The Household Spirit (18 page)

They stood in the kitchen together. Emily put down her hood.

Put it back up again.

She looked at the stones, and Howie at Emily, and both thought, and not without good reason, that the other was far more gone than they'd previously imagined possible.

S
o he was friends with rocks. Probably he had conversations with rocks, had rocks round for lunch. They looked happy at least, Emily thought, and then she noticed an old computer on the floor in front of the refrigerator, plus a toaster, phone, wires. The telephone had been ostentatiously unplugged.

Emily turned her back to the room.

The reflection of the kitchen inside the window above the sink. It was the ghost of her kitchen. She poured herself another glass of water, relaxing, momentarily, inside the comfy, blanket-like sound the water made coming from the faucet. There was a continuum in that sound, one that stretched back to Peppy and childhood safety. The same metal sink, too. The same water.

Mr. Jeffries wore a tucked-in white dress shirt and shapeless L.L.Bean chinos. On his feet, dressy, tasseled JCPenney shoes. Like he was just about to go to work. In 1982. Emily had to use the bathroom. She felt woozy, hypnotized; she coughed. She sipped warm water. Coughed.

The kitchen smelled nice, actually. Like smoke, soil, and…

I just burned down my house
.

Emily rushed toward the other window. But it gave her nothing but her own reflection, not just her house but everything out there was gone, voided, only the reflection of Mr. Jeffries behind her.

He said, “It's OK.”

The voice almost belonged to a teenage boy. It was feathery. It did not fit his face. She saw him put his hand to his mouth, as if in acknowledgment of this fact. It was easier for both of them to talk to each other's reflection in the window.

“My house,” Emily said.

“The fire is out. Everything is wet. I'm sorry.”

“How did I get here?”

Howie did not want Emily to know that he had touched her. He said, carefully, quietly, “You came to the door.”

“I did?”

“You fell asleep on my sofa.”

“I don't remember.”

“I think your electricity is blown.”

“What happened?”

“There was a fire.”

“I
know
.”

“OK.”

Pause.

“Did you call the fire department, Mr. Jeffries?”

He shook his head. He could not explain it. “The fire was already out. You put it out with a garden hose.”

“You put it out with a garden hose?”

“I did not.”

“What are you talking about? I need to go. I need to get out of here.”

“OK.”

Next to the stones on the table was a digital clock the shape of the shark from
Finding Nemo
. There was a goldfish in a jar next to a microwave. The sun would be rising soon; the crickets had become birds.

Emily was trembling. “I think I need to sit down,” she said.

“I have a chair,” Mr. Jeffries said, sadly. “But it's not here.”

In spite of everything, Emily smiled. There were, of course, no kitchen chairs around the kitchen table.

He said, “Would you like some scrambled eggs?”

“What?”
Like, instead of a chair?

Emily turned and faced Mr. Jeffries, finally. She seriously needed to pee.

Mr. Jeffries winced, looked at his tiny, tasseled feet. He said, “Do you like ginger ale?”

—

Emily fell asleep in front of the TV. Howie had given her a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and a glass of ginger ale, but she hadn't exactly seemed conceptually aware of them, cocooned, as she was, inside the Private Nathanial P. Sounes memorial afghan on Howie's sofa. She had moved the painting and turned the TV on all by herself.

Moments after Howie had brought her the food, Emily had begun blinking her eyes, once, twice, three times, and then they remained closed, almost midblink, one arm jutting from the afghan clutching the spoon.

Emily wore a gold wedding band on her ring finger. It looked, Howie thought, almost exactly like his ex-wife's ring. It was disconcerting. Her hand, too, could have been his ex-wife's hand, but when was the last time he had really examined a woman's hand up close? There were probably more similarities than differences.

Maybe she did not care for ginger ale.

Howie went back to the kitchen for a glass of water, warm, the way she liked it. He left the TV on, the History Channel it looked like, a documentary about Nostradamus and ancient aliens, and then Howie went upstairs. For the first time in years he closed the bedroom door behind him. The house felt muzzled and questioning. Howard, what are you doing?

Good question.

The next morning she was gone. Motionless at the top of the stairs, Howie listened; he was, as they say, all ears. He listened with his skin, feeling for vibrations through his feet and his hand, which gripped the railing as if his house could, at any moment, lurch violently
to the left. The silence of his house became a racket, a wreckage of small sounds that Howie found himself parsing through for signs of Emily Phane, awake, asleep, deceased. He thought that he would know what a dead neighbor sounded like if he heard one.

The clock clunked.

The refrigerator brrrrrrrrrr'd, and there, another car passing outside on Route 29. In the sky an airplane or a long, slow pull of thunder. A dead neighbor would sound like a clock not clunking.

It was 9:34 a.m. The TV was off. Howie hadn't exactly slept, but Harri's painting had kept him good company.

He descended the stairs.

—

Howie looked out the living room window. Nothing. He walked to the kitchen and looked out the kitchen window. Emily was in her backyard.

Before leaving she'd moved the bowl of cereal, napkin, and water to the kitchen counter. Howie realized how odd his piles of stones must have looked. Standing safely back from the window, he watched her remove the plants from her house to where her garden used to be. She appeared to be replanting the ones with broken pots; the others she lined up like an audience or army. This was inappropriate. You should not be watching this. Howie had to be at work soon. But that would mean leaving his house, going to his car, and Emily would see him and probably say something. She would have to say something, and so would he.

Howie called in sick.

His manager, Bill Morrow, laughed. It was understood, acceptable. Howie'd sure had the shit partied out of him, hadn't he?

“Oh, yes,” Howie said. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem, my man. Sleep it off and we'll see you tomorrow. Once every ninety years, right? You earned it.”

“OK.”

He went upstairs to his spot by the bathroom window and
watched a little longer. Just to make sure. But make sure what? He did not exactly know. The plants seemed threatening. The roof might collapse. Something might leak, explode.

Twenty minutes later, Emily was inside her house. She did not reemerge.

Howie lay down; his room was dusky, cool. Nothing exploded. He'd closed his bedroom door again. The windows in his bedroom were always covered; they'd been blinded for as long as he could remember. He placed
Fishing the Adirondacks
on his chest. It was his alibi for being back in bed and fully clothed before noon. In case folks wondered. He stared upward, allowing himself a momentary seethe against the spider-like magnificence of his ex-wife's dead grandmother's chandelier. He had leaned Harri's painting against the wall. Sometimes he looked at that too, but only once every twenty minutes. He wanted to savor it. He did not want his staring to erode any of the fresh, happy love he felt every time he saw it. Howie imagined where in the painting he would hide if it were winter and Indians were after him, until he really began to feel as if he were hiding inside the painting. Then he fell asleep.

For a long while after napping, Howie thought about going downstairs and plugging the computer back in, seeing if Drew had posted any photographs from the surprise stone anniversary party to Facebook. But Emily might be watching from her window, waiting for him. Howie allowed himself to consider his daughter in the manner that Drew had urged him to consider his daughter. He considered telling Harri that he could no longer give her or New York City any more money, but, then, why couldn't he? Certainly he could. He would. Should. Not only did he not need the majority of his monthly salary—the mortgage of the house was long since paid off, his car, everything—but in his cupboard Howie had his Folgers decaf can with well over ten thousand dollars. Really, what did Drew suppose him to do? Howie didn't prove points. Points either were or they weren't, no need proving them, and his boat savings was not nearly as important to Howie as his daughter's happiness.
Worse came to worst, couldn't Howie get Harri to add a boat to her painting? That might suffice. Of course, he wanted to know why she had lied to her mother and Drew, and though the lie wasn't serious, it was strange. Maybe he didn't want to know. Frankly, part of him was pleased that his ex-wife thought that Harri spent so much quality time with him on Route 29. It was almost like it was true. There was a phone next to his bed. He could call Harri and ask her. The least he could do was thank her for the painting. Instead, he went downstairs to make sandwiches, two, both salami, which he brought upstairs and ate in bed.

In this manner, Howie spent nearly the entire day upstairs.

—

Close to nightfall, he heard something. Someone was knocking on his front door. Then that door opened. “Hello? Mr. Jeffries? Hello?”

Howie held his breath, began paging through
Fishing the Adirondacks
. Then he put that down, got up, and went to his bedroom door. He opened it. He said, “Hello.”

“It's me, it's Emily!”

Howie said, “It's Howie.”

Fool, he thought.

He heard Emily laugh. “Can I come in?”

Howie walked to the top of the stairs. “OK,” he said.

“OK?”

Emily stood at the bottom of the stairs. She smiled; she had changed her clothing. She was holding a tray of what looked like brownies. “I'm sorry,” she said. Nervously, she looked behind her. “Well, I made these for you but…,” she continued. “You know, like a thank-you. But my oven is electric. No electricity. I thought maybe—?”

“Come in,” Howie said. Though Emily was already very obviously inside his house.

She looked behind her again. She laughed. She said, “Plus, the lights don't work. My living room is kind of flooded.”

“I'm sorry.”

“So these are for you. I know it's weird, but do you mind if I bake them in your oven?”

Howie said, “No.”

They stared at each other. Howie knew how ambiguous his no sounded, but he was too paralyzed to do anything but wait and hope that she understood. No, I do not mind if you bake brownies for me in my oven. She did not understand. She said, “Well, all right then.” She said, “Good-bye then,” waved, and walked back out the front door.

—

An hour later, Howie stood on Emily's front porch. It was night. He saw through her window.

Halloween had been Howie's least favorite holiday. His parents had forced him to dress up as something frightening, go out, get out, be a normal kid for once. Have a little fun. Little Howie, alone, standing before his neighbors' doors, too terrified to make himself known, waiting sometimes ten, twenty minutes for some other rural monsters to come up behind him, ring the bell, shout, “Trick or treat!” He would silently mouth along, get his treats, go.

“Well, buddy, how'd you make out?” Howie's father, Guy, sitting in front of the TV, in the dark. His father always made to get up when Howie entered the house; he would put his arms on the sofa's cushions, rise slightly, maybe three inches, a show of intent, a full body nod, then he'd let himself plop back down. It was an acknowledgment of Howie's presence, somewhere between a hello and a hug. “Are we good?” he would always ask.

“We're OK,” Howie would say, and go to his room, putting his hard-earned treats in the drawer for later.

Howie knocked on Emily Phane's door.

“Mr. Jeffries?” Emily said. But she didn't open the door. She blew out the candles, which was probably the safest thing to do, considering. “Is that you, Mr. Jeffries?”

“Hello,” Howie said. He waited.

“Mr. Jeffries?”

“Yes,” he said. “I'm right here.”

“I know you are. What do you want, Mr. Jeffries?”

“Hello,” he said again.

The door opened. Emily's house smelled of smolder, dog, chemical melt. “Hello,” she said.

“I think it might be unsafe for you,” Howie began.

“What, how?”

“I mean to say,” Howie said. “I mean, if you like, you can stay at my house until your house is fixed. The electricity and water damage. You can stay in Harri's room.”

Emily, suddenly a little freaked out, said, “Who is Harry?” Oh my God did he think that he lived with someone named Harry?

“My daughter,” Howie explained. Then, “She doesn't live with me anymore.”

“Yeah, oh,” Emily said. She shook her head, almost laughed. She stepped out of her house. “You really don't mind, Mr. Jeffries?”

“I don't.”

“Just for a night or two.”

“OK.”

Emily did not know how much she wanted out of her house until that moment. Her eyes filled with tears. The summer air was perfect.

They walked to his house. Down her driveway, side-by-side, silently, a right on Route 29, and another right up his driveway to his front door, which Howie knocked upon.

“Mr. Jeffries,” Emily said. “I don't think that you're home.”

Howie covered his face with his hand, trying to push his own smile, laugh, whatever it was, back down inside his mouth. Emily Phane opened the front door and he followed her into his living room.