Page 75 of And Still Her Voice
“And what about Dad? Wasn’t she torn up?” Maggie asked, searching my eyes. “Aren’t you torn up about him, Grandma?”
“Why? He’s no longer in this realm,” Grandma answered in her smoky voice.
“But can’t you, like, talk to the dead?” Maggie asked.
“Only if they contact me. Charley never wanted me around when we were alive. I’ll never hear from him again.”
“Wow, Anna,” Maggie said with a nervous giggle. “So how soon do you plan on going to India?” I shrugged my shoulders. “But seriously, Grandma, we’re going to do everything we can to fix it up and move back in. It’s just going to take some time and some money.”
“Just let me know how I can help,” I added. “I’ve been able to save a little.”
“It’s going to take more than just a little. Just wait until you go inside.”
***
Maggie yanked off the yellow crime scene tape and inserted a key into the weathered, splintered front door lock.
My nerves were as exposed as the years of lies I’d been told. Standing in the foyer, it felt dank and cold, yet reeked like that hot August day when I’d first arrived in Manhattan during a garbage strike. But now through it all, I smelled something sweet and distinctive—gardenias? Like memories, some nauseating fragrances are hard to mask, even with a dead body rotting for at least a week and months of piled-up waste. I reached behind the withering potted plant to switch on a light. Nothing. I flicked it on and off. I went for my matches and then panicked when I came up empty.
“There’s no electricity. Hasn’t been for months,” Maggie said, handing me a tissue from a pack in her purse. She wadded one up and shoved a piece up to her nose. I did the same.
“I don’t need light to see the destruction that took place,” Grandma said. “My poor son rotting here all alone.”
“Like we should have all stayed and rotted with him?” Maggie said.
There was still enough sunlight to see the clutter everywhere–like two years’ worth of trash. The next thing I knew, a black cat slithered around my ankles.
“Igor,” Maggie said as I reached down to pet him, all fur and bones. He purred. “Feral. Dad tamed him to come in and eat the mice. Comes and goes through a hole right there near the fireplace.”
“What about Bella?”
“She died last spring.”
“No! Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“If you loved your dog so much, you should have stayed or at least taken her with you.” As if those were the most practical answers to my dire situation. I glared daggers at my sister. “Anyway, she was old,” Maggie said. “We buried her under the lemon tree out back.”
“Near Grandpa?”
“What are you talking about?” Maggie asked, disappearing upstairs. She apparently knew nothing about how Grandpa ended up there, and didn’t care to learn how Phoebe had the folks at Forest Lawn Memorial deliver his ashes home seven years after his death. Talk about control. I wiped my tears, stepping into the living room to look around. The last remnants of daylight illuminated the cobwebbed silver-framed family photos of us lined up across the mantel, including Mom and Dad’s wedding photo, their young faces so full of American dreams. As sycamore shadows danced across the Oriental rug, I remembered my sisters pirouetting from embroidered flower to flower as I played the piano, which I turned to see still stood in all her dusty glory across the hallway in the chamber room.
“Cleopatra,” Grandma Phoebe whispered. “Let’s go play something.”
Outside, the sun slipped behind the Verdugo hills, but I didn’t need light to play as I tiptoed toward Cleopatra. Off to the sideof the piano sat a crystal bowl with no water and the withered gardenias I must have smelled. I raked my fingers over the black piano lid, leaving prints like music staves without the notes. I sat to play the first few notes of “Ode to Joy,”stopping abruptly as I was accompanied by all the questions.
“Don’t stop. That’s lovely,” Grandma said.
I switched to Chopin’sFuneral March.“Why did Dad’s stepbrother kill himself? You were his piano teacher?” Grandma didn’t answer. I played a little softer, rushing through my interrogation before Maggie came back down. “What happened to him? Was he also cursed with a dual consciousness? Did Dad believe this? Did you have anything to do with that? Oh my God, did Dad ever know why?” I pounded out my next question. “Grandma, am I fated to kill myself, too?”
“Oh, darling, no. As you know, his father had a family before us. Leland, Charley’s half-brother, had just turned fifteen years old when he suffered a terrible automobile accident. He lost his arm and grew despondent.”
“And then you broke up the marriage and married his father? Mom told me you were a homewrecker.”
“Darling, it’s complicated.”
“Did Dad know?”
“We never talked about it. It happened years before he was even born. Charley was very sensitive. It was hard enough getting through the death of his father, my beloved Wesley, and then the seven-year probate.”
