Missing Mom (20 page)

Died
. That forlorn word. We’d been unable to utter it for a long time, regarding our father.

We weren’t yet able to utter it, regarding Mom.

Clare continued to chatter nervously. She wasn’t going to tell Rob about the calendars, she said. Or any relatives. She didn’t think that I should, either.

I told her no. I would keep Dad’s secret of course.

Awkwardly I squatted above the calendars spread out on the carpet, paging through them with a kind of fascinated dread. So many days, hundreds of days, bluntly x’d out in black ink! I sensed with what satisfaction Dad had crossed out the days of his life not seeming to know how finite they were, how rapidly he was using them up.

“Maybe we should just throw them away, Nikki? In this trash bag I’ve started.”

“Well. I guess.”

Clare hadn’t been able to open the windows in Dad’s study more than a few inches, the air smelled of mildew and something faintly chemical. The police forensics investigators had been in this room as they’d been everywhere in the house, but there hadn’t been any evidence, we’d been told, that the “perpetrator” had taken anything from this room. Evidently Dad’s old electric typewriter, covered with a dusty plastic cover, hadn’t tempted him.

A crystal meth-head, the detective had called Ward Lynch.

Desperate for cash, to feed his addiction. Might’ve chosen anyone, but Gwen Eaton came along.

Gwen Eaton, who saw the “good” in everyone. Who seemed to believe that we’re here on earth to “be nice” to people in need.

“Nikki, stay with me. Let’s finish up here.”

There was a small quaver in Clare’s voice. I understood: suddenly my sister didn’t want to be alone any more than I did.

After Dad’s calendars, it didn’t seem so strange or anyway surprising that he’d saved what appeared to be hundreds of paper clips of varying sizes, many of them badly rusted; that he’d saved dozens of loose U.S. postage stamps, many so old they dated to an era beyond memory (when first-class postage was twenty cents?); that, rattling loose in his desk drawers, were countless ballpoint pens advertising local businesses, and all of the pens dried out. There were rubber bands, thumbtacks. Erasers. Telephone directories for 1996, 1997, and 1998 as well as 1999. The antiquated stapler Dad had had for all of our lifetimes and allowed us to use with his supervision, plus a nearly empty box of staples. In the same drawer, several rulers and a badly torn measuring tape from Hamrick’s Office Supplies and a cache of Scotch tape dispensers, empty of tape.

Clare held the dispensers in her hand, frowning.

“Nikki, why would Dad save these, once the tape was used up?”

I didn’t want to look at Clare, for fear we’d break into hysterical laughter.

As if we’d been brought to the threshold of a door long locked against us and at last the door has been opened but—what is inside?

We’d planned to drive to the Blue Star Diner for lunch, it was less than a mile away and no-fuss. But somehow, we never got there.

Mid-afternoon, when we were both becoming light-headed from hunger, Clare had the sudden idea of making a meal out of what we could find in the kitchen. “Nikki, Mom would want this! Her leftovers especially.”

When I hesitated Clare said, sharply, “You know how Mom fretted, if good food went to waste.”

This meant freezer leftovers. I had to wonder how prudent an idea this was, preparing Mom’s food in Mom’s kitchen without Mom. Only a few steps from the (shut, locked) door to the garage.

“Nikki. Wake up, give me a hand.”

Must have been standing there, blank-faced, staring at the (shut, locked) door to the garage.

Clare chattered brightly as I set about tidying the kitchen. When things have been displaced in a familiar setting, it takes a while for the eye to discover them. Strangers had searched our cupboard shelves, drawers. Glassware, china, canned goods, boxes of rice, pasta, tabouleh had been examined and replaced haphazardly. Even Mom’s many spice jars, and her herbal teas in rainbow-colored packages. The counters she’d always kept spotless were smudged with some sort of chemical grime, it took a while for me to scrub off with cleanser and a sponge. The once-spotless sink was badly stained as if something dark oily, viscous had been dumped into it.

Even our snapshots on the refrigerator, held in place by little magnets, had been dislodged. I picked up an old photo of myself, smiling happily in some long-ago summer-beach setting, that had fallen to the floor, examined it critically and without thinking tore it into pieces.

“Nikki, what are you doing? What did you
do
?”

Clare slapped at me, disgusted.

“Mom loved that picture of you. What would Mom
say
.”

By the time Clare set out for us, in steaming bowls, what appeared to be the remains of Mom’s Hawaiian chicken spooned over, not white rice, but buckwheat pasta, we were both giddy with hunger. Other leftovers Clare had discovered in the freezer were the remains of a tuna fish casserole, a half-dozen spicy cocktail sausages, and a half-loaf of buttermilk-pecan bread. I’d discovered a chunk of cheddar cheese in the refrigerator, just perceptibly moldy, we could eat with the bread and a box of All-Grain Melba Toast.

Clare said, “This chicken of Mom’s! Maybe it’s a little sweet but it is delicious. I was furious at old Auntie Tabitha saying what she did, to upset Mom.”

“That’s just her way. You know Tabitha.”

“So what if it’s her ‘way’! She’d upset Mom so many times, those seemingly innocent little remarks of hers. Old auntie was plain jealous, her younger brother Jonathan preferred Mom to
her
.”

“Tabitha is taking it hard, though. What happened to Mom.”

Clare snorted in derision. “But of course. Tabitha and Alyce Proxmire, it’s been devastating for
them
.”

I laughed. Between Clare and me there had long been the conviction—exasperating, annoying—but somehow comical, as in a TV series—that certain of Mom’s relatives and friends exploited her good nature. These were tales told and retold, passed back and forth between us like Ping-Pong balls. I saw now that, though Mom was gone, Clare and I would not relinquish these familiar, comforting old tales of blame, reproach, moral indignation.

“Mom is just too, well—‘Christian.’ I mean,” Clare said, eating, “—
was
.”

Now that we were seated across from each other in the breakfast nook I could see the strain in Clare’s face. Beneath the smooth cosmetic mask there were bruise-like shadows beneath her eyes and puckers at the corners of her mouth. I knew from Rob that the symptoms Clare had had after the hearing—her “touch of the flu”—had been very like my own.

After my testimony in the courtroom, Clare had avoided looking at me. Glancing sidelong in my direction with a kind of dread as if knowing there might be more I could reveal, of what I’d seen in the garage.

Almost, I could hear her pleading
Nikki don’t tell me!

Then again, at other times
Nikki I must know
.

I never thought of it, now. By “it” I’d come to mean the entire experience, not just the sighting of my mother’s body.

I never thought of it and would not think of it except at such times when I was compelled to think of it: giving testimony as a witness. But we’d been assured there would be no trial, Lynch’s public defender attorney and the district attorney’s assistant were negotiating an agreement to spare us.

“Nikki, aren’t you eating? Don’t be
silly
.”

“I am, Clare. Stop staring at me.”

“Well. You’re too thin, you need to eat. It’s fine to be fashionably thin, but that anorexic look is
out
.”

Tell Lilja, I thought. Tell your daughter.

Clare glanced up at me. In her schoolteacher mode my sister could read my thoughts as easily as one might observe goldfish swimming in a bowl.

“Lilja is over her ‘crisis,’ I think. Once school is out and the pressure of her damned ‘peers’ lets up she’s going to be fine.”

I was hungry and tried to eat but each time I lifted my fork to my mouth, it began to tremble. The Hawaiian chicken really was too sweet for my taste, and didn’t go very well with the overcooked clotted-together buckwheat pasta. The cocktail sausages were no temptation on a near-empty stomach, nor the lumpy tuna casserole that had heated unevenly in the microwave. As if Mom would have served such leftovers!

I busied myself scraping the greenish mold off the cheddar cheese, and ate bits of cheese with crumbly pieces of the buttermilk-pecan bread.

Years ago, Mom had tried to interest me in bread-baking. I’d complained that it took so long and Mom had said that’s the point of bread-baking, it takes so long.

“Temperamentally, we weren’t each other’s type.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

I hadn’t meant to speak aloud. It must have been the aftermath of the flu, my brain wasn’t functioning normally.

I said, “I wonder if this will be the last of it? Mom’s bread.”

“No. I’m sure I have some at home, still. Wrapped in aluminum foil in my freezer.”

We fell silent. There was so much to say, it made us tired to not-say it.

Outside, children were frolicking in the Pedersens’ backyard wading pool. I smiled to think how Dad would be annoyed, complaining of noisy neighbors. Lucky for him, he’d died before the Pedersens acquired the pool.

What I dreaded most wasn’t noise but the prospect of someone suddenly banging on the door.

The house was too quiet. Essentially, it was an empty house. You entered a room holding your breath. You were tempted to think that someone might be hiding. Waiting.

That wasn’t how Ward Lynch had appeared to my mother. I knew. He’d come up to her quite openly, in a public place. He would not have suddenly appeared in Deer Creek Acres, to knock on the door. He would not have thought of the possibility.

Oh, I’d meant to dismantle the tinkly little sleigh bells above the kitchen door. I thought, if I heard them, I would scream.

Clare was talking as my thoughts drifted. It was hard not to think that, at any moment, one of Mom’s friends would turn into the driveway, rap at the kitchen door: “Gwe-en? You home?”

Maude, or Madge. Lucille Kovach, or Gerry Eaton. Alyce Proxmire, Ellie O’Connell, the Barkham sisters. A continuous stream of chattering women five days a week. (Weekends, when Jon Eaten was home, Mom’s girlfriends kept their distance.)

More people! More people! If I can’t be happy myself…

Of course, I hadn’t told Clare what Mom said. I never would.

“Do you suppose they
know
?”

Clare was peering past me, into the backyard. She seemed to be looking at Mom’s bird feeder. Though it had been empty of seed for weeks, still there were birds all around the house. That day we’d been hearing their liquidy cries and calls that meant mating, nesting.

Mom had said that June was the happiest time in the year for her: when all the birds are singing.

“Who? Know
what
?”

“The birds Mom was feeding. They must know that something is different about this house.”

“Well. In summer birds can feed themselves, can’t they? You only need to feed them in cold months, I think.”

“Mom put out seed all year round, I’m sure she did. And crusts of bread.”

I didn’t want to blunder into an argument with Clare. Not after her eruption that morning.

“One thing they’ve noticed, maybe: Smoky is gone.”

Clare seemed not to hear. She’d finished her Hawaiian chicken but not the soggy buckwheat pasta. She’d given up on the congealing tuna casserole and pushed it from her as if she couldn’t bear to look at it.

It was maddening, that Clare wouldn’t ask about Smoky. I’d been annoyed as hell for weeks. As if Mom’s cat had ceased to exist because Nikki had taken him home with her, and not Clare.

I’d put a kettle on the stove to boil, for tea. When I poured tea into mugs for us, Clare sniffed suspiciously at hers and wrinkled her nose.

“Nikki, what is this? It tastes like acid.”

“This is Mom’s Red Zinger.”

“I’d have preferred peppermint.”

“Peppermint! That tastes like mouthwash.”

“Not if you don’t make it too strong. This ‘zinger,’ you’ve made way too strong.”

“If you’d wanted peppermint, Clare, why didn’t you tell me? You must have seen what I was doing at the stove.”

“Nikki, I didn’t
see
. I wasn’t watching your every movement, I was preparing lunch for us. I had to do practically everything myself, you scarcely lifted a finger. You were going to open a can of soup, and you never did.”

My face burned. I’d forgotten. We were close to quarreling now.

Clare persisted, “I don’t really like herbal tea, I’d have preferred real tea, or coffee.”

“Well, you can make it for yourself, can’t you? And then we’d better get back to work, if you have to leave early.”

“I don’t have to leave ‘early,’ Nikki. I told you when I had to get back home: by six. And I’m not supposed to have caffeine for the time being, with my medication. It’s ‘contra-indicated.’ You know that.”

Did I know? I couldn’t remember. Clare was glaring at me as if I’d deeply wounded her.

“I can make you peppermint. The water is still hot.”

“I didn’t say I wanted peppermint. Only that I’d have preferred it to this ‘zinger.’ That’s all I said.”

I laughed. I think it was a laughing sound that issued from my mouth.

Clare said suddenly, “It’s strange to be here, isn’t it. In their house, without them around.”

“That’s why we’re here, Clare. Because they aren’t around.”

“But it doesn’t seem natural. Does it?”

“If you want to sell this house, I guess it’s natural. It’s what ‘heirs’ do.”

“‘If I want to sell this house’—? Don’t you?”

I shrugged. What was there to say. What I dreaded most was a knock on the door. A man’s heavy footstep behind us.

“Neither of us is going to live here.”

“Right.”

Clare rubbed at her eyes. She’d pushed away her cup of Red Zinger tea as if its mere sight offended her. “Wasn’t it a surprise, Nikki, Mom’s will! All those bequests.”