Rebecca Makkai - The Hundred-Year House

It was the first time Doug heard Gracie refer to the colony with anything other than complete disregard. Apparently her disregard for her father was stronger. Gamaliel — a name Doug found suitably villainous for the man who’d shuttered the colony. When he’d mentioned him to Miriam, she’d said, “Oh, let’s call him Gargamel! Like the bad guy from The Smurfs !” And ever since, Doug had pictured a man skulking around in a black robe, plotting the demise of the little artists. The real Gamaliel had suffered a nervous breakdown following the 1929 stock market crash, and although his fortunes had recovered, his mind never did. At least this was what Doug had gathered from The Devohrs of Toronto: A Family Portrait , back in graduate school.

“Miriam, there ’s a commission for you!” Gracie said. She was still examining the panel. “You might as well make yourself useful. Couldn’t you paint it or something? A landscape?”

Miriam had perched on the counter, bare feet swinging, wine glass in hand. “I don’t paint much. How about a traditional mosaic? In glass and little tiles?”

Case said, “Hey, see?” He turned to Bruce with a sharp, unfriendly grin. “That’s how it’s supposed to work. Hooking people up with gigs. What are you doing for me ?” Joking, but of course he wasn’t.

Bruce looked at his son with what Doug took for deep irritation. “My friend Clarence Mahoney will be at the fund-raiser. That’s what I’m doing for you.”

The art project, at least, was quickly settled, and Bruce told Gracie she was “a regular Medici.” Miriam was already eyeing the piece of wood like something she planned to ravish.

There was a small crash from Doug and Zee’s rooms, and a grunt of what sounded like frustration. They ignored it.

“Oh, just think!” Gracie said. “This might turn out to be your best artwork ever, and I thought of it just by happensack!”

Case let out a quick burst of laughter, and Miriam quickly stuck her head into the oven under the pretense of checking the pumpkin. Bruce beamed like Gracie was the cutest thing.

“Just by happensack,” Doug repeated, and managed to keep a straight face. “And of course you’ll pay Miriam for the tiles,” he said, because he knew Miriam wouldn’t say it, and he knew Gracie wouldn’t think of it. “Unless you want it made of snipped up shirts and compost.” He looked at Miriam to see if he’d offended her, but when she emerged from the oven she was smiling appreciatively.

“Oh, of course. And something extra for the labor. Shall we see what’s keeping Zilla?” There was a horrible scraping sound just then, though, and no one volunteered.

By the time the soup was blended, the orange mess sopped from the counter, the remains served, and the lasagna finishing in the oven, they were all in high spirits. Maybe not Case, but certainly the rest of them. Gracie was more and more talkative with the wine, and Doug and Miriam couldn’t stop giggling. The soup was delicious.

Gracie said, “I’ll have you know we hung that farmhouse painting in the solarium regardless. I realize it’s a bit naïve, Miriam, but it’s innocent , and I like that. I don’t like violent art. And my late husband, as I mentioned, adored it.”

“Good King George,” Bruce said. He was sloshed. “George the Late. George the Infallible.”

Miriam took a big breath and glanced — apologetically, it seemed — at Doug, and then said, “Speaking of things I could be doing with my days. Bruce mentioned there were old filing cabinets — up in the attic? Those must be a burden. Wouldn’t you like help cleaning those out?” Doug’s first inclination was to panic, to kick Miriam under the table, but he supposed it was all right. Zee wasn’t there to hear, and Case didn’t care, and Bruce’s presence might force Gracie’s hand. “I mean, I want to earn my keep.”

Gracie didn’t look at Bruce at all, just blinked at Miriam. She said, “I can’t help but think it’s a shame you never had braces, Miriam. It really does mark a person. I always say, if you want to know someone’s lot in life, look at the teeth.”

—

Zee returned to the kitchen as the main course was served, and there was something about her smile, her slow pace, that made her look like a drunk trying to walk a straight line. She kissed her mother’s cheek, and Miriam scrambled for another place setting.

Gracie was going off about the Internet, and Zee joined the group of baffled, nodding heads. “What’s so horrifying is they can just put your name on there, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Gracie said. “Even for the phone book they have to have your permission! And correct me if I’m wrong, but I have the impression they can even show photographs. I don’t know if you need a special computer to get them, but just think! Miriam, have you seen this? In your work with the computers?”

Miriam protested that she was a technophobe in disguise, and Doug could practically hear the creak of Zee’s eyes rolling beside him. “Some of my planning is on the computer,” Miriam said, “but then it’s all hand work.”

“Tell them about the secrets!” Bruce said. “All her secrets are under there!”

Miriam’s neck turned red. “Oh. Behind the materials,” she said. “After I’ve outlined my shapes, and before the mortar, I write a secret in paint. People like knowing it’s there, I think. If a buyer asks, I’ll sometimes tell what it said.”

Case said, “Secrets about me, right babe?”

“I didn’t know it myself, till we read that article last year,” Bruce said. “Miriam, have they seen the article?”

Zee said, “It’s amazing the secrets people can keep. Isn’t it.” There was something wrong with her. Doug put his hand on her knee and she jerked away. “I used to think I could tell when someone had a secret. I really did. And it turns out—”

But Gracie shrieked and they all turned to her. “There was a ladybug!” she said. “Right on my plate.”

Zee rose from bed like a heavy animal, her legs slow and numb.

Out at the table, the two of them giggling over breakfast. “Happensack — the luckiest town in New Jersey!” Miriam could hardly get her breath.

Doug: “It’s the karma that gets you stuck on the turnpike!”

Zee couldn’t look at them.

Miriam: “It’s a sack full of four-leaf clovers!”

“It’s when someone accidentally kicks you in the nuts!”

Doug’s book bag lay on the floor. He was headed to the library, he said. She wanted to tear the zipper off, to see what was really inside. Books about adolescent girls, love letters to Miriam, a hundred bags of cocaine. The possibilities were endless.

Instead she said, “Miriam, why don’t you meet me for coffee this morning? We haven’t had a chance to talk much lately.” They’d had nothing but chances to talk: right now, for instance, and the million times Zee swept past the sunporch pretending to be absorbed in the mail.

Miriam said, “Oh, lovely,” and Zee said, “There’s a chance I’ll be waylaid by the dean.”

And at ten o’clock, with Miriam waiting at Starbucks, with Case off at the doctor, chauffeured by Sofia, Zee drove back to the house and slammed her way into the silent, cold porch. Finished canvases leaned three deep against the walls, but the piece centered on Zee’s yellow cotillion dress was still in progress, laid out on the floor like a corpse. The black swirls around it were finished — river stones and coffee beans and checkers and an old Escape key and barrettes. The dress was only half covered, in yellow but also orange and little spots of brown and green. The green: It took a minute to realize why the green looked so familiar. Here were the shards of her mother’s celadon vase, the one Case had knocked to pieces. Had Miriam even asked to keep these? Had she stolen them that night? Zee wiggled her thumb under the bottom of the hemline and yanked up. Stones and scraps flew off, skittered across the floor. Some of the fabric tore. It was only half a dress, really, as Miriam had cut the back entirely away. But here were the words, the secrets, just as Bruce had said. Zee left the dress attached by the left shoulder and read what she could of the black painted script below, obscured by glue, bitten around the edges by the mortar and stones.