8.
Norma.
~ The house smelled like cinnamon and the baking Norma had been doing since early that morning. She'd woken up out of a restless sleep and started to peel apples and roll out pie crusts while Norman and Dylan slept peacefully. She wasn't sure why her sleep had been thrown off for the past week, but she found herself awake every morning before the sun rose and making elaborate breakfasts for the boys before starting her own day.
Cleaning and organizing the house was a project that she just couldn't see an end to. There was so much to do. Too many things that had been neglected for too many years. On the outside, it seemed the house only needed some paint and a little yard work. Lipstick and rouge. All cosmetic changes like the peeling paint on the inside and the weathered exterior outside. Now she could hear the furnace creak out it's meager heat and the water for the bathtub was never warm enough.
With everything they would have to do to the motel to fix it up, and now the house repairs on top of all of that.
Norma whipped her hands on her apron again. That Sheriff Romero would be here soon and she didn't want him to see the worried look on her face or her sweaty palms. The look of defeat before she already started. That maybe she bit off more than she could chew and now she was stuck here with a bypass on the way and her future in jeopardy.
No, when Romero came for these boxes, she wanted everything to look nice and smell nice and to appear she had things well under control.
She was looking forward to having Alex over again and liked the idea that her home would smell of clean things like fresh laundry and the cinnamon apple pies baking in the oven. The smells of baking permeated the house and temporarily seemed to chase ghosts and worries away. Just like before when Alex had fixed her fireplace.
Not that she was baking anything for him. Not specifically. No. She'd planned to bake anyway this morning and it wouldn't hurt to send Alex off with something to give to this Maggie person since her brother died. No. It wasn't to impress Alex with her baking at all. It just happened he would be there on her baking day. That was all.
Her boys would finish everything else she made in a day. She always had to keep something sweet ready for them or else they would gorge on junk food as a snack and ruin their appetite and...
Norma rolled her eyes. It was so hard to raise boys. Why couldn't she have girls?
~ The boys had, not without complaint, dragged five overflowing and weathered boxes down from the attic last night. The cardboard was so old and broken that they were falling apart and starting to smell bad so Norma, ever fastidious, neatly organized and repacked all the albums, yearbooks and loose photos into new boxes before arranging them on her dining room table.
It felt somehow sacrilegious to throw other people's memories out. Especially the baby books. As a mother herself, she appreciated the loving care it took some long ago parent of this family to put such a thing together. The locks of hair from baby's first haircut. The little inked footprints and hand prints. The pictures and descriptions of baby's first Christmas. Times change, people change, but mothers were always the same. They always wanted to preserve these precious memories of a new a wonderful baby.
She was leafing through a particularly elegant baby book from the early 1950's when the doorbell rang. Her heart skipped a little with happiness.
She'd felt bad ever since she'd so rudely shooed him out of the house last week. Dylan had found her in the kitchen, staring blankly at the wall and mumbling how she always pushed people away. She had told her son all about what had happened. About Romero coming to the house and fixing the fireplace. How nice things had been and how she'd liked him being there. That she'd had this sudden need for him to leave. This horrible feeling that they were going to 'get caught' alone together and it would be terrible.
Dylan had reasonably suggested she was still getting used to being a free woman. To not having Sam Bates come home unexpectedly from work in a bad mood. Or to be drunk and violent around her and anyone else. That it might have even been a mild panic attack, having a another man in her house, talking about Sam and all. A sudden and unreasonable fear her late husband might walk through the door and catch her with Romero.
Norma had to agree with Dylan's logic. Her oldest son was right about a lot of things. He'd always been sensible and calm.
The door bell rang again and she had to fight off the urge to snap that she was coming. Didn't Romero realize this was a large house and she had to check on her baking and smooth out her hair? He should appreciate the effort.
Yet, as soon as she opened the door, she could see he didn't look like his normal self. He wasn't in uniform and his facial hair was slightly more overgrown than she was used to seeing on him.
"Alex." She smiled. Happy to see him. "Come on in."
He seemed like he didn't want to step inside her house. His first steps cautious as she opened the second foyer door so he could see inside the house.
"The boys brought down these boxes and they were full of these old photo albums and pictures. I didn't want to throw them out. I'm so glad you know the family member."
Alex
~ Norma Bates didn't belong here. Anyone could see that. It wasn't just her well tailored clothing that made her stick out. White Pine Bay was a place of t-shirts, jeans and all weather boots. Of dreary colors and earth tones. The people here blended into the background without a second thought. Norma Bates however, seemed to make an effort to look out of place and time.
Alex stole a long glance at the slender calf muscles that moved just as gracefully as they did that first night. Her nimble feet in little slip on shoes, despite the coldness of October, seemed like a shock of nudity to him. Yet, the plum colored skirt and modest print blouse made her look as though she'd stepped out of a Good Housekeeping magazines from the early sixties.
He didn't know many women who bothered to dress so well just to work around the house. Even the most vain women of this town would wear yoga pants and a sweatshirt.
"I've got it all here." Norma said showing him to the dinning room.
Romero caught the distinct smell of something baking. Something with sugar and cinnamon and lots of butter.
"It's a lot of pictures. Baby books, year books, photo albums." She went on leafing though the boxes and taking out a weathered looking baby book.
"I was with Maggie. Keith's sister." Alex said in a voice that was colder than he would have liked. "We were planning the funeral."
Norma paused. Seeming unsure of what to say.
"Oh." She said at last and gently placed the baby book in the box.
Alex sensed he'd been off putting as he caught her eyes falling away from him.
He looked around the dining room. A place that had seen better days not too long ago. It was disturbing how quickly the house had fallen into disrepair in just a few years.
"How's the fireplace?" He asked to change the subject.
Her face brightened and he could see her skin was fairer than most. Almost no signs of aging at all. He would have pegged her age at barely 30 and would have never guessed she was the mother of two almost grown sons.
"Really well." She nodded happily. "Dylan is having firewood delivered. I had no idea that you could get fire wood delivered."
A new worry clanged in Romero's head. This poor woman wasn't at all used to how cold and long the winters could be here. How it would be expensive to heat the motels as well as the house.
"You're still using the old heaters and air conditioners for the motel and the house?" He asked nodding down the hill.
She looked confused.
"We have the boiler in the basement." She shrugged. "The motel..."
"It's not going to be enough. Not this winter." He said feeling annoyed with the Summers family for not updating their house over the decades. "I'm going to send someone to check them out. Maybe hook up a propane tank to the house and motel."
She looked annoyed instead of happy.
"How much will all that cost?" She demanded.
"Not as much as freezing to death will cost you." Alex said with a sharpness he instantly regretted. He nodded at the high ceilings and large cavernous rooms. "These old houses are hard to heat and winters here are very cold."
She still looked worried.
"Tell him to start with the house. I wouldn't trust that old boiler. I'm sure it hasn't been updated since the house was built." Alex said bitterly.
Norma didn't look appreciative. Her brow furrowing up in annoyance.
"All these repairs... the bypass." She shrugged. "Did I mention I can't unload this place? I went to the realtor to see what my options were, but it's like your friend said. It's a buyer beware situation." She shrugged.
Alex felt for her. None of this could be easy.
"Give it till spring. That's when the tourist season comes in-" he tried to explain.
"I... um baked something for you to take to that...um... lady." She interrupted. Her voice a little shaky.
"Maggie." Alex reminded her gently.
Norma nodded and her cheeks looked a little flushed.
"Maggie." She said. "It's cooling now."
Alex nodded and spotted the collection of yearbooks.
"Oh." He said pulling one free from almost four decades ago. He recognized the schools emblem and colors. The schools were so small back then, that they merged elementary, middle school and the high school into one book every year.
He held it up for Norma to see.
"I'm in this." He said feeling a rush of embarrassing nostalgia.
Norma's interest seemed aroused.
"Really?" She asked with a slight laugh.
Alex shouldn't have said anything. His elementary school days were not pleasant memories. Filled with hair cuts done at home and school bullies beating him up everyday.
But he wasn't thinking of the bad times just now. Norma was standing beside him. Her clothing smelling of flour and sugar. Of soap and clean laundry.
"Where?" She challenged and he was clumsily flipping to the roster of small first graders. His younger self looking awkward as he attempted to smile for the camera. All the other kids proudly showing missing teeth and ruffled hair. Alex was the only one who seemed aware of what a cruel thing picture day really was.
Norma immediately pegged him out of the small sea of little faces.
"Oh, my goodness!" She giggled. "That's you!"
"That's me." Alex nodded.
"Alexander Romero." She said as sweetly as any mother would.
"Oh, yeah." Alex said closing the book.
"Wait there's more." She said fishing out the next years book.
"We don't... have to." Alex said feeling sorry he'd even brought it up.
She immediately rushed to the back of the book with the new class of optimistic second graders and let out a little giggle.
Alex stole a glance at a face he'd forgotten about. Again, he'd been reluctant to smile.
He noticed Maggie was in the class with him. Her expression was always odd. As though she were a deer caught in headlights. An animal looking for a safe place to run to.
"Maggie Summers." Norma said as though reading his thoughts. Her fingers running over a grade school girl who went home to an alcoholic father, neglectful mother and stupid older brother that would be in the same grade as her and Alex in a few years.
Norma insisting on looking though all of the year books until Alex's senior year of high school.
"That Lee Berman went to school with you?" She asked curiously.
Alex nodded.
"You were very popular in high school." She added holding the last book close to her and smiling delightedly down at his senior picture.
"Not really." He corrected.
"Baseball for all four years, track and field, debate-" she listed off his accomplishments which sounded so stupid now. He wasn't that energetic kid anymore. It was like it had all happened to someone else.
"I should take these." He said nodding to the yearbooks and other boxes.
"Oh." Norma looked a little disappointed.
"Maggie will be very happy to have them.
He saw her look back down at the old yearbook. No doubt closing examining Maggie Summers' old picture. Her face the same as always.
"Oh." Norma said again. "Well, let me get that... um pie I had left out to cool."
Alex wanted to call her back. He hadn't meant to sound so cruel.
He should have made up another reason to stay. Maybe he could look at the boiler in the basement and make sure it wasn't apt to blow up.
She came back into the dinning room holding something covered in foil and looking every bit the perfect housewife. Her smile unnaturally large as though trying to deflect something.
"I can help you." She said without looking at him. She placed the baked goods on top of one of the boxes and let him carry the other two.
"Thank you." Alex said just wishing he knew the right thing to say. Everything he ever said and did with women seemed to annoy them. It had been that way since his mother died.
An endless loop of never saying or doing anything right. Until it was far too late.
Thank you for being so patient with this update, The chapter just didn't want to gel and now we're all stuck at home with COVID-19. I promise I'll be making a better effort to update daily.