by Joe McKinney
“God damn it, Sarah. Didn’t you hear me? I’ve got work to do. I don’t want dinner.” He seemed to catch himself and eased back on his tone. “Please, just go. I love you.”
She nodded.
“Okay. I...I love you too.”
Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t you dare.
She turned away and went out. At the landing, she paused for a moment and stared searchingly at the doorway to the sitting room. Then she hurried down the stairs.
*
Wounded now, but also still a little sick and uneasy from her experiences upstairs, she was barely aware of walking into the kitchen and putting a frozen pizza in the oven. She pressed buttons on the oven’s display, but couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. It was hard to focus, hard to concentrate. Come on, she told herself. Please, hold it together.
“Mommy?”
Sarah jumped. She spun around and stared at Angela, who was standing in the doorway with sweaty bangs on her forehead and a basketball under one arm.
“You okay, Mommy?”
Sarah let out a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, baby...I’m okay. You scared me is all.”
Angela looked doubtful. She said, “Mommy, are you and Daddy fighting?”
“What? No. No, of course not.”
But she stopped herself there. Growing up with a mom who drank all the time and a step-father who was more interested in getting into her pants than her mom’s, Sarah had promised herself she would do better. Her daughter wasn’t ever going to spend her Saturday mornings cleaning up her mom’s vomit and changing her bed sheets while her mom cried in the corner. That wasn’t ever going to happen to Angela. And she wasn’t going to lie to her either. Besides, Angela was a smart girl. She would see the smokescreen.
Sarah sat at the kitchen table and patted the chair next to her.
Angela hesitated for a moment, then put the ball down and took the chair Sarah offered.
“You miss home, don’t you?” Sarah said. “Our old house, I mean.”
Angela shrugged.
“It’s okay. I do too. All these changes, it’s been hard, hasn’t it? I know it’s been hard on you. It’s certainly been hard on me. Well, me and Daddy both, I mean. That’s what we’ve been fighting...well, arguing about. It’s okay, though. We’re just having a bit of a rough patch, your Dad and me.”
Angela nodded, but she didn’t look convinced, and Sarah’s heart went out to her. When she was Angela’s age, Sarah had been living through hell. That wasn’t going to happen for her daughter. No way was that going to happen.
Sarah put her hand on Angela’s and smiled at her. “You know what? I remember when you were little. Now that was hard. We never had any money. I mean nothing at all. There used to be this old man who sold pretzels on the street corner near where Daddy went to school. On cold mornings, the steam would rise off the sides of his cart and you could smell those pretzels all the way down the block. Every morning you used to cry for one of those pretzels. They only cost fifty cents, but, well, like I said, we never had any money. Oh honey, how you used to cry for those pretzels.”
“Did I ever get one?”
Sarah chuckled. “Yes, silly. Whenever we could afford one. Which wasn’t often, believe me. One day you were crying for a pretzel we couldn’t afford and the man took pity on us, I think, and gave you a pretzel.” She gestured around at the house, at its vastness. “I think back on those times, how hard they were, and I know we’ve come a long way. We’ll weather this too. I’m certain of it.”
Sarah knew her daughter. Angela loved to hear stories of when she was a little girl. More than just about anything else, those stories seemed to fascinate her, keep her hanging on every word. And it worked, for a while anyway. As she’d told the story of the pretzel man, the dark clouds had cleared from Angela’s expression. She was the innocent little girl that Sarah remembered. But then she’d gone and spoiled it by mentioning this house. She hadn’t meant to. She’d only meant to show how far they’d come. But, just like that, at the mention of the house, the clouds had gathered again in Angela’s expression.
“Mommy, I don’t like it here.”
“San Antonio’s a nice city, baby. This is a good – ”
“No, Mommy, I mean here. This house.”
Sarah felt a chill move over her skin. “What don’t you like about this house?”
“The upstairs. It scares me.”
Sarah swallowed, and when she spoke, she chose her words carefully. “What is it that scares you, Angela? Is it because it’s so big?”
She shook her head.
“No? What then?”
Angela sniffled. Then she looked back toward the hallway that led out to the entryway. More than anything she’d experienced upstairs, that furtive little backwards glance, that brief window into the fears her daughter was living with, terrified her.
“When I’m up there,” Angela said, her voice a whisper, “I feel like I’ve been bad. I feel like everyone’s mad at me.”
“Angela, nobody’s mad at you. You’re wonderful. Your Daddy and I think you’re – ”
“No, I know that. When I come downstairs I...I know that. It’s just that...”
Again the backward glance toward the entryway.
“What is it, Angela?”
“Mommy, you know that room at the top of the stairs? The one that just has the chairs in it?”
Sarah was holding on to her composure with both hands now. “Yes. What about it?”
Angela lowered her voice another notch. “That’s where it’s coming from, Mommy.”
“Where what is coming from?”
“All the hate, Mommy. It’s a bad place. It’s so angry.”
December 21
Robert stood at the window of the downstairs library, watching the circular drive in front of the house. Angela was out there around the far corner of the east wing, shooting baskets. He’d catch a glimpse of her every couple of minutes or so when she’d come around for an outside shot. Through the trees he could see a washed out watercolor sky, a gray smear. It looked to him like rain, but the guy on the TV said it was only a twenty percent chance, which meant the faculty Christmas party would go on as planned, no chance of getting out of it due to rain.
He really, really didn’t want to go. For the last several days he’d been feeling lethargic. Not really sick, and not really depressed either. His mother had been one of those women who, after the last of their children are born, never seem to shake the postpartum depression funk. After his younger sister Tammy was born, the youngest of the four Bell children, his mother just seemed to start a long, slow fade away. She was always exhausted and apologetic because she “just wasn’t up to doin’ nothin’ today.” As a young man he’d recognized her mounting depression, her isolation, her increasingly odd behavior. And later still, in his early twenties, he learned she’d been self-medicating with a combination of alcohol and painkillers. So he knew what real depression looked like, and this, what he was going through, wasn’t that. He just didn’t feel up to going out, or working on his syllabi, or anything else for that matter. He’d hit a low point – temporary, of course, no doubt brought on by the stress of having to constantly worry about money and the new job and this crap with Jay Carroll trying to get custody of Angela. But it wasn’t depression. That much he was sure of. More like the emotional equivalent of indigestion.
He touched his shirtsleeve; it was wet again.
Christ, already?
Earlier, when he was deciding what to wear to the party tonight, he’d put on a white shirt to go with his gray suit, but all the itching he’d been doing lately had left open cuts on his upper arms and the blood had soaked through the white T-shirt and shirtsleeves almost immediately. After that, he’d put on some ointment and bandages and a dark blue shirt. But apparently he’d already soaked through the bandages. Gingerly, he touched his right shoulder. It burned, but despite the tenderness of the wound, he felt an awful itch moving across his skin, over his sho
ulders, down his back, to his belly, his chest.
He glanced at his watch. Twenty past six.
Just then Sarah pulled into the driveway, the babysitter in the passenger seat. About damn time, he thought. Robert watched them get out. They were going to be late. Why was he the only one around this house with a sense of urgency? He huffed, frowning at them as he scratched at a spot just below his collar.
Sarah called over to Angela, who came running to meet the college girl who was going to be watching her. The college girl – her name was Kaylie Ross, he reminded himself; and how could he forget it, after the way Thom Horner had talked about her – bent down to Angela’s height and smiled. Angela seemed to like her right away, and Robert’s frown softened a little. The girl was pretty, he thought. And then he frowned again, studying her. She wore blue Levis, a form-fitting red blouse, strappy little sandals and a black sweater hanging off her arm. But it wasn’t her clothes so much that he noticed, or even her figure, as it was her brown, wavy hair, her smile, her bright, alert eyes.
And then it hit him. She was the spitting image of Sarah at nineteen. Wind Sarah’s clock back ten years, and the two could have passed for sisters, no question about it.
Well, he thought, Thom did say she was a pretty thing. And he was right about that.
Robert met them in the entryway. Sarah was smiling when she came in, but her expression changed to a confused frown when she saw him.
“Angela,” she said, “why don’t you show Miss Kaylie the kitchen? I’ll be right there.”
When the two girls were gone, Sarah turned to him. “What’s wrong with you?” And then, with a little more hesitation in her voice, because she suddenly seemed uncertain of him, she said: “You look angry.”
He looked at his watch and shrugged. “It’s 6:30, Sarah. What the hell? What took you so long?”
“I...We’ve got thirty minutes. What’s the big deal?”
“I don’t want to be late. That’s the deal.”
“Robert, we’re not gonna be late. I did the Google thing and it said it takes like ten minutes to get there. Besides, it’s a party. Nobody ever shows up right when a party’s supposed to start.”
He nodded, but he meant it to mock her. To be honest, he was seething inside. A part of him sensed that he was about to lose control, that he was being irrational, but he couldn’t listen to that part of him. It seemed too remote. And the anger was so big, moving through him like a current he couldn’t channel or divert.
“You don’t get it,” he said, sticking his finger in her face. He was shaking he was so mad. “You don’t...God damn it, Sarah. This is important to me. Why don’t you fucking get it? Huh? Why? Why?”
“Don’t shout at me.” She was looking him in the eyes, and her voice was controlled, but she was backing away a few steps at a time, like he was poisonous.
“No. You listen to me. This is – ”
She held up a palm to his face and turned away.
“Don’t you...don’t you walk away from me, you...”
Robert trailed off there. He was so mad he wanted to break something. But then, as abruptly as it came over him, the red cloud of rage began to dissipate. He saw Sarah standing in front of him, and he read the look of fear and disgust and indignation on her face, and for a moment he didn’t know where he was. He felt like he’d just woken up, and found himself standing here. Then he remembered how angry he’d gotten. Not so much what he said, but the echo of the meanness he must have shown her. He drew back with a gasp. He was breathing hard, looking about the room, confused and frightened by what he’d just experienced. Whatever it was, it was gone now, but he could still feel its filthy residue. He gasped again and looked at Sarah.
She was standing near the foot of the stairs, staring at him with barely contained contempt.
“You what?” she said. “Youbitch? Is that what you were gonna say?”
“I, I don’t...Oh God, Sarah, I...I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was...”
“Whatever.” She curled her lip at him. “I’ve got to go show Kaylie where everything is.”
He nodded and she went back to the kitchen without saying another word. Robert stood there, sweat popping out on his forehead, and for the life of him couldn’t figure out what had just happened. It was like...well, he didn’t know. Not exactly. He just...lost control. It was like a part of him, a vital part, had just shut down.
Or, maybe, had been held down. Forcibly suppressed.
Yes! he thought. That was exactly what it was like, like he was getting smothered while something else moved through him, spoke through him.
He shivered. God, this was awful. And he still had the party to deal with.
Sarah came out from the kitchen and walked right by him.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her back. “I really am. I don’t know what happened just then.”
“You were an ass, that’s what happened.”
He bristled. Robert felt his skin tingle and his hands start to go numb. The anger was building again, threatening to wash over him, and that scared him. It came so easily, so quickly. He forced it back down, suddenly aware that he was sweating again. Christ, he thought, what’s wrong with me?
“Let’s go,” she said. “It’s ten dollars an hour and we’re wasting money standing here.”
*
They got to the party about ten minutes after seven, along with about eight other couples. Everybody seemed to know Robert’s name, and there were waves and introductions all around as the group made its way up the drive to Ron and Kathy Anson’s house. Robert had never been good with names, and he and Sarah had worked out a system for social situations like this that had become automatic for them by now. Whenever Robert forgot somebody’s name, he would plow into the conversation without introducing her. After a pause, Sarah would interject, making some offhand remark about how Robert never introduced her to his friends. She was doing that now as they walked, all the while smiling and shaking hands. She’d been quite frosty to him in the car ride over, and for a moment, because her smile could be so infectious, he allowed himself to think that maybe she was over her anger. But then they fell behind the rest of the group and she turned to him and said, “I told you nobody ever shows up on time to a party.”
To a passerby the comment might have sounded like gentle chiding, a casual remark between husband and wife, but Robert recognized it for the caustic burn it was meant to be from the look in her eyes.
And, for just a moment, warmth spread across his cheeks and the red cloud that had overtaken him back at the house threatened to overwhelm him again. Christ, he’d apologized. He meant it too. Couldn’t she see that? Why was she still beating up on him for something he’d apologized for? Well, she was gonna cut that shit out. He’d make sure she –
He stopped there, horrified with himself.
He swallowed and looked at her again. She had said something, and he’d missed it.
“Are you even listening to me?”
He suddenly felt sick. He nodded.
She looked doubtful. “I said I don’t want to stay too long. I’m serious about that. And no getting drunk, either.”
The Anson’s house – Ron taught Latin American history and Kathy Chemistry – looked to be every bit as big as Crook House, and was no doubt a gift from Lightner. It was a large, blockish two story of white stone and red barrel tile in the eclectic Spanish style so common to the Monte Vista neighborhoods north of downtown. It featured a wide, immaculately manicured front lawn shaded by the tallest oak trees Robert had ever seen, window boxes of black wrought iron, a car port ringed by thick white columns, and a trio of Moorish-style arches at the front entrance. The guests weren’t headed to the front of the house though, and instead made their way through the car port and around to the back. A servant’s quarters larger than the house they’d owned in Florida was nested among some crepe myrtles along the right side of the Anson’s property line, facing a lawn studded by white tables and chairs beneath red and
gold cloth awnings. There was a bar off near the house, a buffet table, and a few early birds in suits and nice dresses standing around chatting in little groups. Everybody seemed to have a drink in his or her hands.
“This looks really nice,” Robert said.
“Yeah, it’s something all right,” Sarah answered. “Ah crap.”
Robert looked at her in surprise. She was staring straight ahead, her face without expression. Robert followed her gaze to where Thom Horner was working his way through the crowd.
“Hey Robert! Sarah!” Thom said, waving at them. He was wearing a blue suit with cuffed pants and black wingtips and a red tie with candy canes all over it. He had a martini in his hand and to Robert it looked like it wasn’t his first of the evening. “Merry Christmas, you two!”
“Merry Christmas to you, Thom,” Robert said.
Sarah mumbled and looked away.
“So, how’s the house? Is it everything I told you it’d be?”
Neither Robert nor Sarah spoke. The silence was so pregnant that Thom picked up on it. His smile faded a bit, then turned mischievous. “Don’t tell me you guys have started seeing ghosts?”
“No,” Robert said, trying to make his voice light. “Of course not. We like the house fine. Don’t we, Sarah?”
She nodded, but with little enthusiasm. “Would you guys excuse me, please? I need to find the bathroom.”
“Ah,” Thom said. He pointed toward the house with the hand holding his martini. “Right through there. You go in through the kitchen, take a right, and the bathroom’s down at the end of the hall. Can’t miss it. There’s one of those Mayan calendar wheel thingies on the wall right next to the door.”
Sarah nodded and then was gone.
Robert turned to Thom. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I pissed her off before we left.”
“What? Oh, no, she’s great. Sarah can do no wrong, believe me. But you guys are liking the house, right? I haven’t gotten much of a chance to talk with you since you moved in and all.”