House of Wonder Read online

  Warren replied that he had.

  “I hope so,” said Mr. Beeman, letting his words make their way slowly to Warren’s ears. “Because plagiarism is cause for suspension at Harwick High.”

  • • •

  Warren and I graduated together, accepting our diplomas one right after the other. My mother sat in the audience, a few rows away from my father and his new wife, whom I was now expected to call Lydia. And all the adults agreed that Warren should be allowed to take some time off. “To get his bearings,” said my mother. “To grow up a little,” countered my father.

  I went to college that fall. And I was glad to be rid of Warren. When I made new friends at school, and they asked me if I had any siblings, I could reply, “Yeah, I have a twin brother,” and leave it at that. They didn’t need to know anything more.

  If I had been back in Harwick, I might have been able to identify the exact moment when my mother’s purchasing habits crossed the line from pattern to pathology. I might have been able to tell when the neighborhood’s perception of Warren became something other than “oddball kid.” As it was, I was young and unfettered. And I didn’t want to think about Harwick or the house on Royal Court or anyone in it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Where’s Warren?

  I might have said that I was busy, that my family and I had grown apart, as families sometimes do. I could have pretended that our relationship was amicable but distant—one of pastel birthday cards and generic sentiment. I might have mentioned my four-year-old daughter, Rose, whom I was raising alone, or played for pity with the story of her father, of how he left and when. I could have trotted out any number of the excuses I relied upon to explain why I rarely went to my mother’s house. But the truth was simple: I hated being there.

  The house was too full of things, both tangible and intangible. Too full for me. In it, the past seemed to have mass and weight and form, crowding out the future. So when I did see my family, when we met to exchange our pastel birthday cards, it was anywhere but Royal Court. And I took solace in no longer belonging there. I had moved on. Or thought I had anyway. Because what rules us more ruthlessly than those things from which we run? I could have spent my life that way.

  Instead, I got lucky. Instead, I got a phone call.

  “Jenna?” It was my mother’s voice.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Warren didn’t come home from work last night.”

  In the silence, I remembered the way my mother used to look whenever Warren was gone, the way she would walk the house in circles.

  “I’ll come home.”

  I’ll come home. That’s what I always used to say—when I was at a friend’s house or soccer practice or even at college, until Warren’s disappearances dwindled and then ceased. I’ll come. It was like a liturgy that I hadn’t spoken in years, a response that came reflexively.

  And so I canceled a meeting, picked up Rose at day care, and drove back to Harwick. (A shamefully short trip, I’ll admit.) Warren going missing may have been the one thing that was sure to bring me back when little else could. Warren knew that.

  From the backseat, I heard Rose’s voice. “Are we here?”

  I brought the car to a stop and, with my foot on the brake, found my daughter’s reflection in the rearview mirror. Everything about Rose was red—her hair, her lips, even the dime-sized birthmark on her cheek. “Yup,” I said. Then I looked up at the house where I had grown up, the house where my mother and brother still lived. I was Rose’s age the first time I saw it. With its brick facade and white columns, I had thought it looked important, like the president of the United States could live there. I set the car into park. “We’re there.”

  My mother was waiting by the front window, her hip jutting out as she leaned against the frame, the back of her hand holding aside the lace curtain. When she stood like that, like an old Hollywood starlet caught between takes, you could see the woman she used to be. When she stood like that, even I was mesmerized. I raised my hand in a greeting. Through the glass, Mom did the same.

  From behind me, Rose yelled, “Hi, Nana!” and waved vigorously.

  I got out of the car and opened Rose’s door. Next to her was the evidence of the drive-through meal that we had eaten on our way over, at which our dog, Gordo, was staring with great interest. Rose scrambled down onto the blacktop and I squatted in front of her. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to stay,” I said, tucking a curl behind her ear. And it was the truth. Now that I was here, I wasn’t quite sure why. Now that I was here, I wanted only to leave.

  Rose held up two fingers. “How about for two shows?” she said, as if we were in a heated negotiation and the currency was children’s programming.

  I rested my hand on her head. “We’ll see, kiddo.” I stood and opened the back gate of the station wagon for Gordo, who lumbered down, and we made our way up the path to my mother’s battered-looking house.

  The front door opened and Mom stepped out, propping it wide with the side of her body. She watched as Gordo passed her without hesitation and disappeared inside; then she looked up, her eyes meeting mine, and forced a smile. “How’re my girls?” she asked as Rose and I climbed the front steps. There was a jitteriness to Mom’s voice, shaky edges to her words. She was always anxious when Warren was gone.

  “We’re fine,” I answered.

  Mom glanced around the neighborhood, then rested her hand protectively on Rose’s back. “Come on,” she said to me, tilting her head toward the doorway. And it was only for a moment that I hesitated, just at the threshold, before stepping inside.

  Mom led Rose through the foyer and toward the kitchen as I followed, navigating a path through a maze of boxes and bags, past towers of books and catalogues and baskets. There were long receipts—like ticker tape—scattered here and there. Many were from the department store where my mother worked. Their sums might be small, maybe only a few dollars, but the solutions ran cheaper these days. Under tables and lining the floor were bags of clothes with the tags still on them, boxes of infomercial inventions, and But-Wait-There’s-More! extras still in their plastic wrapping and decoupled from the devices that could make them of use. Stacks of magazines were piled on each of the steps leading to the second floor, their covers showing women and houses and lives that were so perfect, you could stare at them all day. Some of those magazines had been there for years, becoming more and more dated.

  Mom glanced back at me, reading the expression on my face before I had a chance to change it. And for one honest instant, we looked at each other. But the moment was too uncomfortable to let linger, and so I said, “The sugar maple’s gotten huge.” The maple stood in the park that abutted many of the backyards in King’s Knoll, including my mother’s.

  “I know,” she said, her face moon white. Then she turned, letting her words trail behind her. “I remember when you kids used to climb it.”

  For the next hour or so we sat, not mentioning Warren’s absence. Not really mentioning Warren at all. Rose drew pictures of whales and arrows and hearts while Mom watched, asking her quiet questions, complimenting her on her skill. With Gordo at my feet, I took out my phone and tried to scroll through e-mails, but found myself watching my mother instead. Until she looked up at me, the pretense of a casual visit becoming too much to bear. “He just hasn’t done anything like this in so long.” The words came out as if through a steam vent—only hinting at the pressure inside.

  I put my phone down on the table and repositioned myself in my chair. “So, Fung said Warren left at his regular time last night?” I asked. Fung Huang owned Pizzeria Brava, where Warren worked doing deliveries.

  My mother nodded, her lips tight, her arm resting on the back of Rose’s chair. “At eleven p.m.”

  I glanced at the digital display on the stove. It was six o’clock in the evening.

  “Are you talking about Uncle Warren?” Ros
e asked, as if we had tried to put something past her.

  Mom and I exchanged a glance. “He just forgot to tell Nana where he was going,” I said, seeking to soothe her.

  But Rose was unruffled. “Oh,” she said, as she processed the information. When she turned back to me, she did so brightly. “Can I watch a show now?” Though raising Rose without cable was a budgetary rather than an ideological decision, it had resulted in a child who could sniff out the Digital Preferred package like a terrier.

  I got her set up in the family room, switching on the T.V. and selecting an addictive but vacuous cartoon, then came back into the kitchen. “Do you want a cup of tea or something, Mom?”

  “I can make it,” she replied, as she began to push herself up from her chair. It was more of an effort for her now. I hadn’t noticed that before.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I got it.”

  As I waited for the water to boil, I stood in front of the window above the sink. The sun was setting, the trees turning into silhouettes against a watercolor sky. I looked out at the homes that lined the park, at the flickers and flashes of neighbors’ television sets as they made their dinners and folded their laundry. King’s Knoll looked exactly as it did twenty years ago. “God, nothing ever changes here,” I said to myself, my face reflected in the window in front of me.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” responded my mother, a strange lilt of warning in her voice.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Across the park, a deck light switched on.

  “Nothing,” she said, brushing some nonexistent crumbs from her lap. “I don’t mean anything.”

  My eyes lingered on her for a moment before I turned back to the window, now noticing a framed picture on the sill. It was of Warren and me as babies, dolled up in our ridiculous his-and-hers twinsie ensembles. “Oh, God,” I said, picking up the photograph. “Where did this come from?”

  Mom leaned back in her chair to better see what I was holding. And though a smile came to her face, it looked as though it hurt just a little bit. “I found that picture when I was looking for”—her forehead creasing gently—“something else.”

  “How old are we here?”

  “Three months.”

  I shook my head at the sight of us, with our big bulging eyes and infantile acne. “God,” I chuckled. “We were such ugly babies.”

  With an expression of affection, my mother’s head dropped to one side, her eyes on the photo as she considered my assertion. “No, you weren’t,” she said.

  “Yes, we were!” I set the photo back on the sill. “We were so skinny.”

  “Warren was skinny,” Mom agreed, the look on her face distant and fond. “But you were regular-baby-sized. The doctor said you got all the nutrients.”

  I felt the smile slide off my face. “That’s a messed-up thing for a doctor to say.”

  My mother gave a shrug. “Warren was four pounds to your seven,” she said.

  “Still,” I said, glancing back at the photo, at the way I dwarfed him in size even then. “It’s not like I denied him something.”

  I saw her face change. I saw it sink with regret. “Coming into this world was just harder for him,” she said, referring, I assumed, to the fact that I was born first and vaginally, while Warren was delivered sixty-seven minutes later via an emergency C-section.

  I glanced at Rose, who was fully zombified by the television’s flashes of color and sound. “Do you think the birth process”—I turned back to my mother—“hurt Warren in some way?”

  Mom took a deep breath, her elbow on the table, her hand propping up her head. “Your father did,” she finally said, as if it were an inconsequential and commonly known fact.

  “He did?” I had never been aware that my father faulted anyone but Warren for the way Warren was.

  Mom’s eyebrows lifted and she nodded steadily. “Umm-hmm. For a while he talked about suing the doctors.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Do you think they didn’t act fast enough? With the C-section?”

  She considered it for a moment. “No,” she said ambivalently, “I just think you and Warren have a different makeup, that’s all. You’re more like a Parsons.” Her head began to nod slowly at some inevitability. “Warren’s a Briggs.” Briggs was the maiden name of her mother, Martha, who died when she was five. My mother spoke of her very rarely and so I didn’t know much about the Briggs side of the family, except that they had been wealthy by the standards of the day. My great-grandfather Benson Briggs had owned a small chain of department stores called Briggs Western that he sold for what was considered a very significant sum. The stores continued to change hands until they no longer existed, and the money from their original sale seemed to disintegrate through the generations. But when my grandmother was a young woman, there was enough of it left to guarantee that she and whomever she married would be quite comfortable.

  “Were there people from the Briggs side of the family that were . . . like Warren?” I didn’t know how else to phrase it. We didn’t have a clean, tidy little label to put everyone at ease, so we settled on a description that was at once both inadequate and perfect.

  My mother’s eyes became as clear and lucid as I’d ever seen them. “Yes, honey,” she said. “There were.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  But whatever door had briefly opened to my family’s past was closing, as my mother nodded toward the kettle. “It looks like the water’s boiling.”

  It took me a full beat to turn and see the steady plume of steam, the water condensing on the spout. My desire to leave, to be free of the house on Royal Court, was attenuated by what had become a growing and real concern for my brother. Because what if this time is different? No sooner had I thought it than I heard the unmistakable sound of a car bottoming out at the entrance of the driveway. It was as if Warren had been watching some great cosmic clock, as if he had known exactly how long would be too long. Dammit, Warren, I thought. Finally.

  My mother was on her feet at once. I followed her from the kitchen and into the foyer, Gordo announcing our procession with a series of clipped barks that held no menace. Pushing back the lace curtain, Mom peered out the window, lifting her chin to see past the glaring headlights from the car that was now parked in front of her house. Already I could see that it wasn’t Warren’s beat-up Civic. My mother waited, all her energy, all her attention, focused on the next few seconds. Then the passenger door opened. And there he was. Warren’s face emerged in advance of the rest of his body, like an owl from the trunk of a tree.

  Almost instantly, the front door was open and my mother was on the porch. “Warren!” she scolded as I stepped out behind her, my arms crossed over my chest. “Where have you been?” But past her shoulder, Warren’s eyes found mine, and his lips curved into a small smile. It was as if we had planned to meet at this very spot, at this very moment, and I hadn’t let him down.

  Gordo had rushed ahead of us and was circling what we could now see was a green Jeep, his tail thumping against its body. I heard Warren greet him softly. Hey boy, he repeated, his voice high and gentle. Hey. From the driver’s side came the creak of hinges and a face appeared that was disarming in its familiarity.

  “Hi, Mrs. Parsons.”

  “Bobby!” said my mother, her voice an echo of my own surprise. Bobby Vanni had been Harwick’s golden boy and my own most crippling high school crush. He had grown up down the street in the home where his parents still lived, and from what I knew, he was married to a lovely woman, had a lovely daughter, and was finishing up his medical residency. In short, he had turned out just as everyone had predicted he would: well.

  Mom set her shoulders back and adopted her pageant smile. “What have you two been doing?” she asked, the slight quaver in her voice the only sign of her unease.

  Bobby had only half exited the car. “Warren was walking down South Road,” he answered. “So I gave
him a lift.”

  Mom let out a small, almost inaudible gasp. “Well, thank you so much, Bobby,” she said.

  “No problem,” he answered. And as he began to lower himself back into his seat, I felt the relief of having escaped unnoticed. Because Bobby Vanni was someone I only wanted to see when fully armored—with witty remarks and fresh makeup. I didn’t want to see him that night. I didn’t particularly want to see him at all. As if he were alerted to the thought, his gaze met mine.

  I dropped my head for only a second, then stepped forward. “Hi, Bobby,” I said.

  “Hey, Jenna,” he said, almost to himself, as if he weren’t quite sure it was me.

  I gave him a polite smile. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Yeah, likewise,” he said. He stared at me for a moment before remembering himself. “Well,” he said, “I really should get going.”

  Bobby made a farewell round of eye contact and got in his car. Then he slung his arm over the passenger seat, gave me one last look, and reversed down the driveway. I turned and walked into the house before he pulled into the street.

  Standing in the foyer, my face humorless, I waited for my brother.

  “Warren,” I said when he stepped inside, my mother at his back. “Where have you been?”

  Warren turned his head slightly, as if trying to see me from a different angle. “I went fishing,” he finally said. He had a quiet voice, with words that came out unrushed, as if each needed breathing room. “After work.”

  I let my eyes slide shut for the briefest of intervals and took a breath. It was our grandfather—on our father’s side—who had taught him that catfishing was best at night. “What about today, then?” I asked, my tone softer. “Where were you today?”

  His chin dropped. “My car wouldn’t start,” he said. “When I was ready to go home.”

  I looked at my brother. His pale, almost ageless skin was shadowed with purple under his eyes, and the bangs of his fine, rabbit brown hair brushed the tops of his brows. What would he do in such a situation? What would be Warren’s solution if, key in ignition, his car remained lifeless? “And so what, War?” I asked. “You walked?”