House of Wonder Page 10

  “He’s at work, honey.” Mom rotated on her chair, turning to face Rose, her hands clasped and dangling in the space between her knees as her forearms rested on her plump thighs. Everything about my mother was soft, forgiving. “He’s bringing people their pizza.” She said it as if it were the sort of job that children would parrot when asked by teachers what they wanted to be when they grew up. I want to be a pizza deliveryman! But that was the thing about my mother’s admiration; she was unequivocally proud of Warren—a dedicated and reliable thirty-six-year-old pizza deliveryman who could explain the natal philopatry of sea turtles and spent his free time with his mother. A boy who was now a man, with a heart so fragile he had to keep it tucked away from the world. There was almost nothing Mom wouldn’t do for him.

  I nodded toward her catalogue, which I could see contained what looked like paint swatches lined in a grid pattern against the backdrop of an expansive wooden deck. “Are you thinking about repainting?” I asked.

  She thrummed her fingers over the catalogue pages. “Well,” she said, almost apologetically. “I was thinking that maybe we could repaint the columns out front. As the first thing we do.”

  “Oh,” I said. I hadn’t known what to expect when my mother had asked for my help with the house, and I was now beginning to understand the enormity of the task. “Okay.”

  Sensing my hesitancy, she turned away, smiling and gesturing for Rose to come sit on her lap. “It’s just that . . . the quotes I got were kind of high,” she said. “And I thought it would be nice to maybe do it as a family.” Her voice was hopeful and uncertain.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “No, I think that would be good.”

  She looked at me gratefully. “I guess you didn’t really need to come today,” she said. “I was thinking that maybe we could get started, but I was just reading online about what we need to do in terms of preparation.” I nodded, listening. But she stopped, her head tilting to one side as she regarded me. “You’re such a good girl, Jenna,” she said, looking almost pained. “Everyone in this neighborhood has always loved you.”

  I hooked my hand on the back of my neck, letting it hang there. “Thanks,” I said. I was uncomfortable with praise, especially the sort that seemed like a lament. Perhaps it was only the reflex of being a twin, but at once, I thought of Warren. If the neighbors had always “loved me,” as my mother said, how had they felt about Warren?

  Rose slid down from my mother’s lap, her eyes focused on the forest green wire baker’s rack between the doors to the foyer and the pantry. And though it was often difficult to pick out the new additions in my mother’s house, the rack held a picture that I was sure hadn’t been there before—a black-and-white photo of a woman, framed in thin wood with a small brass hoop on top. “Hey, who’s this lady?” asked Rose, reaching for it.

  “Lemme see,” I said, resting my hand on her shoulder as I leaned in. The woman was staring into the camera. Behind her, in the soft, blurred background, was a picnic table underneath a tall tree that rose above the confines of the shot. She had a curious look on her face that wasn’t quite a smile and her eyes seemed animated, as if she were seeing us as we saw her. She didn’t appear to have a stitch of makeup on, and her bangs were shaped into a single, solid curl that looked like the barrel of a wave running across her forehead. One hand was resting on her hip, her wrist bending pliantly. She had my mother’s full breasts and lips, and even in the black-and-white, I could tell her hair was red. “Is this your mother?” I asked, glancing back at Mom. I had only ever seen a few pictures of her mother, and they were all formal, posed shots, with crisp lines and good posture. This woman looked real. Like she might, at any moment, adjust the strap of the dress that was sliding down her bare right shoulder.

  My mother shifted in her chair and crossed her legs, wrapping her clasped hands around her knee. “That’s her,” she said, smiling despite the tension in her brow. “That was taken the year before we lost her.”

  “She looks funny,” said Rose goofily, probably meaning the hair or the clothes or the absence of color.

  My mother made a soft sound that was almost a chuckle. “She was a little funny, I guess.”

  I was drawn back to the photo. “I’ve never seen this picture before.”

  “I just found it,” said Mom. “I’d been looking for it for a while.” She angled her head so that she could see around Rose and me. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately.”

  I didn’t know much about my grandmother, only that she had died in 1954 after a complication related to routine surgery. My mother was five at the time and my grandfather met and married Hattie soon after. “You look like her here.” I’d studied the other photos, seeking a resemblance that I was unable to find. But here it was clear.

  My mother gave the photo one last look before straining to stand. “Well,” she said, “I’d better get going. The store sent out one of those family and friends discounts, so it’s going to be busy.”

  Her stare snagged on the open door to the pantry. “Oh, I forgot,” she said, pushing the door open and entering. Like the rest of the house, it was chock-full. Dusty cans teetered in towers, and rows and rows of cereal lined the shelves. “It’s just something I got at Costco,” she said, her voice muffled by the soundproofing power of snack foods. “They’re these bars. . . . They’re supposed to be as nutritious as a meal,” she said, pulling out a case of the raw vegan bars with deceptively delicious-sounding names—Cocoa Almond Nut Chunk! and Banana Walnut Bread! “I thought they’d be good for Rose’s snack at school,” she said, emerging from the pantry, her eyes lifted hopefully.

  “Thanks,” I said, as I took the box, Rose standing on her toes to peek down at what she surely thought were candy bars. I didn’t tell Mom that Rose’s school was nut-free. She looked too pleased about her contribution to disappoint her with talk of allergies.

  Mom headed toward the front door. Guiding Rose with my hand on the back of her head, I followed through the foyer, listening to my mother as she told me about the cutest little sundresses that were on sale right now. “No one wants them because winter is coming, but they’re just adorable. Do you think Rose would want something like that? For next summer?”

  “That’s okay, Mom,” I said, picturing Rose’s tiny closet. “We have like zero storage at our place.”

  I followed Mom out to the driveway and we each got into our respective cars. Backing out first, I paused to let her pull ahead of me. Never an aggressive driver, she stopped at the end of Royal Court, and seemed to be waiting for a break in the traffic large enough for a tractor-trailer to safely make a left turn.

  “Come on, Mom,” I muttered.

  “Nana, go!” commanded Rose from the backseat.

  As we were waiting, a familiar Jeep pulled into the development from the main road. Bobby’s car passed and I gave him a friendly wave, which he returned. Then, in my rearview mirror, I saw his brake lights beam red, then the white glow as he reversed.

  “Hey, Mom!” said Rose, just as my mother finally ventured onto the main road. “It’s Gabby!”

  Gabby Vanni’s little fingers were gripping the top of the open backseat window, her mouth beneath the darkened glass, her eyes smiling and delighted. “Hi, Rose!” she yelled.

  Rose tried to locate the button for the window. When she did, she rolled it down, and mimicked Gabby’s posture. “Hi, Gabby!” she answered back.

  I smiled into my lap, then looked up at the driver’s seat to see Bobby leaning back, one hand on the wheel. His window slid down. “Hi, Jenna.”

  “Hey,” I said, thinking to myself how very handsome he still was.

  “So, Gabby is pretty excited to see that new rat movie,” said Bobby, speaking in the loud, staged whisper that parents use when they intend to be overheard. I heard Santa just lifted off at the North Pole.

  “Mom!” said Rose from the backseat. “I want to see the
rat movie!”

  Bobby smiled, and for a second, he was the old Bobby, the golden boy with white teeth and olive skin and the adoration of all. The Bobby who needed only to roll down his window and hint at an invitation to get a “yes.”

  I looked down, sliding my hand down the length of my ponytail.

  When Bobby spoke again, his voice was polite, reserved. “I was thinking that maybe you and Rose would like to come.”

  “Sure,” I answered.

  “Great.” Bobby smiled. Then he paused, as if to give what he said next consequence. “It’s a date.”

  And though I returned his smile, I wished he hadn’t called it that.

  After Rose was born—after I’d found myself in my thirties and single and a mother—I’d let myself be set up and fixed up and partnered up at a few dinner parties. Most of the time, the men had been warned that I had a child, so they knew how to arrange their faces when I mentioned Rose. But their idea of dating a woman with a young child was often quite different from the reality.

  Once, there was a man that I liked so much that I invited him to come in. I paid the sitter and made us some coffee. He waited on the couch. And when I set the cups down on the table, he gently took my wrist and pulled me onto him, kissing me, sliding his fingers through my hair. And I could feel myself thawing. His lips were on my neck when I heard Rose start to fuss from the crib in her bedroom. I froze. He stopped. “She’s getting her teeth,” I said, excusing myself to go comfort her. I hurried to her room. In my high heels. In my pencil skirt. I’m sorry, Rosie. I’m so sorry. And I wondered how I was going to do this, how I was going to date while raising a young child. When I opened the door, the cries that had been muffled were suddenly clear, and I shut the door behind me, seeking to contain them. Picking her up, I sat down in the rocking chair, rubbing my hand over the smooth cotton on her back. “Shhh,” I said, as we moved back and forth together, chest to chest. “Mommy’s right here.” She lifted her red face to let out another shriek of protest and pain, then let her head collapse back into the crook of my neck. I rubbed her back for I didn’t know how long. Until I inadvertently fell asleep. Until I awoke with a stiff neck and dry eyes and set her down in the crib to make my way back out to the family room, which was empty, aside from two cups of cold coffee. The man was gone. And I walked slowly back into my daughter’s room and lay down on the floor next to her crib, my face against the carpet.

  I realized, then, how it was that I would date while having a child. I wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Flying Machines

  S cattered over the porch were all manner of painting supplies: brushes and rollers and trays, everything we might need to restore the columns that graced my mother’s front porch to their mid-1980s splendor. The thin brown plastic bags in which my mother had transported her haul from the home improvement store were weighted with paint cans, and packages of sandpaper had been torn open, the rough sheets peeking out. “They said we should sand off all the existing paint as best we can,” said my mother, her hands resting supportively on the small of her back. “Before we put on the first coat.”

  I looked up the length of the column in front of me, my eyes following its grooves to the top, squinting as the trajectory of my gaze approached the sun.

  “Oh! That reminds me,” said Mom, as she disappeared inside the house. When she emerged, she was awkwardly carrying a stepladder, its metal legs bumping against her shins. “I thought we could use this,” she said. “Rather than having to stand on a chair.”

  I took in the scope of the project, estimating how much would be involved in the sanding and repainting; it was likely to be more than either my mother or I had initially imagined. Then, angling my head toward the still ajar door, I called, “Hey, Warren!” waiting a moment for a response that I knew wouldn’t come. “Warren!” I said again. “Do you think you can help us sand?”

  After a brief pause, Rose answered. “We’re playing Candy Land.” She sounded annoyed at the interruption.

  I rolled my eyes. Warren had always gotten a pass on chores, even though, if you asked me, he was perfectly capable of helping out. It was at least part of why my mother’s house was in such bad shape. He’s been working on his planes, my mother used to say when my father would ask why Warren hadn’t mowed the lawn.

  “Let ’em play,” my mother urged, moving to close the door. “They love being together.”

  Rose did seem to view Warren as a playmate, the next-best thing to an actual kid. When’s he going to start acting like a normal teenager? my father used to ask, when he would come home to find Warren in the backyard, fighting off Maglons or sending a tiny plane up into dusk’s watercolor sky. And as I had sensed my father’s growing distance, as his business trips increased in both frequency and duration, I used to look out the window and pray that Warren would suddenly straighten up. That his shoulders would become broad and solid. That he would brush his bangs back off his face, and stride confidently across the park. That he would become someone other than Warren.

  I took a deep breath, running my hand up the back of my neck until it met the base of my ponytail. Then I pulled the stepladder over to the nearest column. “I can do the sanding, Mom,” I said, reaching for a package of sandpaper. Having sanded a secondhand dresser prior to giving it a coat of bright pink paint for Rose, I knew that the task was tedious and tiring—not something I wanted Mom to have to do. “You can hang out with Rose and Warren.”

  “I can help,” she insisted. But as she watched me climb the ladder, her voice grew less certain. “Maybe you can do the tops and I’ll do the bottoms.”

  As we began working, running the rough paper over the already chipped paint, my arms fell into a rhythm. Heat rose in my muscles and my heart pumped steadily. Up and then down, the smooth, tender-looking wood appearing where it had been hidden. Soon my sweatshirt was covered in the thin, white dust, and despite the chilly air, I peeled it off, tossing it toward the welcome mat and looking down at myself. I had on a threadbare T-shirt with the logo of a noodle bar I used to go to in New York. I’d gone there the night Duncan left for Japan. I had stood on the front steps of our apartment as he got in a cab for the airport, wishing that I could cross and cross and cross my arms over my chest, wishing that I had rows and layers of arms, like the horseshoe crabs my father used to pull out of the water at the beach. He’d turn them upside down and their legs would be probing and reaching, warning you away. I watched Duncan as he waved good-bye as the cab drove off, but I just rested my hand on my belly. And when he was gone, I remained on the steps for a very long time, my hand still on my stomach until, feeling the movement inside it, I forced my feet forward. Walking down the street to the noodle bar, I ordered an enormous bowl of soup. When the waitress came back to ask how I was liking it, she noticed that I was eating only the noodles, that much of the broth was still in my bowl. “Drink, drink,” she said in a thick accent as she pointed to my belly. “Is good for the baby.” And so I brought the dish to my lips, the steam meeting my face and masking the tears in my eyes.

  “What time do you have to leave for the store?” I asked my mother.

  “I should get going around one,” she said, between slow, easy strokes of the sandpaper. “What are you and Rose doing the rest of the day?”

  “We’re actually going to see a movie,” I said. I paused to scratch my nose with the back of my hand. “That one with the rat.”

  Mom clucked with recognition. “I heard that one’s cute.” There was the sound of a leisurely up and down with the sandpaper. “Too bad Warren has to work later. I’ll bet he’d like to go with you.” I pulled a fresh sheet of sandpaper from the packet. “Is it just you and Rose?”

  I tried out the words that came next in my mind before speaking them aloud. “We’re actually going with Bobby and Gabby Vanni.”

  “Oh,” said my mother. “Oh,” she said again. Though I was focused on t
he bare stretch of column in front of me, I could tell from her pleased-sounding tone exactly the look that was on her face. “Well, maybe Warren and I will go see it another time.”

  Rose soon came popping out the front door, Warren trailing behind her but hesitating at the threshold, keeping his body partially hidden as he held a white foam airplane at his side.

  “Mom!” called Rose, standing at the base of the stepladder. She hooked her fingers in the tops of my boots. “I won Candy Land four times in a row!”

  “Whoa,” I said, staring down into her bright little eyes. “You must be really good.”

  I sensed Warren’s attention, his smile. I glanced over at him. He lowered his head. “She just kept getting Princess Frostine,” he said, shaking his head as if marveling at her luck, as if he hadn’t found a way to slip the best card to the top of the stack. “I don’t know how it happened.”

  “Uncle Warren!” said Rose, bouncing back to him. “Let’s fly the plane!”

  Warren assumed the expression of an affectionate old monk trying to remain stern with his enthusiastic apprentice, but his delight was clear. He made a noise of hesitation, like creaky old gears turning reluctantly. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Please, Uncle Warren!” she begged, looking as though total devastation were just a single “no” away. “I want to see it float.”

  His chuckle was mixed with a groan. “Okay,” he said. Then beneath his furrowed brow, he glanced out at the street, and at the neighborhood beyond it. And as Warren took his first steps into the daylight outside the house, I was again aware of his injuries, which I had begun not to see. That’s the way it always was with Warren; the more time you spent with him, the less apparent the anomalies became. But in the starkness of the bright outside light, they were once again very real.

  “Hey, Rosie,” I said. “You need to get your coat. It’s cold out.”