Before She Knew Him(80)

Back in his car, he stowed the Scotch in his glove compartment. It was nice just knowing it was there, even if he decided he didn’t need it.

From the liquor store, he drove through Middleham back toward Dartford, taking Sudbury Road over to Blackberry Lane. He almost didn’t turn down his own street for fear that the police were already there, but decided to take a chance. If there were any suspicious vehicles, he’d simply pull into another driveway, then turn around and leave. And if they weren’t there yet, then he’d have a chance to do what he should have done a long time ago. He took the turn down Blackberry, all the properties except for one—a monstrous new pillared house—built in the decade after World War II, charmless boxes designed to contain an average American family. The lane dead-ended at a cul-de-sac that was ringed by four properties, including Richard’s childhood home. It belonged to him now; well, technically it really belonged to Matthew, who paid the taxes on it. The house—half brick and half white siding—was set back behind a cluster of white pines. The front yard was covered with a layer of brown pine needles, and the driveway asphalt was cracked and choked with weeds. The house itself, at least from the outside, still looked decent, although the white vinyl siding had begun to turn a mossy green. A blank, dumb house, Richard thought, not for the first time. He swung the car around the circular dead end and parked it so that its nose was facing back toward Sudbury Road. Before getting out of his car, he took a little sip from his bottle of Scotch.

After entering through the front door, he called out, “Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. I’m home,” like he always did. It cracked him up, although he always had a little bit of fear that one day his greeting would be returned. It never was, though, and this would be the last time he’d ever enter this house. He went up the stairs, the air changing as he got to the top. It was stagnant, smelling of mildew, but underneath that smell was the unmistakable tang of something dead, a sweet, cloying odor. Probably a dead squirrel in one of the walls, he told himself. He didn’t want to stay upstairs too long—it disgusted him, and not just because of the rot—but he did want to get one of his dad’s suitcases from his parents’ old bedroom. He pushed the bedroom door open with his foot. It was dim inside the room, the curtains pulled, and as Richard entered, he heard something scurry along the floorboards. Ignoring it, he took out his phone and, using its flashlight, walked to the closet, the door already open. He spotted the large plaid suitcase tucked toward the back. He grasped its leather handle and pulled it out, glad to discover that it was empty. He put the suitcase on the bed, the air in the room now swirling with disturbed dust. It tasted almost bitter at the back of Richard’s throat. There were two things in this room he wanted: his mother’s framed picture of her own parents—a short, dour man in a felt hat with a feather in its brim and a woman in a house dress, a sad smile on her lips—and his father’s old billfold. He knew right where it was, in the top drawer of the bureau. It contained a two-dollar bill, his father’s driver’s license, his Triple A card, a few business cards, plus a folded-up clipping from a magazine of Bo Derek on the beach.

Richard took the wallet and the picture and put both of them inside of the suitcase, then zipped it back up and left the room after taking one final look around. It was, after all, the room where he’d found the body of his mother. He’d known she was dead as soon as he saw her outline under the chenille bedspread. She was curled into a tight ball, like an animal that knows it’s dying and goes to ground. Still, he’d lifted the bedspread off her and taken a long look. Her yellowed nightgown was bunched up around her waist, and there was dried vomit around her head. In one hand was a vodka bottle—Smirnoff, if he remembered correctly—and there was an empty pill bottle on the bedside table. Her other hand was up against her face. When Richard had taken a closer look he realized that she’d been sucking her thumb when she died.

Back downstairs, he filled the suitcase with the few other things he wanted. It wasn’t much, just framed photos mostly, a family Bible that had been passed down to his father, the set of Ginsu knives his mother had bought from the television, and the mason jar that was hidden under the loose floorboard in the pantry. Richard had found it there only a few years ago. There was about a thousand dollars in cash in the jar.

With the suitcase full, Richard went down into the basement, again using his cell phone flashlight, and got the two gallon cans of gasoline that had been down there for as long as he could remember. He used the first can on the curtains and along the runner carpet that went up the middle of the stairs to the second floor. It was empty much sooner than he expected, and he was more careful with the second can, splashing a little bit here and there around the first floor of the house, saving most of it for his father’s recliner, first pushing it over toward the wall so that it touched the heavy velvet curtains that draped across the front windows. The fabric had split from the recliner’s seat, revealing crumbling yellow Styrofoam, which he soaked with the remaining gasoline. The smell of the gas bit at his nostrils and his throat and made his eyes water.

He had a set of matches from the Owl’s Head Tavern in his pocket and he lit one, dropped it onto the soaked cushion. It just sat there for a moment, the flame flickering weakly, then there was a loud whump, and the cushion was fully ablaze. He grabbed the suitcase and exited out the front door, walking at a normal pace back to his car, catching movement in one of the windows of the closest house, probably Mrs. MacDonald watching his every move. Maybe he’d be lucky and the fire would spread to her house as well.