House of Wonder Page 9

  Maggie brought her hands above her head and stretched, making a sound that was almost like a purr as she let her muscles tense, then relax. “So,” she said. “Do you want to meet at my house at nine?” We often carpooled to Apothecary’s offices, which were about an hour away.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have to leave from the meeting to get Rose so we can be at my mom’s before she leaves for work.” My mother was closing the store tomorrow night, straightening up the piles of clothes and shuttling garments out of the fitting rooms after the customers had all made their way back to their cold, dark cars.

  Maggie yawned; my fatigue was contagious. “What are you going to your mom’s house for again?” she asked, the back of her hand moving to cover her open mouth. It was a fair question; I hadn’t exactly been a regular visitor to Royal Court in recent years.

  I didn’t know how to explain my unease with what my mother had asked me to do. Pulling another chair over the mint green industrial tile, I rested my feet on its metal base. “She asked me to help her get her house in shape,” I said. Maggie’s eyes held mine until I stared down at my beat-up old moccasins. “She says she wants to get the outside looking better. And maybe get rid of some things.”

  Maggie had never seen my mother’s house, but she had seen the things she brought to mine: the chipped Christmas ornaments purchased on clearance in January. The sweaters with missing buttons or tiny holes in the seams. The dented lamps or picture frames with missing glass. She’d have found them in a forgotten corner of a discount store, with red sticker after red sticker assigning ever-lower prices—until she rescued them. When she and my father were still married, the things she bought were new and sparkling and full retail price. Now she bought what no one else wanted.

  Maggie’s mouth twisted a bit; she was shrewd enough to understand that Priscilla Parsons getting rid of her things was more likely to mean that something was wrong than that something was right.

  • • •

  The next afternoon, had Rose and I not been taking our time walking up the path to my mother’s house, had we not slowed to collect the bright red leaves that had blown in from the towering maple in the park, we may have been safely inside 62 Royal Court. As it was, we had not yet reached the porch when I looked up and spotted a silver Mercedes, sleek and predatory, gliding down the street. Lydia.

  It was too late to evade my stepmother, too late to slip discreetly inside. So, determined to look at something other than the car’s approach, I glanced back over my mother’s roof toward the maple tree. Every spring, it littered the deck with its seeds. Whirligigs, my mother used to call them. As kids, Warren and I would pick them up, reaching high above our heads before letting go, watching them twirl down, their twin pods looking like skydivers holding fast to each other during a descent.

  I heard the engine cut.

  “Hey, Mom,” said Rose, sounding less excited than confused. “It’s Lydia.”

  I turned to see Lydia opening the driver’s-side door and gave her a wave. Then I started toward her, my pace unhurried, Rose at my side. I understood that Lydia had business on Royal Court, but it still felt strange to see her there. I thought about my mother, and what she must feel every time she drove down her street to see Lydia staring out at her from her neighbors’ lawn signs. What she must feel to be constantly confronted by the image of the woman for whom her husband had left her.

  Lydia rose out of the car and glanced quickly at my mother’s house behind me, cinching the belt of her black trench coat. I half expected her to march across the lawn to meet me, but she didn’t take a step over the Belgian blocking, and instead waited for me to come to her, her hands sunk into her coat pockets.

  “Jenna,” she began, as soon as I was close enough for her to avoid raising her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me about Warren?” Her eyes were wide and expectant, her lower jaw hard. She must have heard that he had been hurt.

  “It happened just a few days ago,” I said, coming to a stop in front of her. I had been concerned about Warren going back to work so soon after the “incident,” as my mother and I had begun calling it, but now I was grateful that he wasn’t home; I didn’t want him to have to see Lydia, not looking the way he did. I didn’t want him to have to endure her questions.

  Lydia made an annoyed little huffing noise, and rolled her eyes so discreetly that I wasn’t quite sure I saw it. “A few days?” Lydia, who could go months, even years, without speaking to Warren, was suddenly vexed by a tardy update. “Jenna, this is the sort of thing your father and I need to know.”

  “Well, you know, Dad could give Warren a call once in a while. Maybe Warren could have told him himself,” I said, knowing that this would never happen. My father wouldn’t call. And Warren wouldn’t have told.

  We stood facing each other, the seconds feeling slowed, prolonged, until Lydia said, “Jenna, your father is hugely busy.” She nodded her head, absolute in her position. “So we need to know that we can rely on you to communicate with us when necessary.”

  I let out a hard breath. “I’m sorry, Lydia. I should have given you guys a call.”

  “Well, that certainly would have been preferable to finding out when talking to a client about a potential listing.” She shook back her frosty blond bangs. “It just doesn’t look great when I’m not even aware that my husband’s son was assaulted.”

  My chin jerked up at the term “assault.” Warren hadn’t yet told us anything about what had happened; that he was assaulted was still speculative. “Actually, Lydia, we don’t know what happened,” I said. “Who did you say you were meeting today?”

  But before Lydia could answer, Rose said, “Mom?” That was all. Mom. But it was enough to bring me out of myself, out of my anger. Feeling her small, warm hand in mine, I looked down to see that her eyes were wide. Rose seemed so tough, but since it was just her and me at home, she was unaccustomed to this sort of conflict, the sort that happens between adults.

  I rested my hand on top of her head, her hair wiry against my palm, until I saw the muscles in her face fully relax. “Sorry, Rosie. Mom and Lydia were just talking about some grown-up stuff.”

  With her awareness brought to Rose, Lydia seemed to yield. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said, with a reserved smile.

  “Hi, Lydia,” said Rose.

  “Are you excited about Halloween?” Lydia leaned forward, trying at warmth.

  “Yeah,” answered Rose, tugging on my hand, swaying against the tension. “I’m going to be a cowgirl.”

  “Your cousin Cassandra’s going to be Marie Antoinette!” Cousin. Cassandra was Lydia’s daughter Lauren’s little girl. Rose had met Cassandra only a handful of times. She was a barrel-shaped six-year-old who pushed her way to the front of every line and deemed almost everything “not fair.”

  Lydia turned her attention back to me, enlivened by talk of her granddaughter. “You should see the costume! It’s this gorgeous brocade dress. And she has one of those big white wigs.”

  “Oh, how cute,” I managed.

  “So, anyhow,” said Lydia, her tone becoming less effusive, “how is he?” She lifted her chin toward the house, a concession to her lack of clarity. “Warren, I mean.”

  I considered how best to answer her question. “He’s doing all right,” I said, but her eyes were scanning the yard, skittering to the empty spots where all the recently vacated bric-a-brac had once sat.

  “How’s your mother?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. Lydia occasionally asked about Mom, and the question wasn’t unprecedented so much as uncomfortable. There was a time when the concern would have seemed perfectly natural, back when Lydia was Mrs. Stroppe, and my mom and dad played mixed doubles with her and Mr. Stroppe at Harwick Swim Club. Lydia would finish the game and change into her swimsuit, then wade into the pool with her visor and sunglasses still on. Her head never, ever got wet and her tanned upper body was entirely immobile as s
he glided through the water like a charmed snake.

  “Mom’s doing great,” I said lightly. Then, eager to steer the conversation away from my family, I glanced at the homes around us. “So, it looks like you’ve got a lot of listings here.”

  “Well.” Lydia’s eyebrows flitted briefly. “I’ve been hoping that some would have sold by now.” Looking around her, she coldly assessed the neighborhood. “But these properties just don’t move anymore. And now with all these little thefts . . . And if what happened to Warren becomes some sort of trend”—as she said my brother’s name, she extended her hand toward me as if we were somehow culpable in the depreciation of King’s Knoll—“buyers are going to want nothing to do with it.”

  “I hope that won’t become an issue,” I said, aiming to draw our conversation to a close.

  Taking her cue, Lydia reached for the door handle. “I feel just terrible for the people who absolutely need to sell.” She paused, the door ajar. “The couple I just met with are desperate to get out of New Jersey.”

  With that, I could sympathize. After all, here I was, back in Harwick. And in some ways, I supposed we were all bound to a place. A place in time. A place in our memories. A place where we were loved or detested. A place where we got our scars. And as I thought about what it would take to leave, to truly leave, I glanced down through the window of Lydia’s car. There, lying on top of her leather tote in a clear ziplock bag, was a watch. “Is that . . .” The words stalled as I studied its round gold face, its worn-looking, cognac-colored crocodile wristband. I hadn’t seen that watch in seventeen years. “Is that Grandpa’s watch?” Hit hard by a sudden and potent memory of my grandfather, I could smell his smell, see the spots on the dry skin of the back of his hand, hear the way he used to call Warren’s name when he came to pick him up for a fishing trip. Warren! he’d call up the stairs. We’re meeting a catfish for dinner!

  “Yes, it was Martin’s,” said Lydia, her eyes lifting cheerfully, happier to be moving to a more pleasant subject. “I’m taking it to be cleaned up. We’re giving it to Russell for his fortieth.”

  “Russell?” His name came out like the gasp after a blow to the gut. Russell was Lauren’s asshole husband, who last Thanksgiving was on his BlackBerry all through dinner, looking up only to usurp the conversation with his booming voice, announcing how many miles he had logged on his bike the previous week or how his tax bracket had to bear the burden of single mothers and their “welfare kids.” To be fair, I’m not sure he had ever given enough thought to either me or Rose to realize that I was a single mother.

  “But, Lydia,” was all I could manage, shaking my head. “Russell isn’t even . . .”

  Lydia looked at me, as if waiting for me to make an inane point. “He’s a collector,” she said, as if that were enough to end the conversation. Then, for good measure, she added, “He collects watches.”

  “Lydia,” was all I could say again. It was plea. “That watch would mean so much to Warren.”

  “Warren?” asked Lydia, truly confused. What would Warren want with a gold Tiffany watch? To Lydia, that’s all it was, a nice watch.

  But Warren would remember the look on our grandfather’s face when he got it, his somber pride when his longtime boss, Mr. Barnes, handed him the box at his retirement party. Warren would remember that he wore it all those nights on the lake, when it was just the two of them in our grandpa’s little green boat, the black water beneath them and the black sky above. I’d gone with them a few times, but never quite understood the draw. How can the fish see their food if it’s dark? I’d ask. The only answer would be the gentle creaking of the boat, the lapping of the water against its small hull.

  Finally it would be Warren who’d speak. “They smell their food,” he’d say. “They have sensory organs on their whiskers.” I’d look at my grandfather for corroboration, but he’d still be staring out into the water, a small, satisfied smile barely discernible on his face. Some nights they wouldn’t catch anything. Some nights, they would bring home four or five enormous fish with tiny eyes, their mouths agape and their bodies slick and stiff as they lay on ice in a red Coleman cooler. But every time they went, come midnight, Grandpa would lift his arm and shake back his sleeve and look at that gold watch. It’s tomorrow, Warren. Time to head home.

  But I couldn’t make Lydia understand. The only hope I had was my father. And unfortunately that wasn’t much of one.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Briggs Western

  1957

  F rom the outside, the building revealed nothing of its contents. It was large and gray and stone, and took up an entire city block as well as a good portion of the air above it. It might have been an armory or an office building or a place where they made safety pins. But when you pushed through those glass doors—well, at the time Silla found it almost too wonderful.

  “This used to be your granddaddy’s store,” said her father, bending to speak into her ear. And even though it wasn’t called Briggs Western anymore, being inside something that once held her family’s name gave Silla a sense that she had come from someplace special.

  She leaned back, letting her gaze climb to the soaring ceiling, the lights above her looking like stars glowing in a sunlit sky. Around her were curved displays of glass and shiny metal, illuminated seemingly from within to showcase the immaculate rows of purses and gloves and scarves that they contained. Ladies with bright eyes smiled at her from behind the counters as their fingers moved over the buttons of the cash registers like they were the keys of a piano. Everywhere around her, there was color and sound and beauty.

  “You can get anything you want, sugar,” said her father. Today was Silla’s eighth birthday and he had taken her back to the town where she was born to “tie up some loose ends,” as he put it, before his wedding to Hattie. Silla supposed that meant standing in lobbies and sitting at desks while papers were signed and stamped and signed and stamped, as that’s how they had spent their morning. But now that was done and she was here and it had been worth the wait.

  She looked to the far wall of the store. Against it was shelf after shelf of stuffed animals, next to a display with bins of bright foil-wrapped candy. Her father saw her eyeing them. “Go on,” he encouraged. “Go pick something out.”

  She took tentative steps, feeling the soft soles of her shoes meet that hard marble floor as her father walked next to her. She reached a round, tiered table, the perimeter of which was lined with dolls all looking out with a glass-eyed calm. “You like this one?” her daddy asked, lifting a blond one off the shelf. “This one’s pretty.”

  She looked at it for a moment, but didn’t know exactly how to answer. The blond doll looked the same as all the others—same nose, same lips, same arms that reached out to a person it couldn’t see. Only its dress was different. From behind her came a gentle voice. “May I help you?”

  Silla and her father both turned at once. There stood an older woman, small with a body that didn’t look thin so much as deflated. Her shoulders were hunched forward over her flat breasts and her dark gray hair was pulled back into a small bun. She wore a skirt and hose that bagged a bit at her ankles, above the shoes into which her bent feet seemed awkwardly contorted. When she saw Silla’s father, her eyes narrowed with recognition that seemed to try to slither from her mind’s grasp.

  “We’re just having a look around,” answered her father, stiffening slightly, giving a tense but polite nod as he angled his body back toward the display.

  But Silla watched the lady, watched as her eyes drifted away as if with the tide of a memory. Suddenly, they snapped back to her father. “Excuse me,” said the woman, “but aren’t you Lee Harris?” The quaver in her genteel old Southern voice gave her an air of authority.

  Silla’s father looked down at his feet for a steadying moment before turning around with a cordial but restrained smile. “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a nod.

  She gasp
ed, her hands clasped in front of her. “Why, I was at your wedding,” she said, as if it was a thought she hadn’t meant to speak aloud. “To Martha.” Her eyes flickered to Silla.

  “You don’t say,” replied Lee with a nervous chuckle, as he rested his hand on Silla’s back, beginning to steer her away from the woman.

  “Yes, I’ve been working here since it was Briggs Western,” she said, as if he had doubted her. “I worked for Mr. Benson Briggs when I was just a girl.”

  “Isn’t that something,” said Lee. Then he nodded. “If you’ll excuse us.” He scooped Silla up onto his hip and began making for the door and as he did, Silla looked back at the woman. She was leaning against the display, looking at Silla with that troubled expression that she hadn’t seen much since they’d moved away from here.

  “She knew my mama?” asked Silla, bouncing with her father’s steps. “Before she died?” But her father didn’t answer. He navigated quickly through the enormous store and back toward those glass doors.

  He had pushed through them and into the thick, hot air outside before he spoke again. Stopping on the sidewalk, he set Silla down and looked at her, his hands on his hips, his brow creased. “You know Hattie’s going to be just like a mother to you, don’t you, sugar?” Silla nodded and her father smiled, the relief rushing out with his breath. Then he pinched her cheek. “You’re going to have the prettiest mother in the whole world.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Picture Show

  M om was seated at the kitchen table, looking at what appeared to be a thin catalogue, by the time Rose and I got inside. Her eyes stayed focused on the pages as we entered, and so I knew she had seen us talking to Lydia. This was how it had been when I was a teenager, trying to navigate the waters of loyalty after my parents’ divorce.

  “Hey, Nana,” said Rose as she strode toward the table, dropping her backpack on the floor as she went. “Where’s Uncle Warren?”