House Wrecking Page 8

  What We Fear Most

  Lauren knew it was going to happen as soon as they stepped into the Olive Garden and he Jeff guided her through the door with his hand on the small of her back. She’d suggested they go to dinner together as a family, only so the kids wouldn’t grow suspicious of their separation. What a fool she was to think that Jeff wouldn’t take it the wrong way and assume this as an act of reconciliation.

  When they’d arrived home and put the kids to bed, she still held onto the vague possibility that Jeff would head downstairs. She even closed the bedroom door quietly, so as to not wake the children or any desire in Jeff.

  To his credit, Jeff knocked before entering the bedroom acknowledging himself as a visitor, rather than former resident.

  “What?” Lauren barked from inside.

  Jeff said nothing as he opened the door and sat on the edge of the bed.

  Only one time in nursing school had Lauren not read the assigned article on pressure ulcers, and of course that day the teacher had called upon her. The dread she felt as the mattress springs depressed below Jeff’s weight was the same she felt that day, the same she felt every time Jeff reached for her.

  “Not today,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I know what you want Jeff and it’s not happening. Not today.”

  “Fine. I just thought....” Jeff shook his head and stomped out the door.

  Lauren had gotten through the nursing class, as she had repeatedly gotten through the undesired sex in her marriage with Jeff. But she couldn’t do it anymore. For a moment, she listened for Jeff. Satisfied that he’d returned to the couch in his office, she padded out the door and downstairs for a glass of wine. She felt the fear seize her with every return step to the bedroom. How could she allow a man to enter her body who she didn’t love? How could she have done it all these years?

  On her way back to bed, Lauren passed a mirror and saw her pale face and lips, as if she’d seen a ghost. She knew that she’d hit upon a long-suppressed and unwanted truth and now it was time to consider the consequences. She imagined her and Claire and Brian living alone in the house, doing everything just the three of them – like it usually is, so not much of a change there. There were other things though – being divorced was like branding a big “D” on one’s chest. She’d be the only one in the neighborhood, and where the kids go to school. Of course she knew this wasn’t true. There was Brandon in Brian’s class; his parents were divorced. And Carly in Claire’s class; her parents were going through a divorce right now.

  When she finished worrying about herself, she turned to worrying about who would take care of Jeff, who couldn’t seem to take care of himself. Lauren had tried to break up with Jeff ten years ago when they were engaged, but it didn’t take. He kept calling to tell Lauren how much he needed her and how he couldn’t go on without her. She took him back because she couldn’t bear the thought of him being alone then, any more than she could now.

  It was almost nine as Lauren sat back against the pillows and took a long sip of chardonnay. As she set it down, the glass sloshed some of the cold white contents onto the mahogany table. Normally she’d rush for a cloth to avoid those white moisture stains, but she left it. The house was completely silent and she added this to the list of divorce fears - being alone in the house at night. Her eyes grew heavy with the awareness that even with Jeff downstairs, she knew she was already very, very alone.

  Nuptials

  Charles and Sarah married in a somber ceremony in the New Haven City Hall, attended by a City official and two witnesses. It should have been the party of the century. All Sarah’s friends should have been there, her family looking on and longing her to stay with them, knowing she must go. Those whom she did not invite would have been jealous and begging for details of the event from those who were lucky enough to be invited. She should have been attended by Kate and Abby in a colony of sequins, and her dress should have been flowing, white and pearled. She and her guests should have gorged themselves on food and wine and by the end of the night been so drunk they would forget why they came – rude and full of fun.

  Instead, she married in her gray traveling dress, dusty and rank from the long trip from Colebrook. Charles hadn’t wanted to stop and change. The official, a short man with a lisp and leftover egg in his beard, made her to repeat the few words tying her to Charles. They emerged into the bright sunshine of Court Street. Charles prattled on, but Sarah had no words for the emptiness stabbing through her as Charles coaxed her back into the carriage for the short ride across town to their new home.

  When they arrived, Charles lifted Sarah out of the wagon and plopped her in front of the their new Queen Ann style home in perfect view of its grand exterior painted a pale pink in attempts to match the color of the dress Sarah had worn the day everything changed.

  “Why did you choose such a dark wood for the moldings in the living room when white would have been brighter?” She asked.

  Don’t think about it, she’s tired. Charles remained silent.

  “This is a strange arrangement for the floorboards, don’t you think?” in reference to the expensive parquet floor he’d laid by hand.

  Charles remained stoic. He’d built the house according to the plans she’d picked. It never occurred to him that she wouldn’t like it. He focused on her chestnut hair arranged on the top of her head. Her left boot was caked in dried mud and she left crumbs of it on the floor. He followed her into the dining room, and then the library, picking up the slivers of dirt left in her wake.

  “I thought we could get a chair and lamp in here for your reading. I remember from school how much you like books,” he said. “Or you could use one of the rooms upstairs for a library, if you prefer.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “There’s a water closet with running water.”

  “Really?” Sarah said.

  “It’s too small for a tub. But at least...,” he trailed off. “We could bring one in,” he added, following her up the stairs.

  “Our room is at the top of the stairs. Wait and I’ll open the door.” Charles said, racing ahead. He’d purchased a brand new French Walnut Louis XV bed from France, along with special French linens. He’d placed it in the tower of the room surrounded by five windows. He opened the door, but Sarah stepped in front of him, barely acknowledging the room. Charles played with the key on the new electric light fixture on the wall and thought he might have seen a brief look of interest or maybe awe play on her face, but it passed too quickly for him to be sure. Her trunks lay in a stack on the floor in front of the bed.

  “Thank you Charles. I think I’d like to rest now,” she said, closing the door between them.

  He descended the grand oak staircase, taking a backward glance just in case Sarah had changed her mind and wanted his company. But her door remained closed. At the bottom of the stairs, he opened the heavy oak door into the basement, closing it behind him. At the bottom of the stairs, he slid away the thin top stone and pressed on the latch nestled within, releasing the hidden door to the left of the staircase. Sarah would never know that the most appealing part of the New Haven house was the hidden room in the basement, worked in behind a false wall, parallel and identical to the back exterior wall. Only the most astute builder or architect would question the discrepancy in the measured square footage between the basement and the levels above.

  Charles replaced the stone, opened the door and settled in among the oriental rugs, paintings and old familiar furnishings from Aunt Rosemary’s home.

  Masonry

  Lauren worked through her schedule of patients at the primary care practice the next day, but the dream of the boy and the feeling she had leaving the basement kept clouding her thoughts. In between blood pressures, EKGs, complaints and concerns, writing prescriptions and issuing referrals, she pondered a number of theories of dream analysis. She greeted Mr. Walsh, her last patient of the morning, breezing through the chart to bring her up to date on their last visit. Hi
s former occupation sparked interest. “Mr. Walsh, you used to be a mason, right?” she asked.

  “That’s right, doc! Connecticut Freemason Cosmopolitan Lodge No. 125 at your service. Need chimney work? Stone stairs falling apart? I’ve been retired for years, but my son, Ben took over the business and I can get him over to you lickety split – just say the word.”

  Lauren smiled. “Thanks Mr. Walsh, I may need to take you up on the offer. I found something in my new house and wondered if you might help shed light on it.”

  “Glad to oblige if I can. What is it?” he asked.

  Lauren knew Mr. Walsh had a little crush on her in the way older men often did and hated to take advantage of him in this way, but she pressed forward. “One of the stone steps on the way down to my basement has a big crack in it and there’s this strange iron lever and rod inside. It’s an old house - built back in 1890. Was it a common practice to reinforce stone with an iron rod and fixture?” she asked.

  “Never. You’ve heard the expression, solid as a rock, right? Stone needs no reinforcement. If there’s an iron lever and rod inside a stone, someone carved a hole in it and planted it there.”

  “Interesting…. I wonder why someone would do that.” She applied the stethoscope to his back. “Take a deep breath.”

  In between his inhalations and exhalations, he said. “Holes in stones are a great place to hide things, although that seems an odd thing to hide. I’d be happy to come over and take a look at it. Give me a call when it’s convenient for you.” He scribbled his number on a piece of paper and passed it to her.

  “Thank you, but I don’t want to trouble you any further.” She slipped the piece of paper into the pocket of her lab coat and assumed her usual professionalism. “Have you had any shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, chest pain, palpitations?”

  After work, she helped the kids with homework. When they were done, she parked them in front of the television, grabbed a flashlight and descended the stairs through the office to the basement. Lauren had long been searching for buried treasure, as if the perfect find waited right outside her grasp at the many tag sales and antique stores she frequented over the years. With the uncommon confidence found among those who were told they could do anything they set their minds to, Lauren believed finding a treasure would still happen.

  Jeff had given his secretary the week off while he attended the conference, sparing Lauren the inevitable nervous chit-chat with Rachel that she preferred to avoid. She opened the heavy door at the bottom of the stairs and propped the flashlight to shine on the hole in the bottom stone. She took hold of the lever and tried to pull it toward her, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried to push it to the right and left, but it wouldn’t move. She planted her right foot on the ground and pressed her left foot against the lever, pushing it with the strength she’d developed in her legs over her many years of running, but nothing happened. She stared at the hole for a moment, and then ran upstairs and through the office to rummage in the utility drawer in the kitchen.

  She grabbed a can of WD-40, which her late father convinced her was the solution to all household problems. He’d given her a can, dubbing her his official home repair partner, along with a roll of duct tape, as a joke for her eleventh birthday. She’d slept with the can on the nights he languished in the hospital from a massive heart attack. In the months following her father’s death Lauren wished she could use the duct tape to keep Beverly from falling apart, but she needed something stronger. So when she forgot to pay the fee for her class trip, despite the notes Lauren brought home from school each day, Lauren took the bus downtown and returned the sweater she’d gotten for Christmas with the receipt from Beverly’s desk, and paid the fee. The following summer, when Lauren and her friend Kathy went to Liggett’s for ice cream and Mr. Liggett asked her if her mom had sent along a check for their past due balance. Lauren got a babysitting job and paid this too.

  When she returned to the basement, she doused the iron contraption with the spray lubricant sneaking it in the spaces between the lever and rod. She wandered into the pub room while the grease did its work. The bar had been such a great find in this old house. She settled onto one of the bench seats and allowed the mystery of the room to work her imagination. She pictured the room, packed with men in old suits worn for days on end and rank with the smells of work and play. The women would be attired in the long, formless dresses of the twenties touching their ankles, with matching buckled shoes. In this picture, they were all laughing- smoking and drinking whatever they could get their hands on, with no worries about the future. Who would be behind the bar, she wondered. Perhaps it was the man who built the house…what was his name?

  Back at the hole, she tried the lever again – turning it all the various directions, but nothing happened. She lifted the hammer and gave the lever a good whack away from her and toward the back of the stairs. At the first hit, the lever broke, bounced off the stone step and landed with a thud on the carpet. She picked it up to examine the rusty iron handle and tossed it into the hole along with the hammer. She peered again into the lighted hole where an un-graspable nub of sharp metal remained. Frustrated, she left the mess, slammed the oak door and went up to make dinner for Claire and Brian.

  Housekeeping

  Sarah emerged from the bedroom, three hours after arriving at her new home in New Haven. While she was resting, Charles arranged biscuits with cheese for a light dinner. Aunt Rosemary’s China had disappeared with the peddler months ago, and Charles brought the meal up from the basement kitchen on plates borrowed from Paul’s home. Sarah glanced at the chipped and mismatched pieces, and Charles braced for more criticism, but she told him to wait a minute and dashed back up the stairs to her room. A few minutes later she reentered the grand dining room with a pile of pink and white flowered china and a handful of silverware.

  “We hadn’t used these in years, and I didn’t imagine my parents would miss this set. It has always been my favorite.” She sorted out the plates and silver on the dining table, her face beaming.

  When they were finished eating, Sarah ran upstairs again to show him what else she had brought. “I stitched these curtains and pillow covers to decorate our new home, she said.

  A smile crossed Charles’s face.

  “I couldn’t bring any art, but a painting there would be perfect. Sarah pointed

  “Yeah, sure,” Charles said.

  “Maybe we could get an oriental rug for under this table and some velvet draperies for the windows. Should I order more curtains, pots, and pans? I could have it all sent C.O.D.,” she assured Charles.

  “I think we may have some of those things already from Aunt Rosemary’s house. Let me check.”

  Sarah frowned and Charles gathered their plates and silver and returned them to the kitchen, washing them and leaving them on the sideboard to drip dry. He threw a final shovel of coal in the furnace and mounted the stairs. When he returned, Sarah had left the dining room and he continued up the stairs through the threshold of the bedroom, closing the door behind them.

  “Oh Charles, you startled me,” Sarah said turning to him. Charles approached her, wrapped the fingers of one hand around her upper arm and used the other to reach behind her and remove the pin from her hair, allowing it to fall across her back and release private odors destined for his senses alone.

  Sarah didn’t struggle against his grasp or fuss with her hair - she remained mute and seemingly paralyzed. He pivoted her around, unfastened the buttons on the back of her dress and maneuvered his hands under her dress and onto her bare shoulders. Her skin was so soft; he worried if his calloused hands might disrupt its purity. He lowered his mouth to her shoulder blades and tasted her, oblivious to her response. With his face planted on her back, he lowered his hands down both her arms, loosening the dress to the floor.

  Without releasing his grip on her, Charles spun her to face him with uncharacteristic deftness. When he untied her corset, her belly expanded to the size of a small melon, rem
inding him of her pregnancy. He lifted her cotton camisole over her head, exposing her full torso. His eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness, and his view of these long-sought-after treasures was limited.

  “It’s all right to do it when you’re pregnant – don’t worry,” Charles said, leading her over the fallen clothes to sit on their new bed.

  Sarah drew her stockinged legs toward her and wrapped her arms around herself. He unbuttoned and stepped out of his trousers and went to her, but in her wrapped-up form, he didn’t know how to get to her. He sat next to her on the bed and positioned his arm around her. “It’s all right,” was all he could think to say. He laid both hands on her shoulders and pushed her backwards to lay on the bed. In her efforts to right herself, she loosed her arms and he moved on top of her. He maneuvered a knee between her legs and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and another on her lower back. He lifted her on the bed toward the pillows, removed the duvet with his free hand and nestled her in the bed’s warmth. He didn’t dare get off her, lest she wrap up again and prevent him from completing the act.

  Charles raised his torso and gripped her breasts. Sarah lay still and silent. The warm, soft body, he’d imagined was cold and hard, but he went on. He covered her right nipple with his mouth, eliciting what he thought might be a cry of pleasure. He would have loved to continue licking all night, but he couldn’t wait. His fingers reached deep under the covers to the warmth between her legs. He dipped his fingers inside her and she cried out and twisted toward the window, but he aligned himself with her and she didn’t utter a sound when he entered.

  He moved fast and quickly released before collapsing on top of Sarah until her cold skin forced him to roll away. Sarah turned from him. He stroked her hair spread loose across the pillow, but received no response. He wished to return to the intimate chatter of their dinner conversation, but knew this was not possible. He waited for her to say something, but no words came and he pulled the covers over her and tucked her in. He stepped back into his trousers and secured the braces over his shoulders. On his way out, he picked up her dress and corset from the floor and dropped them both over the edge of the bed. He left the room, closing the door behind him.