A Home for Goddesses and Dogs

by Leslie Connor

  “Thank you,” I said. “We’re doing okay.” That sounded weird. I knew it. I was so used to telling people about Mom and me—that we were fine or we were managing all right—while she was sick. Her death was still new. I didn’t feel done being part of a team.

  Aunt Brat nodded almost like she was acknowledging my thought. I wondered, Is she going to be able to read my mind?

  “Well,” said Eileen, “guess you know it, I’m Eileen! And I’m called Eileen, because I lean!” She tilted sideways a little and bounced up and down on one leg.

  Aunt Brat covered her own mouth with one hand as if she felt both embarrassed and pleased. “Oh Eileen, don’t do that. . . .”

  I plastered on a smile. What I really was, was surprised. All I could do was stare at Eileen because the thing was, Eileen did lean.

  “Had a motorcycle accident once,” she explained. “Shattered femur. Left me with one leg shorter than the other. I’m incapable of standing straight.” She tried it just to prove her point. “So, I lean! Huh-haw! Lost my spot with the New York City Rockettes over it.” She hooked her thumbs into her olive-green overalls and did little kicks, side to side.

  “The Rockette part is a joke, Lydia,” said Aunt Brat.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

  “But I do love to dance,” said Eileen. She twirled—pretty gracefully.

  Before there could be any attempts at high kicking, someone else came out onto the dusting of snow. It might be simplest to say he was the oldest man I’d ever seen. Still, he moved easily down the steps, holding only lightly on to the rail. This had to be the guy who owned the place. What was his name? Aunt Brat had said it at least once. Something unusual . . .

  Before Aunt Brat could introduce me, the man spoke. “Lydia Bratches-Kemp.” His voice rolled out slowly and sounded like he had a few marbles tucked into one cheek. “Pleased to meet you, youth and beauty,” he said. I stepped forward to shake his hand.

  He was as tall as the doorway he’d come through, in spite of a forward bend around the middle of his chest, which surely cost him several inches of height. A pair of super-thick glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose and made his eyes look extraordinarily large. His skin was brown and freckled all over. His hair was white and looked like it’d landed on his head much the way the light snow had landed on the earth all around us. He’s got a dusting of hair, I thought.

  He extended his hand to me, long and flat as a canoe paddle. I closed my hand around his. His skin was soft, his bones and veins close underneath.

  He looked at me through ice-cube-thick glasses. “Don’t mind my bug eyes,” he told me. (Another mind reader? I was in trouble.) “Glad they work at all, I’m so old. I’m ninety . . .” He stopped to think, jaw slack and bobbing slightly. “Ninety . . . something,” he said. He waved one hand in the air. “Eh, sometimes I know it, sometimes I don’t. But at least I’m almost there,” he added.

  “Almost where?” I asked. I’m pretty sure I heard Aunt Brat let out a groan, as if she dreaded what was coming next.

  “Dead!” he said. “I’m almost dead. I can hardly wait.”

  “Elloroy!” Aunt Brat’s face pinked up. She looked at me. “He says that all the time.” She seemed to want me to know that.

  “Well, huh-haw!” said Eileen. She fidgeted.

  I blinked. I knew what they were doing. Mom had said it more than once: “You’re going to find that some people are uncomfortable with death, Lyddie. Especially with dead mothers.”

  Now that I had one I was beginning to understand. As for the ancient man standing in front of me, well, maybe they’d forgotten to tell him why I was here. Or maybe he was like Mom and just didn’t think everyone should be so uncomfortable about something that was going to happen to us all. I really wanted to ask him more. I wanted to tell him that I’d just seen a death come. Or a life leave. Or a vessel fail. Whichever you wanted to say about it, and I could make cases for all three. But now seemed not the time. I winched up a smile for the old man.

  “Well, it’s very nice to meet you, El . . . umm . . .” I wasn’t sure about his name. It was like Elroy . . . or Ellery, but not exactly. I had definitely heard roy at the end. Confused, I finished with, “Sir.”

  “It’s Ell-o-roy.” Brat helped me out. I think she was relieved to be moving past the death thing.

  “Rhymes with ‘Jell-O boy,’” Eileen chimed in, and she pinched the air with her fingers. What a gift. Now I would never forget.

  “Ell-o-roy,” I said clearly. “Well, dead or alive, it’s nice to meet you.” I gulped. I’d been there all of seven minutes and I’d blurted at least two very weird things. That had to be a record.

  Eileen snorted, then let out a laugh.

  I decided not to speak again—possibly ever. But then I noticed that Elloroy was wearing a big, open turtle-mouth smile. “Dead or alive. I like that,” he said.

  Aunt Brat cleared her throat. “So. I assume we are all set inside?” She dipped her chin at Eileen. “The room?”

  “Ready to receive,” said Eileen. She’d somehow gotten past me and was reaching into the car to get my box off the passenger’s seat.

  “Eileen, Lydia will get that one,” Aunt Brat said. She circled her arm toward the rear of the car. She popped the hatch. “Come help me here.”

  Eileen went around and they grabbed my suitcases.

  “I can come back for those,” I offered.

  “We’ve got them,” Aunt Brat said.

  “I always carry the purse,” Elloroy mumbled. He fell into line ahead of me with Aunt Brat’s handbag on one arm.

  I have got to be more helpful, I thought.

  I wrapped my arms around my box of goddesses and waited for my three new adults and one greyhound to go ahead of me into the house, my new home.

  4

  A Room of My Own

  I stood wiping my feet on a rag rug just inside the door. I took in the simple open space: living room and entry at the front, kitchen at the back, a round dining table in between, and a set of stairs on the right that was set in front of a massive brick chimney that was sending warmth into the house. A closer look and I saw the woodstove tucked back under the open stairs and the neat pile of logs stacked nearby. That, I thought. I’ll be the one who keeps that pile high.

  “A small house that makes the most of itself,” said Aunt Brat, and I nodded. It was clear that there was more of it too; a door at the bottom of the stairs wore a tilted sign that said Suite Elloroy on it. Sure enough, he hung Aunt Brat’s purse on a hook at the entry. He pressed the latch and on his way through the door he said, “Welcome again, Lydia Bratches-Kemp. See you at supper.” Then he muttered something about “youth and beauty” again, and the door whined shut behind him.

  Aunt Brat and Eileen and I climbed straight up the narrow stairs together. They carried a suitcase apiece, and I carried my box. Soonie, it turned out, had a habit of shooting the gap on the stairs. Nobody warned me. I bumped into the wall as the dog cruised by.

  “Greyhound. She must win,” Eileen announced. The dog stood at the top of the stairs stepping in place, her long toenails clicking on the floorboards. She blinked her fawn eyes. I made a note: Get used to that dog.

  Aunt Brat lengthened all her verbs as we made a sharp turn in the narrow upper hall alongside the warm chimney. “We don’t want you to feeeel like we’re duumping you in a laundry room . . .”

  “But we are!” Eileen said. “Huh-haw!” She hoisted my suitcase way up to her chest. I couldn’t help thinking: Eileen leans backward.

  “This was our storage room and we did fold laundry in here . . . ,” Aunt Brat said. She pressed the black iron latch and pushed the door open. She took a look inside. I saw her turn to smile at Eileen. “But it’s a real room,” Brat said, “and it has light from the big window.”

  Eileen let my suitcase down. “Yeah, and we climb in and out of that to use the ‘clothes dryer.’” She drew quotes in the air with her fingers. Soonie tip-tapped her way over to th
e window as if she expected someone to go out there that very second.

  “The dryer?” I stretched up to look out. I saw a folding wooden clothes rack collapsed flat right outside on the roof. “Oh. I see,” I said.

  “Oopsy. Meant to drag that in,” Eileen said.

  “So that’s the flattish roof over the front porch, isn’t it?” I tried to orient myself. All the while I took in the sweet scent of old wood and cleaning oil.

  “Flattish! Good word,” said Eileen. “I like that. It’s a little spongy out there too.” She flexed her knees. “But I haven’t fallen off it yet. I sure have smacked my noggin on that window jamb a few times, though.” She gave her head a brisk rub.

  Aunt Brat said, “We’ll find a new place for the drying rack. You’ll have privacy here,” she promised. “We do have a real dryer downstairs next to the real washing machine. We just like sun-dried clothes. And besides, that machine lacks energy efficiency.”

  I was learning that my aunt Brat could be very precise.

  “You mean rumbles like thunder,” Eileen said, precise in her own way. “When that thing is running, I can’t hear myself think; can’t smell myself stink.” My aunt Brat smiled. Apparently she liked a little dose of nonsense mixed into her precision—particularly if it came from Eileen.

  “So Lydia,” Brat said, “about this space, your bed pretty much has to go on this long wall, and the dresser on the end here. But it leaves a nice space near the window, and that’s just my old sleeping bag opened over the bed. You can pick out a comforter. We’ll do anything to help you make it your own. We can paint . . . oh, except for the bricks,” Aunt Brat warned. “You’ve got the short wall of a two-hundred-year-old chimney going right up through here.” She patted the old bricks with the flat of her hand. “These babies are antiques. The room is yours, but the bricks belong to Elloroy.”

  “Got it,” I said. I set my box on the bed and went to the front window. I could see across the flattish roof into the front yard. Aunt Brat’s car was in view down to the right. My art trunk and boxes were still in the back of it. I stood there gazing just to gaze.

  Behind me Aunt Brat and Eileen were talking about a rug for the room and hooks for the back of the old Z-frame door if I wanted. They meant to include me in their conversation. Yet it was going fine without me. Besides, I felt fixed in place the same way it is sometimes impossible to wake from sleep.

  “So Lydia,” Aunt Brat said, and that did get my attention, “long journey.” She laid her hand on her heart, and somehow I knew she meant more than the miles we’d covered by car. “Do you want to unpack a few things on your own while we hustle up supper? Or, would you like one of us to stay and—”

  “Enough, Bratches!” Eileen nudged her toward the door. “Let’s give her some space in her new . . . space.”

  “Right,” said Aunt Brat. But she lingered. I made sure she saw me smiling. I knew she wanted to figure out the right thing to do and do it. But how was anybody supposed to know what that was?

  “I’ll get the rest of your boxes from the car and bring them up,” said Eileen.

  “Oh, no. It’s okay. I won’t need them tonight,” I said. “I mean, thank you, but you’ve done so much, and I can get them in the morning.”

  “Sure. Whatever!” Eileen steered Aunt Brat and Soonie into the hall. Then she poked her head back in the door to say, “Whatever you do, don’t jump on the bed, kiddo. You’ll crack your head open.” She pointed up. I looked up. It was good advice: the ceiling slanted low over the bed.

  They left and I listened to their shoes and Soonie’s toenails on the stairs, that descending click-click-click-click. Quiet.

  Oh, I felt weird in that room once they were all gone. But I’d felt weird while they were there too. I was tired despite having slept in the car. But it was more than that. Brat and Eileen made me tired too, each in her own way. Or maybe it was just that I was trying too hard to smile at everything. There was so much to get used to.

  I looked around the room. “This is it, Lydia,” I whispered to myself. “Your bed. Your windows. Your bricks. Correction. Elloroy’s bricks.” My shoulders slumped and my arms hung from the sockets. None of it felt like mine.

  I settled on the bed next to my box. I pulled my mother’s sweater close around me and lay back on Aunt Brat’s slippery old sleeping bag. I stared up at the slatted ceiling. The knotholes and wood grain looked like yawning faces of old bearded people. And some bears. And foxes.

  I thought about the places I had lived. Six years in the first house with both my parents, seven more in Grandma’s little-box house in the city.

  Then I thought about Mom. Seven years is a long time to be sick and waiting with your name on a list for a donor heart that never comes. It’s a long time to bewilder doctors who have given up on you and to be tethered to an oxygen tank when you want to be free. But seven years is also supposed to be a short part of any person’s whole life. My eyes filled.

  Don’t do this—not right now.

  Too late. The tears ran hot down my temples and wormed through my hair and into my ears. The bears and foxes in the wood grain blurred.

  There in the room, where I best not jump on the bed, I missed my mom good and hard. She had been right when she’d said there’d be a lot I wouldn’t like. But I thought I would do better than to spill tears like this before I’d even crawled into a new bed for the night. I pulled the cuffs of Mom’s sweater over the heels on my hands and rubbed my eyes. The wool I loved to wrap up in so much was rough on my face. I dried my ears. The wetness inside squeaked. I took a breath and let go. Then I heard something else—no? I waited. Yes.

  A scratching sound. Fisk-fisk. Skitch-skitch. I scanned the walls of my new room. I listened. Skitch-skitch-skitch. Fisk-fisk-fisk. There. It was coming from right about where the wall met the chimney. I sat up to look. There was a poster—tacked up oddly low—a picture of three woolly sheep, clustered together in a big snow.

  Scratch-skitch-skitch-skitch. Scratch.

  I gaped at those sheep. They looked back at me, benevolently. “Do not get yourself spooked on the first night, Lydia. Be rational. We’ve got an old house here, funky roof, tilty floors, and who knows what else?”

  I got up off the bed, dragging Aunt Brat’s sleeping bag with me. I went to the window at the front of the house, flicked the latch, and pulled it open. I let myself out onto the flattish roof.

  5

  The Sun-Maid Raisin Lady

  I squatted on the porch roof with my back against the house shingles and Aunt Brat’s sleeping bag pulled around me. I had some pretty great wet-proof sneaker-boots—lime green with orange laces. Our helper, Angelica, had found them for me, brand-new, at a consignment shop back in Rochester. They came up high on my ankles and had good treads. Good for gripping a slight incline.

  Oddly, the air felt warmer now than when we’d arrived. The thin snow was gone and the light was fading. The setting sun had laid a glowing stroke of rose-petal pink behind the bare tree branches where the woods met the meadow.

  I whispered, “Mom? Are you seeing this? It’s a pink New Year’s Eve.”

  She’d always said one of January’s gifts was short days, at least where we lived, and now here as well. Nature was the thing Mom believed in. That’s where everyday moments of magic happened. She’d loved all seasons, all kinds of weather. She’d been likely to finish off a goddess collage with a border of vines and berries, a curtain of rainfall, a sun or moon hung overhead. She’d known all the different moons, the symbolic names—and that little bit of instruction that came with each one.

  January . . . the Wolf Moon . . . offers protection for all homes and all loved ones . . . write down spring dreams. . . .

  The first week in January was the week Mom had always told me, “Lydia, you should start a moon journal.” She’d liked to nudge me, always with her wry smile that said, I know you’re not going to do this—and you don’t have to. Then just last week she’d switched it up. “You could write it in t
he way of memories.” I didn’t disagree. But talking about it gave me worry. Each mention of that word—memories—was like fast-forwarding to the day I wouldn’t have her anymore.

  This day.

  Out on the roof my folded legs grew tingly and I wiggled my toes inside my boots. I knew I should get down to the kitchen and see if my new adults needed help with supper. But I stayed, staring out at the open space, imagining that the thin sticks poking up from the meadow with their clumpy heads bowed might be remnants of wildflowers. We’d had a flower garden back in the house from my first six years—the one where I lived with both my parents. We’d called it the House of the Sun-Maid Raisin Lady. That was because of me.

  When I was little, I believed that my mother was the lady on the raisin box. She had the same chin and the long chestnut curls. Mom didn’t have a bonnet, but she had a red canvas hat that she wore for both sun and rain. Mom was a knitter, and while Miss Sun-Maid had her basket full of bunches of green grapes, my mother had one for her yarn. She sat with it across her lap, sometimes in the garden, sometimes on the sofa in front of the window. I’m telling you, those two looked alike.

  The first time I used a pair of kiddie scissors it was to cut the flaps off a raisin box. I carried that box around with me all day. I loved the picture of my mother, and I loved the way the box folded flat or stood square at my will. I propped it here and there on windowsills, or with our salt and pepper shakers at the table, and at the back of the sink while I brushed my teeth.

  One night my dad came in to hug me good night and found me holding my raisin box and gazing at the picture.

  “What do you have there?” he asked. He was a gentle person.

  I said, “She’s mine.”

  “But who is she?” I remember him pointing with his pinkie.

  “Holly,” I said.