Chapter Nineteen
That night, I could taste sounds when I woke in the dark. The ticking clock burst boysenberries on my tongue, a dance of sweet and tart that was interrupted by the screech of Luna’s paws on the glass door. I ran to open the door quickly, wanting to end that sound and the sensation of a radish snack and its peppery burn. But it was the hoot of an owl, its throaty tone reverberating through the air, that unsettled my taste buds with a metallic zing.
Luna ran to the couch, ready to nap. I thought I could rest with her, but through the window, I could still hear the owl crying, asking who-who into the night. Who was a very good question, I thought to myself as the cat settled into a crescent shape on my lap. Who was Ellen, and why had she been despondent? Who was Bitsy, and why had her husband done that to her?
Would Henry do the same to me?
Luna shifted on my lap. She rolled onto her side and I began to rub beneath her chin, her favorite spot to be petted. I knew this because it would always make her purr the loudest. But that night, as the streetlight reflected shapes onto Mrs. Mayfield’s mirrors on the living room wall, the rumbles of her purr filled my mouth with the taste of Pine-Sol.
Perhaps that’s why I got up and cleaned the whole house. I couldn’t explain the energy I felt, as if the Miltown haze had lifted and a surge of electricity ignited me to action. All I knew was that movement stopped the incongruity of sounds and tastes.
After I had cleaned the living and dining rooms, I stood in front of the wall oven and scrubbed at the burnt-on drippings. My nightgown swung with the movement, my bare feet cold on the checkered tile floor. I had meant to clean up the mess the day the peach pie bubbled over, but I had been tired. Then I forgot. Then Thursday came and went, and I didn’t clean the oven as the schedule told me to.
But I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew each time I turned on the oven, the mess was only cooking all over again, setting in even more. The grime wasn’t coming off easily. It was as persistent as the grass stains on Wesley’s dungarees. But I would tackle that task on laundry day. Shoot. I still hadn’t gotten around to that yet this week, had I?
Next week I’d get back on schedule, I told myself.
Luckily, the Frigidaire Cycla-matic defrosted itself—Henry insisted on only the best—so I had one less task to complete on Fridays. That reminded me; I needed to check the drip pan to see if it should be emptied.
Halfway into the oven, I scrubbed until the sponge began to shred and my elbow cried for rest. I would need something stronger. A straight edge would do.
I scoured and sweated, my head inside that dark box. I didn’t mean to think about Ellen and the story Nora had told us before we knew she was Bitsy’s sister. But as my arm moved back and forth and my nightgown tickled my thighs, I couldn’t help but think about her and what she had done.
Word from the bird—that’s what Nora had said—the story goes that she put Katherine, that poor child, down for a nap one afternoon. She did it when the sun was still up, the birds were still chirping. It wasn’t the darkness of the night. That’s what I thought about: Why, when she did what she did, didn’t she wait until the night? Katherine would still be tucked in just the same, but in the night, the silence and the sounds, the hum of the appliances, with no voices to interrupt those thoughts, that seemed like the time to do what she
had done.
Well, Ellen chose the afternoon. I wondered if she’d waited for Katherine to fall asleep. Maybe the girl was good and obedient and had drifted off right away. But maybe she hadn’t. And what if she would’ve snuck out to see what her mother was up to? How would Ellen have felt if she took Katherine with her?
Apparently, trusting she had gone to sleep, Ellen went into the kitchen. It seemed to be an old place with small rooms, each one with a door of its own, not like the newly built Greenwood Estates homes. Our homes favored a more open-concept approach where the living room spilled into the dining room, which opened to the kitchen. Henry told me they did it for flow and efficiency. Plus, with advancements in heating, homes no longer needed to be compartmentalized. Ductwork meant the entire house could be warmed evenly instead of needing a fireplace or stove to heat a single room at a time.
So, in the compartmentalized house, Ellen closed the kitchen door. Then she covered the cracks with plastic wrap. I wondered how well it stuck, if it clung to the doorframe like it did to the top of a Pyrex or Tupperware dish.
Or, did she need to use tape to reinforce it? It probably would’ve been good to use tape as well, to really seal it off. After all, her child was just down the hall.
The hall… That reminded me: I needed to mention to Henry that the creak in front of Wesley’s door was getting louder. He didn’t seem to notice it, but I did, especially when I crept through the house at night.
The last few flakes of burnt butter and peach syrup clung to the bottom of the oven, forcing me to lean farther inside. Had Ellen leaned in that far? I imagined she probably had to sit on the floor. In a house that old, she wouldn’t have a wall oven that she could stand in front of. Did she merely sit outside the open door? When her husband got home, did he find her collapsed onto the oven door or in a heap on the floor in front of it?
How confused he must have been to have gotten home and found the kitchen door closed, sealed off, plastic-wrapped as if to preserve his wife forevermore. They’d say she sealed it off so well, he couldn’t even smell the gas when he walked into the house. And her child was still in her room, waiting for her mother.
What had gone through her mind in the moments leading up to that decision? Did she know when she put Katherine down for her nap? Surely she did. Did she linger with her? Did she sing her one last lullaby? Wesley favored “Over the Rainbow,” though I never sang anything else often enough to know if he preferred it. The melancholy that lurked beneath the surface resonated with my soul.
Did that woman sing the same song? Did she kiss her child on her forehead one last time as her chest rose and fell with the deep inhalations of rest?
I still wondered if she had left a note. I tried to imagine what she would’ve written, how she would’ve explained what she had done. Did she write it on stationery with her name embossed along the top? Perhaps she found a scrap of paper and scribbled a quick message. Maybe she apologized. Maybe she justified. Maybe she simply said goodbye. Or maybe she didn’t do any of that. Maybe she just opened that oven door, laid her head to rest on it, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.
I didn’t realize the moment when the final remnants of the pie lifted off. I kept scrubbing, kept moving the straight edge over the oven surface as I thought of notes and decisions, cleaning schedules and pie, and if bluebirds fly above the rainbow, why, oh why, can’t I?
