Evenfall

by Liz Michalski

  “My lucky day,” he says.

  They talk about Andie’s flight, about the two-week camping trip the boy just took, and then the people they both know who are still in Hartman. All the while I’m seeing the place the way it must look to Andie. Ass end of nowhere, indeed. There are weeds sprouting through the gravel driveway and the lawn is almost knee high, sure, but it’s nothing a few afternoons of hard work can’t fix. Finally the boy circles back to the part that interests me.

  “So you’re really going to sell it?”

  She nods. “You know how hot the market is right now. A couple of developers are already pretty eager. Aunt Gert thought you were another one poking around up here without permission. She’s kind of had it—she was ready to call the police on you.”

  “She did seem pretty ticked,” the boy says, and I snort. If Gert’s worst threat is calling the police, she’s mellowed considerably.

  “She wants to get the house cleaned up and painted before she calls an assessor in,” Andie says. “I keep telling her, once it’s sold, the house will probably be gone, but she doesn’t want to hear it. You know how she is.”

  I’m still chewing over that one when the boy asks if the whole parcel is for sale.

  “Aunt Gert will probably keep the cottage and an acre or two, but that’s it. She can’t handle more. That’s why she’s putting it on the market in the first place.”

  “Huh. What about you?”

  “Me?” Andie says. “Right. There are still skid marks on the road, I left town so fast. I’m here to help out, nothing more. Then I’m out of here and back to civilization.”

  Her words remind me that Gert’s still inside, trying to find somebody to collar my dog. You, I say to Nina. You need to go hide. She’s sprawled in front of Andie, happily panting, and makes no move to get up. Shoo, I say. Shoo. Quickly now. I think of the pound, all concrete and chain link, and she reluctantly shakes herself to her feet. But still she doesn’t run. Instead, she stands in front of the boy and gives two sharp, commanding barks. My niece jumps, but the boy doesn’t flinch.

  “Hey there, easy,” he says. “What’s the problem?”

  She looks at me, and I could swear there’s an apology there somewhere. Then she runs to his truck, stands there for a second, and runs back.

  “I think she’s telling you it’s time to go,” Andie says.

  “I think she’s saying she wants to come with me,” he says. “How mad will your aunt be if I take off with the dog?”

  Andie considers. “It’s hard to say.”

  “Well, live dangerously. That’s my motto,” he says, squatting and looking Nina in the face. “Come on, girl. We’d best organize a breakout for you now, before Gert comes back with the law.” He stands and stretches. “It was nice seeing you again. How long are you staying?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Awhile—there’s a lot to do.”

  “Well, if I can give you a hand at all, just holler. I’ll be around.” He starts toward the truck, Nina following. He opens the cab door and she leaps inside, moving over to make room for him and to claim the passenger window.

  Cort turns the truck around, then brakes near Andie. He’s grinning.

  “Hey, tell Miss Gert I said good-bye—and thanks for not pressing charges.” Before she can reply, the truck is rolling down the driveway, stirring up little clouds of sand-colored dust. Nina leans out the window and barks once. Andie and I watch them go.

  Andie

  ANDIE is leaning against a birch tree, idly stripping bark off its trunk, when Gert comes out of the house.

  “Where did that boy go?” Gert says, shading her eyes and gazing around as if she expects him to pop out of the woods at any minute.

  “Home, I guess. He took the dog with him.”

  “Then I spent the past twenty minutes on the phone for nothing. Although I suppose it will serve Roscoe right if he comes up here on a goose chase—cantankerous old fool.”

  Gert starts off toward the guest house, her sneakered feet slapping briskly on the path. Every now and then she pauses to swat at a mosquito. Andie trails along behind, fingering the branches and leaves that reach out to block her way.

  When Andie was a child, sleeping over at Aunt Gert’s was an adventure. Clutching her overnight bag, she walked the trail between the two houses, pretending to be a fairy-tale character—Gretel, perhaps, or Little Red Riding Hood, or, on her more melodramatic days, any one of the endless sisterhood of cartoon princesses who had managed to lose their mothers at birth like her. By the time the front of the cottage came into view, partially screened by a stand of pine trees, she’d scared herself into thinking that every shadow, every twig that snapped underfoot, had ominous overtones. She’d have to stand on the front porch, shivering in the summer sun, until she got up the nerve to face whatever waited inside—witch or big bad wolf.

  By now though, Andie has had too much personal acquaintance with wolves of the grown-up variety to be scared by the make-believe type. Instead, she sees the cottage for what it is—a faded, shabby structure—and her throat swells with sadness.

  Gert plows up the steps, tugging open the screen door and letting it squeak shut behind her. Andie lingers on the porch, absently pulling off long curls of peeling paint until she realizes what she’s doing and stops, appalled. She tamps down the piece she’s been working with her thumb, but the curled edge won’t lie flat. She kicks the corkscrews of paint that have already come off into the overgrown shrubbery around the porch railing, then goes inside before she can do more damage.

  The afternoon sunlight is dim inside, filtered through the branches of the trees all around the cottage. The light casts shadows on the white walls, and as Andie’s eyes adjust, she can see that not much has changed. The same blue sofa is positioned parallel to the door, dividing the living area from the kitchen. The cushions on the rocking chair in the corner are worn, but comfortably so. Postcards from Italy are tucked along the fireplace mantel, propped between pinecones and stones from the creek. A few more are stuck to the front of the kitchen’s refrigerator with magnets.

  Gert is standing over the white enamel sink, scrubbing potatoes for supper. Andie groans. Her aunt is a notoriously bad cook who believes food should be heated as long as possible, to kill germs. Andie has come to the rural southeastern end of Connecticut with hopeful visions of take-out pizzas and Chinese food, and armed with a secret stash of soy granola bars.

  “Here, Aunt Gert. Let me do that.” She moves to take over the chore, but Gert blocks her with the brisk efficiency of someone used to being in charge.

  “Nonsense. Go unpack, if you feel the urge to do something.”

  Dutifully, Andie wanders into the guest bedroom, where she’d thrown her suitcase before rushing off to the big house with Gert. Her aunt has placed it neatly on the single bed, a towel underneath to prevent dirt from staining the white bedspread.

  With a sigh, she unzips the bag, then takes a look around. There’s a chest of drawers, wedged kitty-corner against the far wall. The closet—really an old-fashioned cupboard, with hooks set into the back—will hold perhaps a third of the clothes she’s brought. The walls are bare, painted the same flat white as the rest of the cottage. Idly, Andie runs a finger along the top of the chest. No dust. Sitting on the bed, she recalls that, as exciting as her visits to Gert’s were, as a child she was always glad to go back to the big house and Aunt Clara. After a meal of Gert’s plain oatmeal, she’d fly along the path to the big house, in time for a second breakfast of pancakes with real maple syrup and butter. Her room there was wallpapered with a riot of yellow and pink roses, so realistic looking that as a child she swore one morning she could smell them.

  She puts off unpacking. Instead, she takes her toiletry bag into the bathroom. There’s a claw-foot tub with a handheld shower attachment. An aluminum tray attached to the tub holds a neat assortment of items: Dial soap, a man’s safety razor, a can of shaving cream, a small bottle of generic shampoo.

  The rim of
the tub is too narrow to hold any of Andie’s things, so she opens the medicine cabinet. There’s not much inside. A container of Bayer aspirin, a tube of toothpaste, some Ben-Gay, a bottle of roll-on deodorant. There’s also a bottle of prescription medication. Feeling faintly guilty, she picks it up. The drug name—metoprolol—is unfamiliar. Gert hasn’t mentioned being sick, but that’s not surprising.

  There’s a knock at the bathroom door, and Andie jumps.

  “Just a second,” she calls. She turns the water on, then puts the vial back in the cabinet and shuts it. She splashes cold water on her face, dries it on the scratchy white towel laid out on the sink, and opens the door.

  Her aunt is standing there, a dishrag over her shoulder.

  “I was just looking for a place to put my things,” Andie tells her. She holds up her transparent bag for emphasis.

  “Lord, what fancy soap—I can smell it from here,” Aunt Gert says.

  When Andie doesn’t answer, her aunt goes on. “I thought we’d have a meat loaf for dinner. I started it, but then I thought, living in a foreign country for so long, you might not eat meat anymore.”

  “Italy has meat, plenty of it,” Andie reassures her. “And I do eat it, just not very often.” Actually, for the last six months Andie has been a virtual vegetarian, but going down that conversational path with Gert, who firmly believes red meat is necessary for health, can only lead to trouble.

  “Good,” her aunt says. “The potatoes are in, and I’ll finish the meat loaf. We’ll eat at six.” Andie glances at her watch. It’s barely four p.m. now.

  The two women squeeze past each other in the hall, Gert toward the kitchen, Andie toward her bedroom. She starts with her shoes, unzipping each pair from their compartment in her garment bag and lining them against the wall. When she takes out a pair of pale pink leather flats, she holds them up to the window, looking for scuff marks. The color reminds her of her favorite shoes when she was six, a pair of pink high-tops her father gave her when she was spending her first full summer at the farm. For two weeks, she wore them everywhere, and then they disappeared. She cried so hard Uncle Frank drove her into town to buy another pair. A week later the original ones turned up, unearthed from the depths of her closet at the big house.

  The memory gives her an inspiration, and she hurries out to the kitchen, where Gert is beating an egg. Unbidden, Andie opens the old creaky hutch where the china is stored, and begins setting the table.

  “Don’t forget the place mats,” her aunt reminds her, and Andie pulls out two faded squares of blue cotton, well-laundered, and matching napkins. She folds the napkins in half, smoothing out the creases, and carefully places them to the left of the plates, with a fork on top of each. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches her aunt’s quick nod of approval. It gives her the courage to speak.

  “Aunt Gert, I was thinking,” she begins.

  “No charge for that.”

  Andie plows on. “The cottage isn’t really big enough for both of us, not if I’m going to stay awhile. There’s no place for me to spread out my paints, and barely space enough for my clothes. We’re stumbling over each other as it is, and I haven’t even unpacked.”

  “Maybe you need fewer things.”

  Andie ignores this. “What I was thinking is, why not move into the big house? It has room enough for both of us. We’re going to be spending lots of time there anyhow, sorting through stuff.”

  “No,” says Gert. She turns away and rummages in the vegetable bin of the refrigerator.

  “But why not?” Andie persists. “It makes sense.”

  Gert selects an onion, wipes it off with her apron, and carries it to the cutting board at the side of the sink, where she peels off the outer layer with a knife.

  “Because this is my home, that’s why.” The skin removed, she chops the onion vigorously.

  “You stayed at the big house when you were nursing Uncle Frank, didn’t you?”

  “I did not. It wouldn’t have been seemly.”

  Her aunt’s eyes are red from the onion, and the corners are beginning to tear by the time she dumps the minced pieces into the bowl. Gert is usually the most practical person Andie knows, so she can’t understand her answer, but she lets it go. Part of it, anyway.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to move over there. It will give both of us a little more room.”

  “You’re of age. Do as you like.”

  The day is getting cooler, so Andie retreats to her bedroom to change. She pulls on a pair of jeans, packs up her shoes, and stretches out on the bed, careful to keep her feet off the white spread. She hates fighting with Gert, whose icy anger is worse than any hot-blooded rage. Even as a child, the two of them butted heads so hard Andie was often left reeling.

  The problem, according to Uncle Frank, is that the oldest and youngest Murphy women are cut from the same cloth, both too proud and too stubborn to sugarcoat the truth, or at least their version of it. Andie never had that difficulty with Clara, who somehow had the knack of coaxing a stubborn nine-year-old to eat her vegetables and go to bed, all the while making it seem like it was Andie’s own idea.

  Andie sighs. More than once she’s wished she had Clara’s talent, particularly when it comes to men. If she’s honest, she’s not here just to help Gert out. She’s put a whole continent between herself and Neal, a man she swears she loves but who drives her to dish-breaking fury and tears. Andie’s not sure the distance is enough.

  But love affairs gone wrong are hardly a dinner table topic in the Murphy household. Andie can’t once remember her aunt talking about old boyfriends, although there must have been some. Even in her late seventies, Gert retains the high cheekbones and glamour girl legs of her youth. It strikes Andie suddenly how little she knows of her aunt’s life.

  She’s still musing on this when Gert calls her to dinner. Her plate is filled with green beans, a potato, and a blackish slice of meat loaf. Store bought white bread sits on its own dish, next to a beaded glass of ice water.

  Andie slides in to her seat, and Gert immediately bows her head.

  “We thank thee Lord for this our daily bread and all other blessings. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Andie echoes. Gert looks sharply at her but says nothing.

  Dinner is a quiet affair. Gert has never encouraged conversation at the table, believing it hinders digestion. Besides, choking down the meat loaf takes most of Andie’s concentration. She fervently misses Max, Frank’s old black Lab who spent many meals curled at her feet, his pink mouth open and waiting.

  When she’s consumed as much as possible, she sits back. Gert looks at her niece’s plate and snorts.

  “You didn’t eat much.”

  “I’m not that hungry. It’s probably jet lag.” She yawns, covers her mouth. Suddenly she really is bone-tired.

  “All those Italian fashion models have anorexia, you know.”

  Andie stands to clear the table, but Gert waves her away and carries the plates to the sink herself.

  “Are your things all packed?”

  “I guess so.” An image of her aunt sleeping alone, her breathing the only sound in the cottage, fills Andie’s head, and abruptly she changes her mind. “Aunt Gert, I think…”

  “Well, then, let’s go before it gets dark,” Gert says. She unties her apron from around her neck, tossing it over a chair.

  “You’re coming with me?”

  “Not to stay—just to get you settled. You can’t carry everything yourself, can you?”

  Gert’s leaving the dinner dishes unwashed is as close to an apology as she can give for her contrariness, and Andie accepts by not mentioning it. Instead, she goes down the hall to her room and fetches her suitcase and the wooden box that holds her paints and easel. When she returns, Gert is standing by the door, a canvas bag in her hand. Moths cling to the screen, their furry bellies exposed, and Gert flicks them off one by one before opening the door.

  Together, they step out into the evening. It’s not dark ye
t, and still warm enough that the air has a liquid quality. When Andie was little, she, Frank, and Clara would eat ice-cream sandwiches on the porch, watching the sun go down and waiting for the first lightning bugs to wink out their secret messages.

  Watching her aunt’s straight back move away from her in the twilight, Andie wonders how Gert spent those same evenings. It’s not a question she expects to have answered, so she lets it go. Instead, she concentrates on the sound of pine needles crunching underfoot, releasing their faint scent of winter, and the feeling of night air on her skin. Above her, a mockingbird trills a long, impassioned plea for love, then falls silent.

  The house looms at the end of the trail like a large white ghost in the twilight. The two women cut under the grape arbor, their feet crunching on gravel. At the door, Gert fumbles the key out of her pocket, pressing it into Andie’s hand.

  “You might as well keep this for now. I have an extra at the cottage.”

  “You’re not coming in?”

  Gert looks up at the house and shakes her head.

  “Here. Some fresh sheets and food in case you get hungry. Tomorrow we can go shopping and get you established.”

  Andie takes the bag her aunt proffers. She reaches for her aunt and they hug awkwardly, Gert pulling away first.

  “I’ll see you in the morning. And, Andie…” She hesitates, gives a quick glance up at the house. “I’ll leave the cottage open in case you change your mind.”

  “Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  Andie unlocks the door, and when she turns around, Gert is already walking away, her white shirt growing dim in the falling light. At the woods’ edge she turns, cups her hands around her mouth, and calls “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite!”

  It’s the phrase Gert always used to tuck her into bed. Andie smiles and waves in response, but Gert has disappeared into the forest.

  Andie steps inside, closing the heavy door behind her, and immediately her body relaxes. It’s as if the house itself were embracing her in welcome. She walks through the lower level, listening to the drip of the kitchen faucet, the quiet hum of the refrigerator, the silence in the parlor.