It turned out there was just enough room between their van
and the garage wall for me to squeeze through with only a few
backing-and-filling moments. I could almost smell how much
Deena, standing behind me as I worked my way in, wanted to ask
if she could help, and for maybe the first time in my life, I
wouldn't've minded it.
She didn't, though, but I was so nervous, I said, "I'm
fine" anyway.
The door from the garage into the house was open, yellowing
linoleum visible through it, and I rolled into a sort of laundry
hallway. Too narrow to be a room, it ran along the other side
of the garage's back wall, a washer and dryer pretty much
filling every available inch.
To my right, though, the hallway led into the kitchen,
Deena's father standing at the sink washing some dishes, the
smell of spaghetti sauce filling the air. "Evening, Gus," her
father said. His gaze dropped to El Brujo, spread out over my
lap, and I started to tense up. Did he like cats? What if he
told me she couldn't come inside? How would I manage this whole
thing without her??
But he just nodded and said, "And this must be the famous
El Brujo."
El Brujo flicked her whiskers in a feline smile.
"Obviously a gentleman of taste and refinement," she said.
I couldn't help saying, "She's pleased to meet you, too,
sir," and was happy to see he didn't give me an odd look.
Deena was practically hovering behind me. "We've still
got, like, ten minutes, right, Dad?"
He ran a little sponge on a stick over the plate. "Plenty
of time, darlin'."
"OK!" She slipped around me and out the kitchen door.
"C'mon, Gus."
I rolled after her, saw the living room to my right up a
step, but she was heading to the left, deeper into the house. I
followed, told myself I would not hyperventilate and pass out if
she led me to her bedroom. "If I say anything too stupid," I
told El Brujo in animal talk, "I'm giving you permission to
slash my femoral artery so I can bleed to death."
"Oh, August..." Her tail came up to bap me lightly in the
nose. "What makes you think I need your permission?"
"Here," Deena's voice said ahead. She'd stopped at the end
of the hall, an open door to my left showing a darkened room,
filmy curtains billowing in the slight breeze at the window,
enough evening light coming through them for me to see the bed,
the stacks of books, the moderate clutter I'd guess to be fairly
normal for a young woman.
Not that I had a single bit of experience with young women
and their rooms, of course, but it looked so...so nice,
so cool and shady and full of air. I mean, no duh, right? If
the house hadn'ta been full of air, it woulda been a pretty
short visit.
But that's just me being persnickety. The truth was: I
just liked everything about that room--the clean laundry smell,
the way the carpet showed the big swooshes of recent vacuuming,
the threadbare stuffed elephant leaning against her desk lamp--
"The museum," she said then, and I had to blink, had to
turn away from the door, had to remind myself that she was still
out here in the hall with me, was in fact standing in front of
some Ikea bookshelf thing against the wall there at the end of
the hall. "Because I can't ever forget some things."
I looked past her at the unit, my eye drawn straight to a
framed photo of three people on the top shelf: Deena's dad was
the most recognizable somehow, but I could quickly see that the
little girl mugging at the camera was Deena herself. The
obvious conclusion, then, about the woman beside her father--
"Your mother," I said.
She nodded.
And as much as I didn't want to say them, the words
squeezed out of me: "My mom's dead, too."
"Oh, she's not dead," Deena said, a tone in her voice that
I hadn't heard there before: smooth and dark and dry, so much
feeling buried in it that none showed above the surface anymore.
"She just left us." Her left hand twitched, formed half a fist,
then relaxed. "Turns out she didn't want a junkie for a
daughter, so when she got one, she packed up and pulled out."
There didn't seem to be anything to say to that, so for a
change, I actually didn't say anything. She gestured to the
shelves like she was wearing a sequined gown on a game show.
"Our featured display is divided into two sections: the 'Mom'
period on the bottom there, and the 'post-Mom' period here."
Following her moving hand, I saw random stones, a few
tickets torn in half, a little ceramic elephant, a seashell,
just stuff like you'd see on anybody's what-not shelf. Deena
turned back, a big phony smile on her face. "If you have any
questions about individual exhibits, our docent will be happy to
give you all the pertinent information."
She was making a big joke out of it, of course, and I knew
I probably should, too, but-- "Why are you keeping it?" was
what I asked instead even though I knew exactly why she was
keeping it, knew I would've had shelves just like it if I'd
still had a home where I could keep useless stuff that reminded
me of things I both did and didn't want to think about.
Her smile crinkled up like used cellophane. "What?"
I was shaking, I noticed with that part of my brain that
noticed things. "You can't be half and half, Deena." I was
pretty sure I was speaking in tones a human ear could hear, but
I couldn't be sure. "You can't live here and in the past, too,
can't expect to move out of that past if you keep wrapping
yourself in it." I flailed a hand at her museum. "It's a
weight, and you'll never fly free if you don't--"
"Shut up!" she shouted, her voice so loud, I could feel the
words striking me. "This is all that keeps me together
sometimes, the only thing that makes me think maybe someday
it'll all be all right again!" She jabbed at the shelves with
one finger. "I need this, need it like I've never needed
anything else in my life, and if you can't see that--!" She
stormed past me into her room and slammed the door.
The silence sounded somehow louder than the shouting, but
after what seemed like fifteen minutes, I managed to poke El
Brujo, still sitting quietly on my lap with her eyes closed.
"Slash away," I told her.
Her ears folded a bit. "For telling the truth? Never,
August. We might have to work on your timing a bit is all."
The next bit, then, is 28.
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