The Space Between (14 page)

She spooned a bite of vegetarian lentil soup into her mouth while staring out at Sullivan Square. After a long pause, she said, “Maybe.”

I rolled my shoulders and studied my soup, waiting for the flare of adrenaline in my system to slow. “Maybe you’ll consider the possibility that fish dives aren’t terrible, or maybe you’ll take a ride with me this weekend and actually try one?”

Andy leveled an even gaze in my direction, an eyebrow lifted subtly as if she knew exactly how much her prolonged silence tortured me.

She knew. She knew, and she liked it.

“Maybe I’ll go with you. But I reserve the right to eat nothing, criticize everything, and drink a lot of beer.”

I always knew the serious, composed woman working beside me each day was only one iteration of Andy Asani, and along the way, getting past her poised veneer turned into another one of my missions. It also seriously threatened my mental health.

“That’s exactly what I had in mind.”

Just book the padded cell for me now.

*

We were in
an odd lull with many of our projects, and Friday was miraculously free from site visits that would put us side-by-side in the car all day. It was no surprise to find Andy seated at the drafting table when I arrived, her long legs tangled around the stool like dark, sexy vines.

We exchanged silent pleasantries, and I knew enough about Andy’s concentration to know she needed quiet. I admired her preference to go all in when she was designing on paper, shutting everything else out and allowing her instincts to guide her. It was tempting to offer constructive criticism while she worked but my obsession was too deep, and I couldn’t focus on the lines without wanting to touch her.

And kiss her.

And breathe in her scent.

And feel her body against mine.

I stayed away, promising myself I would get my Andy fix over the weekend, and as usual, email beckoned. An hour passed before putting a sizeable dent in my inbox. Andy was lost in her focus, and didn’t notice when Matt’s chime sounded on my phone.

09:51 Matt:
Widow, incoming.

09:51 Matt:
she’s locked and loaded.

09:52 Matt:
bunker down.

Glancing up, I saw Shannon’s hair flashing in the doorframe. “You haven’t been to Wellesley.”

Shannon stormed into my office, slamming the door behind her. Andy roused from her headspace but kept her eyes on the table. Though I knew she heard most everything, Andy excelled at seeming to ignore the endless stream of visitors into my office.

“Good morning, Shannon. It’s nice to see you too,” I replied.

“If you’re not going out to Wellesley today, I’m going,” Shannon said. “But I’ve looked at your calendar, and you have time. I’m scheduled to meet with our accountants to make sure everyone gets paid on time. Would you rather I do that, or go to Wellesley?”

“Fine.” I closed my laptop and tucked it into my messenger bag. “I’ll go.”

“Take Andy. I don’t want you going alone in case there is a pack of pit bulls, or something.”

“Right. Better for us both to be attacked by the pit bulls.” Andy looked up, our eyes met, and I shrugged.

“I hear pit bulls can be quite friendly,” she offered, shrugging in return. “All depends on the upbringing. My mentor at Cornell, Charlotte, used to foster pit bulls and none of them killed her. A few attacks, maybe, but she’s alive.”

Andy delivered with the sardonic banter. Every time. Her dry wit ran to the bone. It came through in our lunchtime chats and long discussion of all things architectural at the bar, and her social media posts commenting on pop culture, politics, and mundane things offered a covert glimpse.

“Exactly. These would be the worst pit bulls imaginable.”

“No,” Shannon replied, drawing the word out. “You can go in, fight off the pit bulls, and Andy can call 911 from the car if you lose a leg. Andy, we’d like to keep. You, we can do without.” She pointed her finger at me. “Do it today, and don’t think you can be all disgruntled later and skip the party.”

Shit.
The party.

“Fine,” I repeated. “Anything else, Shannon?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, her lips pursed as if she was holding back on the stinging commentary.

Lifting her chin in challenge, she replied, “Yes. A plan for a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar rehab with milestones, materials, and approved subcontractors.”

She exited, the door slamming behind her. I hated fighting with my best friend, and though Shannon and I never carried an argument for more than a couple of days, I knew she was capable of completely shutting me out if I pushed the wrong way at the wrong time. If her years-long feud with Erin was any indication, Shannon was ruthless when it came to holding grudges.

The thirty-minute drive was quiet while Andy flipped through her notebook and I tried to remember my last visit to Eastern Pond Road. It was probably around the time Angus kicked Erin out, and that was seven or eight years ago, maybe more, and it wasn’t a pleasant visit.

The memory of him leaning out her bedroom window, tossing books and clothes to the lawn while raging about our mother screwing every man in town and winding up pregnant was hard to forget. Erin sobbed on the porch steps while he screamed unimaginably horrible things about our sweet little mother, the mother she didn’t know long enough to remember. Forever the peacemaker, Matt eventually convinced Angus to leave Erin’s room, enticing him with a fresh bottle of scotch and the promise that Erin was leaving.

Erin cried herself to sleep on Shannon’s bed that night. Matt, Shannon, and I figured out how we’d collectively care for a teenager while struggling to get the business off the ground.

Stopping at the rusty wrought iron gates, I leaned over the steering wheel, taking in the rambling expanse of land.

“We’re looking for dogs?”

“It’s a mystery,” I murmured, and rolled down the window to enter the access code. The gates moaned and creaked when they swung wide, and I bit back a groan as I drove up the winding driveway.

“Oh my God,” Andy whispered when I pulled to a stop in front of the house. “That’s an 1880s Arts and Crafts. These are incredible.”

A quick scan of the property told me Angus kept a landscaper on the payroll, and part of the chimney looked new. Of course. It was all about the façade. Appearances were the only things that truly mattered to Angus.

I was more than a little relieved angry dogs were not descending upon us. That, of course, left rusty nails, burned baby pictures, and bottle caps, but I could handle those. It was the energy radiating off the property, the lingering sadness speaking volumes about the sorrows the house knew, that I wasn’t prepared to handle.

“I love this style,” she breathed, running her hand over the stone wall surrounding the front porch. “This is a rehab? Do we have any other information?”

The scent of lemon cleaning products slammed into me when I stepped through the front door. Andy was busy caressing the bench carved into the side of the staircase, and didn’t notice me wander through the sparsely furnished living room and dining room.

For a house receiving only basic maintenance over the past two decades, it wasn’t in bad shape. Trees growing through the windows and raccoons nesting in the pantry were my worst case, yet likely, scenario. We could thank the housekeeper for not only finding Angus after his stroke but also keeping the flora and fauna at bay.

Staring out the family room windows at the blue slate patio, garden, and pool, I searched for good memories. They were there, in the far back, and most of them were tainted with the knowledge my mother would die before my eleventh birthday and Angus was a miserable bastard who would ruin everything good and pure that we knew.

“I walked every room and captured some rough dimensions,” Andy announced as she approached the wall of windows. I stared at her, startled that my thoughts led me far enough astray for Andy to study the entire house. Examining six thousand square feet over three floors plus a basement meant I spent more than an hour in my own head. “This place is incredible. Lots of dated energy systems but—”

“Any evidence of water damage?” I interrupted. “Or animals?”

“No water, no woodland creatures. I checked all the crawl spaces.”

“Good,” I murmured. “What are you thinking? Walk me through your plan. Start with fundamentals and then go through preservation.”

She paused, her brow furrowed as she paged through her notebook. “I’m thinking a lot of things. This place has amazing bones, but…what’s the story? Is this a client property or an investment property? It’s almost completely empty, but it looks like someone still lives here.”

“It’s a little of both,” I replied.

“Hm. Well…I’d start with energy systems, then deal with exterior—”

“Actually, no. I don’t want to hear this.” Turning, I retreated to the library, my fingers skating along the built-in bookcase until I found the lever. Pressing down, the structure glided away from the wall, revealing a narrow set of stairs. The wine cellar held a few dusty bottles and a small colony of spider webs, and the best look at the foundation.

A flashlight landed in my palm before I could ask, and I scanned the foundation for cracks and leaks. “Thank you. Budget of two-fifty, focus on shoring up the structure and systems as needed. Turn it green. Draw it up and get started. Keep me out of it unless you hit a wall. And do not mention anything about this to Sam.”

“Hm.”

I squatted to study a dark corner while Andy walked through the hidden rooms. I wanted to find a major foundation issue, anything that would give me the green light to level the property, sell the land, and never come here again.

“Patrick?” she called. When I found her, she was inside a small root cellar, and her focus was on the door where our ages and heights were recorded each year on our birthdays. “Where are we?”

I glanced at Erin’s name, and the short increments marking her height. It stopped after her second birthday, and I immediately remembered her bobbling around as a chubby baby, wailing for mama every single night for months after my mother died. We took turns holding her, walking her, singing to her, making bottles. None of it worked. Eventually, she started falling asleep with Shannon and refused to get into bed unless Shannon was right there with her.

My stomach twisted. I didn’t want to think about the past. The lost childhoods. Angus’s drunkenness and gambling and rage. I didn’t want the memories of Sam’s hysterical screams when the paramedics tore him off my mother’s lifeless body. I didn’t want to remember making the call to 911 or how long it took me to wash away all that blood.

The first towel soaked all the way through until I couldn’t see any white, just red, so much red. Then the second. Then the third. I piled six towels in the bathtub that night.

It stained the wood and spilled into the crevices between the planks. Smaller puddles marked the path from the bed to the bathroom, and to the place where she collapsed. Handprints lined the sink and walls.

The bleach burned my eyes but I didn’t know what else to use in my quest to put things back in order. My mother would have scrubbed on her hands and knees until it was clean, and she wouldn’t have wanted people seeing her blood spilled all over the bedroom. She was proud and private, with her stiff Irish upper lip, and that wasn’t what she would have wanted.

Blood covered my clothes, my arms, and my legs. My aunts Mae and Carole were busy making arrangements. That’s what they called it, as if my mother was planning a trip to Fort Lauderdale.

They stayed away from the bedroom. They knew what happened in there but they didn’t want to see it. No one saw me in my mother’s bathroom, surrounded by her oatmeal soaps and flowery perfume, with her blood all around me.

I should have checked on my brothers and sisters but I knew they were safe in the nursery with Shannon. She knew what to do. She always did.

The water was too hot but I didn’t feel it, not really. I focused on the pink water sluicing off my body. In the shower, it looked harmless.

The stained bedding and towels went into thick black garbage bags, along with my clothes. It was late when I brought the bags to the latticed enclosure behind the garage, probably after midnight. No one noticed me or the oversized bags.

When I closed the lid on the dented metal barrel, I sat in the dirt and cried. The panic, horror, pain, confusion—they took over for the first time since finding Mom on the floor. They won, and I cried it all out. Hiccupping, hyperventilating, and eventually vomiting, I left it all in the shed.

That was the last time I cried, if we ignore the incident where I ran a jigsaw across my thigh. I left my childhood in those barrels with the bloodied towels.

I found an oval rug in the den and moved it into the bedroom, covering the planks discolored from blood and bleach. No one asked where it came from or why it was there. They never asked where the bedding went, or who cleaned the blood. But the reminder was always right there. Everyone knew and no one wanted to talk about it. It was easier that way.