Narrator/Announcer (38:54)
The doorknob was cold to the touch. Slowly she turned it, willing it to be locked so that she wouldn't see anything she didn't want to see. The door was locked. An irrational panic gripped her. She tried to turn the knob again, as if she'd get a different result. Her heart sunk with the enormity of what was happening. He couldn't just live in the house, uncommunicative, without paying rent, without respecting the furnishings and the pictures. Propelled by pure, icy anger, she turned the doorknob again and again, senselessly. Open the door. She shouted, her breath ragged. Open the damn door. It's our door, not yours. Tears of frustration formed in her eyes. Mommy, are you okay? Aaron was standing in his yellow pajamas with owl feet in the dim hallway, blinking his nubby baby blanket he dragged with him strewn on the floor behind. She sucked in her breath and wiped her eyes. I'm sorry. I'm okay, Cuddy. Let's go back to your room. He clutched her clammy hand with his tiny, hot, sweaty fingers. They traveled the long hallway to the other end of the house, and she sent him to the bathroom to pee again while she turned down the covers on his bed. When he returned and crawled into his bed, she sat on the edge and held his hand, keeping an ear cocked for sounds elsewhere in the house. I'm scared. Can you sleep with me? Aaron asked. Just for a few minutes, she whispered. She was still listening for sounds, wondering if the lodger would come charging. Through the shadows in the hall, she could hear the quiet sounds of her other children in their rooms nearby, Aunt Helena on the phone, Noel playing video games. She flung an arm around Aaron, and as she held him close, his breathing changed, quickened the feel of him breathing as if they were the same person until she strained to hear her other children beyond the immediate sounds of his shallow breaths. She woke the next morning before anyone was up and unwrapped herself from Aaron, quietly padding down the hall and past the sliding glass doors of the living room, glimpsing a dreamy pink light percolating through the yuzu tree and feeling uncertain about whether she was ready to shake things up with the lodger and spring spoil the peace of those early hours. She moved across the room to the hall and then stood for a moment at the lodger's door and tried not to let herself breathe as quickly as she and Aaron had the night before. Damp air was drifting out of the bathroom across from his door. She pushed the bathroom door open gently and felt the warm droplets of water on the air so he'd had a shower. She returned to stand by his door again. I know you're in there, she announced loudly, with more confidence than she felt. You can't stay in here forever, and eventually you'll have to come out. Later that day, after she'd made breakfast for the older children and sent them to a friend's house to play, she received a call from her husband's phone unexpectedly. A fizz of anxiety arose in her, and when she heard the voice on the other end, a baritone she'd heard many times at her husband's office party, she knew immediately the news would be upsetting. She muted the TV and perched on the edge of the couch. She willed the news to be somehow okay. I'm so sorry, Jelsey. Ma', am. Your husband has disappeared. When? Her grip tightened on the phone. A week ago he went out with a few others across the sea ice to Peterman Island. It was supposed to be a one day trip to collect samples to compare to the ones from the eastern ice sheet, but a storm blew in and disrupted the ice and they weren't able to return. He paused as if to let this much of the news sink in. When the ice was in place. We went out there, he said. Yesterday and again today. We searched but couldn't find them. You'll go out again, won't you? We will go out one more time, he said carefully. But we've made a thorough sweep. JC Hung up with a deep shudder. She thought of her husband. Buried in the snow was the last conversation they'd had about the lodger. She wished she could go back and have the conversation again and talk about the children, reminisce about the day they'd met, the day they'd married. Why did their last conversation have to center on that fucking lodger? There had always been risks to his work, they'd always known, but somehow the possibility of stones, the possibility of a crevasse, had never felt real. He'd never had a colleague die. Now he was the colleague who died. Her whole body felt icy, as if she were alone in a snowstorm. Naked, unguarded, she couldn't stop shivering. She went through the motions of making dinner and talking to the children about what they'd done at school. None of them suspected anything was amiss. When she tucked Aaron in, he flopped over without asking her to stay, as he had done the night before. His cheeks had less baby fat. It felt like her heart was vibrating, like maybe her body could sense, even from all this distance, her husband's body lost somewhere on the ice floes, his spirit abandoning his body. One day he would be like those rivers and hills preserved under the ice, and she too would go disappearing under her ceaseless anxiety, the long, steady bleed of it for the rest of her life. In the living room, the TV played on while she thought only of him before she got to her feet, shut it off, and all of it, out of habit, retired to her room. The following morning, when JC Returned to the house after dropping the kids off at school, she opened the front door and saw that the house had been put asunder. The couch was overturned, cushions yanked out, the chairs stood on end like animals on their backs. Pictures had been torn from the walls, leaving patches where they'd hung. Silk flowers were shredded and strewn on the living room carpet and at the edge of the adjacent dining room, with the white breakfast bowls still sitting on the dining table from when the children had eaten pancakes there. The dahlias she bought every week at the market cascaded across the soaked tablecloth and spilled onto the floor in pink ecstasy. She didn't even bother to close the front door but raced into the dining room with a cry. Like a mad woman. She ran among the capsized furniture and pictures and flowers, kicking and flailing with so much abandon anyone might have thought she was dancing. Her head was empty, but for revenge. She wanted revenge for the house, for the way in which this lodger had taken it over as if it were his own. Tracey charged down the hall and pounded on the door until her fists were sore. Let me in. Let me in. You can't ruin my home like this. She crumpled to the floor and stared at the door for hours, willing it to open. She could hear the faintest rustling. The lodger did not take her seriously. JC Thought about her husband, but how they'd chosen this house together. Just before Antolina was born. They were scheduled to have a call at the end of the week, after he'd finished collecting samples out on the ice. She took out her cell phone and scrolled through her contacts. She thought about fetching a neighbor, but thought of revealing that she'd simply allowed this lodger to take over the house. She didn't know how she could explain the weeks that had passed. She considered calling the police, but ever since a run in with two diligent rent A cops. In her teenage years, she'd feared and mistrusted them. It seemed so violent to involve the police, like she was spoiling for a fight. It would escalate matters, take the quarrel with the lodger into unknown territory. And the police might blame her, too. What would she say about the lodger, how he got into the house? Perhaps they would think she'd invited the lodger. Or else why would he show up so brazen? She rose and went back to the living room, unsure of where to start cleaning up after hours. Confronted with such disorder, she swallowed her pride and called the police. The woman who took her information sounded like she'd just been woken up, her questions stretched out, seemingly interminable. JC Clutched the phone to her ear as she answered them. The dispatcher sent an officer who arrived 20 minutes later. He looked soft from suburban life, his gut hanging comfortably over his pants. He walked in and looked around. She'd managed to clean up the dahlias and mop up the spilled water. She picked up the silk petals and she handed them to him. This is what he did. The room was still visibly disturbed. Your lodger did all this? The officer asked. His eyebrows were raised in skepticism. Did you see him doing it? Well, no. I mean, I came home and it was like this. I can't assume it was him. Are there any signs of forced entry? No, I don't think so. She shrugged helplessly. He went from door to door and checked the windows. Look, he said. Your sliding glass door is unlatched. One of the children probably just forgot to close it, JC Said. He took out some equipment and began padding at the sides of the door. Dusting for fingerprints, he explained. Don't you want to check down the hall? That's where he is. Just a minute. He put something into a baggie. I'm sure nobody broke in, Officer. You never can be too careful. If I were you, I'd check all the entrances of the house that they're locked before going out. She led him down the hall to the lodger's room. He knocked. It's the police, sir. You see, he won't let you in. He's unreasonable. The officer turned the doorknob and tried to push the door open. If he doesn't want to be disturbed, that's that, he said. You can't be serious. There's nothing you can do. The officer shrugged. You could evict him, I guess. Anyway, you catch him messing things around again, you give us a call. When the officer left, there were still a few hours before she would need to pick up the kids from school. She searched for a lawyer using her phone and called a solo practitioner who specialized in landlord tenant issues. His secretary patched her through to the lawyer. He sounded like an elegant gentleman in his voice she heard tobacco and scotch and a whisper of silk. She explained about the lodger, how he'd appeared one day and gradually changed the entire house. And now she needed to get rid of him as quickly as possible. You never signed a rental agreement. That does put you in a bind, the lawyer said. Now there was judgment in his voice, as if she'd done something wrong in not meeting the lodger. I never met him. He just showed up and took over that room without a word. He never comes out except when we're gone. He ruined the living room. The police thought I might evict him. But you haven't seen him. Do you know if he ever comes out of that bedroom? He must. He takes showers in a bathroom across the hall. I can draw up the paperwork, but you need to serve them. After they hung up, JC Felt a weight had been lifted from her chest, leaving a comfortable hollow, a refreshing coolness around her heart. She would simply camp out in front of the lodger's door and thrust the papers upon him. She cleaned up the living room slowly, one ear trained to the hallway, wondering if he would come out and claim the squalor he had foisted the upon them. Jaycee went to pick up the children with trepidation, worried that he'd wrecked everything again. But after she fetched them and they returned chattering and bright eyed to the house, she saw that everything was much as she'd left it that night. She told the children about their father's disappearance and as she'd expected, the grief was more than she could bear. They asked the question she'd asked her husband's boss and she had no satisfactory answer. While they cried, she sailed away on her thoughts. It struck her that she had not cried. She couldn't quite make sense of her husband being missing. The problems with the lodger filled her mind. It was far easier to rage at the lodger than to feel her sorrow. The lawyer faxed the paperwork to her the following day while the children were at school. Each sheet of paper was still hot as she compiled and stapled them together. She she signed her name and went to wait in front of the lodger's door. She knocked and when, as usual, he didn't answer, she sat cross legged in the hall. He'd have to use the bathroom. Eventually. Hours ticked by until it was time to pick up the children. She squirmed, looking at the watch. Just one more minute. One more. She gave up and drove to get the children. When they entered the house, she heard the sound of a flushing toilet and ran down the hall. He had already vanished into his room. Of course he had. JC Sat down cross legged again to wait. She asked Aunt Helena to make sandwiches for her siblings for dinner. She sat there after the children had gone to bed. Eventually, sometime after midnight, her eyes closed and when she woke was 8 in the morning, the eviction notice was still in her hands. There were drops of water on the carpet beside her, and sure enough, the bathroom was full of humid air, the kind of air so thick it seems seemed to hold memories. I know you're there. Why are you doing this to us? This is torture, you know. Torture. She slipped the eviction notice under the door. When she told her attorney, he said that this service might be insufficient, but she tried not to think about that. On the day of the hearing, the judge dismissed the case when the lodger failed to show up, and she had to admit she hadn't personally served him, that she'd never seen him at all. I told you as much, the lawyer said. She no longer detected the silk in his voice. Now that her case had proven to be a dud, he was using a rougher voice, Brusque burlap. She paid him with a personal check and returned home weary and exhausted. More pictures had been changed and a new couch sat in the living room. Ugly, modern, not at all to her. Chaste. Her husband's boss phoned again. Another search had been conducted on Peterman island, but none of the missing people had been found. Rotely. She turned on the tv. Perhaps it didn't matter that the lodger was there rent free. He hadn't done anything to them. But it irritated her to think of him believing he'd pulled a fast one on her, that because she was alone, a widow, she made herself think she wouldn't have the gumption to get rid of him the following night, or maybe another night after, since there no longer seemed to be markers, dark or light, she could rely upon. After she cooked dinner, she realized with a start that the lodger had changed all the dining room furniture. He had replaced all the chairs. Every day there was something new. He painted the living room orange. He brought in hideous furniture that collapsed or died on cinder blocks, like a car about to be worked on in the the driveway. All the paintings were different. Yet again he'd taken away the silk flowers altogether. He replaced the utensils. He replaced her mother's china. Time rolled on, and soon none of the original furnishings remained in the house. One day she came home and the little yellow house was painted blue. Angelina left for college and then Noel and then Aaron. The lodger filed an application with the city to change the number of her house and asked for a zoning variance for the room. The city called to ask her questions and told her that he wanted to build a second story. But he can't do this, can he? She asked the lawyer. His voice was full of silk again. It's been a decade, he said. What does that mean? He's squatted in there so long he can claim it under the laws of adverse position possession. She wrote the lawyer a personal check, again unsure for what, but he seemed to expect it. J.C. realized she was on her own. She had to remove the lodger by force. It was the only way. He would never leave on his own. She packed a bag and put it in the car, and then she lit a match in the kitchen. She dropped it on the floor and poured vegetable oil, and for a moment she had doubts. She should grab the baking soda from the refrigerator and put it out. The grease fire spread. It would claim all of the lodger's things, the furniture, the pictures on the front lawn. She waited for him to be smoked out. The house glowed with flames. The house spit flames toward the sky, dancing orange and gold, blue hearted the walls blackened and crumbled to the ground. The neighbors called the fire department. She stood waiting, not allowing anyone to drag her away. She was determined to see the lodger once and for all, now that he destroyed everything she could remember of her home. But as the last wall came down, the lodger never emerged.
