Hummingbird Salamander(83)
[89]
“Family exists to betray” Silvina had written in her journal. “Family doesn’t know another way.”
Still raining when I reached the little side road in the valley leading to the farm. Sometime in the past twenty years it had been paved. I didn’t like that. Didn’t like the erasure of memory. I’d already wound down through change, from the heights. Ghastly, modernist cubes, almost all glass. Trying to pretend they were part of the landscape.
Large lots. Rich people’s summer homes. They’d been rare, back in the day. Now the entire ridgeline looked like a tech bro campus. If oddly still. Silent. I could already tell they’d cut off the creek water to put in wastewater ponds and other “improvements.” All that was left was a beautiful waterfall down a rock face that dribbled off into nothing.
My sense of being remote faded. The farm was in commute territory. I felt defeated. But maybe it was just because I’d driven for twelve hours.
The next surprise: the family name still on the mailbox. Where the side road split off from the paved main road. Except the side road, too, had been paved, and a low white wooden fence ran alongside. Cheery.
I drove slow, and not because of the rain. A mounting dread. Landmark after landmark came into view. The weird weathervane stuck in the ground, now rich with green lichen. The huge rock formation jutting out of nowhere that we’d imaginatively called “Comet.” But new things, too. A meadow where I could’ve sworn there had been woods. A new forest that looked like a tree farm where my father had once planted crops. The whole time the sense of the rich looking down on us, because if I craned my neck, I could see the LED lights from glass boxes on stilts. A kind of odd, alien judgment.
The greens were so various, so fresh, though. Seen through the rain-smudged window. Reduced to textures. I put the window down a crack and let in the same clean smell I remembered. That unique dead leaves, new growth smell.
By the time I pulled up in the driveway and parked next to the house, I was both restored and hollowed out. But the house defeated me all over again. Everything had a sheen and sense of being well maintained that felt off.
The barn freshly painted a deep red with white stripes. The house a dull yet feisty blue, also with white trim. The roof gray and in perfect condition, except for leaves and small branches from the storm. A few chickens pecked in the gravel and weeds, enjoying the rain. Off to the side, past the oak tree, an enormous white tent had been set up. For what purpose, I couldn’t guess.
I got out, holding my cane, but not bothering with the extra struggle of an umbrella. The people who lived here hadn’t been downtrodden, surely. It felt like an exhibit or a model home. Made me doubt my memories. A stranger who came upon this place wouldn’t guess a madwoman had lived here, an abusive grandfather.
A cheery light shone butter yellow from the kitchen. The door had a piece of driftwood nailed to it with the words “Peace in the Lord’s Home” painted on.
It felt so unreal, I wondered if I’d died, jumping off the balcony, and all the rest was purgatory or hell. That would explain a lot.
I knocked anyway, sure a stranger would answer. Leaning on the cane. Trying to compose a smile that wasn’t a wince.
The door swung open and Shot stood there.
* * *
I stepped back sudden, lost my footing even with the cane, went sprawling on my back, one hand out, fallen to the wet gravel.
Shot had been smiling, but now he looked concerned, said my name, came out to help me up. And I let him, because it was my father, not Shot. He had just grown into, or shrunk into, Shot with age. Couldn’t figure out which. My father wore one of those same wool plaid shirts Shot favored. His beard grown long and wispy-white like Shot’s. As if my father had made a kind of disguise out of his own father.
But the eyes were different. The hard glint, the cold, black reflection, wasn’t there.
Imagine you expect the House of Usher.
Imagine you’ve steeled yourself for rot and decay and dysfunction.
Imagine you brace your will against that door opening. And when it’s all different. When it’s different, it’s like the weight you were fighting against dissolves into mist and you fall because there’s nothing left to lean against. And you wonder about all the other things that prop you up.
Silvina, is that part of what you wanted me to know?
[90]
Inside, they sat me down at the kitchen table. I could feel every one of my injuries screaming at me. I’d put too much strain on my body. Thought my strength made me invincible. Now I would pay, and keep paying.
The kitchen table was different. A remodeled kitchen. “Bright and cheery,” like one of my husband’s real estate listings. “With a chipper blue backsplash and stainless steel stovetop, along with light rosewood cabinets.” The smell of lemons too antiseptic to be real.
I preferred to look at the kitchen than at the bird-like woman who brought me coffee and a day-old chocolate donut “from the co-op.” “Bird-like” meant “alarmingly tall and stork-like.” Not an unfriendly bird, but wary. How could I blame her, even as I blamed her fiercely. A giant lump of black sheep daughter, sodden, had come unbidden through the door. A burgeoning arsenal hidden in her car, trailing a wake of carnage. On a quest that could not be explained with ease or confidence.