Fly by Night

by Andrea Thalasinos

  Lacey poked her head through the break in the lattice and looked around.

  “Remember this place?” Amelia squatted.

  Junior backed coyly away, sat down, and looked back at Amelia for reassurance, his ears flat against his head, his tail making a tiny fan shape in the snow. His sister wanted to proceed.

  “You’re the gutsy one, Lacey, aren’t you?”

  Amelia then lifted up both pups; balancing one on each hip as she hiked halfway back up and then set them both down.

  “You guys are getting heavy,” she said. “We’ll come back later.”

  Loud sniffs on the ground as they puttered around, knocking against each other for a bit as Amelia tried to get them to walk but then figured they were still too young. Lacey jumped on top of Junior and then rolled over, sniffing in loud puffs until Amelia picked them both up and hiked back up to the base of the front steps.

  “Hmm.” Amelia set them down and pulled her keys out of her pocket, holding the one TJ had given her.

  Stepping onto the first step, she stopped.

  The woods caught her attention and she turned. The pups turned too. Their ears up in alert as the three of them watched. An uneasy feeling of eyes. Scanning the leafless trees there were no shadowed forms against the stark background contours of snowy ground. Her throat tightened. Something was there. Yet as puzzling as it was, for the first time in years she felt free.

  “Dad.”

  She closed her eyes and thought back to that moment with Charlotte in TJ’s truck. Seeing Lacey in her mind’s eye and feeling the dog’s will to return.

  Amelia trounced down what little snow there was on the steps and scooted the rest away with her boot. Junior made a game of it, biting the tip of her boot and shaking it as if to kill it.

  “Stop it.” She couldn’t help but laugh and pulled her foot away though Junior took it more as an invitation to play. She carried the pups up to the front door.

  Setting them down she slid in the key and turned it, feeling the inside button pop.

  Taking a breath, she turned the doorknob, and pushed open the door.

  The inside air smelled as musty as Charlotte had said, and also as she’d suggested, nothing that a few hours of open windows couldn’t improve.

  The pups poked in their noses and stepped inside.

  Amelia stood still until they reached the end of the leash.

  Inside was dim. Thin ivory-colored blinds and fabric shades covered the windows, in some places hanging down past the ledges to touch the floor.

  She assumed it changed since her father had lived there. She looked around, imagining. That was so many years ago.

  Amelia shut the front door and let go of the dog leashes. The pups stepped a few feet and then sat. Lacey stood as Junior followed, their loosely jointed bodies waddled and sniffed as they crisscrossed each other’s path as the leashes wove into a kind of braid.

  Floor tiles crackled beneath her boots. The long dried-out glue had reached the end of its shelf life. She flipped on a light switch and watched it illuminate.

  “Thanks, Charlotte.” The woman deserved a medal. Especially for living with TJ. Either a medal or else she needed to have her head examined, Amelia thought as she looked around. Maybe he was different with her. Nobody knows what life is like in private.

  She felt for the blinds’ drawstring and pulled. The window glass was hazy. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed in. The window shades no longer had that spring to them so she unhooked them, rolled them up, and set them in a corner.

  It was as cold inside as out. Squatting before the woodstove in the living room, she opened the front grate, stuck in her head, and looked up, wondering if the chimney was clear. A box of matches sat on the mantel. She opened it and struck one. It fired and she let it burn out.

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  She stood and walked down the short hallway and peeked into the two tiny bedrooms, then back to the kitchen.

  The sink and cabinets were clustered along the wall like a ship’s galley. A small wooden table was snug up against the lakeside windows, tucked beneath were three mismatched chairs. Amelia stood looking around, something about the interior felt boatlike.

  A separate living room had been created by portioning it off with a tall blue-and-green-plaid sofa with wingback sides she’d once heard referred to as a divan, and two stuffed chairs facing the woodstove. Draped along the divan’s spine was a crochet throw made of colorful connecting squares. The yarn looked faded along the sofa back, but as Amelia touched it, she could see it was only dust. She brushed her fingers off on her thigh.

  Flanking the divan were mismatched side tables. Underneath one was a shelf piled with National Geographic magazines, their telltale yellow spines and size being a dead giveaway. A pair of matching table lamps on each table had golden-color round glass globes for bases, blending in with the kitchen color scheme. The walls were painted a sky blue.

  Walking toward the kitchen sink she turned on the tap. The pipes knocked loudly, startling her with their vehemence. Nothing but air sputtered until a spurt of water made it out. Charlotte had mentioned that the well-pump might be broken, the pipes frozen, or both. Amelia turned it on again. After a few more moments of protest, a steady stream of water began.

  The refrigerator was a harvest-gold color that she’d remembered seeing in people’s houses when she was a kid. She opened the door, the interior lightbulb lit. Someone had placed an open box of baking soda inside. God bless Charlotte.

  She shut the door.

  The matching stove had a push-button control panel.

  She pressed one and waited.

  Sitting on the back ledge of the stove was a wire spice rack with glass jars containing tiny amounts of green material. Amelia lifted each cylindrical jar and turned it over, the contents tumbling as she examined it as carefully as a marine specimen. Oregano, thyme maybe, it had been ages since she’d cooked a proper meal. She placed each jar back in order—Gloria’s kitchen.

  The burner had turned red-hot. Amelia held her hands over, warming them.

  She stepped over to the kitchen table and pulled out one of the chairs. One had a yellow seat cushion, the other two wood. All three had been pushed in as if Gloria might have done to tidy up the day she moved out, wanting everything shipshape, knowing that she might never return. What might it be like to live knowing that.

  Amelia pushed the chair back in.

  A tall empty bookshelf flanked the wall near the woodstove.

  The pups were too quiet.

  “Lacey. Junior.” She clapped her hands.

  There was no response. Amelia walked into the back room. They were tumbling onto each other and playing.

  “Good doggies.” She sat on the floor as they tottled over. Rubbing their tiny ears, she picked them up, one in each arm and bent over, inhaling the scent of their fur. “What’d you find in there?”

  Junior began to wriggle. Amelia set him back down as he dropped into a play-bow, his front paws down, hind end up in the air, barking at Lacey.

  Amelia set Lacey down too and then turned back to the kitchen, opened the bottom cabinets, and squatted down, holding onto the doors for balance.

  “Oh, Gloria,” she said softly, surveying the sizes of steel pots, lids, and pans all arranged by size, a pressure cooker, frying pans—the bits and pieces, odds and ends that had made up the woman’s life.

  Amelia bowed her head. Sighing deeply, she closed the cabinet doors and then stood, pulling out two drawers that she guessed from their weight held silverware and utensils. Cheese graters, spatulas, an array of wooden spoons, a garlic press, meat pounder, and other items were lined up next to a stack of clean pot holders. She picked up a metal spatula and looked closely, well-used but spotless. Gloria had been an ER nurse. The utensils were as clean as hospital instruments.

  “Oh my God.” She noticed the same patterned vinyl contact paper in the drawers as Penelope’s. She remembered her mother, measuring and cutting the p
aper to fit, cursing in Greek.

  Amelia shut the drawers and looked out at the lake. She wished Bryce was there. She’d underestimated taking residence in another woman’s home, especially this woman’s.

  “Why, Dad?” she asked the musty air. Why had he left this family? She’d asked TJ a few times, though she had not been given a straight answer or at least one that made sense, only cryptic, snarky little comments.

  Loud sniffing came from the bedrooms; Amelia smiled at more sounds of growling and play-fighting.

  It was a short walk down the hallway. Looking in one bedroom and then to the other, the pups were chewing on a sock, tugging it away from each other. Their ears flopped, faces wet as they tripped over each other until Junior stopped to shake off. His ears made a flapping sound as he began the game over again.

  Amelia stepped into what she presumed was Gloria’s bedroom. A double-size mattress stripped of all bedding filled the room, with a pile of Charlotte’s clean sheets and towels set on a corner.

  She pushed open the vinyl accordion door of the closet. It was empty except for a stack of towels, a few wire hangers, and a white train case placed on the top shelf. She hadn’t seen a train case since Penelope’s, which had been part of a luggage set they’d purchased for their trip to Greece. She remembered the blue color of their luggage.

  Amelia stretched to reach the case but couldn’t.

  “Shit.” In the corner was a wooden chair. Amelia dragged it over and climbed up, pulling down the train case and setting it onto the bed.

  Flipping open the latches, she cracked open the lid. The scent of women’s face powder, something she’d not smelled since being a girl when Penelope would powder her face on Sunday mornings before church. There was nothing inside except for a few bobby pins. How disappointing, but why? What was she looking for?

  Amelia shut and latched the case, climbed back up, and slid it back where it had been on the shelf.

  What right had she to even be in the house? Maybe that’s why the will hadn’t been changed after her father’s death; to see what Penelope had done. Maybe that was Gloria’s revenge. Amelia shook out the thought. Being in this house was doing something to her.

  She noticed a night table on one side of the bed with a small fussy-looking lampshade, ruched organdy that was discolored with a heavy coating of dust. Across from the bed was a wooden dresser with an attached mirror. She looked at her face, surprised by how it looked as if belonging to an older woman. Two windows with blinds, she pulled the drawstring and looked outside.

  Placing the chair back in the exact spot, she headed across to the smaller bedroom.

  On one wall a poster of a man in full Indian regalia with an eagle superimposed over his face hung at an angle by one flat metal thumbtack. Two small bookshelves were empty except for a set of field guides to North American birds, weather, trees, and wildflowers. She pulled out the weather guide; the top pages had a thick coating of dust.

  Then she spotted the blue desk.

  Amelia stopped. She’d had the exact one, only hers was pink. She’d spent the better part of her childhood there. She’d had a Cinderella desk lamp. TJ’s had a plain gooseneck desk lamp, the cord unplugged and set on top.

  Pulling out the desk chair, Amelia sat, feeling the familiar contours of the seat and looked out the window just above. So much living had happened in this parallel universe. Why had they keep it hidden? What had been so shameful?

  Snow-covered frozen Lake Superior turned blindingly white in seconds as sun rays poked through the thick cloud cover. Amelia squinted and rested her elbows on the desk, leaning over. What had TJ thought about all those years while doing his homework as she was doing hers? He’d known all about her, but she hadn’t known about him. He’d had photos of her, but she hadn’t any of him. A calendar on the wall was dated June 1972. She stood and walked over, trying to decipher his scribbles in some of the squares, the top printed with a Washburn, Wisconsin, hardware store’s insignia.

  Lifting the top sheet, she paged back to January, but nothing was written down except for strategically placed Ds.

  She turned back to watch the lake a few moments and then sat back down at TJ’s desk. Maybe he’d been counting down the months before his father would come back to visit, perhaps hating her for keeping him away. She would have hated her too. Or else just a brokenhearted boy imagining someone else was enjoying the sheltering care of a father who’d given it so freely to another during the short span of his life. She stood indicted and thought of Alex. She’d done the same thing to him, only he hadn’t known a father to miss, to long for. And while Alex would ask from time to time and she’d make the offer to search for the man, he’d back off as quickly as he’d brought it up. As if her willingness had been enough rather than any sort of father quest.

  The pups raced back and dive-bombed her as they squealed in excitement at discovering her in TJ’s bedroom. Jumping up, each vied to get up into her lap first, their nails made rustling noises against the fabric of her jeans as they tried to gain traction.

  Lacey then stopped.

  “Oh no!” Amelia said. A stream of pee flooded TJ’s boyhood rug. “Great.” Amelia shook her head, wondering how to clean it up, thinking she’d better set up a system for a latrine.

  Amelia moved onto the bed and rolled over. The room was cold. She’d better bring in wood, start a fire. Maybe air the place out another day. She lifted each pup up onto the bed as they dropped down beside her.

  She breathed in Junior’s fur, thinking that she should get up, unload groceries too but instead she drifted off.

  * * *

  She didn’t know why she was so afraid that night. Tucked into her sleeping bag on the couch, the lights were on. The woodstove had warmed the house.

  And while the weather had turned rough like Charlotte had said, Amelia had been out on the ocean in far worse in all manner of rickety watercraft.

  Just after dark the wind had picked up, howling like a grief-stricken animal.

  The lights flickered a few times before blinking on and off. The off intervals became longer than the on. She toyed with the idea of running out to grab the flashlight from the glove compartment before settling in for the night, but wasn’t sure the effort would be rewarded. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d changed the batteries.

  The house shuddered as winds burst against it like microexplosions as Amelia imagined isobars on marine radar. The house squeaked and creaked like the sounds of a ship rolling in high seas and the roof sounded as if parts of it were loose and might lift off and blow away.

  Settling on the couch in her sleeping bag, Amelia had ruled out sleeping in either bed, thinking it might be an invitation to unwelcome dreams.

  Amelia picked up her cell phone to call Bryce. There was no service. Then she spotted a wall phone. Wriggling out of her sleeping bag, she lifted it but it was dead.

  Hell, she’d have called Charlotte and even TJ if it weren’t for his sharp corners that still poked.

  “Damn,” she said and looked at the window. She’d closed the blinds after dark, though they swayed in the drafts. Maybe go find a hotel or something but good luck with two dogs on a Tuesday night at eleven thirty in the middle of a moonless, black winter night in a town of 480 people.

  Snow pelted the windows and sounded more like sand, blowing in straight-line winds. Hail began falling, hitting the metal roof as if it had become a percussion instrument.

  Then everything stopped. Nature had switched off. It all went silent.

  Amelia sat up.

  Neither pup seemed fazed, both were asleep, one along each of her arms. Maybe because they were home and she wasn’t.

  Or perhaps their mother’s scent was the calming agent. So many things she didn’t know.

  Just as she lay back down to doze, a tapping sound on the window made her sit up. It sounded like a branch or a stick. She hadn’t recalled any shrubs or trees touching the house.

  Amelia listened and then turned t
oward the window.

  Junior sat up and looked. Amelia waited for the tapping to stop. It did. She lay back down and turned onto her side.

  Then it started again.

  “Oh shit.” She sat up.

  Standing, she set Junior down and tried to imagine what it might be. The rhythm was steady like Morse code, not a branch. She crept toward the window.

  The sound came from the bottom right-hand corner.

  Crouching down, she winced as she lifted the blind.

  On the outside ledge was a small bird, maybe a chickadee or a pine grosbeak looking at her, imploring. She looked into the shiny blackness of its eyes—unheard of for a bird to be out at almost midnight in such a storm and not sheltered or roosting in the arms of a tree.

  The oddity was frightening, otherworldly, and personal in a way she couldn’t deny.

  She let the blind drop and stepped back.

  The bird continued tapping its code.

  It’ll go way. She climbed back onto the couch and into her sleeping bag, pulling it up to her chin. Junior looked at her.

  “What?” she said as he looked back to the window.

  The image of the bird was a weight on her conscience, like she didn’t have enough.

  Then it stopped.

  “Oh, thank God.” She relaxed. Maybe it flew off.

  But then it started again.

  “Shit.” Amelia got up. One hand on her forehead, the tapping persisted. She pressed her stomach and paced as if waiting for someone or something to die.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” The tapping was on and off, her insides tensed with urgency. She squeezed her heart shut. What could she do, she couldn’t just open the window and let the bird fly in. Yet why not?

  The tapping stopped. Maybe it was gone.

  Creeping over to the window, she pulled up the blind’s corner.

  The little bird looked at her.

  “Shit, that’s it.” She pulled the blind up and fiddled with the window latches. “How do I open—” She turned the latches and pulled but it didn’t budge. She felt like breaking the glass but that would’ve been hysterical.