The Grip of It Read online

  18

  JAMES HURRIES BACK across the lawn and I catch Rolf in his kitchen window. I flash back to the vision I had of walking through Rolf’s house and ask myself if I could have grabbed the pitcher and tray, if I could have carried those things into the house with me and forgotten. I can’t talk myself into believing what my mind suggests. I turn away and open the front door. “What did he have to say for himself?”

  James looks startled, flustered. “He wasn’t home or he was sleeping and didn’t answer.”

  “What do you mean? I saw you go inside and I just saw him in the window. How did you get in?”

  “Shit. Then he heard me.” James’s eyes bug out, the sharp white standing out against the purplish-olive sickles of fatigue beneath. He blinks and the contrast pops again. “The door wasn’t locked. I let myself in.”

  “An eye for an eye, eh?” I try to remember if it was me or James who would have locked our door as we left this morning.

  “He’ll know I was there. I knocked over some newspapers, too. But get this: ‘Kinsler Family Tragedy’ was the headline. Multiple copies. Rolf Kinsler. I should have taken one.”

  “That would have been stealing. We should look that up to see what it’s talking about, though.”

  “They were ancient. Too old to Google,” he says.

  “Microfiche, then. We’ll go to the library.”

  James is pressing his fist to his brow, hunched over the dining room table.

  “James, he came into our house first. He had no right.” I say this and trust it. “The locksmith is on his way. You didn’t do anything more wrong than what he did. If he’s angry, it’s what he deserves.”

  James forces himself to at least appear to agree, and then his eyes focus sharply on me, like something’s clicked. “The way he watches us, the fact that he came in without our knowing—something’s going on. I’m calling the Realtor to see what he knows. Maybe he can help figure out which of all these stories we’re hearing is true. He might know what Rolf’s deal is. Do you have the number?”

  I’m surprised James wants to act on this right away. Usually he’d put it off and then lose momentum. I pull up the number on my phone and hand it to him and watch him dial. He starts to pace and stops short. “I dialed wrong. It says the number’s been disconnected.” He dials again and pulls the phone to his ear and then hangs up. “Disconnected.”

  “How can that be?” I hit DIAL and listen to the same message. “Maybe he got a new number.” I pull up the browser to look up his name, but nothing comes up. “What the hell? I must be spelling it wrong or something.”

  “I am not into this. I’m going to the library this weekend to investigate.” For once, I believe James when he says he’s going to do something.

  I rifle through the papers from the move and search for the Realtor’s ad again, but it remains lost.

  19

  THAT NIGHT, I find a body in the attic and it’s hard as diamonds and I look for more. The second body I find is a pile of soft bones and surprising shapes of teeth behind a panel in the basement. In the middle of the kitchen, the third body’s nails have screamed themselves out of the retreating fingers of collapsed flesh, a pile of rot that lies there as if it hasn’t been moved in decades. I go outside and find a cranium, a tibia, a phalanx, and a pubis scattered from an open grave, as though dropped out of gathering arms, and I assemble them into a skeleton, ablaze under that broad and bleeding moon. I dream these bodies as answers and then wake and stir at how close this nightmare felt to reality. I drift through them again at the breakfast table, these dreams shaped like memory.

  I might tell James or I might not. I start to lose track of what I’ve shared with him and what I’ve kept to myself. I find myself starting to talk about the sounds in the night, an inconsistency in what the woman at the checkout told me, the new bruise on my hip that’s already starting to fade, and then I stop myself: Did I tell him about this already? If not, I worry he’ll think I’ve been keeping secrets. And then, because I don’t want to keep secrets, I keep more secrets.

  I think James is peculiar for not being more curious, but then I wonder, What if he’s doing the same thing? What if he’s hiding his interest and confusion and unease for fear that I’ll want to leave? Perhaps he’s afraid of returning to the city, to old habits and temptations. It might be that we’re both curious, but we think the other isn’t.

  If you put your eye to one side of a water glass, you have so many angles to navigate trying to see something on the other side. Four edges of curved glass. Water’s opinions: a lens. Most times, your gaze bounces right back to you.

  I want time away to see how I feel apart from this place. I want to see what my mind turns up on different terrain.

  “James, maybe we should go on vacation.”

  He tells me he’s surprised I would suggest such a thing. “Wait, let me get this straight. Julie—the keeper of the finances, the planner of the futures—wants to go on vacation when we just bought a house? Even I know that’s a bad idea.”

  “Well, we could have done both if we’d made a few different decisions leading up to this.”

  James looks less angry than discouraged. “You mean that we could do both if I’d made different decisions, right?”

  I had promised that I would let it go, that I would trust he could change, that it was a quirk, a setback we could get past, that people can fix themselves, that the rest of our lives wouldn’t stand the threat of being lost on a missed basket or a worn-out horse. He had promised it wouldn’t happen again, but I break my promise. “Well, I have enough money to do both. I can’t help that you traded your future for some dumb wish. That’s what a bet is, right? A wish?”

  “I thought we weren’t going to do that. Is it that bad? Do you want to leave that badly?”

  I backpedal, apologize by way of lying, hide my apprehension behind a white flag. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry.” I finger the rotten yellow spot edging my waistline. I think of the bodies in my dream and keep the deterioration to myself.

  We’re missing each other.

  20

  MY TEAM SPENDS a day trying to figure out what’s broken with the program we’re working on. QA testers run through again and again and can’t reproduce the error. “Probably a connection issue then,” I say, but the project manager insists it couldn’t be.

  She tries to explain: “James, we’re building this program to teach people customer service. If the program tells the user that a customer asks for a refund and the user chooses to tell her to take her business elsewhere, that should be an immediate fail, game over. Instead, the program delivered a message commending the user on a good choice and promoting them to shift supervisor. Something’s broken.”

  “Customer service isn’t really my thing. That’s why I went into computers,” I joke, but she doesn’t laugh.

  “Well, fix the computer then,” she says, her voice on edge.

  Sam offers to lend a hand and finds the mistake right away. “You didn’t account for the possibility of someone looping back around to this screen after they’d already succeeded in similar situations.” He strokes a few keys. “I’ll let Kim know it’s fixed.”

  He walks across the office and rests his arms on the top of her cubicle. Sam leans down and begins talking. When Kim responds, I see Sam shrug. Kim looks back at the programming room, but I turn away quickly.

  “No biggie, man,” Sam says upon his return. “Even the best of us have to get used to the way content drives the programming.”

  “It doesn’t make sense that someone would make the proper decision once but then make a mistake the second time,” I say.

  “You’re thinking rationally, but not reasonably, man. We need to account for any possible outcome, and the result has to make sense. Sometimes people bomb these things for the fun of seeing how poorly they can do.”

  I think of every bet I lost. And I think of the bets that followed.

  21

  JAMES AND
I search for distraction. We invite my dad and stepmother for the weekend to show off the house and pick up all that’s dropped between us in the hustle of moving. “Where did you get these?” I ask. A small vase of flowers sits in the middle of the dining room table.

  “I picked them on my walk through the woods this morning. And then some roses from the bush on the side of the house.”

  “You can pick the flowers in the woods? You won’t get arrested?”

  “Of course. This is milkweed and harebell and valerian, I think.” He reaches a hand around to pat himself on the back. “Nice work, James. I thought it might be a nice touch for Carol. I put a little jar up in the guest room, too.”

  “I will keep you.” His charm can still make me blush.

  My parents arrive, and the first thing my stepmother compliments is the flowers.

  “That’s James’s doing. He picked them and arranged them,” I say.

  “You hear that, Frank?” she says to my father. “James picked flowers! Take a cue. Anyway”—she turns back to me—“I’ve brought you a housewarming gift that might be a perfect way to showcase James’s talents.” From the entryway she fetches a gift bag that proclaims CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW ARRIVAL! beside a pale blue teddy bear. I take the bag from her and raise my eyebrows. “I know, but it was the only gift bag I had in the house, and you have experienced a new arrival of sorts.”

  If it were only a case of Carol’s being stingy, I wouldn’t care, but I know the bag is also a wink that buying a house is the first step toward having a baby, making a proper family, a nod to our having told my parents we don’t want children. I pull the tissue out and find another piece of Pueblo pottery.

  “This one’s a canteen!” Carol broadcasts.

  I thank her and hand the pot to James. “See if you can fit your flowers into our lovely new vase, please!” James disappears into the kitchen while I show my parents to the guest room.

  I make dinner: fried chicken and mashed sweet potatoes and bean casserole—food I know my parents will eat—and James mixes everyone manhattans and my dad drinks too many. He holds forth on whatever he’s read about recently and ruffles his wily eyebrows about the injustice of a recently passed law. We perform our incredulity at some new way we’re poisoning our bodies and gasp politely at all the random facts he shares.

  My dad drains his glass and jingles the shards of ice at James for a refill. We wait for my dad to look away to share a glance. I shrug, resigned that at least he’ll probably pass out after the next drink. My dad gets to flipping through the pictures in some history books stacked in the living room. My stepmom retreats into the guest room so she can shower and set her hair in the foam rollers hourglassed with plastic memory.

  Alone in our bedroom, I want to decompress and tell James all the things I couldn’t say in the company of my parents, but the walls are too thin. Instead, I lie down and close myself around him and hear his breath regularize quickly, but my mind spins. I have trouble getting comfortable and think about how we’ll fill the day tomorrow, then, suddenly, right in front of my face, I hear a thick exhale, almost a growl. Hot air through a ragged windpipe; I can feel its moist remainder lingering on my skin.

  The electricity of fear almost bolts me upright, but I hold myself down, sure someone is standing right over me. I inhale sharply and try to focus on the darkness. Has some vent above me decided just now to start making this noise? I settle back and attempt to calm myself, beginning to drift off, sure I’ve dreamed the thing, when I hear it again.

  The sound shapes itself, rough and wet before me. I smell the breath, sour and ripe at once. “James?” I whisper.

  “Yes.” His response is not that of someone half drawn away by sleep.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Julie, it was right in front of my face.”

  “It was in front of my face.” I find his warm hand under the blanket. We wait for it to happen again, barred from sleep by anticipation, the time fast and slow at once, but neither of us hears it if it does.

  I am aching with exhaustion when dawn starts to show through the window and we can finally see that nothing is before us. We drift off and wake late.

  At the brunch table, we don’t want to alarm my parents, so we keep our secret quiet. My stepmom, her hair already sculpted into a pouf that frames her face like a halo, helps herself to some pancakes and says, “Now, you kids know I don’t like to start trouble, but I had such a fright last night.” James and I glance at each other, chew slowly. “I was falling asleep, and, I swear, right above me, I heard something breathing, deep and heavy. I thought maybe your father had finally come to bed and was having some kind of attack, but I felt around and said, ‘Frank? Is that you?’ No response.” She pauses. “I lay back down and I heard it again: a loooong snarl. I was spooked. Is that your heating system or something? Do you think an animal could have gotten into those spaces in the walls? Maybe you have an infestation?” She whispers the final word, as if the pests might be offended to hear it.

  I wait for a moment, trying to decide whether to admit we also heard the noise, but I decide honesty is best. “We heard it, too.”

  “It was that loud?” My stepmother looks at my dad in shock. He continues shoveling pancakes into his mouth, as if nothing were amiss.

  I recognize her misunderstanding as a way out of this exchange, but I clarify, “No, we heard it, too, but it was right above us, right in front of our faces. We could smell it.” I wonder what keeps me going, what it is that’s encouraging me, if I like seeing Carol horrified.

  “Yes!” my stepmother gasps. “That smell was awful. I could have thrown up.”

  Finally, I feel the regret at having been honest release through me like a faucet opening. I stand to reach the coffee carafe, trying to move on.

  “This is too much. I’m sorry, Julie. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I do not like this house.” My stepmother sets down her silverware. She throws her napkin on her plate. “Frank, we’re not staying here another minute. Julie, this place is bad news. There’s something creepy about it. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but, with what happened last night, I know you can do better.”

  I should have seen this coming. I should have known having my parents here wouldn’t help, that my stepmother would be overly critical even if everything went right. I should have protected this space until we were settled and assured and ready to defend it.

  My dad says, “I didn’t hear anything, Carol.”

  “That’s because you were passed out, drunk as a skunk. You wouldn’t have heard a lion roar inside of you. We’re going home. I’ve seen all I need to see. Julie, I’m begging you: get out of here. We’ll help you. I’ll lend you some money—some money you can keep, but leave.”

  “I think you could be more supportive, Carol,” I say. She recoils. Calling her by her name instead of Mom has been the greatest insult to her since my father married her. “This is our first home. Of course, some things need fixing, but I’m pretty proud of it. I agree it’s probably best if you leave.”

  I can see I’ve riled her by telling her to go. My father doesn’t try to right the situation, only turns his eyes away so it can’t seem as if he is taking any particular side.

  James and I clean up the table while my parents disappear upstairs. When I hear the front door open, I force myself to follow them out and watch as they load their car, but I can’t find any words that strike the right balance of civility and admonishment. I wave as they pull away.

  Alone, we examine our bedroom and the guest room for vents and cracks in the window frames. James and I re-create the conditions by lying on the bed side by side. In our bones, we know nothing will happen, and so we use this time to talk, as if we’re both trying to convince the other we should stay.

  “My stepmother was obviously overreacting.”

  James takes only a moment to commit. “Absolutely.”

  “I think the house might lend itself to suspicion what with the secret rooms and whatn
ot, but really I think we started off on the wrong foot. And I’m certainly not accepting money from her. Even if I paid her back, I’d never hear the end of it.”

  James agrees, but then he pauses, and I am nervous about what he will say next. “That sound last night, though, that was … something alive, right? It sounded like a beast—which, I know, seems crazy—but whatever that was, it wasn’t a clog in a vent or the house settling.”

  I think this is where I might lose him if I agree. “I’m not that certain, I guess,” I say, but in my mind it seems clear.

  22

  I GO TO the library to look for the newspaper I saw in Rolf’s house. Directly across the square from the ice cream shop, the library’s stone pillars and carved wooden doors make it the grandest building in town. The sign out front explains that they’re not open in the evenings, Saturday afternoons, or Sundays from June through August. I guess only the unemployed can check books out in the summer, I think to myself.

  I pull open the door. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. I spot the librarian, scanning in returns behind the desk. She wears a turtleneck and a sweatshirt decorated with embroidered autumn leaves, despite the warm weather. “And how can I help you today?” she asks. She slips her glasses off and I worry she’s dropped them, but they halt at the end of a string of beads around her neck. From a distance, I’d assumed her to be older. With the glasses off, I see she’s probably about my age.

  “Do you know how I might go about searching old issues of the local newspaper?”

  She tilts her head. “I’m afraid we haven’t digitized any of that.” She picks up the next book from the stack of returns as if our business were through.

  “That’s fine. Microfiche or microfilm—do you have it in one of those formats?”