Who You Least Expect (6 page)

The house was set about a half mile down, off the main road, and at first glance, the long, dusty path appeared to be any old country road in any old country town. But she knew that quiet, sleepy image to be false. As a child, Blakely had played a game, one where she watched the road with each step, trying to identify the point when it shifted from a simple road to the path to hell.

Maybe it was those first cans and bottles strewn in the ankle-high grass? Or the rusted-out hulks of metal that had started their lives as appliances and were now almost a part of the landscape, discolored from the elements and covered with moss and vines and grass and dirt? Or maybe the cars, in as much disrepair as the appliances, first one, then two, then dozens, all haphazardly scattered across the green grass and slowly but surely being reclaimed by it?

She’d never quite settled on the exact place where the shift began, but whenever the first breeze stirred, bringing with it that smell, the scent of trash and filth and madness, Blake always knew she was home.

Today was no different, but at least they’d finally taken the animals. The sheriff had said the conditions were unfit for them, a statement that made Blakely almost delirious with the irony of it. Oh, the conditions were fine for children and had, at least for a while, been fine for adults, but not for the three dozen cats.

“Mama! Daddy!” she called when she finally reached the house. She walked up the rickety front steps, wishing she could grab the bannister for balance but not daring risk it once she realized she’d left her gloves and knowing that it would probably collapse anyway if she touched it wrong.

For a moment, she considered going back for her gloves—and for the chance to avoid this if only for a few minutes longer—but before she could move, the stir of something behind the door stilled her.

“Blakely Mayree, is that you?” her mother said through the door, the thick wooden portal muffling the sound of her voice.

“Yes, Mama, it’s me,” she responded, trying to keep the tears that sprang up out of her voice.

She’d told herself all morning that she was prepared for this, that coming home no longer had the power to bring her to her knees, but this moment was proving her a liar. Tears of frustration and anger and pain and guilt—most of all guilt—clogged her throat and only intensified as she heard her mother moving behind the closed door. The older woman pushed something aside and with a great heave pulled the door open and gestured her in.

“Oh, honey, Daddy’s gonna be so happy to see you!”

Her mother smiled, her dark eyes bright with an almost childlike exuberance that took Blakely back to the time when she’d been too young to realize how sick her mother was, how sick both of her parents were.

Blake smiled faintly and stepped in, trying not to cringe at the stench or at the sight of the man-made mountains that surrounded them, the living nightmare that she feared more than anything. Her gaze jumped from place to place since she was unwilling to let it settle on one thing, unwilling to be forced to examine any space too closely, afraid of what she might see.

Oh, she very well knew what was there, but seeing it, letting her gaze rest long enough to actually take in the full measure of the state of the place that she’d spent so many years, the place where she’d formed, despite her surroundings, some of her most treasured memories, was unfathomable.

So she looked from here to there, landing for a brief moment on a blackened blob of seemingly organic matter that may have once been a pumpkin before she moved on to an incongruously bright-colored piece of fabric. Probably one of her mother’s caftans. She’d worn those long, crazy-patterned things for Blake’s entire life, and despite the tension and sadness that currently predominated in her mind, Blake allowed herself a brief moment to reflect on how much she’d loved them when she was a kid. Those colors, the harsh yet soft feel of the synthetic fabric, the way her mother would often remove the zipper and replace it with buttons, transported Blakely back to those good days before she’d gotten older and realized that her family wasn’t like everyone else’s.

Almost but not quite. Especially when she caught a faint movement out of the corner of her eye. Her breath was bated for a moment, but she relaxed when she realized it was just a piece of dust stirred by the wind blowing in from outside. A relief, she supposed, though not really. It’d been a lucky coincidence that the dust hadn’t been a roach, rat, kitten, or one of the baby opossums that had been born in the dining room.

Her mother had relayed the story of finding the mama opossum and eight babies with a casualness that would have blown a stranger away. She’d told the story like finding a nest of rodents underneath the dining room table was an everyday occurrence, like having a home where those rodents felt comfortable enough to breed and could do so without disturbance was totally within the boundaries of acceptable human behavior. But Blakely had long since lost the ability to be surprised by her parents, though, no matter how much she tried, she’d never lost the pain and sadness.

“Is that my baby girl?”

Blakely couldn’t stop her smile at the sound of her father’s voice.

“I’m here, Daddy,” she called, laughing out loud at his excited clap.

“Well, come give your daddy a hug!”

That statement quickly dampened her budding enthusiasm. She’d come here for just that purpose, but the reality of the trek, of climbing over God knew what to get to the back bedroom that had been her father’s domain and which was increasingly becoming his prison, overwhelmed her.

“Come on, Ree,” her mother said, using her old childhood endearment that was also her own nickname.

And then with a deftness and grace that Blakely couldn’t deny even in the midst of the squalor, her mother climbed over one pile and then another, making her way through the front room and back down the hall.

Blakely paused, needing a moment to tamp down the sudden, insistent urge to flee as she followed suit, stepping where her mother had stepped and resolutely ignoring the squishy mass under her feet. Instead, she focused on her mother’s back. There was a slight curve to her shoulders, but otherwise, she was still the same as she’d always been, tall, proud and beautiful. Her long, thick hair was now threaded through with strands of silver but still hung down her back in a tight braid.

“It’s a little tricky here, Ree, but just stay close to the wall and you shouldn’t have any trouble,” her mother said as they neared the back room.

Blakely had the almost manic need to laugh at that statement. No trouble? Each step felt like she was taking her life in her hands.

Stuff—the other words she could think of to describe it were far too cruel, even for her own mind—filled almost every inch of the hallway, scraping the ceiling in some places and leaving it shrouded in shadows in those few rare spaces that weren’t pitch-black. Blakely’s gaze was pulled to the second-to-last door in the hallway, or rather, the space where the door should have been. Now, the doorway was completely blocked with what looked to be a bookcase, and she thought she saw her high school diploma along with a couple of math team trophies and some other knickknacks. She looked away quickly, unwilling to metaphorically open the door to her past, not that literally opening it was possible.

Her mother did some kind of twist-jump thing to cover the last bit of space between the end of the hallway and the bedroom door, and somehow she was able to follow, though the precipitous shifting of the “floor” beneath her feet had her heart lurching.

When she entered the back bedroom, relief had her exhaling a sigh, one that was cut off as she glimpsed her father. If she remembered correctly, they’d brought a recliner back here at some point, so she guessed that was what he sat in. But she couldn’t tell, not through the random piles that seemed to be closing in on him. Once again, she had underestimated her capacity for surprise.

And for heartbreak.

Tears, hot and thick, clogged her throat, leaving her speechless. Her daddy sat in a rotting recliner, one leg propped on a mound of
something
. His trusty TV tray, the legs of which she couldn’t even see for the masses that surrounded it, was piled high with his coffee cup, dishes with the remnants of a meal, five or six prescription bottles, and his remote control.

But like always, he seemed entirely oblivious; his smile, the undeniable happiness in his eyes, in no way betrayed any discomfort with his surroundings.

“Ree! Come hug me, sugar!”

“Hey, Daddy,” she mumbled as she gingerly tiptoed over to his chair.

When she leaned down, she accidentally dislodged something, though the roaches seemed to be the only ones who minded. But she hugged him, harder than she’d thought she would, harder than she probably should have. Her throat constricted as she held onto his shoulders, the reedy strength that she’d remembered from childhood now a fragility that made her worry that his bones might shatter in her hands. She’d always fretted and whined that it wasn’t fair that she hadn’t been gifted with whatever gene kept her father thin and strong, but there was no trace of the physicality she’d so envied left.

She slackened her grip and pulled back, noting that the frailness of his shoulders extended to the rest of him, his arms and legs painfully thin-looking though he still had that tiny paunch that had always vexed him, his bony chest heaving with his breaths. She also heard the faint wheeze that rattled with each inhalation, saw the waxy tint of his brown skin, the jaundiced color of his eyes. And there were other things too, things that loosened the tightness in her throat and replaced it with thick anger, things like the lint that knotted in the tight curl of his uncombed hair, the grime caked under his fingernails, the hard-looking, thick skin that covered the bottoms of his feet. All evidence he hadn’t been able to or hadn’t been bothered to bathe in the recent past.

She let him go.

“How are you feeling?” she asked quietly when she finally had the ability to talk past the lump in her throat.

“I just had a little touch of pneumonia,” he said. “But I’ll be back to normal in no time.”

“That’s right,” her mother interjected. “He’s doing real good.”

Lies, she knew. Anyone with eyes would know that, anyone except her parents. She actually kind of envied their ability to deny reality to the bitter end, even when it almost killed them. That sobering reality loosened her tongue further.

“Daddy, you’re not doing good! You can’t stay here,” she said, “neither of you can.”

She looked back at her mother then, a cloud of displeasure weighing on the other woman’s face.

“Ree, don’t start. We already told you and everybody else that we are just fine.”

“Mama, this is not fine!”

Waving her hands with exasperation, Blakely looked around the room wondering, as she often did when dealing with them, whether she was the one with a disease. She hadn’t intended this. Her only desire had been to see her father, maybe redeem her earlier cowardice and then raise the topic of their living conditions, ones that had undeniably played a role in her father’s “touch of pneumonia” and would play a role in the future illnesses and accidents that would befall them.

But she’d been overcome, the words springing from her lips as if of their own volition. Countless times before, she’d screamed until her throat was dry, cried until no more tears would come, threatened, done absolutely everything she could to get through to them, but she always failed. And based on the glance that passed between them, today would be no exception. And again it was her fault.

She’d known this, knew that confronting them would only push them closer together, further strengthen the already titanium-strong and so far unbreakable bond that tied them to each other—and to their stuff.

Their dedication might have been enviable if it hadn’t destroyed her life once, made her fear for her future now, made her wonder if she’d inherited this gene, made her wonder if she’d end up like this, the obvious difference being that she’d be alone in her squalor while they at least always had each other.

The betrayal in the two gazes that pinned her made her want to slink away in shame. Though she knew she wasn’t wrong, that sting burned her down to her core. Even though she was right, she’d still managed to screw this up.

“Fine,” she said, giving in as she always had. “But I don’t think Adult Protective Services and the health department will be so easily swayed. What are you going to do if someone in this town comes to their senses and calls the authorities on you? They already took the cats. You have to know it’s just a matter of time!”

She looked between them, searching for some glimmer of understanding, but she found none. That didn’t stop her, though. “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? You’ll have sixty days to clean up, or they will condemn this place. And then where will you go? You’ll be left homeless!” she exclaimed.

Her father swatted away the words like they were one of the gnats circling the room.

“I own this property outright,” he said.

“Taxes are paid,” her mother interjected.

“And last time I checked, this was America. No one will be leaving me homeless,” he said, his voice brimming with the conviction of the righteous.

Her mother’s strident nod only added to the effect. They were always ready to go to war, together, against the city, the state, their only child…and today, she had been defeated.