Dream House
Authors: Catherine Armsden
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Catherine Armsden.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-9905370-6-9
Interior design by Rose Wright.
Jacket design by Andy Carpenter and Rose Wright.
This book has been set in Berkeley Oldstyle Book.
Published by Bonhomie Press, an imprint of Yellow Pear Press, LLC.
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1
For my sisters, Gay and Beverley and for Lewis, Elena and Tobias Butler
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Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts
â
serious, sad thoughts
â
and not to dreams.
Gaston Bachelard,
The Poetics of Space
O
n a mean Maine day in April, the house could only stand and wait. Sleet shushed against its walls; bare branches scoured its windows. Only two hours earlier, the day had been mild, bathed in a harsh white light unabated by leaves that would come in May. The promise of spring had seduced crocuses out of the earth and gardeners pushing wheelbarrows from their sheds. After lunch, a vicious storm barreled in, whipping the village of Whit's Point as if in punishment.
In the cellar of the house, the furnace groaned to keep up with the dropping temperature. Rooms were warm despite the inhospitable weather and still breathing with the evidence of their inhabitants, who'd left the house in some haste, expecting to be back within the hour. The bathroom light had been left on, a wet towel forgotten on the bed. The smoky aroma of bacon filled the kitchen where a slice of bread and a stick of butter sat out on the table. Tea bags slumped in two cups of cold water. The sink faucet, which lately required extra attention, dripped water into the bowl beneath it.
The only sign that leaving had been intentional was the blaring TV
â
a precaution taken to keep unheard-of burglars at bay. To a robber, the house might have seemed an unworthy target: small and stylistically unremarkable, a typical early nineteenth-century box with a steep, gabled roof and clapboards badly in need of paint. Four rooms were downstairs,
four rooms up, a single bathroom, and a pieced-together kitchen. In the comfortable, slightly crowded rooms, unfussy antiques mingled with simple, modern furniture. Several small oil paintings of landscapes and people doing quiet, ordinary things adorned the walls. Wool rugs and linen slipcovers in soft shades of green, tan, and amber showed the weariness common in houses of country retirees; certain stains persisted until they finally went unnoticed. Despite its humble first impression, to those not in a robber's rush the house might have revealed an undeniable elegance, a hint of something more. If one were to open the antique mahogany box on the living room table, one could behold unexpected treasures
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bits of history that auction houses might have taken an interest in. And there were the very old and crazed oil portraits, their size and their subjects' patrician noses too imposing for any room except the tall, narrow stair hall.
Two hours had passed. Still, the inhabitants had not returned. The ship's clock in the living room chimed on the hour; a second later, the lighthouse clock in the kitchen tooted in imitation of one famous lighthouse or another. TV soaps came on, their depiction of humanity mirroring the weather's rage. With no one home to switch them off, accusations and proclamations disturbed the house's coziness
â
though this was nothing new to these rooms.
Another hour, then another. On the table, the bread hardened; the butter softened and turned a deeper shade of yellow. The bowl beneath the leaky faucet was nearly full. Dampness from the wet bathroom towel penetrated the blanket and then the bedsheets. By five-thirty, a layer of ice made the front steps dangerous. Rooms darkened. The automatic timer under the living room table turned another notch and a lamp snapped on. Without the usual evening thermostat adjustment, the furnace lost its battle with the plunging temperature, and the air inside dipped to sixty-five degrees.
On TV
,
it was time to assess the day. Later there would be broadcasts from the Middle East and the White House, but first, local news and weather: school closings and an approval for an expansion of the outlet mall, an award for a courageous firefighter.
Another gust
â
the house shuddered; storm windows rattled. The news moved on, as did the storm. Robbed of its inhabitants, the house could only stand and wait.
Two days passed before a friend trusted with a house key came in and turned off the TV. She emptied the garbage, washed the dishes, and threw out the butter. She cranked tight the kitchen faucet and clicked off the bathroom light. After some hesitation, she watered the geraniums wintering in the kitchen window, and the potted cyclamen and chrysanthemums. She looked around to be sure everything was in order. On her way out, she turned the thermostat down to fifty-four. She locked the door and checked it twice.
A few evenings later, she drove by and peered up the driveway. She thought she saw a faint light coming from the house. “Only your imagination, Annie,” she told herself. In fact, every day at five thirty, the timer beneath the table would set the lamp ablaze. As if the house were reminding the world: I am still here. As if it had a life of its own.
Contents
Now I don't yet know why houses have so much grief concealed in them if they try to be anything at all and try to live as themselves. But they do. Like people in this I suppose.
Frank Lloyd Wright,
Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography
On a rainy Sunday night one week after her parents' car skated off the road into the woods, Gina Gilbert pounded and kicked the old front door that had swelled against the jamb until it suddenly gave way, pitching her, soggy and luggage-laden, into the tiny entry hall of her childhood home.
Her sister, Cassie, stepped inside behind her. The chime of the ship's clock greeted them, followed by the sad moan of the lighthouse clock.
“Cape Ann,” Cassie said. “Ten o'clock.”
“It smells horrible in here,” Gina said.
The fat, blue ceramic lamp on the living room table was already on, its wide shade standing sentry over a collection of framed family photographs. Gina squinted to shut out the room. The cold, early darkness and crowded, closed-up rooms were the lesser reasons she'd come back here only in the summers since moving to California thirteen years ago. Tonight, the sepia-toned lamplight was not just forlorn but tinged with death. Gina's legs threatened to fold under her. “Cass,” she said, “I think I'm going to bed.”
Cassie touched her arm. “It's still early. We'll be okay. We're here together. Besides, I made us some applesauce cake.”
Gina draped her wet coat on top of Cassie's on the newel post and followed her sister through the living room to the kitchen.
“It smells even worse in here,” Cassie said. “Skunky and like something is rotting.” She pulled the string that switched on the ceiling light. The hodge-podge kitchen, which doubled as the laundry room, filled with a harsh glow.
“Oh, God.
Look.
” Gina pointed to mice droppings on the floor. “They've moved in already.”
Finding the garbage can empty, they checked the cupboards for spoiled food without uncovering the source of the odor. Cassie sliced up the applesauce cake and handed a piece to Gina on a napkin. She ate dutifully. “Yum,” she said.
“I actually made the applesauce for itâfrom Macintosh apples,” Cassie said. “Comfort food.”
Cassie's momentary perkiness faltered in recognition of this current absurdity; she looked as pale and defeated as Gina felt. The sisters shared a crooked smile, small features, and delicate skin that tanned easily. At five-foot-two, Cassie was four inches shorter than Gina, but her broad-shouldered athleticism buttressed her role as older sister, which, at fifty, she still took very seriously.
When the teakettle whistled, Cassie pulled two herbal teabags from her purse and Gina understood they'd be sitting down together at the old pine table in the foul air. There they ping-ponged practicalities: bills, insurance, pensions, auction, flowers, canceling this, ordering that, boxes, trucks. Gina had traveled all day from San Francisco and as soon as Cassie had her in the car at Logan Airport she'd hit her with the news that Mr. Hickle, their parents' landlord of fifty years, had called to tell them they had to be out of the house by the end of the month. The prospect of moving out on top of getting through the funeral nearly suffocated Gina.
Now, the stench in the room began to work on the food in her
stomach. “Something died,” she said.
Cassie looked at her blankly. Gina stood, opened the door to the small shed built off the kitchen, and gasped. A dead skunk lay just past the threshold, feet splayed out, a clear plastic cranberry juice bottle stuck on its head.
Behind her, Cassie barked, “Shut the door!”
“It's dead.”
For the first time all day, Gina felt alive. She insisted on taking care of the skunk herself, finding some rubber gloves under the sink and a pair of tin snips to cut the bottle off the skunk. She wrapped the animal in two old swimming towels from the shed and then walked through the rain to the garage, where she laid it on the floor. Should she bury it? she wondered. Did the town dump even take dead animals?
Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice was her mother's favorite. Gina imagined the skunk rummaging in her parents' recycling box that only got emptied every couple of weeks and then blundering around the shed terrified, possibly for days. Feeling a fresh surge of anger about human carelessness, she trudged back to the house.
Upstairs, Cassie was sitting on her childhood bed, her face glowing in the light from her computer. “Jake's Wi-Fi password still works,” she said, referring to the next-door neighbor.