I press the front doorbell, but there's no buzzing inside. I try knocking. No one comes to the door. With my right hand, I wipe frost off the glass pane, but all I can see inside is the front hall with boots on the mat and winter coats hung on hooks. Funny, it looks like it always has. I came by to see the house one more time since my sister sold it three months ago. My mom was the last one here.
In the driveway, my mom and dad's rusty Toyota is still sitting there, tire tracks chevroned into a couple inches of snow. The new owners must have left it for now.
I go around the side of the house, my shoes crunching on the sidewalk. By the basement window, my mom's geraniums are shriveled under a veil of ice. I grab the back porch railing and climb up. The kitchen light is on, and I can hear the radio mumbling on the counter. I knock on the screen door, and someone who sounds like my dad yells, "Darlene, see who's at the door!"
Someone who's a dead ringer for my mom unlatches the door and opens it, then blinks, surprised. "Where's your jacket?" she asks.
"I must have left it in the car." I'm shocked to see her, whoever she is. I rub my arms, feeling the chill. I don't know how this is possible, but I decide to play along.
She looks younger, maybe in her 50s with creases just starting to close in around her eyes and mouth. She steps out of the way, letting a little snow drift in, and I follow, wedging the door shut behind me.
"Who is it?" my dad shouts from the living room.
"It's Ben," she answers, going to the stove. "Would you like some scrambled eggs and toast?" she asks me.
"Sure, that sounds good."
She opens the Frigidaire and reaches for a carton of eggs. The kitchen looks the same: glossy yellow walls, the kitchen table rimmed with chrome, scuffed linoleum tiles with a heat vent by the basement door that's throwing up waves of heat.
Mom cracks two eggs over an iron frying pan and turns up the gas flame. "Whole wheat ok? There's milk on the table if you like."
"Sounds good." I bend open the carton and pour a cold glass by my usual place.
"Where's Todd and Pam?"
Mom mixes the eggs with a spatula, scraping the bottom of the pan. "Well, you know Todd's away at college, and Pam took the 7 o'clock bus to junior high."
I go into the living room, and Dad is sunk into his armchair, cigar in hand, watching the morning news on TV. The smoke stings my eyes.
"Hey Dad, what's the latest?" I smooth out the afghan blanket and sit on the couch.
He doesn't take his eyes off the screen. "Nixon's denying everything, but he's guilty as hell."
There's some stubble on his chin, and he's thinner. The top two buttons of his shirt are fastened wrong.
"You think they'll get him?" I ask.
"Probably not. They're all in it together. Justice, the FBI, never mind CREEP and the Cuban exiles caught with their pants down at the Watergate. Bunch of nitwits."
"You may be right."
He jabs his cigar at me. "How long are you here? We thought you were going to come out for Christmas."
"I couldn't make it. A new project at work."
"Huh." He turns back to the TV, where Alka Seltzer's fizzing in a glass.
My mom comes to the doorway. "Your breakfast is ready!"
"Great." I go in and sit down. She slides a plate of eggs and two slices of toast in front of me, then tears off a sheet of paper towel by the sink and folds it for a napkin.
"Let me know if you need anything else, catsup, grape jelly."
"No, this looks good." I shake some pepper on the eggs then scoop up a forkful. They taste warm and crumbly.
"Is Dad ok?"
"Of course he is, what do you mean?" She takes the pan to the sink to rinse it out.
"Since losing his job at John Deere." He sat in a hut at the front entrance and waved in the regulars. When it got cold, a heater glowed orange at his feet. Last fall, they put in an automatic gate with a card reader.
"He's fine, we're both doing fine."
"He's not driving you crazy being home all the time?"
She takes some dishes from the rack to towel them off and put them away. "No, what makes you say that? I still have my work at Luke's. I'm a floater this week."
"I thought you retired years ago." St. Luke's Hospital is across the street, so it was easy for her do shifts and still pick us up after school. At night, I could see the greenish light of the operating room on the top floor. When I got older, she would tell stories about Code Blue over the PA, how when elderly patients were near the end without any visitors, the nurses would take their time, walk slowly down the hall with their rubbery soles squeaking.
She hangs the towel above the sink. "Retired? Don't kid yourself. I like staying busy."
I hear a cough from Maw-Maw's bedroom at the back of the house.
"Is she still here?" I ask Mom.
"Come on, Ben. You should know that."
I crack open her door. I can see her lumpy form under the pile of blankets, rising and falling with each wheezy breath. She must be asleep.
I take a few steps in. I'm hit by stale heat and the sickly-sweet smell of lavender perfume and Vick's cough syrup: Maw-Maw's essence. As a young girl, rheumatic fever had weakened her heart and left her half bedridden. Her face is white as paper, the wrinkles ironed out, the way she looked the day Mom called the ambulance. Her gray ringlets unfurl on the damp pillow.
Dad's mother was always there, a part of the house, a one-floor Queen Anne with chandeliers and sliding pocket-doors. With gray shingles and a peaked roof, it looks like a kid's drawing of a house. Spirea bushes ring the curved front porch. Summer nights, we'd sit there and count the headlights brushing past.
I remember scooting under her bed during a game of hide-and-seek. My brother and sister couldn't find me, and Maw-Maw got up and started to get undressed. I was shocked by the sight of her bare feet and ankles, the whisper of her white slip sliding down, terrified to make a sound. I didn't move until I heard the gurgle of water in the tub.
I hear Mom turn off the radio. "Come and finish your breakfast, Ben. I've got to go to work, but you can stay as long as you like."
I come into the kitchen as she heads for the front door.
"I'll be back soon," she says to Dad, still in his armchair.
"Where you running off to?"
Mom doesn't stop. She goes into the front hall and starts to put on her coat.
"I've got a nurse's meeting I can't miss," she smiles at him. "I'll be home in an hour."
"This early?" He glares straight ahead.
"It's almost 9."
"I know what time it is. I can see the clock." He puffs on his cigar, letting ash dribble onto the armchair's doily. "What I want to know is, why are you in such a hurry? Who's going to be there?"
Mom steps back into the living room, buttoning up. Her face tightens.
I watch from the doorway, uncertain what to do or say.
"Oh you know, the usual, the third floor of RNs and PAs."
He looks up at her. "Any doctors?"
"Not that I know of. Maybe the attending physician."
"I thought so. Well, you can skip this one. I still haven't had my breakfast."
"I made you Wheat Chex."
"But did I eat any? I want the same thing you made Ben. Scrambled eggs and toast. And toss in some bacon too."
Mom starts to tear up. "I can't, I'll be late."
Dad fumbles to stand up, then gains his balance. For a second I think he's going to hit her. But he trundles toward the kitchen.
I move out of the way and go stand over by my bedroom door.
"I want my breakfast now, goddammit." I hear him stomp the wooden kitchen chair on the tiles.
Mom stands still, boots in one hand. She looks at me as if to apologize. "He isn't always like this."
"I know, Mom."
"Now!" roars Dad from the kitchen. I hear a plate smash on the floor.
Mom stifles a sob and rushes into the kitchen. "No, Bernie, stop it! Those are our good dishes!"
I freeze. I feel as if I'm five again. Helpless, like watching a car accident in slow motion from the back seat. Once, when she came home from shopping at Kroger's, Mom couldn't find the brake, and the car bumped down the backyard into the chain-link fence. There's still a dent in one pole. She wasn't hurt, just shaken, the paper bags with jugs of milk and Fruit Loops and cans of Spam knocked over in the trunk.
Instinctively, I retreat inside my old bedroom and pull the door shut. The room has shrunk. The desk beside the bunk beds I shared with Todd looks tiny; above it are pinned the red-and-blue pennants from our summer trips to the Ozarks, Wisconsin Dells, the Blue Ridge Mountains. Nothing has been touched. My bureau is still where it was, socks peeking out of the top drawer. In the corner, my 45-record player lies splayed open, the needle-arm askew.
I raise the shade and look outside into the snowy side yard. The lights in the Rayburns' house next door are on, though they must be long gone. A big branch dangles, half broken-off, from the pear tree.
From behind the Rayburns' garage, a young deer pokes its head out, two twigs of horns between the ears. It sniffs the air tentatively, then comes out into the open, its hooves punching through the frozen crust. Glittery flakes of snow drift down. The deer stands there, legs trembling, alert, and fixes its gaze on me. I stare back into the creature's deep black eyes. It feels ridiculous, but I raise my right hand to wave, seeking a sign of recognition. The bedroom air feels thick, cottony. I can't hear a thing inside the house, no more yelling or tears, all I register is the deer's slow breathing, in and out, of frosty vapor.
