The Summer of Good Intentions (33 page)

In front of them sat their childhood home. It looked, however, as if it had aged fifty years since her last visit. Paint curled on the front shutters, the walkway and front steps were cracked, and weeds and oversize rhododendrons swarmed at the front. Jess's mind shot back to Boo Radley's house in
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Maggie's old Subaru sat in the driveway.

“Incredible,” she said as she pulled the car up next to Maggie's and killed the engine. They climbed out just as Maggie emerged on the front steps.

“You're here!” she exclaimed, running over. Her jeans were rolled up to her knees, and she'd wrapped a pink bandanna around her head. A paper breathing mask hung around her neck. “I can't tell you how glad I am to see you guys.” She slipped Virgie's purse strap over her shoulder. “Come on. You won't believe this till you see it. It will blow your mind.”

Virgie and Jess exchanged glances. Virgie went first, while Jess grabbed her shoulder bag and followed slowly. Maggie slipped her free arm through Jess's elbow as they walked up the path. As soon as the screen door slammed behind them, Virgie yelped.

“Holy crap!” she shouted. “What happened here?”

Most of her adult life Virgie had guarded vigilantly against germs, slathering on antibacterial lotion. What a cruel, ironic joke then that her own body had turned on her, attacking her very cells. Still, that didn't mean she was eager to confront the various species of bacteria and mold lurking in Arthur's house. She gladly took the cleaning supplies that Maggie handed her: a bucket, a pair of bright yellow dish gloves, a bottle of Windex with ammonia, sponges, dust masks, paper towels, and a box of trash bags.

She and Jess tackled the kitchen first, where they scrubbed and cleared trash for several hours. It was all Virgie could do not to go running from the place. She'd never guess this was her childhood home to look at it now. She remembered walking down these very stairs to meet her date for senior prom, recalled meat loaf dinners at the kitchen table and watching
Saturday Night Live
with her parents on the old rabbit-eared television. She'd already crept upstairs to her old bedroom, now Arthur's study, and had rediscovered the faint pencil marks where, each birthday, Gloria had faithfully recorded her height along the closet doorframe.

She couldn't quite believe that her dad had let things get so bad.
What had he been thinking?
She'd once done a story about a hoarder in Seattle, the man's house filled with old appliances, like broken coffeemakers and toasters. But unlike Arthur, that man had been a recluse, severing all his ties with family and friends. No one had seen him in years. Arthur wasn't like that. He'd been out and about, socializing, working at the library, traveling to the Cape. He could still entertain a crowd with his stories. And yet, he'd managed to keep his obsession, for that's how Virgie thought of it—an unhealthy obsession—a secret from them all.

It was eleven o'clock on Thursday, and already they were knee-deep into cleaning. Like a drill sergeant, Maggie had woken them at the hotel at 6:30 to drive over to the house. So far, the dent they'd made in her father's mess was negligible. At this rate, it would take them a month to get the house ready to sell. Maggie had called a local company and enlisted a dump truck and the help of a few burly guys to lug out the heavy stuff. They'd filled fifteen overflowing trash bags, carted out her dad's leather chair, the ancient television and its rickety stand, and thrown out a good number of boxes stacked up against the walls.

“Aha! I found it!” Maggie shouted out midway through the morning. It was their parents' floral couch, navy blue with magenta roses running over it that had been hiding under so many boxes and books they hadn't been able to locate it when they first launched Project Clean-Up.

“Oh, I remember that couch,” Virgie said wistfully. “Daddy and I used to sit on it and read the paper every Sunday morning.”

“I remember all the bad movies we watched on it when we were kids,” reminisced Maggie.

“Yes,” said Jess, looking over her shoulder. “Remember when Dad rented
The Shining
and neither you nor I could sleep for a month?”

Maggie hugged herself. “I was so freaked out by that movie. Every time I went in the bathroom, I was sure I was going to see
REDRUM
written in lipstick on the mirror.”

Virgie waved her gloved hand in the air. “You guys are crazy. I never knew you were off your rockers. And here the whole time I was thinking you were my cool big sisters.”

“Us?” Jess laughed as she threw old papers into a trash bag. “Well, maybe Maggie. But never me.”

“What are you talking about?” Virgie said. “You were the one who always wanted to save the world. Remember when you took all the money in your piggy bank and sent it to the starving children in Africa? You saw some weepy ad on TV.”

Jess laughed. “You're right. I completely forgot about that.” She thought for a moment. “Grace is the same way. She wants to make the world a better place.”

“Good for her. The world could use her.” Virgie tossed a pair of brand-new men's sneakers into the Goodwill bag.

“Is all this stuff going?” One of the guys from the dump truck company stood at the front door and gestured to three large trash bags. He wore jeans, a T-shirt streaked with dry paint, and a Red Sox cap turned backwards.

“Yep. All of it,” Maggie confirmed. “That's all trash.”

They worked in silence for a few minutes. Then Maggie said, “What on earth was Dad thinking, saving all this junk?”

Jess shook her head. “Clearly, he was not well.”

“But did you have any idea? Did you, Virgie? You spoke to him all the time.”

“No,” snapped Virgie. “What's that supposed to mean? That I was the one who missed something because I checked in with Dad?”

“Of course not,” Maggie murmured. “But I didn't have a clue. So, I'm wondering if everyone is as surprised as I am.”

“Make that two of us,” volunteered Jess.

“Three of us,” said Virgie.

“I guessed something was a little off,” Maggie continued, “when he kept forgetting things, but I chalked it up to old age.” Her voice cracked, and Jess stopped cleaning to glance at her sister.

“Hey, don't beat yourself up, okay? None of us knew anything about it. We all thought he was doing fine.”

Maggie nodded, but Virgie knew what she was getting at. There had been some signs, like Arthur's car, which was a junk mobile, and, of course, the forgotten teakettle. She'd been feeling guilty, too, as if if she'd just taken the time to fly out and visit him once during the past year, she would have stumbled upon the muddle that his life had become.

“What about Mom?” Virgie pressed. “How could she
not
know? Didn't she and Arthur talk all the time?”

Maggie sighed. “Who knows? I think you really had to visit the house to get any idea of the extent of the damage here.”

They continued to cull through beat-up cardboard boxes, a motley assortment of pots and pans, books, Tupperware, old mail, and stacks upon stacks of newspapers. One box housed a bunch of old, rusty tools, probably from another yard sale, Arthur transferring one hoarder's stash to another's. “This is starting to look a lot like gluttony,” Jess commented, pulling out a rusty socket wrench.

“Eew, this is what I've been smelling.” Maggie winced and held up a moldy white carton at arm's length. “Old Chinese food. That is so disgusting. Honestly, how did Dad stand the stench?”

“Where is Mom, anyway?” asked Virgie. “Didn't she say she was coming to help?”

Maggie rolled down a glove and checked her watch. “Eleven-thirty. She should be here any minute. She's due at noon. You know how Mom likes to make an entrance.”

Virgie cackled. “Well, she's going to have a hell of a time competing with this mess, I don't care what she's wearing or driving.”

Virgie felt betrayed. She thought that she and Arthur had a special relationship. He was her proud mentor, she, his happy protégée. He'd continued to offer her his advice up until the day before he died. How could he have kept such a significant secret from her? She searched her mind for clues, intimations of a secret life, but nothing came to her. Arthur always sounded like his old self when he picked up the phone on Sunday nights. Yes, he'd been a little absentminded at the summer house, but nothing that struck Virgie as out of the ordinary until the teakettle incident.

No, Arthur knew he had a problem and had gone out of his way to hide it from his daughters and Gloria. Was this, too, hereditary? Was there a little gene for hoarding? If she'd gotten the bad hand in the family cards for MS, why wouldn't she be the one to develop this disorder as well? She was glad Jackson was coming soon. He would stop her mind from spinning. She pulled out a brown package from LLBean, wrapped in packing tape. When she ripped it open, there was a brand-new sweater still in its plastic wrapping.

“So, Dad was ordering new clothes but never even took them out of the bag?” Virgie held up the sweater.

“I know. It's strange, isn't it? I've come across a few shirts like that, brand-new and completely untouched.” Maggie wiped a loose strand of hair from her forehead with the back of her glove, leaving a streak of dirt behind.

“I don't get it,” Jess said. “It's like he was preparing for Armageddon or something.”

“I don't either,” said Maggie softly. They continued to work, and Virgie found herself falling into a kind of routine:
Dig, sort, toss. Dig, sort, toss.

A few minutes later, Gloria arrived, calling out, “Hello, my darlings!” But as soon as she stepped into the house, she clapped her hands over her mouth, scanning the room. “Oh my word! That smell! Look at this place!” She rushed back outside. When they reached her, Gloria was pacing in front of the house.

“Are you all right, Mom?” Jess asked. “Do you want some water?”

Gloria stopped and took the bottle from Jess. “Thank you, honey.” She appeared frail in her faded jeans and orange gingham shirt. She'd tried to pull her blond bob into a ponytail, and stray tufts of hair stuck out. Somehow the ponytail made her seem even more vulnerable.

“This isn't my house,” Gloria said softly, staring at it.

“We know, Mom.” Maggie came over and rested a hand on her shoulder. “We're all pretty shocked.”

“It's a pigsty!” exclaimed Gloria. “It looks like a bomb went off in there.”

“I'm sorry. I tried to warn you over the phone,” said Maggie, “but nothing can really prepare you, I guess.”

“What happened?” Gloria asked, her voice sounding like a thin reed.

Maggie shook her head and cast around the group for help. “We're not sure, Mom.” Jess stepped forward. “But for the time being, we want to get the place cleaned up. You should make sure there's nothing here that you want.”

Gloria grunted. “Fat chance of that. How could I possibly find anything in that mess?” She sipped her water. “Do you girls mind if I sit out here for a few minutes?” She settled onto the grass.

“Of course not. Take your time. It's not like we're going to finish today anyway,” Virgie joked. “There's plenty left to do.”

When they'd started on the living room, Virgie assumed they would need to sift through everything with care, salvaging family keepsakes. But, sadly, there wasn't much worth saving. Countless catalogs, most months old, were mixed in with random information flyers about town meetings, the dangers of BPAs, and Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes envelopes, still sealed. One corner of the living room appeared to be heaped with rubbish that Arthur had acquired at other people's garage sales: used kids' clothes (as if he might one day pass them along to the grandkids), an old Easy-Bake oven, a collection of
National Geographic
magazines, a transistor radio in need of repair, a set of Ken Follett paperbacks.

The sisters headed back inside and continued to cull through the muck. When Virgie heard her stomach growl, she checked her watch. “Hey, it's one o'clock. Anyone want a sandwich?” She couldn't believe she had an appetite in the midst of such squalor. But they'd bought turkey sandwiches this morning on the way to Arthur's, and her body was famished.

“Yes, please. I'm starved.” Jess pulled off her gloves and lowered her mask. “We should probably check on Mom anyway.” Gloria had yet to poke her head back in the house.

Outside, their mother sat fanning herself, her eyes trained on her phone. Virgie pulled off her mask, sucked in the fresh air, and grabbed a turkey sandwich and soda from the cooler.

“Mom, can I get you anything?”

Gloria lifted her head. “No thanks.” She offered a feeble smile.

“Here.” Virgie turned to Maggie. “You take half.”