The Smell of Other People's Houses Read online

  I am worn out from my rant and her words are so quiet, hanging in the air next to mine. It is hard to stay angry when nobody challenges you.

  “Still want to stand?”

  I sit.

  “We have something in common—you and I, Dora,” she says. “I see that surprises you.”

  I shut my mouth, which has fallen open.

  She continues, “My father left me when I was a small child.”

  “I wish we had that in common,” I say, and then stop in case she thinks I’m being sassy on top of yelling at her.

  But she smiles at me. She is nothing like the stories I heard from Bunny and Lily: a ferocious monster with eyes in the back of her head, waiting to dole out punishment for the smallest infraction.

  “Once she made Lily say the whole rosary, on her knees,” Bunny said, “just for hiding peas in her milk glass.”

  “You are still young,” Gran says, and I have no idea what this has to do with anything. “You’ve been given a chance to live with a family who loves you. But you have to stop expecting the worst out of life, or believe me, that’s just what will happen. You should listen to an old lady who knows.”

  I feel a tear and wipe it away. But there’s another one right behind it, and soon too many to stop, so I don’t try. I cannot remember the last time I cried. Now I worry that I will drown right here in the Lawrences’ kitchen. Gran hands me a box of tissues.

  “I know,” she says, patting my hand. “I know.”

  She just leaves me to it. I can hear her moving around in the kitchen, getting plates out of the cupboard and clinking the silverware. Soon she brings me a piece of pie and some more watery Tang, and I manage to blow my nose and mumble a feeble thanks.

  “I think it’s too late for me to change much about my life,” she says, “but you still have a chance.”

  —

  I think of the poem about the girl in the magenta pinafore and the woman named Rita dancing the cha-cha in her swishy black dress. So, this is what chopping open your body feels like. It’s just admitting to yourself what you’ve always wanted. And there it is, sitting inside my rib cage like a key in a lock, just waiting to be turned.

  “I want to know that I can stay in Dumpling’s family and never have to go home,” I tell her, as if wanting something for myself is as simple as saying it out loud. “I want to be able to sleep at night,” I add, poking at the pie crust with my fork, saying too much.

  “I think that sounds reasonable,” Gran says.

  How could someone this nice have sent her granddaughter away?

  Her smile fades and I wonder if maybe I said that out loud, or she really is a mind reader like Bunny and Lily say.

  First Dumpling’s dad and now this. I have no idea how to respond, but it doesn’t matter anyway because just then Bunny and Lily come barging through the door, chanting at the top of their lungs, “Dumpling’s awake, Dumpling’s awake, Dumpling’s awake!”

  And then we are all hugging and laughing. Gran wraps each of us in turn in her wobbly arms, wiping her eyes with the hem of her dress, and even Bunny seems surprised. I look at Ruth’s note still lying on the table, the words I forgive you smudged and blurry.

  I slip the note into my pocket without anyone noticing, just in case Ruth might want to have it back someday.

  —

  I am skipping back over to Dumpling’s with Bunny and Lily at my heels, all of us floating with happiness, lighter than we’ve been in weeks, when suddenly screams and crashing sounds from inside my mother’s house stop us in our tracks. We are halfway between Lily’s door and my old house, trapped like ptarmigan between two hunters, when the door flies open and Mom’s friends Paula and Annette appear, looking terrified.

  “Your dad,” Paula says, looking right at me. “You girls get away.”

  “Where’s my mom?” I ask, surprised by how calm my voice sounds. My arms are extended, covering Bunny and Lily who are cowering behind me.

  “She’s hurt,” Annette says. I have never seen Annette not laughing. She looks panicked.

  “Are you leaving her in there with him?” I ask.

  They are pushing each other down the porch, trying to get away. “Wait, you just left her?” I say again. If Paula and Annette are running away, then something very serious is going on inside that house.

  I whisper to Bunny to walk slowly backward with Lily and go back to Gran’s. Glancing behind me, I see Gran in the doorway and she locks her eyes with mine in agreement—signaling the girls to come back. I can’t believe we were just laughing and hugging.

  “Tell her to call the police,” I tell Bunny, who stares at me as if I am speaking Japanese. “GO, BUNNY. NOW!”

  “Dora?” she says. Bunny knows better than to call the police.

  “Tell Gran I said to call them; just do it,” I tell her. They make it back to the steps of Gran’s house just as my father staggers out onto the porch.

  “Look at the little rabbits—pow, pow, pow,” my dad says, and my heart sinks as I notice he is holding a real hunting rifle, pretending to shoot at the girls. At least Gran has quickly pulled them inside, and he is probably too drunk to hit them from this distance anyway. Paula and Annette are crouched down on the far side of the merry-go-round, which is as far away as they could get.

  But I am much, much closer.

  “Where is Mom?” I hear myself say.

  “Where is Mom?” he mimics in a high-pitched voice. “Oh, someone cares about Mom suddenly, does she?” He waves the rifle in the air as he talks.

  I am strangely calm, now that Bunny and Lily are out of sight. Perhaps it was my conversation with Gran, or that I am all cried out, or that Dumpling is awake. Whatever the reason, I am not sliding back into that familiar place of dread and fear.

  My father standing on the porch with a rifle does not scare me as much as all the nights I lay awake wondering what he might do to me. At least now I know what I’m dealing with—a drunk man with a gun—not something in the dark that I can’t defend myself against: the smell of alcohol on hot, putrid breath coming closer and closer as I hide my head under my pillow and wait for groping hands—so drunk they cannot even remember what they did the next morning.

  A rifle is nothing compared to that.

  “You’re going to give me that money, Dora,” he says, but his voice sounds less dangerous in the light of day and I can tell he thinks so, too.

  “Fine,” I say. “But let me make sure Mom is okay first.”

  “Fine,” he says, repeating every word again in that high-pitched mocking voice.

  In the distance I hear a faint siren. Thank you, Gran, I think. I just need to hold on a little longer. But he hears the siren, too, and another one, and another one. They are getting louder.

  “You little snitch,” he says to me. “You had those baby rabbits do your dirty work for you—you goddamn snitch.” A snitch. The worst possible thing a person can be around here. He holds the gun up and looks at me through the sight.

  “Shoot me,” I say. I am not quivering. I am not even scared. “Shoot me so I never have to see your face again.”

  He is so surprised he just stands there, lowering the gun and trying to figure out who I am. The police cars pull up and park at crazy angles, spraying dust and gravel everywhere. “Drop the rifle and put your hands up,” they shout from behind the doors of their patrol cars. My father drops the gun, but he keeps staring at me. They approach from all sides, then rush up, guns drawn, and handcuff him. The whole time we never stop staring at each other. I hope it’s the last time I ever have to look into those red, bloodshot eyes.

  They load him into the back of a police car and the siren wails again, this time in the other direction, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath.

  Dumpling’s dad appears just as all the tension that had been holding me together leaks out of me. He has to prop me up because my legs give out.

  “Are you okay?” he says.

  I’ve never seen so much love and concer
n on the face of anyone. At least not for me. “Can I stay with your family? Can I stay and never have to leave?” I whisper, barely able to find my voice.

  “Oh Dora, you don’t have to ask,” he says, wrapping me in his huge arms.

  The paramedics appear from inside the house with my mom strapped to a stretcher. She is black and blue, her arm is in a sling, and her eyes are swollen shut. “Mom?” I say.

  “Dora, no hospital,” she says. “Tell them—we don’t go to hospital.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ll pay. You look terrible.”

  “She’s got a concussion,” says one of the paramedics. “We need to watch her.”

  “I’m not going to stand by and pretend he didn’t hurt you,” I say, realizing that’s what I have always wanted her to say to me.

  Paula and Annette tell the paramedics they’re riding along in the ambulance and won’t take no for an answer. Nobody expects me to come, too, which is good because I have someone more important to see right now anyway.

  “Is Dumpling up for visitors?” I ask her dad.

  “Only if it’s you,” he says.

  I badly want to talk to Isabelle, but she is acting strange all of a sudden, as if she just drove two thousand miles to watch girls flounce around in tights. It’s not even a performance; it’s an audition, which means people aren’t sitting in seats waiting for the show. Instead there are long-legged ballerinas in tutus milling about everywhere, waiting for their turn.

  When we step inside there is nowhere to put your eyes because wherever you look feels wrong.

  Isabelle checks the schedule and says, “We might be too late,” then rushes down to the side stage door, gesturing for us to follow. We almost knock over a bony woman with wild salt-and-pepper hair standing just inside the door, but before she can topple over, Isabelle grabs her and they hug, whispering frantically to us that this is Abigail and we can all talk afterward. At the last second, a girl with big brown eyes runs up and Abigail smiles at her, saying, “Honey, you’re going to miss it, hurry up,” as she, too, steps inside and the lights dim.

  The auditorium appears mostly empty, but it’s too dark to see anything except shadows and outlines. We’re backstage, so Abigail motions for us to peer through the thick velvet curtains. All I can see are the judges in the front row, their glasses perched on the ends of beaky noses. This must be a very big deal. You can feel the tension and the judges are the serious unsmiling kind, which is never a good sign.

  The girl standing onstage is waiting for her cue. That’s Abigail’s niece, Isabelle mouths silently at me. We did just barely make it in time.

  She is long and lean like every other dancer, in a simple pink skirt and white tights, her hands held in front of her, fingertips touching. She looks like a wax statue on display. It’s stifling hot. I imagine her melting drip by drip onto the stage. But then I remember I’m still wearing two jackets, so maybe it’s only sweltering for me.

  I wonder if Jack is sweating, too. He’s slipped off to the side and into one of the aisle seats next to the girl Abigail had called “honey.” The music starts and the ballerina onstage moves as if pulled by an invisible string. She’s mesmerizing, sliding across the stage like butter, leaping and landing very lightly on the tip of one toe, determination written all over her face. She is not just dancing, she is telling the judges a story, and it feels urgent. I lean forward, afraid of missing a single word.

  When the music stops I barely notice. Abigail’s niece is bowing in front of the judges and I am twisting the red ribbon around and around on my wrist, thinking of a pregnant girl I’d sat next to on a riverbank.

  I push past Isabelle and Abigail, who are still clapping, and slam my way through the double stage doors, not caring that I knock a couple of bun heads out of the way. I rip off one of my jackets and storm toward the exits. I just need air.

  “Hank,” Jack calls through the crowd, “Hank, guess who this is?” He is pointing at the brown-eyed girl, but then a sea of people push past and Jack is swallowed up by more bun heads and tutus.

  The room grows blurry. Jack keeps calling my name, but I need to find an exit.

  I’ve turned the wrong way again, back toward the hallway that led backstage. I’m like a rat in a maze. Another exit sign appears up ahead, but just before I reach it, a hand grabs the bottom of my jacket from behind. “Hank,” says Jack. “Stop.”

  The girl beside him is holding the paper towel with the name “Selma” on it in Phil’s thick, black handwriting. I stare at the letters, remembering how Jack traced them all the way across the Yukon. Of course they would lead straight to a real live girl, if for no other reason than Jack believed they would. She is looking at him with brown mud-puddle eyes, and they are shimmering, as if he holds all the answers to the universe.

  “This is Selma,” Jack whispers.

  We all just stand there staring at each other.

  Until the backstage doors fly open and four people walk out. Isabelle, Abigail, the ballerina, and…

  “I KNEW IT,” Jack cries. “SAM, I KNEW YOU WERE ALIVE!”

  I didn’t even have time to catch my breath. One minute Sam was there, handing me a bouquet of roses as we exited through the side stage doors, and the next minute he was on the ground with another boy on top of him.

  Aunt Abigail and a woman I’d never seen before were blowing their noses into hankies, and Selma was standing there looking like she’d just stepped off a fast-moving train. Then Mom came running out from stage left, skipping toward me with more flowers and saying, “You were wonderful.” But then she stopped, taking in the commotion all around us.

  Off to the side, another boy was slumped down against the wall with his head in his hands. Everyone seemed to notice him at the same moment. Sam disentangled himself from the first and went over to the other one, who was older, sadder, and more disheveled. Sam kneeled, burying his head in the boy’s shoulder. The words he’d been mumbling grew louder and louder as Sam hugged him: “I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead.”

  Jack. Hank. It was like walking from a dark room into bright sunlight. My eyes kept trying to adjust, unable to focus on seeing these three brothers, all finally together.

  And just when Sam had started to lose faith that he would actually find them.

  “It’s beginning to feel like a needle in a haystack,” he’d said, as soon as we were back in Fairbanks. Mom was overly excited to have us and had made her famous lasagna for a “welcome home” meal. Afterward as we cleaned up in the kitchen, she stressed that Sam could stay as long as he needed to.

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” she told him.

  “You have?” I asked.

  “Oh Alyce, it’s not as if your father and I never talk.”

  “You do?”

  But she just swatted me playfully like I was kidding around.

  “My sister works at the paper,” she told Sam. “If your brothers are in Fairbanks, she’ll be the first to know.”

  He smiled and thanked her, but when she went back out to the dining room for more dirty plates, it was obvious his smile hadn’t been real.

  I can tell what Sam’s feeling by the shadows that flit across his face; the way his eyes flash many shades of brown, like a spinning kaleidoscope, especially when he is thinking about his brothers.

  “Aunt Abigail is on it,” I told him. “She’s a great reporter and she knows everything and everyone. Really, she’ll find them.”

  He’d moved forward and draped the dish towel he was holding around my shoulders, pulled me right up to his face, and kissed me. I’d been waiting for that kiss for weeks, but it still caught me off guard. I didn’t know what to do with my soapy hands, so I ran them through his hair and kissed him back—hard. Just like I’d wanted to so many times before, on the flying bridge, in the Pelican, even covered in blood in the troll pit. “Salt,” he murmured. “I knew you’d taste salty.”

  Apparently all of this caught my moth
er off guard, too, as she came barreling into the kitchen with another stack of plates that flew out of her arms, crashing to the floor and scaring the living daylights out of all of us.

  I’m so busy remembering that kiss, I barely feel the tug on my arm pulling me back to the auditorium hallway. In front of me on the red flowered carpet, Sam and Hank are still holding on to each other. I can feel my mascara running down my cheeks.

  “Hi,” says a blurry face pressing close to mine.

  “Jack?”

  The face nods.

  “Did Sam give you that?” He points to the red rubber band sticking out from where I tried to hide it under my bun.

  “He did.”

  “Did you know it’s lucky?” he asks.

  “That’s why I’m wearing it.”

  “Did you save him?”

  “I tried,” I say. “Maybe he saved me?”

  “Yeah, that’s what we do, isn’t it?” Jack says. “We save each other.”

  “You’re exactly how he described you,” I tell him, and he grins.

  “You were amazing,” Selma says, stepping closer to Jack and me. Her smile is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on Selma’s face before. “Your audition, Alyce…it was perfect. You are definitely going to get in.” She’s holding a crumpled paper towel with her name on it and looks funny—punch-drunk.

  “Thanks…what’s that?” I ask. She’s cradling it almost the same way I’m holding the bouquet of roses from Sam.

  She presses it close to her chest, as if it’s a love letter. “Just something I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

  I can’t wrap my mind around what’s made Selma act so un-Selma-like—normally it’s impossible to get her to stop talking—but nothing makes sense right now and my legs are cramping up. I need to go stretch but the emotion in the hallway is so thick, it would be easier to cut through the neck bone of a salmon than walk past all these people. Sam is whispering in Hank’s ear. Maybe he’s telling him the story of the orcas, and how he ended up here?