She had neither the strength nor the endurance to climb the long flight of stairs leading to the second story, so the main floor of the house became hers. She occupied only two rooms, and did not occupy them so much as move between them—the high-ceilinged living room, with its expansive windows which ran from the front to the back of the house, and the small bedroom on the opposite side that at one time must have been a study, but was now as spartan as a monk’s cell, with only the wrought-iron frame of a double bed pushed up against the wall. At night, Alice rolled onto one hip and moved as close to the wall as she could, resting the flat of her palm against it, waiting to hear the house breathe and speak in its creaky voice.
After several weeks she detected a pattern in the hall carpet, the path her footprints left as she dragged herself from her bedroom to the chair in the corner of the living room and back again. Saisee, the housekeeper Natalie found shortly after they arrived, placed an ottoman in front of the wing chair and a throw across the back. Alice passed the days wrapped in a blanket, staring out the back windows, their swollen, mildewed frames barely able to hold the panes in place. The old glass distorted the trumpet creeper and morning honeysuckle, turning the garden into something watery and tropical. The few birds she recognized, thrashers and yellowthroats and towhees, moved sluggishly, as if anesthetized by the heat.
She lost her appetite, her sense of time, the ability to sleep. Saisee coaxed her with breakfasts made for an invalid: delicate rice puddings, milk toast and softly coddled eggs, cornmeal mush. But the food had no smell and tasted of lead. The hours closed ranks against any change in routine, and the days fell in line, one after another. The heat swelled and retreated, then swelled again through the long months of August and September. Daylight pasted itself to the sky, refusing to fade. Such unbearably bright rooms, the white paint glinting like ice and burning her eyes. Even when she squeezed them shut, the light burrowed in beneath her lids.
At night the insects called to each other. She lay awake listening to their chirps and saws, their singing impossible to tune out. After long hours, the bed stopped being a bed and instead turned into a deep well, its sides slick with moss, impossible to climb. She woke from shallow fits of half sleep, shivering, damp with sweat, the sheets twisted in knots beneath her. The dreams left behind an echo of water which she heard all day, the quiet, certain slush of it chasing away the oppressive heat, soothing her fiery joints, calling to her as it rose past her ankles and knees, washed the sweat from beneath her breasts, lapped at her shoulders, chilled her lips, then filled her ears. She drifted between rooms, caught in an undertow. No Kaboutermannekes appeared to guide her.
Was it day or night? Friday or Tuesday? Had she taken her pain medication? Best to take more, in case she hadn’t. Natalie shook her by the shoulders, the flash of pain throttling her back into the world.
“For God’s sake, Alice. Get dressed. Walk around the yard. Do something useful with yourself.”
She stood up, wishing she could shake Natalie back, shake her hard enough to loosen her teeth. “You’re a monster.”
Natalie’s face remained impassive. She plumped the pillows on the sofa where no one ever sat and turned away from Alice. “If you haven’t got any more spirit than this, it’s just as well. You wouldn’t have had the stomach to be anyone’s mother.”
That cruelty sparked something bitter and caused it to rise in Alice’s throat, refusing to be swallowed. “And you wouldn’t have been selfless enough.”
It was the worst she could imagine. Her sister’s face showed a flash of anger, but it was gone just as quickly. Natalie stared at her, with a tight, frozen smile. Alice couldn’t help but shiver.
“Do you hate me, Alice?” Natalie asked, almost eager. “You probably should. But I must say I’m surprised. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Alice sank back in the chair, her spine settling into the familiar curve there. Could she hate her own sister? Wouldn’t that make her every bit the monster she accused Natalie of being? She remembered Thomas’s attempted warning and the way she’d cut him off, refusing to hear anything negative about her family. It was one thing to number their faults in her own head, quite another to listen to an outsider recite them.
She shook her head. “I don’t hate you.”
Natalie shrugged before moving to the clouded mirror at the end of the living room, poking loose strands of hair back into her chignon and straightening her skirt.
“I’ve got an interview. I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
“An interview?”
“For a job. Someone has to work to keep you in those little bottles of pills you run through so quickly.”
“But there’s the money from the house.”
Natalie outlined her lips in pink and pressed them together, watching herself in the mirror. “That’s gone.”
“Gone?” Alice’s mouth went dry. “How can it be gone? We haven’t bought anything.” She’d envisioned whatever they’d made from the quick sale of their house coupled with the small protective trust their parents had left, as her only assurance she wouldn’t end up on the street. “Are you saying we don’t have any money?”
Natalie’s patience had expired. “We have enough money for groceries and the house payments. For a while. The lawyer and I worked everything out.” She tucked a curl behind her ear and smoothed it into place.
Alice remembered the probate lawyer they’d met with after their parents’ death. And she remembered his response to Natalie, how the smell of her perfume drove the blood up his neck and into his drawn cheeks; the number of times he’d blinked—four—when Natalie rested her hand, palm up, on his desk.
“But where . . .”
Natalie cut her off. “There may have been a scholarship, Alice, but that doesn’t mean your playtime at a private college didn’t cost us anything. Not that there’s much to show for it. And all of those doctors’ visits? I don’t mean the rheumatologist and the physical therapist and the blood work and the drugs. I’m talking about the obstetrician. You might have stopped to consider that.” She pulled a compact from her purse and patted away the shine on her nose. “I didn’t see the father stepping forward to pay.” She paused and examined Alice in the mirror, her face taking on the studied casualness of a cat.
Alice sat perfectly still, holding her breath, feeling muscle tremble against bone, unable to remember whether she’d called out for him in her delirium, whether she’d inadvertently said or done something to give them away, wondering if Natalie might somehow know about Thomas.
Her sister pulled the pins out of her hair and shook her head. “I think down is better. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Not that it matters. You’ll be sleeping. You know, Alice, you really should get some air.”
* * *
The idea of being penniless shocked her into action. She and Natalie were both adults now and both unemployed. There was no medical insurance. Alice started cheating on her medications, taking half of what had been prescribed, counting on physical pain to shift her focus from the dead spot in her soul to the job of surviving. She forced herself to stretch her fingers and toes several times a day, and practiced walking the perimeter of her bedroom instead of napping, thinking all the while of what Thomas had told her of Edith Piaf. And then she walked the room some more, trying to think of anything but Thomas.
Work was the greater problem. There would be little use here for a biology major, less for an ornithologist. Natalie, on the other hand, would have no trouble finding a job, if a job was what she wanted. As predicted, within a week Natalie was working at the bank. Within two she was dating the married bank manager. And while any income provided a boost to their dwindling funds, Alice was now aware how uncertain her situation was.
Orion was a place with little impetus for change, little tolerance for disruption. That was how she and Natalie were viewed, as disruptions. Saisee informed her of this, not unkindly, while they sat in the kitchen one afternoon, Saisee snapping beans for din
ner, Alice clumsily folding napkins. Phinneaus put it differently the first time they met, when he came knocking on their door from across the street, bearing a plate of something uneven and deflated in the center, covered in a heavy blanket of frosting. This town, it’s like a slow, deep river cut well into its banks. Take something biblical to make it change course.
* * *
“That’s Mr. Lapine,” Saisee said, drawing out his name—“Lay-pee-en”—until it sounded more like a medical condition than a surname. The woman peered through the starched lace curtains Natalie had chosen, then moved to where Alice sat propped in her chair in the corner of the living room and leaned over to whisper to her behind the wall of her hand, standing so close that Alice could smell the curtains’ same starch on Saisee’s apron. “He’s your neighbor from across the way. Lives in that house all by himself. Nice enough young man, but people are none too sure about where all his kin come from, and seems he’s in no hurry to tell.”
“Looks like I’m the official welcoming committee,” he said, taking off a boonie hat in camouflage print to reveal shaggy blond hair streaked darker in spots from sweat. His shirt stuck to his skin, damp along the front placket. “I understand you ladies are from up North. How are you finding Orion so far? I hope our temperatures aren’t too disagreeable.”
“Small, Mr. Lapine. My sister and I are finding it small. But charming, of course,” Natalie replied.
“I’ll only answer to Phinneaus, please.”
Natalie favored him with a lukewarm smile, but her rapid appraisal made it clear she thought him a misfit more suited to her sister. She excused herself with a half nod, begging a previous appointment.
“Phinneaus, then. I’m afraid I’m on my way out. But Alice will be delighted to entertain you. She thrives on attention. Always got the lion’s share of it from our parents. I believe it might have spoiled her. She’s having a hard time adjusting to all this”—she swirled her hand in the air, as if spooling cotton candy—“quiet.”
Alice gasped, but Phinneaus’s only response to Natalie was a penetrating gaze before he shrugged and turned his focus to Alice. He looked at her face, ignoring the parts of her hidden beneath the lint-colored throw, the tender perimeters of her body that Saisee had thoughtfully concealed. He was either kind or savvy enough not to offer his hand by way of introduction, which made Alice suspect he had been forewarned, that the entire town knew of her predicament already, after only a few short weeks. Natalie had likely used her as the tool, prying open the stern casing of neighbors and those who might prove useful to her. A lovely stranger in town, not as reserved as she should be. A northerner with a trace of superiority, unbecoming in one her age with no apparent reason other than looks to assume herself superior to any of them. But then there was the sister—a whiff of scandal, a horrid affliction. With what Natalie had to endure, saddled at her age with such responsibility, her beauty certain to be wasted, could they not make allowances? Alice understood she was useful to Natalie in this way, gifting her with a humility she did not actually possess.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why she would have said that.”
“Neither do I,” Phinneaus replied. “But then, I’m an only child. Us only children, we haven’t mastered the knack of sibling rivalry for some reason.”
Alice was too embarrassed even to grin. The conversation seemed destined to end there, Natalie having set her up all too well for failure.
“It’s an interesting name,” he said, moving closer to her. The knees of his pants were stained a faint red from the clay soil Natalie said filled all of the yards in the neighborhood. His face, too, carried a thin layer of the same red dust everywhere except for two owlish circles surrounding his eyes. Spectacles. She could imagine him wearing them. How serious he must look with his soft, downturned eyes.
“Alice? What’s interesting about it?”
His laugh surprised her—warm and round, as if the air inside of him was the same temperature as the air outside. “No,” he said. “Phinneaus. That’s usually the first thing people say to me. Interesting name. I thought I’d beat you to the punch.”
How long had it been since she’d engaged anyone in conversation? She struggled for something to say, wondering if she’d lost that art along with any ease of motion. Silence spread over the space between them, and he shifted from one foot to the other, holding the sorry cake slightly out in front of him.
“Saisee, could you please take that from Mr., er, from Phinneaus and bring him some tea?”
“Lazy daisy,” he said, handing the plate to Saisee. “My mama claimed it was the perfect ‘welcome’ cake because if you didn’t know the person well, at least there wasn’t much about it to offend. Unless of course you didn’t like pecans, and she always said if a person didn’t like pecans, then they weren’t worth getting to know anyway.” He stopped talking long enough to accept the glass of tea Saisee offered and took a long drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You aren’t joining me?” he asked Alice.
The other glass Saisee had brought sat untouched on the table beside the chair. “I’m not thirsty just now, thank you.”
“I see.” His eyes flicked over her hidden body, and she saw a hesitation, the suggestion of recognition. “I’ve come at an inconvenient time. I won’t impose myself on your hospitality any longer. I just didn’t want another day to go by without making myself known to you and your sister.”
“Thank you for the cake.” She tried to keep her tone neutral, not wanting to sound as dismissive as Natalie, but wishing he would leave. She shifted her limbs beneath the throw, distinctly aware of how close he was standing. For the first time since moving into the house she had a fleeting thought of vanity, wondering how she appeared to a stranger.
“My pleasure. I imagine I’ll see you and your sister in town sometime.”
I imagine. Not I hope. “We’ll return your plate right away,” she said, her voice more curt than she intended.
He stared her down until she flinched. “No need. Plenty more where that came from. Saisee, thank you for the tea. I can see myself out.” He nodded at the housekeeper, and Alice kept her eyes on the floor until she heard the front door close.
Saisee headed to the kitchen, muttering under her breath, but Alice caught her words clearly enough: uppity, rude, unfriendly. Have my hands full with these two.
* * *
She could see him in the late mornings if she pushed the edge of the curtain aside, always waiting until Natalie left for work and Saisee was occupied elsewhere. It started as something to pass the time, a diversion to keep grief at bay when it tried to swallow her whole, but grew into a ritual. She was conditioned to be an observer. It was a talent she’d nurtured and honed, one she still possessed since it required patience and stillness as opposed to movement. There was comfort in viewing even a fragment of him, like a compass point to help set her bearings. On those days she didn’t see him she felt unmoored and spent the hours nodding through a muddy fog of memories and nightmarish dreams.
In late fall, his movements were methodical as he dropped warty knots of bulbs into deep holes, neat mounds of dirt on all sides, white arcs of bonemeal staining the lawn. In the winter she could see him hunched over a snub-nosed car in his driveway, the steam of his breath the only sign of life coming from under the hood. Spring came. The leaves of the bulbs he’d planted pushed up through the mulch like verdant spears, and he cut his hair and kept it short, so tight to his skull that she could see the shape of his head. An umbrella took up permanent residence on the front porch, evidently never quite dry enough to close. Then summer, when the heat was a battering ram against the house. His image wavered before her like a mirage, yet she could still make out the contours of his bare upper body, his arms tan and muscular, something inked on his right arm just below the shoulder. A heart? The name of the mother who had schooled him in the suitability of lazy daisy cake? She was too far away to tell.
With autumn came the re
ckoning. She’d turned lax in her observations, inventing a life for him gleaned from stolen moments of surveillance, and from the sound of his car leaving some evenings, most often Fridays and Saturdays, which she interpreted to mean he had a social life. There would be a girlfriend, of course—Alice pieced her wardrobe together from fashion magazines Natalie left lying around—someone freckled and petite who favored halter tops and platform shoes and lip gloss bearing the scent of ripe fruit. Or perhaps she’d be older, with a hard edge, lacquered hair, and a regular stool at a bar on the edge of town.
In late October, the air through the screen door smelled of dried grass and earth forked over. Phinneaus was raking leaves into a ragged pile in his front yard when he suddenly stopped moving and looked directly to where she stood watching him from the side of the living room window. She froze, but it was for nothing. She’d been discovered. Even after she let the edge of the curtain drop back into place and was safely hidden again, she turned red with shame. Her interest would be rightly translated as loneliness, evidenced by her pitiful behavior.
She didn’t need to wonder for long whether he would let it pass. The doorbell rang the following afternoon, and before she could plead with Saisee not to answer, he was standing in front of her in the living room, and she was, as she’d been the first time she’d seen him, sitting in her chair in the corner of the room, a blanket hastily thrown over her lap.
“Do you suspect me of something, Miss Alice?”
“I . . . no. Of course not.”
“Because I must say, I hadn’t pegged you for much of a sleuth.”
There was kindness in the word he chose. “That’s a generous way of putting it, Mr. Lapine. I’m not sure I’m deserving of such generosity.”
“Phinneaus.”
The Gravity of Birds: A Novel Page 15