by David Vann
My mother gave Steve a sharp look but held back this time from saying anything.
She left me, my grandfather said.
Was she younger?
Almost twenty years younger.
Jesus.
You don’t have to confess everything, Steve said.
No, it’s all right, my grandfather said. I’m not hiding anymore. I’m willing to tell anything.
You’re such a hero, my mother said.
Twenty dollars, the notary said.
Steve pulled out his wallet.
No, my mother said. Make him pay.
I’m paying, Steve said, and he put down a twenty. Let’s go.
So we followed my grandfather this time in his small white rental car. We drove up East Yesler Way, past my school, and kept going, turned north on 23rd Avenue past the high school, residential areas, a strip mall, a power substation, then he turned right on East Pine. Big houses, individual, better than where we lived. This is nice, I said. He turned left after one block, on 24th.
He’d better not live in a big house, my mother said. I’ll kill him.
But the house is yours, whatever it is, Steve said.
I’ll still kill him. Eight years, and where have I lived those eight years? Or the last nineteen years?
My grandfather turned left onto an unpaved drive. A small, beautiful house with space all around, on a big lot. Much bigger houses to both sides, but this small one was so perfect.
Wow, Steve said. A Victorian. Only one story, but a lot of character.
It was dark blue, with cream around the windows and steep roof, and a light blue door with a curved awning above, like a fairy-tale house.
Steve followed down the drive and parked beside the front steps. Another roof and bay window jutting out the side. Sheri, he said. This is good.
My mother was quiet.
My grandfather walked past and up the stairs, opened the front door and stood there waiting in the snow.
Sheri? Steve asked.
This is all happening so fast, she said. In just a few days, everything changes? Suddenly I have a house and I don’t work and I’m living with my father who left?
We waited then, sitting in the cab as the air cooled. My grandfather went inside finally and closed the door. He was probably very cold by now. I wanted him to come out to the truck, but I understood why he didn’t. I closed my eyes and wished I could pray, but there was no god I knew, only fish. The mola mola, perhaps, with that smaller white eye looking upward, mouth open in rapture, as my grandfather had said. A shadow form come close for a moment and then vanished again. Still there, but only felt, not seen.
Help us, was all I could think to ask. Crescent moon propelled by those great dark wings.
It’s not fair to my mother, my mother said. If I walk through that door, it’s like everything in the past didn’t happen. All erased. And she could have been better. His leaving made her finish her life as a worse person. If he had been there, she could have been better.
Wouldn’t she want you to have a better life now? Steve asked.
My mother wasn’t able to answer. I put my hand on her shoulder and she reached up and gripped it tight. Then she exhaled. Okay, she said. Okay. Thank you both.
Inside were wood floors, old and refinished. Everything perfectly restored. Light blue walls edged in white, furniture with curved wood along the arms, high ceilings and a chandelier. My grandfather standing nervously in his sport coat and collared shirt.
Who are you pretending to be? my mother asked, but he didn’t answer.
Did you do this yourself? Steve asked.
Yeah. I was a mechanic but became interested in carpentry just in the last few years.
The living room in front had a bay window and two cozy couches. I would sit here with Shalini. We’d be like cats in the sun.
My mother had continued on to the dining table, in the center of the small house, next to the kitchen. An old refrigerator, curved.
There are three bedrooms now, my grandfather said. I took out the central hallway and put a beam above, to make the dining room. Then I made the old dining room into a master bedroom. It has the bay window that looks out on the driveway and all the trees.
My mother walked into this bedroom and we followed. It had a king-sized bed with a padded headboard that matched the furniture in the living room, a rich tan-cream, the walls here a darker shade of blue. Open beams of the ceiling above. All clean and ready, like a hotel room. He wasn’t living in this one.
You planned this, didn’t you, my mother said. Three bedrooms.
I hoped, my grandfather said.
How long ago did you buy this house?
Three years ago.
So you’ve had us in the crosshairs for three years.
I’ve been wanting to contact you for eight years.
You know if it weren’t for Caitlin I’d walk out right now and you’d never see me again. You knew that, and that’s why you went through Caitlin first.
It wasn’t really like that, so planned. I just wanted to see her, and I was afraid to see you. It wasn’t a plan. We don’t plan our lives out, Sheri. I did everything wrong, and if I could go back, I would. I’d plan the whole thing and get it right this time.
My mother left the bedroom and looked quickly in the others. So you’ve taken the smallest, she said. And what used to be the master bedroom is Caitlin’s.
The first time in my new room. A huge bed with four posts in dark wood, carved. Soft cream comforter and pillows. I launched myself into the air and landed in heaven. I looked over and they were smiling, all three of them. I love this, I said. I love this bed. I love this room.
Lower ceiling than my mother’s, but it still had exposed beams, an old wood floor, and one of those long thin couches for lounging if you’re in a movie. The windows looked out on trees covered in snow, no neighbors visible, no piles of traffic cones or parked maintenance trucks.
I have to show Shalini, I said. Can she come over tomorrow?
Sweet pea, we don’t even know yet when we’re moving.
Can we move today?
I’ll help, Steve said.
I’ll have to give notice. We’ll be paying for another month of our apartment.
I’ll pay, my grandfather said. And you can move in now if you like.
Stop, all of you, my mother said. This isn’t a musical. We’re not all going to burst into song.
Steve grinned. My mother hit him in the shoulder, but only a love punch.
You do look happy there, sweet pea.
I love it.
Well I guess all we have to move are clothes and stuff. We don’t have to move any furniture. So here’s the deal, she said, turning to my grandfather. We move in today, but we don’t give notice at our apartment. You keep paying rent. And you spend the night there whenever I say. If I can’t stand having you here, you leave. Okay?
I was afraid my grandfather would say no, but he nodded.
That’s fine, Sheri. It’s your house now, and I’ll leave whenever you need me to.
That’s not really fair, Steve said, getting kicked out of your own house.
Anything’s fair, my grandfather said. Really. Anything’s fair. Just seeing Caitlin happy in her new room, that’s enough.
I loved my grandfather so much right then, but I was afraid I’d get in trouble with my mother if I went to hug him. One hug could destroy all the plans.
Well, Steve said. Let’s get moving.
I’ve never been so happy as when we drove to our apartment, my grandfather following behind. Crammed into the jump seat of the king cab, Steve’s music grinding, I felt like I was glowing, my entire body some kind of sun. I kept smiling. My life was beginning again that day. I could feel it.
When we arrived, I ran up the stairs to the door. It
was the only way I could hide my happiness, to run ahead where my mother wouldn’t see me smile.
Steve was up the stairs next, grinning at me, and then my mother followed by my grandfather, who was carrying a suitcase.
My mother paused when she had the key in the door. I don’t think I can have you in my stuff, she said. Sorry. Can you wait in your car?
Sure, my grandfather said. That’s no problem. I’ll leave this suitcase for you to use.
My mother had said sorry. For the first time, she had said sorry to him. It didn’t matter that he’d have to wait in his car.
I saw the apartment as if for the first time, plain and cold, no warm wood, nothing cozy, all the furniture cheap, made of plywood. In the faint light, it all seemed colorless and empty, and strange that we had considered this home. We were going to live now in a different world entirely.
You can use his suitcase, my mother told me. Pack everything for a week or two, including anything you need for school. I’m not coming back if you forget something.
I didn’t have much clothing. I folded my jeans and shirts carefully, and they fit into the suitcase and I still had space for everything from the bathroom. I had a separate backpack for schoolbooks. That left only stuffed animals and other toys that seemed too young for me now. Nothing was for my current age. It had been forever since we’d bought anything. I don’t think I really felt poor until that moment, when I looked at all that I didn’t have. I had wanted to start playing an instrument the year before, but we couldn’t buy anything, and they didn’t have enough at the school. They had a spare tuba, and two trumpets, but I wanted a flute or clarinet, and those were all being used. So there was no instrument to pack. I wasn’t on any sports teams, because that also cost money for cleats and outfits and dues. I had my aquarium pass, and that was really it.
Can I play an instrument now? I yelled.
What? my mother yelled from her room.
Can I play an instrument now.
Just pack your stuff, Caitlin.
I brought the suitcase and backpack to the front door, then stood in the door of my mother’s room. She had far more clothing than I did, accumulated through the centuries. She was stuffing it into black garbage bags.
I’m playing an instrument now, I said. Flute or clarinet. And I’m playing a sport.
Just focus, Caitlin.
I’m already packed. Because I don’t have anything. I own nothing.
My mother was fast. She hooked the back of my neck. You are not going to treat me that way, she hissed, quiet enough that Steve wouldn’t hear. He was hidden behind the kitchen counter, packing pots and pans into a box. I struggled for you and provided what I could. You are not going to lord over me the fact that he has more money. He supported no one. That’s why he has more money. And it’s my money now, so you’ll behave if you want anything.
Sorry, I said.
Her face so mean and old. She finally let go, went back to her garbage bags.
At the kitchen phone, I dialed Shalini, then went as far as the cord would stretch away from Steve and my mother.
I cried, Shalini said. You made me cry, when I heard you weren’t coming.
Oh, I said, and I felt this overwhelming sadness at the thought of her crying. It made my heart hurt. I’m sorry, I said. My mother did that. We’re moving to my grandpa’s house. You have to come there tomorrow and spend the night. He’ll take us to school on Monday. I have to be quick. The address is 1621 24th Avenue, a small blue house, old and really beautiful. I have a big bed. But I have to go now. My mother can’t know I’m calling.
Wait, Shalini said.
Sorry, I said. Just come tomorrow as soon as you can.
My suitcase and backpack, one box from the kitchen, and my mother’s garbage bags of clothing. That was it. All that we owned, except my mother’s car. We’d sell the old TV and cheap furniture.
We didn’t need three cars for the move. Everything fit in our own backseat and trunk. But we followed my grandfather, and Steve followed behind us, up Alaskan Way and then angling over on East Madison, an expressway. We turned off on East Olive. His house was only a block or two away from auto stores and old high-rise apartments and the expressway, just around the corner from a YMCA, an area not much better than what we had left, but you’d never know that once you were on his street. It was tucked away just enough, and there were nice houses close to us, and all the trees that shielded us from the neighbors. A small paradise. And no planes thundering overhead at takeoff.
We parked in the driveway behind my grandfather, but my mother didn’t turn off the engine. I don’t know if I can do this, she said. I’m trying it for you, Caitlin. I’m really trying here. I know you’ve always wanted a bigger family.
Thank you, I said. I had more to say, of course, about her getting a house and my grandfather giving up everything and agreeing to everything, but I didn’t dare.
And we didn’t have it so bad, she said. I’m sorry you didn’t get a flute. But you had everything you needed. It’ll be nice to have more, but you had everything you needed.
My grandfather walked past, not daring to look at us. He went up the steps and opened the front door.
Okay, my mother said, turning off the engine. Let’s see what happens.
The day cold, the sky in close, a dull gray-white, but inside the house was everything warm.
Welcome to your new home, my grandfather said and winked at me. It was just like when Charlie inherits the chocolate factory and Willie Wonka is finally friendly after being so mean, even though my grandfather was never mean. But it was that same feeling of suddenly inheriting the entire world and having endless possibility, all limits and poverty and fear gone.
I went to my room and closed the door, just so it could be mine for a moment, only mine. Even the light was warm. A small chandelier above and a standing lamp in one corner, by the lounge. I reclined on the lounge like a Hollywood star and looked at my enormous bed and the dark beams above. This is me, I said softly. This is my life now. I was trying it on, a new life the same as a new outfit, something that changes you and you can’t ever see yourself the same way again afterward. I knew this would be a moment I’d remember forever, and so I still see now exactly what the trees and sky looked like outside the windows, muted and fading and calm, without wind, and the white windowsills, a perfect milky shining white, new, and the walls not blue but papered tan in an endless pattern that shifted in light, a pattern made by texture only, silky-smooth swirls in what otherwise was a matted surface. Over the years, I would see anything and everything in that wallpaper, the walls themselves a kind of mirror, and on this first day I knew it would be that way. I knew I could fall into the walls endlessly, and the beams above, and the soft bed and comforter, and this lounge, and I knew that the wood floor, also, by being so old and having patterns of dark knots and old nail holes would shift and never be the same floor twice. A home rather than a box, and infinite what tan and cream and brown could be, as infinite as anything Charlie or any prince or princess ever knew. And someday I know I will live there again, in that same room, when my mother is gone. I want to finish there. That will be the room to take me to the end, the home given by my grandfather. He’s gone now, but he left us something, a place to remember him. Every surface here finished by his own hands, dreaming of us.
But that day I was just settling in with my grandfather and thought he would live forever. I came out of my room and he was standing there smiling at me, as happy as I was about my new home.
Thank you, Grandpa, I said, and he didn’t say anything but just hugged me.
My mother and Steve were putting things away in her room. My grandfather and I went to sit on the couches by the front window to wait.
Do I have any other family? I asked. Cousins or aunts or uncles?
I’m sorry, Caitlin. Your grandmother did have a sister, but I lost touch with
her decades ago, and I don’t know whether she ever married or had children. I don’t think so. And I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. We just both came from small families. When we moved here, we were on our own.
Where was she from? I asked. I loved that he would talk with me and tell me anything. My mother was never like that.
Louisiana, same as me. Seven years younger. We had no money, and only occasional jobs, and we wanted to get away. We wanted new lives. I was thirty-six and she was twenty-nine. This was the end of 1958, beginning of 1959. We didn’t know how cold it would be here. We wanted somewhere no one would know us, but she got pregnant early on, so we were struggling. The freedom never really happened.
I tried to listen to everything carefully, but I don’t remember all that he said. Lives so far in the past and removed, and this grandmother I always imagined as old but who had never been old.
Do you have photos of her? I asked.
Sorry, Caitlin, he said. I ran away and didn’t keep anything. I tried to forget my whole life and start a new one, and it wasn’t my first time doing that, either.
When was the first time?
When I left for the war. And the second time was when I came back. And then moving here to Seattle with your grandmother, that was my third time running away. And then leaving her was the fourth, and then coming back here from Louisiana was the fifth. All my life I’ve been running, but I promise you this is it. I’m staying this time, until the end, no matter what happens. You can count on that. I won’t run away from you, ever. I know I did that day in the aquarium, but it won’t happen again.
I was leaned in against him and he had his arm around me, so comfortable. I remembered the policewoman and all her questions, and I realized my mother wouldn’t like seeing this either, so I straightened up and then stood as if I wanted to look out the window. I went up close to the glass and looked at the long front yard covered in snow. What war? I asked.
The big one, World War II.
You’re that old? I turned and looked at him, and I just couldn’t believe it. World War II is in the oldest movies, I said.
