“Yeah. You know. The Hendersons. They do it every other year.”
“Fifteen people, Emily?”
“Well, sixteen if you count Aunt Barb, but she’s staying at a hotel because of her back.”
I closed my eyes.
“They’re leaving tomorrow,” Emily said. “Just one more night. Please don’t make a scene, Mom.”
“Emily,” I said. “I gave you that key to water my plants.”
“I know, Mom. And I did water them. Twice.”
“Twice. In two weeks.”
“Mom—”
“I gave you a key to water my ferns. Not to hand my house over to fifteen people I’ve never met.”
“I know,” Emily said. “But you weren’t using the house. It was just sitting there empty. And it’s so big. And Linda really needed the space, and she was so stressed, and—”
“I wasn’t using it?”
“You know what I mean.”
Before I could say another word, she said, “Okay, Mom, I have to go. David’s calling me. I’ll talk to you later. Love you. Don’t make a scene.”
And she hung up.
I stood on my front porch in the cool morning air, staring at the phone in my hand.
My daughter had hung up on me.
My thirty-two-year-old daughter, who I’d raised in this house, who’d taken her first steps on that living room floor, had just hung up on me. Because I’d asked why there were fifteen strangers sleeping on that floor.
I went back inside.
Very quietly. I stepped over the loafers. I pushed my suitcase into the corner by the coat rack. I picked Robert’s fishing hat up off the floor and hung it back on its hook.
Then I walked down the hall to the kitchen.
The kitchen was worse.
The sink was piled with dirty dishes. Plates crusted with dried egg. Coffee mugs with lipstick on the rims. Glasses with the dregs of orange juice. My big blue mixing bowl, the one I make my Christmas cookies in, had been used for something that smelled like chili and left on the counter with a spoon still in it.
I opened the refrigerator.
It was almost empty. A carton of eggs with one egg left. Half a stick of butter. A jar of mustard. My good cheese, the aged white cheddar I buy from the farmers’ market once a month as a treat, was gone. So was the bottle of white wine I’d been saving for when I got home.
There were three empty pizza boxes stacked on top of my trash can. The trash can was overflowing.
And then I looked at the mantel in the living room. You can see it from the kitchen doorway.
It was empty.
I walked back to the living room, stepping carefully between the air mattresses. A man rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep.
My mantel had always held our family photographs. Twelve of them, in silver frames. Robert and me on our wedding day. Robert holding newborn Emily in the hospital. Robert at Emily’s high school graduation, crying in his sunglasses. Robert and me on the beach in Clearwater on our thirtieth anniversary, our arms around each other, squinting into the sun.
Every one of them was gone.
The mantel was bare except for a scented candle I’d never seen before. Lavender Dreams. Somebody had lit it and let it burn down.
I found the photographs a few minutes later.
They were stacked in the drawer of the TV stand. Under the television. Face down. Shoved in on top of the remote control batteries and an old phone book.
All twelve of them.
