Lock and Key(6)

“Whoa,” I said, drawing my foot back and looking around me. Whatever the liquid was had now spread, propelled by my shoe, and I froze, so as not to send it any farther. Barely a half hour in, and already I’d managed to violate Cora’s perfect palace. I was looking around me, wondering what I could possibly find to wipe it up with—the tapestry on the nearby wall? something in the umbrella stand?—when the light clicked on over my head.

“Hey,” Jamie said, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “I thought I heard something. Come on in, we’re just about—” Suddenly, he stopped talking, having spotted the puddle and my proximity to it. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

“Quick,” he said, cutting me off and tossing me the dishtowel. “Get it up, would you? Before she—”

I caught the towel and was about to bend over when I realized it was too late. Cora was now standing in the archway behind him, peering around his shoulder. “Jamie,” she said, and he jumped, startled. “Is that—?”

“No,” he said flatly. “It’s not.”

My sister, clearly not convinced, stepped around him and walked over for a closer look. “It is,” she said, turning back to look at her husband, who had slunk back farther into the kitchen. “It’s pee.”

“Cor—”

“It’s pee, again,” she said, whirling around to face him. “Isn’t this why we put in that dog door?”

Dog? I thought, although I supposed this was a relief, considering I’d been worried I was about to find out something really disturbing about my brother-in-law. “You have a dog?” I asked. Cora sighed in response.

“Mastery of a dog door takes time,” Jamie told her, grabbing a roll of paper towels off a nearby counter and walking over to us. Cora stepped aside as he ripped off a few sheets, then squatted down, tossing them over the puddle and adjacent splashes. “You know that expression. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

Cora shook her head, then walked back into the kitchen without further comment. Jamie, still down on the floor, ripped off a few more paper towels and then dabbed at my shoe, glancing up at me. “Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s an issue.”

I nodded, not sure what to say to this. So I just folded the dishtowel and followed him into the kitchen, where he tossed the paper towels into a stainless-steel trash can. Cora was by the windows that looked out over the deck, setting the wide, white table there. I watched as she folded cloth napkins, setting one by each of three plates, before laying out silverware: fork, knife, spoon. There were also place-mats, water glasses, and a big glass pitcher with sliced lemons floating in it. Like the rest of the house, it looked like something out of a magazine, too perfect to even be real.

Just as I thought this, I heard a loud, rattling sound. It was like a noise your grandfather would make, once he passed out in his recliner after dinner, but it was coming from behind me, in the laundry room. When I turned around, I saw the dog.

Actually first, I saw everything else: the large bed, covered in what looked like sheepskin, the pile of toys—plastic rings, fake newspapers, rope bones—and, most noticeable of all, a stuffed orange chicken, sitting upright. Only once I’d processed all these accoutrements did I actually make out the dog itself, which was small, black and white, and lying on its back, eyes closed and feet in the air, snoring. Loudly.

“That’s Roscoe,” Jamie said to me as he pulled open the fridge. “Normally, he’d be up and greeting you. But our dog walker came for the first time today, and I think it wore him out. In fact, that’s probably why he had that accident in the foyer. He’s exhausted.”

“What would be out of the ordinary,” Cora said, “is if he actually went outside.”

From the laundry room, I heard Roscoe let out another loud snore. It sounded like his nasal passages were exploding.

“Let’s just eat,” Cora said. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down.

I waited for Jamie to take his place at the head of the table before claiming the other chair. It wasn’t until I was seated and got a whiff of the pot of spaghetti sauce to my left that I realized I was starving. Jamie picked up Cora’s plate, putting it over his own, then served her some spaghetti, sauce, and salad before passing it back to her. Then he gestured for mine, and did the same before filling his own plate. It was all so formal, and normal, that I felt strangely nervous, so much so that I found myself watching my sister, picking up my fork only when she did. Which was so weird, considering how long it had been since I’d taken any cues from Cora. Still, there had been a time when she had taught me everything, so maybe, like so much else, this was just instinct.

“So tomorrow,” Jamie said, his voice loud and cheerful, “we’re going to get you registered for school. Cora’s got a meeting, so I’ll be taking you over to my old stomping ground.”

I glanced up. “I’m not going to Jackson?”

“Out of district,” Cora replied, spearing a cucumber with her fork. “And even if we got an exception, the commute is too long.”

“But it’s mid-semester,” I said. I had a flash of my locker, the bio project I’d just dropped off the week before, all of it, like my stuff in the yellow house, just abandoned. I swallowed, taking a breath. “I can’t just leave everything.”