The Good House: A Novel (26 page)

“Mom?”

Emily was home. She had Hailey with her, and I decided that the best thing was to let them think I was in bed. Hailey lived up in Newburyport, so I assumed she was planning to stay the night.

I settled down in the blackness, next to the botanical print I couldn’t see, and drank the wine from the bottle. I could hear the girls talking. Now, while dragging myself up the stairs by the handrail, I remembered that I had found it very exciting to hear their conversation without them knowing I was below their feet. It was thrilling. I’d felt like a spy or a ghost or a witch, and I recalled how I’d giggled wickedly into my hand at the things they were saying.

Of course, now I had no real recollection of what it was that they’d actually been talking about. All I remembered was that the girls wouldn’t go to bed. They’d been laughing and gossiping loudly, and I’d smelled something being heated on the stove. Soup? No doubt they had been doing a little partying themselves, but by then I was stuck. It would be impossible to explain to them why I had been down in the cellar for so long. So I bided my time with my wine. When I finished the bottle, I opened another—the corkscrew was right there—I just wanted a few more sips while I waited out the girls.

Then it was the next morning and Molly was licking my face.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I peered out the door just to make sure that the coast was clear. I could see through the living room windows that it was early dawn. There was no chance the girls would be awake. I walked to the front door and let the dogs out, then went to the kitchen and drank a very tall glass of cranberry juice. I took four Advil and drank another glass of juice. I teetered back to the door—I really was still half-crocked, though I had no idea how I could have gotten that drunk from just a little wine—and I let the dogs back inside. I called the office to inform Kendall that I would be arriving later that morning. Then the dogs and I climbed the stairs to my bedroom and went back to sleep.

Later in the morning, after I had showered, I went downstairs. The late-morning sun was streaming in through the windows and the kitchen was warm and bright. So fucking bright. The girls were eating their breakfasts, and they exchanged giggles and knowing glances when I appeared in the kitchen.

Could they have known? Did I go upstairs last night and not remember it?

“Good morning, Hailey, Emily,” I said.

“Hi, Mrs. Aldrich,” said Hailey. The girls’ friends still forget and call me by my married name sometimes. I don’t mind it.

“Morning, Mom,” said Emily, staring at her plate.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, hoping they wouldn’t tell me; imagining myself dancing drunkenly around the kitchen before them the night before, singing, drinking straight from the bottle—all the things that were half memories from some time or another. Perhaps last night, perhaps nights from years past. Who knew. I never remembered everything, but sometimes I recalled the looks of embarrassment from my girls, even when they tried to laugh along with me and their friends, when I’d had a few. I’d always offered their friends a drink, even before they were of age, which had made our house a very popular place during high school. The girls hadn’t complained about my drinking then.

Emily replied, “Nothing, we just were wondering where you were last night. Out until after two in the morning?”

“Well, I was at … a friend’s.”

“Mom, you don’t have to be so secretive. Just say it. You spent the night at your boyfriend’s.”

“Okay, I was at my boyfriend’s,” I said. Because I would rather have them think I had stayed at Frankie’s, that I had spent the night anywhere but passed out on the cellar floor. The whole night, which had seemed so amusing only a couple of short hours ago, now seemed like a dark, dark tragedy. A jackpot. I had passed out in the cellar, with spiders and who knew what else crawling all over me. I thought of the spongy feet and greasy fur and beady black eyes of mice. I thought of the way snakes sidle about with their lashing tongues and quickening tails, the way they like to heat their cold scales in warm, dark places.

“So you and Frankie are a … couple?” Emily giggled.

“Emily,” I said.

“What?”

“Mind your own damn business,” I said, and turned on my heel and went back up to my room. I pulled my boots from my closet, an action that sent the dogs (always so annoyingly underfoot) into leaping and ecstatic displays of joy. Downstairs, I grabbed my coat and the dogs’ leashes and out we went into the bright midday sun. There was still snow on the ground, but the sun had melted the top layer and warmed the air. Everything around me shone with the reflected sun’s intense glare. I shielded my eyes with my hands and decided not to leash the dogs for a walk on the road, but, instead, to take the short wooded path to the river.

Each step was torture. The hard cellar floor had made my back tighten up, and I was trying to discern whether it was my back muscles or my kidneys that were screaming spasmodically with every breath I took. My doctor had recently told me he wanted to check my bone density, but now I realized there was no point. I could feel every bone and vertebra in my back and legs disintegrating like chalk with every step. A few more steps and I could very well be just a fully clothed but deflated pelt of human flesh lying there on the path, blinking up at the sky. And my head. My fucking head. Well, it served me right. The cellar’s dirt floor was where I belonged. It was fitting. Had Emily discovered me there, she would have reported back to Tess and I would never be allowed to baby-sit, or even hold, little Grady again. Babs, the terrier, is a yapper, and every time she let loose with one of her shrill yips and yikes, it took every ounce of will I could summon not to plant my boot in her ass and send her flying into a snowdrift.

When we finally arrived at the riverbank, the coolness, the washing, rushing sound, the smell of salt water and fish and something else—perhaps the wet marsh grass peeking out through the snow? Or maybe the sand? Did sand have a smell? Well, it all made my head light, and my muscles, even my aching, dissolving bones seemed to take hold, to get a grip. Everything evil, all the self-doubt and self-loathing, seemed to wash down into the sand below my feet. Ahead, standing as vertical and still and proud as a statue was a great blue heron, perched on a rock. I caught my breath at this vision, which put the dogs on high alert, and in an instant they saw it, too.

“No. Molly, Babs,” I cried out, but they raced off, causing the giant bird to lower its head, shrug its great winged shoulders once and again, and then launch itself into a slow, flapping ascent across the semifrozen water. The great bird soared over us and we all stared at it, Molly, Babs and me, blinking, blinking into the dazzling sun, and then the sky was made blurry by my tears, and I won’t say I was suddenly aware of God’s presence or that I had one of those “spiritual awakenings” they carry on about in AA. It wasn’t anything like that, no. But I think that for a moment then, like the line in the carol, my soul felt a sort of … worth. A sense of being worth something. I guess it was because the bird seemed so hulking and prehistoric, yet it somehow flew. And I had behaved dismally and primitively last night, yet, amazingly, nobody knew. I had my sweet dogs, and the river, and my beloved daughter in the house. I had everything. I still had everything. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, I was awake and alive and I still had everything—I had more than enough for me.

I resolved, then and there, to stop drinking again. I would go back in the house. I would make my daughter’s favorite meal. I would call Grady just to hear him babble over the phone. I would not drink today. I would not drink tomorrow. I would not drink the next day, or the next.

When I returned to the house, I found a big beautiful spruce tree propped up next to the front door. Onto one of the branches had been speared a piece of yellow lined notepaper with the hastily scrawled words “Merry Christmas, Hildy. Call if you want help putting it up. Frank.”

Frankie had given us a tree every year, for as long as I could remember. Even when I was married to Scott, Frankie always gave us our tree. I considered it a nice way of thanking me for all the business I sent his way through my clients—mostly newcomers to town with lots of need for Frankie’s services. But this morning, I was so moved by his gesture that my hand shook when I lifted the note from the tree. True, my hands always shake when I’m hungover, but this was different. I was all soppy with love for the man who had cut down this tree, just for me. Dear Frankie.

I entered the house and Emily said excitedly, “Frank Getchell dropped off the tree. Let’s decorate it today.”

“Okay, but I have to go into the office for a little while. Let’s do it tonight. Call Tess and see if she wants to bring Grady up to help. Michael’s away on business this week.”

“Okay,” said Emily. Then she said, “You should call Frank and see if he’ll help, too.”

“I will,” I said after a short pause. “I’ll see if he wants to stay for dinner.”

When I got to the office I did call Frank, but of course, there was no answer. No machine. I did some paperwork and checked out the MLS listings, but there was nothing new on the market. I told Kendall that I was going to close the office the following week and then reopen the Wednesday after New Year’s Day. This week, I told her, she could just come in mornings to open mail and check messages and call me if there was anything important. I wanted to spend some time at home with my family.

I left the office around three and headed up to the rise. I passed the McAllisters’, but the house was dark and still. They had gone to their house in Aspen for the holidays, as they did every year. Linda was taking care of the dog and horses and she had told me how bitterly Rebecca had complained about going, the day they left.

“I don’t even ski,” she had hissed at Linda as they packed the car. “I spent my winters in Florida, riding, when I was a kid. I hate Aspen.…”

“It must be rough,” Linda had said, laughing as she told me this. I had laughed with her, but now, passing Rebecca’s house, I felt sorry for her. I had ever since I saw her on Peter’s beach all alone that day. All alone in the cold.

I drove past the McAllisters’ and on up the rise to Frankie’s tree farm. There were cars and trucks parked up and down his driveway. With all the fresh snow covering the antique toilet garden in front of his house, the whole place looked very quaint and picturesque. College boys, home for the holidays, were making a little extra cash with the tips they were handed after dragging the trees down the hill to the parking area and loading them onto the cars that were parked there. I walked around the back of the house and up the path a short distance to where it opened up into a field of spruce trees. There I found Frankie standing next to a bonfire, collecting payment for a tree from a family I recognized but couldn’t quite name. I thought the husband had gone to school with Tess, but I wasn’t sure. They all greeted me as if they knew me and I greeted them warmly, and when they left, Frankie and I just stood there, looking up the hill at the trees and the families, watching our breath leave our mouths in modest little puffs.

“Thanks for the tree,” I finally said.

“Sure, Hil,” he replied.

“Well, when you finish here, do you think you might be able to come and help us set it up? It’s pretty big.”

“Yup,” Frankie said. “If you want it set up before dark, I can send one of the boys—”

“No,” I said. “You come. Whenever you’re done here. Stay for dinner … if you want. Tess might bring Grady, my grandson, up.”

Frank said nothing. This was something I remembered about Frankie. He was one of those rare individuals who said nothing when he didn’t know what to say. Not only that but when you spoke to him, he would look in your eyes for only a second, if that, and then he’d look away. That’s why I always had such a hard time reading him. Now we both just stood gazing up at the hill. After my invitation had dangled awkwardly unanswered for several minutes, I turned to leave and said, “Or just send one of the boys.”

“No, Hildy,” Frank said. “I’ll come. Maybe around six.”

“Okay.” I smiled. “See you then.”

*   *   *

When Frank arrived, Tess and Grady were there and, of course, so was Emily. I ignored the amused glances I caught between the girls. I had made a lasagna that afternoon, and after Frank placed the tree in the stand, he and I went into the kitchen while Emily strung lights on the tree and Tess tried to keep Grady from pulling them off.

In the kitchen, I asked Frankie whether he’d prefer wine or beer.

“What’re you gonna have?” he asked.

“Sparkling water,” I said cheerily.

“Oh,” said Frank, glancing toward the living room, where the girls were. Emily was having a glass of wine. There was an open bottle on the counter, so he said, “I’ll just have a glass of that wine, if you don’t mind, Hil.”

“No, not at all. I hate it when people don’t drink because of me.” I poured him a glass and then began preparing a salad.

Frankie watched me, then whispered quietly, “So you never drink when the girls are around, huh?”

I laughed and said, also in a whisper, “No, and now I’ve given it up completely again.”

I watched Frankie working this over in his mind. His face took on a rather grim expression, and I laughed again and said, “It’s not because of the other night. I had fun that night. I just … need to give it a rest is all.”

Frank nodded and little Grady came tottering into the room. “Gammy!” he exclaimed.

“Hi, Grady, my love. Frank, have you ever seen a more gorgeous child?”

Frank smiled and looked Grady up and down. Grady was looking Frank over, too, which made Frank chuckle and say, “Yup, he’s a keeper.” Then he asked Grady to give him five and they slapped palms. He asked Grady how old he was and Grady sort of stood and drooled.

“He’s two,” I said, answering for Grady.

“Where do you live?” Frank asked Grady.

“Frank, he’s two!” I exclaimed, laughing. “Haven’t you ever met a baby before?”

“Well, I thought by the time they can walk, they’re pretty good talkers.”