A Stranger's House

by Bret Lott

  She started to cry again, her breaths almost silent, silver sounds in the dark. She cried, and said, “But here’s the problem. The problem is that I love him. And what I keep wondering is, Why should that be the problem? Why should the fact that I love my husband be the problem?” She tried to come up from her sobbing, to take a deep breath, but nothing happened. She cried, saying, “And I look at you. And I hate you, because you have what I want. You love your husband, he loves you. And you want to get pregnant. And here I am, just the opposite. I don’t have any idea whether or not he loves me, and here I am pregnant. He tells me to get rid of it, that it’s in the way. He tells me to go get—”

  “Stop,” I whispered. “Now stop.”

  “Why?” she said, and her head was up again, her back stiff. Though I couldn’t see her face in the dark, I knew she was looking at me. “Don’t you want me to say the word?” She’d stopped crying, too. She sniffed again, took in a breath. “Don’t you want to hear it? Here: Abortion. That’s what he tells me to go do. To get an abortion.”

  It was me who was crying now, whatever shapes I could see in the darkness disappearing as my eyes filled, as I bit my lip to hold in my breath.

  “That’s the word,” she went on, “that’s what he told me. ‘Why don’t you just go on in and get an abortion?’ he says to me, him standing there in the living room in shorts and a T-shirt, holding a basketball. He’s just back from the courts, where he and some buddies have had a good, refreshing, brisk workout. ‘Abortion,’ he says. That’s the word.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “So,” she said. “What to do?”

  “Leave him,” I whispered.

  “Not that easy,” she said. “That’s Claire talking as Claire. That’s not Claire trying to think what Sandra should do.”

  “Why?” I cried finally, letting out my sob, my chest collapsing. “Why ask me? Why ask me if you know I can’t help?”

  “Because,” she said quickly. She paused, took a deep breath, again on that air in the faint hiccups. “Because now I’ve told you. Now you know.”

  I leaned into her, and cried, trying to whisper I see, but unable to form the words, any words, that might comfort her, and that might comfort me.

  I said nothing.

  I began to feel as if my life were happening in dark rooms, that that was where I lived, where I talked, where I slept and ate. Here we were now, too, in the office of Mr. Clark’s lawyer, only two lights on: the green banker’s lamp on his desk, and the ginger jar lamp at the end of the sofa. The rest of the room was dark oak paneling and books.

  Mr. Blaisdell stood looking out the curtainless window of the office down onto Main Street, his office on the second floor of one of the older buildings. His back was to us, his hands jammed into his pockets, his suit coat flared out at either side.

  He was an old man, what I figured was apropos: he and the as yet unseen Mr. Clark could see eye to eye, know what each other thought, regard people like us the same. They understood each other.

  He was short and round, his thick, white hair in something of a pompadour, only enhancing the roundness of things. His arms were short, the fingers fat and stubby so that whenever I shook hands with him—this was the third time we had met—his fingers only came to about the middle of my palm.

  He gave out a heavy sigh, let his shoulders drop, all with his back to us. He looked down, and his head disappeared, before us only the back of a round body clad in a brown pinstripe suit.

  He turned from the window, came around the edge of his desk, and did the best he could to sit on the front corner. When he finally situated himself, he was blocking out the light from the banker’s lamp, and suddenly I wanted away from this flush-faced old lawyer gearing himself up to tell us something we didn’t want to hear.

  I wanted out. I wanted to be outside on the street, the street-lamps just coming on, the sun now down, the sky, what I could see of it from where I sat, deep violet, the first evening stars glimmering in. I wanted on that street.

  But then I thought of something better: I wanted to be in Chesterfield right now. I wanted to be settled in front of the fireplace in the front room, wanted some hot food going on the ancient stove in the kitchen, wanted our furniture in.

  And then too many things crowded in on me. First was Sandra; after we talked that afternoon, we sat there in the dark for an hour without saying anything. To hell with Will, I was thinking, and with the rabbits and brains and sutures and running. To hell with it all. But as if on cue we had both stood up, left the room, still without having spoken. She went to the left and down the hall to whatever project she had been working on, and I went to the right, and down to the basement and to the next rabbit.

  And then those thoughts were shoved out, because I started thinking of Mr. Gadsen, of this part of me left undone by my holding against him that accident, because what she had said was true: I had avoided him. Only last week I had seen him in the hall, saw him facing the wall and leaning against it, his right arm from palm to elbow pressed against the cinderblock, his head down. He was hacking, coughing something up into an old, yellowed handkerchief there at his mouth. He’d glanced up, and I knew he saw me coming out of the staining room. I had meant to go down the hall and to the basement, a path that would have led me right to him, fifteen yards away, but instead I gave him a quick smile, looked away, and turned toward the women’s room across the hall, pushing into that door. From the corner of my eye I had seen him turn toward me, seen him raise an arm as if to wave at me, saw him already moving toward me. Then, just as the door closed behind me, I heard him call out “Missy,” and I went to a stall, sat on the toilet seat, and waited until I heard his footsteps recede down the hallway.

  The old lawyer put a fist to his mouth, cleared his throat into it “You know,” he started, his solemn lawyer’s voice full and booming in the small room. “You know that there are always reasons why someone sells a house. Reasons that, oftentimes, defy any sort of rational orientation.”

  I put my hand to my forehead, my elbow resting on the soft leather arm of the sofa. I closed my eyes.

  “And I think what you’ll find here is that this is indeed the case,” he went on, and I opened my eyes. The fist had become some sort of visual aid, the index and pinky fingers pointed, the two middle fingers folded down. He seemed to be aiming at something across the room. His eyes hadn’t yet met ours. “The point being that Mr. Clark is selling the house to you for a fit price, one mutually conducive to both parties—”

  I brought my hand from my forehead and placed it in my lap, took a deep breath in the middle of all this talk.

  “—and since that is what has been agreed upon,” he continued without losing a moment of his old lawyer’s pace, the tone of righteousness, “there seems no further reason to delve any deeper into any particular personal, idiosyncratic reasons behind his selling you the house.”

  He stopped, and I looked up at him. He was looking at Tom now.

  Tom took in a deep breath. He was warming up. He was ready to fight, and I wasn’t sure whether I wished him well, or if I wanted him, too, to be quiet, to get us out of here.

  “So,” he began, “what you’re saying is that there’s no reason that you’re willing to talk about. From what I’m hearing, I think there is a reason, a specific one, but you’re not talking. Is that right?” He crossed one leg over the other, folded his hands in his lap, and I knew then which way we were going.

  Mr. Blaisdell looked down. He, too, folded his hands together, tried to place them comfortably on his belly. He ended up looking as if he were keeping his stomach from tumbling out over his belt.

  “Well,” he said, and gave a quick nod. “What we’re doing right now, our talking about it, is something we don’t have to do to begin with, young man. You called me on the telephone to ask why we’re selling the house, and I could have given you the cold shoulder, son. But I didn’t, and I think this gesture of goodwill shows my sincerity, as well as Mr. Clark’s. So h
ere we are.”

  “And you’ve said nothing.”

  I reached over to Tom, put a hand to his arm to signal him to ease up. We didn’t need this, but Tom only looked at me a moment, and back at the lawyer.

  With something of a grunt the lawyer climbed off the edge of the table, went back to the window. He struck the same pose as before: hands in pockets, back to us, head down.

  “Look,” he said. “What you don’t understand is what this place is to this man.” He paused, brought his head up. “The house has been in his family since before the Civil War. That’s something you should know. And you should know that he’s about dead now, and he knows it. His wife died four years ago.” He looked down, his head disappearing again. “He’s got no heirs either, so—”

  “Now wait,” Tom said. “Hold on. What about this kid Grady?”

  Mr. Blaisdell turned around too quickly, nearly knocking into his chair. His eyebrows were up, his mouth open. “How do you know him?”

  Tom gave a small smile, delighted in this change, the reversal of who was in charge. “Suffice it to say,” he said, “that we’ve run into him a couple of times, and he’s told us some things about the house.”

  “That boy,” he said, and shook his head. “You probably know he’s the grandson. If you didn’t, there isn’t any harm as I can see in your knowing it now.” He looked around as if to search for the chair next to him. He looked at it, turned and sat. He was still shaking his head. “He’s no heir, though. I drew up the papers myself as soon as he turned eighteen, just last year.” He looked up at us. “He’s disowned.”

  I closed my eyes, took my arm away from Tom. I heard my voice say, “Why?”

  “Miss,” he began, and though I could not see him, though I had heard only that one single word, I could feel the condescension there. “He was a juvenile delinquent. He was apprehended for shop-lifting twice in grocery stores. Picking up food, when he had his grandparents, especially his grandmother, taking care of him quite well back at home. Apprehended twice, and he was a runaway time and again, disappearing for days at a time, giving his grandmother, and, of course, Mr. Clark, no end of grief. Some days I’d see him myself from this very office, from this very window.” My eyes still closed, I heard the creak of his chair, the give of leather as, I imagined, he pointed to the window behind him. “Just tooling around town, riding his bicycle and daring his grandfather to do something. All the while he was in school, managing just to squeak by, while his grandmother’s heart was dying for him. And, too, Mr. Clark’s.” He stopped, and I heard the leather again, imagined him leaning even farther back. “Finally moved out when he was sixteen, a year after his grandmother died. Mr. Clark decided that he had had enough of him, and he let the boy live on his own. When he turned eighteen, Mr. Clark rid himself of him. I can’t say as I blame him, either.”

  Tom said, “But his parents. He’s told us about them, too. What happened to them?”

  I’d heard enough already, heard enough grief about this family. Tom, though, still wanted to know more, dig deeper. He wasn’t through yet. He was still trying to prove his point to me, I knew, about Grady’s being a liar.

  I said, “Let’s go.” I opened my eyes.

  The lawyer leaned forward. He put both hands on the desk, his red face and white hair and old, spotted hands bright from the light of the banker’s lamp. “The father,” he said, and looked at those hands.

  I said, “Let’s go now, please,” and I touched Tom’s arm. He didn’t move. I moved up to the edge of the sofa.

  “The father was killed in Vietnam. So they assume. MIA since 1969.” He paused, laying his hands flat on the green-felt blotter, still looking at them. “The mother—the Clarks’ daughter—committed suicide.”

  Though I was on the edge of the sofa, every muscle in me tensed for standing, suddenly I could not move. My hand fell from Tom’s arm.

  “So I hope that now you have what you came for,” Mr. Blaisdell almost whispered. “There’s a lot to the house he just doesn’t want to carry with him what little time he has left. He wanted just to get rid of it, get rid of the house he was born in, the house their daughter was born in, the house his juvenile delinquent grandchild was born in. It’s better out of his hands. That’s why he’s selling.”

  Tom breathed out. He said, “Oh.”

  I stood. I turned and left, went for the glass-and-oak door, pulled it open to the second floor landing.

  I heard Tom stand, heard him say a quiet thank you, heard the crack of the lawyer’s chair as he stood. Then Tom was behind me, his hand at the small of my back. For some reason he seemed to believe he needed to push me gently before him, but I moved forward quickly, moved down the stairs to another glass-and-oak door, this one letting out onto the street.

  It was dark, and I could smell food cooking at any one of the restaurants in town. People walking on the sidewalk had to weave around me as I stood facing the street. I heard the door behind me close.

  I said, “Are you happy?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am. It’s closed. I want him helping us. I want Martin, too. They can use the money, both of them. We can use the help.”

  I said, “Wasn’t that always the case?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I turned. Tom next to me, we headed east, toward King and the courthouse, lit up now, the fountain out in the grass going. Soon that will be turned off, I thought, for the winter.

  I said, “Sandra’s pregnant. Jim wants her to abort it”

  I waited for him to say something, waited and waited: first to the end of the stone and wrought-iron fence encircling the courthouse, then while waiting for the four-way stop light at King and Main, then until we were under the awning of one of those restaurants, people in the windows sitting at their tables, steaming plates of food before them, colorful drinks in hand, everyone laughing and talking. They were happy.

  He said nothing, made no comment on Sandra and Jim, and that was what I wanted to hear: nothing. Any comment, even any single word would have trivialized it all, as if the problem could be analyzed and solved with the utterance of some phrase such as Too bad or I’m sorry or even the single word God.

  I stopped at the steps up to the door of the restaurant, looked in the window at lights inside. I turned to Tom for the first time since inside the office. A man and woman moved past us and up the steps, and I heard quiet laughter as the door fell closed.

  I said, “Let’s eat here.”

  “But we ate out last night,” he said. “Friendly’s?” He had his hands in his pockets.

  I turned to the window. “But the people in there seem so happy,” I said. I looked back at him, his face again in darkness. “And it’s light in there.”

  He was quiet a moment, and I thought I could see on his face a smile, though I could not be certain for the dark out there.

  “Okay,” he said, and we went up the steps.

  “What the hell?” Tom whispered as we pulled up to the house.

  Martin stood on the top step of an old wooden ladder leaned up against the side of the house, the side that had Tom’s room upstairs, mine above. Martin’s cheek was pressed to the wood, and he had what looked like an oblong rock in his hand. Grady, smiling and waving at us, stood at the bottom of the ladder, one hand holding it to keep it steady.

  Even before Tom had the engine off and his door open I could see that Martin, oblivious to our having arrived, was tapping the house, the rock in his hand gently knocking against the clapboards, his ear pressed to the wood, listening, I imagined. But for what, I could not say.

  “What’s going on here?” Tom said as he strode toward them, his hands already in his back pockets. I was a few steps behind him.

  “Shh,” Grady said, and put a finger to his lips. He pointed to the side of the house. Both Tom and I turned and looked.

  From just above the stone foundation, right where those clap-boards began, on up to where Martin was perched atop the ladder were rough Xs marked in
the wood, unsteady lines intersecting one another. Not every board had an X on it, only about every fourth or fifth one, but there were Xs all the same, scratched right into the blue paint or right into the gray, naked wood. There was only one X per board, too, but together, all those markings spread across the side of the house, they looked frightening, as if some strange form of meticulous graffiti, each mark exactly alike, each hesitant X precisely the same.

  Martin started down the ladder, and for some reason I took a step back. When he got to the bottom, he seemed not to see us; instead, he only picked up the ladder, moved it a few feet farther down the side of the house, mounted the ladder again. At the top step he leaned against the house again, slowly started tapping again. Then he stopped, moved his hand from the clapboard, and drew an X on the piece of wood. It seemed to take him an hour to do it, to take that stone and press against the wood, make two lines, his hand shaking with purpose. He pressed his ear to the next clapboard up, started tapping it.

  Grady whispered, “Those are clapboards that’ll have to go. They’re ones that’ll need to be taken off and replaced.”

  “What?” Tom said, and took a step closer to the house. He squatted, his hand just touching one of the marked boards near the foundation.

  “You don’t believe me,” Grady whispered, “so you just have a look-see for yourself. You just take a screwdriver and give that board you’re touching there a good gouge and see what you come up with.” Grady pulled an old, rusted screwdriver from his back pocket, its clear yellow handle spattered with dried red paint. He held it out to Tom. “The way I see it, if you’re serious about taking us on, you damn well better make sure we’re doing the job the right way.”

  Tom hesitated a moment before reaching up and taking the screw-driver, then turned back to the clapboard and took a tentative poke at the wood, the screwdriver doing nothing, leaving no mark.