There were more papers in the box—some medical stuff, the payment book for the car that’d been gone forever, a few of my old report cards and some school papers where teachers wrote notes and said I was smart, a Mother’s Day card I’d probably made in day care or Head Start someplace. There was a little gold handprint inside a paper heart on the front of it. It was hard to picture my mama putting that card away in a safe place, like it mattered. Maybe it’d ended up in here by accident. Underneath it was a sheet of school pictures from back in middle school. Only one was cut out. It was probably still on the wall in Mrs. Lora’s classroom.
Underneath the school pictures were a few from the Christmas pageant at Mrs. Lora’s church, where I got to wear an angel suit, because I was tall. The pastor, Brother Ben, gave me the pictures when he took them off the bulletin board at the end of the year. I liked Brother Ben’s church. People were nice there. I got saved and everything.
I lifted a stack of bills, and under those was a little handmade book with a blue paper cover. I knew what it was without even pulling it out—the Someday Book from Mrs. Lora’s seventh-grade class. She gave us ten sheets of blue paper that were blank, except for three words:
Someday I will . . .
We had to fill in the rest and draw pictures. She told us to think hard, to dream big, to put down the things we most wanted to do. To make ten promises to ourselves, and when we were done, she’d bind them into a book. We were supposed to keep the book where we could look at it again and again.
When you look at a promise over and over, it becomes part of who you are
, she said.
Guess I’d lost track of my promises at some point, just like I’d lost track of the book. Now I couldn’t even remember what those promises were.
Underneath the blue paper promises was another book, an old one with a yellow satin cover that was stained brown around the edges. A baby book. The cloth felt dry and fragile under my fingers as I wiggled it from under the pile. It slid free, and something blue fell out, dropping into the side of the box. A plastic envelope—the kind that comes from Wal-Mart with photos in it. I picked it up, set it on the floor, then straightened the papers in the box so that they were flat again.
Boots clomped up the porch steps, and I jerked my hands away from the box, listening. The sound of keys rattling sent an air ball into my throat. Russ was back. For some reason, he hadn’t stayed out partying, after all.
Panic zipped through me. If Mama found out I’d been in here, I was dead. Shoving the photo envelope, the baby book, and the loose papers back in the shoe box, I hoisted the big box back into the closet, my hands sweating while I tried to wrestle stray shoes out from underneath, so it would sit flat. The locks on the front door were clicking now.
“Come on, c’mon, c’mon,” I whispered, trying to lift the big box and push the junk from underneath. Finally, it plunked into place, and I capped the shoe box, set it on top, then piled the clothes and shoes into the closet. The front door fell open and thumped against the end table, and I slid the closet closed just as Russ was dropping his keys and cell phone on top of the newspapers.
He started up the hall, and I checked the floor by the bed. Air caught in my throat. The Someday Book was still there. I kicked it under the bed, making sure nothing was showing before I moved toward the hall.
“What’re you doin’ up?” Russ grumbled, swaying a little when he looked down the hallway. “You got someone here with you?” His eyes narrowed toward my bedroom.
I yawned and stretched like I’d just woken up. “I heard a mouse.” It wasn’t until after I said it that I wished I hadn’t. Russ might look under the bed for the mouse. “I couldn’t find it, though.”
On the way down the hall toward me, he slid his Harley jacket off, yawning as I backed away from their bedroom so he could get in the door. “Go to bed, already. That mouse ain’t gonna hurt anything.”
“’Kay,” I said, watching the bed skirt shiver in the breeze as he passed by, the corner of a blue paper showing for just a second before the cloth fell into place and hid it again.
Chapter 3
J. Norman Alvord
I was no sooner home from my incarceration at the hospital than someone came rapping on the front door and ringing the bell.
“Be there in a minute,” Deborah called, guiding me toward the bedroom as one would an invalid or an inmate in chains.
“Whoever it is, tell them to go away,” I said. “I don’t want anyone here burning incense and saying prayers over me.” Even though it had been four months since Annalee’s death, neighbors still insisted on dropping by with invitations to domino nights at the senior center, or with servings of casserole and bowls of soup for one. This was a street of old-money families, and Annalee had made it her business to know everyone on it—a bridge club here, a ladies’ tea there, a baby shower three houses down, an Avon party at another place. She also saw to renting out the studio apartment over our garage building near the street, often sharing dinners and baked goods with the tenants. She’d spent so much time alone as I traveled the world for my work that she’d learned to be good with the neighbors—a skill I’d never bothered to cultivate.
“It’s the cleaning lady,” Deborah informed me flatly. “I told you she’d be coming on Monday.”
Indignance swirled within me like the fumes from a chemical reaction, leaking quickly into the room. “I told you I didn’t want anyone.” The topic hadn’t come up since Friday afternoon, when I’d landed in the hospital. It had slipped my mind during the plethora of conversations with doctors recommending that we try an internally implanted defibrillator, a pacemaker of sorts, as a way of preventing further heart spells. The doctor could not guarantee that such a surgery would fix my problem, but he thought it was worth a try. I, of course, had no intention of submitting myself to any more surgeries. What would be the point of that, now that Annalee was gone?
“Well, you’re having her,” Deborah said, bristling.
“I haven’t time to watch her.” I imagined the woman handling Annalee’s things, perhaps moving them, even breaking something. Annalee would never have wanted some hired woman carousing through our home. Even when we lived overseas, where domestic help could be had for a pittance, Annalee tended the house herself. She preferred it that way. “She’s probably one of those illegals. If we end up with a fine for hiring her, I won’t pay it.”
“Dad,
really
.”
Looping a finger around the bedroom curtain, I peeked outside, looking past our garage building, where an artist, Terrence Clay, was living now. There was no vehicle in the driveway or at the curb. Apparently, the housekeeper had come on foot or by city bus. What sort of a shady housekeeper didn’t own a vehicle? A ne’er-do-well. The sort with a dismal credit rating, the sort who spent all her money on alcohol, drugs, or lottery tickets.
The bell rang again.
I pushed my cheek to the glass in an effort to see who was on the front porch. “Tell her to go away and come back next week. By then I’ll have had time to put away the valuables.” The housekeeper stepped off the porch, shading her eyes against the late March sunshine and checking the house number. She hardly looked honest to me—a slight, small woman with dark, curly hair bound haphazardly in a clip. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, from which protruded the thin, leather-skinned arms of a lifetime cigarette smoker. She had the appearance of someone who might wait on your table at some out-of-the-way truck stop—not the sort you’d want roaming through your home. Not at all. “I don’t like her. Your mother would never have let a woman like that in this house.”
“How would you know?” Deborah muttered, then turned to leave the room. “You were never here.” Even now, Deborah faulted me for the fact that I had continued to take consulting jobs during my retirement years. Had I stayed home more, been more attentive, Deborah felt that I might have noticed Annalee’s dizzy spells and become aware that something was wrong.
“Well, tell her not to come in my room,” I called after her, and then moved to the bedroom door with the intention of closing it. “I’ll be resting.” Deborah didn’t reply, and so I added, as she disappeared up the hallway, “I certainly hope you’ll be staying around to supervise her.” Then I pushed the door to, shutting out the remainder of the house and the rest of the world.
I turned on the bedroom television, stripped off the clothing Deborah had brought to the hospital—a sweltering jogging suit that had probably been hanging unused in my closet for twenty years—and climbed into bed, suddenly weary of everything. If I couldn’t have sway over my home any longer, at least I could maintain control of my person. I could sleep away the afternoon, and let Deborah deal with this . . . this housewoman she’d hired. Surely Deborah wouldn’t leave her alone here if she knew I wasn’t supervising.
Lying in bed, I turned an ear toward the wall. I could hear the hum of conversation, but not the words. What were they talking about? What was Deborah telling her? I scooted across the bed, strained toward the sound, tried to make it out. Finally, I rose and put an ear to the wall. The words still weren’t clear. Deborah and the woman were in the foyer or the front parlor talking; I could tell that much. No work was being done so far. Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to settle on a price. Perhaps they hadn’t discussed the details previously.
What were they saying? Was Deborah telling her things about me? Untrue things? Making me sound like a dotty old man? I moved toward the door, turned the handle silently, stuck my head into the hallway, then crept out a few steps, pressing close to the wall like a Soviet spy gathering trade secrets in enemy territory. Perhaps Deborah’s bringing in the housekeeper was just one more way of building the evidence she would need to oust me from my home and force me into some warehouse for the criminally old.
“. . . isten to him,” Deborah was saying. “He’ll give you trouble, if he can. Just go ahead and do your work. I would say that he’s having a difficult time with the death of my mother, but he’s always been impossible to deal with.”
“I’m used to it.” The woman’s voice was listless, disinterested. “I clean for a lotta old people. I don’t let it bother me.”
“Perfect.” Deborah seemed delighted, disgustingly so. “I’d be willing to pay extra if you could cook supper for him on Mondays and make sure he eats a good meal. That would give me a night off.” The sentence ended in a dramatic sigh, indicating the breadth and depth of the daily burden I’d become. “Eventually, we need to work out something more . . . permanent, but for now I’m just trying to get through a day at a time.”
The woman sucked air past her teeth, the hesitant sound one makes in order to up the ante while bargaining in an open-air market on the far side of the world. “I go into work with the janitorial service at four thirty . . . or I’d do it. I could use the money.”
Of course she could. Of course she could use the money. What had I tried to tell Deborah? A ne’er-do-well, for certain.
“Well, it was an idea.” Deborah’s disappointment was obvious. “I’ll just have to—”
“I got a daughter who could do it. She turned sixteen last month, so she’s lookin’ for work. Needs something to keep her busy after school. She’s a nice girl. Makes good grades—smart at math and stuff. Good cook, too. She helped take care of the lady who rented to us at the last place we lived. A teacher. Got down with diabetes. Epiphany stayed with her and helped when she was sick.”
To her credit, Deborah hesitated. Obviously, some teenager coming and going from my house was out of the question. As soon as I had the chance, I’d let Deborah know in no uncertain terms that I was perfectly capable of feeding myself.
“That sounds perfect.”
My skin flamed at Deborah’s answer. The gall!
“I could have her come more than just Mondays, if you want. She’s got time, and her school’s just up the road a few blocks.”
Certainly not.
Not even once per week. I had no need of a babysitter, teenage or otherwise; nor did I intend to tolerate one. The housekeeper was affronting enough. Any more of Deborah’s spies coming and going from my house, and I’d have no control over my life at all.
“I’ll tell you what. Since you’re here on Mondays, you could just leave a supper plate for him to warm or a sandwich. Why don’t we start with your daughter coming Tuesdays and Thursdays to cook and maybe take care of the dishes in the kitchen and whatnot? That’ll give me a few days a week to catch up on work and such. Since Mother died, it seems like I’m behind in every possible way, and . . .”
At that point, I’d had quite enough of my daughter and some woman making plans for me, as if I were a child. “Now, just one minute, young lady!” I protested, and was up the hallway in several quite determined strides. A somewhat breezy feeling caught the corner of my mind, but in the heat of anger, I did not let it deter me from my mission. I burst into the living room with a finger pointed. “I will not tolerate your making arrangements such as these without consulting me. I am not an invalid. I do not need a housekeeper, or someone to cook for me, and . . .”
“Daddy!” Deborah gasped, twisting in the wing chair. The housekeeper was poised on the sofa with her mouth agape. Deborah’s eyes widened, taking me in from head to toe, and it was at roughly that juncture that I recognized myself to be standing there in my union suit. A reflection watched me from the glass of the china cabinet across the room—long, thin legs protruding from droopy blue boxer shorts, a midsection in the general shape of an olive, and toothpicklike arms protruding from a tank-style T-shirt. I’d lost a great deal of weight in these months without Annalee. I’d been avoiding mirrors.