“What?”
“Nothing….I’ll tell Rafferty you’re here. He’ll want to talk to you. He’s in court today, though. Traffic court. Whatever you do, don’t drive with him. He’s the worst driver in the world.”
“Okay,” I say, wondering why Jay-Jay thought driving with Rafferty was even a possibility. We stand there awkwardly, neither of us knowing how to follow that last thread of conversation.
“You look good,” he says finally. “For an old lady of…what? Thirty-one?”
“Thirty-two.”
“For thirty-two you look great,” he says, and laughs.
I don’t go into the main part of the house until Jay-Jay leaves. As soon as I open the door, I realize that everyone has made a big mistake.
Eva’s right here in this house. I can feel her. Her presence is so strong that I almost run after Jay-Jay to tell him to call off the search, that she has come back, but the cruiser has already turned the corner, so I’ll have to call the station.
But first I have to see my Aunt Eva. She must have gone on a trip and not told anyone. She probably doesn’t even know the whole town’s looking for her.
“Eva?” I call to her. She doesn’t answer. Her ears aren’t very good, not anymore. I call again, louder. Still no answer, but I know she’s here. She’s up on the widow’s walk or down in the root cellar mixing up a new kind of tea, something with bergamot and kumquat essence. Or maybe she never left, is what I’m thinking, though I know that’s not possible. They must have searched the house. At least I assume they did. Didn’t anyone come in here, for God’s sake? Didn’t May? No, she wouldn’t, damn her. But the cops would. Or my brother. Of course Beezer would have looked. Of course that’s the first thing they would have done. Eva wouldn’t have been reported missing unless she actually was missing, right? But now she’s back. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, I think, laughing out loud because I’m still channeling Eva’s clichés.
“Hey, Eva,” I call to her, knowing how deaf she’s gotten, but giving it a try anyway. “Eva, it’s me.”
I’m not sure where to start looking. I stand there, in the foyer. Ahead are two matching parlors with black marble fireplaces facing each other from the ends of the long rooms. One of the rooms is closed off; that’s the one Eva uses as her tearoom. I enter the other one. It’s more like a ballroom than a parlor. The fireplaces look empty with neither flames nor Eva’s usual arrangements of flowers in them. Chairs are placed symmetrically and strategically, like pieces on a chessboard. I look at the huge suspended staircase. I know that my next move should be up, but I decide to check the tearoom first, then the other kitchen, and the root cellar, where she blends the teas. I’m calling to her, talking as I go, speaking loudly so that she’ll hear me. I don’t want to sneak up and scare her into having a heart attack or something.
She’s probably upstairs. I’m not supposed to be climbing stairs yet, but I’m yelling to her now, and I realize I’m going to have to get up there. I use the railing to pull myself, but it’s easier to climb now than it was a few days ago, even though I can still feel the pull of the stitches with each step. When I reach the second-floor landing, I’m dizzy and have to sit down on a bench and wait until everything stops spinning. Finally I make my way to Eva’s room. Old canopy bed in the corner, fireplace, armoire. The bed is made, the pillows fluffed. I pick up a pillow and smell it, expecting Eva’s scent. Instead it smells of orange water, which is what Eva uses to rinse her linens. She must have changed the sheets recently. I check the walk-in closet. Everything hangs perfectly on the hangers. There is no laundry in the bins, which means that she has already washed the old sheets.
I spent a lot of time in this room when Eva took me in, a lot of time in this closet, actually, which Eva probably found odd but which she never mentioned. Eva is not my blood relation; she was my grandfather G.G.’s second wife, and no relation at all. Still, she understands me in the way a mother should and my own mother never has.
There are six other bedrooms on the second floor. She keeps all but one of them closed up for the winter. Actually, she rarely opens any of them now unless she’s expecting company, which happens more and more infrequently—or so she tells me every week, when she calls. Slowly I move through each of the rooms, looking for her, talking as I go. The ghost furniture stands pale, covered in sheets against the dust.
Exhausted, I climb to the third floor. Even now, at eighty-five, my aunt has more energy than I do. Somehow I know she is up here on the third floor. “Eva,” I say again. “It’s me, Towner.” I ascend the narrowing stairs heavily, holding both railings. I’m so tired.
This third floor is my floor. Eva gave it to me the winter I moved in with her, partly to appease me for having to move off Yellow Dog Island, which I loved so much, and partly because the third floor had the widow’s walk, and she knew I could use it to keep an eye on things, like May still alone out there on the island, refusing to come in. Except for an occasional climb to the widow’s walk, Eva doesn’t use these rooms at all now, and, as she tells me often, she hasn’t changed them since I moved. “They’ll be ready when you are,” she always says, and follows with some other zinger such as, “There’s no place like home.”
I climb the widow’s walk first, because I know it’s the only place Eva would go if she came up here. But there’s no sign of her. The only thing up here is a gull’s nest; I can’t tell whether it’s a new one or something left behind. I stand alone at the top of what was once my world. How many nights have I sat up here, checking on May, making sure her kerosene lamp went on in early evening, then off again when she finally went to bed? Every night of that one winter I spent here.
—