The Antiques

by Kris D'Agostino

  This was the same year George got dealt his initial diagnosis. A bad year. Six bad years. Six years that felt like one awful year. After all the two of them had been through.

  For George it was:

  1. Colon removed

  2. “Recovery”

  3. Recurrence

  Blam blam blam.

  For Armie:

  1. Graduate from college

  2. Work at library

  3. Work for Andopolis

  4. Work for PG-Micnic

  5. PG-Micnic scandal

  6. FBI

  7. Basement livin’

  Six. Years. In the basement. Fueling the deep-seated notion that he was a half-man, unworthy, incomplete. He knew it was crazy to stay down there so long and yet he could not break the torpor. The presence of certain women, i.e., every woman who wasn’t his mother or his sister, made him acutely self-conscious. Made him feel as though they knew. Knew he hadn’t panned out, that he’d bungled what little he’d been given, that he sat next to his mother in church, that he sometimes cried during the homilies, that he walked past Audrey Tan’s house and stood at the fence and tried to psych himself up to knock on the door and talk to her but never did. Every time he saw her.

  No one ever brought these issues up. No one ever said, “Hey, Armie, saw you lurking around the Tan house the other night. Looking mighty creepy there, pal!” But they knew. They had to. Hudson was too small.

  He was pouring hot water into a teakettle when the doorbell rang and he saw through the stained glass the top of Audrey’s ponytail.

  “What was that?” Ana asked from the living room.

  “The door!” he said.

  “Get it,” Ana said.

  “Uh, okay.” He did not want to answer the door but he had no choice.

  She wore skimpy purple runner’s shorts with pink trimming and a matching purple fleece, her head haloed with a sweatband. When she turned to close the door, he caught a glimpse of the bottom edge of one of her butt cheeks visible beyond the lower hem of the shorts, and his pelvis tingled. Yikes! The whole thing made him sweat. It was painful. She smiled at him. Ana came to the foyer.

  “Oh, Audrey!” Ana said, and immediately began to cry.

  Audrey took her in her arms and the two stood crying and hugging, and Armie looked at them both and was jealous of so many things. Their ability to share emotions, to do so with little words, so freely, so casually, like it was hardwired into their DNA. He was afraid to touch Audrey, or anyone, for that matter, and when she did in fact turn to him to offer her condolences, he stiffened in her embrace.

  “I’m so sorry, Armie. I wanted to come by and say I’m sorry for your loss and if there’s anything, anything, I can do . . .”

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” Ana said.

  “Can I take Shadow out for you, Mrs. Westfall?” Audrey asked.

  “Oh, that’s nice of you to ask, but Shadow’s not feeling well right now.”

  “He’s okay?”

  “The vet says he’ll be just fine.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Audrey said.

  “Well, I should go check on him,” Ana said. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  Armie’s face got hot. Ana shuffled off to the kitchen.

  “I feel so bad for her,” Audrey said. “And you, too. I didn’t get a chance to say before, if you need anything, please, please, please call me.” She put her hand on his forearm. “Anything.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot.”

  He was, as he’d been when he’d seen her in church, unsure of how to stand.

  “I’m going for a run,” she said. “But I’ll be home after that.”

  “No school?”

  “Power’s off. I’m on vacation.”

  She still had her hand on his arm. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek just as a loud crash rattled the ceiling.

  “Get back here!” Charlie’s voice echoed down the staircase. Abbott, dressed in his underwear, appeared on the landing, wielding a My Little Pony doll. He aimed the pony at Audrey and snarled, then scurried down.

  “Can you grab him?” Charlie called.

  Armie scooped Abbott up by one arm. He squirmed and kicked and spit out gurgled howls. “Easy there, little man.”

  “Okay, well, you’ve got your hands full,” Audrey said. “I’m off.”

  Armie opened the door with his free hand, juggling Abbott’s wiggling body in the other.

  Charlie came down the stairs. “Who was that?”

  “Uh, just a friend.” Armie asked, hoisting Abbott toward her, “Where do you want him?”

  “Take him into the kitchen. He needs to throw some food around.”

  “Fooooooood!” Abbott bellowed.

  * * *

  Ana took Shadow for a walk. At the first corner he expelled his bowels in a soupy mess that Ana was unable to scoop up in any meaningful way.

  The air had a crisp edge to it and the town had begun to dry out. Giant branches ripped from above lay scattered over the sidewalks and streets. There was a lot of trash. More than one telephone pole had cracked. Windows were shattered. A few stores were open but not many. She walked down to the train station with Shadow lolling behind her. The parking lot was empty. There was no rail service. She and George had preferred this route for their evening strolls. Taking Shadow and turning up Front Street into the park where, if there weren’t a lot of people around, they took him off his leash and he fetched sticks as George threw them.

  She’d been with him so long. They’d woven such a weird and complex tapestry—as did most marriages past the thirty-year mark. They drifted apart, sure, who didn’t? And they’d not slept together in a decade. They argued. They said horrible things—things that could not be taken back. She had given him three children. She had given him her best years, as they say. So many years.

  A car door slammed and she turned to see a woman dressed all in black exiting a taxi with a little boy in her arms. Enormous dark sunglasses covered half her face. Shoulder-length blond hair shot straight down from under some sort of canted scarecrow-type hat. The cabbie ran around behind to the trunk and extracted two large suitcases. Then he drove off, leaving the woman and child standing there in the empty parking lot, looking out of place indeed.

  * * *

  He stood looking at the table overturned on the workbench. The legs fit into their notching as precisely as he’d hoped. The cuts were straight. The butterfly joint he’d employed to mend a large split was one of the more seamless he’d ever done. In one of the last actual conversations he had with his father, George had belittled his woodworking. His father thought it was a waste of time, which Armie always found odd, considering George’s love of antiques and woodwork. Apparently he felt it beneath the family’s station.

  Armie changed into the shorts. The basement was quiet and he felt as focused as he’d been in months. If he kept up the pace, he would have the table ready for the memorial.

  Later, when he was done and had worked until his fingers hurt and the blister on his left hand had broken open with a painful sigh of clear liquid, he went for a walk. It was chilly and the sun was all but vanished and the sky held many rippling salt-colored clouds. He went up Warren Street and past the store with its broken window, now boarded up by Carl. He went farther on, around the church, until he came to the corner of Washington Street. Here he paused. No, he decided. He wouldn’t go past her house. He’d skip it. Then why was he turning? Why was he going down Washington Street? It didn’t matter. It was fine. He wouldn’t stop. He’d just walk past. But there was a light on in the living room. Maybe he’d see her? Maybe she was there. Oh, but she was. That wasn’t good. Now he didn’t know what to do. He had to keep going or else she might look out and see himself just standing there, kind of but not really hidden by the birch tree in her yard. Yeah, apparently now he was in the yard. But just a little. He put his hand on the tree to feel its cold bark and to remind himself that he was alive and real. He would go up to th
e door. He willed himself to go up to the door. He would go up to the door. And do what? He’d ring the bell, that much was clear. She’d answer. He’d . . . The plan got murky here. It fell apart. His legs were cold. Why were his legs cold? He looked and saw that he had forgotten to change out of the shorts. He was standing behind a tree in Audrey’s yard like some deranged pervert wearing pink cutoffs and she was in the window, right in the living room. He turned and ran before she had a chance to see him.

  * * *

  They gathered in the living room under Conversation in the Sky. Charlie, in her now practically trademarked runner’s ensemble that she liked to call her “Workout Gear,” was two Enabletals deep and pondering a third. She eyed the liquor cabinet but didn’t want to make the first move. Armie wore his pink shorts and had sawdust in his hair. The black box containing George’s ashes was on the Herman Miller coffee table. Ana had found the table at an estate sale on Long Island in the ’80s. Ana and Charlie sat on the couch. Josef was upstairs showering. He’d been up there for a while. Armie spent a large amount of time structuring kindling and wood and lighting the fire ablaze. The house was chilly, but with the fire the living room was warm and the firelight flitted a pleasant hue on the walls. Abbott had tuckered himself out after dumping most of his spaghetti on his head at dinner. He slept now in a corner of the room, lying in the most macabre of positions, his face against the edge of the rug, his butt up in the air, and his My Little Pony backpack slung askew over his shoulders.

  “Is he okay like that?” Armie asked.

  “He’s fine,” Charlie said.

  Rey had sent texts throughout the day. He went from indignant to just plain insulting. Charlie was a “terrible person” and a “bad mother.” Charlie wondered if he’d even noticed the panties or if he would come to New York. Both omissions registered for her as glaring evidence against him. Like exhibits Q and R, if she were presenting them in a courtroom-type setting. I present exhibit R: a mysterious pair of women’s panties . . .

  Melody Montrose hadn’t texted her at all and neither had Leilani Costello or anyone else at P.Le.A.Se. Perhaps no one had reported the paparazzo punching? Charlie had done a Google search earlier and found nothing. She scrolled quickly through her phone and noted the last message she received from Melody, yesterday morning, which had read simply, “You know what? You’re right,” which Charlie assumed was a response to their earlier conversation in which Charlie had called her a child. Perhaps because of the double dose of Enabletal (with number three in her pocket; she was just letting some time pass so she didn’t feel totally addicted) or perhaps because she was a real emotion-having human being, she felt guilty for exploding on Melody as she had. And, if she was honest, she’d come to rely on Melody’s texts, the constant utterly ludicrous “crises” that in comparison cast her own constant “crises” into stark focus. Without Melody’s running narrative, there was no barometer for panic. She had to admit: She was a little lost without her.

  A steel lamp in the corner, with a triptych of rods topped by large orb-style bulbs complemented the soft light of the fire with its own soft light. The flames cackled and a log splintered. Charlie would have suggested hot cocoa, but that felt somehow inappropriate with her father’s ashes in a box a few feet away.

  “So,” Armie said. “We’re all here. What now?”

  “You said he wrote a letter?” Charlie said. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Ana said softly.

  “I have it,” Armie said.

  He went to the study, got the envelope, and came back, placing it next to the ashes.

  “So who wants to open it?” Charlie said.

  “I don’t,” Ana said.

  “You do it, Armie,” Charlie said. “And don’t read it out loud. I don’t want to get upset. Just . . . summarize what it says.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Josef?”

  “He can read it himself when he gets out of the shower,” Charlie said.

  Armie took the envelope and opened it. The letter occupied one side of a page. He read. When he was done, he folded it again and put the letter and the envelope back on the table.

  “He wants us to sell everything,” Armie said. “The desk. The grandfather clock. His books. His art collection. And the painting.”

  “He told me this was what he wanted,” Ana said.

  “It also says he doesn’t want a funeral.”

  “What does he want?” Charlie asked.

  “He says he wants . . . a ‘party.’ ”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Charlie asked.

  “He says . . . He says he wants . . .” Armie picked the letter back up and read aloud. “ ‘I would like everyone who wishes to attend—friends, family, loved ones—to gather for a memorial. Nothing fancy. No bullshit. No church.’ He underlined church.”

  “How am I supposed to get closure if I can’t bury him?” Ana asked. “Where will he go?”

  “Oh, Mom,” Charlie said. Ana folded her hands into her lap. She’d changed into a dark blue dress that hung loosely. Charlie had helped her pick it out. She wore a wooden cuff bracelet on one wrist and on the other a beaded band with a diamond Zulu pattern. Her hair, pulled taut and pinned to her head with gold barrettes, was flecked with austere strands of gray that Charlie had not noticed until this moment. She thought her mother looked sad and beautiful and strong and leaf-like all at once. “I’m not sure you ever get closure. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “I think the real issue,” Armie said, “is how to make sure Mom is set up after this is all over. The store is going to need a lot of work even after the insurance comes through.”

  “Insurance isn’t going to come through,” Ana said.

  “Of course it will,” Armie said. He threw another log on the fire and they all stared as the flames leapt and the ashen logs underneath shattered in a crackling hiss.

  “What do you mean, Mom?” Charlie said.

  “The policy won’t cover the water damage. I’ve gone over it.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Armie said.

  “Don’t cry,” Charlie said. “Mom, don’t cry.”

  “Armie, what did you do?” It was Josef, at the bottom of the stairs. His hair was wet from the shower. He was applying some fresh gauze to his hand. The living room had a cozy chalet feel to it, and he informed them of this by saying, “It’s like a chalet in here.”

  “We’re just talking about what to do.” Charlie nodded at the letter. “You should read it.”

  “Josef, what happened to you?” his mother asked.

  Josef looked at his hand. “I fell.”

  “Looks like you got into a fight,” Armie said.

  “From the look of it, we could all use a drink.” The cut hand throbbed as he opened the liquor cabinet.

  George insisted on keeping the house stocked with expensive and unnecessary selections like the ludicrously pricey Old Rip Van Winkle “Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve” fifteen-year-old bourbon that Josef now pulled out. He yanked the cork, poured four tumblers to the halfway mark, and offered them around.

  “No, thank you,” Ana said.

  Armie and Charlie accepted and Josef raised a glass, feeling a toast was in order, which was not like him, but he knew his mother was fond of toasting to things at any opportunity. “To Dad.”

  “Dad,” Charlie said.

  They drank.

  “Here.” Armie handed Josef the letter and Josef read it, standing, whiskey in hand. When he was done, he sat in one of the wing chairs.

  “So can I ask you a question about those shorts?”

  “I’m so glad you were finally able to squeeze us in,” Armie said. “This is already quite pleasant.”

  “Was I that needed?”

  “Not at all. We’ve got it covered. The flooded store. Arrangements for Dad. Selling the painting. Not much going on here.”

  “What’s there to figure out? We’re selling it, right?” Josef said.

  “If it�
�s what he said he wanted us to do,” Charlie said.

  “You’re saying he tells us to sell it here?” Josef waved the letter.

  “I don’t know,” Ana said.

  “You haven’t even read the letter,” Armie said to Josef.

  “I don’t have to read it,” Josef said. “Sell the painting. We all need the money.”

  “So, just get rid of it?” Armie said, putting his glass down on the coffee table next to the ashes. “Just take the money?”

  “Hey, man, you need it more than me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I’m just saying. You don’t have a job, so the money would be good for you.”

  “Ah. I see. Always looking out for everyone. Maybe you can call one of your buddies and get me another job, huh? That worked out really well last time.”

  “Look. I’m sorry I didn’t come running up here to sit around and commiserate with everyone. That doesn’t mean I’m not upset about Dad.”

  “It’s nice to see you, Josef,” Charlie said.

  “Please don’t fight,” Ana said.

  “But you’re never around, are you?” Armie asked.

  “I guess not, no. I had a lot of stuff to take care of. I told you that.”

  Josef walked back to the bar and took the fourth whiskey for himself.

  “Double up, please.” Charlie passed her empty glass back.

  “I’m curious,” Armie said. “Like what, exactly, did you have to take care of?”