To say I wasn't tempted by the idea of doing a drive-by instead of a inside tour of my mom's house would be a fucking lie. There was a HUGE part of me, even with the confidence having Clay by my side gave me, that wanted to drive by as fast as possible with a nod of my head toward the house and then fuck all the way off, but that wouldn't do. Facing it, getting it out of the way, and then deciding what to do with the house was the best course of action. At least that's the mantra I kept repeating to myself throughout the morning, while I also prepared for the celebratory dinner at Enzo's.
Carrie was in the office when I called and she nearly squealed at the idea of a party being held. I wanted to cancel, just from the glee that she seemed to be oozing, but then I shrugged. Small tourist town on the coast, we didn't get much excitement, I guess. We talked over how to make it work, without alienating Enzo's regulars, and discussed something that I hadn't wanted to mention to Keli.
"If I make it, can I bring it in without Joey getting pissed?" Joey was Enzo's pastry chef, a territorial Italian who was known to lose his shit if he overheard a muttered complaint about the tiramisu.
Carrie snorted. "Joey will be fine as long as I promise him that you aren't stealing his job. He keeps hearing glowing reviews of the pastries you make over at the Drip, he doesn't KNOW it's you, but he suspects." Takes a baker to know one, I thought. "I'll handle his overabundance of testosterone, you take care of the cake."
I chose Saturday night. I hoped that Davey and George would come, and I thought I'd ask Clay to invite his team. It felt right, somehow to have all of us together for a night of celebration. Plus, with all of us in one spot, maybe I wouldn't worry about the knife hanging over our heads.
Clay came in around lunchtime, and I smiled as I shifted control to Keli. While I did it almost daily when I made a run to the bank, this time we both knew, as did the girls I left in her hands, was different. She wished us well for our chore, since I told her what we were planning, and Clay's eyes widened when she didn't look murderous while she offered it.
I was chuckling as we walked to my car. "Keli's my new manager," I offered as I beeped the car unlocked so we could get in. "I think she's taking well to her new role." His eyes met mine when we got inside the car and I smiled. "You told me I should start delegating more."
His answering smile nearly made me forget why we were in the car. "I know this isn't easy for you," I was still thinking about Keli, but he went on. "I'm right here, Char, if it gets too hard-" Oh, I blinked, he meant the house. Right, the whole point of the day. Shit.
"I know," now, I added, starting the car and pulling onto the street. And I hoped he knew how much I loved having him with me.
The house I grew up in looked more like a doll house than my memory bank allowed it to. In fact, if someone asked me to describe it prior to us pulling up in front, I might have created a word image that was a cross between the Addam's family house and Dracula's castle. Good times, good times.
In reality, it was white with pale blue trim. The scalloped framework of the wrap around porch, the white picket fence, the perfect lawn all belied the darker memories that took place inside. I shook my head when I took in the matching dollhouse mailbox.
"I forgot she added that," I muttered, touching the wood with a fingertip. "She tried so hard to make everything picture perfect." Clay was looking around, and I knew he was wondering if I had the key. "It's here," I held up the keyring that held all the keys I used daily. "Habit," I murmured, thinking that it made little sense to have kept it with me, but I had.
"Are you ready?" His voice was quiet as we walked through the gate, up the floral lined pathway. I nodded, thinking it was all surreal. The last time I- Shaking it off, I took the steps onto the porch carefully, smiling at the care that Davey had paid for to keep up the house no one ever went inside.
I unlocked the door and took a deep breath. Opening it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the air wasn't stale. Then again, Davey and George probably had someone come in and air it out regularly, not to mention keep the dust at bay. What I wasn't prepared for, as I stepped over a threshold I hadn't touched since I was ten years old, was the fact that it was still completely furnished just like the last time I was inside.
Looking around, without moving further than the entry hall, it felt like if I stood still I'd hear her call out. That my mom would come through the doorway from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and admonishing me for staying at the cafe too late. Or from the living room, a book in her hand and her reading glasses perched on her nose, eyes tight with worry and anxiety, asking me if I'd eaten or if I wanted her to make me a sandwich.
"Char?" Clay's voice startled me, so lost in the past that I'd forgotten him. "Sweetheart?"
"I'm fine." My voice was barely a whisper, I felt scared that I'd pop the bubble of nostalgia, the feeling that she was still here, still just out of sight felt so real to me.
I'd forgotten how light she'd kept the colors inside the house too, my memories of those years so clouded by the pain she was coiled in. Pale walls, pale wood, pale patterns. I started moving, knowing that she wasn't here, not really. Her book, or the one she'd been reading last was still by the chair she always sat in near the fireplace in the library. Her glasses on top of it. I was surprised the cup she used for her tea wasn't next to it on its matching saucer, but the housekeeper had probably washed and put it away.
It felt surreal, how light and airy the house actually felt, versus how I remembered feeling living inside of it. As I climbed the stairs, wondering what room she'd done it in, if there would be a sign of it, I saw that all the bedroom doors were open. So were the bathrooms. Mom would have had a coronary, I thought with a sad smile. My feet took me to my old bedroom and I held my breath at the sight of the room filled with everything from a childhood that I tried to block out.
The bed, so big for the tiny girl I'd been the last time I slept in it, had four huge white posts and a set of steps to help me get into it. The bed clothes, were they always lavender colored? I vaguely remembered the dollhouse, another replica of the house I stood in, filled with miniature versions of the furnishings and even the people. Or at least there had been, at one time all of them. I walked to it, feeling Clay watching from the doorway and bent down.
The house, like the one I was inside of, was immaculate. The little girl was in the kitchen, baking with a man who looked like George. A woman was in the library in Mom's chair with a tiny book and a cup on the table beside her, a man who looked like Davey on the sofa. Tilting my head, and twisting the house on it's rotating base, I smiled as the front came into view. There, hanging from the gingerbread trim of the front porch, from a noose I'd fashioned out of dental floss was the doll that looked like Walter. Happy that no one had removed at least the one thing that proved I'd actually fucking lived in this perfect house, I stood up and turned to see Clay staring at me, his eyes flashed to the dollhouse and I waited for him to gasp or his eyes to widened but he just grinned.
"Takes talent to make a functioning noose out of floss, Char," he came further into the room and took a look around. "This house is something else."
"This house is a lie," I amended. "It's gorgeous, it just doesn't-" I sighed. Did I want it?
Clay wrapped himself around me, tucking my head under his chin. "You don't have to make a decision today, or tomorrow." I smiled as I snuggled into his chest. "It is a beautiful house though." I couldn't deny that. "Want to make at least ONE more good memory here?"
I tipped my head back and raised an eyebrow. His head lowered to mine and as his mouth met mine I smiled into his kiss thinking, perhaps, just perhaps, the house wasn't ALL bad
