When the Lights Go Out(53)

I pull open the closet door to reveal a large walk-in. It’s empty now, all of Mom’s clothes moved to the rack beside the bed. Only hooks and a mirror remain—a silver-framed oval mirror that Mom and I used to make silly faces in front of when I was a girl. I’d stand on a chair so that I could see inside, and there we’d stare at our reflections side by side in the glass.

The mirror hangs on the closet wall, an oversight only, for it won’t be long before the liquidator pulls that too from the wall and sticks a price tag on it, snatching memories right along with it, memories of my crossed eyeballs, Mom’s fish face.

I run a hand along the glass, remembering how sometimes we didn’t make silly faces at all. How sometimes I’d just sit on the floor beside her feet and watch as Mom stared at herself, her dark hair and eyes so unlike the dishwater-blond hair that sat on my head, the tufts of eyebrow hair that stuck straight up, same as they do now. Unlike me, Mom didn’t have dimples. My dimples are much more than simple holes in the cheeks, but more like deep comma-shaped gorges. I didn’t get those from Mom. There isn’t one feature on my face that came from her.

Even as a kid, I saw the way Mom looked when she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked sad. I wondered what she saw. For some reason I don’t think it was the same pretty face that I saw.

I’m about to leave when I spot something out of the corner of my eye, something I’ve never noticed in Mom’s closet before. Something that would have otherwise been hidden behind the hems of clothes, except that now there are no clothes to taint the view.

I have to look twice to be sure that it’s there, that I’m not only imagining it’s there. What it is is black, metal, covered in louvers. A door. A boxy little door that hovers less than a foot above the hardwood floors.

I drop to my hands and knees and pull on the door’s knob, finding a crawl space on the other side. A crawl space. I never knew we had a crawl space before.

The space is dark and dingy, the ceiling low. The floor is dirt, covered only by a thick sheet of plastic. I can’t believe I never found this place before. How many times did I dig my way through Mom’s closet for clues as to who my father could be? But as it so happened, I never dug far enough. Instead I gave up when I got to the clothes, taking for granted that there was nothing on the other side but a wall.

Only one time did Mom bring my father up all on her own, without my begging. I was twelve years old. Mom had had a glass of wine before bed. She said to me that night, seconds before she fell asleep, head draped over the rock-hard sofa arm, A long time ago, I did something I’m not proud of, Jessie. Something that shames me. And that’s how I got you.

The next thing I heard was the sound of her half-drunk snore, but by morning I couldn’t bring myself to ask what she’d meant by it.

I reach inside the crawl space and drag something out. What it is, I don’t know. Not until I get it into the closet’s light do I see that it’s a plastic storage bin, and the adrenaline kicks in at the prospect of what I might find inside. My social security card, for one, but more likely, something having to do with my father, which suddenly, in this moment, takes precedence. Something Mom kept tucked away so that I wouldn’t find it.

I tear the lid off, finding photo albums inside. I find myself feeling hopeful, wondering what I’ll find in them. Photos of Mom, photos of my father, photos of Mom and her own mom and dad.

But of course not. Instead it’s me. All me.

I set the album aside to take back to the carriage home with me.

I crawl toward the crawl space, feeling blindly inside for another box. I can’t reach far enough in to grab it, and so I have to crawl in through the door. Inside, the space is only about thirty-six-inches tall. I’m not fully in before claustrophobia settles in. The dirty floors and wooden beams close in around me. The darkness is smothering. The only light comes from behind. I find another storage bin and drag it out backward, through the access panel and onto the closet floor, grateful for a little elbow room.

I open the lid and have a look, hoping that this is the mother lode I’ve been in search of. The answer to all the questions I have. But it’s not. It’s nothing, just a bunch of inconsequential items in a plastic storage bin, which makes me realize this isn’t a secret crawl space at all, but just a crawl space. For storage. For stuff Mom had no other place to put.

She didn’t intentionally keep this a secret from me. I just never knew it was here.

I sigh, feeling uncomfortable and glum. I rise to my feet, stretching my hands above my head, arching my back. But my movements are quick and careless. The blood flees my brain as I stand up, leaving me light-headed and dizzy. All of these nights without sleep are taking their toll on me. I reach for the wall to steady myself, crashing into the mirror as I do. I watch on helplessly as the mirror loses its hold on the wall and I can’t catch it in time. I’m too slow to stop it from falling.

It slips from its nail and slams to the ground, scratching the wall as it does, leaving a four-foot scrape in the paint. The entire mirror shatters before my eyes. Broken glass spreads like spiderwebs, chunks falling to the hardwood floors. And all I can think about is bad luck. Seven entire years of bad luck that await me now.

I curse out loud, wondering if there’s any hope of salvaging the mirror. I start to gather the biggest chunks in my hand, careful that I don’t step on the tiny shards of glass.