THE HOUSE LOOKED smaller. Dingier. Rundown.
Again, I remembered complaining, in life, about the roof; that it needed re-shingling. I remembered Ann's being disturbed about the outside of the house which needed repainting. The bushes around the house usually needed pruning, the garage straightening up.
Yet, compared to what I saw before me now, that house had been perfection.
These shingles were cracked and dirty, many of them missing. The paint on the outside walls and on the doors and window frames and shutters was faded and smudged, parts of the walls defaced by long, meandering cracks. The bushes, like those on the hill, were brown and dry, the garage a dismal sight, its oil-stained floor covered with blown in dirt and leaves. All the trash barrels were overflowing, two of them turned over, a gaunt cat eating garbage from one.
Catching sight of me, it jerked around in fright and raced out through the rear doorway of the garage which had no door now. Through the opening, I saw the elm tree standing dead, the cracked fence sagging toward the hill.
Ann's Honda was parked in front of the house. At first, I felt surprised to see only her car and looked around for the others, especially the camper.
It came to me then that this was her particular limbo and could only possess what she expected to see in it.
I walked to her car and examined it. The sight made me queasy. She'd always been so proud of it, kept it so immaculate. Now it looked old, its chrome pitted with rust, its paint faded, windows streaked with dirt, one side dented, one tire flat. Is this what everything is like here? I wondered.
I tried not to think about it but turned toward the front doors.
They looked old too, stained, their knobs corroded. The glass cover on the porch light was broken, shards of glass lying across the porch. A section of the slate floor was missing, the rest chipped and dirty.
Again, that sense of bleak depression. I fought it off. And I haven't even gone inside, I thought, the idea chilling me.
Bracing myself, I knocked on the left door.
It felt grotesque to knock on the door of my own home-- well, it looked like my home albeit a distorted form of it-- but I knew how abrupt appearances alarmed Ann. Often, coming home at an unexpected time, I'd walked into our bedroom, meeting her as she emerged from the dressing room. She'd gasped in shock and, literally, recoiled, saying, "Oh! I didn't hear you come in!"
So I knocked. It was better than frightening her.
No one answered. I stood on the porch for what seemed, to me, a very long time. Then, giving up, I turned the knob and started to open the door. Its bottom scraped on the floor as I pushed it; the hinges must be loose, I thought. I stepped inside. The slate floor in the hallway looked as bad as the one on the porch. I shuddered as I closed the door. It actually felt colder in the house than it had outside, a clammy chill hovering in the air. I clenched my teeth and walked into the living room. No matter what I saw, I vowed, I wouldn't let it dissuade me from my reason for being there.
I'd always loved our living room, Robert: the rich, oak paneling, the built-in bookcases, the heavy, earth-tone furniture, the enormous sliding door and window overlooking the back deck and swimming pool.
1 couldn't love this room.
Its paneling and bookcases were cracked and luster-less, its furniture worn and faded. The carpeting, which I recalled as being forest green, was, now, some drab shade in between dull green and black. There was a huge, ocherous stain near the coffee table and the table itself was scratched and splintered, its oak tone completely flat.
I'd had that table handmade, always loved it. Walking over to it, I looked down at the chessboard and men Ann had had made for me one Christmas. It had been a stunning piece of craftsmanship, the board made of oak with inlaid silver filigree, the men hand- cast in pewter with bases of turned oak, all impossible to duplicate.
Now the board was cracked and dingy and five of the pieces were missing, two sagging, almost broken. I turned away from the table, telling myself that this was not the chess set I had lived with. It was hard to keep that in mind though because everything looked so familiar. The bookcases were as I remembered them--except that these were only half filled with dusty, aging books. The shutters were as I recalled--except that one of these was broken off and lying on the duty, sun-bleached cushion of the window seat.
I gazed out toward the deck and saw the fruitless mulberry tree. No, this wasn't the same one, this was dying. The deck was littered with dry leaves and the pool looked stagnant, a slime-like growth on its motionless surface.
Turning back--there was a crack in the sliding door I noticed as I did--I stepped over to the baby grand. Its case, once a glossy brown, was now drab. I touched the keys. The sound they evoked was tinny. The piano was completely out of tune.
I averted my eyes from the dreary room and called Ann's name.
There was no answer.
I called repeatedly, then, when the silence was unbroken, walked through the bar room to the family room, remembering the day--it seemed a century ago--I'd walked this same way in our earth house, the day of my funeral, before I'd realized what had happened.
The family room was as bad as the others--frayed and dusty furniture, faded paneling and drapes, tile floor grimy. In its fireplace, a small fire burned. I would never have believed, until that moment, that a fire could be anything but cheerful. This one was, so small and mean looking--a few, pale, licking tongues of flame around some scraps of wood-- that it seemed to give no heat at all and certainly no comfort.
No music, I realized then.
Our home had always been filled with music, often a conflux of it from two to three sources at once. This house-- this dour, unpleasant version of our house--was weighty with silence, cold with silence.
I didn't look at the photographs on the walls. I knew I couldn't bear to see the children's faces. Instead, I moved into the kitchen.
Dirty dishes, pots and cutlery in the sink, the windows streaked with grime, the floors spotted. The oven door was open and I saw, inside, a baking pan half filled with hard, white grease, a few small scraps of dried-up meat.
I opened the refrigerator door and looked inside.
The sight repelled me. Wilted lettuce, dry, white cheese, stale bread, yellow-edged mayonnaise, an almost empty bottle of dark red wine. A fetid smell of rot came from the barely cool interior and I closed the door. Turning from it, trying not to let the look and feel of the house get past my mental guard, I moved across the family room and down the hallway toward the back of the house.
The children's rooms were empty. I stood in each of mem. They were not as cold and gloomy as the rest of the house but certainly not pleasant either. Only Ian's room looked used, its bed unmade, papers lying on his desk as though he'd just been doing homework. I wondered why.
Ann was sitting on the grass outside our bedroom.
I stood by the glass door, looking at her, tears in my eyes.
She wore a heavy, dark blue sweater over her blouse, a pair of wrinkled slacks, old shoes. Her skin, what I could see of it, looked pale and chapped. Her hair was lank as though she hadn't washed it in a long time. To my distressed surprise, I noticed Ginger lying by her side. I didn't know it then but, after Ann was gone, Ginger had stopped eating and mourned herself to death in a month. Now she was here, so filled with love that she'd chosen this bleak environment rather than leave Ann alone.
Ann was slumped, immobile, holding something in her cupped hands. I'd never seen her in a posture which bespoke such abject misery and, moving to see what she held, I saw that it was a tiny, gray bird stiffened in death.
I remembered, suddenly, that this had happened before.
She'd found a bird in the street, struck down, unnoticed, by some motorist. She'd brought it home and sat down on the back lawn with it, cupping its small, pulsing body in the warmth of her palms. I remembered what she'd said. That she knew the bird was dying and wanted it to hear, in its final moments, the sounds it knew in life--wind rustling in the trees and songs of other birds.
A burst of sudden fury hit me unexpectedly. This was not a person who deserved to live in such squalor! What kind of stupid justice was that?
I had to struggle with the feeling. I could feel the anger, like a magnet, pulling me toward something I didn't want to reach. If I hadn't sensed, at the same time, that it was, also, pulling me away from Ann, I might have succumbed at the outset.
As it was, I remembered Albert's warning once again and was able to repress the anger. This wasn't judgment, I told myself. Or, if it was, it was self-inflicted. She was here because her actions had put her here. It wasn't punishment but law. My resentment of it was a waste of energy. All I could do was try to help her understand. That was why I was there. And now it was time to start. I'd reached her body. Now I had to reach her soul.