Rooms

“As long as the old grout stays away from here,” Sandra says.

Of course she isn’t really worried that he’ll return. It’s just the two of us. It will no doubt always be the two of us, and the spiny staircases, and the ticking furnace, like a mechanical heart, and the mice, nibbling at our corners.

Unless I can find a way to light the fire.

MINNA

Minna hadn’t been back to Coral River in a decade. She hadn’t stepped inside the old house in even longer than that, since she’d spent the last six months of high school living with her mom and Trenton in a two-bedroom condo in Lackawanna, although in reality she’d spent most of that time staying with her first boyfriend, Toadie.

She hadn’t wanted to come back at all. She didn’t give a shit about the old place other than what it might sell for, had no use for memory lane and digging up a past that she’d deliberately left behind. But her shrink had encouraged it—recommended it, even.

“You can’t keep running, Minna,” she’d said. “You have to face your demons at some point.”

Minna liked her therapist, and trusted her, but she felt superior to her, too. Dr. Upshaw had a wide, comfortable sprawl of a body, like a human sofa. Minna sometimes imagined Dr. Upshaw ha**ng s*x with her husband, lying there almost motionless, fat sticky thighs sagging on the bed, saying, “I think you’re onto something, David,” in her low, encouraging voice.

“Why?” Minna had answered, trying to make a joke.

“Because you’re not happy,” Dr. Upshaw had answered, and then Minna had remembered that Dr. Upshaw had no sense of humor.

She was right, though; Minna wasn’t happy and hadn’t been in as long as she could remember. The last guy she’d dated—she counted it as dating, since they’d gone to dinner a few times before screwing back at his place, her skirt hitched up, underwear pulled down to her knees, both of them pretending it was spontaneity rather than laziness—had turned to her once and said, “Do you ever laugh?” That was their last date. Minna had been less offended than she was irritated; she hadn’t known she was so transparent.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d truly laughed. She couldn’t even come anymore. She could get close, and did, as often as possible—pushing against the deep darkness inside her, stretching toward that warmth, the break in the wall—but it never happened; she couldn’t get through.

Trenton went upstairs with the duffel bags. She could hear him thumping around up there—the floor groaned awfully, even worse than she remembered, like it was actually feeling physical pain.

The kitchen was disgusting. Used plates everywhere, even the stub of old cigarettes floating in a saucer—had one of the nurses smoked? was that even legal?—and Trenton was right. It smelled. Minna started piling dishes in the sink, sweeping old crumbs from the counter into her palm, straightening and reordering. She’d been here five minutes and already needed an Ativan.

Trenton reentered the kitchen. “Where’s Mom?” he asked, nudging a chair out from the table and sitting down. He was moving well, barely limping anymore. “What’s taking her so long?”

“Probably getting drunk somewhere,” Minna said. “No, Amy.” This as Amy reached for a wooden spoon lying on the Spider. Trenton caught Amy and pinned her between his legs and she squealed and writhed away.

Sometimes Minna found for the briefest spark of a second that she was jealous of Amy—for being young and dumb, the way all kids were dumb, and not knowing better than to be so happy. Then she hated herself. What kind of f**king person was jealous of a six-year-old? Her own child, for Christ’s sake?

“Are you going to be nice?” Trenton asked.

“Are you?” Minna fired back. She felt a headache coming on and squeezed her temples. Maybe a Valium, instead of an Ativan. She didn’t want to fight with Trenton, and had been told by her mother that he’d been extremely moody since the accident and should not be upset in any way. Like dragging him up to Coral River to clean out the house of the father he’d barely ever seen wasn’t going to upset him. “Did you remember to take your pills?”

“Uh-huh.” Trenton was now hunched over his phone.

“What for, Mom?” Amy said, tugging on Minna’s shirt.

“Remember when Uncle Trenton was in the hospital?” Minna said, scooping Amy up. She was so heavy now. Soon Minna wouldn’t be able to carry her at all. “And we went to visit him?” Amy nodded. “Well, now he has to take medicine so he stays healthy and strong.”

“Like your medicine?” Amy said, and Trenton smirked.

Minna kissed Amy on the cheek. Her skin smelled like Dove soap and a little bit like the grape gum she’d been chewing in the car, proud that she could keep it in her mouth without swallowing it, as she had several times in the past.

“Exactly,” Minna said, staring at Trenton, daring him to say something. But he just kept smiling his half smile, like someone chewing on a secret. She wished she didn’t feel like smacking him half the time. It hadn’t always been that way. They’d been close when they were younger, even though Minna was twelve when he was born. She’d watched over him, protected him, watched him transform—like one of those miniature sponges you put in a glass to grow into a complex shape—from a small pink blob with a permanent expression of wide-eyed alarm, to a toddler trotting after her, grabbing always at her jeans, her shirt, whatever he could reach, to a skinny kid with a feathered mop of hair and a slow, shy grin.

She could still remember the time she’d dared him to sled down the driveway and he’d split his lip on the side of the garage, and blood had poured down his chin, so red and bright she couldn’t believe, at first, that it was real. She remembered that in that moment before he began to cry, as he mouthed silently to her, his fingers covered in blood, how everything else went still and static and there was only the rush of her heartbeat in her ears and a soundless scream going through her, sharper than fear.

It was the same way she’d felt three months ago, when her mother had called out of the blue on a normal Tuesday evening.

“Trenton’s in the hospital,” Caroline had said. “St. Luke’s. They don’t know if he’ll make it. It would be nice if you came by.”

That was it. It would be nice if you came by. Like someone inviting you to Sunday f**king brunch. And Minna had stood, frozen, in the middle of the crosswalk, opening and closing her mouth like Trenton had all those years ago, until the sudden blast of horns brought her back to reality, realizing the lights had changed.