Darling Rose Gold(14)

Across the street is the Thompsons’ wretched house. When I was a kid, the two boys were always playing with scrap metal in the yard, their faces covered with dirt, even first thing in the morning. “Like barbarians,” my mother would cluck, watching them from our window.

The Thompsons intrigued me because they had a horse. I never saw the horse leave its pen. Until, one day, it was gone. The Thompsons too. No one knew where they went, but they didn’t take any of their junk with them. Now the yard is littered with knee-high weeds, spare tires, and fast-food wrappers. I guess this is still the hangout for Deadwick’s derelicts.

I can’t believe the Peabodys never hassled someone into cleaning up the place. What an eyesore out their front window.

Behind the garage is the pool deck David, my dad, and I built. I take a few steps toward the deck. The wood has splintered, the paint is chipped, and the giant hole in the middle of the deck is still empty. Dad had grand plans for an aboveground pool, but never got around to finishing the job.

Rose Gold finally pulls her keys from her bag, unlocks the front door and steps over the threshold, but not before taking Adam back from me.

“Hello, handsome.” She smiles, rocking the baby, touching his cheeks, and kissing his forehead. She has forgotten about her mother. He is all she cares about.

We’ll have to fix that.

I follow close behind and find myself face-to-face with my old living room. Dark wood paneling still covers the walls. The steel blue carpet is worn and needs to be replaced. The furniture is sparse: two brown BarcaLoungers, a coffee table, and an ancient television. The walls are bare—no family photos, no art, nothing. The place is somehow less welcoming now than it was when I was a child.

“How long have you lived here?” I ask. Rose Gold motions for me to follow her down the hallway to the bedrooms.

“A few months. I haven’t had time to decorate with the baby and all.”

We walk toward my parents’ bedroom. The door is closed. Rose Gold pushes it open.

The first thing I notice is the color, or lack thereof. Everything is white, from the walls to her bedspread to the dresser. Even the crib in the corner is made of white wood. I would’ve bet my left boob I’d find some combination of pink, purple, and sea green on her walls. Those used to be her favorite colors.

Her bed is tidy, although the pillow is deflated on one side, as if the stuffing has been torn out of it. There are no photos of Adam or me or anyone else. Every surface is clean, organized, characterless. The room reminds me of a psych ward crossed with a convent.

I realize Rose Gold is waiting for my reaction, so I bob my head. “It suits you.”

She keeps moving, entering my childhood bedroom. “I thought you could stay in this one.”

The walls are sponge-painted lilac. The one piece of furniture inside the room is a flimsy twin bed with a plain white sheet. I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect my daughter to give me the master bedroom. I’m in her home now, a guest—long-term if I play this right.

I follow her gaze upward. Painted on the ceiling are two giant lifelike eyes. I yelp and jump back. The eyes are blue and watery, like they’re upset with me.

Rose Gold chuckles. “Those Peabodys sure had a strange sense of humor.”

I have a hard time believing the Peabodys were responsible for commissioning this “art.” Even when they were young, their idea of a wild night was staying up until ten to play chess. They were the types to decorate their house with the kids’ school crafts. Someone with talent painted these eyes.

Scooting closer to the door doesn’t help. The eyes watch me wherever I am in the room. They’ll have to be painted over. Immediately.

“And this is, as you know, the third bedroom,” Rose Gold says from my older brother’s room, across the hallway. I close the door to mine, eager to put the eyes behind me. I glance inside David’s room, empty except for a handful of unopened boxes. I can still picture the desk covered with doodles, the leather journal shoved under the mattress, the Swiss Army knife on the nightstand, spear-point blade out. I rush past the room and stop in the bathroom all four of us shared.

Rose Gold follows me, clutching Adam. “Everything okay?”

I loosen my grip on the countertop and smile weakly at her in the mirror. “A lot of memories in this house.”

Rose Gold returns my smile. “I thought we could relive some of them. I’d like to learn more about my extended family.” Rose Gold never met her grandparents; my father’s been dead almost forty years, my mother for thirty.

My daughter leaves the bathroom, rocking Adam and walking down the hallway toward the kitchen. I stare at my pale complexion in the mirror, racking my brain. Why would Rose Gold buy my parents’ house? Maybe she’s still upset with me. Maybe she hates me enough to buy a house solely to taunt me. But if so, why agree to let me live with her in the first place? Why not move away—new state, clean start?

Of course, if she left, I would find her.

I rush out of the small bathroom, feeling claustrophobic. I make a quick pass through the kitchen—still the same dark wood cabinets and olive countertops—and head back to the living room, ready for my recliner.

“Wait,” Rose Gold says, opening the door to the basement. “You haven’t been downstairs yet.”

My upper body stiffens and my legs turn to jelly. When I was a kid, the basement was unfinished, walls and floor made of concrete. The idea was to create a second family room, but the space became Dad’s hideaway. He had a workstation with all his tools, plus a coffin-sized freezer, where he stored all the deer meat he hunted. I haven’t been down there since I was seven. I won’t even touch the doorknob. Every October 3 since 1961, try as I might to forget, I always remember.