Wedding Ring (3 page)

The robe and gown she had thrown from the window were just in reach, and again, she felt vaguely ashamed. She hadn’t worn them yet. She had plenty of older things to wear out first. But she had taken them out sometimes to look at them, to feel the silky fabric against her callused fingertips. She gathered them over her arm now, then reached for the sweater that Nancy had given her for Christmas, pricking her finger on a holly leaf as she did.

They hadn’t come back to the front yet. She was certain they were on their way; after all, what kind of ninnies stood outside in full sunshine when they didn’t have to? She debated how best to greet them when they showed up.

She didn’t have to debate long.

Tessa appeared first, which was not surprising, since Nancy was probably still scheming and steaming unnecessarily. Tessa paused when she saw her grandmother on the porch, but said nothing. Helen awarded her points for that. She could count on Tessa not to make a fuss. She was a regular Jackie Kennedy in times of crisis.

“Well, come on up.” Helen stepped away from the railing. “Since it looks like you’re not about to take my hint and go home.”

“I was afraid you were going to start tossing all the furniture out that window.” Tessa climbed the steps but stopped on the top one. “How are you, Gram?”

“Just like I was the last time you asked me. And now that you know, you can go on home again.”

Nancy rounded the corner and glared at her mother. “I suppose you think this was cute, Mother? Doesn’t the Bible say something about making guests welcome?”

“Some folks might think a rattlesnake winding his way up the front steps was a guest, but me, I’ve got some common sense to go with my Bible verses.”

Nancy started forward. “Is that the way a Christian woman talks about the loved ones who want to help her?”

Helen stood her ground. “You’re here because you invited yourself.”

Nancy started to respond, but Tessa stepped in front of her and stood firmly between the two older women.

“Look,” Tessa said. “If you two don’t stop, this summer is going to be impossible. Gram, I wish you had let me in when I arrived, but I guess it’s your right to keep me waiting. It
is
your house.”

“Durned right it is.”

“And, Mom, you had a right to be worried about Gram.”

“We don’t need a negotiator, Tessa, and of course I was worried.”

Tessa stepped back so she could see them both. “Let’s just go in now and forget the rest.”

Helen knew it was time to make one last pathetic stand. “I don’t want you here. I can take care of myself. I’ve been taking care of myself for years and years.”

Nancy started to list all the obvious signs that Helen couldn’t take care of anyone, but Tessa held up her hand. “Let us help,” she said to her grandmother.

Helen released a long breath and fell silent.
Help
. It was a word that had only the vaguest meaning, a word that applied to other people but never to her. She noted her granddaughter’s expression. Tessa was like Helen herself, seldom showing what she was feeling. But at this crucial moment, concern shone in her eyes. The concern was that of one human being for another, not the heartfelt worry of family members who had warm, shared memories. But Helen grabbed it and held on. She had nothing else.

“I don’t want to hear a word, you understand? Not a word about how I’ve let the place go. You think I don’t know?”

Tessa didn’t reply. Nancy sighed. “Let’s just go inside.”

“It doesn’t matter what you find,” Helen said. “I’m not leaving this house. Not until the Lord calls me home.” She didn’t wait for confirmation; she turned and stiffly hobbled toward the house.

Behind her, she heard Tessa murmur to her mother, “You heard what she said, right?”

“I hear just fine.”

Helen didn’t point out that
she
heard just fine, too. She shoved the door open, then stepped to one side once she was in the hallway. She watched the other women.

At the threshold, Tessa stepped aside to let her mother enter first. Helen watched as Nancy’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Tessa came in behind her and gave a low whistle. And after her own warning, it was Tessa who spoke first.

“My God,” she said softly.

Without looking, Helen knew exactly what her daughter and granddaughter saw. Piles and piles and more piles lining walls, making corridors in the middle of rooms, towering like fortresses that stretched and tipped just feet from the ceiling. Cereal boxes flattened into wafers, empty jars glinting in front of a window, rescued magazines and books that the careless citizens of Toms Brook, Mauertown and Woodstock had thrown away in their trash, blankets, towels folded neatly and placed in their proper stacks. Kitchen appliances she would fix someday once she found the right parts, plastic bags filled with more bags—and what was more wasteful than throwing those into some landfill while they were still in one piece? Seed catalogues with photographs too lovely not to be enjoyed again, plastic flowerpots waiting for a new plant to fill them.

And more, so much more.

“Well, don’t look so stunned. It’s just my stuff,” Helen said. “I’ll use every last bit of it. Some folks never learn how to make do, to save and take care of things, to use something old again instead of throwing away and buying more. Well, I’m proud I know how. Nothing I need that I don’t have right here. Nothing at all, and how many people can say as much?”

Then, because she couldn’t bear to see the shock and pity on the faces of the only two people in the world who loved her even a little, Helen turned, picked her way up the cluttered stairwell and along the upstairs hallway, and closed her bedroom door behind her.

T
essa realized that Nancy needed a place to sit and recover. There wasn’t one, of course. Every chair in sight was simply a base for more stacks of “stuff,” as Helen had put it. Tessa helped her mother remove thick books of wallpaper and upholstery samples from an armchair in the corner, making several trips to the porch, because there was no place inside to put them without cutting off access to the rest of the house forever.

When she returned after hauling out the final bunch, she found Nancy sitting with her head in her hands.

“All right,” Tessa conceded. “It’s bad. Worse than we imagined.”

“I’m waiting for a rat to run over my foot.”

For once, Nancy wasn’t exaggerating. The house had that feel. Disturb a pile and unleash an onslaught of vermin. Maybe Helen had been collecting rodents, too, hoping to discover a use for them sometime in the foreseeable future.

“What do you suppose she was doing with wallpaper and upholstery samples?” Nancy asked. “Maybe she intended to paper over all these piles, hoping we wouldn’t notice?”

“They’re labeled. They’re from an interior decorator’s shop in Strasburg. I’d guess she saw them on a trash pile when she was there one day and rescued them.”

Nancy groaned.

“You were right.” Tessa had to give credit where it was due, even though it felt unfamiliar. “I guess I thought…” She didn’t know how to phrase the rest.

“You thought I invented a problem here because I don’t have anything better to do.” Nancy lifted her head. “You think I don’t know?”

“This is not a good time to delve into the mysteries of our relationship. I was trying to let you know I’m sorry I doubted the seriousness of this.”

“It
is
serious.” Nancy swept the room with a hand. “One match, Tessa. A spark. That’s all it would take.”

“I’ll lure her outside if you’re willing to do the deed. It would save a lot of time.”

Nancy smiled, and Tessa was unexpectedly warmed by it. Nancy smiled too often, and her smiles usually hung on too long, as if she was pleading to be noticed and appreciated. This smile was not trying to accomplish anything. It was released, and it ended quickly.

“Can we sleep in the house tonight?” Nancy asked. “Without putting our lives in danger?”

“As hot as it is, we should probably worry about spontaneous combustion.” Tessa paused. “And what are the chances the beds have space for us?”

“I’ve pleaded with her for years to let me put in air-conditioning. I even brought in a man to rewire the house for it a few years ago, but that was as far as I could get. She was furious. And the heat strains her heart. I don’t understand her. I have the money. It’s a small thing to me.”

“Not to her.”

“Well, she’s upstairs now. We’d better decide what we’re going to do while we still can.”

“Or before she goes collecting again.” Tessa ran one finger over a pyramid of dusty florist-issue vases. “How long has it been since you’ve been in the house?”

“Too long, obviously.” Nancy touched her thumb to her fingers as if she was counting. “Last summer? No, that’s not right. I’ve seen her, certainly, but it’s always somewhere else. We’d meet at church or at the drugstore, then afterwards she’d say, ‘Don’t bother coming home with me, I have things to do,’ or ‘I can see to myself just fine.’” Nancy wrinkled her forehead. “I remember we came back here after Kayley died. I—” She stopped abruptly.

Tessa was silent. After Kayley died. Nearly three years ago. She supposed they all marked their days that way. Before Kayley, after Kayley.
I was happy before Kayley died. I was despondent afterwards.
The day of Kayley’s death was a clear, vital demarcation in time.

The day that Tessa’s five-year-old daughter had been struck and killed by a drunk driver.

“That was the last time I’m absolutely sure I was inside.” Nancy was talking too fast again. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”

“Kayley died. We can’t pretend she didn’t.” Tessa put her hands against the small of her back and pressed, stretching tall and swaying. “I came here after the funeral, too. The house looked fine, didn’t it?” Of course, the house could have been swallowed by the Shenandoah that day and she would not have noticed she was treading water.

“It didn’t look like this,” Nancy said. “Tessa, what kind of a daughter am I?”

Tessa frowned. “One who was never invited into the house. She didn’t want you to know. If you hadn’t pushed this, none of us would know.”

“What are we going to do?” Nancy’s hands twisted in her lap. She looked to be on the verge of tears.

Tessa had been asking herself the same question. The smallest things now loomed like giants on the horizon. Was it safe to sleep here tonight? Was there a
place
to sleep, to eat? Was the lone bathroom in working order? Even if the windows were opened again, could enough air circulate through the house to keep the women from smothering?

And how had Helen allowed her life to come to this?

“We can’t burn it down,” Tessa said. “She’d go up with it, just to spite us. And we can’t spend the night somewhere else. If we do, she won’t let us back inside tomorrow.”

“I’m amazed she let us in today.”

“She knows she needs help, Mom. But it took her so long to admit it because she was scared.”

“She’s never been scared of anything in her whole life. You should have seen her when I was a little girl. She could—”

Tessa only half listened as her mother recounted stories of her grandmother’s courage against copperheads and rattlesnakes, and once a big black bear that had been determined to visit the chicken coop. She knew there was no point in arguing the point. She glanced at her watch, a slender gold band with gemstone chips where numbers should have been. Mack, her husband, had given it to her on her last birthday. She had found that odd. Didn’t he realize that one moment was the same as the next now that Kayley was gone? This was just one more way he no longer understood her.

She looked up again at Nancy, who had run out of steam. “We have about seven hours until the sun goes down. In seven hours we can haul a lot outside.”

Nancy looked defeated. “You’re serious?”

“We have to start with the paper trash. At the very least, the worst of that has to go outside before nightfall.”

“Where in the world are we going to put it?”

“Out in the front yard for now. We can hide it with a tarp until we can dispose of it. I’m sure she has one.”

“She probably has at least a dozen, in a wide variety of sizes and colors. All neatly folded and stacked in the shower stall or the woodstove.”

“Tomorrow we’ll see about finding someone to help us haul it away.”

“She won’t let anybody else inside to help. You do realize that, don’t you?”

Tessa was afraid that was true. More than an hour had passed before Helen had let them in. No one outside the family would be allowed any farther than the porch. As easy as it would be to pay a crew to come inside and haul away the contents of the house, it was not going to be possible without agitating Helen to the point of mania.

“Are you going to tell her we’re clearing out the place, or do you want to leave that up to me?”

“I’ll do it.” Nancy didn’t move.

“Let me. I’m just the granddaughter. She doesn’t have as much to prove.”

“She’ll throw a fit.”

Tessa wondered. On some level, Helen realized the piles had to come down. Perhaps she even wished they would disappear so that she could move easily around her house again. Tessa was still wrestling with the psychology of this. Why would anyone hoard so many useless items that she no longer had room to live a normal life? She had heard of pack rats, but this gave new meaning to the term.

“I’d better get it over with,” she said.

“Maybe we should tie a rope to your waist in case you get lost. I’d tell you to drop bread crumbs, but why bring the mice out of hiding?” Nancy got to her feet. “I’ll be hauling newspapers.”

“Let’s both be careful of our backs. Just one small stack at a time.”

Nancy touched her daughter’s arm. “You have to be firm, Tessa. We can’t feel sorry for her. The stuff has to go, or
she
has to go. It’s that simple.”

“She knows that. You’ve already threatened her with the health department.”

“I would have sent them months ago if I’d had any idea it was this bad.”

Involving the authorities might have been the more sensible approach, yet what would it have done to Helen? The farm, the house, were her life. Unlike her mother, Tessa did not believe that moving her grandmother to a spiffy retirement home in a strange city would do anything except hasten her death.

She abandoned the muttering Nancy to the stacks and picked her way upstairs. Helen had left just enough space on each step for one foot. One misstep could easily provoke a tumble to the bottom. Tessa made a note to tackle the stairs just as soon as the paper trash had been hauled outside. All Helen needed was a broken hip.

She couldn’t remember when she had last been on the second floor. The house was spacious, added on to here and there through the decades when rooms were needed for an overflow of children or aging relatives who had come back home to be cared for. She paused on the landing, mapping a route to what she thought was her grandmother’s bedroom.

The piles of choice in the upstairs hallway were clothes. To Helen’s credit she
did
know how to organize. Overalls and jeans were in one pile, the organizing principle being denim, apparently. Another pile looked to be shirts. Yet another was dresses. Rolled socks swelled into mounds, a stack of shoe-boxes contained not shoes but frayed underwear. These piles weren’t as high as those downstairs, but there were many of them, most at least knee-deep.

Tessa picked her way through the maze. This was the repository of dish towels, too, she noticed, and sheets that were only good for Halloween costumes. She came upon a tower of threadbare towels, and it leaned precariously when her hip brushed against it.

“Gram?”

Helen didn’t answer, of course. That would have been too easy. Tessa thought of a trip she, Mack and Kayley had taken to London four years ago. Mack had flown over for a conference, and Tessa and Kayley, then four, had joined him to sightsee. Together they had taken the scenic boat trip down the Thames to Hampton Court, where Kayley had been entranced with the maze, giggling and hiding there as children had since the eighteenth century. Perhaps, if Kayley were still alive, she would be entranced with this one, too.

All their friends had told Tessa and Mack that Kayley was too young to enjoy a trip of that distance, that the little girl wouldn’t even remember the vacation when she was older. Tessa had a million regrets about the brief years of her daughter’s life. The books she hadn’t read her, the walks they hadn’t taken, the games unplayed. But she was still so very glad that she had followed her own heart and taken Kayley to London that summer.

She made her way to the closest bedroom door, the one overlooking the front of the house, where Helen had lobbed her missiles. She knocked, then tried the knob when no one answered. The room was dark, curtains still drawn. She flipped the switch and saw that Helen wasn’t there. Of course Helen
couldn’t
be there, since there was no room for a human being to move. There was one narrow aisle that led to the front window. The rest of the room was waist-to-shoulder-deep in black plastic bags.

“Terrific.” She sniffed the air and was relieved not to smell rotting garbage. If they were lucky, Helen had simply housed more of her “collections” here, in trash bags, perhaps yet unsorted.

Back in the hallway maze, she found her way to another bedroom, this one a library of outdated volumes. The room had the musty smell of a rare bookshop, although she doubted that these books were particularly rare or valuable. Only half the floor here was cluttered. The other half had been cleared to allow passage to a bed. Tessa suspected that either she or her mother was to sleep here tonight.

Another room had been half cleared, too, lending support to her theory. She found Helen in the next one.

Helen’s door wasn’t closed all the way, but she didn’t answer when Tessa knocked. Tessa let herself in to find her grandmother sitting at the window, looking out over the farm pond.

Helen had always been a large woman, broad shoulders and hips, big bones and breasts. Now, despite her substantial physical size, she looked fragile, almost shrunken, as if some unseen force had sucked away everything that had once kept her moving confidently through life. Her hair was wispy and white, and she had worn it in an unattractive Dutch Boy bob as long as Tessa could remember. Helen trimmed it herself—a mistake—but today it looked as if she hadn’t bothered in months.

Tessa had seen photographs of her grandmother as a young woman. There weren’t many. That kind of vanity had been frowned on in her strict Lutheran family, and the Depression had curbed any such tendencies, anyway. But once upon a time Helen had been considered “a fine figure of a woman,” a woman who turned heads and easily dominated a room.

Now her face showed a lifetime of hardship. The decades were carved there as if to keep any displays of emotion from overlapping their deeply grooved boundaries. She had developed a perpetual squint, because she refused to replace her glasses regularly, waiting to visit a doctor until even the addition of a magnifying glass couldn’t bring print into focus.