He carried Hal’s boxes in, arranged them neatly in a closet; he ferried Casey back and forth to his mother’s place. Apparently Casey was curiously fond of Mrs. Stern, who remembered almost nothing from one day to the next. Susan felt a pang that her daughter chose to spend so much time with another mother, as though the two of them were in competition for her affections—she and a woman with no memory, a faded blond dowager from Connecticut who showed every sign of presenile dementia. Who, by the way, was blissfully competing with no one, while Susan had to work to pin down her daughter for dinner despite the fact that they were both bereft. Still it was good for Casey to spend her time with someone worse off than herself, Susan thought—she had to be grateful for any straws Casey could cling to. She tried to suppress her jealousy.
Before the closing with the buyers she and Casey and T. drove over to the old house. Opening the familiar front door, she thought how shabby this place was compared to the big house in Pasadena, this place where they’d spent all those years—a humble bungalow with no pretensions. With the furnishings gone it was a stack of boxes with hardwood floors and creamy walls, the wood pocked and scarred but still giving a tawny glow. T. pushed Casey’s chair through the empty rooms as she looked around, Susan lagging behind.
Without their belongings it could be any house, any house where once a family had lived. Was there even a trace of them here? Only the appliances. Their appliances had been left behind. But it was hard to get teary about an appliance. Although she did remember shopping for them—the washing machine and dryer at Sears, the dishwasher later, when they had more money. For most of her life she’d washed dishes by hand. They’d bought the dishwasher in the evening of a day in which, bored and listless, she’d met a man named Najeem in a motel room that had indoor-outdoor carpeting (she remembered it still, a muddy brown flecked with yellow) and he turned out to be gay. She and Hal had been slaphappy that day, both of them, hysterical with laughter for their own unknown reasons. She would never be sure whether Hal had caught her hysteria or had his own wellspring. It could be ambient; hysteria caught like a yawn, that was clear, hysterics and yawns had their contagion in common.
Outside the mall, in the parking lot, they had run hard, chasing each other, and laughed even harder when she fell, surprising themselves. To this day she had a line of black dirt embedded in the skin of one knee.
This was where they’d been living earlier too, when the accident happened. Susan had got the call here, standing in the kitchen, and this was the space they’d adapted to accommodate the wheelchair, before Casey told them she wanted to move out. It had worn wooden ramps on the ground floor, to the elevated section that held Casey’s bedroom.
Susan left her daughter and T. staring out the bare window at the next-door backyard, where a kid was creaking slowly back and forth on a yellow swing set. She made her way upstairs and stood silently in the empty master bedroom.
She and Hal had slept here together for years. Once, only once, had she let someone else in. Fantasy Baseball. The memory made her wince.
She stood still, wondering how sharply she would feel the rising tide of shame. She had never expected Hal to die young. She had assumed they would be old together, absentminded, dreamy and tottering. She had hardly ever thought of it, but when she did she saw them—a bit sadly, a bit nostalgic beforehand for the youth they had lost—nodding while quiet music played from dimly lit alcoves, drinking strong cocktails every night or watching the sunset, say, from the verandah of a restaurant—the games of children long forgotten by then. The selfishness of their youth left behind with their looks. That was how it would be, she used to think, when one of them finally left.
While he was
Before the closing with the buyers she and Casey and T. drove over to the old house. Opening the familiar front door, she thought how shabby this place was compared to the big house in Pasadena, this place where they’d spent all those years—a humble bungalow with no pretensions. With the furnishings gone it was a stack of boxes with hardwood floors and creamy walls, the wood pocked and scarred but still giving a tawny glow. T. pushed Casey’s chair through the empty rooms as she looked around, Susan lagging behind.
Without their belongings it could be any house, any house where once a family had lived. Was there even a trace of them here? Only the appliances. Their appliances had been left behind. But it was hard to get teary about an appliance. Although she did remember shopping for them—the washing machine and dryer at Sears, the dishwasher later, when they had more money. For most of her life she’d washed dishes by hand. They’d bought the dishwasher in the evening of a day in which, bored and listless, she’d met a man named Najeem in a motel room that had indoor-outdoor carpeting (she remembered it still, a muddy brown flecked with yellow) and he turned out to be gay. She and Hal had been slaphappy that day, both of them, hysterical with laughter for their own unknown reasons. She would never be sure whether Hal had caught her hysteria or had his own wellspring. It could be ambient; hysteria caught like a yawn, that was clear, hysterics and yawns had their contagion in common.
Outside the mall, in the parking lot, they had run hard, chasing each other, and laughed even harder when she fell, surprising themselves. To this day she had a line of black dirt embedded in the skin of one knee.
This was where they’d been living earlier too, when the accident happened. Susan had got the call here, standing in the kitchen, and this was the space they’d adapted to accommodate the wheelchair, before Casey told them she wanted to move out. It had worn wooden ramps on the ground floor, to the elevated section that held Casey’s bedroom.
Susan left her daughter and T. staring out the bare window at the next-door backyard, where a kid was creaking slowly back and forth on a yellow swing set. She made her way upstairs and stood silently in the empty master bedroom.
She and Hal had slept here together for years. Once, only once, had she let someone else in. Fantasy Baseball. The memory made her wince.
She stood still, wondering how sharply she would feel the rising tide of shame. She had never expected Hal to die young. She had assumed they would be old together, absentminded, dreamy and tottering. She had hardly ever thought of it, but when she did she saw them—a bit sadly, a bit nostalgic beforehand for the youth they had lost—nodding while quiet music played from dimly lit alcoves, drinking strong cocktails every night or watching the sunset, say, from the verandah of a restaurant—the games of children long forgotten by then. The selfishness of their youth left behind with their looks. That was how it would be, she used to think, when one of them finally left.
While he was
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