Night Corridor (25 page)

She drew her coat collar up, glad she'd worn slacks and a warm sweater under her pea coat. She drew her hat down to cover her ears and crossed the street to the corner store. She went inside, heard the bell jangle above the door and at once thought of Natalie's Boutique and how it was all locked up and dark now. But she wouldn't let herself think of that.

This was the street she grew up on, where she had walked to and from school, frequented this store on errands for her mother.

Inside, she half-expected to see the round jovial face of Mr. Jackson, who always greeted her with, "Hey, little Missy, and what can we do for you this morning?" She had not thought of Mr. Jackson in a long time.

But it was a girl who stood behind the counter. She was talking on the phone and chewing gum. She glanced at Caroline. "Hold on, got a customer." She held the receiver in her hand. "Yes?"

On impulse, Caroline asked for a b-b-bat, her favorite as a child when she had a few extra pennies, but the girl said they didn't carry them anymore, and went back to talking on the phone. Caroline spotted a pack of Chicklets in a display, and held them up, reaching into her purse as she did. The girl took the money and rang up the sale on the cash register without looking at her.

"Is Mr. Jackson still here?" Caroline asked the girl.

"Who?"

"Mr. Jackson. He owns—or at least he used to own, this store."

"Oh. Hold on a sec, Wendy," she said into the receiver and Caroline could almost hear her inward sigh. "Mr. Jackson died, Ma'am. But we kept the name. My parents have owned this store for the past five years."

Caroline thanked her for her trouble and headed for the door.

"No
problemo
," she said to her back, and returned to the conversation Caroline had interrupted, neither knowing nor having the remotest interest in the woman who had come here this morning to face her past and try to reclaim a part of herself. Caroline dropped the Chicklets into her purse, and left.

Continuing up Gleneton, she took no notice of the dark grey car parked on the other side of the street, motor running. The driver's eyes were looking straight ahead so she did not feel them on her.

Soon, an eagerness to see the old house again, combined with the cold air stinging her cheeks, made her pick up her pace.

Gleneton Street rose in a slight grade as it made its way to the top of the hill, then stretched down toward the church she had attended every Sunday morning with her parents, and the ball field, beyond it. She wondered if they were both still in existence.

She passed the wooden houses in their faded maroons, green and browns, built in the late thirties and forties. Built closely together, but leaving narrow alleys between some of them. She recalled family names she hadn't thought of in years—the Blanchards, the Walls, the Prestons; she and Sharon Preston had been best friends for a while. They walked to and from school together, played together at recess, even shared their sandwiches. But her father's critical view of any new friend ensured they would soon abandon her for other friends whose parents were more welcoming and less strict. Sharon's eventual rejection of her had hurt terribly, but she understood. Not then, at least not entirely, but now.

Just over the rise she slowed her step, finally standing very still as her old house came into view. Two-story, white with brown gingerbread trim and shutters, set back from the road. It looked smaller than she remembered. Shabbier. An old acquaintance fallen on hard times. Here she had lived with her parents for the first seventeen years of her life. A myriad of emotions welled in her chest and she felt a faint lightheadedness. She fought it off, took a deep breath and walked on.

As she drew nearer, she saw the FOR SALE sign sticking out of the snow-covered lawn. Jeffrey had mentioned he'd thought the house was up for sale.

The gray cement walk was shoveled clear of snow and Caroline made the short walk, as she had done thousands of times before. She peered through the dirt-smeared window to the left of the door; this had been their living room.

There was debris everywhere, paint cans, cardboard boxes and chunks of plaster. A white dust lay over everything that was visible to her from this vantage point, and she could see by the lighter spots here and there on the walls, where someone had sanded them.

The mantle, where once family photos had been displayed, a couple which now hung on the wall in her room, held only a bottle with a plastic daisy sticking out of it. Beneath the mantle, the brick fireplace where, on winter evening, a cozy fire had crackled, sending shadow-flames leaping and dancing on the walls, looked black and cold.

The patched walls suddenly disappeared as her memory re-created the wallpaper patterned with its green and gold leaves, that once was there. Her eye followed the part of the stairs she could see leading up to their bedrooms—her bedroom.

The urgency to get inside was overpowering. With no thought to anyone who might see her and call the police, she tussled with the windows on both sides of the door, then the front door itself, but the house was locked up tight.

There was a phone number of a real estate company on the window. She could walk back to the store and phone them. Say she was a prospective buyer and someone would come and let her in. But they might not be able to come right away, and she needed to get in now.

Oblivious to the grey Mustang driving slowly past the house, Caroline slipped into the alley that once had seemed been bigger, and went around back to the small fenced-in yard, tromping through deep snow that managed to get inside her boots, making her ankles ache with instant cold.

Some of the picketed slats were lying half-buried in the snow, and she carefully walked over them, pushing them deeper toward the ground.

The kitchen windows were hung with yellowing newspapers. She tried the window closest to the alley, but it was locked, as was the door, serving only to make her more determined. Crossing to the other window, where she saw at once that the lock was broken, she tried the window. But it didn't budge.

Removing her gloves and slipping them into her pocket, she tried again. The window was stuck fast, probably due to age and or rarely being opened. I could smash the window out, she thought, but decided to keep that option as a last resort. She needed something to pry it open with. Turning away from the window, she looked about her. In the far corner of the yard, where part of the fence still stood bravely, there was a pile of trash: cans, chunks of wallboard and plaster, a bicycle with a wheel missing, other garbage.

She made her way to the mound, and spotted a large, rusting fork sitting atop the debris, and picked it up; it had a good solid heft. Worth a try. She trudged back through the snow and went to work.

Jamming the fork between the sill and the window sash, she pushed down on it until the heel of her hand began to throb with pain as well as cold. The wood was blackened and rotting now, some of it flecking away. As she worked, a small urgent voice in her head warned her that she was breaking the law and would go to jail if she was caught, but the compulsion to get inside the house was stronger and she ignored it and prepared for another try.

She rubbed her cold hands together to try to bring warmth into them, curled them in her pockets for a few seconds, then returned to her task with renewed will, prying until her arms and shoulders ached, and her hands began to lose feeling, and the fork began to bend.

She blew out a long breath. Then, finding a surge of strength that hadn't been there a moment before, she gave a final hard push. The window croaked open. A sense of triumph rippled through her. She dropped the ruined fork on the ground and stood quietly for a moment, breathing hard, massaging the pain from her hands. Then she raised the window the rest of the way, and crawled inside.

The kitchen had been painted recently, which explained the strong smell of paint in the house. It was a soft ivory, clean and bright. The old flooring was partially torn up, pieces of linoleum tossed in a corner. Caroline took off her boots, and treading carefully on the old wood crossed to the sink and shook the snow out of her boots. Pulling them back on, ignoring her wet feet, she went through to the living room.

The ghosts of her parents were here with her. She could feel them, faintly detect her mother's Tweed cologne mingling with the smell of paint. Other people had lived here after them, but they had left no part of themselves behind. Not for her. She knew Doctor Rosen would probably tell her she had brought the ghosts with her, that they were inside her head. Maybe he was right. But she didn't think so. Were they still waiting for her to come back home?

Holding onto the familiar wood railing, she climbed the carpeted stairs. The fifth stair creaked when she stepped on it, as if a mouse were trapped beneath. Her boots made soft footfalls on the steps, fourteen in all. Just as she remembered.

The bathroom was at the top of the stairs and down a short hallway. At the opposite end of the hallway, a tall window overlooked the street. The bedrooms branched off the hallway. Her own small room was directly across from her parents' bedroom, on the right. Both doors were open, and she stepped warily into her old room, like stepping back into time and her heart seemed to stop.

A myriad of conflicting emotions fought for top place inside her, so powerful she had to place her palm against the wall to steady herself. She closed her eyes.
You are okay. You are
fine. You can do this. Breathe
. She inhaled deep, let the breath out slow and easy. And again. When she felt calmer, she opened her eyes.

A narrow bed much like the one she had slept in stood against the wall. Someone had left it behind. This was the room where she had danced in secret, keeping the radio low so as not to bring wrath upon herself. The room where she dreamed and planned, and finally cried herself to sleep night after night, pining for the boy she loved with her whole heart.

The door was stained brown, and she ran a hand over it. She had pounded on this locked door until her knuckles were raw and bleeding. You'd think there'd be some evidence of her crazed heart here. But there was not. There was no window in this room, else she might have leapt from it all those years ago.

Tears were streaming from her eyes, and wiped them away with the back of her hand. But more flowed, hot and scalding, and she took some tissues from her bag. She should have cried herself out long ago, but apparently not.

I forgive you both. I forgive myself for hating you
.

They had done what they thought was right. That they were wrong didn't really matter now. She mopped at her eyes with new tissues, blew her nose. In a little while the tears ceased, and she felt cleansed and whole. She would be okay. She could go on with her life.

At the sound of a car motor down on the street, she turned in the open doorway and looked toward the hallway window. The motor cut and there was silence. Someone had stopped outside. You've broken in. You're a criminal, she told herself.

Fighting a bout of angst, she hurried into the hallway and looked out the window in time to see a man getting out of a grey car. The car door shut with a solid thunk and the man turned and came up the walkway, head bent so that she couldn't see his face. He wore a green jacket and a cap with the eartabs turned down. The cap looked to have some logo on it. One of the workers?

He had a distinctive walk, head and shoulders thrust forward. Something familiar about that. As he drew nearer the house, he disappeared from her view.

Moving away from the window, Caroline tried to think what she should she do? She'd never make it back downstairs and out the kitchen window in time to avoid being seen.

Was he the owner of the house? she wondered. Well, if it was she would just be truthful and tell him she used to live here and wanted to see the old place again. Or she could lie and say she was considering buying the house, and there'd been no one to let her in. Surely he wouldn't call the police. She hadn't touched anything or done any damage. She decided it was one of the workers, a painter or an electrician. Yes, she'd seen a logo on his cap, though he'd been too far away to make it out.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to be calm. Dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. She would simply handle this like a reasonable, mature woman. She would first apologize, then…

Why hadn't she heard a key in the lock, or the front door open?

Fifty-Seven

This realization no sooner struck her, when she heard a footfall on the stairs. When the fifth stair creaked, her heart leapt in her chest like it was seeking escape. But there was no escaping the obvious; he had gotten in the same way she had. He followed her footprints in the deep snow through the alley and around to the back yard. She envisioned him climbing through the kitchen window.

Caroline took a tentative step forward until she could see the stranger's shadow on the wall ascending the stairs, huge and frightening. An instant later she saw him in the flesh, though his face was hidden beneath the peak of the cap, but she saw the logo there -BB-intertwined in blue and gold.
Big Bakery
. He wore a black hooded jacket, with the hood down.