Stem’s three little boys clamored to have the ghosts put up this year the same as always, but Nora said it couldn’t be done. “Halloween isn’t till Wednesday,” she told them. “We’ll be gone by then.” They were vacating the house on Sunday—the earliest date that Red was allowed into his apartment. The plan was for all of them to be resettled by the start of the work week.
But Red overheard, and he said, “Oh, let them have their ghosts, why don’t you? It’ll be their last chance. Then our men can haul them down for us when they come in on Monday morning.”
“Yes!” the little boys shouted, and Nora laughed and flung out her hands in defeat.
So the ghosts were brought forth from their paper-towel carton in the attic, and Stem climbed up on a ladder to hang them from the row of brass hooks screwed into the porch ceiling. Up close, the ghosts looked bedraggled. They were due for one of their periodic costume renewals, but nobody had the time for that with everything else that was going on.
Jeannie and Amanda’s chosen items had already been moved out by the two Hughs in Red’s pickup. Stem’s items were consolidated in a corner of the dining room. Denny’s one box was in his room, but he said he couldn’t take it with him on the train. “We’ll UPS it,” Jeannie decided.
“Or just, maybe, one of you keep it,” he said. And that was how it was left, for the moment.
There were still a few things in the attic, still a few things in the basement—most of them to be discarded. The rest of the house was so empty it echoed. One couch and one armchair stood on the bare floor in the living room, waiting to go to Red’s apartment. The dining-room table had been sent to a consignment shop and the kitchen table stood in its place, ridiculously small and homely, also to go with Red. The larger pieces of furniture had had to be carried out through the front door, because maneuvering them through the kitchen was too difficult; and each time that happened, someone had to scoop up the long trains of the two center ghosts on the porch and anchor them to either side with bungee cords. Even so, Stem and Denny—or whoever was doing the carrying—would be snared from time to time in swags of cheesecloth, and they would duck and curse and struggle to free themselves. “Why on earth these damn things had to be strung up now …” one would say. But nobody went so far as to suggest taking them down.
The whole family had been commenting on how helpful Denny had been lately, but then what did he do? He announced on Saturday evening that he’d be leaving in the morning. “Morning?” Jeannie said. The Bouton Road contingent was eating supper at her house, now that their pots and dishes were packed, and she had just set a pork roast in front of Amanda’s Hugh for carving. She plunked herself down in her chair, still wearing her oven mitts, and said, “But Dad’s moving in the morning!”
“Yeah, I feel bad about that,” Denny said.
“And Stem in the afternoon!”
“What can I do, though?” Denny asked the table in general. “There’s supposed to be a hurricane coming. This changes everything.”
His family looked puzzled. (The hurricane was all over the news, but it was predicted to strike just north of them.) Jeannie’s Hugh said, “Usually people head away from a hurricane, not toward it.”
“Well, but I need to make sure things are battened down at home,” Denny said. There was a pause—a stunned little snag in the atmosphere. “Home” was not a word the family connected with New Jersey. Not even Denny, as far as anyone had known until this moment. Jeannie blinked and opened her mouth to speak. Red looked around the table with a questioning expression; it wasn’t clear that he had heard. Deb was the first to find her voice. She said, “I thought your things were all packed up in a garage, Uncle Denny.”
“They are,” Denny said. “They’re in my landlady’s garage. But my landlady’s on her own; I can’t just tell her to fend for herself, can I?”
Stem asked, “Couldn’t you at least stay till we get Dad moved?”
“The Weather Channel is saying Amtrak might stop the trains by tomorrow afternoon, though. Then I’d be stuck here.”
“Stuck!” Jeannie said, looking offended.
“They’re talking about cutting service to the whole Northeast Corridor.”
“So …” Red said. He drew a deep breath. “So, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You plan on leaving in the morning.”
“Right.”
“Before I’m in my new place.”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“The thing of it is, though,” Red said, “what about my computer?”
Denny said, “What about it?”
“I was counting on you to set up my Wi-Fi. You know I’m not good at that stuff! What if I can’t connect? What if my laptop goes all temperamental on account of being relocated? What if I try to log on and get nothing, just one of those damn ‘You are not connected to the Internet’ screens? What if I get a whirling beach ball that goes on and on and on, and I can’t get out of it, can’t make contact, can’t hook up anywhere?”