The Things We Hold on To
Sara Yaroch
“Please tell me why this burger wrapper is still in my cup holder,” Rachel said. The yellow paper ball crinkled in between her fingers as she held it in front of her husband’s face like she was in an episode of CSI.
“Rach,” Kevin said, grabbing the wrapper out of her hand, “relax. It’s just a wrapper. I meant to get rid of it at the rest stop, but I’m sure your mom will let us throw it out in her garbage if you’re that worried about it.”
Kevin turned the car key, pulled it out of the ignition, and looked at his wife, who was staring up and past him—at the second-story window of her mother’s house.
“Under no circumstances are you to take that wrapper inside,” Rachel said. “For Christ’s sake, it’s better off back in here.” She grabbed it out of Kevin’s hand and threw it back in the cup holder.
“Mommy calm down,” their daughter said from her booster seat. Kevin looked at his wife with a raised eyebrow.
Rachel closed her eyes and put a hand on her abdomen--just like they taught in her yoga class—and breathed in through her nose, then out through her mouth, timing her exhalation to extend precisely twice the length of her inhalation. 1:2 breathing was what they had called it, swearing that it would work.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said, opening her eyes and looking at her husband. “It’s not the wrapper.” She peered up at the dingy, pale-yellow curtains in the window, which swayed back and forth as if someone had just been peeking through them.
“I know,” Kevin said, following Rachel’s gaze up to the window. “You’ve been acting weird ever since we pulled off the freeway. What’s up? I mean, are you having second thoughts about stopping to see your mom?”
“I never wanted to stop here, you did,” Rachel muttered.
“What’s that?” Kevin said, turning back to his wife.
“Nothing.” Rachel sighed. “It’s just…you remember all the stuff I told you about my mom and the way I grew up?”
“What, about your mom’s housekeeping skills? So she’s not a neat freak like you. I get it.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t get it.” The curtains had ceased their swinging. Rachel tried to remember if they had once been white before turning their current shade of soured milk. “She’s a hoarder, Kevin, and I really don’t think you’re prepared to see what you’re about to see, so if you want to just go home, I’m okay with that.”
“Well, we’re already here in her driveway. It’d be kind of awkward if we left now without at least saying hi. Hey--” Kevin tilted her chin down to force eye contact. “We’ve been married for five years and some change now. Do you really think that there’s anything I’m going to see in there that’s going to change how I feel about you? I mean, come on. My dad’s picked his earwax with his trusty pen cap right in front of you, and you didn’t even bat an eyelash.”
Rachel exhaled as if she had been holding her breath and smiled. “Your dad really is a wonderful guy, but—”
“It’s beyond retch inducing. I know. Point is, we’ve all got our stuff, Rach. But it’s important, I think, for Chloe to have some relationship with her grandma. Plus, how bad can it really be?”
The smile faded, and Rachel rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she pulled her purse onto her lap. She held the bag open with one hand while the other searched through its contents, eventually pulling out a small vial. “Alright then, tough guy. Hold out your finger.”
“My what?”
“Just do it.”
Kevin held out his hand while Rachel unscrewed the cap on a vial. “Oh come on, honey,” he said, retracting his fingers to a protective position against his chest. “Not the essential oils again. You know I’m not into that like you are.”
“Do you want to go in there or not?”
“Is that why you want my finger? I’m not putting that stuff on me. It’s one thing for our bathroom to smell like a bouquet of flowers, but my hand?”
“You want to visit my mom, then you do what I say. Now give me your finger.” Kevin extended his index finger toward his wife as if he were attempting to touch a rattlesnake, and Rachel applied several drops onto the pad of his finger. “Now rub that above your lip, right under your nose.” Rachel unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to demonstrate on their daughter.
“Candy canes!” Chloe said, breathing in through her nose and clapping her hands. “Yum!”
“Yeah, baby,” Kevin said, looking into the rearview mirror. “We smell like candy canes. I don’t know why, but we smell like candy canes.”
“You’ll thank me later,” Rachel said. She got out of the car and walked around to the rear driver’s-side door to get Chloe out of her seat. Holding her daughter’s hand, Rachel walked up the three slanting steps to the door on the side of the house and started banging on the weathered wood with the heel of her hand.
“Geez, Rach,” Kevin said. “Do you think you’re banging loud enough?”
Rachel rested her hand on the door frame and looked up at the window, then resumed her pounding. “Yes,” Rachel said, still looking up. The curtains moved to the side about an inch, and Rachel let her hand fall to her side and took a step back.
“So now what?” Kevin said. “I mean, should we call her or something?”
“No, she’s coming. And you know she never knows where she’s put her phone. Otherwise we could have gotten ahold of her to let her know we were coming.”
“Okay, so we wait?”
“We wait,” Rachel said.
“Mommy,” Chloe said, tugging at her pant leg, “I’m bored.”
“I know, baby,” Rachel said, leaning closer to the door. “But Grandma won’t be much longer.” She could hear papers rustling and boxes being moved. Then the door shook against its frame before opening an inch, and then a foot.
A woman with gray cropped hair and clear plastic-rimmed glasses slipped through the opening and stood before them on the landing. Her mint-green nightgown flowed around her in the evening breeze, making her small frame appear much larger than it really was.
“Well, I’ll be,” the woman said. “Isn’t this a pleasant surprise.”
“We hope you don’t mind that we stopped by without calling first, Mrs. Henderson,” Kevin said. “We were just on our way back from vacation—Disney.” Kevin nodded in Chloe’s direction.
“Mind? Not at all. Oh, it’s so good to see you, especially you, Chloe dear.” Rachel’s mother bent over so she was closer to Chloe’s eye level. “I haven’t seen you since your first birthday party. You’re getting so big. You must be what, three now?”
“Four,” Rachel said.
“Well, come here and give your grandma a hug.” Rachel’s mother held out her arms, but Chloe latched onto Rachel’s leg and buried her face.
“It’s okay, Chloe,” Rachel said. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen her, but this is your grandma. Do you want to give her a hug?” The little girl looked up at her mother and shook her head. “Okay, then maybe later. She’s a little shy, Mom.”
“I remember how it is. You know, you used to cry when I took you over to your grandparents’ house. Then you realized that they’d give you caramels every time you went there, and that was the end of that. Maybe I’ll have to find something sweet to give her.”
“We really try to limit her sugar intake, Mom.”
Rachel’s mother shrugged her shoulders. “Suit yourself. I just thought that was a grandma’s job, to spoil her grandchild. Oh, I know! I just picked up a Cabbage Patch doll from a garage sale the other day—I think it’s a 1982 Coleco, probably worth a lot of money, but I haven’t gotten around to getting it appraised. Come on upstairs, and I’ll see if I can find it for her. Would you like a dolly, Chloe?”
Chloe nodded, and Rachel’s mom turned and slid in sideways through the opening in the door, saying, “And Kevin, I thought I’ve told you before to call me Mom.”
Rachel stepped forward to the door’s opening, then turned back to Kevin. “Be careful coming in. The basement stairs are right here.” Rachel pointed to the left of the door’s opening. “I’ll go in and then you can send Chloe in so I can make sure she doesn’t fall down the stairs.”
“Can’t we just push the door open a little more?” Kevin said, pressing his hand on the door. It didn’t move. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said, stepping sideways into the house, followed by Chloe and Kevin.
“How do you get to the basement?” Kevin said once inside, his eyes watering as he stared at the two greenish-black bespeckled steps visible below the landing. Boxes and loose debris filled the remaining space.
“You don’t,” Rachel said, pulling him up the left side of another small set of stairs—the right being occupied by more boxes and partially filled plastic bags—onto the main floor. “And that’s what the peppermint was for,” she whispered in his ear.
“If I could ever get it cleaned out,” Rachel’s mother said from the top of the stairs, “there’s some nice stuff down there. I’ve got some Waterford crystal in one of those boxes. The good stuff, not the cheap kind like they make nowadays. I could probably sell it for a pretty penny.”
“If it wasn’t crushed under five thousand pounds of shit,” Rachel muttered.
She followed her mother down the narrow hallway, turning her head and pressing her nose into her shoulder to breathe in. She exhaled slowly, placing one foot in front of the other as if she were walking on a tightrope above a wastewater treatment plant.
“What’s that? Did you saying something, Rachel?” her mom said, turning to look at her daughter and catching herself on a black garbage bag that toppled to the floor. Her mother picked the bag up and pressed it into the wall, the space she created discharging an odor that caused Rachel to grab the wall for support. Realizing what she had done, she retracted her hand and looked around her before wiping it on her pant leg.
“We were wondering what that thing is, Mom?” Kevin said in a loud voice, his index finger resting under his nose. When Rachel’s mother turned to look, he pointed to a large metal stand with a brown belt hanging off of it.
Rachel’s mom walked back toward her daughter, almost hugging her as she passed by to where Kevin was standing.
“That,” she said, resting her hand on the waist-level black box, “is a Walton Belt Vibrator from the 1950s. See, you put this belt here around your waist and turn it on, and, well, it was supposed to vibrate so fast that it would melt the fat away. It’s a collector’s item now, of course.”
“Where’d you get that one, Mom?” Rachel asked.
“I found it at the flea market on Tilson Street, got it for a steal.”
“And does it still work?” Rachel said.
“Not at the moment, but I know a guy who can fix it up. And then it’ll be worth even more.” She shuffled her way past Rachel, grabbing the back of an upholstered chair buried in scraps of moldy burlap material. The chair released a gray-orange dust cloud into the air. Rachel’s mother walked through the haze and started climbing the stairs.
“It smells, Mommy,” Chloe said, tugging on her mother’s shirt.
“I know, baby,” Rachel said, crouching down so she could look Chloe in the eyes. “We’re only going to stay for a few minutes. Then how about we take Grandma out to eat?”
“Okay,” Chloe said.
“Just try to focus on the candy cane smell, and when we go up the stairs, I want you to hold onto the back of my shirt, okay?” Chloe nodded and followed her mother around the outer corner of the staircase to snake their way to the second floor.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for the path to be on the side of the stairs with railing?” Kevin said in a low tone. He held his hands near Chloe’s bottom as she climbed the stairs, clutching her mother’s t-shirt, which stretched out behind her like a cape. “Or maybe Chloe and I could wait in the living room or something?”
“We’re going to the living room,” Rachel said, continuing up the stairs.
When she reached the top, she looked to the right, where her bedroom used to be. The hallway was walled off with clothes, some with tags still attached, and bundles of sewing fabric, holes chewed straight through, most likely by her mother’s housemates. Their small offerings dotted the landing like fetid confetti. Rachel kicked some of the black pellets off to the side, watching Chloe’s hands as she walked past them to ensure her daughter didn’t make the same mistake Rachel had as a child.
After navigating her daughter through the mine field, Rachel turned left, directly into her mother’s bedroom—and what Rachel suspected to be the only room her mother was now able to use.
“Come on in,” Rachel’s mother said, “don’t be shy. You can have a seat on the bed while I look for that doll.”
Rachel slid past her mother along the strip of floor visible next to the bed and sat down on the edge farthest from the door—right next to the small space heater sitting on what looked like a TV tray. Rachel felt her right side grow warm from the heat while her husband sat down next to her, pulling Chloe onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her waist like a lap bar on a roller coaster. Kevin’s eyes were the size of those on Chloe’s Disney dolls as they swept over the contents of the room—the wool blanket stretched haphazardly over the stained mattress, the half-empty food containers lining the perimeter of the bed, and the incomprehensible hodgepodge of junk threatening to swallow the room whole.
“I told you,” Rachel mouthed to Kevin. “So how have you been, Mom?” she said, louder.
Rachel’s mother was picking through the tops of the piles directly above her eye level, lifting up shirts and ornaments, inspecting them, then setting them back down. Sandwiched in between the layers was a beige dog bed, the faux fur matted down and browning.
“Oh, I can’t complain. I have plans to clear out this room, but my back keeps giving me such pain.”
“How’s Lucy?” Rachel said, reaching behind her to search for a warm mound in the blanket, then peering as far as she could under the edge of the bed.
“Well,” her mom said, rifling through the top layer of a Toys R Us bag, “Lucy ran off on me a little bit back.”
“She what?” Rachel said, straightening up.
“Who’s Lucy?” Kevin said.
“My puppy,” Rachel said. “I mean, she’s not a puppy anymore. Mom, Lucy wouldn’t just run off.”
“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Kevin said, his eyes shifting between Rachel and her mom.
“Lucy’s been my companion ever since my Rachel left home,” her mother said to Kevin. “And I’m sorry, Rachel. I don’t know what to tell you. She must have slipped out on me when I went out to get the mail.”
“And you didn’t think to call me and tell me?” Rachel said.
“Well, maybe she’ll come back,” Kevin said. “Dogs do that sometimes. What does she look like?”
“I sure hope you’re right, Kevin,” Rachel’s mom said, moving on from a partially collapsed box. “Oh, she was the most adorable Chihuahua. I had this little rhinestone collar she liked to wear, got it for a steal at an estate sale.”
“Sounds like a nice dog,” Kevin said. “Was she chipped?”
“What do you think?” Rachel said to Kevin. Then to her mother, “How long has she been gone? Did you think to call the animal shelter or anything?”
“It’s been a while, Rachel. And yes, I did look for her. But frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone snatched her up and took her home. People do that nowadays, you know?”
“Uh huh,” Rachel said. “So, Mom, have you done anything with my old room?”
Her mom glanced in the direction of the walled-off hallway. “I’m afraid it’s become somewhat of a storage area.”
“You don’t say.”
“Which room was yours?” Kevin said to his wife.
Rachel nodded down the hallway and said, “It used to be down there, past the bathroom you saw at the top of the stairs.”
At the mention of the word bathroom, Chloe said, “Mom, I’ve gotta pee!”
“Sweetheart,” Rachel said, “you’ve got to hold it for a few minutes.”
“Can’t I use Grandma’s potty?” Chloe said.
“Grandma’s potty is broken,” Rachel said. “But we’re going to get going here in a few minutes.”
“Rachel and I were thinking we’d take you out for dinner,” Kevin said. “If you don’t have plans.”
“Okay,” Rachel’s mom said. “But let’s go somewhere nice, my treat. Hey, I’m sorry the toilet’s on the fritz. I need to get a plumber out to fix it up sometime soon. Why don’t you guys wait for me down in the car while I get dressed for going out?”
“Sounds good, Mom,” Rachel said, already motioning for Kevin to move.
They were halfway down the set of stairs leading to the door outside when Kevin asked, “What does she use to go to the bathroom?”
“Well, she hasn’t had running water since sometime after I left the house, so she’s probably pissing in a bucket for all I know.”
“And that’s not a problem for you?”
“Of course it’s a problem, Kevin. But a problem for me to solve? No. It hasn’t been for a long time, not since the day I left the house and she refused to let me take Lucy. God knows what that woman has let happen to my dog.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something. She can’t keep living like that. I mean, she’s got that space heater in there, right up against all those clothes.”
“And what do you propose we do, Kevin? She doesn’t even think she has a problem.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could offer to help her clean up?”
“You can offer to help her clean up, but I’m not touching that mess. Do you have any idea what it was like for me, growing up like that?”
“No, Rach. I don’t. Because you never talk about anything about your childhood besides your mom being—” Kevin cleared his throat. “—messy and you guys not getting along.”
“And now you know why,” she said.
“Babe, I’m sorry. Really, I am, but you can’t expect me to just walk away after seeing this. She’s still your mom, even if she does have a problem.”
“You’re not going to fix her.”
“Maybe not, but I also don’t want her to die in that and no one even knows because it already smells like dead bodies in there.”
“Can we not talk about this before we’re supposed to eat dinner?” Rachel said.
~ ~ ~
“Make sure you fill up your plate,” Rachel’s mother said to Kevin as they made their way down the buffet line. “It’s all you can eat crab legs on Wednesdays.”
Rachel and Kevin opted out of the crab legs, instead filling their plates with overcooked broccoli, a peaked vegetable medley, and breaded chicken breasts. After sitting down at their table, Rachel got to work cutting up broccoli into bite-size pieces and placing them on Chloe’s plate, next to the mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets, which Rachel had attempted, and failed, to scrape the breading from. Rachel’s mom started in on her crab legs, cracking open a piece and pulling out the claw meat.
They ate in silence for a few minutes until Rachel said, “I think I’m going to make a call to the animal shelter tomorrow before we head back home, maybe ask the neighbors if they’ve seen Lucy.”
“If that’d make you feel better,” Rachel’s mom said.
Rachel set down her fork. “What’d make me feel better is if you would have just let me take Lucy when I moved out.”
“You mean when you ran off? And how exactly were you going to take care of a puppy? You didn’t even know how to buy groceries.” Rachel’s mom laughed and turned toward her granddaughter. “Hey, Chloe,” she said, opening and closing the pincers on a crab claw, “look what I have for you.”
“Yay!” Chloe said. She reached across the table and grabbed hold of the claw, opening and closing the pincers like she had seen her grandma do and making monster noises.
“That stays at the restaurant,” Rachel said.
“I want to keep it,” Chloe said.
Rachel shook her head, catching sight of her mother’s disapproving look. “That’s garbage.”
“Oh, come on, Rachel,” her mother said. “Let her take it back to the hotel.”
“I said no, Mom,” Rachel said through her teeth.
“Suit yourself,” her mother said, wrapping half of the crab legs on her plate into a napkin and placing them in her purse.
“Mom, I’ll pay for a to-go box for you to put those in.”
“Nonsense, dear. I do this all the time. Plus they know me here.”
“I’m sure they do,” Rachel said.
“Will you stop by tomorrow morning before you head out? I’m going to try to find that D-O-L-L tonight so I can give it to Chloe.”
“I’m sure we could stop by and go get breakfast together before heading out,” Kevin said, drawing a glare from Rachel.
~ ~ ~
“Come on in,” Rachel’s mother said. “Don’t be shy. It’s raining cats and dogs out there.”
“Mom, I thought we were just going to go out for breakfast.”
“We’ll head out right after I run upstairs and grab that doll. I found it last night, in with my sewing patterns. You know, someday I’d like to get that back room cleared out and turn it into a sewing room. I’ve got enough material to last me the rest of my life. Good stuff too—velvet, charmeuse, silk chiffon. I could make some beautiful dresses for Chloe.”
“Uh huh, Mom,” Rachel said. Then to her husband, “I’m just going to run upstairs with her and get this thing. Do you mind taking Chloe out and getting her buckled into her seat?”
Up in the bedroom, Rachel sat down at the foot of the bed while her mother opened up a plastic bag, looked inside, retied it, then moved on to another bag. With the space heater on, the room smelled like a mix between a vet’s office and a fish market. Rachel looked around, her eyes passing over an entombed sewing machine cover and down the front of the her mother’s chipped French provincial dresser before settling on a family-size plastic margarine tub sitting on the floor with the napkin-wrapped crab legs sticking out of it.
“Mom, please tell me you’re not planning on eating those.”
“What?”
“The crab legs, Mom. You can’t leave seafood sitting out and then expect to eat it without it making you sick.”
“They’ll be fine for a bit. They always are. And anyways, they’ll be gone by the evening when I have my supper.”
“Mom, you can’t eat that.”
“Rachel, you can have whatever rules you want in your own house.”
“Fine, Mom. Did you find the doll? Chloe’s probably starving by now.”
“Right here,” Rachel’s mom said, holding up a naked Cabbage Patch doll with yellow splotches and reeking of mildew.
“We’re going to have to wash that before we can give it to her. Can you just put it in a bag so she doesn’t see it and want to touch it?”
“But I want to see her face when she sees it.”
“Fine, you can show it to her, but could you put it in a plastic bag? I’m sure you can find a spare one somewhere on your way out the door.”
“I can find something,” her mother said.
“And Mom, I hate to ask, but can I use your bathroom before we leave?”
“You don’t ever have to ask, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, is it still...I mean, are you still using the...bucket method?”
Rachel’s mom nodded her head and said, “I need to get the plumber out here.”
“I know, Mom. Soon.”
Rachel’s mom headed to the stairs and Rachel followed, turning to sidle into the bathroom, but she stopped before she was all the way in and watched as her mother disappeared around the turn in the staircase. When Rachel heard the scraping sound of the door opening, then closing, she walked back into her mother’s room. She leaned over the cocooned dresser and pulled the curtains aside just as her mother climbed into the car. Rachel let the curtains fall back into place and turned toward the bed.
“Lucy?” she said, cupping her hand around one ear to listen for movement. “Come here, girl.” She made kissy noises and patted the mattress. “If you’re hiding under the bed, you can come out. It’s me.”
Rachel knelt next to her mother’s bed, banging her knee on the metal frame. “Goddamnit!” she yelled into her fist, and she could feel the vein pulsing on the side of her head as she let out a string of expletives that lasted until she ran out of breath. She sucked air in through her mouth and nose, then gagged on the stench.
Rachel pulled her peppermint oil out of her purse and applied another layer under her nose. She placed the vial back in her purse and pulled out her phone, switching it to flashlight mode. Her mother’s wool blanket was hanging halfway off the bed, and she flipped it up onto the mattress—revealing a puce-colored stain—then stuck the light under the bed. She swept it past clumps of dust and piles of poop that either belonged to a small dog, or a very large rat, before returning it to something shiny in the center.
The light reflecting off of the rhinestones momentarily blinded her, but once her eyes adjusted, she saw the nails, the fur, the maggots. Rachel pushed off with the balls of her feet and fell into a tower of garbage bags, which rocked backward then forward and onto the floor in front of her. She let out a cry, then screamed into the side of her purse, jumping onto the bed with her rain-soaked sneakers and marching over to the space heater.
She kicked it into the debris behind it and watched as it rebounded onto the wool blanket. Rachel jumped off the bed and she sat down next to the space heater—1:2 breathing—while she tried to remember what Lucy looked like before—when she was still alive. But it didn’t matter how much she controlled her breathing; all she could see when she closed her eyes were the maggots. Rachel pulled a tissue out of her purse and wiped her eyes and nose. Then she deposited the tissue back in her purse and started to walk out of the room. She paused at the door frame, then marched back over to the bed and pulled a pile of clothes down onto the space heater.
Before heading down to the car, Rachel stopped in the bathroom to retouch her makeup and smooth out her hair in the cracked mirror. When she was done, she stood at the top of the stairs and turned toward her mother’s room, sniffing. A new scent was wafting out of the room. It reminded her of the time she had turned her curling iron up too high and burned off a section of her hair. But Rachel continued past the room and down the stairs with her arm stretched out beside her, knocking down boxes and bags as she left her childhood home for the last time.
Sara Yaroch
“Please tell me why this burger wrapper is still in my cup holder,” Rachel said. The yellow paper ball crinkled in between her fingers as she held it in front of her husband’s face like she was in an episode of CSI.
“Rach,” Kevin said, grabbing the wrapper out of her hand, “relax. It’s just a wrapper. I meant to get rid of it at the rest stop, but I’m sure your mom will let us throw it out in her garbage if you’re that worried about it.”
Kevin turned the car key, pulled it out of the ignition, and looked at his wife, who was staring up and past him—at the second-story window of her mother’s house.
“Under no circumstances are you to take that wrapper inside,” Rachel said. “For Christ’s sake, it’s better off back in here.” She grabbed it out of Kevin’s hand and threw it back in the cup holder.
“Mommy calm down,” their daughter said from her booster seat. Kevin looked at his wife with a raised eyebrow.
Rachel closed her eyes and put a hand on her abdomen--just like they taught in her yoga class—and breathed in through her nose, then out through her mouth, timing her exhalation to extend precisely twice the length of her inhalation. 1:2 breathing was what they had called it, swearing that it would work.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said, opening her eyes and looking at her husband. “It’s not the wrapper.” She peered up at the dingy, pale-yellow curtains in the window, which swayed back and forth as if someone had just been peeking through them.
“I know,” Kevin said, following Rachel’s gaze up to the window. “You’ve been acting weird ever since we pulled off the freeway. What’s up? I mean, are you having second thoughts about stopping to see your mom?”
“I never wanted to stop here, you did,” Rachel muttered.
“What’s that?” Kevin said, turning back to his wife.
“Nothing.” Rachel sighed. “It’s just…you remember all the stuff I told you about my mom and the way I grew up?”
“What, about your mom’s housekeeping skills? So she’s not a neat freak like you. I get it.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t get it.” The curtains had ceased their swinging. Rachel tried to remember if they had once been white before turning their current shade of soured milk. “She’s a hoarder, Kevin, and I really don’t think you’re prepared to see what you’re about to see, so if you want to just go home, I’m okay with that.”
“Well, we’re already here in her driveway. It’d be kind of awkward if we left now without at least saying hi. Hey--” Kevin tilted her chin down to force eye contact. “We’ve been married for five years and some change now. Do you really think that there’s anything I’m going to see in there that’s going to change how I feel about you? I mean, come on. My dad’s picked his earwax with his trusty pen cap right in front of you, and you didn’t even bat an eyelash.”
Rachel exhaled as if she had been holding her breath and smiled. “Your dad really is a wonderful guy, but—”
“It’s beyond retch inducing. I know. Point is, we’ve all got our stuff, Rach. But it’s important, I think, for Chloe to have some relationship with her grandma. Plus, how bad can it really be?”
The smile faded, and Rachel rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she pulled her purse onto her lap. She held the bag open with one hand while the other searched through its contents, eventually pulling out a small vial. “Alright then, tough guy. Hold out your finger.”
“My what?”
“Just do it.”
Kevin held out his hand while Rachel unscrewed the cap on a vial. “Oh come on, honey,” he said, retracting his fingers to a protective position against his chest. “Not the essential oils again. You know I’m not into that like you are.”
“Do you want to go in there or not?”
“Is that why you want my finger? I’m not putting that stuff on me. It’s one thing for our bathroom to smell like a bouquet of flowers, but my hand?”
“You want to visit my mom, then you do what I say. Now give me your finger.” Kevin extended his index finger toward his wife as if he were attempting to touch a rattlesnake, and Rachel applied several drops onto the pad of his finger. “Now rub that above your lip, right under your nose.” Rachel unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to demonstrate on their daughter.
“Candy canes!” Chloe said, breathing in through her nose and clapping her hands. “Yum!”
“Yeah, baby,” Kevin said, looking into the rearview mirror. “We smell like candy canes. I don’t know why, but we smell like candy canes.”
“You’ll thank me later,” Rachel said. She got out of the car and walked around to the rear driver’s-side door to get Chloe out of her seat. Holding her daughter’s hand, Rachel walked up the three slanting steps to the door on the side of the house and started banging on the weathered wood with the heel of her hand.
“Geez, Rach,” Kevin said. “Do you think you’re banging loud enough?”
Rachel rested her hand on the door frame and looked up at the window, then resumed her pounding. “Yes,” Rachel said, still looking up. The curtains moved to the side about an inch, and Rachel let her hand fall to her side and took a step back.
“So now what?” Kevin said. “I mean, should we call her or something?”
“No, she’s coming. And you know she never knows where she’s put her phone. Otherwise we could have gotten ahold of her to let her know we were coming.”
“Okay, so we wait?”
“We wait,” Rachel said.
“Mommy,” Chloe said, tugging at her pant leg, “I’m bored.”
“I know, baby,” Rachel said, leaning closer to the door. “But Grandma won’t be much longer.” She could hear papers rustling and boxes being moved. Then the door shook against its frame before opening an inch, and then a foot.
A woman with gray cropped hair and clear plastic-rimmed glasses slipped through the opening and stood before them on the landing. Her mint-green nightgown flowed around her in the evening breeze, making her small frame appear much larger than it really was.
“Well, I’ll be,” the woman said. “Isn’t this a pleasant surprise.”
“We hope you don’t mind that we stopped by without calling first, Mrs. Henderson,” Kevin said. “We were just on our way back from vacation—Disney.” Kevin nodded in Chloe’s direction.
“Mind? Not at all. Oh, it’s so good to see you, especially you, Chloe dear.” Rachel’s mother bent over so she was closer to Chloe’s eye level. “I haven’t seen you since your first birthday party. You’re getting so big. You must be what, three now?”
“Four,” Rachel said.
“Well, come here and give your grandma a hug.” Rachel’s mother held out her arms, but Chloe latched onto Rachel’s leg and buried her face.
“It’s okay, Chloe,” Rachel said. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen her, but this is your grandma. Do you want to give her a hug?” The little girl looked up at her mother and shook her head. “Okay, then maybe later. She’s a little shy, Mom.”
“I remember how it is. You know, you used to cry when I took you over to your grandparents’ house. Then you realized that they’d give you caramels every time you went there, and that was the end of that. Maybe I’ll have to find something sweet to give her.”
“We really try to limit her sugar intake, Mom.”
Rachel’s mother shrugged her shoulders. “Suit yourself. I just thought that was a grandma’s job, to spoil her grandchild. Oh, I know! I just picked up a Cabbage Patch doll from a garage sale the other day—I think it’s a 1982 Coleco, probably worth a lot of money, but I haven’t gotten around to getting it appraised. Come on upstairs, and I’ll see if I can find it for her. Would you like a dolly, Chloe?”
Chloe nodded, and Rachel’s mom turned and slid in sideways through the opening in the door, saying, “And Kevin, I thought I’ve told you before to call me Mom.”
Rachel stepped forward to the door’s opening, then turned back to Kevin. “Be careful coming in. The basement stairs are right here.” Rachel pointed to the left of the door’s opening. “I’ll go in and then you can send Chloe in so I can make sure she doesn’t fall down the stairs.”
“Can’t we just push the door open a little more?” Kevin said, pressing his hand on the door. It didn’t move. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said, stepping sideways into the house, followed by Chloe and Kevin.
“How do you get to the basement?” Kevin said once inside, his eyes watering as he stared at the two greenish-black bespeckled steps visible below the landing. Boxes and loose debris filled the remaining space.
“You don’t,” Rachel said, pulling him up the left side of another small set of stairs—the right being occupied by more boxes and partially filled plastic bags—onto the main floor. “And that’s what the peppermint was for,” she whispered in his ear.
“If I could ever get it cleaned out,” Rachel’s mother said from the top of the stairs, “there’s some nice stuff down there. I’ve got some Waterford crystal in one of those boxes. The good stuff, not the cheap kind like they make nowadays. I could probably sell it for a pretty penny.”
“If it wasn’t crushed under five thousand pounds of shit,” Rachel muttered.
She followed her mother down the narrow hallway, turning her head and pressing her nose into her shoulder to breathe in. She exhaled slowly, placing one foot in front of the other as if she were walking on a tightrope above a wastewater treatment plant.
“What’s that? Did you saying something, Rachel?” her mom said, turning to look at her daughter and catching herself on a black garbage bag that toppled to the floor. Her mother picked the bag up and pressed it into the wall, the space she created discharging an odor that caused Rachel to grab the wall for support. Realizing what she had done, she retracted her hand and looked around her before wiping it on her pant leg.
“We were wondering what that thing is, Mom?” Kevin said in a loud voice, his index finger resting under his nose. When Rachel’s mother turned to look, he pointed to a large metal stand with a brown belt hanging off of it.
Rachel’s mom walked back toward her daughter, almost hugging her as she passed by to where Kevin was standing.
“That,” she said, resting her hand on the waist-level black box, “is a Walton Belt Vibrator from the 1950s. See, you put this belt here around your waist and turn it on, and, well, it was supposed to vibrate so fast that it would melt the fat away. It’s a collector’s item now, of course.”
“Where’d you get that one, Mom?” Rachel asked.
“I found it at the flea market on Tilson Street, got it for a steal.”
“And does it still work?” Rachel said.
“Not at the moment, but I know a guy who can fix it up. And then it’ll be worth even more.” She shuffled her way past Rachel, grabbing the back of an upholstered chair buried in scraps of moldy burlap material. The chair released a gray-orange dust cloud into the air. Rachel’s mother walked through the haze and started climbing the stairs.
“It smells, Mommy,” Chloe said, tugging on her mother’s shirt.
“I know, baby,” Rachel said, crouching down so she could look Chloe in the eyes. “We’re only going to stay for a few minutes. Then how about we take Grandma out to eat?”
“Okay,” Chloe said.
“Just try to focus on the candy cane smell, and when we go up the stairs, I want you to hold onto the back of my shirt, okay?” Chloe nodded and followed her mother around the outer corner of the staircase to snake their way to the second floor.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for the path to be on the side of the stairs with railing?” Kevin said in a low tone. He held his hands near Chloe’s bottom as she climbed the stairs, clutching her mother’s t-shirt, which stretched out behind her like a cape. “Or maybe Chloe and I could wait in the living room or something?”
“We’re going to the living room,” Rachel said, continuing up the stairs.
When she reached the top, she looked to the right, where her bedroom used to be. The hallway was walled off with clothes, some with tags still attached, and bundles of sewing fabric, holes chewed straight through, most likely by her mother’s housemates. Their small offerings dotted the landing like fetid confetti. Rachel kicked some of the black pellets off to the side, watching Chloe’s hands as she walked past them to ensure her daughter didn’t make the same mistake Rachel had as a child.
After navigating her daughter through the mine field, Rachel turned left, directly into her mother’s bedroom—and what Rachel suspected to be the only room her mother was now able to use.
“Come on in,” Rachel’s mother said, “don’t be shy. You can have a seat on the bed while I look for that doll.”
Rachel slid past her mother along the strip of floor visible next to the bed and sat down on the edge farthest from the door—right next to the small space heater sitting on what looked like a TV tray. Rachel felt her right side grow warm from the heat while her husband sat down next to her, pulling Chloe onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her waist like a lap bar on a roller coaster. Kevin’s eyes were the size of those on Chloe’s Disney dolls as they swept over the contents of the room—the wool blanket stretched haphazardly over the stained mattress, the half-empty food containers lining the perimeter of the bed, and the incomprehensible hodgepodge of junk threatening to swallow the room whole.
“I told you,” Rachel mouthed to Kevin. “So how have you been, Mom?” she said, louder.
Rachel’s mother was picking through the tops of the piles directly above her eye level, lifting up shirts and ornaments, inspecting them, then setting them back down. Sandwiched in between the layers was a beige dog bed, the faux fur matted down and browning.
“Oh, I can’t complain. I have plans to clear out this room, but my back keeps giving me such pain.”
“How’s Lucy?” Rachel said, reaching behind her to search for a warm mound in the blanket, then peering as far as she could under the edge of the bed.
“Well,” her mom said, rifling through the top layer of a Toys R Us bag, “Lucy ran off on me a little bit back.”
“She what?” Rachel said, straightening up.
“Who’s Lucy?” Kevin said.
“My puppy,” Rachel said. “I mean, she’s not a puppy anymore. Mom, Lucy wouldn’t just run off.”
“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Kevin said, his eyes shifting between Rachel and her mom.
“Lucy’s been my companion ever since my Rachel left home,” her mother said to Kevin. “And I’m sorry, Rachel. I don’t know what to tell you. She must have slipped out on me when I went out to get the mail.”
“And you didn’t think to call me and tell me?” Rachel said.
“Well, maybe she’ll come back,” Kevin said. “Dogs do that sometimes. What does she look like?”
“I sure hope you’re right, Kevin,” Rachel’s mom said, moving on from a partially collapsed box. “Oh, she was the most adorable Chihuahua. I had this little rhinestone collar she liked to wear, got it for a steal at an estate sale.”
“Sounds like a nice dog,” Kevin said. “Was she chipped?”
“What do you think?” Rachel said to Kevin. Then to her mother, “How long has she been gone? Did you think to call the animal shelter or anything?”
“It’s been a while, Rachel. And yes, I did look for her. But frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone snatched her up and took her home. People do that nowadays, you know?”
“Uh huh,” Rachel said. “So, Mom, have you done anything with my old room?”
Her mom glanced in the direction of the walled-off hallway. “I’m afraid it’s become somewhat of a storage area.”
“You don’t say.”
“Which room was yours?” Kevin said to his wife.
Rachel nodded down the hallway and said, “It used to be down there, past the bathroom you saw at the top of the stairs.”
At the mention of the word bathroom, Chloe said, “Mom, I’ve gotta pee!”
“Sweetheart,” Rachel said, “you’ve got to hold it for a few minutes.”
“Can’t I use Grandma’s potty?” Chloe said.
“Grandma’s potty is broken,” Rachel said. “But we’re going to get going here in a few minutes.”
“Rachel and I were thinking we’d take you out for dinner,” Kevin said. “If you don’t have plans.”
“Okay,” Rachel’s mom said. “But let’s go somewhere nice, my treat. Hey, I’m sorry the toilet’s on the fritz. I need to get a plumber out to fix it up sometime soon. Why don’t you guys wait for me down in the car while I get dressed for going out?”
“Sounds good, Mom,” Rachel said, already motioning for Kevin to move.
They were halfway down the set of stairs leading to the door outside when Kevin asked, “What does she use to go to the bathroom?”
“Well, she hasn’t had running water since sometime after I left the house, so she’s probably pissing in a bucket for all I know.”
“And that’s not a problem for you?”
“Of course it’s a problem, Kevin. But a problem for me to solve? No. It hasn’t been for a long time, not since the day I left the house and she refused to let me take Lucy. God knows what that woman has let happen to my dog.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something. She can’t keep living like that. I mean, she’s got that space heater in there, right up against all those clothes.”
“And what do you propose we do, Kevin? She doesn’t even think she has a problem.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could offer to help her clean up?”
“You can offer to help her clean up, but I’m not touching that mess. Do you have any idea what it was like for me, growing up like that?”
“No, Rach. I don’t. Because you never talk about anything about your childhood besides your mom being—” Kevin cleared his throat. “—messy and you guys not getting along.”
“And now you know why,” she said.
“Babe, I’m sorry. Really, I am, but you can’t expect me to just walk away after seeing this. She’s still your mom, even if she does have a problem.”
“You’re not going to fix her.”
“Maybe not, but I also don’t want her to die in that and no one even knows because it already smells like dead bodies in there.”
“Can we not talk about this before we’re supposed to eat dinner?” Rachel said.
~ ~ ~
“Make sure you fill up your plate,” Rachel’s mother said to Kevin as they made their way down the buffet line. “It’s all you can eat crab legs on Wednesdays.”
Rachel and Kevin opted out of the crab legs, instead filling their plates with overcooked broccoli, a peaked vegetable medley, and breaded chicken breasts. After sitting down at their table, Rachel got to work cutting up broccoli into bite-size pieces and placing them on Chloe’s plate, next to the mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets, which Rachel had attempted, and failed, to scrape the breading from. Rachel’s mom started in on her crab legs, cracking open a piece and pulling out the claw meat.
They ate in silence for a few minutes until Rachel said, “I think I’m going to make a call to the animal shelter tomorrow before we head back home, maybe ask the neighbors if they’ve seen Lucy.”
“If that’d make you feel better,” Rachel’s mom said.
Rachel set down her fork. “What’d make me feel better is if you would have just let me take Lucy when I moved out.”
“You mean when you ran off? And how exactly were you going to take care of a puppy? You didn’t even know how to buy groceries.” Rachel’s mom laughed and turned toward her granddaughter. “Hey, Chloe,” she said, opening and closing the pincers on a crab claw, “look what I have for you.”
“Yay!” Chloe said. She reached across the table and grabbed hold of the claw, opening and closing the pincers like she had seen her grandma do and making monster noises.
“That stays at the restaurant,” Rachel said.
“I want to keep it,” Chloe said.
Rachel shook her head, catching sight of her mother’s disapproving look. “That’s garbage.”
“Oh, come on, Rachel,” her mother said. “Let her take it back to the hotel.”
“I said no, Mom,” Rachel said through her teeth.
“Suit yourself,” her mother said, wrapping half of the crab legs on her plate into a napkin and placing them in her purse.
“Mom, I’ll pay for a to-go box for you to put those in.”
“Nonsense, dear. I do this all the time. Plus they know me here.”
“I’m sure they do,” Rachel said.
“Will you stop by tomorrow morning before you head out? I’m going to try to find that D-O-L-L tonight so I can give it to Chloe.”
“I’m sure we could stop by and go get breakfast together before heading out,” Kevin said, drawing a glare from Rachel.
~ ~ ~
“Come on in,” Rachel’s mother said. “Don’t be shy. It’s raining cats and dogs out there.”
“Mom, I thought we were just going to go out for breakfast.”
“We’ll head out right after I run upstairs and grab that doll. I found it last night, in with my sewing patterns. You know, someday I’d like to get that back room cleared out and turn it into a sewing room. I’ve got enough material to last me the rest of my life. Good stuff too—velvet, charmeuse, silk chiffon. I could make some beautiful dresses for Chloe.”
“Uh huh, Mom,” Rachel said. Then to her husband, “I’m just going to run upstairs with her and get this thing. Do you mind taking Chloe out and getting her buckled into her seat?”
Up in the bedroom, Rachel sat down at the foot of the bed while her mother opened up a plastic bag, looked inside, retied it, then moved on to another bag. With the space heater on, the room smelled like a mix between a vet’s office and a fish market. Rachel looked around, her eyes passing over an entombed sewing machine cover and down the front of the her mother’s chipped French provincial dresser before settling on a family-size plastic margarine tub sitting on the floor with the napkin-wrapped crab legs sticking out of it.
“Mom, please tell me you’re not planning on eating those.”
“What?”
“The crab legs, Mom. You can’t leave seafood sitting out and then expect to eat it without it making you sick.”
“They’ll be fine for a bit. They always are. And anyways, they’ll be gone by the evening when I have my supper.”
“Mom, you can’t eat that.”
“Rachel, you can have whatever rules you want in your own house.”
“Fine, Mom. Did you find the doll? Chloe’s probably starving by now.”
“Right here,” Rachel’s mom said, holding up a naked Cabbage Patch doll with yellow splotches and reeking of mildew.
“We’re going to have to wash that before we can give it to her. Can you just put it in a bag so she doesn’t see it and want to touch it?”
“But I want to see her face when she sees it.”
“Fine, you can show it to her, but could you put it in a plastic bag? I’m sure you can find a spare one somewhere on your way out the door.”
“I can find something,” her mother said.
“And Mom, I hate to ask, but can I use your bathroom before we leave?”
“You don’t ever have to ask, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, is it still...I mean, are you still using the...bucket method?”
Rachel’s mom nodded her head and said, “I need to get the plumber out here.”
“I know, Mom. Soon.”
Rachel’s mom headed to the stairs and Rachel followed, turning to sidle into the bathroom, but she stopped before she was all the way in and watched as her mother disappeared around the turn in the staircase. When Rachel heard the scraping sound of the door opening, then closing, she walked back into her mother’s room. She leaned over the cocooned dresser and pulled the curtains aside just as her mother climbed into the car. Rachel let the curtains fall back into place and turned toward the bed.
“Lucy?” she said, cupping her hand around one ear to listen for movement. “Come here, girl.” She made kissy noises and patted the mattress. “If you’re hiding under the bed, you can come out. It’s me.”
Rachel knelt next to her mother’s bed, banging her knee on the metal frame. “Goddamnit!” she yelled into her fist, and she could feel the vein pulsing on the side of her head as she let out a string of expletives that lasted until she ran out of breath. She sucked air in through her mouth and nose, then gagged on the stench.
Rachel pulled her peppermint oil out of her purse and applied another layer under her nose. She placed the vial back in her purse and pulled out her phone, switching it to flashlight mode. Her mother’s wool blanket was hanging halfway off the bed, and she flipped it up onto the mattress—revealing a puce-colored stain—then stuck the light under the bed. She swept it past clumps of dust and piles of poop that either belonged to a small dog, or a very large rat, before returning it to something shiny in the center.
The light reflecting off of the rhinestones momentarily blinded her, but once her eyes adjusted, she saw the nails, the fur, the maggots. Rachel pushed off with the balls of her feet and fell into a tower of garbage bags, which rocked backward then forward and onto the floor in front of her. She let out a cry, then screamed into the side of her purse, jumping onto the bed with her rain-soaked sneakers and marching over to the space heater.
She kicked it into the debris behind it and watched as it rebounded onto the wool blanket. Rachel jumped off the bed and she sat down next to the space heater—1:2 breathing—while she tried to remember what Lucy looked like before—when she was still alive. But it didn’t matter how much she controlled her breathing; all she could see when she closed her eyes were the maggots. Rachel pulled a tissue out of her purse and wiped her eyes and nose. Then she deposited the tissue back in her purse and started to walk out of the room. She paused at the door frame, then marched back over to the bed and pulled a pile of clothes down onto the space heater.
Before heading down to the car, Rachel stopped in the bathroom to retouch her makeup and smooth out her hair in the cracked mirror. When she was done, she stood at the top of the stairs and turned toward her mother’s room, sniffing. A new scent was wafting out of the room. It reminded her of the time she had turned her curling iron up too high and burned off a section of her hair. But Rachel continued past the room and down the stairs with her arm stretched out beside her, knocking down boxes and bags as she left her childhood home for the last time.
