Chapter One
I suppose it was in the darkness of the morning before the sun peeked over the horizon that I first came to believe that a home has a soul. That’s not something I would share with others, especially not Henry. He would probably give me that look he gave Wesley the time our son tasted the neighbor’s dog food. But how else do you explain the house across the street?
Unlike the rest of Twyckenham Court where the original owners still held the keys, that one couldn’t keep the same family for much longer than a year.
That sprawling ranch with the large picture window and shutters without a purpose was the same as all the others on the street, a flipped floor plan of our own, but otherwise a replica. If I had been the one to choose our house, I probably would’ve picked that one, mainly because of the sycamores out back. They weren’t large, sprawling oaks like I preferred, but I would’ve taken any trees as opposed to the barren yard that the builders left us. Of course, Henry didn’t ask me what I wanted. He never had to. He surprised me. And I smiled as a good wife should. As I always did.
The FOR SALE sign had gone up a week ago, just before Christmas. The Donahues had been there for more than a year. We thought they might be the ones to stay. I had hoped so. In those twelve months, Emily had become my closest friend, so close, in fact, that she had given me a key so I could let myself in to borrow sugar even if she was out on an errand. But it was only a matter of time before the house shook them loose and sent them packing, no matter how much I begged her to reconsider.
Each family offered a different reason for leaving: to be closer to relatives, a job relocation, a job loss, as was the case with the Donahues. Maybe that house was restless, anxious, like a mouse caught in a cat’s shadow, and never let people feel at home. I sometimes wondered the same about our own house when I’d turn on the light over the kitchen sink and it would flicker before settling on. Even after five years of living there, I knew to expect the flutter before the light glowed steadily, but that didn’t stop the shiver from tickling up my spine.
I thought about our house as I fixed Henry’s eggs—over medium, with just enough yolk to dip his toast in—a task I had perfected over the last couple thousand days. But who’s counting? This home had been full of firsts for us beginning the day Henry carried me across the threshold. Then there was the afternoon nearly four years ago when we brought Wesley home, followed by his first diaper blowout, the first time he slept through the night (that was a good one), when he took his first steps, said “Mama” between babbles and drool.
There were the other firsts, too, like when he had a fever and I didn’t sleep for two days; when he closed his finger in the slider door; when I locked myself in our closet and cried when all he wanted was to be held, but all I needed was a moment to myself without being touched. Babies are blessings, they say. But what often goes unsaid is that blessings aren’t always what we expect. And sometimes when we focus on the light they bring, we miss the shadows that lurk behind.
Lost in recollection, I nearly overcooked the eggs. “Are you okay?” Henry asked as he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck. His aftershave was so strong it caught in my throat. I typically liked the smell, but that morning my stomach soured.
I coughed and forced out, “Fine,” not wanting to say more as Henry ate his breakfast, fixed his tie, and breezed out the door to the office.
Finally, I was alone. But not really.
With our annual New Year’s Eve party the next evening, I had a lot to do in preparation. The list unspooled in my brain: vacuum the carpets and the drapes, mop the linoleum, a quick dusting to make sure the furniture shone.
And then there was the food. But I couldn’t shake the cobwebs from my mind enough to focus on any of that quite yet. So, in the hour between when Henry left for work and Wesley woke up, I counted stamps, the kind I got each time I shopped. Gas, grocery, clothing, even aspirin purchases rewarded my loyalty with those S&H Green Stamps. Tearing, licking, and sticking them into the redemption booklets had become one of my favorite pastimes, especially when I needed a moment to get lost in a rhythm.
So far, those stamps had earned us a lamp for the living room (three-and-a- quarter books), a framed painting for the front hall (two books), a tricycle for Wesley (two-and-a-half books), the Longines wristwatch Henry wore every day to work (nineteen books), and a cookbook for myself that was apparently supposed to bring me joy (two books). Rumor had it that a woman a couple of towns over had saved up enough to take her entire family to Weeki Wachee Springs to see the mermaids. Talk about patience! I considered that for a moment, but something else always caught my eye as I flipped through the merchandise catalog.
Perhaps I was trying to put some soul into our house with the items I earned. Or at least remove the spirit that had infected it before we moved in.
Mrs. Mayfield—yes, my mother-in-law insisted I call her that—had taken it upon herself to furnish our home, from the living and dining rooms to the very bedroom where her son and I slept. Apparently, she felt that if she helped us with the down payment, then she also got a say in how to decorate.
I had spent the last few years purging her haughty pieces in an attempt to create something of my own—one stamp, one covert shift of wall decor, throw pillows, or dishware at a time.
Sitting at my kitchen table in my winter flannel, willing myself to keep my
eyes open and my coffee down, I thought again of the house across the street: all the ways I would decorate it, all the items I could get from the catalog. It would take weeks, months, years of saving and planning my shopping trips according to where I would receive the most stamps for my patronage. I could fill the necessary redemption books and then go to the store at Second and Main, redeem my treasures, and create my own home like my great- grandparents had done. Though I wouldn’t build this from the ground up like them. If I was really dreaming, it would be a combination of my grandfather’s handmade furniture and modern finishes: an oak dining room table atop plush carpeting, surrounded by floral wallpaper and lit by an overhead pendant lamp.
But why would I need a place of my own? This one was fine; Henry made sure of it. He had chosen this specific floor plan with four bedrooms for our growing family and upgraded the appliances, choosing the Frigidaire with the auto-defrost feature to make my life easier. He still regretted not getting a dishwasher, but I told him it was fine. We had all we needed in that home in Greenwood Estates, with its wide sidewalks and surveilling streetlamps, only minutes from the A&P. We had a son full of health and curiosity and a marriage where we sometimes still held hands, plus Henry had a good job with a steady paycheck and the promise of a promotion. My mother would say we had more than enough. So, what else could I ask for?
Well, the Kodak Duaflex camera, for one thing. I had a perfectly fine camera, I suppose, but Henry was always telling me to take up a hobby, find more ways to fill my day, and photography was the closest I had to one. For months, I had planned to redeem my stamps for that camera, but something else always came first. There was the chrome grill for the cookout Henry wanted to host (seven-and-a-half books) and the electric hair clipper set so I could trim Wesley’s curls (three-and-a-quarter books). It might do me good to consider the stroller. But just the other day the percolator gave out, so I supposed that would be the practical choice.
I thought Henry might give me a camera for Christmas, but instead he surprised me with house slippers. “Because your feet are always cold,” he told me. I smiled at him and said thank you. I had never had slippers, a fact that still astonished him. I wore them for the rest of the day, the rubber soles scraping across the kitchen linoleum as I made dinner, sweat forming between my toes. Now, nearly a week from receiving that gift, I had already pushed them beneath the bed, preferring to feel the stiff carpet fibers, pretending that I had my toes curled in grass.
And what did I give Henry? I knew what he really wanted, what he had been hoping for since Wesley had turned two. I thought I wanted that, too, but I remembered things that Henry didn’t. So instead, I gave him a fishing rod (two books) and tackle box (one book).
I could’ve used the slippers as my feet touched both cold and crumbs on the kitchen floor while I sat at the table, looking through the catalog, feeling queasy from Henry’s aftershave. Or something more. I read the camera description again: Kodet lens, aluminum case, plastic trim, twin lens reflex finder, fixed focus.
Fixed focus.
I thought of those words and wondered what I might see through the lens of that camera, as the fluorescent light emitted a constant, unrelenting electric hum. I suppose I would see Wesley get taller, our family grow, new neighbors replace the Donahues, unknowingly taunting the soul that lurked within the house.
I took a drink of coffee, hoping it would wash away the sour tang of the chemical glue that clung to my taste buds. My body begged for more sleep.
Instead, I sat at the table, the cold seeping through my bare feet as I flipped through the stamp catalog page after page after page. I didn’t remember feeling so weak the last time. But perhaps I had forgotten. At least, that’s what I told myself.
I suppose I got carried away that morning and lost all sense of time, because I was still at the kitchen table with those stamps when the doorbell rang.
“Here it is!” Nora announced as cigarette smoke curled around her strawberry hair, styled in a poodle clip like Lucille Ball. She took a drag and then continued, “Good God, Lulu. It’s nearly lunchtime and you’re still in your pajamas?”
She was right. I had meant to change after Henry left. Or before I got Wesley up. Or after he went out to play. I pulled the collar higher onto my neck, as if modesty would save me from her scrutiny.
“I suppose I lost track of time.” Maybe I should get myself a new wristwatch (eighteen books).
Nora shrugged, dropped her Lucky Strike on the front step, the tip of it tinted with her Fire & Ice shade of Revlon. She stamped it out with her ballet flats, the ones with the pleated fans for a little extra touch. Leave it to Nora to have to be dressed to the nines just to lend a neighbor a dish.
“You’re sure we can’t bring anything tomorrow night?”
I waved away her offer. “You know I’ve got it covered.”
“You always do.” Nora looked at the drapes I hadn’t fully opened, Wesley’s Lincoln Logs spread over the davenport and onto the floor, the kitchen table full of stamp supplies. “Are you okay, Lu?”
Her look of concern, along with the question, made me regret my morning, my lazy start, my stamp booklets.
Shortly after we moved into Greenwood Estates, Nora shared with me the key to being a good housewife—or at least a decent one, she said. It was the Good Housekeeping cleaning schedule, and apparently everyone on Twyckenham Court followed it. Except for me. But they didn’t know that.
The copy Nora gave me still hung on my fridge, as overlooked as a sunset during mealtime. Look through any living room window on any given day, and all the other Greenwood wives could be seen moving in perfect
synchronicity—a shared broadcast across matching windows. Arms raising in time to dust the highest shelves, skirts twirling around hot-water buckets and mops, the choreography perfectly timed to the hum of the vacuums. It was as if the schedule was embedded in their programming, the timing absolute like the beat of a metronome (two books).
Mondays: Grocery and kitchen
Tuesdays: Laundry
Wednesdays: Bedrooms and bathrooms
Thursdays: Linens and living room
Fridays: Defrost the fridge, groceries, dining room and halls
Saturday: Family day
Sunday: Rest
When we first moved, I had no idea a suburban housewife’s life came with such a schedule. Of course, we always had chores to do on the farm—some daily, such as feeding the horses and mucking the stalls, while others were seasonal like harvesting and canning. But my parents never had a printed schedule that told them how to spend each day. Never had the peering eyes of neighbors to contend with.
When I first looked over the schedule, I asked Nora, “What if you don’t feel like doing laundry on a Tuesday?”
“Feel like it?” She squinted as if she had never considered that possibility, before sighing at my inexperience. Ineptitude. Indolence. “The point is so you don’t have to think about it. You just do it.”
What a blessing not to think.
Sometimes, when the days elongated and the schedule lorded over me from its spot on the fridge, I had to remind myself that I hadn’t picked this
fate. I simply chose Henry, and this was part of the package. Years prior, when I had still allowed myself to dream, I imagined running the farm alongside Daddy and Georgie, if he wanted to. I pictured myself driving the tractor, tilling the soil, harvesting the peaches, spending my days outside, not trapped indoors like Mama. But that possibility died with a final breath in the night, and without other options, I had a lot to learn about being a good suburban wife.
I gave the schedule a try. I really did. I followed it closely for the first few months. I got out of bed, looked at that list, and vowed to complete the tasks.
But some days, despite Nora’s insistence, I just didn’t feel like it. And as long as I kept the house in decent order, Henry didn’t notice if it didn’t meet Good Housekeeping standards. Or at least he didn’t say he noticed. And based on all other outside appearances, I was like the rest of them.
But from the look on Nora’s face, she saw the truth.
“You’re sure you don’t need more than this empty dish?” she asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Have you started on the food yet?” I’d meant to, but before I could answer, she continued. “I can whip up one of those gelatin salads. I mean, I might not do it as good as you, but my last one didn’t turn out too bad.” I felt a prickle of annoyance.
Since moving to Greenwood, my dishes had become the talk of supper parties and carry-ins. It started with a recipe I found that set sliced bananas in cherry Jell-O. And it grew from there. Now I had an array of sweet and savory recipes, some with fruit, vegetables, meat, and even one with tuna.
It wasn’t just the ingredients that surprised people. It was also the shapes themselves, how I could mold them into towers, crafting sculptures of congealed foods. How does she get them to stand so tall? I would hear the neighbors whisper. And the things she fills them with! I never would’ve thought!
Neither would I. In all honesty, some of the combinations repulsed me, but I swear these people would eat anything I put in front of them, especially if it was carefully shaped, painstakingly sculpted. A new invention. The less it resembled food, the more quickly they gobbled it down. But this was who I had become in Greenwood: the Queen of Molded Food. It wasn’t a role I had planned for myself, but I accepted the title, even if I didn’t eat half of what I made. I wasn’t even sure half of it could be considered food. “Digestible” and “good” didn’t always go hand in hand.
“I was just getting ready to start on it,” I told Nora, which wasn’t exactly a lie. And I did need to get the food going so the gelatin would have time to set.
I would clean later.
Thankfully, Nora moved toward the door. She never was one to overstay her welcome, which I appreciated, especially in that moment, as a wave of nausea hit. It was probably all of the stamp adhesive on an empty stomach.
Nora told me I was a fool to lick them instead of using a sponge. I didn’t tell her that I liked the taste. Typically.
“I should get home,” she said. “Make sure James and Marjorie haven’t torn apart the house.”
As she opened the front door, the daylight poured into the foyer. I squinted as my eyes adjusted, and shivered when the cool breeze blew over the sweat that had begun to accumulate on my face.
“Are you okay?” Nora asked.
I smiled and tried to brighten my eyes. I really should’ve gotten dressed, done my hair, put on some blush. I had phoned Nora the day before, asking to borrow the mold, but I had forgotten that she would be stopping by. I needed to get her out the door so I could get something in my stomach.
And so she didn’t have time to guess my secret. Not yet.
I hadn’t told Nora, nor anyone else, not even Henry. I needed some time to adjust before anyone else knew. Before others got involved.
I knew Nora would be happy for us but with a caveat. After all, she remembered. We never talked about that day. I don’t know how she found me. Maybe she heard my cries from the street. God, I hope not. But somehow, she knew. She came into the house, not even knocking before entering. She ran down the hall to find Wesley on the changing table, flailing his limbs in the jerky way newborns do, as I sobbed over the spilled laundry hamper (three books), having given up hope of finding a sock that could pass for clean.
“Lulu,” she’d said as she knelt beside me. “What is it? What do you need?”
Snot and tears had poured down my face, over my lips, dripping past my chin. I hiccuped a few breaths before I could respond. Only two words would come out: a sock.
I don’t like to recall that moment, one so absurd, so weak. There I was, a grown woman, on the floor of her child’s bedroom, beside herself because she couldn’t find a sock. If I had only done the laundry that Tuesday, I wouldn’t have been in that predicament to begin with. But I had been so tired.
Had Henry found me like that, he might’ve laughed. And I wouldn’t have blamed Nora if she had done the same. But she didn’t. She got to her feet, walked to the dresser, and said, “How about we find a sleeper with footies instead?”
Nora changed Wesley as I sat on the floor, numb. She handed him to me and said, “Babies are hard.” Of course she was right. But I hadn’t known until I had one. Maybe Georgie had also been that way. Perhaps I should’ve remembered, since I was eight when he was born. But I spent most of my days outside the house, running around the farm, chasing after kittens, sitting in my tree, leaving Mama to tend to things alone.
That morning at the end of 1954, as the breeze blew cool over my clammy
skin and my stomach begged for a soda cracker to settle it, Nora stepped onto the front porch and lit a cigarette. She took a puff and exhaled a stream of smoke as she mumbled, “At least put on some lipstick, Lu. I still can’t believe your mother didn’t teach you that.” There was a lot my mother hadn’t taught me. “Call me if you need anything.” She waved her hand in the air, dispersing the first haze that curled around her. “But of course, you won’t.”
I thanked her. Then I closed the door, stood in the dimness of the foyer, and told myself that this time would be different. I would know what to expect; it would take more than the cries of a newborn to break me.
Through the window, I looked at the uninhabited house across the street, the sign in the yard, the half-open curtains Emily hadn’t tied back before they left the final time. The sense of peacefulness in its emptiness. These Greenwood Estates homes weren’t as weathered and worn as my childhood one. Like the people who lived there, these houses had far less history and fewer ghosts. With time, that would change. For some of us more than others.
