But she could remember nothing. She had been too focused on her own pain and the duties she had been compelled to perform as family spokesperson to pay much if any attention to the state of her old family home. Besides, she and Rick and the kids had stayed at a motel on the outskirts of town. She had spent minimal time at Number Nineteen.

  And the time before that, what had she seen then? That visit to Crescent Road had been at least eighteen months before her father’s passing. She had stayed only one night—opting to bed down in Tommy’s old first-floor room in order to allow her parents their privacy on the second floor—but it had felt like the proverbial eternity. She remembered her father waving as she drove off soon after breakfast the next morning. If he had been disappointed she had not stayed longer, he hadn’t said.

  Gincy returned to the living room. She felt upset, mostly with herself, but also with . . . with the unfairness of life.

  “Why didn’t you call me earlier?” she demanded of Tommy. “How could you have let things get this bad? I don’t think the toilet in the powder room has been cleaned in weeks, and you can hardly see out of the kitchen window. And the dust on some of the furniture is half an inch thick in places.”

  Tommy put his hands in the air, in the time-honored gesture of innocence and self-defense. “It’s not my fault, Gince. Everyone knows you and Mom hate each other. I figured you wouldn’t come until things got really bad.”

  Gincy was stunned. “I don’t hate her,” she protested. And she doubted that her mother hated her, either. Hate was a terrible emotion. Not even Ellen Gannon could be guilty of hating her own child. “We just don’t see eye to eye on most things.”

  Tommy smiled a bit. He was missing a top tooth. It had been there six months ago. “You two don’t see eye to eye on anything,” he said.

  She couldn’t deny that. “All right,” she said. “At least you finally did call me.”

  Tamsin had been silent during the exchange between her mother and uncle. Gincy felt bad that she had been witness to it. At least they hadn’t raised their voices. That was progress of a kind.

  “Grandma!”

  Ellen Gannon had appeared at the entrance to the living room.

  Gincy began to take a step forward and then stopped, at a loss as to how to greet her mother. She couldn’t remember the last time they had hugged, let alone kissed. She did remember putting her arm around her mother’s shoulders when they were at the cemetery, her father’s flower-covered casket sitting beside that awful gaping hole in the ground. But after a moment, her mother had shrugged off her da
ughter’s encircling arm.

  While Gincy stood rooted to the spot, Tamsin gently put her arms around her grandmother and kissed her cheek. Ellen absentmindedly patted Tamsin’s back. When Tamsin had released her grandmother, Gincy finally walked over to where Ellen stood and put her hand briefly on her shoulder. She was thinner than Gincy had ever seen her, and her complexion was wan, as if she hadn’t seen the light of day in weeks.

  “Hello, Mom,” she said.

  For a split second Ellen looked confused, as if she didn’t recognize her daughter, and then she said, “Hello, Virginia. I didn’t know you were supposed to be here today.”

  Gincy felt her stomach sink. How in the world, she wondered, looking at this pale and pathetic figure, had she not picked up on something wrong before now? Had her mother been asking for help in some muddled or enigmatic way that she had been unable or unwilling to hear? Certainly the situation in this house couldn’t have happened overnight, and it certainly wasn’t Tommy’s fault that he hadn’t called his sister weeks ago. To blame him was simply wrong.

  “Tamsin and I thought we’d surprise you,” Gincy said, darting a look at her daughter. “For Christmas.”

  Tamsin slipped her arm through her grandmother’s. “I hope we didn’t wake you up when we rang the bell,” she said.

  Ellen shook her head.

  “It’s nice that Gince is here, right, Mom?” Tommy said, his tone hopeful.

  Gincy glanced again at her brother. Tommy was wearing his usual black concert T-shirt, baggy jeans, and a pair of dirty white sneakers. She wondered if he had proper winter clothing. It was chilly even in the house; her parents had always been very careful with what little money they had, and heat was considered a bit of a luxury. But then she dismissed the thought. Tommy’s wardrobe was not her responsibility.

  What was her responsibility was her mother. Her father would have been upset to see his wife so unkempt. Ellen Gannon had always been impeccably neat about her appearance, but now her cardigan was wrongly buttoned and her shoes were scuffed. Her thinning hair, usually kept tidy in a tight, low bun, was now loosely held with a clip that looked too heavy to stay put.

  Gincy abruptly went back to the kitchen. The others silently followed her. She opened the fridge to find a half-empty carton of orange juice, a quarter stick of butter, and a bag of green beans turned brown and mushy. There was no milk, sour or not. Then she checked the pantry cupboards and was further shocked by what she found. This was not good. “There’s nothing in here but a few cans of soup and half a box of crackers,” she said, closing the last cupboard and turning to her mother. “What have you been eating, Mom?”

  Ellen began to fiddle with one of the buttons on her sweater. The button was loose. “I wish you had told me you were coming,” she said. “I would have gotten the house ready. I would have . . .”

  “Don’t worry about the house,” Gincy said firmly. She felt a growing distress, but she knew she had to maintain a facade of calm and orderly control. She took a seat at the kitchen table. The cloth covering was uncomfortably sticky. She retrieved a small spiral notebook from her bag, slung as always across her chest, and the good old-fashioned Number 2 pencil she always carried and began to write out a detailed shopping list, including what she remembered to be her mother’s favorite foods, as well as a wide variety of staples, from breakfast cereal to more canned soups, from dried pasta to frozen peas, from fresh bread to fresh fruit and vegetables. She was aware of her mother, brother, and daughter watching her silently. Their watchfulness and expectation made her feel anxious. They had put her in a position of authority—or maybe she was there by default—and at that moment she wasn’t at all sure that she was worthy of their trust.

  When she was finished writing, she gave the list to her brother.

  “Tamsin will go with you to Harriman’s,” she said. “Get everything on this list.”

  Gincy took out her wallet and removed her debit card from its slot. She gave the card to Tamsin, who she had long ago entrusted with her PIN.

  “No junk food, Tommy,” she warned. “And no cigarettes or beer. Take my car. Here are the keys.” Trusting Tommy to drive her own car, a Volvo wagon identical to her husband’s, was a risk, but it was better that her daughter be in a vehicle that had passed inspection than in a broken-down old truck that might lose a fender along the way.

  “Come on, Uncle Tommy,” Tamsin said quietly, and the two went off.

  For the first time since her father’s funeral, Gincy was alone with her mother. She felt almost as if she was in the presence of a stranger.

  “Have you eaten anything today, Mom?” she asked.

  Ellen cleared her throat. “Cereal. Some cereal.”

  But Gincy had seen no cereal in the cupboards. And there was no milk in the fridge. “Can I make you something to eat now?” she asked. “I could open a can of soup. Tommy will be back soon with something more substantial.”

  “No, thank you, Virginia,” Ellen said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Ellen yawned, careful as always to cover her mouth with her hand. “Excuse me,” she said.

  At least, Gincy thought, her mother hadn’t lost track of social proprieties. That was something. But hadn’t Tommy said their mother had been resting when she and Tamsin had arrived? Why was she still tired?

  “Are you sleeping well at night, Mom?” Gincy asked.

  Her mother shrugged. “Not always. Sometimes I . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Would you like to take another nap,” Gincy said. “Just until Tommy and Tamsin come back with the groceries?”

  Ellen slowly got up from the table. “Yes,” she said. “I think I will lie down for a while.”

  Gincy watched her mother walk out of the kitchen. She was surprised and worried by her docility. Ellen Gannon had never been in the habit of agreeing to her daughter’s suggestions. In fact, it was her habit to vigorously argue against anything Gincy recommended, whether it be that she try a new recipe or that she see a particular movie or that she buy a decent brand of soap that didn’t leave the skin stinging. Her mother would endure any hardship for a bargain, even raw, red skin.

  Gincy got up from the table. She would bring her bag and Tamsin’s upstairs to her old bedroom, get them unpacked, and make up their beds. There would be much to do in the next few days, and she would get none of it done by sitting around brooding.

  Besides, there was still the condition of the second floor to assess, and who knew what mayhem she might find there.

  CHAPTER 6

  Her mother had been asleep—at least, she had been in her room—for almost an hour, and Tommy and Tamsin were still not back from the store. Gincy considered sending Tamsin a text but refrained. She had given them a long shopping list. Tommy hadn’t run them into a ditch. They were just filling up a shopping cart with chicken breasts, paper towels, cartons of orange juice, and the cakes and cookies her mother had always been so fond of.

  I need to keep my head, she thought. I’d better call Rick.

  He answered right away. “You’re there?”

  “Yeah. Safe and sound in spite of a maniac in a Mazda cutting us off.”

  “And?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

  Gincy sighed. “This could take longer than I thought. Mom’s clearly depressed and she hasn’t been eating. You know how my mother loves to eat.”

  “I do,” he said. “Frankly, it always surprises me that she isn’t a better cook. But taste doesn’t always come with appetite. I cite the infamous three bean casserole.”

  Gincy peered into the sink. There was a line of grime all around the basin that looked as if it had been there for some time. “And the house really has been let go,” she said. “Tommy was right. There’s a terrible smell of must in the upstairs hall. I hope it’s just must and not mold. That could be big trouble. Anyway, you know how house proud my mother has always been, though I’ve never seen that there’s all that much here to be proud of.”

  “Gincy
.”

  “Sorry. Anyway, what exactly am I supposed to be doing here, Rick? I think I set out without any clear intention, without a plan. I have to tell you I feel a bit overwhelmed, and you know that’s not something I often feel.”

  “You’re supposed to be fixing what you can fix,” he said. “Focusing on the immediate issues, like seeing if you can get her to eat. And try to get her to talk about what she’s feeling. Well, that’s not going to be easy—she’s not exactly an open person—but take it step by step, Gincy.”

  “If it were Dad who needed me, I’d know what to do. Things were—things were less complicated.”

  “I know,” Rick said soothingly.

  “I sent Tommy and Tamsin for groceries,” she told him. “They’re taking forever.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine. How does Tommy seem?”

  “Upset. He’s lost a tooth, Rick.”

  “Oh.”

  “Rick? Is it my fault?”

  “That Tommy lost a tooth?” Rick asked. “I don’t think so, Gincy.”

  “No, I mean, everything that’s going on here. Everything seems to be falling apart. Is it my fault?”

  “No,” Rick said firmly. “It’s not your fault. But it looks like it is your responsibility to do what you can to get things back on track for your mother. And possibly for your brother, but I wouldn’t worry about him too much at the moment.”

  Gincy sighed. “Send me good thoughts, okay? I’ll check in again tomorrow. And don’t forget to water the tree. I don’t want the loft burning down.”

  Rick promised, “I don’t want it burning down either, and with me in it” and signed off.

  Gincy looked around her mother’s kitchen, at the all too familiar curtains on the small window over the sink, faded now from a once bright yellow; at the linoleum flooring, curling up in places; at the fridge that was at least thirty years old. All the boring, unappetizing dinners she had endured in this room, Tommy kicking his chair, her mother chattering on, complaining, questioning her daughter’s every move, her father eating his meal without speaking, other than to ask for the salt or pepper. And Gincy? All she had wanted, while Tommy made noise and her mother whined on and her father busily chewed, was to get out and never come back.