Corner of the Dead

Chapter 8

[ 104 ] C H A P T E R 8 N O L E A K I N T H E C E I L I N G . It hasn’t rained for a very long time. Even if it had, only the penthouse would leak and we don’t live on the top floor. The lintel could be rotted though. That would be a way to get rain. But to date our lintels have never leaked even with directed wind. Ben and Phoebe are still sleeping. Outside the bedroom window, if I crane my neck to see, the grass is wheat-colored, so dry it crunches. Richard is in the kitchen. Where he always is on a Sunday. I make the trek of thirteen steps to the foyer and then seven more to the kitchen. He knows I need coffee but begins to tell me how much I’ve hurt Ben. Now that he has started he isn’t able to calm down. I hope he’s wrong about me not committing , about how I let Ben vacillate from this to that. I think that’s what he’s saying. Lisette, what are you teaching them? I think but don’t say, not to sit still when they are uncomfortable . Or when something isn’t right. To know there are options . I don’t want them to be victims, not to things they can change. I pour a glass of juice. I can see it landing in the middle of [ 105 ] his forehead. But children should not wake to the sound of shattering glass. Not glass their mother throws at their father. Richard is still seated at the kitchen table. I say, it is time for you to leave. But saying it doesn’t bring relief, not like I thought it would. The silence that rests on us is the kind that precedes something dreadful. When I begin to speak my voice is not familiar. It’s how you treat Ben, I say. It’s how we treat each other. Then I run my fingers across my corduroy pants. The lines in the grain of the floor dead-end into a seam clogged with dirt from all the people and pets that have walked here. I like the shiny parts. Also the splintered ones. There is one special place in the corner where a whole chunk of wood is missing. Things happen, Richard says. Is Ben a part of these ‘things’? I need to protect Ben. He walks toward me. I get up and back away. What did you just say? For you Ben is trouble. He challenges you but worse he reminds you of me. You think he is defying you but I’m the one with the will you so dislike. He fills a glass with water. I ask for one too. He hands me his. But before I have it firmly in my hand, he lets go. We watch it fall and shatter. In the bedroom he is slamming the dresser drawers. I go outside to the terrace. My terra-cotta planters are crammed with dead herbs. If I need to, I can jump the three floors and be safe. This must be what Karl and Richard meant when they said I think like a child. My hammock is strung across a metal frame. I still sleep in it [ 106 ] sometimes. In spring, after the thawing and freezing of winter, many cement chunks from the foundation have come undone, crushing the sprouting crocuses and daffodils below. Nothing is heavy enough to damage the rhododendron bushes. From my hammock I can see Phoebe and Ben’s clubhouse. It is built into the corner of the building. Richard did that when they were little, when their toys and strollers and car seats took up too much space. It wasn’t until they were older that they turned it into a clubhouse. Ben’s fire-dog pajamas are still draped across the front window; Phoebe’s poodle-dog pajamas are stretched along the side. The first thing hanging above the doorway is a bicycle. Not like the ones we owned in the Andes. What would have happened if one thing had been different? Next come the discarded plastic toys. Stacked on the shelves is an old radio with knobs, a telephone, the kind you can dial, and in the child-size desk pressed leaves are ironed between wax...