A Stranger's House

by Bret Lott

  For a moment I didn’t see what he had exposed by pulling down the paneling, watched for an instant as he started tearing at the right side, but then I looked back to the left, to the wallpaper, and I saw the shapes.

  They began at the corner, the smallest one there, the outline of a figure not two feet tall, the line smooth and clean, traced around the body of a child. There was the head, the arms, the fat legs next to the corner of the wall. Next to it, even overlapping it at the elbows, was the outline of another child, this one bigger, taller, drawn with the same sure, smooth hand as the first, the lines thick and black, drawn right onto the wallpaper. This second outline, second figure, had its arms positioned differently, the left one up in the air and cocked as if in some salute, the right at its side, its legs together. There was no delineation of fingers or toes, simply the soft, easy line that knew when to dimple in for the wrists, the neck, the ankles. Next to the second figure and closer to the window was yet a third outline, and then a fourth. The third figure’s arms were outstretched, up in the air, and it, too, was taller than the second. The head of the fourth outline was in profile: small nose, lips and chin, the forehead a soft curve up; otherwise it was standing with its back to the wall, its hands at its sides, the feet slightly spread apart.

  They were strange lined up there on the wall, somehow frightening, bodies in motion, moving against ugly wallpaper, the lines so fluid, so confident and smooth, the point where the figures overlapped almost linking them all together. There was space for one or two more before the figures would have reached the window, and their heights—smallest to largest—made it seem that perhaps someone had planned long ago to have that fifth or sixth outline, the tallest, meet the window. But the four figures stopped abruptly, short of reaching it.

  I swallowed, and I focused my eyes on the figures, and I wondered what it could mean, when suddenly Martin ripped from the right side of the window another, last huge piece of paneling, having positioned himself as before, one arm thrust deep between wall and panel, the other gripping the top and tearing, tearing. Again he fell down with his own momentum, that pull.

  But this time he did not try to stand. Instead he quickly pushed off the paneling, moved onto his knees and faced the wall, all in an instant, a move quick and agile. He stopped, his back straight, his legs beneath him. Slowly, gently, he eased himself down until he was sitting on his legs, his face toward the wall. He looked first to the left and those easy lines, then to the right, and the shapes there.

  These, too, were figures, lined up in the same manner, the smallest nearest the corner, then on up from there. But these bodies, these outlines, were different. Instead of the smooth lines of the other wall, the lines here were sharp, jagged, as though electrified, jangling, circling the figures, the heads too big, hands and arms and legs too thick at places, too thin at others. The poses of these children seemed to have been intended to imitate the ones on the left: the second child stood at attention, arm up in salute, that arm outlined in chaotic angles so that the wrist was almost nonexistent, the two lines nearly meeting; the third outline, like the third on the left, had its arms outstretched, too, but the pose was forced, dead, the rough line deliberate, it seemed, yet apprehensive, hesitant. The fourth outline, this one a little shorter than the fourth on the left, looked as though the drawer had attempted a profile, but any features, any characteristics that might have signaled a human face, were lost in the wavering lines. And though there was room for one or two more outlines, none touched, these cold, misshapen bodies standing singly, alone, and I felt in my chest and throat the welling fear, the lurch of blood up into my heart at what this could mean.

  Martin was still looking, moving his head from one set of outlines to the other, and slowly, stiffly he put out one arm, and pointed to the left wall, to those dark, even lines. He pointed at them, pointed, and I saw how the gray light from the window a few feet in front of him illuminated him in gray, his hand pointing at the wall now shaking, giving way to some fear, I imagined, as he took in a deep breath.

  He said, “This is Martin,” his voice tight, strangled, choked harder than I had ever heard it. He let that shaking hand move across in front of him until it was pointed at the right, at those near-shapeless bodies. “And this,” he said, his voice still caught, still hard in his throat, “is Grady.”

  Still there was that feeling in my heart, that adrenalin in me, and I was taking quick, shallow breaths, ready for something, for him to let me know more, to let me know. I hadn’t yet figured it out, but only a moment before he brought his hand back to the left, to the outlines of himself as a child, did I feel it coming to me, feel the words he was about to utter.

  “This,” he said, his voice nearly cut off, shut down by its own constricted muscles, “is the father,” and as slowly as before he moved the arm and pointed at the outlines of Grady as a child, those frightened, serrated lines drawn by his own hand, I knew then, years ago, lifetimes ago. He said, “And this is my son.”

  He broke, his head and hand snapping down, his shoulders and back and arms heaving with heavy sobs, and his words hit me,-a fist in my chest knocking the wind from me, emptying my lungs, my body, and I cried, my hands at my sides, my eyes closed tight, tears warm and then suddenly, surprisingly cold on my face. I put one hand to my eyes, pushed tears away, and I opened them.

  I opened them, and I took in the room, a strange room in what felt a stranger’s house now, a different house altogether, and I realized I was not surprised by this at all. Anything could happen now, anything in the world. There was nothing more that could happen that would surprise me, ever. Martin and Grady were father and son, and this had been the house where they both lived, and Mr. Clark had had Martin committed while Grady watched, and the son waited for the father’s return, had followed him once he’d been out, had gotten himself disowned simply for loving his father, because he wanted to be with his father all along.

  Suddenly Martin stood and moved toward the window, putting his big hands up to the panes. He looked out the window, stared out at something to the right, then turned toward me, stepped over the pieces of paneling on the floor. He came toward me, and I wondered what it was he would do now.

  But he only moved past me, his eyes never meeting mine. They were focused on the ground, his mind on something else, on moving out of his old room, and I heard his steps on the stairs, the groan under his weight. A moment later I heard the front door open and slam closed, felt the subtle, gentle air go cooler. I looked back to the window, where I saw the faintest traces of condensation in the shape of human hands, evidence of Martin’s being alive, evidence like that I had left one night months ago on the window of the toy shop downtown, when I had stared at a dollhouse, at the bedrooms of children, at things I now knew I would never have.

  Then those traces, outlines of hands, of life, disappeared, and there was left in the room only pieces of broken paneling, gray light filtered and sifted through snow outside, shapes on the wall, and me here, alone.

  I do not know how much time passed. The light in the room did not change: there was no shifting of shadows to signal late morning or noon or early evening. There was only the passage of time, some length of it moving through me, aging me as I leaned against the wall, unable to move, my breaths growing more and more clouded as I waited. I was only standing there, the palms of my hands against the wall, as if I were holding on to keep myself from falling. My tears had long since given out

  Then I heard the door open downstairs, heard it close. Grady called out, “Hello?”

  I opened my mouth, tried to speak, but could only feel cold air inside me.

  “Hello?” he called again.

  My hands, my arms, my legs could not move.

  He moved around downstairs, from room to room, his steps slow and quiet, pausing, moving again. He was at the stairs. “Hey!” he shouted, and started up.

  When he reached the top, he stopped. He looked at the room, at me, at the room again, his eyes moving quickly
, taking everything in: the shards, the shapes, the dead light. He walked to the middle of the room, stood just where Martin had before he’d torn into that wall, and then I saw in Grady his father, saw his shoulders, saw his neck and the shape of Martin’s head, though his, Grady’s, was covered with that fine black hair, his ears hidden.

  Only as I looked at him, watched him staring at the room, his back straight, his arms stiff at his sides, did I begin to wonder where his other features came from, who his eyes—brown, not gray green, like Martin’s—had come from, his hair, how his narrow hips had come to be. And only then, my brain working on this new idea, no longer preoccupied with the sorrow of his and Martin’s lives, but now filled with a cold wonder at the boy’s physiology, his inherited traits, did I find the power to speak. I had to force the words out, but they came, came in a harsh, rough whisper loud enough to break windows.

  I whispered, “Who was your mother?” and I was sorry and ashamed for the words just out of my mouth. New words already dying, already gone, but the idea in them betraying me, showing me to be nothing more than interested in the science here.

  He laughed. He laughed loud, his head back, his shoulders—his father’s shoulders—shaking. He laughed and laughed, and then he stopped. His back was still to me, and he shook his head, his hair wet with melted snow.

  He said, “I wasn’t lying about that part. That’s one of the few places I wasn’t lying to you about, because she’s out there in California somewhere. Maybe. At least that’s what I think. That’s the place she was going when she left me here. When she left me here when I was about six months old. But then even that’s a lie. That word ‘about’ is a lie, because to be truthful I was five months and twenty-one days old. Martin knows that. He knows that number. He was here. He remembers.” He nodded toward the left wall. “No doubt he remembers being outlined by his own mother, his cracked and crazy mother, this wall here her crazy version of a growth chart. Most people just make a line on a doorjamb. She drew around the whole body, and then Martin”—he nodded toward the right, those crooked lines—“he takes it up until he’s sent to the asylum.” He stopped, looking back at the smooth lines on the left. He said, “But she, my Grandma Elaine, she was made crazy by her brother. By Grandpa Clark, old Grandpa Clark. That story is true, too, which I’m sure if you have half a brain you’ve figured out by now, so this is all old news to you.” He shook his head again. “That story about the brother and the sister and the brother’s wife is true. That story about holding a baby between your legs until you wreck it for the rest of its life. That story is true, and that sister going nuts due to the brother is true, and so I guess I gave out to you a lot more truth than I figured.” He paused. “Martin’s being like he is is due to the brother of the story. Old Grandpa Clark.”

  He stopped, turned to me. He was smiling, but did not move toward me. “But my mother? So. All is clear to you except for that little nugget of truth, huh? You know who my daddy is, who my grandparents are, that hobo and Crazy Elaine. But what good would that truth be to you? What would it mean for me to give you words, tell you some story about who my mother is? It’s only a bunch of words, when you won’t ever know, because it’s a life you’re asking after. Don’t you see that? I can tell you she left me here when I was five months and twenty-one days old and I can tell you she was headed for California, but you can’t know who my mother is, because it’s a life, and you can’t know who Martin is, or who Grandpa Clark is or who Grandma Elaine is, or who I am. Who I am, because you haven’t lived this life. You haven’t been here.”

  He stopped, his mouth closed tight, his eyes squeezed shut, and I pushed against the wall behind me, my hands scrabbling for some hold, something to keep me from falling.

  He took in a huge breath, and said, “Anything I say, anything, would be nothing. Nothing.” His hand was in a fist now, his elbow bent, the fist out in front of him. “But I’ll tell you who my mother is, just to please you. So you’ll know, and so you’ll know about this house. What you’ve bought.” He paused, shook the fist once, twice, and said, “The brother. That brother. He and his wife,” and he paused. He shook the fist again, as if to wring out of it his words. “Grandpa Clark and his wife had a kid of their own. And it was a girl. And it was raised by that brother, the same brother who killed his sister, killed his nephew. Killed Martin. The brother. My Grandpa Clark.”

  His eyes were still closed. “Can you imagine that?” he said. “Being raised by him?”

  Then he opened his eyes and looked at me, and I wanted to disappear, just as the outlines of Martin’s hands had; I wanted to fade away because I had asked my question, and now here was my answer, all of this from him, the answer to my one question.

  He whispered, “No, you can’t imagine that. Because this is just a story, and these are words, and you can’t know Grandpa Clark. You can’t.”

  His eyes snapped shut again, my hands still clawing at the wall behind me. He said, “And he and his wife raised the daughter, while all the time in this house”—he pointed at the floor, jabbed at it—“was Grandma Elaine and Martin. My daddy. These two here, in this room, until Grandpa Clark killed Elaine, killed her for good—”

  I stopped moving my hands, stood still, and he stopped. My breaths had become even shallower, weight pushing down on my chest, my breaths thin wisps of white in the cold room, my eyes huge and dry in their sockets.

  “You know why he won’t go out into the barn?” Grady said, a cold smile on his face now, his breaths great clouds before him, turning him into a shadow at times, his face disappearing in mist “It’s because that’s where he found her. When Martin’s mother hung herself from one of the big, black beams up in the rafters. He found her there.”

  He turned and pointed at the wall then, at the outlines of his father, those clean lines. “He found her when he was this big. That’s when,” he said, and banged his fist at the fourth and final figure there, the boy in profile. “That’s why they don’t go any farther, why these outlines stop here. That’s why. This is when she just gave up. When she just gave up to her brother. That’s why they stop here.”

  He inched back to the right, to those outlines of himself. Finally he looked away from me, and gently touched his own outlines, himself at different ages, lines drawn by his own father, a poor imitation of the mother’s, but real, lines his father had done his best to draw, and for a moment I pictured Martin, younger, bent over a black-haired toddler leaned up against the wall, his arm in a salute, while Martin, black marker in hand, drew that outline.

  “The reason these shapes of me stop here,” Grady said, still looking at the wall, one finger now tracing the jagged outline, “is because this is when Grandpa Clark sent him away.” Then the hand stopped dead, and the finger folded in on itself, and Grady began to cry.

  “And my mother is Grandpa Clark’s daughter,” he cried. “Martin’s cousin. He got her pregnant. She was nothing. A cocktease. She was worthless. Because of her father.” He tried to stop crying, sniffed and caught his breath. He said, “That’s what’s funny, because all of this is his fault Everything. And there’s nothing I can tell you about him, because he’s evil, and there’s nothing to say beyond that.” He paused, took in a breath. “What can you say to that? What makes a man evil? That man? I don’t know, and I lived with him, I knew him. So what can you expect to know about him? Just that he did all this, and now he’s sold this house to you, and now it’s yours and he’s washed his hands of it, and that I’m glad he’s as good as dead up there in Maplewood right now. As good as dead, and that makes me happy.”

  He paused, his face near the wall, his eyes now closed. “We used to come up here all the time, Daddy and me, not just three times a year. Not just that. But plenty of times we came here. Now that’s gone. That’s over.”

  He gave out a huge breath, his shoulders falling, his head falling, but then he stood up again, and I pushed even harder against the wall, wanted to vanish into it.

  “I am not ashamed!�
�� he shouted. “I am not!” and he was at the window, looking out.

  He turned to me, and I looked away as soon as our eyes met. He said, “Where is he? Where did he go?”

  I whispered, “I don’t know,” thankful, thankful that he had heard, that I would not have to repeat my words, because I did not want to speak again, ever. He rushed past me, cold air following after him as he banged down the stairs, opened the door, and left. I listened, waited, tensed up even more for the slam of that door, but it did not come. The door stood open downstairs.

  I did not know what to do. I did not, and thought then, finally, undeniably, that I had followed my mother, aware of all things now, and unable to do anything. I had fallen, entered her deserted and lonely domain, what I had fought against all my life finally here, the fear, that paralysis all in a moment, hope dead in me, my brain finally acclimated to that thought, and I fell to my knees, slipped down the wall, my hands to my face, covering it, hiding it from space around me, the gray of snowfall, the dead-white sheen of air. I could do nothing for Sandra, having already lost her, I’d chosen to ignore Mr. Gadsen, when all he’d wanted was to apologize; I could do nothing for Martin or Grady, both of them lost to some ghost of dead love and the remembrance of hate; and I could do nothing for Tom, could bear no children, could no longer love him without thinking of the loss that was no loss, the children that were not to be children. There was nothing, and I lay on my side, curled myself into a ball on the cold linoleum floor, pulled myself into myself as tightly as I could, and I cried.