Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves

“I think you like it,” Gloria said.

“I do,” she said quietly. “I like it a lot. I’m trying to figure out how I can afford it.”

She was in the middle of the sort of reverie that invented the future by imagining it. The spell would be broken in a moment, but she lingered in it, telling herself to remember the details.

They wouldn’t be able to put as big a percentage down. They’d have a much higher monthly payment. They might not be able to immediately do all the renovations she had in mind. They’d have to work in stages. They’d have to live lean, not go to restaurants or shows.

“What about you?” Gloria asked Connell.

“Can we put a hoop in the driveway?”

What a simple thing , Eileen thought. What a different set of concerns he has .

“I don’t see why not.”

“Yes!” He pumped his fist.

“Someone’s excited,” Gloria said.

“I’m excited too,” she said, “but the person we need to convince is his father. Provided the structure is sound and the repairs are possible and the finances are in order, I think this might just be the perfect house for us.”

Gloria clapped her hands. “That’s the spirit,” she said. “You wouldn’t get this house at this price except under some very specific circumstances. Now, having said that, why don’t we go take a look at those circumstances.”

They headed downstairs. Gloria pointed out some flood marks that Eileen hadn’t seen earlier, and then she took them into the house’s bowels. Eileen passed her eyes over everything Gloria pointed to, but she did her best not to register it. Connell poked at a section of rot. When he pulled a piece off, she barely mustered enough indignation to scold him. She heard, as though from underwater, the litany of troubles the house had endured. She nodded when she needed to nod and pulled long faces to demonstrate concern. She even heard herself sigh when Gloria showed her a section of foundational wall in the garage that had been soaked through and was threatening to collapse. She was determined to let these subterranean details remain subterranean. They could be handled in due time. The issue now was preserving her vision. The base of the house might be rotting, but the visible portion was commanding enough to chase any qualms away.

“It’s not an inconsiderable amount of work,” Gloria said.

“We could make it work.” Eileen turned to Connell. “You and Daddy could take this on, don’t you think?”

“No way.”

“He just doesn’t want to have to do anything around the house,” she said to Gloria. “But they could handle it. I’m confident.”

“If you say so, Mom.”

“Maybe we’ll pay you like a contractor. Maybe it’s time you earned your allowance.”

“There are things he can’t do. There’s the roof, as I said. You’ve got a little time on that. The electrical wiring is old. You might not have enough amp service. You might blow some fuses. Some of the outlets don’t work. Am I scaring you yet?”

“I’m just listening.”

“There’s asbestos around the plumbing and ductwork. That could make it hard to resell. So could the underground oil tank.”

“I’m not worried about selling it. I’m worried about buying it.”

“Water gathers in the fireplace. Some of these are expensive jobs. Thankfully there’s no mold from the flooding. That we know of.”

“It sounds like we need a plumber. And a roofer.”

“And a general contractor,” Gloria said. “And an electrician. And a willing husband.”

“I can live without a few outlets for a while. I don’t know if I can live without this house.”

• • •

They stopped for gas on the way home. When she went in to pay, she bought a couple of scratch-off tickets, something she’d thought she’d never do, and scarfed a pair of Twinkies while she rubbed a quarter on the tickets. She didn’t win, and she bought five more. Then she got two more with the free tickets she’d won, and those were losers too. She bought five to take home with her and another package of Twinkies to split with Connell and headed out to the car, where the boy sat oblivious of the turmoil she was in.

She drove with an anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach, fidgeting with the button for the electric window. When they pulled in, she saw one of her good sheets strewn like a makeshift tarp over whatever tools Ed had left in the driveway. Cinderblocks held the sheet down at the corners, and the garage door was closed. The stark whiteness of the sheet put a chill in her.

Ed was sitting at his desk. The vestibule abutted his office, a glass-paneled door between them. He had a pleasant habit of wheeling around in his chair whenever he heard her come home, but he didn’t turn this time. “We’re home,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she went over and stood behind him. He was calculating his semester grades. His desk was cluttered with tests and lab reports; little piles of them abounded. He jotted notes on a legal pad as he did his calculations. She’d never seen him do his grades with such elaborate exactitude. He had written the last name of each student, along with the roman numerals from the test sections, in a long row. She watched him meticulously check each number against those he’d written on the exams. It was double work, and moreover it was the kind of task he usually dispatched in his head.

When she placed a hand on his shoulder, he almost leaped out of his seat. He didn’t turn around to her.

“What’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Don’t bother me when I’m doing my grades.”

“Since when?”

“I want to get these right. It’s a big class, and I’ve graded a lot of assignments in the last few days, so I feel a little fuzzy, as you can imagine. I don’t want to make any mistakes in my calculations. When I look at this stuff long enough, I feel like I’m seeing double.”

“What’s up with the sheet?”

He took off his glasses, the way he sometimes did when he was going to give thoughtful consideration to a question, but then he just dropped his shoulders.

“Sheet?”

“Outside,” she said. “The bed sheet.”

“I wanted to leave things there.”

“Why did you use a good sheet?”

“Good sheet?”

“There were other sheets you could have used.”

He slammed his pencil down. “What’s the difference?”

“You used one of the sheets I put on the bed. There are about ten old sets in that linen closet that you could have used.”

He spun around in his chair. She backed away from him instinctively. His face was red and his mouth contorted. “I took the first sheet I could find!” He was on his feet now. “I didn’t have time to work out which sheet was which. I just grabbed a sheet!” He had begun to shout. “I took the first sheet!” He had his hand in front of his face, as if to strike her or bite it. “People walk by the house all day long, peeking back there. I needed to cover everything up!”

She had intended to let it go, but now she had to ask. “Why did you leave it out in the first place?”

“I didn’t want to have to set it up again,” he said. “Is that okay with you? God damn it! God damn it!”

She was quiet. She wondered whether Connell could hear.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure on me to get these grades right. Dealing with these kids has upset me. This younger generation has no respect. It’s disgraceful.”

“What do you mean? What’s happened?”

“What’s happened,” Ed said, “is that with everything going on lately, I’ve been distracted.”

She wanted to know what he meant, because it seemed at times as if nothing was going on, hence the big pile of ungraded papers, but she held back.