Imaginary Things

by Andrea Lochen

  My grandparents rarely left their one square mile of southeastern Wisconsin, their beloved population-of-one-thousand town, and they acted as if driving all the way to the “big city” of Milwaukee was as treacherous and cumbersome as hitching up a team of horses to a covered wagon and setting out for the great unknown. Driving alone both ways with a baby was unappealing to me, and I was an appallingly lazy correspondent; I patted myself on the back if I remembered to send them a Christmas card with a recent photo of David in it. So the pathetic fact was that the last time we’d come to Salsburg for a visit was for David’s second birthday, and if I was nakedly honest with myself about it, I’d admit it was because I had been flat broke (though nowhere near as destitute as I was now), and I had known I could count on them to buy cake and presents.

  Still, when I had called Duffy two weeks ago to explain my financial woes and plead my case, I had barely squeaked out that I’d lost my job, when she’d interjected, “Why don’t you two come and stay with us for a spell? You know, Anna, that we’ve got those two spare bedrooms just collecting dust and storing Winston’s old Revolutionary War junk, and it would be so nice to spend some time with you and Davey. Why, I haven’t seen the little guy since he was still in diapers! It would be good for him to get out of that big city and get some fresh air and experience a taste of small town living.”

  And that had been that. What I’d hoped for, of course, as I had dialed their number, and though the length of a “spell” had not been agreed upon, something about this stay seemed much more permanent and serious than all the others before it. I had no home to return to this time. I was leaving no one behind who really gave a damn. This was not merely a respite from my life. This was my life.

  “We’re almost there,” I sang out to David, as we passed the ostentatious wooden sign welcoming us to THE VILLAGE OF SALSBURG; POPULATION: 1,140; THIRD LARGEST GROWER OF SNAP BEANS IN WISCONSIN; HOME OF THE FAMOUS SALSBURG FIREMEN’S PICNIC; PROUD SISTER VILLAGE OF BORKENDORF, GERMANY. It was the kind of town you could completely miss if you were focused on changing the radio station or lighting a cigarette. One church, one cemetery, one volunteer fire department, one restaurant, one gas station, one bank, one drugstore, one post office, one beauty parlor, and five bars. No stoplights. No sidewalks.

  Of course by this time, David was dozing in his booster seat. I rattled down Main Street and hung a right on Steepleview—so named for its vantage of St. Monica’s white steeple reaching heavenward. Duffy and Winston’s house was a large brown and white split-level adrift on a sea of rolling green lawn. Not that you could see much from the street except for a long blacktop driveway and a wishing well; towering Douglas-firs hid the rest. A shiny blue SUV was parked at the top of the driveway, and I was careful not to block it with the Caravan.

  I rolled the minivan door back as slowly and gently as possible, which was about as quiet as a freight train squealing its rusty brakes. David blinked up at me with stormy eyes and a furrowed brow—a sure indication of an impending cranky mood. That made two of us.

  “Guess what, buckaroo? We’re finally here! Grandma and Grandpa’s house!”

  He looked unimpressed. I unbuckled and lifted him into my arms. When I tried to set him down, he clung to me and pressed his hot little cheek against my neck.

  The screen door slapped shut, and Duffy’s voice rang out. “Glad to see you finally made it!” She was wearing a metallic purple apron and one latex glove; the other dangled inside out from between her pinched fingertips. Her platinum hair was teased into a cloud twice the size of her head. “I wish I could roll out the welcome wagon for you right now, but I’m in the midst of coloring Edna Franklin’s hair, and it’s very touchy business. Just one minute on too long, and it could turn out more Paradise Peach than Autumn Auburn.”

  “You’re doing her hair here?” I asked and adjusted David on my hip.

  “That’s right. With the economy being what it’s been, I decided to downsize and bring my business home.” She took a step forward, squinting into the sun. “But my goodness, that can’t be my great-grandson! He’s as leggy as a grasshopper, and still towheaded just like his mommy. What a handsome little devil. Hello, David. Do you remember your great-grandma Duffy?”

  She reached her ungloved hand out to stroke David’s hair, and the chemical smell of the hair dye wafted toward us. He jerked away, banging his head against my chin, and then started to cry loud, gasping sobs. Vivien Leigh chose this moment to join in—gazing up at me with her green, expressive eyes, scratching desperately at the bars of her crate, and crooning her most plaintive meow yet. I had named her because of those eyes, as well as her noble bearing, and not to mention that Gone With the Wind had been my favorite movie as a teenager. With the luxurious brown and black fur bordering her eyes on her otherwise snowy white face, my cat looked like she was perpetually wearing a feather-tufted masquerade mask.

  “He’s a little overtired,” I said apologetically. His warm, clinging body was starting to make me feel like I was wearing a heavy fur coat. My arms were aching and my chin was smarting.

  “Oh my, oh my, oh my,” Duffy said soothingly. “There’s no need for tears, sugar cookie. I’m sure it’s been a long ride from the big city.” She peered past us into the minivan. “Is that a cat? Anna Grace Jennings, you never mentioned anything about a cat!” She frowned and almost put her gloved hand on her hip, but thought better of it. “But I’ve been out here much too long already—Edna’s hair will be turning pink! Come inside now for a cool drink and then you can get Davey all settled in for a nap before dinner. I sent Winston out for some groceries, but he’ll be back soon, and then he can help you get all this unloaded.”

  She was back inside the house before I could reply. I rubbed David’s bumped head. “Be a big boy now. I need you to walk on your own so that I can carry kitty’s crate.”

  He grudgingly slid down. We made our way up the front steps together and pushed open the screen door. Late afternoon sunlight spilled through the windows, liberally coating the living room and dining room in a buttery glow. Very few alterations had been made to their house since I was seven years old. Same beige shag carpeting, same mauve-colored walls, same floral couch and matching curtains, same hutch displaying dusty wedding china and family photographs. The only concessions made to time passing were a new flat screen TV and entertainment center, which looked sorely out of place amidst all the other 90’s country-chic decor. The house was so quiet I could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock and Duffy’s constant chatter floating up from the basement. Suddenly, I felt very, very tired. Almost too tired to remain standing.

  David tugged on my hand, and I switched on my auto pilot. Two glasses of water? Check. Another trip to the potty? Check. Tucking David into the twin-sized bed in one of the spare rooms despite his protest that he wasn’t sleepy and that the sheets smelled funny? Check. Sitting by his bedside and humming “On Top of Spaghetti” until he fell asleep? Check. Returning to the minivan for the litter box? Check. Closing the other bedroom door before springing Vivien Leigh from her crate? Okay, I forgot that one. She ran from the room, a blur of black, brown, and white fur, and disappeared before I could catch her.

  I sat on the bed, feeling numb, feeling a little like a child who’s being punished. An old-fashioned black-and-white illustration hung across the room from the bed. It depicted a crush of bodies, rifles, bayonets, horses, drums, contorted faces, and blood. Some battle from the Revolutionary War, I inferred. Not exactly what I wanted to look at every night before I went to sleep and every morning when I woke up.

  I tried to remember what it had replaced, and the image instantly clicked into focus: a high school portrait of my mom, Kimberly. A long mass of honey curls framed her face; a poof of bangs at least two inches high crowned her head. Her face was narrower than mine, and her eyes were a hazel to my brown, but the flawlessly straight nose, high cheekbones, and Cupid’s bow lips were an exact match. She had worn a high-necked royal blue sweater and a stri
ng of fake pearls.

  It was a photograph that had initially served as a warning—don’t become like me, Anna—and later as a taunt as I had lain in her childhood bed, eighteen years old, six months pregnant, and unmarried. How could you have been so stupid, little girl? Didn’t you learn anything from my mistakes?

  So maybe the gruesome Revolutionary War print was an improvement. And hopefully, I wouldn’t be looking at it for that long anyway.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Let’s see here.” Duffy flicked the spatula back and forth as if it were a wand. “We’ve got scrambled eggs, sausage links, cottage fries, toast with blackberry jam or peach preserves…”

  Perched on a kitchen chair, David swung his short legs back and forth as he burned a hole with his gaze through the screen door that led to the backyard. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining to Duffy that David refused to eat eggs in their many incarnations, had to practically be force-fed any type of meat, and was distrustful of basically all food that didn’t come individually packaged in cellophane. Last night for dinner we’d been spared a scene because Duffy had fortuitously served David’s all-time favorite meal, spaghetti.

  Duffy raised her eyebrows questioningly at me as she continued, “We have yogurt and strawberries and granola. A few types of cold cereal, or I could even make some oatmeal. To drink, there’s orange juice, apple juice, milk, and coffee.”

  “Do you want a piece of toast with jelly?” I nudged David. “And Grandma Duffy’s cottage fries are really yummy. Almost like McDonald’s.”

  “Better than McDonald’s,” Winston said gravely. With his thick black hair, steady brown eyes, and flyaway gray eyebrows, he had always reminded me of a great horned owl. I couldn’t really fault David for feeling a little intimidated by him. Giant birds of prey were designed to be intimidating.

  David violently flopped his head to one side, as though he wished he could hide his face entirely in his armpit. “I’m not hungry,” he whined. “I want to play outside.”

  “You can play outside as soon as you eat something,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. “Duffy, would you make me up a plate with a little of everything? David and I can share. He’ll take orange juice and I’d like coffee.”

  We had survived our first night with relatively little incident. Winston had helped me lug the haphazardly packed contents of the minivan inside with no comment. (They were currently piled in the corner of my bedroom.) David had woken up from his nap eager to explore the house, and he had become downright giddy over the spaghetti dinner, even going so far as to perform the chorus of “When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth” for Duffy and Winston before he remembered he was supposed to be bashful around them. He’d slept peacefully through the night, unlike me, who had bolted upright, heart pounding, at two in the morning when Vivien Leigh had launched herself at my chest. She’d then wrapped herself around my head, purring as loud as a lawnmower, preventing me from falling back asleep for over an hour. Of course, I hadn’t gotten up to close my bedroom door, and when I’d woken up this morning, she had disappeared again.

  Duffy set a steaming plate in front of me, and the complicated dance of wheedling, bribing, and begging my son to take a bite, just one small taste, one little nibble, began. David glowered murderously at the sausage and spit out a clump of scrambled eggs, but managed to down a few forkfuls of cottage fries, a tiny square of buttered toast, and a glass of juice.

  I didn’t fare much better. As far as breakfast went, I was more of a coffee and doughnut kind of person. Big farm breakfasts with all the food groups represented (at least the Wisconsin food groups—eggs, cheese, sausage, potatoes, and grease) were not my forte. Duffy knew this, but perhaps she was optimistic that I’d changed. I ate a bite of everything and then nursed my cup of coffee.

  When David’s anxiously swinging legs started to get closer and closer to assaulting the table leg, I said, “All right. You did a pretty good job, so you can go outside now.”

  He rocketed off his chair and out the screen door, and I drifted behind, halfway hoping that either Duffy or Winston would offer, I’ll keep an eye on him, Anna. Why don’t you go back to bed? Neither did.

  I stood on the wooden deck, squinting at the sun and the vibrant greenness of the backyard. Compared to the tiny, malnourished lawn we’d had on 57th Street, the huge swaths of grass were almost obscene. There were few interruptions to break it up: one tree encircled by bricks, a flower bed (presided over by the ceramic cast of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), and an immaculate shed. A row of pines loomed at the back of the huge lot, but nothing visually demarcated where my grandparents’ lawn ended and their next-door neighbors’ began.

  Plates and skillets clattered in the kitchen. “I don’t know why I even bother…” Duffy’s voice rang out and was then muffled by the sound of running water.

  “I enjoyed it,” Winston returned.

  “Well, you’re supposed to be watching your cholesterol!” More clanking and running water.

  I walked to the railing of the deck, trying to summon a shred of guilt, but I hadn’t been the one to suggest she cook a breakfast fit for a caravan of famished truckers. I would’ve been happy with black coffee and a Nutty Bar. Or better yet: forgone breakfast entirely for an extra hour of sleep.

  David was pinballing across the lawn, surveying his new kingdom. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the railing with my head in my hands. The sun felt warm and comforting on my scalp and forearms. I longed for a fashion or gossip magazine, like the good old days when Duffy would bring them home from the salon for me, and I would spread out an old comforter on the grass and lazily page through them in my little red bikini, drinking raspberry lemonade from a thermos.

  I glanced backwards at the pair of chaise longues on the deck, which were looking increasingly more inviting, and took a step toward them, nearly stumbling over a bushel basket filled with toys. Winston must have put it there for David. I recognized some of the toys from my childhood—the Skip-It, hot pink soccer ball, water guns, hula hoop, and multicolored frisbee—but others looked like they’d been newly purchased. My grandparents were way too generous with us. I nudged the bushel basket out of the way with my foot and moved it closer to the steps.

  “Toys up here,” I announced to David, who was squatting in the shade cast by the shed.

  He didn’t dash toward the deck or even acknowledge I’d said anything. Balanced on the balls of his feet with his hand extended, he was staring intently at something I couldn’t see.

  The sun must have been blocked by a cloud because the backyard was momentarily—eerily—ten degrees cooler.

  “David,” I yelled. “Grandpa Winston left some toys up here for you.”

  His head shot up this time, and he raced toward me from his crouched position, like a track runner erupting from the starting blocks. As I watched him pump his skinny arms, I thought I saw something move behind him, from out of the shadows. Had Vivien Leigh managed to sneak out of the house? But, no. It was bigger than a cat. More the size of a dog. For a split second, the sun glinted off its fur. I expected to see it streak across the lawn back into whichever neighbor’s yard it belonged, but suddenly it was just gone.

  David was pulling each toy from the basket and inspecting it.

  “Was there a dog back there?” I asked, cupping my hand over my eyes, studying the patch of grass that had just swallowed up the animal.

  “No.” His expression told me my question was on the same scale of stupidity as, “Do chickens moo”, or, “Would you like a pork chop with sauerkraut for lunch?”

  “You’re sure you didn’t see an animal up there by the shed?”

  “No animals.” Grinning hugely, he held up a styrofoam glider over half his height. “Is this for me?”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “But if you see any pets wandering around, don’t touch them. You come tell me, okay?” But he was already running down the stairs holding the glider aloft. I called after him, “And try not to get the plane
stuck on the roof!”

  I stretched out on one of the chaise longues, thinking about the elusive dog I could have sworn I had just seen. Okay, so I was a little fatigued. And I’d misplaced my knock-off designer sunglasses when I’d arrived yesterday, so all this squinting into the sun was probably screwing with my retinas. I closed my eyes. That felt better. Yes, that felt really nice. The sun caressed my face and licked my bare legs. I rolled up the sleeves of my T-shirt and raised my arms over my head.

  The deafening drone of a lawnmower broke through my bliss. I sat up, the heaviness of my limbs and grogginess in my head quickly cluing me in to the fact that I hadn’t been catnapping for just a few minutes. I scanned the lawn for David. Not over by the shed. Not by the pine trees. Not by the dwarfs and their garden. Maybe he’d gone inside and was with Duffy or Winston? Heart hammering in my dry mouth, I sprang from the chaise longue and noticed David sitting cross-legged on the chair beside mine.

  I sank back down and tried to breathe. “Are you done playing?”

  His nose and cheeks were pink. Sunburned. What kind of inept mother let her fair-skinned child play for hours in the late June sun with no sunscreen? Me, of course.

  “The man told me to play on the deck.”

  “What man? Grandpa Winston?”

  “That man.” He pointed.

  I followed his finger to the source of the teeth-gritting whine that had awakened me: a man pushing a lawnmower. Cutting my grandparents’ grass. Not Winston, whose love for cutting grass was only surpassed by his love for Massey-Harris antique tractors and carnival food. My grandparents’ orderly, predictable lives had changed; Duffy had lost her salon and Winston was no longer cutting his own grass. With these changes, I caught an unpleasant whiff of the hardship aging would bring them.