When the Cordwell family finished Thanksgiving meal, they balled the linen napkins onto their plates beside the turkey gristle.
Eliza and Janet chanced to look across the table at about the same time. Both women’s eyebrows flared, recognizing the set of the other’s mouth. Eliza turned her frown away first, towards a cousin snug in a wicker chair cornering the grand table. It wasn’t until Janet pushed away from the table and made for the kitchen doorway that her sister looked up.
Janet’s back was for everyone. She set her plate on the sink counter and took a sponge to soap.
The grease on Eliza’s finger startled her. She stopped tracing patterns and looked at her uncle, standing above the family. He held his hands together over this head and bent backward, so that his polo rose and granted a full view of his belly.
She recognized the touch at her elbow and the shade of her mother’s voice. “Would you help your sister by gathering plates,” her mother said. Said, not asked.
Eliza scooped her mother’s plate into her arms, catching deep concern in her mother’s dark eyes. They said not to cause a scene. She focused instead on stacking the plates well and gathering others.
She wasn’t married, but the sister who was rose, careful and pregnant, to help her collect the dishes along the opposite side of the dining room. Eliza meant to tell her later how well the warm, close walls brought out the glow in her cheeks.
They met at Uncle George’s vacated seat and compiled the dishes, while George shuffled back and marveled at feminine resourcefulness. The table laughed at him, but Eliza didn’t hear what was said. The married sister said something, too, that lost its intention in the release from polite manners, the pushing away of chairs from the table.
Eliza footed around her family, receiving glad smiles and words of praise with kind passiveness, the kindness she had learned from her father. He was overseas on a marketing job. The family planned a Skype chat later, over games of dominos and Apples to Apples.
Her mother, sitting too quiet at the table, wasn't looking at her anymore. When Eliza passed behind the high-backed wooden chairs to her mother’s, her mother rearranged the clean silverware – for pie later – laid in front of her as if they were an eternal feature of the grand table, as if they had existed where they were since her parents married and bought this house. New was the chair her mother sat in, and the light catching on its wheels.
Eliza wasn’t breathing when she passed through the quiet doorway, into a kitchen broken only by water from the faucet. She didn’t know this. If she had known, she might have made her footsteps heavier, or rattled plates, so as to avoid startling her older sister.
Janet looked up with accusing eyes. Her hands had fallen, on the plate in the sink filling up and spilling over with watered suds and grease.
“I’m putting these here,” Eliza said, and set the dishes on the counter, dancing around Janet’s frozen elbow.
Eliza looked around the kitchen their family had made. Someone else had built it, but the Cordwells and their daughters had loved here.
Janet didn’t move her eyes when Eliza returned to her. She wanted to say something.
A younger cousin entered the kitchen, making the floor groan under the weight of excitement. “Aunt Karen said it would be okay if I took the pies out before football,” she said. “Where are they?”
When Janet didn’t answer, Eliza said, “In the fridge.”
“Thank you,” the cousin said, and cut tight corners for the refrigerator.
Both sisters knew they couldn’t talk now. Eliza picked up a dishcloth she didn't need and a turkey pan in the drainboard. She took both through the dining room past the table and an uncle snoring in a chair with his head tilted against the high back, into the living room and an easy chair too big for her feet to touch the floor in.
She scooted the coffee table across the wood floor, careful in the way only those who live in the place they were born in know. With the same protective carelessness she propped her feet on the edge of the coffee table. She knew it was a matter of time. She waited like this, rubbing the dishcloth with the strawberry pattern over droplets collected in the pan, and staring at the warm walls over her uncle. Eliza felt the dishcloth was damp; she looked down at the strawberry seed print.
When she next stared into space, a body blocked her view. Snores filtered through Janet’s left arm, crocked on a hip towards the day-streaming windows. To the right, on the mantelpiece, was the clock neither sister saw, but knew was there, an anniversary silver one clicking the hour change. The sound told the women that it was four o’ clock.
They sustained their gaze until Janet blinked and twisted her neck, ending with a small snap. Eliza covered the moment by leaning over her feet and taking the domino tin. It was loose inside from the last time. She turned to place the turkey pan on the clean floor beneath her feet, and found that she could reach the floor if she slouched.
As Eliza slid her feet to the floor, Janet dragged a prim-backed chair out of the dining room. With the transfer from carpet to wood, the chair screeched and woke the uncle. He repositioned and fell into patterned heaviness. Janet and Eliza faced over the coffee table, their feet set on the floor.
Janet mixed the bones while Eliza took to choosing the starting numbers. She settled on an odd pair, five and three. Janet raised an eyebrow, said nothing. The tiles sorted themselves and the sisters picked their seven.
“Your turn,” Janet said. Eliza took it as a dare. She placed the smallest tile in her hand on the table.
As Janet saw the three and the zero, Eliza clicked together the tiles in her hand. “Will you stop that,” Janet said. She studied the table, creasing her forehead.
Eliza stopped to put her hands on the armrests. She looked at the mantelpiece clock.
She turned back to Janet. “Mom expects me to talk to you.”
Janet focused on tiles layered in her hand. She placed one at random. “Here I am.”
Now Eliza frowned at the game pieces, the four on the five, the four touching the spine, an indelicate operation.
“Are you sick of living here?” Janet said. Janet’s pieces sprawled in her hand, giving themselves up. Eliza could read every number except the one under her sister’s thumb.
Eliza addressed the thumb. “That’s not the reason.”
“It seems to be the only explanation, though I’d hardly call that a reason.”
“If it was, it wouldn’t be the main reason.”
Eliza riled the bones in her hand. Janet didn’t tell her to stop, but she didn’t say anything, either, as the mantelpiece clock ticked away the seconds.
“Would you say what your idea was,” Janet said.
“You didn’t want to hear about the house.”
“I never said that.”
“No, you just wanted to sell it, your way.” Eliza put a tile from her hand on the three.
“It’s both of ours, Eliza.”
“We’re not selling it away. Mom gets lonely.”
Janet studied her tiles. “No one’s taking my room.”
“It would be someone else’s.” Eliza tapped her foot on the floor. Somewhere out the windows the Cordwell cousins played tackle football on the crunchy lawn.
“It already feels like someone else lives in this house.”
Eliza looked at Janet directly. “Mom needs other people. She can’t do things anymore.”
Janet shook her head. “It would be hard for them to have everything open.” When Eliza didn’t speak she said, “You’ve gotten to spend time with them.”
In twitching her feet suddenly, Eliza kicked the turkey pan. It rang out the ambient sounds. “They’ve been here,” Eliza said. “Sometimes.”
Janet folded against the prim-backed chair. “So what’s going to happen?”
“We take it to both of them.”
“You know they’re in no mind to decide right now.”
Eliza had forgotten that she had already played her turn, but she put another tile down. If Janet had seen she couldn’t have brought herself to play anymore.
“But should we wait for Dad?” Janet said.
“Okay,” Eliza said.
Their married sister passed through the living room on her fifth trip to the restroom. To the sisters laying tiles across the coffee table, she was the ghost of the house that was.
Eliza and Janet chanced to look across the table at about the same time. Both women’s eyebrows flared, recognizing the set of the other’s mouth. Eliza turned her frown away first, towards a cousin snug in a wicker chair cornering the grand table. It wasn’t until Janet pushed away from the table and made for the kitchen doorway that her sister looked up.
Janet’s back was for everyone. She set her plate on the sink counter and took a sponge to soap.
The grease on Eliza’s finger startled her. She stopped tracing patterns and looked at her uncle, standing above the family. He held his hands together over this head and bent backward, so that his polo rose and granted a full view of his belly.
She recognized the touch at her elbow and the shade of her mother’s voice. “Would you help your sister by gathering plates,” her mother said. Said, not asked.
Eliza scooped her mother’s plate into her arms, catching deep concern in her mother’s dark eyes. They said not to cause a scene. She focused instead on stacking the plates well and gathering others.
She wasn’t married, but the sister who was rose, careful and pregnant, to help her collect the dishes along the opposite side of the dining room. Eliza meant to tell her later how well the warm, close walls brought out the glow in her cheeks.
They met at Uncle George’s vacated seat and compiled the dishes, while George shuffled back and marveled at feminine resourcefulness. The table laughed at him, but Eliza didn’t hear what was said. The married sister said something, too, that lost its intention in the release from polite manners, the pushing away of chairs from the table.
Eliza footed around her family, receiving glad smiles and words of praise with kind passiveness, the kindness she had learned from her father. He was overseas on a marketing job. The family planned a Skype chat later, over games of dominos and Apples to Apples.
Her mother, sitting too quiet at the table, wasn't looking at her anymore. When Eliza passed behind the high-backed wooden chairs to her mother’s, her mother rearranged the clean silverware – for pie later – laid in front of her as if they were an eternal feature of the grand table, as if they had existed where they were since her parents married and bought this house. New was the chair her mother sat in, and the light catching on its wheels.
Eliza wasn’t breathing when she passed through the quiet doorway, into a kitchen broken only by water from the faucet. She didn’t know this. If she had known, she might have made her footsteps heavier, or rattled plates, so as to avoid startling her older sister.
Janet looked up with accusing eyes. Her hands had fallen, on the plate in the sink filling up and spilling over with watered suds and grease.
“I’m putting these here,” Eliza said, and set the dishes on the counter, dancing around Janet’s frozen elbow.
Eliza looked around the kitchen their family had made. Someone else had built it, but the Cordwells and their daughters had loved here.
Janet didn’t move her eyes when Eliza returned to her. She wanted to say something.
A younger cousin entered the kitchen, making the floor groan under the weight of excitement. “Aunt Karen said it would be okay if I took the pies out before football,” she said. “Where are they?”
When Janet didn’t answer, Eliza said, “In the fridge.”
“Thank you,” the cousin said, and cut tight corners for the refrigerator.
Both sisters knew they couldn’t talk now. Eliza picked up a dishcloth she didn't need and a turkey pan in the drainboard. She took both through the dining room past the table and an uncle snoring in a chair with his head tilted against the high back, into the living room and an easy chair too big for her feet to touch the floor in.
She scooted the coffee table across the wood floor, careful in the way only those who live in the place they were born in know. With the same protective carelessness she propped her feet on the edge of the coffee table. She knew it was a matter of time. She waited like this, rubbing the dishcloth with the strawberry pattern over droplets collected in the pan, and staring at the warm walls over her uncle. Eliza felt the dishcloth was damp; she looked down at the strawberry seed print.
When she next stared into space, a body blocked her view. Snores filtered through Janet’s left arm, crocked on a hip towards the day-streaming windows. To the right, on the mantelpiece, was the clock neither sister saw, but knew was there, an anniversary silver one clicking the hour change. The sound told the women that it was four o’ clock.
They sustained their gaze until Janet blinked and twisted her neck, ending with a small snap. Eliza covered the moment by leaning over her feet and taking the domino tin. It was loose inside from the last time. She turned to place the turkey pan on the clean floor beneath her feet, and found that she could reach the floor if she slouched.
As Eliza slid her feet to the floor, Janet dragged a prim-backed chair out of the dining room. With the transfer from carpet to wood, the chair screeched and woke the uncle. He repositioned and fell into patterned heaviness. Janet and Eliza faced over the coffee table, their feet set on the floor.
Janet mixed the bones while Eliza took to choosing the starting numbers. She settled on an odd pair, five and three. Janet raised an eyebrow, said nothing. The tiles sorted themselves and the sisters picked their seven.
“Your turn,” Janet said. Eliza took it as a dare. She placed the smallest tile in her hand on the table.
As Janet saw the three and the zero, Eliza clicked together the tiles in her hand. “Will you stop that,” Janet said. She studied the table, creasing her forehead.
Eliza stopped to put her hands on the armrests. She looked at the mantelpiece clock.
She turned back to Janet. “Mom expects me to talk to you.”
Janet focused on tiles layered in her hand. She placed one at random. “Here I am.”
Now Eliza frowned at the game pieces, the four on the five, the four touching the spine, an indelicate operation.
“Are you sick of living here?” Janet said. Janet’s pieces sprawled in her hand, giving themselves up. Eliza could read every number except the one under her sister’s thumb.
Eliza addressed the thumb. “That’s not the reason.”
“It seems to be the only explanation, though I’d hardly call that a reason.”
“If it was, it wouldn’t be the main reason.”
Eliza riled the bones in her hand. Janet didn’t tell her to stop, but she didn’t say anything, either, as the mantelpiece clock ticked away the seconds.
“Would you say what your idea was,” Janet said.
“You didn’t want to hear about the house.”
“I never said that.”
“No, you just wanted to sell it, your way.” Eliza put a tile from her hand on the three.
“It’s both of ours, Eliza.”
“We’re not selling it away. Mom gets lonely.”
Janet studied her tiles. “No one’s taking my room.”
“It would be someone else’s.” Eliza tapped her foot on the floor. Somewhere out the windows the Cordwell cousins played tackle football on the crunchy lawn.
“It already feels like someone else lives in this house.”
Eliza looked at Janet directly. “Mom needs other people. She can’t do things anymore.”
Janet shook her head. “It would be hard for them to have everything open.” When Eliza didn’t speak she said, “You’ve gotten to spend time with them.”
In twitching her feet suddenly, Eliza kicked the turkey pan. It rang out the ambient sounds. “They’ve been here,” Eliza said. “Sometimes.”
Janet folded against the prim-backed chair. “So what’s going to happen?”
“We take it to both of them.”
“You know they’re in no mind to decide right now.”
Eliza had forgotten that she had already played her turn, but she put another tile down. If Janet had seen she couldn’t have brought herself to play anymore.
“But should we wait for Dad?” Janet said.
“Okay,” Eliza said.
Their married sister passed through the living room on her fifth trip to the restroom. To the sisters laying tiles across the coffee table, she was the ghost of the house that was.
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