Property of / the Drowning Season / Fortune's Daughter / at Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  Jason Grey picked her up from the train in a Ford station wagon that had no muffler and no shock absorbers. Lila walked right past him and went to stand out on the platform. But as soon as she saw the old Ford she knew it was his, and after she turned back toward the station she realized that an old man was watching her. It had been five years since her in-laws’ last visit to California, and in that time Jason’s hair had gone completely white. But that wasn’t what made him seem so much older—it was that he was no longer as tall. When Lila walked over and hugged him they seemed exactly the same height.

  “This is one of the best surprises I could have,” Jason Grey told Lila as he lifted her suitcase into the rear of the station wagon.

  They drove out to the East China Highway. There was no heater in the car and their breath fogged up the windshield. Somehow, he didn’t really seem surprised to see her. He took her out to breakfast and they both ordered coffee and eggs, and as they ate they watched the traffic on the highway.

  “If you’ve left Richard, he must have deserved it,” Jason Grey said in an offhand way.

  “Maybe I just decided I wanted to see you,” Lila said.

  Jason laughed and paid their bill; he had seen the way she was staring out at the East China Highway, and he knew he wasn’t the one she was there to see.

  Outside, the air was so salty and cold that it burned. A new layer of ice had formed on the windshield, and Jason took most of it off with a plastic scraper. They drove out to the house, then went down the rutted driveway and sat there staring at the place. The pine trees were taller than Lila had remembered; beneath them the house was drowning in a pool of black shadows. It was too dark even to see the wooden front door.

  Jason got her suitcase out of the back, and Lila followed him up to the house. The air was even colder underneath the pines, and it smelled sweet. Lila could feel something in her throat, and she forced herself to swallow hard.

  “I hope you’re not here to feel sorry for me,” Jason Grey said. He had pushed open the unlocked front door, but now he kept her standing out on the porch.

  “Absolutely not,” Lila said.

  “Good thing.” Jason nodded as he led her inside.

  He carried her suitcase up to the second floor and gave her the bedroom that used to be his and Helen’s. When Lila’s mother-in-law was first sick she couldn’t manage the stairs. They had moved into the parlor, and ever since Jason had kept the heat in the rest of the house shut off and he’d remained in the parlor bedroom. Now he got out a portable kerosene heater and started it up so that Lila’s room would be warm by the time she went to bed. While he poured in the kerosene Lila went to the window and wiped the fog off the glass. Out in the back the lawn had disappeared and the woods now came right up to the back of the house.

  “I started to have my doubts about mowing the lawn,” Jason explained when he saw her at the window. “It just seemed silly after a while.”

  Lila had come here without any real plan. She never imagined she’d waste a whole day with her father-in-law. But now that she was in this house, she felt strangely tired. After they’d gone back downstairs she sat down on the couch next to a hospital cot in the parlor. In no time three hours had gone by.

  She knew no one could do it for her. She had to walk out the door, start up the Ford, and drive to the other side of town. She was only five miles from her goal, and she was paralyzed. All the time the day was slipping away from her Lila kept thinking: I can do it anytime. But the horizon grew dark, and the birds mistook the parlor windows for the sky, beating their wings against the glass. Lila began to wonder if she would ever be able to leave this house. When she tried to lift her arms she couldn’t move. At dinnertime, Lila managed to follow Jason into the kitchen, but then her knees felt weak and she had to sit down.

  “This is my big secret,” Jason Grey said. He opened the refrigerator and pulled down the freezer compartment. “I eat frozen dinners.”

  Lila found that if she really tried she could pretend to speak.

  “I won’t tell,” she said, and she managed to stand up, light the oven with a wooden match, and slide two frozen dinners onto the lowest rack.

  They ate in the kitchen with the oven left on to heat the room. Every time she swallowed Lila swore the dinners hadn’t defrosted and that she was swallowing pieces of ice. Jason Grey seemed to be having no trouble with his turkey and mashed potatoes, although every once in a while he stopped eating long enough to fiddle with the stove.

  “I can’t stand to give the oil companies any more money than they already have,” he explained. “The oven in here isn’t too bad, and I put the woodstove in the parlor three years ago.”

  Lila really didn’t know what was happening to her. She put her fork down and covered her eyes.

  “I’ll freeze to death before I give the oil companies another cent,” Jason said cheerfully. “I’ll bet you think I can’t make good coffee,” he added. “Well, you’re wrong.”

  He got up to start the coffee, and he let Lila cry.

  “Thanks,” Lila said when he brought over the coffeepot.

  “I don’t like to see you upset,” Jason said.

  “Oh, well,” Lila said.

  “I mean it,” Jason said. “I don’t like to see it.”

  He got some milk and sugar and took down two cups from the top cabinet. “We don’t have owls any more around here,” he told Lila. “Remember how there used to be owls all over East China—in the trees and everywhere? They just took off, and now the only thing you hear at night is traffic. You never used to hear traffic around here.”

  They drank coffee and Lila took off her boots and lifted her feet up to warm them by the oven. Sitting here with Jason, she could almost forget why she had come back to East China in the first place.

  “We should have asked you to live with us,” she told her father-in-law.

  “Not me,” Jason Grey said. “I’m never going to California.”

  It turned out that Jason wasn’t paying for hot water any more either, so Lila boiled some water to wash the coffee cups and spoons. By the time she finished and went into the parlor, Jason was already asleep on the couch, and Lila covered him with a wool afghan her mother-in-law had crocheted. Then she turned off the lights. She went upstairs and got into bed, but when she turned off the lamp on the night table there was still a glow from the kerosene heater. In that bedroom, beneath a heavy quilt, Lila felt perfectly safe. It was quite possible, she knew, to stay here forever. Especially in winter, when it was dark by four and there was wood to be brought in, salt blocks to be dragged out to the yard for the deer, ice on all the windows. She hadn’t known quite how much she’d missed winter, and now that she was back she almost felt young in this season, in this house. That night she brushed her hair a hundred times with a wire brush she’d found on the bureau, and she slept deeply as the ice on the windows grew thicker. By midnight you couldn’t have seen outside even if you’d wanted to; it was as if nothing existed on the other side of the glass but snow and an old road that led nowhere in particular.

  In the morning, Lila woke suddenly. The heater had run out of kerosene and the room was freezing. She reached for her clothes and got dressed under the covers the way she and Richard used to on mornings when it was too cold to get out of bed. Sometime during the night Jason Grey had woken up, put more wood in the parlor stove, then gone back to sleep on his cot. When he came into the kitchen at six-thirty Lila had already made coffee and French toast, which was staying warm on a plate in the oven.

  Jason smiled when Lila brought his plate to the table. “I never knew you could cook like this.”

  Lila turned the oven up higher, then put on a second borrowed sweater, and watched her father-in-law eat. She couldn’t quite believe she had been in the house for less than twenty-four hours. In a little while she planned to fix the wallpaper that was coming down in the hallway; all it needed was some masking tape and glue.

  After breakfast, Jason insisted on doing th
e dishes.

  “I guess you’re going somewhere today,” he said when he’d finished. He had used cold water and the cups and plates were streaked.

  Lila could feel a tightening in her throat.

  “I was thinking about getting some groceries,” Lila said.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Jason Grey said.

  Lila had the sudden urge for a cigarette. There was a pack of Marlboros on the table; she lit one, but the smoke only made her throat feel worse and she handed the cigarette to her father-in-law. She just wasn’t ready to go out. Maybe after some time in this house, after the winter when there was something else in the world besides snow, maybe then she could think about it.

  “We both know you didn’t come out here just to see me,” Jason Grey said. “I’m not asking why you’re here, you understand.”

  Jason sat down across from her and Lila pushed a glass ashtray toward him. He smoked only half the cigarette before he stubbed it out and coughed for what seemed too long a time. If Lila didn’t go after her daughter soon, she would never do it. And if that happened she would never be able to leave this house; she might be able to go as far as the driveway, but then a feeling of pure terror would force her to run back inside and lock herself in the upstairs bedroom.

  “I figure you’ll need my car,” Jason Grey said. “Just remember to pump those brakes before you make a stop. They work. They just work better if you pump them.”

  Lila pulled on her boots and left the house. The thermometer nailed to the porch was at fifteen degrees. It took ten minutes for the car to heat up enough so that it wouldn’t stall out every time she put it into gear. Jason had always said that it was an auto mechanic’s duty to have a car that always needed repairing—that way if he had no business he could always give himself a job. As she sat in the idling car, the smell of gas made her sick to her stomach. She drove down the driveway carefully, and when she pulled out onto the East China Highway she skidded; if there had been oncoming traffic she wouldn’t have been able to pump the brakes in time.

  She had forgotten how small the place was—two long streets and a marina, then the circle of residential streets on a hill above the harbor. On one of these streets was a small housing development that had been built the year before Lila first came to East China. It was easy to find the right address, but, once she had, Lila turned the key in the ignition and just sat there, looking at the house. All along she’d imagined a two-story house, and here it was a ranch in a neighborhood that was so deserted that when Lila finally got out of the Ford and the car door slammed behind her, the sudden noise made her jump.

  The ground was frozen and there was a cover of ice on the asphalt driveway. Lila tried to tell herself that the worst part was over—she had found the house where her daughter had grown up. But already it felt wrong to her. She walked up to the door and knocked. She could hear something inside—a dishwasher or a washing machine. She realized then that she had expected some signs of children—a bicycle or a set of swings. The idea was ridiculous—it was winter, and her daughter was a grown woman—she probably only came back to this house on holidays, two or three times a year.

  Lila could hear someone walking down the hallway, but it wasn’t until the door opened that she believed it was finally happening. A woman stood looking at her through the storm door. The sound of water was even louder, and Lila could tell now—it was a dishwasher.

  “I’m Lila Grey,” Lila said right away, as if that explained anything.

  The woman nodded, expecting more, a sales pitch for cosmetics or vacuum cleaners. Lila could tell that she had already decided to say no and was just being polite.

  “My father-in-law used to own the first gas station on the highway,” Lila said. She was talking too much and too fast, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “He lives just past the station, in that old green farmhouse you can see from the road, and that’s his car out there. I knew I shouldn’t have borrowed it, but I did, and now I’m stuck and I have to call him.”

  When the woman looked out at the parked Ford it was easy to believe that Lila had indeed had car trouble. And then she actually did it; she unlocked the storm door and let Lila inside.

  “Everything’s a mess,” the woman said apologetically as she led Lila to the kitchen. There was a wall phone above the table, and the woman turned the dishwasher off so that Lila could hear. Her name, Lila knew from the file, was Janet Ross, and she had been thirty-three years old when cysts were discovered in both her ovaries. When the cysts were removed the surgeon found that the walls of her ovaries were depleted and thin. Janet Ross had come to see Dr. Marshall for a second opinion, and she had broken down in his office when he told her she’d never be able to have a child. When the doctor phoned her a few months later to tell her he had found a baby for her, it was late at night and the ice storm had made driving impossible. They took a train into Manhattan at five that morning. By seven they were in Dr. Marshall’s office at Beekman, and the doctor couldn’t help but notice that Janet Ross had dressed so quickly she was still wearing a nightgown underneath her dress and the flowered hem hung down past her knees to the tops of her boots.

  Lila held the phone down with her finger and dialed; she kidded Jason for lending her a wreck of a car and suggested he bring his tools and meet her out on the street.

  Janet Ross was at the table, polishing a silver creamer when Lila got off the phone.

  “He’ll have to take a cab over,” Lila said. “I guess I’ll wait in the car. I just wish the heater worked.”

  “No heat,” Janet Ross said sympathetically.

  Lila kept looking for a sign: a Mother’s Day card taped to the refrigerator, a photograph hung on the wall.

  “How about some coffee?” Janet Ross asked.

  “Great,” Lila said. “But why don’t you make it tea. I read tea leaves,” she explained.

  Janet Ross put some water up to boil, but she gave Lila a look.

  “It’s a hobby,” Lila explained. She waited just the right amount of time before she spoke again. “Why don’t you let me read yours?”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Janet Ross said, taking two teacups out of the cabinet.

  “Oh, you have to let me,” Lila said. “I’ll feel much better about barging in on you.”

  She took the teabags Janet Ross had put in each cup and tore them open with her fingernail. As water was poured into the cups Lila realized how uncomfortable she was in this kitchen; she had expected it to be much nicer than it was: the walls were covered with something that was supposed to look like slate, and the appliances were all a too bright yellow.

  “Lovely place you’ve got,” Lila actually said.

  “Do you really think so?” Janet Ross said, pleased. “We moved out here from the city thirty-two years ago—right after we were married.”

  Lila held up her hand. “Don’t tell me any more about yourself,” she warned. When Janet looked puzzled, she added, “Otherwise, what’s the point in having your fortune told?”

  The women smiled at each other, but all the time Lila was thinking what a fool Janet was. First she pretended to be someone’s mother, and now she was about to tell Lila everything she wanted to know.

  “Can I add milk to this?” Janet Ross asked. Used to coffee, she was having a hard time with the bitter taste of tea.

  “Just drink it,” Lila said.

  She sounded harsher than she’d planned, but Janet quickly finished her tea, as though, for a moment, she’d been frightened of Lila. Lila held the cup and peered into it.

  “I see the letter L,” she said. “A man who is very close to you.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Janet said. “That’s Lewis. My husband.”

  Lila smiled; she had her now.

  “This Lewis,” Lila said, “he’s an engineer someplace where they make airplanes?”

  Janet Ross grew rigid. “How did you know that?” she asked.

  Lila pointed to the teacup. Dr. Marshall’s f
iles were very complete. “See this,” she said. “This little airplane in the corner?”

  Janet Ross looked and couldn’t see a thing.

  “Well, it takes years to understand the symbols,” Lila said. “Take this one.” She briefly passed the cup in front of Janet. “This is clearly the symbol for your daughter.”

  “My daughter?” Janet said, confused.

  “I see here that she is twenty-six—no, twenty-seven years old this month.”

  She looked at Janet Ross out of the corner of her eye, and kept her voice as even as possible.

  “I can’t quite make out where it is she’s living now,” Lila said. “Is it East China?”

  Janet Ross seemed to be having trouble breathing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Your daughter,” Lila said impatiently. “Where is she?”

  They looked at each other across the table, and Lila could feel something passing between them.

  “I don’t have a daughter,” Janet Ross said.

  Lila sat straight in her chair; her head snapped back, as though she’d been slapped. She had the file in her suitcase and she knew this was the right house. This was the right woman—you could tell she was a thief just by looking at her.

  “Wait a minute,” Lila said. “I see the symbol for your daughter in the tea leaves, and the tea leaves never lie.”

  It was all a show for Janet Ross, and so it was even more terrible when Lila looked into the teacup and really did see something. There were arms and legs surfacing, and then, for a moment, a child’s face.