150 Pounds Part 12

"Heard 'im screaming all the way from my house. Fockin' banjaxed. Mimi took him to the hospital, smacking him the whole way for being so reckless." He chuckled, then coughed, his face turning red. "Don't think he ever climbed 'em trees anymore, used a pick 'en pole rest of the time during harvesting season."

"What's a pick 'en pole?" Shoshana asked, walking back to the kitchen to hunt for a bowl to give the dogs some water. She also wanted to ask what "banjaxed" meant, but perhaps she didn't want to know. She found a large red ceramic bowl covered in dust that she rinsed under the faucet, using her finger to push out the cobwebs.

"Nifty little tool. It's a big long wooden stick, got a grabber for the high apples, little wee basket underneath to catch 'em, holds about five or six. Mimi's got some out in that shed, I believe." He indicated the white structure at the back of the house that was leaning to the right and had long strips of white paint peeling off it, with some flakes sprinkled on the ground like confetti.

"So you knew my dad most of his life, then?" Shoshana asked, leaning over to set the bowl on the floor. Patrick O'Leary gave her an enthusiastic lick on her hand, then began to drink. Sinatra was curled up on the couch, not sure how he felt about his new surroundings and visitors. Every once in a while he'd blow air out of his snout, sending the pouf of hair above his eyebrows straight up.

"When he was older, your old man would come over sometimes for a beer. Great guy. I was sad to hear he'd pa.s.sed," Joe said, bowing his head respectfully.

His voice lulled her into memory: Summer. Pressing her chubby little white hands against the smooth bark of an apple tree, she and Emily in matching white cotton dresses, the feel of tall gra.s.s swis.h.i.+ng against her thighs as she ran, the feeling of roller-coaster excitement bubbling inside her as her father counted, "One, two, three, four, five, ready or not, here I come!" Pressing her small body as close to the tree as she possibly could to hide herself, the joy in her father finding her and throwing her onto his shoulders, going to look for Emily, who was always hidden in the long, seaweedlike gra.s.s, apples strewn around her body like red b.a.l.l.s.

"I remember!" Shoshana said now, delighted, her voice sounding loud to her own ears in the soft hush inside this house that was hers but not. "I remember running over that hill and into your fields. You have a huge mansion, right?"

He laughed. "Well, some folks might see it that way. I built it just like Georgina-that's my wife, see-just as she liked it. Fockin' saint, she was. She always saw herself living like the Queen of England, I think." By the way his eyes shone Shoshana could tell it was an inside joke, something he'd teased his wife about many times.

"I remember her," said Shoshana. "She used to bring us apple pies. Is she ... is she still alive?"

"No, oh, no." He coughed a little, and took out a stiff white handkerchief to wipe his mouth. Shoshana fought the urge to clap him on the back. "Georgina died five years ago. She's buried right at the base of her favorite tree, ta first apple tree we ever planted," he said.

"Oh." Shoshana peered at him.

"Have you been through the house yet?" he asked her, shaking her out of her thoughts. "Mimi was real proud to be able to leave it to one of ye girls, you know. Meant a lot to her."

"Er, no, I haven't been through the house, not yet. I guess I should." She turned to sort through the cupboards, took out two chipped water gla.s.ses, and filled them from the tap. A small red beetle made its way lazily over the kitchen's blue floor tiles. The sun had come back out and it was. .h.i.tting the green gla.s.s in the bottom half of the window, spilling the color onto the sink and counter. She handed a cool gla.s.s to Joe, and took a sip herself. The water felt wonderful rus.h.i.+ng down her throat. She realized suddenly that she was starving.

"Can't beat good ol' Jar-sey tapwater," Joe said. "Best thing next to Jack, ain't that the lord's truth." Shoshana smiled; Joe Murphy seemed to ask questions and be perfectly content to respond to them himself.

"Cheers." And they clinked their gla.s.ses together.

"That's just the thing," she said tentatively. "I was kind of surprised that Aunt Mimi left the house to me. I mean ... I loved her, we all did, but I hadn't been to see her in several years, when she started to ... when the Alzheimer's ... when she, um..." She wasn't sure how to phrase it. Here was a man Mimi's own age, who might very well be suffering from dementia himself, although she doubted it from the gleam of intelligence in his eyes when he threw back his head and laughed. It was a young man's laugh. Shoshana heard birds signaling to one another in the back of the house.

"When she was one card short of a full deck?" he asked. "It happens to the best of us. Fock! I've been batty for years. It's a d.a.m.n shame, a woman as sharp as your aunt Mimi to lose her screws. Sad. The last few years, it's just been me and her. Thank G.o.d for that business, ye know, FreshDirect? Yer mom found out about them and had them deliver food to Mimi when she couldn't come by. Amazing little company. Crafty idea. Good for us old beans."

Shoshana sat down at the small wooden table in the kitchen. The top was made up of blue, white, and yellow tiles. She felt overwhelmed. She wished Mimi had never left her this house. What did she know about owning property? It was such a mess, too. She took off her sungla.s.ses and took a deep breath, blowing it out of her mouth like a raspberry. Patrick O'Leary settled down at her feet, crossing one paw over the other. She felt his long, soft fur like a blanket over her ankles. She reached down to scratch him behind one ear, and then smiled when he rolled over, paws up, for her to rub his soft belly, which was spotted with light pink blots. Sinatra made a whining sound. "Oh, be quiet, you little jealous boy," Shoshana called over to him.

"Can I ask why you named him Patrick O'Leary?" she asked Joe, sitting down next to the dog cross-legged. She felt the floorboards s.h.i.+ft beneath her weight. "Isn't it a mouthful for a dog's name?"

"Eh! My wife Georgina used to say the same thing. Patrick O'Leary was a skinny lad, lived down the lane from me back in the Aran Islands. Good lad he was, Patrick O'Leary. So skinny ye could see right through 'im. Then we became teenagers, and we would get into little bits of trouble 'ere and there. Patrick O'Leary was arrested, for trying to rob the gas station down the street. Wore his mother's dress and a wig, took his father's gun. Wouldn't ye know it, the lad never had used a gun before, and accidentally shot himself in a place that's not nice to talk about in front of a lady." He raised an eyebrow. "We called him 'Lefty' afta' that."

"And the dog?" Shoshana asked, cupping the animal's paw in her hand, feeling the roughness of the black pads beneath, dark like tar.

Then, looking down between the dog's legs, she got it. "Oh. I see. He's a 'lefty' as well."

"Pound had no idea how that happened, but he's just as much a man as he could be intact, ain't that the truth, Patrick O'Leary?"

The dog wagged his tail, his panting mouth open and showing his pink gums, as though he were smiling.

Shoshana burst out laughing. It felt good to laugh. The uncertainty of the day had been pressing at her. "My father would have liked your story," she said. "He loved dumb robber tales. He used to find them in the paper and cut them out."

Joe smiled, and took another swig from his flask. "Would ye like me ta help you go through the house? I can tell ye where everything is, I've been coming over here so long. And then, an early dinner? I don't know what ye like, but Greta can fix you anything ye want, she's our cook, although I've recently been informed she don't want ta be called that anymore."

Shoshana was struck by two things: One, that this man still referred to Greta as "our," as in his and his wife Georgina's, even though Georgina was dead. It was sweet. And two, that he could afford a private cook.

He rolled his eyes. "Women's lib, and all that. Bunch of c.o.c.kamamie nonsense, if you ask me."

Shoshana laughed again. His misogyny was obvious, and thus harmless. "What does she want to be called, then?"

"Master chef, or some such nonsense. Can't get that woman off me back. Tried to fire her a hundred times over the years, but she wo't have it."

Shoshana got the distinct impression Joe was probably very reliant on Greta but didn't want to admit it. The name sounded familiar, like Shoshana had met her before, when she was young.

He kicked at some crispy leaves lining the floor. "We'll get some brooms and cleaning things, too. Place will be s.h.i.+nier than a baby's a.r.s.e in no time."

"Um, sure. That sounds great," she said. She stood, and brought her gla.s.s over to the sink. Joe set his water down and she noticed he hadn't taken a sip.

"I don't want to bother you," she said as they walked toward the staircase. Patrick O'Leary, replenished, bounded up ahead of them. Sinatra reluctantly followed, eyeing the other dog and his master suspiciously.

Joe was struck with a sudden bout of coughing. Shoshana reached out and slapped him on the back. "Thanks, la.s.s. Believe me, I ain't got much to do these days. You showing up is just about the highlight of my year. I'd much rather be around a young person than sit in my armchair and wait for death."

"Oh." She was touched, and she kind of liked his macabre sense of humor. She started up the stairs, glancing at the photographs lining the staircase, all black-and-white and tastefully framed. She saw Mimi young again. She was very curvaceous in a neat-looking swing coat, leaning over Marilyn Monroe on the set of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to adjust a small pill hat atop Monroe's head.

In another photograph, taken in the forties, she was standing with her husband, Fred. He wore a fighter pilot uniform, the goggles resting around his neck, his arm thrown around Mimi, who wore a white polka-dot skirt. Her hair was pinned back in two identical waves. Shoshana imagined he'd just whispered something naughty in Mimi's ear, as her head was thrown back in midlaugh, her arm pus.h.i.+ng against his chest a little as if she were admonis.h.i.+ng him. Shoshana remembered Pam saying Mimi felt sad her whole life about not having children.

In another picture Mimi stood with her arms around several adults, and when Shoshana peered closer she could see both her parents in the picture (G.o.d, they looked only a few years older than she was now!) and Joe, standing with a woman who must have been Georgina. Shoshana remembered her smile. Joe was younger but instantly recognizable. Even then he wore a full suit, though everyone else was dressed casually.

Her father had on a checkered flannel s.h.i.+rt Shoshana knew well, his beard surrounding his smiling face. He had one beefy arm around Joe, who looked like a dwarf next to him. Georgina was short, with large b.r.e.a.s.t.s her flowered dress couldn't hide, and short, curly dark hair with streaks of white in it. Shoshana was there, about ten, and Emily stood next to her, just around seven. Emily was already chubby, and she was pouting at the photographer, her lower lip stuck out. Shoshana wore several beaded strands around her neck and six or seven bracelets; costume jewelry that must have belonged to Mimi.

Georgina looked like someone who smiled a lot, and Shoshana turned to Joe, who had stopped beside her on the staircase to view the photographs. He took some tobacco out of his pocket and pushed it into his pipe. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and lit it before grinning at her. "We had some good times, all of us. Your mother used to tell the filthiest dirty jokes."

"She did not!" Shoshana said, eyes wide.

"Oh, but she did! She liked to make your father laugh. The dirtier the joke, the harder he laughed."

Shoshana peered at her parents. They'd been so happy. When all her friends' folks were getting divorced, her mother lost her soul mate. It simply wasn't fair. She had a flash of memory, calling home from Princeton, in the winter of her junior year.

Her mother had answered the phone, breathless. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Mom? You okay?"

"Oh, yes, my love. Your father and I were just out sledding! Can you believe that, in our old age?" And she'd giggled, like a teenager.

The farmhouse had two floors and a small crawl-s.p.a.ce attic. The second floor held a large bedroom, bathroom, and two pint-sized guest rooms.

In one, Shoshana recognized her father's childhood toys. Mimi had kept it neat and clean, a fraying train quilt covering a single bed in the middle of the room. Sinatra leaped onto it, turning around several times before settling down with a soft, contented moan. Patrick O'Leary preferred to sniff around the room's corners, following some scent unnoticed by his human companions. On a bookshelf near the window were old comic books, carefully preserved in paper bags. She pulled some out, and was greeted by Blue Beetle and Superman covers.

Old records lined a milk crate, and she recognized the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with its cut-out people on it standing around, and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, where he wore that thick, striped scarf. She took Blonde on Blonde out of its sheath, ran her finger over it to clear the dust, and placed it on the record player atop the nightstand. She didn't have much experience with records, and she lifted the needle, carefully placing it down on a random spot. A warbly, scratchy Bob Dylan sang out "Just Like a Woman." The first few words of the song wafted over Shoshana: "You make love just like a woman, yes you do."

"Ah, Bobby," Joe said. "Everyone got so angry when he went electric. You'd have thought he killed the fockin' pope, or something."

They stood there for a little while, listening to the song, until it turned into "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," which they both agreed they didn't like nearly as much.

She spotted a cover with circus performers on it, a dwarf in a suit and top hat clicking his heels together, an overly tall man in a zebra-print skirt, a clown in black-and-white makeup juggling bright red b.a.l.l.s on a cobblestone street. One man balanced another in midair.

"The Doors!" Shoshana exclaimed, turning the alb.u.m over in her hands in disbelief.

Joe settled into a bentwood rocking chair near the door and puffed. His mouth was wrinkled around the lip of the pipe.

"Never did understand the craze myself," he said. "Thought the lad was a bit of a w.a.n.ker, you ask me."

"I thought my dad didn't like him, either," Shoshana said softly, staring out the window.

She'd been in her dorm room at Princeton, and her parents had come to visit. It was the winter of her freshman year, and they'd driven down just before the storm hit, and decided to stay in a B&B in town that her father was grumbling over. Her mother tidied up the room, as Shoshana begged her to stop and relax. Dad was sifting through her CD collection, from time to time holding one up to ask about the musicians, like Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan, and Ani DiFranco.

"Strange Days, eh?" he'd said, holding it up. "I didn't know you were a Doors fan, Shosh."

"A guy in my Intro to Lit cla.s.s gave that to me," she said shyly. It was a short-lived relations.h.i.+p, and he was about to go to visit his family in India that spring and never return.

"Didn't you used to listen to the Doors?" Pam asked her husband, while fluffing Shoshana's pillows. Even in college, Shoshana had had eight pillows on her bed.

"Nah," he'd said. "Not really my cup of tea."

And yet here was the alb.u.m, solid, in her hands. Why hadn't he admitted to owning the record? Maybe that was what happened as you got older and forgot the fickle desires and pa.s.sions of youth. She hugged the record to her chest, and a cloud of dust swirled around her head. It was a tiny clue about her father, like the height chart, and she cherished it. What more did this house have in store for her? What further history could she learn about the man she'd loved so much? Death brings an end to forming memories, and yet here she was, learning new things. Like opening up small gift after small gift, removing it from its box, holding it up to the light and watching it glitter.

Shoshana walked slowly out of the room and down the hallway, which held more pictures of Uncle Fred. In one photo taken on the front lawn, Shoshana could see the tangled mess of forest had once been a beautiful orchard. She walked further along, Joe Murphy and the dogs staying respectfully behind.

A small porch off the bedroom came with chairs and a Sue Grafton novel, turned facedown as if Mimi had just left to catch a ringing telephone. Pam was always checking mysteries out of the library for Mimi, arriving weekly with a new batch. Shoshana sighed. "I should have been here, with Mimi, reading mystery novels to her," she said aloud.

"She always knew you were thinking 'bout her, dear," Joe Murphy called out kindly. "And you spent a lot of your childhood running around these woods. Mimi loved you girls like her own. She knew you felt the same way."

Shoshana sighed again. She wondered when the guilt would ease.

She could start by sprucing up the place. Things were much neater upstairs; it looked as if Mimi had spent most of her time in her bedroom, and there were no leaves or covered sheets like on the first floor. Next to her bed were three leather photo alb.u.ms, and Shoshana tucked them under her arm to look at later.

Mimi's bedroom had an a.s.sortment of beautiful textiles; during her brief time with Uncle Fred they'd traveled around and lived in Asia, India, Africa. Her bedspread was a faded purple and white quilt, with tiny yellow flowers spread around the hem that reminded Shoshana of the dandelions growing outside the front door. The light hanging from the ceiling was shaped like a lantern, its globe shape held up by several gold chains. A sewing machine sat abandoned in the corner and Shoshana knew many of the small quilts framed in light wood on the walls were Mimi's work. Light poured into the room from three large bay windows that gave a stunning view of the acres she'd inherited, now full of tangled bushes, dead leaves, mosses, and hundreds of trees. There were so many things growing, in fact, that Shoshana could barely make out the peaks of Joe's roof in the distance.

"It was once a fine apple orchard, you know." He had walked in to join her and was standing in the doorway. "Georgina and I got too old to maintain ours, so we cut it down, but most of your apple trees are still standing, just covered with other growth. We used to share the land, and Georgina and Mimi would make fine apple pies. That was a great time. Focking age." He packed more tobacco into his pipe and jabbed it into the corner of his weathered mouth, which sagged a little on the left side. "It sneaks up on ya."

"I remember the apple trees," Shoshana said. "Emily and I would help Mimi collect the fruit in wooden baskets. She called us apple fairies."

Spiderwebs would have to be swept in the windows of the bathroom, but it looked like Mimi had redone the floors recently, as they were sand-colored and smooth. "Bamboo," Joe said. "Mimi had them put in ten years ago, the floor was rotting. This farmhouse was built in the nineteenth century, so sometimes you have to do repairs, and Mimi liked the idea of sustainable wood. It was right before the old girl started to ... well, slip."

The bathroom held a large white tub with bra.s.s claw feet. Shoshana smiled, remembering scaring Emily half to death with childhood tales that it would walk into their bedroom and bite them in the middle of the night. The sink was large and wide, with a white-framed mirror that took up most of the wall above it. The tiles on the floor were a bright cobalt blue. The window was open and one of the green willow trees' soft branches stuck through it, caressing the back of the tub. She pictured Mimi giving her father baths in it as a little boy, scrubbing behind his ears with a washcloth, easing out the dirt between his toes. A breeze lifted the soft hairs around Shoshana's face. A plane hummed in the sky outside. A shelf above the toilet held different-sized antique blue apothecary bottles, their gla.s.s twinkling in the sun as though they were reflecting the ocean.

"It's beautiful here," Shoshana said.

"'Tis," Joe replied. Then, "How 'bout some early supper? Can't think if ya can't eat."

"Sure!" Shoshana said. "Let me just get my sweater downstairs." Patrick O'Leary had some kind of doggie sense that they were talking about home, and he bounded off the bed in the other room and ran down the stairs, Sinatra barking at his heels, distrustful of his new friend's lack of reticence.

At the front door, she again fiddled with the strange skeleton key. "There's no need for locking up around here," Joe said. "n.o.body around, really, but apple trees and crows. Jay-sus, Patrick O'Leary. That hot breath on my legs, now." His dog had the good sense to look guilty, tucking his tongue back into his snout and bounding ahead of his master.

"I know, but just in case," Shoshana said, finally hearing a satisfying click. She really was going to have to have regular locks put on these large doors. "I'm from Hoboken. You have to lock up in a city, so it's just become a habit."

They walked together, content not to talk. Patrick O'Leary had run over the hills and far ahead of them, until he was just a spot in the distance no bigger than the end of a pencil eraser. Sinatra stuck by Shoshana, sometimes just a speck of wriggly pink and gray in the tall gra.s.s, which caressed her legs. The sky was a bruise of colors, red fading into purple into yellow. It looked somehow ... bigger here. The air was fresher, she could get more into her lungs with each breath. She felt like spreading out her arms like a child and running as fast as she could over the fields.

She was surprised when she heard the modern tones of her cell phone, ringing deep in the bottom of her purse. Since she'd just seen artifacts from her father's childhood, the cell phone felt out of place.

"Hi, Mom." She stopped walking. Joe dug around in his suit pocket for more tobacco. He seemed to have an endless supply. "Guess who I am standing here with?"

"The wonderful Joe Murphy?" her mother asked.

"How did you know?"

"Well, honey, there's really no one else around there."

"Oh! I guess you're right," Shoshana said. "She knew it was you," she whispered to Joe, and he smiled crookedly around his pipe.

"h.e.l.lo to your mam," he said.

"Joe says h.e.l.lo, Mom."

"Is he still drinking that whiskey?"

"Er ... yeah."

"Guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks," Pam said. "Georgina tried all kinds of ways to get him off booze, nothing worked. But he was always such a friendly drunk; it didn't really seem to matter much. I remember him and your father got sloshed as skunks one night. I'd just baked a sheet of cookies and set them to cool on the back steps and they stomped all over them, squis.h.i.+ng chocolate everywhere. I could have killed them both!"

It was another memory of her dad, and she filed it away somewhere inside herself. This place seemed full of them, a present she could keep on opening. The doubt started to subside within her. This was a magical place that held memories of her father. She wanted to collect and trap them like lightning bugs in jars. She started to understand a little better the gift Mimi had given her, the depth of it.

She ran her hand along the tops of white and brown reeds, a boat b.u.mping along waves in the sea. She thought suddenly of Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World, the long gra.s.ses, the woman in the pink dress crawling. She'd seen the painting at a recent visit to the MoMA (Pam was always encouraging the arts to her daughters, and they did one cultural thing a week together, Broadway plays, art openings, book readings) and had a totally different viewpoint of the painting than her mother and sister, who pitied Christina, her twisted legs, her small form. But Shoshana had viewed Christina as someone who just wanted to be left alone, make her own choice to crawl instead of use a wheelchair, to feel the earth move beneath her body.

"That's funny, Mom." She was aware of Joe walking beside her, his shoulders slumped over with age. Small wisps of silver air puffed out of the end of his pipe and trailed into the sky, which was dotted with pink clouds like they were placed there by an artist's brush. The color was so vivid it shone against his white hair.

"Oh, Mom, guess what? I found some of Dad's old alb.u.ms. Did you know he liked the Doors?"

Pam chuckled. "Bob always insisted he hated them, but he would hum along to 'L.A. Woman' on the radio when we were driving sometimes."

"I remember him saying they were c.r.a.p when I was in college, but I found a Doors alb.u.m! I feel close to him here. Like he's left us all these clues." She realized how corny she sounded and glanced quickly at Joe Murphy, but he'd stopped walking and was turning over a rock with a stick he'd found, gazing intently at whatever lay beneath.

"It was one of his favorite places," Pam said softly. "Are you going back there tomorrow?"

Was she? Since Mimi's lawyer had contacted her, she had been living in a kind of haze about the house. She had a hard time picturing herself as a homeowner. She'd always thought a husband would come first, and then she'd stick it out in the city atmosphere of Hoboken until moving to the burbs. But that had all seemed so far away, like buying a car and even the hubby. She'd worked her b.u.t.t off to get into Princeton, but she didn't have that drive drive drive other people her age did, to make a lot of money and be outrageously successful beyond her wildest dreams. Her blog earned her a modest salary of thirty-five thousand a year, though she did hope to parlay it into a book deal, perhaps along the lines of feminist theory, or advice for Fellow Fatties, a hodgepodge of her posts on Fat and Fabulous.

But owning a house? Wasn't that something real adults did?

"Yes. I'll come back tomorrow with cleaning stuff. The farm needs a lot of work," she said. Crows pecked at the gra.s.s near her, huddled like football players. Their beaks were long and black.

"Your sister and I can meet you there in the afternoon. Em is working until two in the city."