The Dwelling: A Novel (20 page)

Elsie leaned in conspiratorially, screwing up her face sympathetically. “What’re they asking?”

“Ninety-six five.”

She sighed meaningfully and shook her head slowly.

Glenn faced her, “It’s a lovely house. Good neighborhood.
It’s in the range.”

“I guess,” she said. “But
still.
Such a terrible thing right in the house.”

“People
do die
. They
do die
in houses. I’m not putting it in the ad.” Her face reddened and she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. Maybe she felt
protective.
She turned back to her computer screen and away from Elsie. She’d have it sold in two weeks. At $96,900, it was
robbery.
(The
grieving widow
could make a profit like blood money,
oh god,
she thought unkindly.) It was a lovely steal of a house.

She looked at the ad on the computer screen.

Then she carefully picked up every little piece of the house’s most recent history and put it back into the envelope. She would just drive over there, and get a new feel for the place. Then she’d write something up. Something worthwhile.

The hedge had grown over terribly since the last time she’d visited the house and it was most apparent from inside the yard. The sides had grown in, casting shade over a good half of the lawn—no screaming hell itself, overgrown and crabby—but it gave the front of the house a cozy feel, like a pair of protective arms. She supposed it could also feel claustrophobic, if you were so inclined.

Everything was so grown over in the front. She suspected the back would be as bad or worse. The house could use some paint. The outside of the windows was grimy with the dust and exhaust of the summer. The patch of flower garden under the large front window and the smaller flower garden on the other side were devoid of flowers. In their place were a lot of weeds, some foxtails and the sad remains of dandelions. She looked upward, bending back to see the roof, and gave the whole house a once-over. She half expected some sort of déjà vu, but none came.

Flitting through her mind, but not settling (probably some sort of self-defense mechanism), was the fact that the last time she was selling this house, standing in front of it with an eye to going in and taking a look around, was her first day back after Howard died. She had missed him more that day than she had in the month previous to that. At home she’d gotten used to him being gone; once she was back at work, it was all new again, and she’d had to get used to him not being at the other end of any phone.

But no déjà vu. She was thinking in terms of real estate. In reality, there had been likely a hundred walks up other paths to other houses since that afternoon when she’d shown the Belisle house to the Masons.

The door opened smoothly with her key and slid wide as if to welcome her in.
Hello there, Glenn. Welcome back. Long time no see.
Instead of hot, dry air, the air that filtered out of the door at her was cool, if a little stale from having been closed up for so long. Two months.

The smell of varnish had disappeared from the front hall and she noted that with disappointment. A layer of dust across the floor hadn’t helped and the house had a slight, indefinable odor from being shut up tight for a month through the summer. She went first into the living room and took a quick look around.

The floor was dusty. It might not be a bad idea to give the Grieving Widow
(I’ve got to stop calling her that or it’s going to pop out once when I don’t want it to)
a call and see about bringing in a spruce-up crew. Maybe for a day—take care of the yard, get rid of the dust, that smell, whatever it was (a horrible option occurred to her and she shook it off) and get it tall and bright and clean and…smart. The way it deserved. Oddly, other than a quick brush-up, it was as if time had stood still for both of them. Absently, she tugged at the short hair at the back of her neck.

That first day back, she’d talked to him in her head. That had been both awful and comforting. The memory made her smile. He always said the same things.

Glenn stood too long in the sun patch of the front window and stared into space above the fireplace, tugging at her hair and trying to hear the sound of his voice. It didn’t come.

Eventually, she wandered through the living room and the dining room, noting a place on the wall where the vague outline of a hanging picture could be seen. There was the faintest smell of cigarette smoke lingering here and there. Someone had smoked in the house and she wondered which of them it was. It was likely her. Those skinny ones always smoked to keep their weight down. It needed a good airing. She would make a note of it for the cleaners.

The refrigerator door had been propped open and she peeked inside. It had been cleaned. She supposed a mother or friend had helped Mrs. Mason
(that poor woman, must have been horrible to pack after unpacking and because of—)
get packed and cleaned out. The stove was also clean.

After peeking into a cupboard or two she stood in the center of the little kitchen and looked back through the door at the length of house between her and the front window. The space was deceptive. It was really much larger than it looked from the outside.

“You’re a rather
large
house,” she said poshly, and a touch too loudly, mocking her own accent. The voice echoed back at her, a vibration of sound only, no words, like a responding
hmmm.

Hmmm. Quite right.

Who are you talking to?

She was very curious about the garden. While neither of them had looked much like gardening sorts (not to be offensive, of course, since she herself was more of an aficionado as opposed to a maestro), she wondered if they might at least have begun to clean things up out there. It had been terribly disordered. Terribly perennial (terribly
English,
really). The inside back door stuck slightly, probably due to the humidity. The screen door held fast, and opened only after a deliberate push. So it was staying shut then, after Mr. Gretner’s patient ministrations. Good for it.

The door opened into shade from the house, cool and hidden. The rest of the yard was bright with sunshine, the sort that hurt your eyes upon first glance.

It was a very nice day, with a clear sky and a slight warm breeze, the sort of August day that would turn quickly into September. Glenn longed for fall and cooler days, although this was the first time she felt that she had truly noticed the weather. Most of her summer had been spent in transit, moving from one house to the next, home to sleep, the office. In and out of climate-controlled buildings and the airconditioning in her car. She hadn’t been down to the beach even once. It was no wonder Howard’s roses were doing so poorly. Such delicate plants needed a little ministration of their own. She’d hardly chosen to be home, flittering about like a bee. In fact, Saturday’s party at Gavin and Helen’s, with their pool, would be the closest she came to having a day at the shore.

Water. Now there’s a thought. Have I watered them?

Her heart sank. The backyard was, indeed, an indecipherable tangle. She stepped out into the cool shade of the overhang and let the green-painted cheap outside screen door snap shut behind her. The springs creaked appropriately, sounding exactly like childhood and summer and Popsicles.

All screen doors sound like summer. Funny.

She took a walk slowly through the yard, flying insects lazily stirring with each step. The sun was right overhead, reflecting off the green of the grass. Glenn had to squint even to look down.

The worn patch on the lawn, where she had formerly suspected a torn-down gazebo, had grown over green and thick and was no longer noticeable. It was all open space now, a large backyard with ample room should someone desire a patio or a jungle of children’s play equipment and toys. Bicycles, swing sets, maybe a little blow-up pool, squeals and splashing. Lots of room.

The silence of the yard bore down against the thought and it occurred to her how heavy the silence was on a summer afternoon in a neighborhood like this. The sound of naps, the slow, deep breathing of sleep.

That might be just what the place needs. Children. Something to wake it up.

She wandered along the edge of the neglected garden. Some perennials had gone completely wild along the back row, a path of irises had nearly taken over the east side, their flowers long gone; only their green knifelike leaves and hard, brittle stems were left, the leaves slowly browning, in need of water. It had been a dry summer.

There were peonies, their blooms also gone, but their leaves fat and waxy and bright. They looked healthy enough and brightened up the middle of the long garden. Tall along the back end were stalks of something dead that she thought, with a crestfallen heart, might have been hollyhocks in life. One of her favorites. Their stalks were nearly yellow, small dried buds of indeterminable color dotted their way up, while dry, yellowed, heart-shaped leaves hung limply off the stems.

Thick stalks of witch grass had all but taken over from whatever ground cover had been planted in its halcyon days; bits of it still poked dry heads up under the grass, tiny round leaves in bunches like grapes. Here and there the last remnants of the early summer’s dandelions stood folded up, waiting for fall. Midway through the garden the plethora of plants thinned out and the weeds were smaller and fewer. It looked as though someone might have been digging; had they given up upon realizing the enormity of the task?

It was a shame there was no one to care for it.

Glenn checked her watch and was horrified to see that she had been at the house for nearly forty minutes. In another half hour she had an appointment. The back door snapped shut behind her and she pushed closed the inside door with difficulty. The heat. The humidity. What was it Howard used to say? It wasn’t the heat, it was the humiliation. She smiled. She knew exactly what he would say about
that
little production.

She went inside for a quick look around.

Directly in front of her, down the short hall from the mudroom, was the little room with the Murphy bed. Where the man, Mr. Mason, had died. It was a unique feature, the Murphy bed, a grace note, for a house of this sort. The room, as she remembered, was almost untouched in the original renovation, and had a distinctly antique look to it. A selling point. It had been a cute, if cramped, little room. A good temporary guest room. He had used it for something specific. An office, probably. She couldn’t recall, but it had been his room.

The door was shut.

(Now it’s his room forever. Whooooo…)

It was silly, of course, but she felt reluctant to go inside. (She wondered suddenly if he had done
it
on the Murphy bed and realized immediately that of course that was it, and was instantly horrified. Such a lovely feature. And then
that.)

Glenn strode purposefully forward, thinking that this was the part of the film when the spooky music would rise up, just as the heroine reached out and touched the knob, opening the door to whatever horrors—

The room was pitch black until Glenn ran her hand up the side of the wall for the switch and turned it on. Light bounced into the room from the bulb overhead, revealing an empty, darkish-but-charming, tiny, tiny room. It had that very strong, closed-up smell inside, due to the fact that it was windowless and, with the door shut, airless. The bed was closed up in the wall.

It was…small, not up to the task of its new reputation. There was hardly room enough for any sort of living creature at all to do anything except stack a box or two. There was a feeling of mild disappointment; it had been larger in her memory (and in its current reputation). There was room enough for the bed to come down, and not much more. Maybe room for a lamp and an overstuffed chair, maybe a small dresser.

She tapped on the wall where the outline of the bed frame could be seen. The sound that echoed back was hollow. But of course it would be.

It was…
fun.
And small.

She flicked off the light and the room went dark, except for a small patch of light that made its way down the hall, stopping nearly at the little door. She hoped some air would get inside. She left the door open, pressed as far against the wall as it would go, and headed upstairs.

She was again startled by the size of the master bedroom, so deceiving from the hall or the outside. It wrapped around the corner of the house, giving it an odd L-shape, unusual for a bedroom. The doorway was arched, the door cut to fit. Very nice. She noted that the Masons hadn’t done anything tragic to it, like wallpaper or carpet.

The bathroom and the enormous, wild-looking tub had remained the same too. The clawed feet of the creature were still disturbing, beast’s feet. But it was clean and shining, its new porcelain finish holding up. Very nice.

She looked into the other two rooms, whose qualities were unfortunately buried in the glamour of the other rooms. Whatever painting Mrs. Mason had planned to do had obviously not been done. The little child’s room was still a pretty sky blue and the other room was the garish yellow that she remembered all too well. She did not linger in the end room. Its color and odd scent reminded her of hospital rooms. Breathing apparatus. If she lingered she would be able to hear that
squitch squitch would you like some tea, dear? He looks much better today
—and hear the regular hiss of the machines.

I’m better now.

They hadn’t done anything new, and they hadn’t seriously damaged anything. Very nice. Very good.

She checked her watch again and did a quick calculation. There was plenty of time to get to her next appointment. She would run past the office after that. (The next “people” was a woman doing a prelim search without her husband; she was looking at everything and would then choose a few for the two of them to look at. It was a poor arrangement and one with which Glenn was very familiar. The husband never liked anything the wife chose and, as often as not, they went through the whole list again. “I’m sorry, do you mind showing us the one I looked at Tuesday? Jim says he
likes
the idea of living on the highway.”)