“Andrew, hold on, I’m coming down.”
The cool air rising from the cellar feels like damp breath on my skin. Under my hands, the brick wall is damp and crumbling, stairs creaking as I take step after careful step. My brain automatically does the thing I’ve been training it to do for years—it notes the old stone, the decaying wood, the odor of rising damp. It’s the perfect growing environment for all my favorite things: lichen, fungi, slime molds. I might not find devil’s fingers down here, but I’ll likely find some fiery orange ozonium or flat brown carpet cups like squashed pancakes.
“Andrew?”
Was that a cough? The rustle of movement? It’s hard to tell—the deeper I go, the more the sound is muffled. It’s these old cottages, the thick stone walls. Turning the corner, I catch a glimpse of the basement room beyond. It is huge, stretching almost the entire footprint of the old house. Stone pillars support the low ceiling traversed by thick wooden beams. A narrow, barred window is set high into the farthest wall, throwing out just enough light to reveal a set of steps leading to a pair of closed bulkhead doors. As my eyes adjust and I see what it is he is keeping down here, a sound comes out of my mouth—not a scream but a groan of dismay. Terror claws at me but it’s too late. It’s too late.
He is already closing the door above me.
6
Suzie gets home late. There had been a holdup on a delivery and she’d had to sign for it in the cold, her fingers numb. She checks her hair in the hallway mirror and inspects the lines she’s been scrutinizing around her eyes, the ones that have surfaced only in the last few years. On her birthday, Teddy had given her a card which had readHERE COMES THIRTY!in wacky red letters, and lately it seems she can’t stop thinking about it. Kids soon, her mother said, that’ll be next.Yeah, but then what?Suzie often thought.What happens after that? Is that all there is?
“That you, Suze?”
“It’s me, Ted-Ted.”
Suzie walks away from the mirror and lingers in front of one of the framed photos on the wall. There’s a whole gallery here, a wholelifetime, as Teddy had referred to it once. Photos of babyhood, of graduation. Their wedding in the old chapel up on the hill. Huge family Christmases with all her brothers back from service, proud in their uniforms. But the photograph Suzie is looking for is tucked away at the bottom in a heart-shaped gilt frame. She lifts it from the wall and carries it into the kitchen. Teddy is standing at the stove in her apron, the one with the frills. She laughs. She can’t help herself.
Teddy kisses her on the nose, points to the pans bubbling on the hob. “Dinner in ten,” he tells her.
Suzie heads straight to the sink to wash her hands. She’d always been a germaphobe, even as a kid. Some days she has a handle on it, but today isn’t one of them.
She picks up the nailbrush as Teddy asks, “How was your day?”
“Good. Tiring. I did a lot of stock checks.”
“Is the pharmacy still quiet?”
He’s stirring the sauce but looking at her with that familiar Teddy concern. Suzie nods, but she doesn’t want to talk about how many customers the pharmacy has hemorrhaged to the new shopping center, because it worries her and when she feels like that, she’ll start needing to wash her hands again and again. She examines them now, the skin pink and raw looking and smelling distinctly of citrus. Teddy brushes past her and tips spaghetti into the strainer over the sink, standing back to get out of the steam.
“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.” Teddy lifts a piece of fluff away from Suzie’s shoulder and searches her face for an answer she knows she can’t give him. Not yet. She isn’t ready.
“It’s just that I saw an old friend today. This one.” She taps the glass of the picture frame. It’s a prom photo, taken when they were just fifteen. Suzie and Hazel and Abigail and their dates, all in a row, half-turned to the camera, their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. Corsages of carnations and baby’s breath. It’s cheesy as hell, but Suzie loves this picture.
“This one? Hazel?”
“That’s right. She just walked into the pharmacy out of nowhere. First time we’ve spoken in fourteen years. Since that very night, in fact.”
Teddy peers closer at the picture. “Is she home for good?”
“Cat-sitting for her parents, she said. They’re in the Bahamas.” Suzie picks up a tea towel and starts rubbing her hands dry. “We spoke for about three minutes, maybe less, and I haven’t been able to think about anything else all day.” She gives Teddy a weak smile. “Sorry, Ted-Ted. I don’t mean to be miserable. It just gave me a shock this morning, seeing her.”
“What about the other girl in the picture. Abigail, is it? Are you still in touch with her?”
Suzie looks down at the photograph. In it, Abigail is smiling but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She’s in a wheelchair, the long dress covering the scarring on her legs.
Suzie shakes her head. “No. Her parents took her to Canada right after we finished school. She wasn’t the same after what happened. I think she struggled to go past that house every day, even though there wasn’t really anything left of it after the fire.”
The silence is broken only by the hum of the extractor fan over the hob. Suzie wrings her hands together, nails digging into the skin.
“Am I a good person, Teddy?”
Teddy looks up at her, his eyes almost comically round with surprise. “You’re amazing, Suzie. The best thing that ever happened to me. What’s brought this on?”
She looks down at the tomato sauce bubbling on the hob, the spaghetti draining in the sink. Tears burn her eyes.It’s silly, really, she thinks.It’s just pasta and meatballs, but he cooked it for me because he loves me, and if a man as good as Teddy can love me, then Imustbe a good person, right?
Teddy steps closer to her, keeping his voice soft. His hand brushes her arm as he reaches for the tea towel and gently, so gently, wraps it around her reddening hands. “You don’t regret moving here, do you, Suzie?”