All Things Cease to Appear Read online

  It could be he’s not so interesting, Agnes said. She’d never really liked George. He was, she thought, an elitist. To be fair, she herself had an inferiority complex. She’d always been an average student. I’m not a nerd like you, she complained back in high school whenever they compared report cards. Agnes had excelled at swimming. All through school their mother had forced Catherine to swim with her on the team, but she’d hated it. She could remember driving home after a meet, wet-haired, the windows fogged with winter outside, and Agnes gloating.

  Their mother had raised them to be good wives, to make the best of things—a philosophy that had helped the Sloan women through hard times—and Catherine had bought into it with a greedy, childish ease. The women on her side were devoted wives and mothers. They distracted themselves from minor bouts of unhappiness with housecleaning, gardening, children. They tore recipes from magazines and copied them down on index cards. They made Bundt cakes and Jell-O molds and casseroles, cleaned closets, organized drawers, folded laundry, darned socks. They’d mollify their husbands with sex. As Catholics, they had their own deliberate traditions, and denial was one of them.

  4

  THEY’D SEEN the ad in the real-estate section of the Times, with a picture of a white farmhouse captioned First Time Offered. It was a blurry shot, as if the photographer had been startled, and a peculiar brightness flourished around the windows. George made an appointment with the realtor, and the following Saturday they drove up to see it, just the two of them, leaving Franny at home with Mrs. Malloy. This was in March, just after he’d accepted his first real job, as Assistant Professor at an upstate college she’d never heard of. They were moving in August.

  They took his beloved Fiat for the two-hour drive up the Taconic. He’d bought the car after college and garaged it in Harlem for more than they could afford. It was one of those mornings when the world seemed paralyzed by the anticipation of some unknown calamity, the city silent, cold, windless. The roar of the engine and rattling windows deprived them of small talk, Franny’s latest developmental feats being their recent topic, so instead they listened to the jazz station, watching cluttered neighborhoods turn into anonymous suburban yards and then true countryside, like home for her, where icicles as thick as elephant tusks dripped from the great boulders that bordered the parkway, and the bleak landscape unfolded before them. Soon there was nothing to look at except fields and farms.

  At last they turned into a town that resembled one of the samplers she had stitched as a child, featuring an old white church and a country store with a sign that advertised Fresh Pie in its window. Catherine watched two dogs trot off into a field, one black, the other yellow, following them until they disappeared behind the trees.

  That’s where we’re going, George said, nodding in that direction, and they passed old houses and farms. Fields of sheep and grazing horses. Men on tractors. Pickup trucks full of hay.

  At an unmarked road, she considered the map. Turn here, she said.

  It was aptly called Old Farm Road, and ran a mile down through open pasture. They passed a small house with a barn, sheets up on the line. Pratt was the name on the mailbox. A bit farther along they came to the house they’d seen in the photograph. George parked next to a station wagon with a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute decal on its back window. Looks like she’s here.

  They got out. Catherine buttoned her coat and gazed around the perimeter, holding a hand over her eyes in the glare. Brown fields stretched behind the house. Distantly, she could hear the whine of the interstate. The house resembled one of Franny’s crayon drawings, with crooked shutters and smoke curling from the chimney. It was badly in need of paint. Catherine wondered what it would be like to raise their daughter here on this old farm. Off to the side were a couple of whitewashed barns, one with the words Hale Dairy in brown flaking paint over its doors and a copper rooster weathervane that turned and squealed in the wind. The other had a cupola whose windows flashed with sunlight, disrupting her vision intermittently, like Franny’s toy View-Master. Tiny starlings darted in and out of the darkness below.

  Used to be a dairy farm, George said, already in love with the place. The house is nice, don’t you think?

  To her, it seemed dreary and old. She supposed with some paint it could be nice. It has good bones, she said. That’s the important thing.

  The sky went dark suddenly and snow swept in like confetti. This weather, she said, shuddering.

  Let’s go in. George took her hand.

  As they started up the walk, the door opened and the realtor stepped onto the small porch. She was wearing a bulky leopard-print coat and knee-high boots and bright-orange lipstick. Good morning, she said. I see you found it.

  Hello, there.

  Mary Lawton, the woman said, stretching out her hand to George, then shaking Catherine’s next. It’s so good to meet you both. Come on in and have a look around. She held the storm door open, the glass smudged with handprints, and they stepped inside. You’ll have to forgive the mess. Houses don’t fare well in circumstances like these.

  What do you mean? Catherine said.

  The woman looked at them blankly. Well, the owners had it rough. Financial troubles, that sort of thing.

  Catherine hoped she’d say more, but she didn’t.

  These are hard times, George said.

  Well, it’s a buyer’s market. That’s one consolation.

  The house looked sad, Catherine thought. Battered. But the windows were lovely.

  Those are original, Lawton remarked, noting Catherine’s interest. That’s a real bonus. The light here, the views. You just don’t find that.

  Mary led them through the first floor—a dining room, a living room and a bedroom, what could be a small study—where a gloom languished like a misbehaving guest. The bulbs in the overhead fixtures flickered, and the wind thrummed against the windowpanes like a neglected child having a tantrum. In one spot, she had a feeling that someone was standing right beside her in a cold little pocket of air. She shook her head, folding her arms across her chest. Strange, she said aloud. I thought I…

  Like conspirers, the Lawton woman and George exchanged a look.

  What? George asked.

  Nothing. Catherine shook off a chill.

  Old houses, the realtor said. They’ve got aches and pains just like we do.

  George nodded. When was it built?

  Somewhere around 1790, nobody knows for sure. A long time ago in any case. There’s something about this place—a kind of purity, I think. Her eyes went misty, like a poet experiencing a revelation, and she looked at Catherine meaningfully. It’s not for everyone.

  That’s true, George said. You have to have a vision for a place like this.

  So much history here. To imagine how long it’s been standing. They just don’t make houses like this anymore.

  The three of them stood there for a moment in silence. Then Lawton broke it by saying, Love goes a long way in a house like this.

  Catherine stole a glance at George as he strolled the room’s boundaries, then stood at the window and looked out. She wondered what he was thinking. She supposed, with a little work, it could be nice.

  You’ve got three bedrooms upstairs. Shall we go up?

  It was a narrow staircase. The banister, unscrewed at the bottom and hanging off the wall, wobbled when she grasped it, the cold wood gritty with dirt. Pictures had been removed from the walls, leaving dark blocks on the faded paint. At the top she paused on the landing to look out the window. She could see a pond in the distance, a weathered canoe tipped over in the mud and an old truck up on blocks, surrounded with tools and rags, as if the person trying to fix it had given up. She followed George and Mary down the hall into the master bedroom. Standing there, she could feel a cold draft coming up through the floors. The realtor explained that the room was over the garage. A not particularly good addition, she said. It can be fixed, of course, and you can factor it into the price. On the positive side, you’ve got a nice b
ig room here.

  In the room across the hall there were three beds. She noticed a forgotten sock underneath one, and for some reason it made her sad.

  There’s one more bedroom down here, Mary said. Could make a nice nursery, or a sewing room. Do you sew, Catherine?

  Yes, I do.

  They’ve got some wonderful patterns these days, don’t they?

  They went back downstairs and outside, into the yard, to see the outbuildings. The milking barn was full of empty glass bottles. As the wind funneled through them, they seemed to be singing. George said, That’s a lot of bottles.

  Dairy farming’s a tough business, Mary Lawton said.

  That’s too bad, Catherine said.

  There are lots of reasons why things don’t work out on a farm. You get a spell of bad luck. Well—some people can handle it, others can’t.

  She led them out of the barn, into the white, snowy light. Catherine wrapped the scarf around her head under the blowing snow. They walked down a muddy path into the field, then up a hill. Wait till you see this view, Lawton said. You two go on ahead.

  They walked up through the wind without talking. At the top they looked down on the farm and stood there respectfully, like a couple in church. The land was like an ocean, she thought, the house a lonesome island in the middle of it.

  Two hundred acres, George said. His eyes were bright, a little wild. She felt guilty for not wanting it. I don’t know, George, she said gently.

  I’ll tell you what I do know, he said. We can sure as hell afford it.

  5

  SOME HOUSES WERE hard to sell. That’s how it always was in her trade. People were superstitious, like you could catch someone’s bad luck like a common cold. Even divorce made buyers squeamish. But death—suicide? Those houses could sit.

  Mary had grown up in the business. Her father was old now, but he’d taught her everything there was to know about real estate. People trusted them both; they had a reputation. Even the city people. Weekenders. Horse people. She had a whole array of clients. Rich and poor, she treated everyone the same.

  Chosen had been made by hand, people coming together to raise it up. Main Street had been dug out with shovels, then horses pulled barrels across it to level the dirt. St. James’s Church stood in the middle of town, enclosed by an iron fence. In summer the doors were always open, the wind ruffling your hair like the fingers of angels. The bells always rang at noon. If you happened to be driving past, you might see Father Geary out in the courtyard, talking to someone, leaning in and speaking so softly you had to return his attention, concentrating on whatever he was saying, because it would soon be your turn to say something back. Tall maples stretched their limbs over the sidewalks, which were sticky with pods that the kids would peel apart and stick on their noses. You’d find them on the bottom of your shoes when you got home.

  Every house had a story. She’d come to know people by how they lived. You saw their nature in unmade beds, haphazard kitchens. Their weaknesses in dark cellars heaped with rusted water heaters, cisterns, defunct boilers, blackened toilets and gunky sinks. You saw their desperation in backyards strewn with busted cars, waiting to be hauled away for scrap. You knew them by what they saved, the things they proudly featured on their shelves. You knew what meant something and what didn’t. They’d tell you what they needed, what they feared, what they’d been through. It was much, much more than just selling houses. She was the listener, a keeper of secrets, the purveyor of dreams.

  —

  SHE’D BEEN INSIDE every house at least once, at weddings and wakes, baby showers and bridge games. She’d knitted baby booties for the Ladies Auxiliary, baked pies for Election Day, organized potluck suppers and church bazaars and tag sales. She herself had sold changing tables and dressers and scooters and picture books and bicycles and her very first car, a yellow Mustang, with a dent in the fender from the only time in her life that she’d ever hit a deer. She’d grown up here, back when it was just an insular little town, and her parents had sent her to Emma Willard down in Troy with the idea that she might meet an RPI man, and she did. She had married Travis Lawton right out of high school, when he had a gangly, ornery charm that was irresistible. They met at a school dance, where he’d lured her into the music closet and they’d kissed all night to the tiniest accompaniment of cymbals.

  That morning in March, the sky was bleary, the wind swift and cold. The pale lawn puckered with crocuses. Mary got there early, as she always did before a showing, to make sure there were no surprises. When houses sat vacant, you tended to find unhappy ones—broken windows, puddles, dead mice. Pulling up to the farm that morning, she couldn’t help thinking of her old friend Ella. The house stood plain and white, projecting the dignified symmetry of a simpler time. Using a rusty iron key, she unlocked the door, anticipating the usual dampness, the draft, and went to turn up the heat. The furnace sputtered to life and the radiators began to clang. The thought came to her that it was like an orchestra tuning up before a performance. Pleased with the idea, she went through the house, opening window shades, letting in the light. The trees outside, with their long limbs, caught her attention. It occurred to her that her senses were especially acute. She could hear the jittery windows, the waffling screens, the dry leaves skittering across the porch. For a few moments, it felt as though time had simply stopped, as though she could stand there all day and it would be of no consequence—and then a draft swarmed around her, a door eased open somewhere and slammed shut. For goodness’ sakes! It scared her half to death. You couldn’t keep the wind out, that was the trouble. It made the brass chandelier sway a little. She watched it for a moment, swirling around, its bulbs flickering. These damn old houses.

  She hugged her coat tighter, reproaching herself for that second helping of ice cream last night. Boredom, that’s what it was. Having nothing better to do.

  She had asked Rainer Luks to clean out the place but he’d refused, saying he hadn’t stepped foot in their house when they were alive, so why do it now? They’d had a fight over something back in the day—now he had their kids. The ironies of life never ceased to amaze her. She’d been the one to order the dumpster, not him, another expense she’d have to just chalk up. If it sold, which was unlikely, it would be worth it, and if it didn’t, well, no use crying over spilt milk. You couldn’t talk Rainer into doing anything he didn’t want to, but showing the house in its present condition was, frankly, embarrassing. The first-floor bedroom, where old man Hale had lived out his last days, had an odor she couldn’t quite place. Oh, it was urine—and you couldn’t get rid of that stink no matter what you did. The room was piled up with junk, the sagging bed’s dusty peach quilt heaped with old clothes. The closet door got snagged on the dirty rug, but when she yanked it open another smell came through, human, masculine, the old man’s clothes hanging wearily from their hangers. A thick leather belt hung on the hook, moving just a little, like an idle threat. A Hale family tradition, she guessed. Everybody knew Cal beat his wife and their boys, that was no secret. She thought of throwing the belt into the trash where it belonged, but then she heard the car.

  She stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her, but it eased right back open, as if mocking her. Unnerved, she shut it again and held her hand against it a moment, as if daring it to refuse.

  Oh, Ella, you poor girl! she thought, remembering her dear friend, how they’d sit on the front steps when their kids were little, smoking, how faded and distant Ella sometimes looked, unreachable. Mary had known all along there were problems, but, in her own defense, every time she tried to broach the subject, Ella would leave the room. People talked. Well, in a town like this, there wasn’t much else to do for entertainment. Ella was so tenderhearted that she simply couldn’t bear it. People looking at her in Hack’s. Whispering. After a while, she stopped going to town. She never left the house.

  Mary opened the front door and waited while the couple parked. They’d pulled up in a little green convertible, some foreign th
ing, and the wife got out, wearing a brown wool coat with toggles and a white kerchief over her hair. Behind her dark sunglasses she moved with the fluid grace of a movie actress. Mary wondered if she was somebody important, someone who needed a disguise.

  Mary’s father had taught her that the first moments with new clients are always revealing. You had to watch their faces, imagine their worst fears. The Clares were city people, with an apartment on Riverside Drive. Mary seldom went down there, but she had a general idea where they lived. It was easy to tell from the way they stood there, looking slightly dumbfounded, that they knew nothing about houses, let alone farms. Yet she suspected they were romantics—they wanted old, they wanted charming. The wife shifted, taking in the fields, her hand shielding her eyes. The land could be off-putting to some, even to most. People wanted space, just not so damn much of it. Mary watched as they stood side by side, squinting up at the place, the wife with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as if she’d just come out of a swimming pool. The husband draped his arm around her, awkwardly, she thought, more out of possession than love, and as they walked up the front walk, Mary saw in his face that he’d already made up his mind.

  This was Mary’s cue. She went out onto the porch as they approached.

  Good morning. I see you found it. They shook hands and made their introductions. Come on in and have a look around.

  They stepped inside and the woman took off her scarf. As she tucked her hair back behind her ears, Mary saw that she was beautiful—a beauty, she ventured, that went largely unacknowledged by her husband, who seemed, in those brief moments, preoccupied with his own. He looked like one of those soap stars, clean-cut and cheerful on the outside, but if you watched the show long enough some dark history would crawl out.

  She led them through the rooms on the first floor. The wife seemed to like the Dutch door in the kitchen, and Mary demonstrated how you could open the top half to let in the fresh air. It’s the original door, Mary said. This screened porch was added in the forties, when they did the garage.