The Center of Winter: A Novel

by Marya Hornbacher

“Yours, silly,” I said.

  “Oh.” Her face lit up. “Esau, she’s ours. I told you.”

  “No you didn’t. I told you.”

  “Oh yeah.” Kate hopped off the chair. “Well, let’s go already!” she yelled.

  The kids dashed off to change. Frank sat up and smiled at me.

  “You look funny in that chair,” I said.

  “You want I should get out of it?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Not a bit.” He came over to the couch and put his right ankle on his left knee. “Where’s Donna?” he asked.

  “She went home.” I looked at him.

  “Getting her things?”

  “I don’t know. As of four o’clock this morning, she didn’t know either, and that’s the last I heard.” I shook my head. “I expect she’ll come and go awhile longer. Nowhere feels like home to her right now.”

  “Huh.”

  We sat there.

  I can’t do it, I thought.

  He touched my knee lightly. I stared out at the yard.

  “You there?” he asked quietly.

  I thought for a minute. I felt the entire length of his body next to mine on the couch, his heat emanating like a small autumn sun.

  “Not quite,” I said. “Not yet.”

  I saw him nod slowly from the corner of my eye. I saw him turn his face toward me. I glanced over. He leaned in and kissed my temple so softly it hurt.

  KATE

  We had a plan to build a house. We would need a house, we figured, in case of unforeseen events such as Mom marrying Frank. And then we would have no parents. Because Dad was already dead.

  Sometimes, I dreamed he was not.

  Sometimes, I dreamed it was morning, and I came out of my room and sat down on the couch and he was there. In his chair. With his paper and his morning drink. I knew by then what it was, the booze, maybe I even knew it was what killed him. I can’t remember when I realized that. What I do remember is that it was why he needed me; I saw the drink in his hand and knew he needed me to be in charge, so I sat down on the couch. It was always summer in my dream, with the warm late-morning light pouring into the room, all gold. And I didn’t have school, in the dream, because it was summer, and so I nestled into the couch and pulled my feet up—I was still small in the dream, still six, though I had the dream for years—and put my chin on the armrest and gazed at my father. And he put down his paper and smiled. He said, “Well, Little Bit. What do you know?”

  And I always laughed and shrugged, shy, and said, “Not much.”

  That was the end of the dream. I’d wake up and go out to the living room and sometimes curl up in his chair and look out the window at the dark.

  Really it was fall, not summer, when we realized that we would need our own house. It was part of the backup plan, to be used in the event of an emergency, so Esau was staying up late drawing the blueprints on graph paper and showing them to us when we had our secret meetings after school. We were saving our allowances and also sometimes raiding the coffee can at Davey’s house, under the sink, where Donna kept the mad money. The mad money was for extras anyway and they didn’t need any extras, we decided. Also we raided Mom’s stash, which was in her vanity, the heavy mahogany dresser where she sat putting on her makeup before a date with Frank. It had been her mother’s and it would someday be mine, a day I worried about because I didn’t want a vanity, I only wanted my mother, and if I got the vanity it meant she was gone. So I lay on the bed, watching her at her vanity, fixing her there in the mirror with my gaze. It’s in the parlor, now, the garnet necklace in its secret drawer.

  We found the secret drawer one afternoon that fall. My arm was halfway inside one drawer, feeling around for secret things, and my fingers fell on a little latch. I pushed it, then pulled it, and the bottom of the drawer slid back. We crowded our heads close to look, shoving for space. Esau announced, “I’m oldest. I get to look.” Davey and I sat back on our heels while Esau reached in to pull out the contents of the drawer. Papers.

  “Boring,” I said.

  He shook his head slowly, sitting on his knees and paging through the pile. “Money,” he said. “They’re bonds. And look at this.” He held out a small square of paper to me.

  It was Dad’s death certificate.

  “And this,” Esau said. I took a folded sheaf of paper, looked at it, and said, “What is it?”

  “Dad’s life-insurance policy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the money he left. He bought it in case he died.”

  “Is it a lot?”

  Esau nodded, taking it back. “It’s enough for our house. Plus some extra.” He looked up. “We’re rich,” he said.

  We stashed it with our other things, in a pale blue hatbox from Norby’s, under Esau’s bed.

  Now we were safe. Protected, with a plan in the event of an emergency or unforeseen event.

  We found out we needed a plan from Dale, who had been to Vietnam and lots of other foreign places in the service and who knew a lot about pretty much everything, we found out. Davey had said all along that his dad knew a lot of stuff, but we used to think he was mean, so we were afraid of him and didn’t go to Davey’s house almost ever. Turned out Dale wasn’t mean at all, just a little funny in the head and also lonely. And since he was lonely, we sort of accidentally wound up visiting him, and he told us about the things he knew.

  The first time we went it was definitely by accident. What I mean is, we went on purpose, but we didn’t know he was there. And we were so startled when we figured it out that me and Davey sat on the back steps the entire time. Only Esau went down to see him. Dale pretty much lived in the basement, and Davey made Esau go say hi because we thought Dale’s feelings might be hurt if we didn’t. If we just walked in and then walked right back out without so much as a hello there. So as soon as Esau was downstairs, me and Davey hightailed it out to the steps. This was still back when we were scared of Dale. And they were down there talking for forever, so we got a little nervous and discussed between us should we go in and rescue Esau? When finally he came back out and shut the door behind him.

  He leaned down to get his bike and looked at us. He said, “We have to get a plan.”

  So all that fall, since it turned out Dale was just lonely, we went to visit him. And he taught us all about knots and about how to use a bowie knife to skin a squirrel. And about how you should never shoot something you don’t intend to eat, so unless you want squirrel stew, don’t shoot a squirrel. I showed off my knots at school, no one made better knots. We were in second grade, me and Davey. Dale taught us about history and wars and how to tell if a thing was poison ivy or not. He went upstairs and brought down every single volume of the encyclopedia so we could have it for our secret after-school meetings. He would lean forward, set his beer on the low table, and purse his lips around his cigarette. He’d open a volume. He started with A. And he would page through it until he found the important things. Then he’d stab the page with his skinny finger and say, “This here.” And he’d lean back, take a big drag on his cigarette, and start talking, gesturing with his beer.

  We learned everything in the world there was to know. To this day I remember what he taught us, waving his cigarette the way my father had, those eloquent scribbles of smoke. Arlington. Battle of the Bulge. Chemical warfare. Destroyer, also Destroy.

  We would go in through the back door, and look to see if there were cookies—if Donna was staying at their house, she made cookies—and then Davey would lean down the stairwell and yell, “Dad? Are you here?”

  And if Dale yelled, “Yep,” we knew he was there.

  After we were done, when it was time to go home or we’d get our butts busted for missing dinner, we’d shake his hand, me and Esau, and he’d kiss Davey’s head.

  Sometimes, he had spells. We would all be down there, sitting on the couch in a row. And Dale suddenly would stop talking and just stare straight ahead. Just sit there, not moving at all
. We’d all get up, taking care not to jostle, and tiptoe up the stairs and out the door.

  “He’s here,” Davey said, trotting back from the stairwell. “Get him cookies too.”

  I grabbed a couple extra. Esau went down first, then Davey. I went last because I was scared of the basement and wanted to be sure everything was all right before I went down. The basement was wet, and though I did not believe in monsters it was still a place where monsters, if they existed, would spend their time, especially wet monsters, who liked the dark. There were shadows in all the corners, thick, tall shadows that cloaked who-knew-what, and a room into which we were not allowed under pain of death to go. I had somehow linked this room in my mind to hell, and was under the impression that hell was in the back corner of Davey’s basement, and Dale watched out at the gates of hell, sitting on the couch in his fatigues.

  Besides which, you never really knew what would be going on inside Dale’s head at a given time, so it was best to be cautious, I felt, on the stairs, and for that reason I dawdled on the way down until I heard him say, “Well, well, soldiers. What have we here?” In which case we knew he was not in a silence or a dark. Occasionally he would tell us to get the hell out, but not very often, and it was always worth a try because we figured there was no one to take care of him but us and we were up to the responsibility, especially Esau, who was in charge.

  We filed across the room slowly, adjusting our eyes to the dark. From a small, high window came a thin, sharp stream of white light. It was almost winter, you could tell from the light. As fall went away, the light got cold.

  “Well, well,” said Dale, scooting over on the couch. “What have we here?”

  “Us,” said Davey.

  “Us, sir,” Esau corrected him. Since fall started, Esau had been getting weirder and weirder. He was busy all the time and referred to everyone as “sir.”

  “Us, sir,” Davey said.

  “Us, sir yourself,” Dale said, and ruffled Davey’s hair. I giggled. “How’s by you, soldier?”

  Davey shrugged, putting a cookie in his mouth and smiling around it. Spraying crumbs, he said, “We had pizza for lunch.”

  “Good man,” Dale said, banging Davey on the back. He leaned forward and popped the top off a beer. “Katerina, did you bring cups?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “And cookies.” I set them all down on the low table made from a huge old tree and sat down next to Davey. “We brought you extra because you’re biggest. Sir.”

  Dale suddenly threw his head back and laughed his barking laugh. Sometimes he did that. Then he settled into his gravelly hack, pounded on his chest with his fist, turned his head to the side, and spat. “Heh,” he said. “Heh.” He shook his head, smiling as he poured a few sips of beer into my and Davey’s cups. Esau got a whole beer. Dale got as many as he wanted, because they were his, after all.

  We sat there peacefully with our beer and cookies, munching. Davey got the fuzz up his nose.

  “Report!” Dale barked. “Esau first. Out of respect for the dead.”

  We all bowed our heads at the mention of Arnold. Dale had taught us not to cross ourselves, it was Catholic.

  “First period!” Esau barked back. “Mathematics! Superior performance on Tuesday’s test! It was an easy test, though,” he said apologetically.

  “No matter. A superior performance is always required regardless of duty.” Dale stood up and walked to the back room of the basement, where we were not allowed to go. He came back and handed Esau a dull green cap. “Well done.” He sat back down. “Proceed.”

  “Second period! Gym, sir,” Esau said grimly.

  “And?”

  Suddenly light spilled down the stairs.

  “Down the hatch!” Dale whispered, and the three of us tipped our beers back. “Turn in your supplies!” he hissed, and we passed our cups and Esau’s bottle over. “All right! Move out! Into the back room! Follow me!” He stood up and, bent over at the waist, scuttled around the corner. We, bending over, followed suit.

  The four of us stood breathing in the damp dark.

  “Does she know you’re here?” came Dale’s hushed voice.

  “Our bikes are out back,” Esau whispered.

  “Damn! Dammit. Next time, walk, soldiers! You got legs, last I looked.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Esau said.

  “S’all right. She’s gonna have my hide. Davey, c’mere.”

  There was a thumping and something got knocked over with a crash.

  “Jesus Christ, Davey! Watch where you’re going! That was a gun, for Chrissakes!”

  “I can’t see!” Davey said plaintively.

  “Whaddaya mean, you can’t see?”

  Donna’s voice came down the stairs. “Hello? Dale? Are you down there? You better say no, I’ll tell you right now.”

  Panicking, Davey yelled, “No!”

  There was a terrible silence.

  “Davey?” Donna called with frightening calm. “Is that you?”

  “What do I say?” Davey whispered, frantic.

  “Say yes, for God’s sake! She don’t think it’s me!” Dale replied.

  “Yes!” Davey called.

  “What are you doing down there?” she called. We’d had a pact never to tell her or our mom where we went on our after-school expeditions.

  “We’re just talking!” Davey yelled, his voice shrill.

  “We?” The stairs started to creak.

  “Shit!” Dale said. “All right.” He herded us into the tiny closet of a bathroom, shutting the door behind us. “Latch it!” he whispered. And he went out to meet his wife.

  We stood crowded around the toilet, looking up at the pipes. The slats around the toilet pressed us in on four sides. Finally, Davey sat down on the toilet to make more room.

  “What the hell’s going on down here?” we heard Donna demand.

  “Not a thing,” Dale said, his voice flat. We heard the refrigerator door open and close, and the spit of a bottle top coming off. Then the thin metallic ting of the cap being tossed to the concrete floor. “Not that you trouble yourself to be around much to know.” The couch’s broken springs squealed under his weight.

  We heard nothing for a moment. Then, Donna said, “Where are they?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jesus Christ, you sonofabitch.” She sounded calm, like they were just having a regular conversation. “Where in the fuck are the kids?”

  “Watch your language, woman. Isn’t fitting.”

  “Oh, go to hell, Dale. Just tell me where Davey and the others are and I’ll let you sit here and drink your sorry self into a puddle, don’t matter none to me what you do with your time. Ain’t like you got a job to be at.”

  The springs squealed again, followed by a sound like a firecracker. Davey jumped and grabbed my hand.

  Donna laughed.

  “That’s the best you can do?” she asked. “You gonna hit me for saying what I see? All right. I see one sorry motherfucker drinking himself to death when he’s got two babies and a wife to take care of, that’s what I see. I see some crazy motherfucker who can’t get it up to—don’t! Git off me!”

  We burst out of the bathroom to find Dale wrestling Donna to the ground, the two of them grappling on the floor. “Dale, stop! The kids!” Donna yelled.

  Dale turned his head and was on his feet in an instant, backing away from her, his palms flat out to her. He was red faced and his hair fell over his eyes. “No harm,” he said, breathing hard and tossing his hair back like a restless horse. “No harm.”

  The three of us stood there and watched Donna get up off the floor. She stood with her hands on her hips, the left side of her face burning red.

  “What’re you doing here, anyway?” she asked.

  Davey shouted, startling everyone, “I live here! He’s my dad! I live here!”

  Donna stared at him. Then she looked at Dale, though she was speaking to Davey. “No you don’t. You pack yourself some things and be at Claire’s in time for
supper.” Now she looked at Davey. “Don’t you make me come get you. ’Cause I will.” She looked back at Dale. “And you won’t like that.”

  “Damn right,” Dale mumbled. He sank down onto the couch and tipped his beer back.

  He raised his beer to her retreating back as she went up the stairs.

  He looked at us. His eyes were sad. He patted the couch next to him and we all piled on.

  “Tell you one thing,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t get along so good, but I sure did love your momma. Time was, I’ll tell you.” He put his arm on the back of the couch and petted Davey’s head. “I sure did.” He looked at Davey to see how he took this. “Easy to love a woman,” he said. “Not so easy, getting her to love you. See how it is?”

  Davey, glaring at his lap, finally nodded. I took his hand.

  “Want a new beer?” Dale said, standing up and going to the fridge.

  It was late fall. That day, it had snowed, fat flakes that clung to the grass and pavement when they touched down, then disappeared. At recess, we had chased them, grasping at them as if they were butterflies. When we came out of school, Esau was there at his usual post by the telephone pole, his face turned up to the sky, his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

  “Hiya,” I said as we approached, startling him. He stared down at us as if he was seeing us from a long way away.

  “Almost winter,” he said.

  Davey and I stood there holding our books.

  “Yeah, so?” I said.

  Esau shrugged and turned away, starting down the sidewalk toward home. “Just saying,” he said.

  Mom and Frank were still going on dates. Esau and Davey and I had stepped up our plans accordingly. We figured if they were going to keep on dating like this, it could only lead to one thing. That night, Mom paced in circles in the living room.

  “Mom, no offense, but you’re making me a little anxious,” Esau said, not looking up from his book. “Nothing serious, but a little and I wish you would sit down.”

  Mom sat down on the couch. “What time is it?” she asked.

  Esau looked at his watch. “Five-oh-four.”