House of Wonder (8 page)

“Oh, I've got those in my class at school,” said Rose, like she could tell us a thing or two about Maglons.

Warren gave Rose a playfully skeptical expression. “You have Maglons?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Rose, meandering over to one of Warren's planes, fingering its functioning door. “Tucker is the
biggest
Maglon ever.”

“Hey,” came Mom's voice from downstairs in the foyer. I hadn't noticed that the buzz of the weed whacker no longer sounded from the backyard. “Who left this mail here?”

“Oh,” I called back, making my way back out to the hallway, my arms crossed over my chest, “we grabbed it on the way in.” I leaned over the banister. “Rosie dropped it.” Mom was bent over, quickly gathering it up, ignoring the catalogues but looking carefully at each envelope before putting it back into the pile. “Sorry, Mom.”

“And this is everything?” she asked, not looking up. There was an edge to her voice.

“I think so,” I said.

I watched her sift through the stack again; then, finally satisfied, she pushed herself up and briefly met my eyes. “Can you ask Warren if he wants a snack?”

Five minutes later, Rose and Warren were seated at the kitchen table, eating pistachios; my mother stood at the window, reading the instructions for a new electric sink buffer (“It says it removes surface stains
and
bacteria”); and I was leaning against the glass doors to the deck, flipping through e-mails on my phone and paying loose attention to the conversation.

Warren was explaining to Rose the physics of opening a
stubborn pistachio shell. “You just slide another shell into the crack,” he said, as he demonstrated his method for using the leverage of a discarded shell. “And twist.” And though his lesson fell on largely deaf ears, Warren seemed to appreciate being in the presence of someone who thought his face might look the way it did due to a fall from a swing. “Another,” commanded Rose, still chewing, her palm outstretched.

“Can I have another,
please
,” I corrected.

My mother plugged the electric sink buffer into the socket and squeezed in a generous dose of the complimentary cleansing gel. “It says to make sure the water is
off
,” she said softly and to no one in particular before pressing a button and bringing the buffer to life.

She was thoroughly engaged in her task when the doorbell sounded. Warren made no outward acknowledgment, but his body stilled, as if to devote all his physical resources to the sense of hearing. I looked at my mother, who glanced back at me with what appeared to be an oversized electric toothbrush humming in her hands.
Who could that be?

“I'll get it,” I said with a sigh. I pushed away from the door and, sliding past Warren and Rose, made my way into the foyer. I expected UPS or maybe some lucky sap selling Omaha Steaks door-to-door. In short, I expected anybody but Bobby Vanni standing there holding a tinfoil-covered casserole dish.

“Bobby!” I said. Immediately, my mother's house and its things, the things I had begun not to see, sped to the foreground of my mind.

He looked at me for a moment before the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. “Hey, Jenna.”

“What's going on?”

“I came by to check on Warren.” My eyes flitted down to the casserole dish in his hands. His followed. “My, uh . . . my mom wanted me to bring this.”

My face warmed. There was something dear about Dr. Robert Vanni running around the neighborhood delivering his mother's baked ziti.

Bobby dropped his chin with a low, hushed laugh. And for just that split second, there was nowhere I'd rather be than standing at the front door of my mother's house.

“Bobby!” I heard my mother call from behind me. Clearly, since tending to Warren, Bobby had taken on hero status at 62 Royal Court. “You are so sweet to come. And, oh!” She had caught sight of the ziti; her hand was over her heart.

“It's from my mother,” explained Bobby.

Mom looked at me as if to corroborate the goodness of the Vannis. “Bless her heart,” she said softly.

For an awkward moment, the three of us stood in silence until Mom scooped the air in front of her toward her chest, beckoning Bobby forward. “Why don't you come in?” she suggested.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping over the threshold. “I won't stay long.” He looked at me, his eyes kind and knowing. “I'd just like to say hello to Warren.”

Mom took a breath and smiled her pageant smile—it was her armor, her protection; her defense against judgment of any kind. “Aren't you sweet?” she said. And she led Bobby back to the kitchen.

“Here,” I said, reaching for the casserole dish as he passed, “let me take that for you.”

“Warren!” called my mother, in the June Cleaver voice that
she used only to address Warren while in the presence of company. “Bobby's here to see you!”

Bobby walked into the kitchen and I followed. “Hey, Warren,” he said, as he approached my brother without hesitation, rounding the counter and already assessing his recovery. “Let's see how this is doing.” Bending toward him, he swept his gaze over Warren's face, clinically, professionally.

Warren gave me a look from the corner of his eye, determined to hide his smile—to at least
seem
as though he minded the attention—as Bobby continued his inspection.

“This is looking good,” said Bobby, focusing on the gash, on its spidery closures. Then he moved to Warren's nose. “You'll have some bruising for a while.” His voice was low, as if the conversation was between only him and his patient.

“Hey,” said Rose, her legs kicking playfully under the counter. “What's your name?”

He seemed to consider it for a moment. “Bobby,” he answered. “I'm Gabby's daddy. I heard you guys had fun playing together at the block party.”

Rose's eyes widened and she adopted the look of a hungry puppy. “Can Gabby and I have a playdate?” she asked.

“Rosie,” I said, not wanting to seem presumptuous or eager or any of those things you weren't supposed to be when setting up any kind of date—play or otherwise.

Bobby chuckled.
“Actually,”
he answered, a temptation dangling on the tip of the word. He looked outside toward the park, then back at Rose, prolonging the anticipation. “I was just going to take Gabby to the playground.” Rose's eyes widened in delight. “Do you think you and your mom would want to come, too?”

Rose scrambled down from her stool. “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she said, nodding with her whole body. She turned to me. “Mom!” she said—a single word that had the capacity to be both a command and a plea. “Can we go?”

“Ummm, yeah . . . ,” I said, my daughter's joy my own. “I think we can.”

Then I glanced up at my mother. She was looking at Rose. And though she was smiling softly, her face was tensed in the way of those who have long endured pain so constant, they are no longer even aware of it. She was just about Rose's age, I realized, when her own mother died.

Jewelry Box

1954

A
t five years old, Silla sometimes still took a nap, settling down in the middle of the day to let her thick black eyelashes crisscross over one another, like delicate little briars. Consequently, she had trouble telling the days apart, not knowing when one ended and the next began. So she didn't know how long her parents had been gone. Only that it seemed like quite a while.

Her father had made arrangements for his parents to come and stay with her. She had met them only a few times before. They arrived with shabby suitcases and eyes that scanned the room, looking from object to object, possession to possession. Her grandmother picked up a vase that her father had always described as “oriental” and turned it over as if checking for a
price tag. Her grandfather made his way to the living room and switched on the television, letting out a long, low whistle as the image appeared on the screen. They didn't speak much to Silla. Her grandmother made her ham and cheese sandwiches and told her when it was time to take a bath or go to bed. Her grandfather sat in her father's chair, watching her father's television. Her grandmother slept in her mother's room. Her grandfather slept in the guest room. And every once in a while, when Silla's small feet would move over the floor without enough sound to be noticed, she'd hear them talking. She heard them talking about what a damn shame it all was, about what a damn fool Lee had always been. But mostly, she heard them talking about what was going to happen to all her mother's damn money.
He could wind up without a cent!

During the days, Mrs. Lloyd would come as she always had, and Silla would sit on the back steps while Mrs. Lloyd snapped laundry and set it on the line, squinting as she held the clothespins between her lips. She told Silla Bible stories, and Silla's favorite was the story of Daniel, who was cast into a den of lions as a punishment for his prayers. “But the Lord sent down angels,” Mrs. Lloyd would say as she reached down into the basket full of damp clothes, “that came and shut the lions' mouths tight.” And Silla would lift the toes of her saddle shoes up off the dirt, her hands holding her skirt over her knees, quietly delighted by the idea of beautiful winged angels that could subjugate mighty, ravenous lions.

A few times, Silla asked Mrs. Lloyd, “When is my mama going to come home?” And she would see Mrs. Lloyd's whole body seem to sink a bit, as if she were bearing an enormous burden. “Well . . .” was all she'd say, as she pinned up the end of
a billowy white sheet, her thin body struggling against its weight. It was a long sigh of a word.
Well.
After a few moments she'd speak again. “Has anyone ever told you about the time that Jesus helped a blind man to see?”

Mrs. Lloyd was telling Silla the story—about the mud that Jesus mixed up and put on the blind man's eyes—when Silla heard a car roaring down the driveway, kicking up huge clouds of dry dust into the bright blue sky. She leapt up and ran around the side of their brick house to see her father's Cadillac come to a stop next to it. But her mother wasn't in the passenger seat. Silla lifted up to the tips of her toes, as if that additional inch might help her see something she had missed. Her father got out of the car and stood looking at her with his hands on his hips. On his face, he was wearing an expression that she supposed was intended to be a smile. “How's my Silla?” he finally called to her. But Silla didn't move, sensing something, some great culmination. “Come here, my girl,” he said, clapping his hands together, his voice as sweet and as empty as sugar water.

Silla looked back at Mrs. Lloyd, who was purposefully minding her business by remaining focused on the basket of laundry in front of her; then Silla began walking slowly toward her father. As soon as she was within arm's distance, Lee Harris reached for her hand and pulled her close to him, bending down so that they were eye to eye. “Your daddy missed you,” he said, gently pinching her nose.

But Silla's face was solemn. “Where's Mama?” she asked.

Lines formed across Lee's forehead. He looked like he was about to say something—then he suddenly straightened, lifting one finger. “Hold on, sugar,” he said, opening the car door and reaching in. He pulled out a pink, rectangular box and squatted
down in front of Silla. Holding the box to face her, he lifted its lid. Tinny, trilling music began playing instantly and a tiny ballerina began whirling and twirling in front of an oval mirror. Silla watched it, mesmerized. “It's for your jewelry, honey,” he said softly, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath, which smelled faintly of drink. And while she was watching the small figure spin and spin in perfect, consistent circles, she heard her father say, “Silla, honey . . .” He hesitated, but her eyes remained on the ballerina, remained focused on her dancing. Until, that is, she heard him say, “Your mama's gone.” Her eyes snapped to his and he nodded once. “She's gone.”

The Big Hill

R
ose and I stood on top of the Big Hill in the park, just above the pond in which Warren and I used to catch tadpoles and turtles, putting them in big plastic pitchers until Warren, his face creased with worry, insisted that we set them free. The pond was only five or six feet deep, so it always froze quickly, and on Christmas Eve the fathers would take the kids ice-skating while the mothers made dinner. Mr. Vanni would bring a thermos full of Irish coffee and the men would stand shoulder to shoulder, letting the whiskey warm their bellies, while we scrambled around on the slick ice, until our wool mittens were soggy and the knees of our jeans damp. Then our mothers' voices would call us inside, where we'd slip into hot baths, giddy and delirious with the wonder of what might await us in the morning.

After leaving my mother's house, Bobby had said that he and Gabby would meet us in the park in ten minutes, though it felt like it had already been fifteen.
I'll just go and grab Gabs,
he had said.

“Uncle Warren and I used to go ice-skating on that pond,” I said to Rose, trying to keep her mind off the waiting and off the wind, which had begun to pick up.

“What's ice-skating?” asked Rose.

Anytime Rose was unfamiliar with something as common as ice-skating, I felt a stab of inadequacy. “Oh, Rosie. It's the most fun thing. You wait until the pond turns all to ice. Then you put on special shoes and go sliding around on it.”

Rose smiled, almost with nostalgia for a pastime she had never experienced; then she turned back toward the Vannis' house just as Bobby and Gabby were exiting the back door. “Hey!” said Rose, pointing. “There they are!” She bounced onto her toes. “Hey, Gabby!” she called, though they were still too far away to hear. I hadn't realized how much she had enjoyed playing with Bobby's daughter at the block party.

Bobby bent down and said something in his daughter's ear, a permission likely, because Gabby came bounding toward Rose and me, her long, dark hair waving like a flag behind her. Rose rushed to meet her, leaving Bobby and me walking slowly behind our daughters and toward each other.

“Sorry,” he said, closing one eye against the low, late-afternoon sun. “My mom's going out tonight and she needed to give me explicit instructions about reheating dinner.” He seemed to find Linda's mothering amusing, if a bit overbearing.

“I bet,” I said with a smile. “She always did like feeding you guys.” Mrs. Vanni was a fusser. She fussed over Bobby and his sister. She fussed over her husband. And now she fussed over
Gabby, probably baking cookies for her class and setting up elaborate tea parties for her stuffed animals. My mother loved Rose. I knew that. But her heart was tethered elsewhere.
Hey, Mom,
I had said on the phone soon after Rose had started preschool,
Rose's school is having this Grandparents' Day thing next Tuesday. . . .
I remember the silence on the line.
Well, what about Warren?
she finally said.
Tuesday's his day off and I was going to go with him to get his haircut.

Bobby glanced back at his mother's house. “It has its moments,” he said, a nod to the fact that living with his mother at the age of thirty-six was not exactly what he'd had in mind. “But honestly, she's great,” he added, “at helping with Gabs.” I thought about Bobby's wife, Mia. What could make a woman leave a man like Bobby? What could make her leave her daughter? Wasn't it always the men who left?

Gabby and Rose had already headed off together toward the jungle gym, and Bobby and I followed.

“Hey,” I began, feeling the rhythm of our steps, hoping it would, beat by beat, bring the right words to my lips. “I want to thank you . . . for everything with Warren.”

From the corner of my eye, I studied Bobby; he was focused on the girls, on their excited shrieks and squeals as they whipped down the slide. “I'm glad I was there,” he offered. We came to the line where the grass met the wood-chip-covered playground floor and stopped—the demarcation between the land of adults and the realm of children. “Did he end up going to the police?” he asked.

I crossed my arms over my chest, not knowing how to explain that we didn't have the ability to make Warren do anything: not go to the police, not tell us who had hurt him.

“No,” I said. “He hasn't even really told us what happened.” I stared out at the line of woods past the park, at the colored leaves on the trees, which every fall seemed less vivid than I had remembered. It was wrong, what everyone said about memories. They didn't fade. They became sharper—brighter and more concentrated—making the present look diluted and thin in comparison. “So you think that's what it was?” I asked, dreading his answer. “Assault?”

“You never know, but . . .” Bobby's head dropped slightly, and I realized that he would never be the type of doctor who was comfortable delivering bad news. “I'd say so.”

A burst of wind came, sent a strand of my hair across my face. I hooked it back behind my ear and nodded.
That's what I thought.

Bobby might have said more. Or maybe I would have. We might have talked about the thefts, and now this trouble with Warren, and how we couldn't believe that things like this were happening in Harwick. But Rose called for me from the swings. “Can you push us?”

As we went to the girls, Bobby nodded toward the seesaws. “Do you remember the old wooden ones they used to have when we were little?” he asked. Like many things from our childhood, the old seesaws had been replaced with safety-tested plastic versions.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. Warren used to walk across them, seeking the spot in the middle where both sides were elevated equally off the ground. When he found it, he'd hold there for as long as he could, his arms and legs straining.

In the parking lot on the other side of the playground, I saw Mr. Kotch glide by on his bike, the wheels spinning as he looked
at Bobby and me. Bobby gave him a wave. “Hey, Bill!” he called. Mr. Kotch nodded back as he began to make a U-turn, his lips forming a small smile that was covered by his thick mustache. I imagined that it must be difficult for Mr. Kotch, seeing Bobby and me grown and with children of our own.

“Mom says he's been riding his bike around the neighborhood a lot lately,” I said.

Bobby squinted after him. “I think it has something to do with the neighborhood watch. I guess they have a meeting tonight.”

And I wondered what the man who had already lost so much could be worried about losing now.

For the rest of our time in the park, we tended to the girls, spotting them, lifting them. And I found myself aware of Bobby's presence as I moved.

“Maybe we can get the girls together again sometime,” he offered, after we had given Rose and Gabby the five-minute warning that it would soon be time to leave the park, then the three-minute warning, only to have to pull them off the jungle gym. We were now each gripping their respective hands.

“Yeah,” I said lightly, understanding that
Let's get the kids together!
was often as rhetorical as
Let's grab a drink sometime!
“That would be great.”

“Maybe this weekend?” he offered.

“Sure,” I said, slightly taken aback.

Bobby took his phone from his pocket. “What's your number?” he asked.

As he entered it, I looked across the park, up to Warren's window, picturing the girl I used to be standing there. Picturing her looking down at us in disbelief.

•   •   •

“Did you have fun?” asked my mother, as she held open the back door for Rose and me. I shook off a chill.

“Yeah,” I said. “Rosie and Gabby seem to have really hit it off.” I slid Rose's coat from her arms and set it over a chairback. “Are you thirsty?”

“Yeah,” answered Rose.

“Milk or water?” I asked.

“Orange juice.”

I opened the cabinet and pulled out a plastic cup just as the oven beeped to announce that it was now preheated.

“Are you part of that neighborhood watch thing?” I asked my mother.

Her face changed as she slid the Vanni ziti into the oven. “What neighborhood watch thing?”

“I don't know,” I said, sensing the intensity of her interest as she scanned the shelf above the oven where she kept her kitchen timers. “Bobby mentioned that there was a neighborhood watch and that they had a meeting tonight.”

Mom selected the timer that was shaped like a cupcake and wound it. Setting it on the counter, she continued to stare at it as it ticked through the seconds, her hands on her hips, looking as though she was seeing something that she'd rather not. Then she turned to me.

“Do you remember how you and Warren used to call to each other?” Her face was urgent, as if something important hinged on my recollection. “When one of you was in trouble?”

I nodded. When we were little and one of us needed the other, Warren and I would rub our earlobes. And perhaps it
was the alchemy of childhood, a magic that happened because I believed it could, but I swear it worked. When we were in first grade and Danielle Brewster, an angelic-looking third grader with a sadistic side, threw a rock at my head during recess, I hid in the bushes behind the school. I sat there, snot pouring out of my nose, the bump on my head swelling and bleeding—rubbing my earlobe and sobbing. Warren found me within a minute, quietly pushing aside the branches.
We'll tell Mrs. Plisky that you fell,
he reasoned, knowing even then that the truth could sometimes bring more problems, more rocks to the head.

“I remember,” I said now.

Mom took a breath and squared her shoulders. “Jenna,” she said, “I'm wondering if you can help me with something.”

“What?” I asked, the word reluctant to leave my lips.

She turned to me and in her eyes was a surrender. “The house,” she said. “I need your help with the house.”