I realized I had created an entirely fictional narrative in my mind about the book of cars and its origins. Perhaps my adoptive brother bought it himself, perhaps he developed an interest in cars before he killed himself.
Of course he never bought himself anything. He never drank anything but plain water. He lived on white chicken and white rice. He left once, and then he came back. Then he left permanently. His exit was traumatic for everyone who knew him. Was it traumatic for him? He took tennis lessons one summer, then quit. He was forced to take an acting class for a summer, then quit. He worked for a week at a video-rental store, then quit. He wore the same clothes every day, the same light blue polo shirt and dark pants, and he talked to the same small circle of people. He never expressed an interest in dating, marriage, or having children. He didn’t make mistakes. He had no credit. He stole things, then returned them and asked for cash refunds. For exercise he walked the family dog, now dead, too. He walked the same route around the block, never into the forest, then up the hill to the pharmacy, along the train tracks to the church parking lot and back. Sometimes, if he was in a particularly good mood, he would tie the dog to a bench and go into the ice cream place, where he ordered vanilla ice cream. No one orders vanilla ice cream, except depressed people! He stayed the same his entire life. He never changed. If he were a character in a Russian novel, he was flat not round. He lived like a starving peasant. If he had indeed bought something for himself, it would have been precisely the cheapest thing on the table. Did he even have an interest in cars?
I retraced my thoughts. No one in our adoptive family cared about cars, except inexpensive ones, cars on sale, used cars. Everyone in my adoptive family had a passion for sales. What was this book about expensive, colorful cars doing in the house? According to my adoptive mother, it belonged to my adoptive brother, but she was unreliable as a source; she was consistently confusing things, names, places, and people. Since I had been at home she called me my adoptive brother’s name a few times.
Yoo-hoo! I heard a voice call out. Helen!
It was muffled, but it sounded like, Helen, we’re leaving! And what was I supposed to say to that?
I opened the door.
Wonderful, I yelled back, I’m very glad for you!
It dawned upon me that the book was a gift from a stranger, a friend, a lover. Did he have lovers? I wondered. Did he have sex? No, it wasn’t possible that my adoptive brother, who lived in his childhood bedroom for most of his life, had ever had sex. He was short, chubby in a not-unappealing way, and very self-conscious. He must have been asexual.
The garage door opened and closed. I looked out my bedroom window: the security light beamed down upon my adoptive mother and Chad Lambo in his sedan and the wind poured some more rain down upon the house. I spent the morning sprawled out on my childhood bedroom floor as I attempted over and over to formulate a plan for my investigation, but all I did was speculate. All of this speculation will lead you to nothing, I thought. You might speculate yourself to death.
13
It has always been a dark house set at the bottom of a small and quiet hill surrounded by tall trees as leafy as the month of June.6 The tops of the trees bristled like brushes against the sky, even in the middle of autumn. The house did not get good light, not during the day, not during the summer, and especially not in the afternoon. On rain-dark days the entire house had the ambience of a medieval cellar.
I noticed some houseplants had died since I arrived; there were two on one of my childhood bedroom’s windowsills, and the plants were covered in patches of bright red dots. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the dots were moving, the dots were crawling all over the brown stalks and leaves. Disgusted, I made a note to myself to take care of the dots, to find an insecticide in the garage. I had the entire house to myself. I set the book about cars aside and went into the hallway. My adoptive brother’s bedroom door was closed. There was a strip of yellow light underneath the door because someone (perhaps my adoptive brother?) had left the lights on.
Staring at the strip, I became frightened of the room. I hadn’t expected to have such a visceral reaction to his door, only a few hours ago I thought I would rip it open. I surprised myself; I shuddered as I walked past, and went downstairs and into the living room and kitchen, where I looked around. I noted that some knickknacks from my memory were missing, and that they had been replaced with new knickknacks, but the overall arrangement of the house had stayed the same. Old knickknacks had not been removed without being replaced with fresh, new knickknacks. The wicker replaced the leather, I said to no one.
What I needed to do was gather clues like some kind of gigantic clue-collecting agent and then put them into an overarching single theory-idea and perhaps this would answer the question of what led my adoptive brother to take his own life. Was I crying? One might have asked me, but no one was there.
Then the household phone did not stop ringing. After being startled out of my thoughts, I began to enjoy the ringing as background music. When the answering machine clicked on, it was my adoptive brother’s voice offering a tentative, slightly garbled outgoing message.
This is the Morans, he said, we’re not here right now, so please leave a message.