by Sara Shepard
Later, my father became talkative. “We couldn’t get that fishhook out of Petey’s foot, so we had to take him to the emergency room!”
There was a pause. He swiveled his head around at me, taking his hands off the steering wheel. I realized I was supposed to be paying attention.
“That’s funny,” I sputtered.
My father frowned. “It’s not funny, Summer. Petey’s dad’s car didn’t go much above forty-five. It took us over an hour to get to the hospital.”
We passed a truck stop. McDonald’s, Arby’s, Dairy Queen. We passed a field of cows and then a field of horses. “This is the real Pennsylvania,” my father yelled, his voice diffused through the open window. His accent had changed between Brooklyn and here, less than a six-hour drive. “I bet you don’t remember this, huh, Summer?”
“Not really.” We passed a red-painted barn. Someone had spray-painted Kill Niggers on the side of it. There was a big drip line from the base of the N to the waist-high grass.
Dear Claire, I composed in my head. Check this out! I could send her a photo of the barn. Perhaps she’d find it—what’s the phrase she always used?—très kitshe.
We passed what I guessed was the equivalent of a 7-Eleven. It was called Uni-Mart, sort of like unibrow. There was a placard out front; faded, plastic interchangeable letters read LOTTO HERE! MARLBORO $1.29.
“It’s so funny, being here,” my father said. “I feel like I know every tree personally.”
He put on the rental station wagon’s turn signal, and we pulled down a street paralleling a river. To our right were closed-up shops, an empty diner called Mister Donut, a crumbling church with ESUS SAVES on the marquee, a Knights of Columbus. Beyond an industrial-looking algae-green bridge was a hill lined with the kinds of trees I used to draw when I was little: long, narrow triangles, with tiny sticks as the trunks.
My father pointed to the hill. “We used to pitch our Christmas trees over that.” He swung his finger toward the steel bridge. “And that’s where that movie was shot.”
“What movie?”
“I don’t know. The…the movie. The one with…with the ghost in it. I can’t remember the name. Didn’t we go to see it?”
He nodded toward a ramshackle house across the hill. “That’s where the Crosses live. We used to sneak over and jump on his trampoline. Once, he came out with a rifle and shot at us.”
“Did he have any kids?” I asked.
“Nope. Hated kids.”
“Then what was he doing with a trampoline?”
My father paused, then slapped the steering wheel. “You know, I have no idea. Maybe he was in the circus?”
Dear Claire. Guess what my dad had for lunch today? Scrapple. Wanna know what it is? Pig shoulder pudding.
Suddenly my father pulled over. “Stop,” he said. “Come here.”
At first I thought he was talking to me. But he was gazing at a wet, dazed-looking dog on the riverbank. It wasn’t wearing a collar and had a big piece of fur missing from its side.
Other cars swished past, uninterested. Even here, I worried about them looking. My father turned the car off and stepped out. I shifted, uncomfortable. “Dad…”
He held up his hand. “I just want to see if I know her.”
“How could you know her?”
“All the dogs here, they mate with one another. Chances are I’ll know her.”
Steven, who’d been sleeping against the front passenger-side window, rubbed his eyes and stretched. “Where are we?”
“We’re here,” I whispered. “I think.”
Steven looked around. The dead Mister Donut, a gas station that looked like it had weathered a recent dust storm. Two boys rolled out from behind a pickup truck, carrying sixty-four-ounce cups of soda. They both had spiky blond hair and gapped yellow teeth.
My father found the thin red leash and the packet of liver treats he always kept in his knapsack. When he opened the car door, the heat wrapped around us like mummification bandages. Prepare for record temperatures this week, the weather reporters had been declaring the whole drive. We’d been able to keep the signal for NPR for a while, but in the western part of the state we’d found nothing but country stations, which my father detested more than Lite FM. He had a whole stack of jazz CDs to muddle him—and us, by default—through.
My father walked carefully toward the dog. It glanced at him out of the corner of its eye, the pink edge of its tongue darting in and out of its mouth. When my dad reached out, the dog ducked away. “Come here,” my father whispered. “It’s okay.” He crouched and put the treat on the ground. The dog sniffed the air. When my father made a sudden move, the dog backed away again. It was a dance until the dog ate the treat, trusted my dad enough to come close, and my dad placed his hand on the scruff of the dog’s neck. The dog flailed, but my father put one hand on its neck and the other on its belly and it began to calm down. He looped the leash around its neck, walked it to our car, and stuffed it in the very back of the station wagon, next to our luggage.
Before he shut the hatchback, my father peered carefully into the dog’s face. “Do you know it?” I called.
“Yep, I know her,” he answered. “I know her parents, anyway. Or her grandparents. Or I guess it would be great-grandparents. But whatever. She’s a Smitty dog.”
I was afraid to ask what a Smitty dog was, for fear it would launch another tale about roadkill or throwing a manhole cover through a car window or sledding down the hill on cardboard boxes because no one could find the sleds. That was all my father had been talking about the whole second half of this drive.
The dog curled into a ball, whimpering. The car smelled suddenly like wet fur and the chemical dogs give out when they are afraid. Steven stretched, his T-shirt taut against his chest. “Are we going to keep her?”
My father didn’t answer, but I knew what the answer was: of course we were going to keep her. We had three other dogs in a Brooklyn kennel: Fiona, an Irish terrier, Wesley, a cock-eared Doberman my father had coaxed to him just like he had with this Smitty dog, and Skip, a beagle who had shown up at our stoop a few months ago just as we were walking out the door, as if it knew we were the people dogs came to when they had nowhere else to go. When my mother left, the apartment was too big for three of us. Now, whenever I entered a room, a dog was there. Whenever I used the bathroom, I found a dog sitting on the bath mat, drooling. If I opened the door to go into our building’s hall, a dog tried to come. For a while, we tried to keep things nice, but with three dogs, it was hard. Finally, we just stopped trying altogether.
“So, do you remember any of this?” my father asked. “Hasn’t changed a bit. I can’t believe it.”
He navigated over a roller-coaster-sized bump. We’d been driving down the same gravel road for about five minutes. The road was uneven, with big pits and puddles, and there were spots where the gravel was strewn out over the shoulder, indicating a spinout. “Last time you were here…I don’t know.” My father scratched his head. “You were three? Four? It was Christmas.”
“Maybe.” I squinted, pretending like I was trying to remember, but this just looked like a gravel road. A squirrel in a tree eyed us suspiciously as we passed.
“We were only here for a little while, then it started snowing.” He picked at the side of his thumbnail. He was nervous, I realized. “There’s the creek,” he added, pointing. “It’s clean enough to swim in.”
“Since when do you say creek like crick?” I asked.
“I didn’t say crick.”
“Yes, you did.”
He thought for a moment. “Well, so what if I did?”
I glanced at him, then crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t think I could swim in a creek. Or a crick. And besides, won’t we have, like, funeral stuff to do?”
“Yeah, but you’re missing out if you don’t try it,” he said. “It’s much nicer than swimming in a pool. And Samantha’s about your age. You can swim together.”
“I didn’t bring
my suit.”
Finally, we turned into the driveway of a low-slung house. There were a lot of weeds in the front yard and a very, very old blue pickup truck in the driveway. Off to the left was a white-shingled shed; in front of it was a red three-wheeled lawn mower, lying on its side. The house had a large, faded wraparound porch strewn with all sorts of junk—an old television, another lawn mower, a couple of white plastic porch chairs, a dog bed, and a fifty-pound bag of dog food, rabidly torn open from the center. There was a dog on the porch, too, eating straight from the hole in the bag. I heard the crick out back, rushing. It could never be clean enough to swim in. My stomach started to hurt.
Dear Claire. Actually, a picture would have said way more than words.
A girl was sitting on the porch swing. She had long brown hair, and her old jeans hung loosely on her hips. She narrowed her eyes when she saw us but made no effort to get up. “We can’t see the body until after three,” she shouted. “Just so you know.”
My father opened his door and climbed out. “You remember Samantha, don’t you, Summer? She’s Skip’s sister’s kid’s kid. Your second cousin.”
“My name isn’t Samantha anymore.” The girl didn’t move. “It’s Sword now.”
“Ah. Well. Hello, Sword.” My father, surprisingly, didn’t miss a beat.
Samantha—Sword—snorted. My father told me on the way here that Samantha’s parents died in a fire nine months ago, and she’d been living here with my now-dead grandmother. Stella, my great-aunt, lived here, too, having moved from her own house into this one when my grandmother’s health began to decline. This, at least, was what Stella told us on the phone a few months ago, when she suggested that my father come see my grandmother before she passed. But my father didn’t. This was the first time he’d been back here in years.
My father took a few steps away from the car, squinting into the backyard. “Where’s the boat?”
“Ruth sold it,” Samantha yelled, starting to swing.
He frowned. “When?”
“I don’t know. When I came here, it was gone. She said she sold it to spite you.” Samantha smiled greedily. I expected her teeth to be gnarled, yellow, overlapping, but they were beautifully straight and white.
My father ran his hand through his hair. “Huh.”
The screen door slammed, and an older woman tumbled out. Her long reddish hair curled around her head, and she wore cat-eye glasses. “Ritchie!” She had loose jiggle on her upper arms and smeared, orange-pink lipstick. “It’s been…my God. How long?”
“I don’t know, Stella,” my father answered, hugging her. “Maybe ten years?”
Stella hit him—hard. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.”
Samantha swung violently, bumping the porch rail with her feet.
“And who are these two?” Stella turned her overmagnified eyes to me. “This your girlfriend?” She moved to Steven. “Who’s this big strapping gentleman? You old enough to date, honey? ’Cause if so—”
“We’re his kids,” I gasped.
Stella sidled very close to us. She smelled not how I thought a great-aunt would—like urine and cats and menthol—but like peanut butter cookies. “I know that, honey. I know.”
“It’s very nice to see you both,” my father said. “I haven’t seen Samantha—sorry, Sword—since she was a baby, I think.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Sword! Now, what kind of name is Sword for a girl?” She looked over her shoulder at Samantha. “If you’re going to change it, change it to Trixie. Or Marilyn, after Marilyn Monroe.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Samantha muttered.
“Where’s Petey?” my father asked. “Is he here yet?”
“He’s around here somewhere.” Stella pulled out a cigarette. Her cat-eye glasses slid down her nose. She looked at my father. “Your crazy mother, huh? Had to go and die on us.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Steven mumbled.
“And did you hear the latest?” Stella shook her head. “The Department of Veterans’ Affairs gave her a stipend for her funeral, for being in the Army Nurse Corps, you know. And you know what she did? She spent every penny. Didn’t think, Gee, my sister could use that money to fix up the house, did she? Nope. Had to buy the best casket and everything. Satin-lined!”
“You’re kidding,” my father said.
“Apparently she made these arrangements years ago. So the money had been spent all this time and we didn’t even know it. Like she even liked the war! I know for a fact she wanted to be back here, ironing things and baking potpies. She’s even having the military come out and fold the flag and shoot off guns.”
Steven brightened. “Cool.”
“Mom?” My father scratched his chin. “Seriously?”
“You would’ve known this if you visited.” Stella hobbled up the porch steps. “She probably would’ve told you. She never told me shit like that.”
My father looked down, not saying anything.
Stella removed her glasses. Her eyes were brown, large, and a little crossed. “We should go over to the home probably, huh?”
“We can’t go there until three,” Samantha barked. She and Stella had a funny way of talking; some of their vowels are very clipped and thin. We can’t go thirr until three. “Don’t you remember what that dickwad at the funeral home said?”
Stella looked delighted and punched Samantha softly on the arm. “Dickwad! Now, that is an interesting mental picture. Leon is a dickwad, isn’t he?”
You’ll remember Stella, my father told me on the drive here. She’s a spitfire. But I didn’t remember her. I didn’t remember any of this. We used to go to my mother’s family’s house for holidays. My maternal grandmother lived just two hours from Brooklyn, in a town in Pennsylvania called Bryn Mawr. Her yard was fenced and she had one dog—a bichon frise. When she died, there was a closed casket and a small, tasteful service. We had a brunch afterward, and some great-uncle made me a Shirley Temple with two maraschino cherries. We didn’t have to do anything like go see the body.
Stella put her arm around Steven’s shoulders. “You’ll love it here. It’s such a nice little vacation for you. Did your father tell you about the crick? And the river. They have these new things, they’re like water scooters. They’re called…oh, what are they called…”
“Jet Skis,” Samantha sighed.
“Jet Skis!” Stella crowed, holding up one finger in eureka!
“Jet Skis aren’t new,” I said.
“A Jet Ski chopped off Mason’s leg last week,” Samantha said.
“It did not.” Stella shot her a look.
“How do you know?”
“It’s all right,” Steven said. “I’m not really into Jet Skis, anyway.”
“Now, have you ever been on one?” Stella asked.
“Yeah,” Steven said.
“No, you haven’t.” Stella put her hands on her hips. “These are completely cutting-edge. You’re probably thinking of a canoe.”
five
The front door led into a sitting room with two scratchy plaid couches, a worn circular rug, a dingy fireplace, and a very old television in the corner. On the mantel was a large gold trophy in the shape of a horseshoe. There were gilt-framed, oily paintings on the walls, all of either hunting scenes—dogs majestically pointing at foxes, ruddy men on horseback, a deer standing dumbfounded in a clearing—or of Frank Sinatra. Frank singing, Frank grinning, Frank with his Rat Pack.
“A sight for sore eyes, huh?” Stella sighed, as if the room were beautiful.
“Looks good,” my father answered quietly.
I passed into the dining room. There was a painting of Frank on navy blue velvet. He was made up to look like a saint, a Mento-shaped halo around his head.
On the table sat a bunch of framed photographs, a little shrine to my grandmother. I leaned down and examined the pictures on the dining table. The first was a black-and-white snapshot of her in a nurse’s uniform, standing at the edg
e of a cot. Chicken scratch at the bottom of the picture said (I think), Ruth, Paris, 1944.
Next was a soft, hand-colored photo. She looked about ten years older, with blond, neat, bunchy hair, very white skin, no wrinkles. After that was a picture of her with her hands on my father’s shoulders. My father, maybe a bit older than me, stood beside her, although I didn’t think he intended to be in the picture. He stared off into space, his whole face shattered and fragile.
Something about his face in the photo reminded me of his face the day he threw the snow globe against the wall. Had my father told Stella about that? About the hospital? How had he explained?
My grandmother grew older and older in each successive picture, gaining more weight, her hair receding until it was a fuzzy, bald raft at the crown of her head, her pink scalp shining through. In the last photo, she was in bed. Stella was next to her, wearing the same green stretch pants she had on today.
My father returned from the kitchen, holding a can of beer. It looked strange in his hand; I’d never seen him drink one. He pointed to the photo of him. “That’s me.”
“Duh,” I answered. I motioned to the wall. “What’s with the pictures of Frank?”
My father took a long swallow of beer. “Yeah. Mom liked Frank. She really went nuts with pictures of him after Dad died.”
I stared at him. Samantha, who was sitting on the couch reading a wrinkled TV Guide, snorted.
Dear Claire. You know how you’re always looking for kitsch? Well, you’d hit the jackpot here.
“Why don’t I take your bags upstairs?” my father offered.
We all walked through the kitchen and up the creaky stairs to the bedrooms. The upstairs, way colder than the downstairs, opened into a long, narrow hall with doors on either side. The bathroom door, the first to the left, gaped open. Stacks of books and crossword puzzles balanced on the top of the toilet.
My father tapped the first bedroom door open with his foot. The door was very heavy, with a long crack traversing through its center. “This used to be my room.”
It smelled musty inside. There was a From Russia with Love poster on the wall and a video game console—at least I thought that was what it was—on the ground. The television was a tiny bubble. An orange milk crate in the corner held action figures, and a second milk crate behind it was filled with old LPs. Blonde On Blonde was up front, a frizzy-haired Bob Dylan pursing his lips at the camera. A plaid spread covered the twin bed.
