Broken for You (48 page)

Maybe this is true. Maybe not. You can never be sure: All objects in the Hughes house have to have meaning, and if their past is not known, stories are invented. Even the lowliest, most solitary unmatched object— the lone surviving salad plate acquired at Goodwill Industries—has significance, weight, relevance. The tale you just heard might be a big fish story, but right now you believe every word. You feel like you're about to fuckin' cry.

"Are you ready?" your hostess will say, indicating the cup.

You're confused. What are you supposed to do? You just came here t
o
settle a legal matter, meet someone named Mrs. Hughes about something and then be on your way. You're only here because of Irma, because of something she wanted you to take care of. But dammit, you didn't expect this. It's bad enough you had to hear this story about Alta Fogle and her
lonely life. It bad enough that it's Thanksgiving. This Mrs. Hughes couldn't wait one more day to do this, whatever it is? There's probably a bunch of people inside: noisy kids, women in aprons, men talking about football. Families. On top of all that, now there's this weirdness.

"Excuse me? Ready for what?"

"You have to break that before you can come in."

"Why?"

"Do you want a short answer or a long one? I could tell you a nice story about the Buddha and the teacup."

By now you're thinking,
I shouldn't have come. I should've just left. Irma's dead. She's dead. She's not gonna know. Except, knowing Irma, she probably would.

"The short answer will do."

"It's a custom, like"—here your hostess pauses, giving you an assessing look—"taking off your shoes."

"Do I have to do that, too?"

Your hostess laughs. "Oh, no. Definitely no. That would be hazardous around here." She stamps her hiking boots for emphasis. "Hard soles only."

"Okay. Where—?"

"Anywhere is fine. Most people just use the wall of the porch. Here, wear these."

She hands you a pair of protective eyeglasses. You put them on. You take a few steps back. You feel like an idiot, but the face of the person standing in the massive
doorway registers nothing but a
disconcerting neutrality. You look down at the thing you're holding. You wish to Christ she hadn't told you about who it belonged to. But you go ahead anyway. You throw Alta's cup against the wall. You don't throw it hard, you don't put any juice into it, but it still shatters into a million pieces. You stare. You blow your nose. You think you'll leave the glasses on for a while.

You're ushered inside.

"I'll tell Susan you're here," your hostess says, as if nothing out of the ordinary has just happened. "Feel free to look around."

Your hostess disappears up the stairs. You're left alone in the foyer. There's some kind of contraption that runs down one side of the banister; it must be an escalator.

The house is huge. Unbelievable. But familiar, somehow. Maybe because it's as grand as something you'd see in the movies—the setting for some heroic climax. You imagine Gregory Peck carrying Ingrid Bergman down the stairs.

You become aware of people in the room to your left, probably fifteen or twenty of them in there. They're all doing something, working on something. A couple of them glance at you and smile, but mostly they keep at whatever it is that they're doing. They all wear gloves. The room is full of tables, with boxes. There is the sound of plates being shuffled around. It's like music. Some of the people are standing, some are sitting, all are concentrating hard. There's a gaming mood overlying the whole thing; you half-expect someone to call out "B-53" followed by "BINGO!" Drawings and paintings cover the walls.

"Hi! Are you a new volunteer?" It's a round-faced man in a chef's getup.

"No."
Volunteer for what?
you wonder.

"Oh. Well, please stay anyway. I made enough food for the Mass Assembly of the United Nations. Have you met Tink? She's out in the carriage house."

"No, I'm here to see Mrs. Hughes."

The cook looks like he's witnessed the Ascension. "Oh my God! You're the one!" His face lights up. His eyes go teary. He grabs your hand and starts pumping it like you're old friends. "This is incredible. Susan!" he calls up the stairs.

"Yes, darling." A tall, horsy-looking woman appears on the first-floor landing.

"Mr. Striker's here!"

"Hello, Mr. Striker. Please come up." She's a Brit, but her accent isn't high-tone.

"Have you checked your basal body temp?" the cook hollers.

"Not yet, but I'll do it soon, I promise."

"Okay! I'll get my magazines!" The cook turns back to you. "We're having a baby." He grabs you and gives you a full body hug. "This is such a great day." He rushes down the hall and out of sight.

Your hostess skittles down the stairs; as she passes you she says, "Go on up. Margaret can see you now."

You ascend and meet the horsy gal on the first-floor landing. "I'm Susan," she says. "Margaret's nurse."

"Is Mrs. Hughes sick?"

"Please, come this way." You walk down a long hallway. "Dublin, is it?"

"That's right. Good guess."

"I'm half-Irish myself. Grew up in Birmingham."

What are the odds of that?
you wonder.

"We're in luck," she goes on. "Mrs. Hughes is feeling well. She thinks she might even come down for dinner."

"I didn't know she was ill. I can come back another day."

She turns to face you. "Mrs. Hughes has been waiting a long time to meet you, Mr. Striker. There won't be another day."

She taps gently on the door and inches it open.

"Margaret?" she calls, softly. "Margaret, are you awake?" You hear a small rustling from inside, like wings. Susan opens the door wide. "This is Mr. Striker," she announces. "The beneficiary of Mrs. Kosminsky's estate."

Her room, strangely, didn't smell like death. Not that M.J. had had any experience with the dying; it just wasn't the smell he expected. There was a dense sweetness to it, almost but not quite overpowering—like the way certain flowers smell after a heavy rain.

She was sitting up. He was aware of her eyes—bright, blue, shiny— and how they seemed to be the containers for whatever life was left in her.

"Mr. Striker, this is Mrs. Hughes." She held out her hand. If it were not for her eyes, M.J. might have been afraid to touch her, she was so thin.

"Nice to meet you," he said.

"Have a seat, please, Mr. Striker." Susan indicated a chair next to the head of Mrs. Hughes's bed. "I'm sure you're confused about why you're here. I'll go get the box, Margaret. I'll be right back."

She left the room. M.J. smiled awkwardly at Mrs. Hughes and then sat rigidly on the chair. He didn't know why, but he felt like he wasback at Catholic school, a kid in trouble, and one of the priests was about to give him the strap.

There wasn't any fancy medical equi
pment, just a collection of pre
scription medicines on her nightstand. Maybe she really wasn't that sick after all. He noticed paintings and drawings on the walls up here, too, and all around the room were colorful, odd-looking knickknacks— vases and plant pots, pictures, a crazy-looking teapot, a small table fountain, candleholders. They'd been made out of pieces of plates that had been glued together. Even the fireplace was decorated with smashed crockery.
Irma would have loved this,
he thought.

Margaret motioned M.J. close. There was a hiss of air.

"I'm sorry?" M.J. said. "What was that?"

"Nice shirt."

"Thank you."

Susan returned, holding a medium-sized cardboard box. "By the way," she said, "I forgot to say that you're more than welcome to stay for Thanksgiving dinner."

"Yeah. The fella downstairs—the cook, I guess—he already asked."

"Do you have plans?"

"No, but I couldn't—"

"You don't have to decide right this minute." Susan held out the box. "This is for you."

M.J. took it and pulled open the flaps. Inside were crumpled sheets of yellowed newspaper.

"Go ahead," Susan urged.

He started to pull the paper away. He found a lid first, a saucer, a small pitcher. Then it dawned on him what he was looking at: Lucie's tea set. Minus the single cup Irma had left him, which was wrapped in three layers of bubble plastic and nestled in his backpack. He looked up at Mrs. Hughes, and then at Susan.

"How did you—?"

"It's a long story," Susan said, "and an interesting one. Mrs. Hughes has provided all the details for you in this letter." She handed him an envelope. "Briefly, though, Mrs. Hughes inherited a great many possessions that were stolen from Jewish evacuees during the war. This tete-a-tete of Mrs. Kosminsky's is unique because of the painting of the herbs
and flowers inside the bottom of the cups. Only a few sets were made like this, and the others are accounted for. It is the only thing Mrs. Hughes has ever been able to trace and return. So you see, it means so much to have found a member of Mrs. Kosminsky's family."

M.J. looked down. He tucked the envelope into the box and started rewrapping the pieces. "What should I do with it?"

"That's up to you, Mr. Striker. What do you think Mrs. Kosminsky would have wanted?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, it's yours now, to do with as you wish."

"What will you do with the other things?"

"You mean, the things that were stolen from the other families ? We're breaking them. Or rather, Tink and the others are breaking them."
I’
m sorry—
?

Susan laughed. "We must seem like an awfully strange lot."

"We are," Margaret whispered.

Susan crossed the room and took her pulse. "Do you still feel well enough to come downstairs?"

Margaret nodded and smiled. Her eyes were amazing.
She would not have us sad because she is lying there,
he thought.
And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit.

"Let's get you ready then. Excuse me, Mr. Striker."

He got up and moved aside as Susan brought the wheelchair closer. She folded back the covers and bent down.

One of Mrs. Hughes's hands floated up and hovered in space, her fingers undulating mildly, like the tendrils of an undersea plant. "Go now, Susan," she said, with more volume and tone than he'd heard in her voice. "Let him take me."

"Are you sure, Margaret? Mr. Striker, do you mind?"

"Not a bit."

"All right then. If you two will excuse me, I need to take my temperature, and then I have an appointment with a turkey baster. I'll meet up with you later and show you around, all right?"

Margaret gave Susan the thumbs-up sign. Susan leaned down and kissed her. "I'll see you both downstairs," she said, and then left.

Mrs. Hughes looked at him. Within her calm, canny look, there was mischief, too, as if she was amused by his discomfort.
Give her a little
grace
—Yeats's words could have been written for her—
What if a laughing eye have looked into your face? It is about to die.

As he'd imagined, she was nearly weightless; it was as if the solid structures of her body had begun to disintegrate. He could tell now what an effort it had been for her to speak with him. When she was settled in her chair, she held out her hands and he placed the box in her lap.

He wheeled her through the hall. The second-floor rooms were all empty, but M.J. couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. They arrived at the top of the stairs, and he maneuvered her chair onto the escalator platform. As they descended, M.J. heard a rapid, energetic thumping of footsteps—the kind of sound kids make inside a house. He turned and looked up, fully expecting to see a child standing at the top of the stairs watching them. But there was no one. He looked down at Margaret. She was smiling.

A table had been set up on the back patio—it was unusually warm and fine for the end of November—and people were coming and going from the kitchen, the way people do before a big holiday meal. M.J. noticed that all of the dishes had cracks or chips, and that none of them matched.

Margaret gestured toward a lounge chair and M.J. lowered her into it.

"Thank you." Her eyelids drooped, and for a moment M.J. thought she'd fallen asleep. But then she opened her eyes wide and looked at him. She started trying to lift the box, but she was too weak. M.J. set it on a table next to the chair. She settled her hands in her lap.

"Is there something I can do to help?" M.J. asked. There was a new energy and clarity in her eyes, he thought, and with it, a kind of ease.

She inclined her head toward the carriage house. "Visit Tink. She won't mind."

M.J. squatted in front of her. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Hughes."