The Household Spirit (28 page)

This wasn't true, of course, in fact it was unhinged, but she hadn't been getting a lot of sleep. Did she desperately need Peppy to be
what he most wanted not to be: a dying, helpless old man? Had she only wanted to be his protector for once? Maybe. She hated how Ethan disrupted their balanced illusionary household.

She was not nice to Ethan. She would not fuck him; she would not put her arm around him or hold his hand. She wanted to, but she was terrified of that particular longing and where it would lead. She said it was because of Peppy, but it wasn't, and he knew it. It was because she needed him gone. Because, finally, after a few days, Peppy had begun to shut down, as she knew he would. Emily had been passed off to Ethan. Peppy was happy. He could go now.

Peppy had even told Ethan that Emily would be moving with him to New York City soon, and that he'd come and visit. He hadn't been in almost fifty years, he wrote.

SHE LOVES YOU
, he wrote.

DON
'
T LET HER SAY OTHERWISE
, he wrote.

BE PATIENT WITH HER
, he wrote.

This had made Ethan cry. Emily hadn't told him that she loved him.

PLEASE TAKE CARE OF MY LITTLE GIRL
, he wrote. It might have been this that set Emily off.

She made Ethan leave.

Hysterical, as they say. Angry, beyond exhausted, she told Ethan that he had to go home, that this was no place for him, up here in the middle of nowhere. He didn't belong. What did he think he was doing? She told him that she didn't love him. She threatened to call the police unless he got the fuck out, get the fuck out out out, and so he got in a taxi and headed back to the Queens Falls bus station, where, apparently, he stayed for two days, calling Emily, trying to get things to work. “I'm not giving up on you,” he'd said. “You need help. I can help you. I love you.”

She stopped answering the phone. It was a dream, she told herself. Ethan didn't know her, not really. He would kill Peppy. He couldn't help her. It was too late. She never spoke with him again.

Howie said, “Ethan never came back?”

Emily shook her head no. “Peppy and I never mentioned those days again. He was terrified, I know. How I behaved. But there was nothing he could do. He became worse after that, and so did I,” Emily said. “I really don't know what happened after that.
This
happened after that.”

“You never told Ethan about your dreams.”

“They're not dreams.”

“OK.”

“I never told him,” Emily said. “Everything would have been different if I had been able to tell him. But maybe not. Probably not.”

“Your grandfather knew.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence. Howie thought about missed opportunities; he thought about Peter Phane holding baby Emily up for him to see.

“You made him a better person,” Howie said, finally.

“What?”

“I saw it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your grandfather. You made him so happy.” Howie realized that he had never been brave enough to take that kind of happiness.

Emily reached out and held Howie's hand. “Thank you.” She was crying. “I don't know what to believe. I'm fucking scared, Mr. Jeffries. I'm scared.”

Howie said, “I'm sorry I didn't answer the phone last night.”

“I'm sorry I killed your chandelier,” Emily said. She sniffled, laughed. “So,” she said. “The date went well?”

Howie said, “Yes, I think so.”

“Is this something we can talk about? I really want to talk about something else. Do you like her?”

“Yes.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Well.”

Emily laughed. “But you like her.”

“She happens to talk a lot.”

“Perfect. But you're attracted to her, I hope? Is it serious? She's not married, is she?”

Howie did not know how to situate the reality of Emily inside the reality of Rho. “I have to see,” he said.

“I'm happy for you.”

“Why?”

“Yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing an ex-girlfriend would say, doesn't it?”

“Does it?”

“Kind of. Maybe I'm not happy for you. Maybe I want you all to myself and I'm terrified of you leaving.” Emily felt shiftless suddenly. “Mr. Jeffries, what am I going to do now?”

Howie said, “I don't think you can stay here anymore.”

“I know.”

—

They spent the day in conversation. They were saying good-bye and hello at the same time, though neither knew where the other was actually going or, really, had been. Emily didn't go anywhere. She did not go back to her house or to sleep, though she knew that sleep was probably the first destination she'd soon have to set out for alone. Howie still planned on buying
Richard
. Safe on the sofa, they spoke about fishing together, and sailing terminology that made Emily laugh. But
Richard
was less real now; neither could imagine him without the other. Emily told him that the money was under Harriet's bed. She didn't tell him why. He didn't ask. She couldn't tell him about Harriet's e-mails. She wanted to, but that was too much of a violation now. Howie said that maybe Emily should read her e-mails and she agreed. Tomorrow, she said.

—

Two hours before that night's shift ended, Howie got the phone call. It was an unknown number. Between Rho and Emily, he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in almost two days.

“Dad?” the caller said. “I'm in trouble, Dad. Can you hear me? Can you come and get me, please?”

“Harri?” He almost said
Emily
.

“Please, Dad.”

“In New York City?”

“Lake Jogues.”

Howie actually removed the phone from his ear and looked at it, quickly, as if there was a mistake. He put it back to his ear. “I'm at work,” he said. “It's three a.m.”

“I know what time it is.”

“Where are you?”

“Lake Jogues, I said. I don't know. The side of the road somewhere in the middle of fucking nowhere. You want some landmarks? Trees trees trees trees
rain
.” She was crying. “Ring a bell? Fuck it, I'm sorry, wait—” and Harri hung up.

Five minutes later, she called back. The buzz made Howie jump. Harri seemed calmer, almost matter-of-fact, as if she were talking about being picked up after school.

“OK, so I checked the GPS. I've been walking all night, trying to get a signal. I'm on this Padanarum Road. P-A-D-A-N-A-R-U-M. Do you know it? Somewhere between Bolton Landing and, I don't know,
Friday the 13th
.”

His daughter was on a mountain in the middle of fucking nowhere.

“I'll be there in an hour and a half,” Howie said.

“Don't tell Mom.”

“D
ad,
what
are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“When I'm talking. With your head.”

Howie had been nodding. Howie had been smiling. He was also going very fast down Tongue Mountain. The rain had stopped and the car windows were open, roaring.

“Jesus, are you on drugs or something? I can't fucking deal with you being on drugs right now, just to be clear. Can we roll up the windows? You haven't started drinking, have you?”

“No,” he said. Then he thought about Rho. “Well, maybe once.”

“Once?”

“I'm just happy to see you.”

“I'm happy to see you too but please enough with the nodding. Keep your eyes on the road. You're freaking me the fuck out. What is up with you? Are you wearing an earring?”

“No.”

“Show me your other ear.”

Howie turned his head.

Harri said, “Well, something's different.”

Padanarum Road became North Bolton Road, then he turned the car off onto Lake Shore Drive. Lake Jogues opened to their left like a trap door into another, darker sky. They passed motels.
Howie said, “Now, tell me about this boy who left my daughter on the side of a mountain road.”

“Holy fucking
shit
. Did you just ask me a personal question?” Harri said. Then, looking at her feet, “Oh my God, Dad! Gross! What is that?”

“It is a
Playboy
magazine,” Howie said. “Now, tell me what's going on.”

“Do I have to?” Harri sat low in the seat, no seat belt; she was soaking wet. “He still has all my stuff. Fucking
everything
. He has all my ideas.”

“He has your ideas?”

“My notebooks. My laptop. He has my video equipment, old tapes, shit like that. I mean, he bought them, whatever, but he bought them for
me
. You know? He doesn't use them.”

“He leaves you halfway up a mountain?”

“I love you, Dad, but I think I liked it better when you didn't ask questions.”

—

Howie had finally spotted her standing on the side of a mountain road, under a canopy of pines. Harri's littleness still had the power to surprise and move him. Pulling in next to her, she looked like a seven-year-old with breast implants, hips. She was wearing denim shorts, black boots, and a bafflingly gentle, light pink blouse. Pink? His first thought was that she looked like one of those
Toddlers & Tiaras
horrors that he and Emily had watched on the TLC channel. Harri had hair now, too: long, down to her shoulders, and only the high, chopped severity of her bangs harkened back to the time when she used herself as a brutal billboard, telling her father and the world to take a good hard look at what you've wrought—and back the fuck off. She was wearing pretty jewelry. Her face was no longer pierced. She was pretty, he saw this right away: a tiny new woman. Her smile was mysterious and another thing that he had not imagined possible: that smile. Of course, the first thing that she
did, before getting in the car, was hurl her telephone into the forest. “Bye bye, fuckface!” she shouted after it.

“Harri?”

“It's
his
,” she had said, in explanation. She got into the car. “He has mine.”

Then she was hugging him. She smelled of water-reinvigorated perfume, shampoo. It was like he hadn't picked her up from the side of the road but from a shower. Her wet head on his chest. “I'm so sorry,” she said. “Thank you thank you thank you.”

“It's OK.”

She righted herself, and with one of Harri's classic hairpin mood turns, slapped the dashboard. “That motherfucker! I swear to God. Drive, Dad. Please get me out of here. I never want to see a tree again as long as I fucking live, I swear to God. I'm going to kill that piece of shit. Drive, drive, drive—” Howie looked behind them, and into the forest, momentarily concerned that whoever she was talking about was busting through the woods, in pursuit. “Take me home, Dad,” Harri said.

“Maybe we should go for breakfast first?”

“What? I'm soaking wet here?”

“Do you want me to take you to your mother's house?”

“No, Dad! I told you. She can't know about this. I'm sorry you had to come get me but, Jesus, can you please not be such a dick about it? I've been hiding from fucking bears all night.”

“You saw bears?”

Howie had been calling his house ever since he left work; no answer. It always went to his answering machine, and Howie always hung up. Emily was not supposed to be there, she had promised that she was going back to her own house, but still. Howie was anxious. There would be enough to explain—the fascinatingly stocked refrigerator, the plants, the computer on her bed, the mess of ceiling on his—without Harri coming home to Emily Phane watching TV on the sofa.

They passed through Lake Jogues Village. Howie took his phone out again, discreetly, keeping it in his lap. He tried his house again. He did not know what he would say to Emily if she did answer. How could he warn her with Harri right there?

“Who do you keep calling?”

“What?”

“What is wrong with you? The phone, Dad. You keep calling someone on the phone. Uh, that thing in your hand,” Harri said. “Wait, you're not calling Mom, are you? You fucking promised!”

“Oh, my telephone,” Howie said. “I'm just looking at it.”

“You're just looking at your telephone.” Harri grabbed it. “You're calling someone. It's ringing.” She put the phone to her ear and made a small scream when she heard her own voice, recorded long ago, telling her to leave a message. “What the fuck?” she said. “That is just about the freakiest thing I've ever heard! You're calling
yourself
? Dad, you're not home, you know.”

“I must have hit that by accident.” Howie showed Harri his thumb. “My thumb.”

“You're a maniac,” she said, smiling, relieved that he hadn't been calling her mother.

Howie said, “So who is this boy?”

“Jesus,
Doris
. Did you take parent pills this morning or something? Look, if you have to know, he isn't a boy,” Harri said. “But first you have to promise not to tell anyone. Meaning, your ex-wife. Specifically.”

“Tell her what?”

“Exactly.”

Harri had been seeing an older man for the last year or so, and it had become serious. He was in his midforties. He was a painter and an art professor at Adirondack Community College. (“Which is like being an abortion professor at Brigham Young University, but whatever.”) They had, she said, more or less moved in together. She had been spending most of her time in upstate New York, subletting
her Brooklyn sublet. She had not visited once. Telling so many lies she didn't know what was real anymore, she said, and she was so sorry. The man had not left her on the side of the road, exactly; he lived up there, had a studio in the mountains. They'd had a fight because, Harri said, he'd fucked one of his students, and not even a pretty one. “This cow. He wasn't even discreet about it. Thought we had an understanding, he said.” So she had fled into the night, in the rain. “Like an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm a fucking idiot. Please, don't be angry. I couldn't tell anyone.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Harri said.
“Mom.”

“OK.”

Harri sighed. “Thing is, so, like Mom knew this guy a long time ago, I don't know, back when I was little. They had a thing. Well, you know what she was like after you guys split up. I know how this sounds but it's not like that,” Harri said. She made a face. “OK, actually it is like that. It's messed up. I know it's messed up. Plus, the guy's a piece of shit. I fucked up. I hate myself enough as it is right now, OK, so please, please don't mom out on me. On top of everything, I've lost my Brooklyn place until December and I have no money, nowhere to go, and I still need funding for my project? I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“I don't understand why you haven't visited,” Howie said.

“Mom,” Harri said. “I already told you. I didn't want her to know.”

“I'm not Mom.”

“Well, you're certainly doing a good impersonation today.”

“Where did you meet this artist?”

“Does it matter? This lame opening in New York and he was—I don't know, Dad. He was old.” Harri laughed. “Mostly old. But also different. Refreshingly unhip, like a wise, virile war correspondent type, come down from the mountain? Literally. We started talking and when it turned out that not only was he from around
here but he once knew Mom, well, we sort of kept on talking—but I didn't know any of the other stuff, that they'd hooked up or whatever, Mom and him, not until later and by that point: too fucking late. It should have seemed weird but it didn't, not at the time, and—”

“Name,” Howie said.

“What? Oh. Timmy. Timmy Krogerus. I used to joke that it was his juvenile first name that kept him so young, you know, like Dorian Gray's portrait…Dad?”

Howie saw chandeliers.

“Dad?”

—

They got out of the car. They had not said much of anything since Timmy.

Harri slammed her door. Like everything, it seemed so much bigger than her. “Thanks for understanding,” she said. “Can always count on you, Dad! Knew the nodding concerned parent routine was bullshit, but, hey, thanks for trying!”

Howie did not know what to say. She was right. He had been trying. He wasn't even half finished trying.

Harri went inside.

Howie stood in his driveway. He waited. He felt the rain-cooled sun, listened to the trees drip. Emily's house looked much like it had looked for the past month: empty, yellow. But what, he wondered, would it have looked like if she was actually inside it? Probably the same. The spinning, hateful shock of Timmy had prevented Howie from figuring out a way to forewarn his daughter about his possible houseguest.

He walked purposefully into the living room.

“Worst. Painting. Ever,” Harri spat. “If I ever have to see that fucking thing again I'm going to puke.”

No way, Howie thought. Not this time. He said, “I like it, Harriet.”

Harri flinched. Howie wanted to scoop his daughter up and toss
her back into the gigantic painting. That's where she'd come from, where the best parts of her belonged, and behind Rogers Rock, Howie noted the multiple rolling peaks of Tongue Mountain. He imagined her still up there, unseen in the painting, waiting by the side of the road. Because hadn't that always been her dearest wish? To disappear into her work.

“I should have known,” she said. Her mood changing from inferno red to blouse pink. “Look at this place. I knew something was different with you. The phone calls, your
questions
. I've never seen so many plants. Dad, look at me.”

He looked at her.

“Oh my fucking lord, you have a girlfriend.”

Howie thought that he heard something upstairs. Howie thought of Rho. “I don't know,” he said. “Not really.”

“Holy fucking shit, you
do
,” Harri said. Their equilibrium rebalanced. She smiled, yawned. “Look, earth-shattering details later. I need to get out of these clothes, shower, get some sleep, OK? We're probably both tired. Thank you for saving me this morning, I'm sorry for mooding out. Really. Just, hey, take the fucking painting down, would you? I don't care what you do with it just so I don't have to see it when I get up.”

“No,” Howie said.

“Well—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

It was a start. He was done throwing fish back into the lake. Timmy's last name was
Krogerus
.

“OK,” Harri said. She hugged her father. Held on tight. “I love you, Dad. Thank you.”

Harri went upstairs. Moments later, Howie heard the scream.

—

Mr. Jeffries had gone to work, so, for one last time, or a second-to-last time, and for the first time without him there, Emily decided to
sleep in his bed. She did not go home, as she'd promised. She figured he would understand. She brushed off the debris. She put the hammer on the bedside table. She got under the covers and flipped through his
Fishing the Adirondacks
book. She'd never opened it before.

This, she wondered, is what he spent so much time looking at?

The fish were ghastly, inhuman. Doll eyes and vicious toothy puckers. She couldn't believe that they were real, that they were everywhere, hovering just under the surface. She understood why people made a hobby of murdering them.

Emily thought that she deserved this last night in the safety of Mr. Jeffries's bed because only minutes after Mr. Jeffries left, Emily had gotten on the computer and written Ethan Caldwell an e-mail.

please call me 518-793-8354

That was it, but it was huge. More than enough. Mr. Jeffries's number. It meant, whatever was going to happen now, she had broken the back of Route 29. She would try. She would go away, wherever that was. She would go to sleep, if she could. She still couldn't bring herself to read any of Ethan's e-mails.

She went to sleep.

Hours later, she awoke, paralyzed. She let herself be buried, and it was terrible. She felt the bed indent next to her. She felt it there, them, and she forced herself to stare blindly into that spot and not be afraid. But she was afraid. This is the world, too, she thought, even if only I know it. The world is many things happening at the same time, in the same place, and I will have to live in all of these worlds. She felt hands on her neck, and she thought: I don't know shit. Kill me. Show me. I'm ready. Now. If you can kill me, kill me. Kill me.

Moments later, the phone rang.

Emily's eyes opened and she began crying. It was Ethan, had to be. But calling at 3:00 a.m.? Yes! He had pulled her out, like he
knew. Maybe he'd always known. She did not get up to answer the phone. She wanted to but couldn't, not yet. He called several more times.