There she was.
Between Hungry Henry and Sleeping Sam was the wrinkled countenance of the Old Maid. He could see only the left half of her face, but that was enough. Divorced from its twin, her left eye had an even crueler cast, and the flat portion of wrinkled mouth that was visible seemed not merely angry but malevolent. He pushed Sleeping Sam over so that the dozing boy was covering the Old Maid, then sorted through the rest of his cards, looking for doubles. He found two sets and discarded them, then, holding the remaining cards in front of him, fanned them out in his right hand and told Megan to pick.
Unfortunately, she did not pick the Old Maid. In fact, she never picked the Old Maid, and at the conclusion of a surprisingly short game, James ended up holding in his hand the one card he didn’t want. He turned it facedown, placing it atop his discards, then stood. “I don’t want to play anymore,” he said.
Megan shrugged. “Fine. This is boring anyway.” She said it loud enough for their dad to hear, and once again James thought he was probably just a pawn in his sister’s bid for more freedom.
He walked over to his room, automatically closing the door as he went in, and picked up his DS. Through the window, he saw an elderly couple walking down the sidewalk. The woman turned her head to look at their house, but James quickly looked away, not wanting to see her. In his mind, she looked like the Old Maid, and, feeling cold, he walked back across the room, opening the door wide before turning on his DS and hopping onto his bed.
They ate that evening in the dining room. Ever since they’d moved, his mom had been on this kick, because she’d read somewhere or heard on the news that kids from families who ate dinner together every night turned out happier and more successful. In their old house, she’d been a lot more flexible. Sometimes he and Megan would eat in the living room and watch The Simpsons while his parents ate in the kitchen. Sometimes his dad would eat on the couch while watching the news or a basketball game. Sometimes James would play with his DS while he ate. Things weren’t so rigid then. But these days, they all ate together, and more often than not, James found himself wishing that they didn’t.
Tonight, Megan kept kicking him under the table while maintaining an expression of calm interest on her face as their mom endlessly described a lawsuit she was working on. Finally, he’d had enough and kicked his sister back hard—but his foot missed and hit the leg of the table, causing his milk to spill and everyone’s chili beans to splash out of their bowls onto the tabletop. He got in trouble, despite his explanation, while across from him Megan smirked maddeningly.
They didn’t speak to each other the rest of the evening, and James was happy when she went upstairs to her bedroom early. He remained with his parents, and the three of them watched TV together until his mom said, “It’s getting late, and you stayed up way past your bedtime last night. I think it’s time for you to go to bed.”
He didn’t feel tired, and, truthfully, his mom seemed sleepier than he did, but he wanted to go to bed while they were still awake, so he said good night and headed up to his room. Megan was in the bathroom, so he changed into his pajamas first and, after she got out, went in to brush his teeth. Returning to his room, he pulled down the covers—
And there, sitting on his pillow, was the Old Maid card.
He cried out, startled, jumping back and practically tripping over the shoes he’d left in the middle of the floor. He knew it was just a joke, Megan’s doing, but his heart was pounding so hard that his chest hurt. He wasn’t sure how she knew he was afraid of the card, but obviously she did, and she’d put it here to scare him. Which it had.
Breathing deeply, recovered from the initial shock, James took a step forward, intending to pick up the card, take it over to his sister’s room and throw it in her face.
Only …
Only it wasn’t the card from their deck. On his pillow, the creepy old woman wasn’t staring angrily out at him, the way she always had. She was smiling slyly, as though she knew something about James that no one else knew, something that she was going to use to hurt him.
This grinning Old Maid was even creepier somehow, and looking at her hard eyes under arched eyebrows, he was almost afraid to pick the card up. But he did and turned it over, and the pattern on the back was exactly the same as on their deck. How was this possible? he wondered. Had his sister somehow altered the card? Had she secretly bought another deck with a different picture?
Had Megan been involved at all?
Logically, he didn’t see how she could be, but any alternative was too frightening to even contemplate.
He still wanted to throw the card in her face, but instead he tore the card up, took it to the bathroom and flushed the pieces down the toilet, watching to make sure they all went down. Coming out, he saw that although Megan’s door was closed, the light was on in her room, and he felt like going over there and confronting her, demanding to know how that card had ended up on his pillow.
But in the end, he went back into his bedroom without saying anything.
Because he was afraid she didn’t know.
Eight
Saturday morning, Claire decided to sleep in. It had been a long week, and she’d stayed up late last night watching an old Audrey Hepburn movie after Julian had gone to bed. Sabrina. They didn’t make movies like that anymore. They didn’t make stars like that anymore. It was an old-lady thing to think, and she wondered idly whether she had been born in the wrong era, whether her taste in popular culture would have been more mainstream had she been born forty years earlier.
There was noise from the kitchen, the exaggerated sounds of annoyed children forced to make their own breakfast, and Claire smiled, closed her eyes and promptly fell back asleep.
When she finally woke up for good, the noises were gone and so, apparently, was her family. The house was quiet and felt empty, and when she called out, no one answered. She pushed off the covers, stood and picked up her bathrobe from the back of the chair next to the bed. She’d bought that chair at an antique store in Pasadena with money her parents had sent her for her twenty-fifth birthday, and she found herself wondering whether that antique store was still there. Back in California, on free Saturdays like this, she often used to go antiquing with her friends, not necessarily buying but looking, window-shopping, and that was something she genuinely missed. Although she had to admit that moving back to New Mexico had been the smartest move they’d ever made. Especially after …
She didn’t even want to think about it.
Staring out the window at an army of billowy clouds stretched across the endless deep blue sky, she realized how much she depended on this place—the land, the sky, the town—to keep her grounded and centered. She felt at home here, and if that meant that she had to give up some of the more sophisticated pleasures of the big city … well, it was a small price to pay.
Although she was not sure Julian thought so. Oh, he claimed to like it here, and he never really complained, and he spent a lot of time with the kids, which seemed to make him happy. But even after all these years, he just didn’t seem to fit in here. Her family saw him as someone who was here only temporarily, who was enduring life in Jardine until he had the chance to move back to Los Angeles, and though they’d never really discussed it, Claire thought that that was the way he saw himself, too.
She walked out to the kitchen. According to the note he left, Julian had taken the kids to play miniature golf. They’d both earned free passes in the library’s summer reading program and had been begging him to take them for the past week. Claire was grateful for the time alone—there was a lot of housework she needed to catch up on—and she poured herself some orange juice, made herself some toast, and took her breakfast outside to eat on the picnic table in the backyard. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the clouds were rolling across the sky. It was nice not having to listen to the noise of the television or the kids bickering or Julian commenting on whatever newspaper article he was reading.