by Sonya Cobb
She gathered the remaining risers and molding strips and spent the rest of the evening gluing them together. It was hard to be patient and careful when she was nearly shaking with frustration. It would take all day to nail the risers back in place, but she didn’t have all day because the kids would be home. Harry would be calling soon, probably with more threats. For all she knew, he would show up at her house again. She hoped he knew the kids’ day-care schedule; she couldn’t afford to have Lucy doing more Harry impressions in front of Brian.
***
The next day she took the kids to the pool, hoping to prompt a long nap. Carly called while she was pushing the stroller up the hill.
“Congratulations to Brian!” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The paper! Haven’t you seen it?”
“I haven’t read a newspaper since Lucy was born.”
“There was a story in there this morning, about some fancy candlestick they just bought.”
Sophie stopped and leaned on the stroller handle. The press release wasn’t supposed to go out for another couple of weeks; they were waiting for the Saint-Porchaire to be cleaned and put on display. It hadn’t even made it into the country yet.
“There’s a quote in here from the director, thanking Maura Pfeiffer for funding the ‘collection-defining purchase.’”
“Of course. Maura. What a spotlight-stealing hag.”
“I don’t know. There’s a picture of her looking very unhaglike.”
“Is there a picture of the piece?”
“No. But it says only about eighty of these things still exist, and most of them are already in museums. Wow.”
“I better call Brian. Thanks, Carly.”
Brian already knew about the story, and he confirmed that Maura was the source of the leak. “I just can’t believe they didn’t try to get in touch with me for a quote. They have my number. I mean, hello? I found the damn thing?”
“Maybe they’re going to do a follow-up story after the unveiling.”
“They better! It was all fluff! There were more words dedicated to Maura Pfeiffer than to the candlestick.”
Sophie tried to distract him with stories about the kids, but he didn’t seem to be listening. It was his big moment at the museum, and she knew he felt cheated. It should have been his picture in the paper, his words. She ached for him, feeling his hurt through the crackling overseas connection, wishing, for a change, that she could be the one to reach out and touch his cheek in just the right, consoling way.
“I know how hard you worked,” she said. “I know what you did to find that candlestick, and I’m just so—so proud of you, Brian. God, that sounds like something your mother would have said. It’s true, though.”
There was a short silence. “Thanks,” Brian said. “I actually didn’t know that.”
“That I’m proud of you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well—” Sophie frowned at the phone. “Of course I’m proud of you. What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Lately you’ve been so…absent. Like it doesn’t matter if I’m there or not.”
“What?” Sophie shook her head. “How can you not know how much it matters?” Panic began creeping over the edges of her mind; sweat slid down the back of her neck. She was too tired and frazzled for this. “You’re going to have to trust me,” she said, a bit too abruptly. “I love you.” This came out like a bark. “I love you,” she tried again, more softly. “I need you here, I need help, I need to tell you things.”
Silence.
“Hello?”
But the call had been dropped. She had no idea when.
***
While the kids napped, she managed to fasten a few more risers in place, although a couple of the nails got bent in the process and some of the planks went in at a slant, leaving long triangular gaps where they were supposed to meet the treads below. Sophie had never been particularly good at crafty projects; her hands were clumsy, her patience limited. She just had to hope that Brian wouldn’t notice the change in the stairs, and that no one would ever kick the risers.
She finished the job that night while the kids were in bed, then rewarded herself with a large helping of red wine. She tried watching TV, but couldn’t sit still. She had no desire to go to bed and battle insomnia. Moving through the dark house, glass in hand, she scanned each room, trying to think like Harry, although she was feeling a little fuzzy on who he really was these days. The reddish pine floorboards in her office creaked under her feet; some were as wide as the bowl, some were wider. They were held in place by handmade square nails. Sophie loved those nails. They’d found dozens of them while renovating the house; each one was different. She tried to imagine a time when something as ubiquitous as nails was made carefully, individually, by a craftsman—a nailmaker? Nailsmith?
She took another swig of wine. Those were the days, when every little detail mattered, when people really cared about what they did. Being authentic wasn’t hard—it wasn’t even a thing. You did your job and you did it well and you never questioned the work-life balance, the mommy track, the meaning of your life; you just got on with it. The house knew these things. Sophie squatted down and ran her hands over the pocked, rippled wood. “You know,” she muttered.
The floor refinishers had filled the cracks between the boards, but the filler had shrunk over time; it tended to pop out in chunks when she vacuumed. She ran a finger between two of the largest, creakiest planks. Over the years, as the boards had moved apart, some of their tongues had withdrawn from their grooves. She finished her wine and headed downstairs to get a second bottle and a crowbar.
***
Strolling the kids to day care the next morning seemed to take forever. By eight thirty it was already hot; the sun clanged about her head like a pair of cymbals. The kids were peevish, fighting with each other in their seats, but Sophie knew if she tried to intervene she would lose her composure. She pushed the sunshade down over their heads, pretending not to hear their complaints, and deposited them at the day-care door with quick, absent kisses.
Back at the house, she slowly mounted the stairs to her office and stood surveying the previous night’s work. Her desk and chair were pushed against one wall; an empty wine bottle and dirty glass sat on the filing cabinet. The floor was striped with holes where she had pried up the birch beer–colored planks, and under the windows lay a messy pile of boards, many split lengthwise, some just cracked, all with antique nails hanging from their undersides like fangs.
The floorboards ran perpendicular to the beams, so each hole revealed a series of thick joists. After pulling up the first plank, Sophie had tried to shine a flashlight down the length of each bay, but the hole was too narrow; she needed to be able to lower her head down into it. She’d pulled up two more adjacent boards, which helped. Still, she couldn’t see the entire bay. Moving a few feet across the room, she’d repeated the process, pulling up more boards, surprised by how easily they cracked and split, and peered into the darkness.
Now, seeing the aftermath in daylight, Sophie felt like crying. She could probably fit the broken boards back together with the help of some wood glue and more nails, but she knew the cracks would turn into splits, which would splinter and fray, and that the entire floor would have to be refilled, sanded, and polyurethaned—if it could be salvaged at all. For now, though, she had to hurry to make everything look as normal as possible before Brian got home the next day. It was going to take hours. She hadn’t slept all night, and her head was pounding. She allowed herself a quick, deep sob into her hands, then swallowed her tears, vigorously rubbed her cheeks, and went downstairs to find a hammer and a box of nails.
The prepaid phone rang while she was trying to coax the last of the wood glue onto a sharp dagger of wood that had flaked off the edge of a board. Sophie groaned. “Dammit, Harry,” she muttered, as she capped the g
lue bottle and felt for the phone on the inside of the tissue box where she’d hidden it.
“What.”
“Darling! You sound terrible. Rough night?”
“What is it, Harry?”
“I’ve been reading the paper.” He sounded proud of himself.
Sophie pressed the wood fragment too hard against the board, and it skidded out of place. Her thumb slid forward and several splinters embedded themselves in its flesh. “Ahhh,” she gasped. “Shit.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I think it’s wonderful news. Saint-Porchaires don’t come along every day, you know. Not in one piece, anyway. Brian must be over the moon.”
“Leave him out of this; leave the Saint-Porchaire out of this,” Sophie hissed.
“But darling! This is an amazing opportunity! I’ve already spoken with my client, and he is quite excited. In fact, he seems to have wet his trousers. Or something of that nature. In the trouser area.”
“Are you out of your mind, you fucking lunatic?”
“No, love, not at all. Think about it. Brian will probably bring the piece to his office—it’s so convenient! He’ll want to show it off, impress his coworkers. Then it’ll spend some time in Conservation—less convenient, but doable. Then Photography. Possibly penetrable, possibly not. I’ll leave it to you. Then maybe it’ll come back to Brian’s office while they build a display case? What do you think?”
“I think you need to get a life, is what I think.”
“Me! Oh, that’s wonderful. Listen, Sophie. There’s no reason Brian should be the one having all the fun. Yes, he’s a good museum boy, trotting around the world nicking treasures from people who don’t know what they’ve got—but you! You’ve got actual talent, and you deserve a piece of the action. Don’t waste your life changing nappies. This is your chance to get out there and—what’s that delightful expression?—grab life by the bollocks!”
“Harry, you sound ridiculous. You know that, don’t you?” She stared at her shaking thumb.
“You’re the one who’s going to sound ridiculous, trying to explain why the FBI just found a stolen Renaissance tazza hidden in your house. ‘Oh, how did that get there? Oh dear! How terribly odd!’”
“Guess what?” Sophie hissed. “They’ve already been here. They looked—I’ve looked. It’s not here, you lying fuck.” She squeezed the end of her thumb, and tiny drops of blood bulged out of the purplish flesh.
“They came back?” Harry sounded genuinely surprised. “They didn’t look very hard, did they? Sounds like they need someone to point them in the right direction. I’m happy to do it. Why don’t I give you…a week. That should give you plenty of time to do what needs to be done.”
“Whatever.” Sophie snapped the phone shut and threw it into a corner. She picked up the broken board and shoved it into its space in the floor without its missing shard. She hammered the nails back into the joist below, missing periodically, pounding the wood, which cracked and dented with every blow. Pound. Pound. Pound. What this room needed, she decided, was a rug.
***
“Daddy! Daddy!” screamed the kids when the doorbell rang.
“Daddy’s plane is still in the air,” Sophie said over the din. “And Daddy doesn’t have to ring the doorbell.”
It was the postman, with a slip she was supposed to sign, in exchange for which he handed her an envelope from MortgageOne. Inside she found a document titled “Notice of Intent to Accelerate,” which read:
If the default is not cured on or before August 21, 2007, the mortgage payments will be accelerated with the full amount remaining becoming due and payable in full, and foreclosure proceedings will be initiated at that time. As such, the failure to cure the default may result in the foreclosure and sale of your property.
Sophie laughed to herself. “Failure to cure the default?” Like an injection of antibiotics was all that was needed. And the part about the full amount becoming due—was that some kind of legal sarcasm?
She sat down on the sofa, her knees trembling as if the postman had just handed her a three-hundred-pound package. She hadn’t expected it to happen so fast. She’d been planning to make up the missed payments, just as soon as the last check came from her client. Her mistake, she realized now, had been to continue paying the electric bill and the cable company. They could threaten her and make her feel guilty, but at least they wouldn’t send the sheriff to take her house away.
Hearing Brian’s key in the door, Sophie shoved the letter into her back pocket. “Okay, this time it’s Daddy,” she said to the kids, who rushed to the front door and attached themselves to Brian’s legs as soon as he entered the house.
The sight of him—uncharacteristically rumpled, shadows under his eyes, yet still so solidly, comfortingly male—made Sophie ache with longing and sorrow. She leaned over the pile of kids and suitcases to give him a kiss. He wearily handed her a gift bag from duty-free.
“Presents! Presents!” said Lucy.
“Let Daddy catch his breath,” Sophie said. “He just walked in.” Part of her wanted to sit him down and tell him everything, and part of her wanted to shield his eyes from the smoking ruins of their life. “How was your flight?”
“Grueling,” Brian said, kneeling down to hug Lucy and Elliot. “It’s so good to be home.”
“Was it a cargo flight?”
“Yeah. I sat on the tarmac for three hours, and when we were all set to go, customs came on board and got in my face about the paperwork. It took another hour on the phone with the registrar to get it worked out. Anyway. Everything okay around here?”
Sophie peeked into the gift bag: French chocolates. “Everything’s fine. Why don’t you go upstairs and change. I’ll heat up some dinner.”
Brian stood and wearily lifted his suitcases, turned toward the stairs, then dropped his bags. He leaned down and ran his finger along the gap between one of the risers and the stair tread. He straightened and rubbed his eyes, looking up the staircase.
“What the f—heck—happened to our stairs?”
This, Sophie thought, was the problem with being married to a curator.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” she said. “Go change.”
***
Later, after putting the kids to bed, she found Brian in the office. The cheap kilim she’d bought at IKEA was pushed back to reveal the scarred and splintered floor. Brian turned to her with a look of weary alarm.
“Sophie—”
“I know,” she said. “It’s horrible. I know.”
“But what’s been going on?”
“It’s just…kind of…hard to explain.”
“Did you do this?”
She nodded slowly.
“And the steps?”
She nodded again.
“But why?” His eyes, deep in their jet-lagged hollows, searched her face.
Sophie drew a long breath. “I smelled something.”
“You’re always smelling things. You don’t usually do…this.” He waved his hand over the massacred floorboards.
“It was bad, Brian. It smelled like death. You have no idea. I had to do something.”
“Did you find anything?”
Sophie nodded. “A rat. A big one. All…swollen up.” She pointed to a spot in the floor. “Under there.”
“Oh my God,” said Brian, grimacing. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know!”
“But—why the stairs?”
“It was hard to tell where the smell was coming from.”
“I just can’t believe you didn’t call a carpenter. Or an exterminator.”
“That would’ve been too expensive. I thought I could manage on my own. I…I don’t know why. I mean, you know how I am. I try to handle things on my own, and then I screw it up. I’m sorry.”
Brian shook his head. “I don’t understand you.
I’ll call the carpenter tomorrow. This floor is a disaster.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” she whispered, her throat swelling with the urge to cry.
“Hey, come here. It’s okay.” Brian pulled her against himself and hugged her hard. Sophie buried her face in the hollow between his shoulder and his chest, and then, with the force of a sail tacking hard into the wind, a sob flew out of her throat, then another, until she was wailing raggedly into her husband’s body, holding him tight, refusing to let him pull back and look into her face.
“Please,” Brian said into her hair. “Whatever it is that’s wrong, just let me take care of you. Let me help.”
Sophie shook her head violently. “You can’t,” she sobbed.
“Why not? Can you try to drop the whole independent, one-woman-army thing for a bit? I just feel like you might be happier if you let people help you now and then.” He pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I don’t want you to get so miserable you take off.”
“Take off? Don’t be ridiculous.” She gave a little laugh. “You think—?”
Brian crossed his arms and looked down. “I don’t know. I never really know what’s going on with you. You’re a goddamn mystery, Sophie.”
“But Brian…” She felt a new wave of misery roll over her. It had never occurred to her that Brian struggled to understand her, that he felt uncertain about her intentions. That was the last thing she ever wanted to inflict on someone else. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not my mother, okay? I’m not going anywhere. Please, I need you to know that—I need to know that!” She was crying again. Brian pulled her back into his arms, and her words sank into his warmth. “Look what I’ve built for our family! This was all for us—so nobody would have to wonder! So nobody would have to worry!”
“This what?”
“This house!”
Brian took her by the shoulders. “Sophie, if you and I are really okay, which I really hope we are, we could be happy living in a trailer. Come on! Don’t you know our kids would feel safe with you in a homeless shelter or a refugee camp or a—a—split level—because you’re a good mother?”
