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I came to the Aaron’s rowhouse, slipping through the wrought iron gate and stepping quietly up the stone walkway past flowerbeds that had been immaculate until the weather killed them. The little gardens reeked of death, the overpowering stench of wilting and rotting flowers overwhelming. At the massive, white colonial door, I rang the doorbell and gritted my teeth as the reviled goofy song I had triggered played throughout the house. The unique doorbell was one of many things that brought back nauseating memories of my childhood, if it could even be called that. I rubbed my fingers to keep the blood moving in them despite the cold and leaned against the wide door, waiting. After a short while, there was an ominousbangfollowed by a blood-curdling scream from within. My eyes widened in shock and I knocked sharply on the door, my pulse quickening at thoughts of my tiny foster-mother being shot by a burglar. Just as I was beginning to think she was dead, the icy silence of the neighborhood was shattered. “Door’s open!” she shouted from within the house.
I rolled my eyes. I entered the house gingerly as I called, “Mrs. Aaron? Everything alright?”
“Poe? Come help me with this!” she replied, sounding mildly distressed. I rolled my eyes again and followed her voice towards the kitchen. Mrs. Aaron was the epitome of an average, middle-aged, pudgy damsel in distress. The greatest of the villains conspiring against her was her mom’s lasagna recipe and it seemed like every time I visited her I had to help her clean up the kitchen following another explosion or similar tragedy.
With every step I took into the white, ice-cold house, my stomach twisted more and more. Every perfectly-polished cherry floorboard, every flawlessly-placed flower arrangement screamed my foster-father’s obsessive compulsive rants back at me from my memories. I could hear him shouting at me from across the years, could feel his large hands bruising my shoulders as he shook me by them.
Upon entering the kitchen, I froze in the doorway and looked around, wide-eyed. Mrs. Aaron was standing in the middle of the kitchen, covered in suspicious-looking red goo. The red was covering nearly every inch of the kitchen, including and certainly not limited to the floor, ceiling, wallpaper, counters, pots and pans hanging above the island, fridge, sink, and cookbook on the bar. The microwave door was open and smoke was pouring out of it, along with more red dripping from the dark abyss. I raised my eyebrows and grabbed a wet dishcloth to use to mop the red off Mrs. Aaron’s face. Upon closer observation, I confirmed my suspicions that the red was tomato sauce. “Mrs. Aaron, you’re not supposed to put lasagna in the microwave. Did you use a metal pan too?”
She shrugged sheepishly. “I thought it would be quicker than the oven. I guess I forgot about the pan. Do I own any glass ones?”
I smiled just a little. While it was a pain to clean up after Mrs. Aaron, occasions like this had become almost endearing to me. “They’re in the cupboard next to the stove, right below the silverware drawer.”
“Well, that explains a lot. I never go in that cupboard.”
I shook my head and got the worst of the sauce off Mrs. Aaron’s arms, then handed a new rag to her. Grabbing a magazine off the bar to fan the microwave with, I peeked inside. Sure enough, there was the cremated lasagna and blackened pan. I sighed and grabbed two oven mitts to remove the remains with and set the pan on the stovetop. Mrs. Aaron looked over at it and winced before returning to her mission wiping off the kitchen island.
“Maybe you should just avoid lasagna. You could cook something else…like that taco salad thing you used to make. That was usually good,” I suggested in vain. I knew she would not consent, but it was always worth a try.
Predictably, Mrs. Aaron shook her head with a determined sharpness. With her short, lumpy figure and fluffy strawberry hair, she was not an overly formidable force to reckon with, but she was entertaining. “No. I have to get this right!” she snapped, her voice firm, but too high and flighty-sounding to be threatening. If I could describe Mrs. Aaron using an animal image, she would be a mouse.
I sighed. She still hadn’t gotten the lasagna right after holding the recipe for fifteen years. Of course, for the first few years she had been too scared to try. Now, she waged her crusade on a regular basis, trashing the kitchen almost weekly and poisoning the foolish test-taster. Obviously, no one had died yet, but it was only a matter of time. For my own part, I hoped Jonathan Aaron died of salmonella poisoning.
Unlike my foster-father, I really did like my foster-mom. Mrs. Aaron was sweet and certainly amusing, hare-brained, in a word. She was always kind and doting to me, though she never once turned on her husband. I had never even gotten a pretzel out of her between meals. However, taking care of her gave me something to do as a break from work and writing.
As I helped Mrs. Aaron scrub the various kitchen counters and walls, I began to notice that something was not right. She was dropping things, acting even clumsier than usual. Twice I noticed her drop her dishcloth and once she let a pan fall from the hanging rack above the island, causing a crash rivaling the volume of a gunshot. I frowned and began watching her more closely. She was shooting glances at me, the clock above the stove, and the hall leading to the garage. I swallowed hard, feigning an indifferent, controlled tone. “So, what’s new?”
“Oh, not much. Same old, same old, as they say,” she answered, her voice anxious.
“And how is Mr. Aaron?”
She dropped a second pan and scrambled to retrieve it. As she stretched out her arm to snatch it from the hardwood floor, her sleeve pulled up slightly and my eyes locked on the purplish bruise ringing her wrist like a manacle. She chuckled quietly, everything about her a lie, and said, “Oh, I would hardly know. He’s always working, you know.”
“Right,” I concurred, the wheels turning in my head as I wiped lasagna remains from the over-stocked liquor cabinet. “He doesn’t know I’m visiting today, does he?”
“Oh, no! Of course not!” Mrs. Aaron squealed sharply. She was shaking from the top of her poofy hair to her tiny feet.
My pulse began to quicken again and I fought to keep my voice measured. “Because, you know, he doesn’t like that I visit you when he’s not around.”
My foster-mother turned, trying to mold her face into an innocent smile. The innocence and naivety were easily achieved, but not the smile. “What would give you an idea like that?”
I half-smiled grimly. “Because if that front door opens when he’s not around, even to bring the mail in, much less his despised foster-child, he goes into a tailspin. That’s what he does best, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Aaron’s eyes hardened ever-so-slightly and she said sharply, “Poe, your father is a good man who has always provided well for this family. He’s always been good to us.”
My blood began to boil beneath my skin. “First of all,” I began, my voice like ice, “He has never been my father. Second, this has never been my family. And lastly, your husband has never been a good man.”
The hurt registered in my foster-mother’s tiny hazel eyes before I had even finished my last accusation. The tears pooled in her eyes as they screamed at me,I tried! He was a good man once! I tried! She looked down at her red-stained shoes in sadness and I did the same in shame. “Mrs. Aaron, I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“I loved your mother, Poe. She was my best friend.” She met my gaze, the tears falling slowly and steadily now. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to replace her, especially after…after Jonathan started…drinking.” She swallowed hard and said softly, “But I always loved you like a daughter, Poe. I always tried.”
Now, the tears came to my eyes. “Then why did you tell Mr. Aaron I’d be here today?”
Almost on cue, I could hear the rumbling of the garage door like a hungry beast and the squeal of tires as he spun into the driveway. My hands began to shake in anger and fear, but I stood my ground, refusing to allow myself to flee. Mrs. Aaron, on the other hand, panicked, her eyes going wide and her fists clenched together as she pleaded with me. “Poe, please go. I can explain another time, just please go!”
As always, Mrs. Aaron’s fear came before her love for me. As always, what strength she had to be a measure of a mother for me was too little and too late. The door to the garage at the end of the hall burst open, the pane slamming into the wall and the handle bursting through the plaster with a resoundingka-chunk. The doorstop had been broken for years. I turned slowly, purposefully, to face my foster-father and watched as he stormed towards me, his face beet-red, and his suit jacket and tie flowing behind him like Dracula’s cloak. “ELENORA!” he roared.
The sight of a six-foot three, two-hundred pound man with a demonic look in his eyes is enough to send most people running, but it was a sight I was used to. I stood my ground, planting my hands on my hips and letting the muscles in my jaw tighten like steel. My foster-father came to a furious stop right before me, grabbing me forcefully by the shoulder with one hand and using the other, the one adorned by the ring that he loved more than his wife, to punch me close-fisted in the mouth. I heard my neck crack with the force that my head spun back with and I staggered, but stared back up at him defiantly after only a moment’s relief. Ignoring the warmth that told of blood dripping from my mouth, I said coldly, “Go ahead, hit me again. You’ve gotten used to hitting women over the years. I expect no less.”
