Part 21 (1/2)
”Just, you know, guy and his kids. Look, I'm sorry for bringing it up. I shouldn't even be thinking about it, and certainly not talking about it with the person who has to live here. Not that there's anything at all wrong with living here.”
”Oh, there is,” Liz said. ”Believe me, there's nothing you could say about what's happened here that would make me feel any worse about being here.”
He handed her the receipt which she stuffed into the checkbook, then the checkbook into her purse.
”Well,” he said, ”okay. I just read that, um, the guy who used to live here and his kids, four or five of them, I'm not sure, were found dead one day upstairs.”
Liz glanced toward the back door, making sure Joey wasn't around to hear.
”And he killed them?”
”I don't know. That's what they said, but I wasn't here and like I said, there's probably a lot of stuff that led up to it, so, you know, who kno--.”
The phone cut him off. Liz wanted to finish the conversation, but the ring bore into her, and she finally grabbed the phone to shut it up.
”h.e.l.lo?” She didn't expect a response, just another ghost call, but Jack said, ”What'cha doing?”
Art took his cue, mouthed, ”I'm gotta get going,” and backed out. She hadn't wanted him to go yet, but Jack's tone said he had something to talk about.
”Nothing,” she answered. ”Just paying the window guy. It's fixed.”
”Good,” he said. ”It's a good thing they got to it when they did.”
”How come?”
He told her about the hour cut and that he didn't know if that was going to affect his paycheck or not. Joey came in and got a gla.s.s of water.
”I hope not,” Liz said. ”Just realized today Joey's about to grow out of his clothes. He's gonna need a whole new wardrobe for school, unless you want him to be the kid showing off his socks 'cause his pants are too short.”
Joey put the gla.s.s back and went outside again.
Since when can he reach the faucet by himself without leaning over the sink to do it? Liz wondered.
”I'm going to talk to Bill Sten later, I hope, and find out. h.e.l.l, if it's a small pay cut versus a lay-off, I'll take the pay cut for a bit. A smaller paycheck's better than no paycheck.”
”We could always go back to Houston.”
”No, thanks,” he said. ”We've already got too much time and money in that house to leave now.”
Too bad, Liz thought.
”Well, tell me what you find out when you get home.”
”I will.”
They hung up and Liz stood back to look at the new window. Then she looked around for Art. She'd seen him leave, but she wasn't finished talking to him.
”d.a.m.n,” she said. But at least she had some outside confirmation. Someone had killed himself, and his children. Art said he didn't want to say it was a murder/suicide, but Art didn't have to; the girl had told her enough.
(Why did my daddy kill me?) She stood for a minute, dazed and lost in these thoughts, then she suddenly snapped out of it, shook it all away, and went outside to find Joey.
She'd expected to find him running and jumping, kicking his ball around the yard, or just being Joey. Instead, she saw him sitting toward the back of the yard, by the alley, with his back against the wall that separated their yard from the parking lot of a condemned church on the next block. He was looking up at the house.
”What'cha doing, Joe?”
”Nothing.” He brushed away a fly that landed on his cheek, and went back to doing nothing.
”We got a new window,” she said. ”No more plastic-rattle while you're watching cartoons.”
”I know.”
She sat next to him.
”You about ready for lunch?”
This was where he usually asked, ”Will it be naptime after I eat?” Instead, he kept staring at the house and said, ”I'm not hungry.”
She looked at him, then at the house, trying to figure out what he was looking at. She expected to see the man looking out from the third floor window, or maybe the little girl. But she was pleased to find only dark gla.s.s staring back.
Then she saw it.
It wasn't anything staring at them from the windows, but the house itself. The sky overhead was bright with summer sun and everything around them shone with it, but the house was dark, as if the sun were afraid to illuminate it.
It wasn't as if she saw a face in the house, nothing so cliche. It was just a house, but looking at it, Liz could see it challenging them.
She looked around the yard, thinking, We own this. This is ours. We can do with it as we please. She looked back at the house, and thought, And that includes the house. It belongs to us, not the other way around.
”What's the matter, Joe? You looking at something?”
”Huh-uh.”
She sat next to him and put her arm around him.
”You know,” she said, ”if there's something wrong, you can talk to your dad or me about it. We're always here to listen to you.”
”I know.”
”And if something's scaring you, we'll listen to that, too.”
He seemed to wake up a bit from his daze. He looked at her, then back at the house.
”But what if talking about it doesn't help?” he asked.
”Then the best thing to do after that,” Liz said, ”if talking doesn't help, is to face it. The best way to get over something that's scaring you is just to face it. Most of the time, you realize that whatever it is is really nothing that can hurt you.”
”How?”