neat, bunchy hair, very white skin, no wrinkles. After that was a picture of her with her hands on my father’s shoulders. My father, maybe a bit older than me, stood beside her, although I didn’t think he intended to be in the picture. He stared off into space, his whole face shattered and fragile.
Something about his face in the photo reminded me of his face the day he threw the snow globe against the wall. Had my father told Stella about that? About the hospital? How had he explained?
My grandmother grew older and older in each successive picture, gaining more weight, her hair receding until it was a fuzzy, bald raft at the crown of her head, her pink scalp shining through. In the last photo, she was in bed. Stella was next to her, wearing the same green stretch pants she had on today.
My father returned from the kitchen, holding a can of beer. It looked strange in his hand; I’d never seen him drink one. He pointed to the photo of him. ‘That’s me.’
‘Duh,’ I answered. I motioned to the wall. ‘What’s with the pictures of Frank?’
My father took a long swallow of beer. ‘Yeah. Mom liked Frank. She really went nuts with pictures of him after Dad died.’
I stared at him. Samantha, who was sitting on the couch reading a wrinkled TV Guide, snorted.
Dear Claire. You know how you’re always looking for kitsch? Well, you’d hit the jackpot here.
‘Why don’t I take your bags upstairs?’ my father offered.
We all walked through the kitchen and up the creaky stairs to the bedrooms. The upstairs, way colder than the downstairs, opened into a long, narrow hall with doors on either side. The bathroom door, the first to the left, gaped open. Stacks of books and crossword puzzles balanced on the top of the toilet.
My father tapped the first bedroom door open with his foot. The door was very heavy, with a long crack traversing through its center. ‘This used to be my room.’
It smelled musty inside. There was a From Russia With Love poster on the wall and a video game console-at least I thought that was what it was-on the ground. The television was a tiny bubble. An orange milk crate in the corner held action figures, and a second milk crate behind it was filled with old LPs. Blonde On Blonde was up front, a frizzyhaired Bob Dylan pursing his lips at the camera. A plaid spread covered the twin bed.
‘Huh,’ Steven said, looking around.
‘Where did this TV come from?’ My father tapped it, puzzled. ‘And these video games?’
Steven knelt down to examine the console. ‘Atari.’
‘I certainly wasn’t back here when video games came out,’ my father said. ‘And I don’t remember them here the one time we brought you guys.’
Steven inserted a cartridge into the video game and turned on the television. The words DONKEY KONG flashed on the screen. ‘This is, like, vintage. It’s never been played with.’
‘No one plays those video games,’ Samantha scoffed, peering in from the hall. ‘They’re, like, a zillion years old. I have Sega.’
‘I never liked this game,’ Steven said, but fired it up anyway. The gorilla pitched barrels down a plank, and Steven’s character, a Mario Brother, jumped them.
‘Sad!’ Stella sang when the barrel tripped up Mario. Then she looked at my father. ‘You know who I saw the other day? Georgette Mulvaney. That Kay girl’s mother.’
My father’s chin jutted up. I watched his eyes carefully.
‘I’m amazed they still live here.’ Stella gazed out the window. The wind was pushing the tire swing back and forth. ‘I thought they moved. I invited her to the funeral.’
My father stiffened. ‘What did she say? Is she going to come?’
His face was so splotchy. That name was so familiar, all the years he’d talked about the accident. But I’d always suspected-maybe wished-that he made the accident up, that it had never happened.
‘I doubt it,’ Stella answered. ‘She said she had something to do, I don’t know. She thanked me for inviting her, though. And she gives her condolences.’
‘Oh.’ My father let out a breath. He began running his fingers over the scar on his palm.
‘Does the guy still live here?’ I asked, searching for the boyfriend’s name. ‘Mark? The one who was in the accident, too?’
‘He lives in Colorado,’ my father said quickly. ‘Moved out there years ago.’ His face had tightened so drastically that I didn’t dare ask anything else.
My father shuffled his feet on the shabby burgundy carpet. Mario bleeped as he jumped the barrels on the screen. My father looked around and scratched his head. ‘I don’t get it. Did someone else use this room? I have no clue where this TV and the video games could have come from.’
‘Oh, Ruth bought them for you,’ Stella said. ‘She bought you all kinds of stuff. I guess she always thought you’d bring Summer and Steven here more often. She bought tons of crap from that space movie, too. It’s all in boxes in the closet. What was the name of one of the characters in that movie? The Nookie?’
‘The Wookie?’ Steven fished, after a pause. ‘You mean Star Wars? Chewbacca?’
Stella frowned, annoyed. ‘No. That’s not right.’
When Mario died, Steven turned off the game, bored. He wandered into a bedroom down the hall, and my father and Stella returned downstairs. But I stayed in the old room, looking at the posters on the wall. There was one of a Playboy girl, her bathing suit straps sliding down her arms. I couldn’t imagine my father looking at girls in that way, let alone taking the time to buy the poster and hang it up, neatly pushing tacks into each corner.
Slowly, I opened the drawers of his desk. In the very bottom drawer, I found a photo of a guy with shaggy, longish hair and sideburns. He wore a football jersey and held up a paper cup to toast. Next to him was a small, pale, freckled girl with a guarded, uncertain smile. Her long blonde hair was parted in the center. They stood in front of the eye-shaped Dairy Queen sign. I turned the picture over. Mark Jeffords and Kay Mulvaney, (secret!) engagement, 1970. The handwriting was neat and orderly, definitely not my father’s crabbed, crazy scrawl.
I looked at their faces for a long time, especially at her, dead now. Then I tucked the photo back under a bunch of papers and shut the drawer tight. ‘This place is really creepy,’ I whispered aloud, then went to find Steven to see if he thought so too.
Steven was in the next bedroom, which was done up in green and gold checkered wallpaper. I found him on the floor next to the bureau, his knees bent, his hands behind his head. His cheeks inflated then deflated, and he breathed out in puffs.
My chest knotted. Steven noticed me. His face reddened.
‘Why are you doing sit-ups?’ I burst out.
‘I’m in training.’ He lowered down.
‘In training for what?’
‘The Marines.’
I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Like from your GI Joe days?’
Steven’s forehead crinkled and his mouth became very small. After one more sit-up, he stood and swished by me for the bathroom, not answering my question.
My father and Stella sat around the kitchen table and drank cans of beer. Steven closed his bedroom door so I couldn’t barge in again. Samantha was smoking on the front porch-Stella just let her smoke-and was making a face that indicated she didn’t want me to come near her.
The