House of Wonder Read online

  • • •

  I opened my eyes, blinking against the dim light in the room. I had fallen asleep. On the television, the credits were rolling down a black screen. I looked at my mother, who’d also dozed off, her chin sunk back into her neck, dark smears of mascara having found their way into the lines around her eyes.

  We both seemed to wake simultaneously. In those transient seconds between slumber and consciousness, I heard the sound of the front door being gently shut. Gordo let out a single, belated bark, then stared at me, as if covering up for his lack of vigilance. My gaze went to the digital clock display on the cable box. On Saturday nights, Warren usually got home from work within an hour-long window, depending on how many deliveries he had. I waited for some sign that it was him: his whistle, his footsteps.

  My mother’s face was alert, her body stone-still, and I knew that she was thinking about the thefts, about the things that had gone missing from Royal Court. There was a quiet creak of the floor and my mother raised one finger, a silent acknowledgment that she had heard it as well. Maybe whoever this was had seen us sleeping and assumed they could slip right in. I looked around at the room. But what would they want in here?

  Then it came, faint but clear. A single bursting sob, like a crashing wave hitting the shore, then being just as quickly pulled back into the sea.

  And my mother was up.

  She walked quickly toward the foyer, her elbows pumped at her sides, as Gordo and I trailed closely behind. She saw him before I did, gasping and stopping in her tracks. Then I saw him, too. Warren was standing in front of the door. Blood caked his nostrils and was running in red rivers down over his lips, his chin. His nose was swollen, the bridge purple and tender. Another spring of blood came from a gash above his eyebrow and one of his planes was dangling from the hand of the arm that hung limp at his side. Startled, he gave us one brief, reflexive glance, the wide-eyed, frightened look of a solitary nocturnal creature. Then he dropped his head. “I’m okay,” he muttered, walking quickly toward the stairs, as if he could make us believe we hadn’t seen him.

  “Warren!” cried my mother as she went after him. “What happened?”

  Stunned at the sight of my brother, I remained still, feeling as though my muscles had begun to stiffen into rock, inch by inch, from the ground up. I heard their feet making their way quickly to the second floor. Then I heard Warren’s door shut and my mother’s fists on it. “Warren, honey, you need to tell me what happened to you!” she begged. “Please let me in!”

  Still I couldn’t move. Mom, I wanted to yell. Leave him alone! But I didn’t. She couldn’t see how embarrassed he was. How shocked and ashamed. All she could see was that her little boy had been hurt.

  “Jenna!” my mother called from upstairs. I forced my feet to move. I walked more slowly than my mother, taking the stairs step by step, staring at the carpet that was as blue as the sky. When I reached the top, I looked at her agonized face. “Mom,” I said firmly, my eyes widening instructively. I let my head bob in a slow, small nod. Then she covered her eyes with her hand, turned, and leaned her back against the wall.

  Taking her place in front of the door, I spoke into its white wood. “Warren,” I said, my hand on the knob. “It’s me.”

  I waited for a moment for him to come. When he didn’t, I swept my hand across the top of the door’s trim. The straightened paper clip that I had always kept there was right where I’d left it. I stuck its end into the hole in the knob, released the lock, and opened the door. Warren was sitting on his bed, his feet flat on the floor and his elbows resting on his knees. He dabbed his bloody nose with his sleeve. He looked up at me, but said nothing.

  I was always allowed in, even when no one else was.

  • • •

  I drove while my mother sat in the backseat with Warren, her hand on his thigh. He was holding a washrag against his nose, his head leaning against the cool glass of the window. I thought of Rose. I thought of her standing at one of those big wide windows at the Waldorf, looking out onto New York, its lights looking like Christmas.

  “Are you in pain?” Mom asked Warren quietly.

  “I’m okay,” he said, as he stared out the window, his mouth open slightly, from the swollen nose and heavy thoughts.

  “Hey, Warren,” I said. “Let me know if you get too hot.”

  I had the heat on high, and Warren was still wearing his thick Pizzeria Brava sweatshirt.

  We rode in silence for a few more minutes before my mother asked almost hopefully, “Did this happen at work?” She tried to catch his eye, tried to evoke an answer, but Warren didn’t move. “I remember when that one cook opened the pizza oven too fast,” she said. “And knocked himself in the nose.”

  I turned up the radio just slightly, knowing that whatever had happened to Warren was not the work of a pizza oven. And as I stared out through the smooth, clear windshield, I remembered when Warren and I were eleven. He was shuttling an inchworm away from the peril of the Mt. Lewis School playground monkey bars over to the safety of the bushes. Scurrying with his shoulders hunched forward and hands cupped protectively around the worm, he passed a group of boys. I saw Seth Werlock’s eyes become small before he casually, almost elegantly extended his leg. It met Warren’s foot and Warren—who had been watching only the tiny green body in his care—flew forward, landing on his stomach, the inchworm disappearing into the grass. Warren turned his head to look at Seth, who looked away.

  Acting on impulse, I yelled, “You stupid jerk!” and marched toward Seth and his friends.

  “Hey!” called Mrs. Potchkit from the blacktop, alerted to the kerfuffle; Mrs. Potchkit was the lunch aide who everyone said rubbed Scope under her armpits.

  I pointed at Seth. “He tripped my brother!” Warren was now on his feet and looking at me as if he wanted only for me to stop.

  Seth scowled coolly at both of us. All I knew about Seth was that his mother worked at the local bar and his father lived in California and sent him postcards that he’d carry around until the white of the edges was soft and thick. “He fell,” he said.

  Mrs. Potchkit glanced from face to face. “If I have any more trouble with the three of you,” she said, “you’ll all be in the principal’s office.” Without acknowledging Mrs. Potchkit, Seth turned back to his friends. “Freak,” he muttered, just loud enough so that Warren would hear, just quiet enough so that Mrs. Potchkit would not.

  That was the first time I realized that the scale by which normal was judged changed as you grew older. That behavior that was quirky at seven would become odd at eleven. And that it wouldn’t go unpunished.

  There were a few more such incidents over the years. Hey, Warren! Look! Maglons! kids would shout in the hallways of our school. But by then, I had learned to pretend I didn’t hear.

  • • •

  The silence in the car grew more complete as we approached the hospital. I turned smoothly into the entrance past an unchanging green light and across an empty street. The blacktop was freshly paved, the white lines in the parking lot crisp and new. I took a spot, then got out of the car, feeling awakened by the night air.

  The hospital glowed bright through its sliding glass doors and I stared at the entrance as I waited for Warren to get out. But Warren just sat there, looking down at his knees. I felt my mother’s eyes on me, so I leaned down. “War,” I said, and that was all it took.

  He unbuckled his seat belt. “I’m coming,” he said, his lips barely moving.

  Mom spoke for Warren as the tired-looking woman at a small wooden desk questioned him about his injuries. “He had an accident,” she said. “We don’t know the details.” The woman continued to look at Warren, then pulled out a laminated chart with a series of cartoon faces in various degrees of distress.

  “Point to the picture that shows how much you hurt,” she said, her raspy New Jersey accent thick and unsympathetic.


  Warren looked at her, then at the chart. He pointed to one of the faces in the middle. “Number four,” he mumbled.

  “All right,” said the intake nurse. “Please have a seat. We’ll call you.”

  • • •

  When Warren’s name echoed through the waiting room, we were brought to a curtained corral in the back of the emergency department. There was a chair beside the bed and on either side hung a thin cloth divider with pastel geometric shapes that I assumed were supposed to be soothing and stain resistant. There were two facing rows of beds in our area, and across from us, an elderly woman was moaning and delusional, saying that the doctors had taken her babies, that she wanted them back.

  My mother looked deliberately away. “This is a horrible place,” she whispered. My mother hated hospitals. She hated their brightness, their enormity. She hated that people went into them and didn’t come out. Tonight, I could see why. I had been to the ER once with Rose when she was an infant and woke up with a cough so terrible, she wheezed and struggled for every breath. Then, we were taken directly to a private room. Here, we were in a stall.

  A nurse rushed by. “Bed six,” she said to someone I couldn’t see. I heard a hushed, indiscernible conversation. Then a figure in a pair of scrubs that looked like a snatch of sky walked quickly toward the bed of the old woman across the aisle, lifted a clipboard from a hanger, and, after briefly consulting it, said calmly and kindly, “Mrs. Leroy, I’m Dr. Vanni.”

  Relief flooded my mother’s face to meet the dread in mine. She looked from Warren to me and back again. It’s Bobby! She was clearly relieved to have a doctor to whom our family would be familiar. Far more selfish, I sought the comfort of anonymity. I looked back at Warren, who was eyeing Bobby from below his brow, the rag still held to his nose.

  After several minutes, Bobby turned away from the woman, whom he had calmed, and to the Parsons family—my mother, Warren, and me. His body stilled with recognition. “Amy,” he called to a nurse, and gestured in our direction. She made a reply that we couldn’t hear; then Bobby nodded. Giving a cordial but somber smile, he walked over to Warren’s bed.

  “Hi, Bobby,” said my mother, with a sad smile. “Warren’s . . . well, he’s had an accident.”

  Bobby’s eyes were already assessing my brother’s wounds. “Warren,” he said, almost to himself. “What happened to you?” Taking a pair of silicone gloves from a dispenser next to the bed, Bobby pulled them on. “Tell me if anything is too tender,” he instructed, as he carefully led the hand that had been holding the dishrag away from Warren’s face and lifted his chin.

  Warren winced as Bobby’s fingers lightly gripped the bridge of his nose. “We’ll do an X-ray to make sure,” Bobby said softly, “but that’s broken.”

  “His nose?” gasped my mother.

  “I don’t think it needs to be reset,” continued Bobby, ignoring my mother’s interruption, not rudely but with professional focus.

  Still not taking his eyes off Warren, he moved to the gash that intersected his eyebrow, competently probing it. After a few seconds he stopped, and I heard him exhale, then rub his rough chin with the back of his gloved hand. “You’re going to need some stitches, Warren,” he said. “All right?”

  Warren met Bobby’s eye and nodded. “Okay.”

  “We’ll numb it up,” said Bobby. “It won’t hurt.” He looked at my mother and me. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to do the sutures.” Then he disappeared past the cloth curtain.

  No more than five minutes later, a nurse rolled up a metal tray. “You’re lucky you got Dr. Vanni,” she said, with the sort of admiration I imagined all the nurses felt for the handsome doctor. “He’s the best.”

  When Bobby returned, he silently set to it, his face inches from Warren’s as he made small, careful stitches. “When this heals, you’ll hardly have a scar.” My mother stood by the head of the bed near Bobby as he worked. I sat in a chair near Warren’s feet. “Last one,” I heard Bobby say, with a snap of the scissors. They made a small clatter as he placed them back on the metal tray, on which blood-soaked wads of gauze were scattered. Once his tools were back in place, he returned his attention to my brother. “Warren,” he began, his voice low and calm. “Are you going to want to file a police report for this?”

  Warren’s brow immediately creased, as if the question were dangerous.

  “Can he think about it?” I asked quickly, wanting to relieve my brother.

  Bobby looked at me and nodded. “But with assault,” he said, “it’s best to involve the police as soon as possible.”

  My mother closed her eyes. I extended my hand. “Thank you, Bobby,” I said, full of gratitude, and humbled by it. “Thank you so much.”

  Bobby clasped my hand, then brought his other up to meet it, so that my hand was between his two. Here, in the place of his work, what I might once have read as arrogance seemed like maturity. Perhaps the sort that was hard-won. “If you need anything, Jenna, just let me know.”

  • • •

  We were given instructions about icing, painkillers, and potential problems against which to be vigilant. But really, Warren’s injuries were not severe compared with many that the ER saw. It was their implication that was upsetting.

  On the way out, Warren stopped to use the men’s room and my mother and I hovered outside. With my hands stuck in my jacket pockets, I had that jet-lag-like sensation of not knowing to which time zone I belonged. At two o’clock in the morning, the interior of the hospital was as bright as day and my mind felt as though it were on a treadmill, with thoughts and memories coming unbidden.

  I was sure that before tonight, Warren hadn’t set foot in a hospital since Rose was born. Duncan had already been in Japan then; he didn’t see Rose until she was three months old. But Warren came with my mother the very next day, in his Bill Cosby sweater and pleated khaki pants, ready to meet his niece.

  Rose was swaddled tightly in a white, pink, and blue blanket. I was holding her in my arms, feeling how light she was, feeling that somehow in her, life had been distilled and concentrated down to its purest form. What am I going to call you? I whispered. Duncan and I hadn’t settled on a name before he left, and his absence was as palpable as his presence might have been. Huh, baby girl? I rubbed my finger gently over the mark on her cheek and smiled. I didn’t want her to see any tears so early in her life. What’s your name going to be? It was then that I heard the squeak of Warren’s sneakers on the brightly waxed floor of the hallway.

  “I think it’s right here,” came my mother’s voice from behind the shut door. There was a brief knock and the door opened before I could have voiced any protest, had I wanted to. My mother was holding Warren’s upper arm and Warren was very still, looking at Rose from a distance with a guarded anticipation.

  “Oh my goodness,” gushed my mother. “Let me see her.” Warren hung back as Mom rushed the bed, her eyes immediately settling on Rose’s birthmark. “Oh, it’s not bad,” she said, smiling softly. I had warned her on the phone about the birthmark. It’s called a hemangioma, I had said, my lower lip quivering. It’s totally benign.

  “And I’m sure they can remove it if they need to,” added Mom.

  “They said it’s small enough that it’ll probably go away on its own.” I smoothed a small lock of hair against her forehead. “But it might get a little bit bigger first.”

  It was then that Warren took a tentative step forward, leaning in to look at my baby’s face while the lower half of his body remained a good three feet away. When he saw her, he seemed proud and pleased. “Hey,” he laughed quietly, “she looks like a little rose.”

  A laugh sputtered from my lips. It was the first time I’d laughed since giving birth, and it loosened something in me, set something ajar, allowing emotions I had been trying to keep at bay to force their way up. I threw the crook of my elbow over my eyes and that laugh became a sob.

&n
bsp; “Oh, Jenna,” said my mother.

  With my eyes still hidden, I shook my head, waiting until I could open my mouth without another cry escaping. “Maybe that’ll be her name,” I said, dropping my arm to look at my daughter. “Rose.” It was the first of many decisions I would make without Duncan.

  Warren’s chest seemed to swell. “Rose,” he repeated, as if the word felt strange but pleasant on his tongue. Then he stepped closer and leaned over her, his nose inches from hers. She made a face and moved her tongue against the roof of her mouth and Warren let out another quiet but expansive laugh. “Hi, baby,” he said, tapping his hand on the blanket above her belly. Then his face changed, softened slightly, as if he had to bravely break to his niece some difficult news. “You live in the world now,” he said.

  • • •

  “Jenna,” I heard my mother say softly, pulling me from my memory as we waited for Warren outside the men’s room. Her eyes were fixed on an inconsequential point in the distance. “If you lived on Royal Court,” she began, “and you didn’t know us . . .” The question was coming slowly, like a twisty old creak. “What would you think of Warren and me?” She turned to look at me, her face full of knowing reluctance.

  The house flashed into my mind, with its chipping trim and crumbling concrete steps; with the adult son who played with airplanes and was still living at home; with the mother who kept filling the house with more things.

  “Oh, Mom,” I said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Doll

  1954

  I t was the first cold night of the winter and Priscilla lay in her bed listening to the gentle clanging of the radiator. Her eyes were shut tight, but sleep wouldn’t come. Mrs. Lloyd always told her to talk to Jesus when she couldn’t sleep. Just tell him your troubles, she would say. That evening before she left, Mrs. Lloyd had sat with her on her bed and sang “In the Sweet By and By.” And Silla had sung with her. She had a pretty little voice.