Just One Thing (20 page)

I called Conner and Connie and asked if they could meet me at the house in Erie that Friday night. They both still had things there that they might want to claim. Plus, I thought this should be a family affair. We’d experienced so much between those walls. We should say good-bye together as well.

I got there early. Although we needed to do this as a family, I needed some time on my own there first.

Glenwood Hills was a lovely section of Erie, just south of Thirty-Eighth Street, one of the main roads through town. The houses were old and predominately brick. The streets were tree-lined. One of the neighbors had shoveled the sidewalk in front of the house and I stomped my way up the still snow-filled stairs.

I pulled the key from my purse and I realized that the keychain felt foreign. Once I’d used it daily, but it had languished in a drawer for so long it had lost that sense of familiar, much like this house itself. I remembered moments in it, but it had ceased feeling like home. The cottage was my home now.

I stood on the stoop, holding the key in my hand.

I’d unlocked this door thousands of times. I’d unlocked it while juggling anything from groceries to babies. I’d unlocked it in every type of weather, thankful for the overhang that sheltered the three steps up and the small stoop.

I slipped the key into the keyhole and turned it. It was a bit sticky, which made sense because it had sat unused for so long.

I put my coat and my boots on the same hook and same spot on the mat that I’d used for years.

I opened the door to the kitchen.

It looked like it always had except the refrigerator was unplugged and the door was propped open. I was surprised that the house wasn’t as dusty as I thought it would be. But there was an unfamiliar smell that spoke of disuse, whereas once the house had smelled of countless family meals, pans of brownies, and an occasional wet dog.

The house was silent, where once it had been filled with children’s noises. Screams, laughter, loud music.

For a house to be truly a home, there had to be people, smells, and sounds. This was just a house—an empty shell where once there’d been a home.

I stopped at the thermostat and turned up the heat when I went into the dining room; then I continued into the living room. Both looked the same. As if just yesterday the family had eaten dinner around that table, or I’d sat on one side of the couch with Lee on the other as we read or watched something on television.

I was just about to start up stairs, when I heard someone come in the side door. “Mom?” Conner yelled.

I went back into the kitchen as he came in. “You’re early.”

He grinned. “So are you.” Then my son, my joker, grew more serious. “We both figured you’d come early and didn’t want you to face this by yourself. Connie’ll be here soon. We didn’t want you to have to go through things alone.”

He took my hand in his and I looked at my son. In my mind’s eye, he’s still the little boy battling two sisters. Raging because they spied on him. Playing jokes that made them crazy.

That boy was gone. Now a man stood in his place. There was a lot of Lee in his son. The same blue eyes, but my dark hair. It had been lighter when he was young, but now, it was almost the same shade as mine and cut so short it was almost a crew cut.

“Well, since you’re here first, you can start.”

“What are we doing here tonight, Mom?”

“I want you both—”

The door opened again. Moments later Connie joined us. “It’s snowing. Good thing I’m crashing with you tonight, Mom. I wouldn’t want to drive back in that.”

“You do remember that heading south of Erie means more snow than here by the lake?” I teased.

“Yeah, but a half hour is a lot easier to face than two-and-a-half hours.”

“Mom was just telling me what she wants us to do here tonight.”

“I want you both to go through everything and anything. Take what you want. If you want furniture, we’ll make arrangements for that. I’m taking my personal items and my grandmother’s chair, but basically selling whatever else you two don’t take.”

“Mom . . .” they both said as one.

Before I had the kids, I’d have said that myth about twins completing each other’s sentences was just that—a myth. But my two Cons had taught me otherwise. Even though they were adults now and lived in different cities, they still managed to twin-speak on occasion.

“It’s time, kids. The house has been vacant for more than a year. I just realized recently that I don’t live here anymore. My home is the cottage. This is simply the house I used to live in. It’s filled with memories—both happy and sad. But it’s not mine anymore. It’s just a repository for those memories. And I don’t need something physical to hold on to those.”

They both looked concerned.

“This isn’t something sad. It’s me moving on. And I think you’d both agree, it’s about time.”

They looked at each other, and did their psychic-twin voodoo thing, then nodded.

“So where do we start?” Conner asked for them both.

“Let’s start down here.”

What might have been a sad thing turned out to be filled with happy nostalgia.

We went through the downstairs. There wasn’t much I took. Photos, mainly. My grandmother’s rocking chair. I loaded them all into the truck, thankful for the cap on the back.

Then we went upstairs. The kids each went to their rooms and I went into the room I’d shared for so many years with Lee. The room I’d used on my own while we were separated. The room he’d come back to.

I’d taken most of my clothes with me when I’d started staying at camp. There wasn’t much in the room I needed or wanted. My jewelry box. More pictures.

Then I spotted Lee’s ugly red sweater on the back of the chair. I’d hated that thing. It was baggy and tattered. I’d threatened to toss it out, but never had the nerve. He’d loved it and never saw a problem with wearing it out in public, but finally the kids ganged up on him with me and he agreed to just wear it around the house.

I put it on my small pile of keepsakes. Then left the room to find the kids. They were standing outside Gracie’s closed bedroom door.

“You can go in,” I told them.

Connie splayed her fingers against the door, below the small ceramic plaque that proclaimed,
GRACIE
’
S ROOM
. “It seems wrong, picking through her things.”

“She’d want you both to have something of hers.”

They still stood, frozen, so I opened the door and went in. The kids followed behind me.

Conner’s arms draped over both my shoulders and Connie’s. “I still miss her,” he said.

Connie walked over to Gracie’s bed and picked up a Cabbage Patch doll. “Britta Patty. She was my doll for all of two minutes; then Gracie stole her. She loved her more than I ever could.”

“Maybe you should take it. Someday you can give it to your daughter.”

Connie lifted up the corner of the mattress and pulled out a battered orange blanket. “Only if Conner takes her blankie. Do you remember when we went to Greenfield Village and spent the night at that hotel in Detroit? We got almost an hour toward home before Gracie remembered that she forgot Blankie.”

“Remembered she forgot?” Conner teased. Then he joined in the remembrance. “Dad was not pleased about having to drive back.”

That was an understatement and we all recognized that. Lee hadn’t wanted to drive back, but Gracie’s mounting hysteria finally convinced him. The ride had been a white-knuckle one for me, as he drove wildly back to Detroit.

“Take Blankie, Con. Someday you might get some woman drunk enough to agree to procreate with you—that’s the only way you’ll reproduce. But those kids should know about Gracie.”

They were sniping, as always, but I could tell that being in here, in Gracie’s room, moved them as much as it moved me. I fingered her bookshelf. “She was my biggest reader.”

I pulled out a book. “You two should take some of these.” The set of Chincoteague books was on the top shelf. I took them out and put them on the floor; then I pulled out another small stack. “
Belinda
,” I said, recognizing Gracie’s favorite book.

“
Belinda Mae
,” Connie corrected me with a small laugh. “Gracie sang that song for weeks,” Connie said. “B-E-L I-N-D A-M-A-E that is me. With Belinda Mae, then Sophia cannot win, Belinda Mae begin again.”

I opened the book and a piece of paper fell out.

I picked it up and my hand started to shake as I recognized the handwriting on the envelope:
Mom, Dad, Connie, and Conner
. “It’s from Gracie.”

The envelope was sealed, so I gently slid my finger underneath it to break the seal, pulled out a piece of notebook paper, and read aloud.

I’m not sure who found this, or how long it took you to find it, but I’m sure someday you will find it. And I am sure that you all will share it, so hello Mom, Dad, Connie, and Con.

I know you were sad when I died.

Yes, despite Mom’s attempt to remain upbeat, I know I’m going to die. Dad, when you took us to church a few weeks ago, the minister said something about how he tries to be happy about what he has, rather than sad about what he doesn’t. That stuck with me because I’ve had a wonderful life. I never doubted, not even for a minute, that you all loved me. And I have so many really great memories. Mom yelling at the three of us when she caught us on the garage roof. That time Mom got all sad ’cause we were growing up and so we took her to the zoo in order to make her think we weren’t really that old. Remember? The camels were having sex and Mom about had a heart attack, then quick as a minute, she told us that they were just trying to give each other piggyback rides. Mom, it was just last year. We were in our teens, and we all knew what sex was.

Mom, I put the letter in the book because I remember you reading it. I loved that song she used to spell her name, B-E-L I-N-D A-M-A-E that is me. And that time I had chicken pox, you read it to me over and over. And you made me my own song.

Amazing Gracie, has chicken pox, her face is itchy and red, but Mommy is here, and you are dear, so keep your butt in bed.

I didn’t realize you’d ripped off Amazing Grace until we were at church at camp and they sang it. I looked at you and we both burst out laughing.

And Dad,

I read the words, and choked up, realizing Lee wasn’t here to hear Gracie’s letter.

“Mom, they’re together now. He knows,” Conner said.

I nodded and went back to reading.