Джойс Оутс: Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars

Nervously Beverly went to check the front door—locked.

In all, there were several entrances to the McClarens’ house at 99 Old Farm Road. Most of these were kept locked most of the time.

The house was an “historic landmark” originally built in 1778, of fieldstone and stucco.

In its earliest incarnation it had been a farmhouse. A square-built stone house, two stories, to which a Revolutionary War general named Forrester had retired with his family and (according to local histories) at least one African-American slave.

By degrees the Forrester House, as it came to be called, was considerably enlarged. By the 1850s it had acquired two new wings, each the size of the original house, eight bedrooms and a “classic” facade with four stately white columns. By this time the farm property consisted of more than one hundred acres.

Through the early 1900s the village of Hammond grew into a fair-sized city, on the banks of the Erie Barge Canal, and began to surround the Old Farm Road farms. By 1929 much of the Forrester farmland had been sold and developed and by mid-century the area known as “Old Farm Road” had become the most exclusive neighborhood in Hammond, suburban yet still partly rural.

The elder McClarens had come to live in the Forrester House at 99 Old Farm Road when Thom was just a baby, in 1972. Much of early family lore had to do with fixing up a somewhat neglected property—about which the younger children knew little except these tales.

Why, if you were to believe their father, Daddy himself had painted many of the rooms of the house, or struggled to wallpaper the walls in comic-epic struggles. Paint that dried too bright—“eye-glaring.” Floral wallpaper strips not-quite-precisely matched so that you felt “like one-half of your brain was separated from the other.”

Mommy had chosen most of the furnishings. Mommy had “single-handedly, almost” created the several flower beds surrounding the house.

All of the McClaren children had grown up in the house, that no one in the family called the Forrester House. All of the children loved the house. So many years—decades!—Jessalyn and Whitey McClaren had lived here it was scarcely possible to imagine them elsewhere, or to imagine the house inhabited by anyone else.

Upsetting to Beverly, to imagine her parents seriously old, ill. Yet with a part of her mind Beverly imagined one day living in this beautiful house, to which she would restore the original name, with an historical plaque beside the front door: FORRESTER HOUSE.

(Whitey had removed this plaque as pretentious and “silly” as soon as they’d moved in. Hadn’t General Forrester been a slaveholder, like his revered comrade George Washington? Nothing to boast about!)

The Hammond Country Club was close by, to which she and Steve might belong, though the elder McClarens had never joined. Whitey hadn’t wanted to waste money on a country club since he rarely had time for golf, and Jessalyn hadn’t approved of the membership requirements—at the time, in the 1970s, the Hammond Country Club had not yet admitted Jews, Negroes, Hispanics, or “Orientals.”

Now, individuals from these categories could become members if they were nominated, and if they were voted in. If they could afford the application fee, and the dues. So far as Beverly knew, there were indeed Jews—a few. Probably not so many African-Americans, Hispanics. But a number of Asians? Yes. Half the roster of Hammond physicians.

Most nights, when Beverly dreamt, it was of the house on Old Farm Road she dreamt. Sometimes the house was the setting for the dream, and sometimes the house was the dream.

But, wait. This was not a good sign: newspaper pages scattered on a kitchen counter. Unlike Whitey who pored over newspapers in finicky detail, reading virtually every page, Jessalyn only read through the paper, turning pages quickly, often without sitting down. Usually the front-page news upset her, she had no wish to read it in detail and absolutely no interest in staring at photographs of wounded, dead, suffering human beings in faraway disasters. In any case Jessalyn would not have left newspaper pages scattered in the kitchen, as she would not have left dishes in the sink. Yet there were newspaper pages in the kitchen, and there were dishes in the sink.

Jessalyn had had to be surprised by something, and had departed the house suddenly. Whatever had happened, or had been revealed to her, it had been suddenly.

Beverly had checked: Jessalyn’s car was in the garage. Naturally, Whitey’s car was gone.

Since she wasn’t in the house Jessalyn must have departed in someone else’s vehicle.

Beverly searched for a note. For how often her mother had left notes for one or another of the children to discover, when they’d been growing up, even if she’d gone out for a very brief time.

Be back real soon!

♥♥♥ Your Mom

It wasn’t just that Mom was “Mom”—to be precise, she was “Your Mom.”

For as long as Beverly could remember there’d been, on a wall behind the breakfast table, a cork bulletin board festooned with family snapshots, graduation photos, yellowed clippings from the Hammond Sun-Ledger —less frequently changed since the McClaren children had grown up and moved away.

When she’d prospered in high school Beverly had quite liked the family bulletin board in which Bev McClaren had been displayed to advantage in snapshots, newspaper photos and headlines. Varsity Cheerleaders Choose Captain: Bev McClaren. Senior Class Prom Queen: Bev McClaren . Most Popular Girl Class of ’86: Bev McClaren.

So long ago now she could barely remember. Felt not pride but a dislike for the bright-smiling girl in the pictures. In the strapless pink-chiffon prom dress like cotton candy, she’d had to tug up, hoping no one would notice, all night long. Damn strapless bra cutting into the flesh of her underarms and back. In the photo looking both glamorous and bereft for the tall handsome prom king beside her had been scissored out for whatever unforgivable transgression Beverly could barely recall.

In more recent photos Beverly was fleshy-faced but still attractive—if you didn’t look too closely. Her hair was highlighted to a radiant blond she’d never had as a girl. (She’d never needed as a girl.)

Of course, she’d never dare to wear anything strapless now. Anything that showed the bunchy flesh at her upper arms, and at her knees. Her teenaged children would erupt with horrified glee if they’d seen. Their mother might draw admiring glances from men in the street, at least men of a certain age, but she could not impress them.

When they’d been girls, Beverly had been the good-looking McClaren sister —(maybe, in some quarters, the sexy one )—while Lorene had been the brainy one . Sophia was too much younger to have competed.

In high school Lorene McClaren cut her hair short, “butch” style, wore wire-rimmed eyeglasses and a perpetual scowl. Not a bad-looking girl but nothing soft-edged about her though there’d been boys—(Beverly had always been astonished)—who’d found Lorene attractive, who had not seemed so impressed (indeed, Beverly had been baffled) with Beverly. Every picture of Lorene on the bulletin board showed a scowling smile, or a smiling scowl, through the years; it was remarkable, how relatively unchanged Lorene appeared. Face like a pit bull and personality to match —so Steve had said, meanly. But Beverly had laughed.

And there was Sophia. Wanly pretty, delicately boned, with a look of perpetual concern. It is hard to take seriously a sister nine years younger than you are.

Virgil—where was he ? Beverly didn’t see a single picture of Virgil, come to think of it.