Chapter 36
— Chapter 36 —
There’s a bucket labeled Ice Melt in the basement, but the salt has solidified. I haul it to the driveway and chip into it with the back of Step’s hammer, trying to make a safe path for Bee.
The sun is starting to break through the clouds. Everything is encased in ice: the pine needles, the red buds of maple trees just about to sprout leaves, power lines, asphalt, the wood pile, Step’s car. Everything shines when the sun hits. Everything is dripping.
I fall on my ass more than once trying to pour salt out of the bucket, and even though I’m healed, the impact sparks in my appendix scar and makes me queasy.
Jam walks around from the backyard in his own clothes—still wet from last night. We should have hung them by the fire instead of leaving them in a soggy pile on the bathroom floor.
“I’m gonna go,” he says, nodding in the direction of the hill.
“You sure?”
“I have to find out if our old maple tree fell on the roof. Suspense is killing me. And my dad probably called the house line a bunch by now.”
“Yeah, you should check in so he doesn’t worry,” I say. I don’t think either of us believe his dad has called, but he deserves the dignity of my buy-in.
“I’ll come back later,” he tells me, in a tone that leaves me wondering if later is today or three days from now.
“I’m sorry. She’s Aubrey’s guidance counselor.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “I should just get over all of it, shouldn’t I?”
“Nah. That seems like a lot of effort.” I grin.
Jam laughs. “What if the rage is what keeps us alive?”
“Probably is. What if we get over all that old shit and then we just deflate?”
Jam waves his hands overhead, like one of those red inflatable tube guys outside a used car lot, and then starts to wither as if he’s losing air.
“Exactly,” I say.
He hugs me hard, kisses my neck. We both smell like woodsmoke.
“I fucking love you, man,” he says.
“I fucking love you too,” I say. “Thanks for staying with us.”
He looks surprised at my thanks, and his eyes are so sad. I don’t think he trudged through the storm to check on me and Aubrey. I think he needed us. And his need brought us comfort. And that’s okay too.
“I’ll come by later,” I offer.
“Yeah,” he says. “Good.”
He walks on the grass to the end of the driveway, then follows the crumbled asphalt at the side of the road. Just as he’s crested the hill, disappearing from sight, Bee drives around the corner from the other direction and pulls into the driveway.
Aubrey added logs to the fire, so Bee joins us in our nest of blankets. We drink coffee that’s blazing hot and eat warm salt bagels that were split and spread with inches of lox cream cheese. I wonder how much the food you’re raised on sets a baseline in your soul. I have not had a real bagel with a New York amount of cream cheese since I left. It is a shock of salt and fat that seems unreasonable for the briefest of moments, but then I get lost in the pure joy of too much.
“This house feels weird without all the stuff,” Bee says, looking around the room.
Coriolanus licks cream cheese off the paper wrapper from Aubrey’s bagel. I break a piece off the unsalted side of my bagel and hand it to Lenny Juice through the bars of his cage so he won’t get jealous.
“And with the whole menagerie you’ve got.” Bee looks at Aubrey. “Oh, man! Do you remember when Mr. Gioletti lost his rat? Poor janitor spent a whole weekend trying to track that thing down.”
Aubrey doesn’t look up from the cat. I don’t think Bee was trying to make any kind of point beyond idle conversation, but as a flush creeps up Aubrey’s neck, Bee claps her hand to her forehead and laughs.
“Really? Really?”
Aubrey shakes her head. “I had to. He was miserable.”
“Good for you,” Bee says, shielding her eyes. “I didn’t see him. I wasn’t here in this house with this contraband kid and her contraband rodent! You didn’t see me.”
I lean over, bumping into Bee. “Shit, what’s that, Aubrey?” I say. “No one else is here.”
Aubrey laughs like a little kid.
Bee looks at me, blinking like she’s trying not to cry.
Later, Shray comes to get Aubrey because the power is back at his house. “You and Ms. Shulman are invited too, Aunt Frey,” he says while he waits for Aubrey to grab fresh clothes. “My dad wanted me to make sure you know you’re always welcome.”
For a moment I think he’s inviting Bee’s mom to his house, and then I realize he’s talking about Bee. I keep forgetting that she’s a big serious grown up.
“Dada is making soup,” he tells us. “And my mom said there’s plenty of clean towels if you want a hot shower.”
The divine concept of hot water and clean hair is in complete discord with the awkwardness I’d feel bathing in Ravi’s house—of going to Ravi’s house unbathed.
Thankfully, Bee jumps in to say, “Maybe we’ll stop by later?”
Aubrey gives Bee a quick hug and then hugs me so hard I can barely breathe. “Thanks for keeping me safe. It was… fun.”
“Anytime,” I say. “All the time.”
Moments after they leave, the doorbell rings. The lights flicker and then come on completely. I hear the furnace click and the radiators gurgle back to life.
“Alright! Now we get to work!” Bee says. “My dad had a whole list of things to check after a storm, and I think I remember most of them.”
We start in the basement. The sump pump basin is empty, but the concrete is wet all the way to the top. It must have flipped on as soon as the power came back.
“Keep checking this,” Bee says. “Most of the rain froze, but when it melts, it could make problems.”
We look at the furnace and the breaker box, but we’re not sure how a problem would present.
“I guess it’s good that nothing’s obvious,” Bee says.
“I can ask Jam,” I say, waving my fingers at my head. “Electricity makes sense to him.”
We walk around the yard, feet breaking through the ice to wet grass beneath. The toolshed is still standing. My favorite pine tree is just fine. Beyond the deer fence, there’s a toppled birch tree, roots torn from the ground. I wish I could replant it, prop it up with scaffolding, but the ice that encased the roots after the fall probably killed it and there’s nothing to be done. The tree will rot down to dirt eventually. It’s not mine to worry about anyway.
The swamp only froze at the edges. At the center, the water is still, reflecting the glassy tree branches hanging low from the weight of the ice.
“I always loved your yard. Like its own world,” Bee says. “I’m glad you had this, at least.”
Inside, we check every windowsill on the first floor and make sure the water is running. Bee flushes the toilet. “I don’t know why my dad did that,” she says. “But he always did.”
There’s a little water on the windowsill in Steena’s room, so we mop it up and figure out where I’ll need to caulk it once it’s dry again.
Aubrey’s room is fine. The upstairs toilet flushes no problem, but once the swish of water slows to silence, we hear what sounds like someone tapping a pen on a desk. We stand still to listen. It’s coming from my parents’ bedroom.
I let Bee go in first because I’m scared to look.
“Well, shoot,” she says.
There’s a large bubble in the sheetrock, looming at the corner of the ceiling, leaking water from the lowest part, like an indoor rain cloud. The dresser is splattered, dark finish turned white where moisture stayed; water has pooled into the waves I carved, the bare wood in those crevices starting to yellow. On the carpet, a darker beige spot is spreading across the room.
“No no no!” I cover my eyes, pressing my palms against my cheekbones, like I might be able to keep my head from exploding if I push hard enough. All the panic leaks out anyway. I sit on the floor in the hallway, where the carpet is still dry for now. “How did I think I could take care of Aubrey? I’ve basically kidnapped her to live in squalor.”
Bee grabs my wrists, pulls my hands away from my face. “Okay, okay. Look at me.” She’s calm, resolute. “Firstly, you didn’t kidnap her. She was here before you, when this house was much, much worse. And second, the storm was scary, but your niece woke up safe and laughed through breakfast. That’s a fucking miracle. I have worried about that kid since she started high school. As long as I’ve known her, it’s like she’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I got to see her truly, purely happy today.”
“But this,” I point toward the ceiling, “ is the other shoe.”
“And you’ll catch it. We’ll figure it out. Kids don’t need a life where nothing bad ever happens. What they need is someone who’s there for them when the bad stuff happens. And if it’s you and Aubrey against the world, I’m not betting on the world, okay?” She nods, her green eyes focused on mine, and I find myself nodding too. “I’ll call Eddie to see if he can help us stop the leak before all that ice on the roof melts. And then we’re going to empty those drawers and move the dresser out of here, pull up that carpet and try to get it to dry.”
“You sound like your dad.”
She grabs my hand and pulls me up. “The only way to go is to keep going, kiddo,” she says, in an uncanny Burt Shulman voice. Then she musses up my hair.
Bee goes down to the basement to call Eddie so she can tell him what tools we already have. She comes back with a bucket to catch the dripping water, a cardboard box, and a big black garbage bag.
“You don’t have to touch any of it,” she says. “I’m going to hold it up. You say yes or no, and I’ll put it in that box or the garbage.”
I say no to almost everything. My mother’s sweaters, her underwear, socks, scarves, old receipts, dried out lipsticks, sample vials of perfume, a pair of leather gloves, an unused set of monogramed handkerchiefs. I watch Bee throw it all in the garbage bag, wishing that it hurt, not because I want pain, but because I worry it’s collecting inside me in a place I can’t feel yet.
I keep my mother’s gold watch. Water leaked into the face, leaving condensation on the glass. I am tempted to wind it, to see if it will tick, but decide it’s better to let it dry first. Or maybe just better not to know.
Bee hands me a stack of black and white pictures. Damp, but not ruined. My grandparents’ wedding photo with my grandmother in a sensible travel suit, my grandfather in his military uniform. My mother’s senior-year portrait, the classic black drape across her chest, shiny hair cut to her shoulders, ends flipped up. I remember she told me that she smoothed her hair with her mother’s clothing iron, pressing her face to the ironing board. Then she curled the ends around beer cans she heated on the stove, burning her index fingers so many times it changed her fingerprints. There are photos of Grand Central Station and the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. One of my mother in a plain white dress and Steena’s father, Tony, in a ruffle-front tuxedo, stiffly posed on the stone steps of Church of the Holy Family. In another she’s holding Steena in the hospital. Then holding Steena by the hand on the stone steps of this house, pregnant with me.
Toward the bottom of the pile is a photo from my mother’s childhood that I’ve never seen: my grandmother and her sister, Lena, seated in front of a Christmas tree, my mother and Angelo cross-legged between them on the floor. Nonna’s brow is creased, eyes sad. Lena looks to Nonna instead of the camera. Their matched gaze feels like a conversation they’re having. Angelo is holding the engine car from a train set, fiddling with one of the wheels. But it is the sight of my mother—no more than three or four years old—that catches me in the ribs. She’s hugging a brand-new doll to her chest, grinning. Her teeth are straighter than mine, nose more Roman, but otherwise, even though everyone always said I took after Step, she looks like me. There’s a disarming brightness in her eyes that I never knew, and it feels like the pain in my grandmother’s face was just about to reach her. I flip back through the other photos of my mother, and I can see the timeline—how the shine in her eyes was so clearly, specifically dimmed, then dimmed further still. That beautiful, happy child is a shock to my system because I assumed she’d always been sad and angry.
“God, Frey! Are you alright?”
I hand Bee the photo.
“Wow. That’s your mom,” she says, pointing to the little girl.
I nod.
“It’s hard to believe she was ever that—”
“Yeah.”
“Your grandmother was so pretty. Like a movie star.”
“Does she look sad to you?”
Bee glances at the picture again. “Oh.” She puts her hand on her heart. “She does.”
I imagine myself in a swollen river, far downstream, reaching out to grab Aubrey’s hand and pull her to shore before we’re swept to sea. I hope it’s possible.