“I’m fine, girl,” she said. She stared up at the ceiling as if she was amazed by its off-whiteness. “You got a point, Edna Jane,” she said. “You got a point indeed. It did almost take the house off its foundation!”
She turned a daffy smile on Mrs. Schwackhammer and we all shifted around uncomfortably, afraid Gram had finally lost it. But then Gram made a grand gesture like she was Mr. Lawrence Welk himself conducting his orchestra and she started us off on a novena to Saint Jude, which sent all of us scrabbling for chairs and Daddy scrabbling for the door.
Gram waited for everyone to leave and for all the dishes to be washed and dried before telling me what had happened to her that evening.
“I had me a vision, girl,” she said. Gram spread her hands before her face as if the vision was coming into focus right there in the kitchen. “It came to me as soon as Edna said the house had almost shook off its foundation. I saw it all—the house up on one of them flatbed trucks movin’ down the street as smooth as if it glided on water. Must have been my guardian angel showin’ it to me.” Gram turned her head back toward her hump as if her guardian angel were right there casting the vision. “We can lift the whole house up, floors and all, right off the foundation and plunk it down on the property I got over on East Mountain. Alls we need is the land cleared! What’s to stop us?”
I was drinking a mug of hot bitter coffee, the like of which I’d taken to recently. I felt the burn of it down my throat and didn’t say anything. I imagined there was a lot to stop us.
“How could I not have thunk it before? Your ma livin’ under the same roof must have clouded my brain! What do you think, girl? What?”
Gram sat down across from me and looked me clean in the eyes, the way she hadn’t since Daddy spilled the beans on the way he’d got made. I put the mug down and felt my mouth twitch toward a smile.
“I think it’s great, Gram,” I said. “It’s a great idea.” And that’s what me and her came to call Gram’s plan to move the house, the Great Idea, and it wasn’t long before I believed as much as Gram did that she could pull it off.
Twenty-two
Once Gram had her Great Idea she spent all her time working on it. She switched her weekly shift at the mill to the early mornings so she could use afternoons to make phone calls and write letters to this or that office and agency requesting that she be allowed to move the house. Then she spent her evenings planning how to adapt the house for country living.
The first change she wanted to make was to turn the pantry into a mudroom and cut a back door in one of the walls. “We’ll get started straight off,” she said to me and when I balked that we could never do it, she said, “Who in heck you think closed in the porch? That was me and Frank done that and believe me he was the helper, not the other way ’round.” Then she drew one after another sketch of a possible mudroom explaining to me that any new construction had to fit in with what she termed the “architexture” of the house. “It’s got to feel right, girl. Know what I mean?”
You’d think having a vision sent by God would make her pray more but it didn’t. She prayed less and picked on Daddy hardly at all and it was almost as if Daddy needed Gram ragging on him because once she stopped, he stayed out later and drank more. Though we never talked about keeping the Great Idea a secret from him, both me and Gram did, on instinct I guess. Probably it was our newfound hope that blinded me a while to how much more Daddy was out, especially on the weekends, and how much care he was taking with his looks, making sure his hair was kept trim and his face shaved. More likely though, I just didn’t want to know what he was up to when he was away from the house, not until Marisol told me that she knew where he’d been.
We were in the playground of our new school. The week before a sinkhole had opened up in the playground of our old school in the fire zone, forcing the county to condemn it and the east side school to take all of us in. Marisol and me stood within a cluster of birch trees in the far corner of the playground, the only area that wasn’t packed full of kids. The school was so overcrowded from taking all of us that there wasn’t even room to play ball. We all just sort of milled around looking to get into or out of trouble.
“Bet your father doesn’t come home as often as he used to,” Marisol said. “That’s because he’s with that idiot everybody calls Star. She lives in my building. Every time I see them I laugh right in their face.”
Part of the playground fence was dented in like a car had rammed into it and I stared at that dent a while trying to take in what she’d said about Daddy and Star. Would she say something like that only to be mean? Cagily I said, “Just because your daddy had a girlfriend doesn’t mean mine does.”
“No,” Marisol said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that your father does have a girlfriend.”
“You know just because the Ouija spelled out Howley doesn’t mean anything,” I countered. “It could have been wrong or it could have been trying to tell us something else.” I did my best to glare at her, hearing the advice Ma had given me countless times—“Any lie can sound true so longs as you tell it right”—but then my gaze softened. “I’m sorry about your daddy. Real sorry. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost mine.”
But then the bell rang and Marisol walked away and continued ignoring me with the same vacant stare she’d been using on me for months.
Later that afternoon I found Star’s apartment by looking for the name Beatrice Kettering, Star’s real name, on the doorbells of Marisol’s building and for nearly a week I hung around outside her door. I’d sit in the hallway and do homework for a good hour or so at a time. Nobody seemed to care. Occasionally I’d get the nerve to put my ear to the keyhole, but I never heard much beside a radio playing rock ’n’ roll and once I heard Star on the phone saying, “You bring that up every time I call. I can’t change the past, Mama.”
Sometimes while I waited there in the dusky light of that hallway, I’d think of all the different ways Daddy had described the disaster to various journalists. I’d think of our long-ago “exploring walks” and the sweet way he’d talked about Uncle Frank and then I’d think of the bitter, ugly way he’d talked about Uncle Frank taking bribes and I started to think that maybe nothing Daddy said was true. Maybe he had stolen the money from Uncle Jerry and not taken it as a lend. Maybe Ma was right that surviving the disaster had put something mean and cruel in him. Maybe she was right to go away. Maybe she really had no other choice but to leave me behind.
And then on one of those days as I sat outside Star’s door the thing that I’d been dreading would happen happened. I heard Daddy’s joking voice, the loud somewhat gruff voice he used whenever he was teasing or telling jokes. My chest tightened as if my ribs were squeezing in on me. I pressed my ear to the door and stared down at the rhinestone clips on my shoes, the same clips Daddy had stolen more than a year ago when he was fired from Kreshner’s department store.
“I’ll start the shower,” Star said.
“Be there in a minute,” Daddy said. And then the apartment quieted and all I heard was the sound of running water. Slowly I turned the knob and pushed the door open. Slowly I stepped inside. The apartment was mostly just one large room with an unmade sofa bed at its center. Daddy’s shirt lay sprawled on the green carpet. His pants were neatly folded over a chair. A silky embroidered bathrobe had been cast off onto a pillow. On a side table draped over a tissue box was Star’s star pendant necklace.
There was a small kitchenette against the far wall and, in the corner, a partially closed door to the bathroom. I could hear their voices in and out over the fast, hard spray of the shower.
Star laughed a deep throaty laugh that gave way to a long throaty moan. I picked up the necklace, gripped it in both hands, and yanked with all my strength until the catch broke. Then I dumped it back on the table, my breathing coming in such gusty huffs I was afraid they’d hear me. Quickly I moved for the door but my foot caught on the sofa leg and one of my rhinestone clips snapped off. Looking down at t
hat clip the idea just came to me to take off the other one and plunk them both down on the table next to the necklace. So that’s what I did. I put the clips next to the broken necklace and then I ran like hell from the room. I ran right out into the hall and down the stairs. But as I fled into the vestibule someone gripped my hair, pulling me up short. I hissed in pain, not wanting to scream and draw attention to myself.
It was old Mrs. Novak, the crazy lady, who said Gramp had killed her son. The shoulder of her dress was ripped and her brassiere strap showed. She let go of my hair. “What did your grandpa do to my boy?” she said. “You tell me, girl.”
“Your boy died jumping off a bridge,” I said. “My grandpa had nothing to do with it.” But in the hallway my words echoed with their untruth. After all it was Gramp blinding him in one eye that probably led him to want to kill himself and for all I knew Daddy had lied about Jack Novak jumping off that bridge.
Mrs. Novak clawed at a button on her dress. “Wasn’t just my boy he killed. Was that Billy Sullivan too. All because both them boys knew about the bribes that Frank Howley was taking. Wasn’t just my boy taking bribes. Was that Frank too. He let all them men die. Wasn’t just my boy.”
The old lady took a step toward me and I backed up to the wall. Her eyes had a suspicious cast to them as she turned her gaze to the stairs. “Bet that daddy of yours knew about the bribes them boys were taking. Wouldn’t put it past him to have killed my Jack neither. Them Howleys act like their own shit don’t stink, but it does. It does!”
“My grandpa and daddy didn’t do a thing,” I said weakly.
“Then this is for them not doing nothing,” she said and spit straight in my face.
I grunted like I’d been slapped and glanced down the hall, embarrassed someone might have seen.
“Now I’m all alone,” she said, “with not a soul to look out for me.”
Cautiously I circled around her to the front door.
“All alone, all alone,” she chanted as I opened the door and stepped out. Even once I was down the block I swore I could hear her singsong voice calling, “Not a soul, not a soul.”
Twenty-three
School ended abruptly due to the heat and Ma invited me to spend a week in Allentown. It was her and Brother who met me at the depot, and as soon as I stepped off the bus Brother hugged me hard and wouldn’t stop. Ma had to actually peel his arms from my waist.
“Where’s Daddy?” he said.
“He’ll be coming,” I said. “Eventually.” Then me and Ma looked away from each other but not before I saw a fleck or two of regret shimmering in the dark auburn of her eyes.
It was Sunday morning and we were all invited to a breakfast at Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janice’s church, but it wasn’t a Catholic one, it was Baptist. When I complained that we’d be sinning against God going to a Baptist church, Ma said “Church smurch,” and then she stood in the pew in her white gloves and her pretty blue pillbox hat, belting out songs, saying afterward as we all sat at a table in the church basement that any church that was her Bropey’s church was her church too.
Aunt Janice wiped at some egg at the corner of her mouth. “Just so long as you realize we don’t take any orders from the pope.”
“Shut up,” Uncle Jerry growled.
“I meant it as a joke, Jerome,” Aunt Janice said. Then she added, “It’s just so strange you’re Catholic, Dolores. That’s all I meant.”
Ma looked like her girdle had squeezed all the air out of her. Her mouth opened and her eyes bulged. Eventually she cleared her throat and her voice came out louder than it should. “Well, you got to remember Jerry ain’t really Baptist. He was brought up Catholic first. Ain’t his fault that bitch raised him Baptist after.”
Ma lifted her chin proudly and nodded at the nice-looking blond family who was seated farther down the table pretending they hadn’t heard what she said.
Aunt Janice’s face turned the same yellowish white as the eggs on her plate. Ma nodded at Uncle Jerry who kept busy shoveling food into his mouth. “You was just a little baby, Jerry, so how could you remember, but you was baptized Roman Catholic. One of my earliest memories is being by the fountain in the back of the church and both of us wailing. I guess I thought they was hurting you with the water the way you cried.”
Ma wiped at a smear of something on her white gloves. “You being baptized is probably the earliest memory I got and I read once in the Reader’s Digest that your earliest memory tells something.” Ma tapped at the lace trim of her collar. “It tells about who you are. Inside, I mean. I guess that memory tells how much you meant to me, right from the start. Before I even got took away.” Ma’s eyes opened wide as she stared at Uncle Jerry almost in wonder.
Uncle Jerry stopped in mid-chew but didn’t look up from his plate. Then he swallowed a wad of biscuit and had to guzzle his whole cup of coffee to get it down.
Back at the house Ma led me to what had become her room, the little room that had once been Daddy’s. Ma sat on the window ledge and brushed her hair with short, snappy strokes. As she brushed she talked about the possible jobs she could get once her money ran out from pawning the ring Daddy had bought for her. The most likely job seemed to be the one Aunt Janice was trying to get her at the accountant’s office where Aunt Janice used to work before she got married.
“But we have to go on a trip, Ma,” I said bending up my legs and resting my chin on my knees. “You promised we would. Just the two of us.” Ever since Ma had moved into Uncle Jerry’s me and Ma had been planning a vacation. “Just you and me,” she’d told me on the phone several times. “A chance for just us girls to be together, no boys allowed.”
“Well, I ain’t got enough money for no vacation,” she said, “but I made some calls to see about Auntie’s house. The money should be coming through on that soon and then we can go anywheres in the world we want.” Ma laughed and we both came up with more and more outrageous places we could go, Hawaii, the Arctic. “Anywhere where they ain’t got no dang fire,” Ma said. Then she talked about the nice apartment we’d be able to get and Ma whispered, “Nicer than the one Bropey had planned for us.” And the mere mention of that apartment seemed to color the very air with its dinginess and our mood changed as we both thought about the reason why we weren’t living there.
Daddy never talked with me about my going into Star’s apartment or breaking her necklace. All he did was drop the rhinestone clips on my bed with the warning, “Don’t go thinking you understand things you don’t.” And I thought, what’s there to understand about a daddy cheating on his wife? Only it didn’t feel so much like he’d cheated on Ma, it felt like he’d cheated on me. I didn’t say that to Daddy though, partly out of pride. If he didn’t care enough about us not to do what he’d done, then I wasn’t going to let him know I cared about him. But mostly I didn’t say anything because of what I saw in his eyes. It was the dark part of Daddy, the hateful part, and it put a hardness to his gaze and a sallowness to his skin that put me in mind of the werewolf poster that used to hang beside his bed. It felt like ever since we’d moved to Barrendale he’d become something else. Someone he couldn’t control.
Cagily I asked Ma, “Don’t you want to know anything about Daddy?”
“What’s there to know?” Ma said. She put the brush down on the nightstand where she’d laid out some of her ma’s things: tortoiseshell combs, hankies, a pretty glass perfume bottle. From the top drawer she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and shook one free from it. “Do I need to know he lost your bus money on some dang horse bet and now that old biddy thinks I owe her the fare? Why don’t she ask her own son for the money? Why she got to tell you to tell me I owe her?” Ma puffed furiously at her cigarette as if it were a source of revenge against Gram.
From downstairs came the sound of a knock on the door, followed by the doorbell buzzer. Ma put her finger to her lips. We heard Aunt Janice say, “Hi, Mom, how was the trip?” and then we heard, “Fine, sweetheart, just fine.”
I stiffened
, recognizing Stepma’s voice. Ma must have recognized it too because her finger remained glued to her lips, her eyes swerving back and forth like the gong of a clock.
Uncle Jerry’s voice boomed out from the downstairs hall, asking Stepma about traffic and the potholes on Route 80. “Didn’t expect to see you, Mom,” Jerry said. “But always glad to have you here. Why don’t you follow me out to the kitchen? There’s something I’ve been meaning to show you.” And you could tell in his voice that he was about to take her deeper into the house to talk about Ma.
“Mom!” Ma said and her eyes stopped in their swing, fixing on the opened doorway to the upstairs hall. “Mom?” She cupped her fingers around her mouth, her hands curved like question marks, her brow creased with thought. In that position she remained as if she was about to shout out to someone but the only sound that came from her mouth was the quick rhythmic sound of her breathing. Eventually she stood and walked out into the hallway toward the stairs.
“Ma?” I whispered. “Wait.” But she didn’t so I followed her and together we arrived at the bottom of the stairs where we found Stepma in a white dress that had such a wide collar it made her head look like it was on a platter. Stepma was flanked by Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janice and the tight bun perched on Aunt Janice’s head was tilted toward Stepma seemingly in protection.
“I cannot stay in the same house,” Ma announced and turned her face to the wall.
“Well, it’s not your house to stay or not stay in,” Aunt Janice said.
Uncle Jerry coughed. “Plenty of room for everyone. Right, Elsie?”
Stepma’s voice came out small as a mouse. “Of course, Jerome. Whatever you say.”
“Right, Dolores?” Uncle Jerry said, not bothering to hide the plea caged up in his words.
“’Course, Bropey,” Ma said. “For you I’ll agree to anything. Speaking of room, I’m going to mine now.” Ma turned abruptly and headed back up the stairs.
The Hollow Ground: A Novel Page 20
