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Because I’m a police officer and I heard a crash, I tell myself it’s my duty to go inside and make sure everything is okay.
The muscles in my abdomen tighten and then release. Braxton-Hicks contractions—I’ve been getting a lot of them lately. They don’t hurt, just intermittent reminders that the baby is getting ready to join us on the outside.
“Too soon, Peanut,” I murmur to her. I push on the door and it swings open and I step inside.
My senses are assaulted with the scene in front of me. I cover my nose with my hand, my stomach protesting against the rotten, sour smell.
“Oh my God,” Leanne breathes as she comes up behind me to get a closer look.
The state of the living room is straight out of Hoarders casting. Layers upon layers of junk fill the room. Boxes and baskets crammed with odds and ends are stacked neck high. Newspapers and magazines cover nearly every surface. Bottles of bleach and glass cleaner and laundry soap and rubber gloves are in a jumble in one corner. From somewhere inside the house there is an insistent mewing.
“I have to talk to her,” comes a familiar voice.
“Dad?” I say in disbelief and then turn in a slow circle but he’s nowhere to be found. It’s Leanne who peeks behind the open front door and there is my dad, his back pressed against the wall.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” I ask, my voice sharper than I intend.
For a second, his eyes cloud with shame at being scolded by his daughter but then it disappears. “I need to talk to Charlotte,” he says more forcefully.
“Charlotte’s not here. She’s in the hospital, remember?” I say and then kick myself. Of course he doesn’t remember. “Is Nola here?” I ask. “Did she let you in?”
“I always give Charlotte an update on Friday,” my dad insists, running his fingers across his thinning hair. There’s a stain on his shirt and he looks exhausted. “I’ll just wait until she gets back.”
I know that when my dad gets like this it does little good to argue with him. It’s better to try to break the persistent loop that plays in his head and redirect the conversation. “That’s why she’s not here. It’s only Wednesday,” I say, showing him the calendar icon on my cell phone. “We’ll come back on Friday. You can talk to her then.”
My dad takes my phone from my hands and examines the display more closely. “Oh,” he finally says in a small voice. “I got my days mixed up.”
“That’s okay,” I say, blinking back tears. “I get my days mixed up too sometimes.” It’s so hard seeing him like this. Confused, unsure of himself.
To Leanne I say, “Can you take him home? I want to make sure everything is closed up tight here. I’ll call Colin and say we found him. I’ll come in a few minutes.”
Leanne places an arm around my dad’s waist and steers him through the door. I watch as she leads him across the street and back to the front porch. I do want to make sure that Nola’s house is shut up tight but I also want to see the rest of the house. I’m shocked at its condition.
I squeeze through the narrow path that I know leads to the kitchen. The smell is worse in here. The meowing is louder. A small kennel sits by the back door and from inside a cat arches its back and hisses and screeches at me.
Every counter is covered with mounds of mail and dishes and canned goods. The sink is brimming with forks and spoons and knives. One drawer is pulled open and piled with coffee cups. I open a cupboard—cans of tuna and bags of sugar. I open the oven—again more canned goods. Soup this time. It appears that Charlotte and Nola Knox have a system. I bend over and look in the cupboard beneath the sink and it’s filled with the usual: dishwasher liquid, drain opener, rags, garbage bags and carpet cleaner.
I open the door that leads to the basement that is as black as Ransom Caves. I flip the light switch on, hold tightly to the railing and take a few steps downward. It’s just as bad as the main floor. Garbage bags and boxes cover every inch. There is a rusty old bicycle sitting in a corner and a treadmill draped with winter coats. I look down. Dark spots dot the steps. Blood from Charlotte Knox’s fall? I don’t go any farther. The basement is a minefield and I know I need to turn around and head upstairs and back into the kitchen.
I open the refrigerator door and a putrid, rotten odor assaults my nose. It’s stuffed with moldy cheese and packages of black lunch meat, shriveled apples and slimy carrots. There’s a quart of congealed milk with the lid missing, containers of half-eaten takeout and liquefied heads of lettuce. I gag and slam the door shut and tear from the kitchen, knocking over a pyramid of mason jars that crash to the floor.
Back in the living room, I lean over, hands on my knees and inhale deeply trying to expel the rancid smell. Once the nausea passes I fight the urge to flee the house. How did Eve’s mother and sister come to live this way? Though the Knox home was never fancy it was clean and cozy. I always liked spending time here, though we spent most of our time hidden away in Eve’s room.
Stacks of books line the staircase and I have to step carefully, clutching onto the railing so I don’t tumble backward. What happened here? I wonder as I reach the landing to find a mattress and folding chairs leaning against the walls. I barely fit through the narrow pathway to get to Eve’s bedroom door.
I’m afraid to open the door, afraid of what I might find. Only the worry that Nola will come home prods me forward and I push the door open and step inside. “Oh,” I breathe and spin around slowly. Eve’s room hasn’t changed a bit and I feel like I’m transported back twenty-five years in time. The small desk where Eve did her homework is still there, her nubby pink cardigan sweater draped over the back of the chair. There was the gray stuffed rabbit with the worn velvet ears that Eve rubbed between her fingers when she was nervous and brought with her to every overnight.
I bite the sides of my cheeks to stave off the tears. A ratty, slightly yellowed white robe hangs on the front of Eve’s closet and I brush it aside to open the door. Eve’s closet is filled with her secondhand store finds. I smile as I thumb through the jeans and the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix T-shirts. Her shoes are lined up on the floor of the closet and her book bag hangs from a hook on the back of the door. There are half a dozen scarves but not the one she was wearing the day she died.
I glance down. A floral hatbox sits on the floor of the closet. I’ve been in Eve’s room a million times as a kid and I know every inch of the space. Twenty-five years ago there was no hatbox. This wouldn’t be remarkable except that everything else in this room has not changed a bit. I give the box a shake and its contents rattle.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” comes a voice and the hatbox tumbles to the ground. My heart lodges in my throat as I swing around to find a redheaded woman standing in the doorway. The box spills open and the ivory-colored items scatter across the hardwood floor. My hand flies to my sidearm, but I had taken it off when I got into my car. The girth of my belly was making it uncomfortable to wear.
The woman is Nola. Nola with red hair. “Nola, I...” I begin but before I can finish she is backing me against the closet door.
“What are you doing in here?” she repeats, her voice shaking with anger. She towers over me and is standing so close that I can see the shiny puckered skin below her collarbone. Scarred from her altercation with Nick Brady years ago.
“Calm down, Nola.” I press my palms against her shoulders, trying to make some distance between us. “Back up, I can explain.” Nola holds her ground. I’m losing control of the situation. I was caught off guard, in a home I legally have no right to be in, and I’m unarmed. “I mean it, Nola, take a step back, now.” Somehow the words come out forcefully, with no tremor or hesitation.
