Now I was going back, without pay, media, or fanfare, quietly, like a thief in the night. Or perhaps a better simile would be like a veteran soldier making a solitary return to the battlefield where he was wounded. My own Utah Beach.
The whole neighborhood was in decline. And it didn’t look like gentrification was in the immediate future. Nearly every home displayed an American flag or a crimson U for the University of Utah. Most of the yards were surrounded by chain-link fences or snow-laden hedges. In many of the driveways were cars old enough to be collectibles likely still in the possession of the original owner. I thought I recognized a few cars from my childhood.
As I neared the house, I could feel my anxiety rising. Everywhere I looked there were memories—mostly painful ones. Like the old run-down home with the plastic flamingos where a mean woman shouted at me almost every day as I walked to school because she was afraid I might walk on her lawn. Or the home two doors from it where I came across an old man illegally burning leaves. When he saw me, he blamed the fire on me and threatened to call the police. Maybe it was because it was a poor area, but it always seemed to me that there was a meanness to the neighborhood.
As I got closer to my childhood home, I could see the tall, twisting oak tree my brother, Charles, had been climbing when he died. I was watching my brother climb the tree when he accidentally grabbed on to a live power line and was electrocuted. I heard a loud zap, and then he fell to the ground a few yards from where I was standing. I was the only witness to the tragedy and ran home to get help. Even now I felt sick to see the tree.
Finally I came to the house. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it too was in decline. The house was a simple redbrick rambler with chipping white window frames and a single three-windowed gable on top. The roof was topped with more than a foot of snow and icicles draped from the rain gutters all the way across the roofline. On the south corner of the house was an icicle so large that it formed a column from the ground up, as in a cave when a stalactite meets a stalagmite.
Snow-covered concrete steps ascended to a small front porch with a white, paneled front door behind an aluminum storm door.
Everything looked so much smaller than I remembered. I’ve heard that’s the case when we return to the places of our youth. Maybe it’s because we ourselves were so much smaller back then. Or maybe it’s because our minds make things seem bigger than they really are, like the opposite of a car’s rearview mirror.
The oversized mailbox was still there, coated in ice. As a small child, I always thought it was big enough to hold me. More than once, when I was six, I wondered what would happen if I put a stamp on myself and got inside. I suppose that’s kind of telling in its own way.
The home’s front yard was surrounded by overgrown hedges of pyracantha, their clusters of crimson berries brilliant against the snow.
There was a silver Mercedes-Benz coupe parked in front of the house with a couple inside. The man in the driver‘s seat glanced in his rearview mirror as I pulled up behind them. As I shut off my car, he got out of his and walked toward me. He was short with oily, neatly groomed hair. He wore a pink polo shirt, jeans, and loafers. I got out of my car to meet him.
“Mr. Churcher?” he said, reaching out his hand as he walked.
“You must be Brad Campbell,” I said, shaking his hand.
“It’s a pleasure meeting you,” he said. He casually glanced at the house. “Does this bring back memories?”
I ignored the question. “Is that your wife in the car?”
“Yes,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed. “Her name is Kathy. I’m sorry, she begged me to come. She was hoping to meet you.”
“No problem. Tell her to come on out,” I said.
Brad turned back to the car and waved. The door opened and his wife sprang from the passenger side like she was spring-loaded. She held a large canvas shopping bag that she lugged heavily at her side. She looked at me with an expression gravitating between fear and awe.
“Hi, Kathy,” I said.
Kathy Campbell set her book bag on the frozen ground and reached out to me. “Mr. Churcher, you have no idea how excited I am to meet you.”
Truth is, I had some idea. She was wearing mismatched athletic shoes. Or maybe that was a thing in Utah.
“Thank you,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “I’m excited to meet you too.”
“You’re just saying that.” She really looked like she might faint. “I’m sure you get sick of this, but would you mind signing a few of my books?”
“I’d be happy to.”
“I brought a pen,” she said. She handed me a felt-tip Sharpie pen, then stooped down and proceeded to lift the entire pile of books out of the bag. There were five in all, which she held in a column in front of her. “I have your other books too,” she said. “I didn’t want to burden you, so I just brought my favorites.”
“Let’s take them to the car,” I said. I took the stack from her and set them on the trunk of the Mercedes and proceeded to sign them all.
After I’d finished she said, “Thank you so much. Can we have a picture together?”
“Of course,” I said.
She lifted her phone. “Brad, come take our picture.”
Brad looked embarrassed as he walked over. He took the phone and pointed it at us.
“Lift it higher,” she said. “Always hold the camera higher. It hides the chin.”
“I know, I know, honey.” He snapped several pictures. “I got three of them.”
Kathy stepped back. “Thank you so much, Mr. Churcher. My friends will be so jealous.” She piled the books back into her bag and, with one last glance, returned to the car.
“I’m so sorry,” Brad said, walking back up to me. “She’s such a fan.” He took a deep breath. “All righty, let’s get this started.” He reached into his front right pants pocket and brought out a metal ring with about a dozen keys on it. He went through the keys, detached one, and handed it to me. “Do you mind if I come in with you? I’d like to make sure things are in order.”
“I don’t mind.” I turned back to the house and walked up the cracked, concrete walkway leading to the porch. “Careful, it’s slick. I don’t want you falling.” I looked at him and smiled. “Actually, I don’t want you suing me.”
“I wouldn’t,” he said. “My wife would leave me if I did.”
From the road, the brick house had appeared much the same as it was when I left it, though, like me, worn a bit and noticeably older. The inside, however, was a different story. I was shocked by what I saw.
The blinds were all drawn, but even in the dim lighting I could see that the room was crowded with junk. Actually, crowded isn’t a strong enough adjective. It was overflowing. The room resembled a domestic landfill. Everywhere I looked there were piles of things, rising from the floor in dusty towers. I turned to Brad. “My mother was a hoarder?”
“That would definitely appear to be the case.” He looked at me curiously. “She wasn’t a hoarder when you lived here?”
“No. Almost the opposite.” I found the light switch and turned it on. There were boxes stacked on boxes and newspapers everywhere, as well as bulging black plastic leaf bags. I couldn’t tell what most of the things were, but some I could, such as open boxes of clothing, old paperback books—an entire pile dedicated to Harlequin romances—and stacks of VHS tapes. I lifted one. “VHS. Do you think she thought the medium was going to make a comeback?”
“This is probably why she never let me in,” Brad said.
I looked around. “Doesn’t look like she ever threw anything away.” Besides me, I thought.
“Hoarding’s an interesting behavior,” he said.
I looked at him. “By ‘interesting’ do you mean bizarre?”
“It’s a compulsion. All compulsions are bizarre.”
“Look at this crap. This is its own kind of crazy.”
“I had a lawsuit involving a hoarder once. A woman sued her own church over it. She had had kne
e replacement surgery, and while she was still in the hospital recovering, her Relief Society friends came in and cleaned her place. The woman kept everything. I mean, there was even a porcelain toilet in her front room.
“The women and other church volunteers filled two thirty-cubic-yard Dumpsters with her junk. After they finished, they steam-cleaned the carpets, even did some light painting.
“When the woman got home they were all there, excited to see the surprise on her face. She was surprised all right. She collapsed. She had a complete nervous breakdown and spent the next month in a psychiatric unit. She sued the church for three million dollars.”
“What’s a Relief Society?” I asked.
“It’s a women’s organization in the Mormon Church. The name sounds a little ironic in this case. It didn’t bring the woman much relief.”
“You represented the woman?”
“I represented the church.”
“Did you win?”
He looked at me seriously. “I always win.”
I walked farther into the mess. “It’s cold. Think the gas company turned off the heat?”
“No. Utah law wouldn’t allow it in the middle of winter.” He pointed toward the near wall. “There’s the thermostat.”
I walked over to it. It was set at fifty-five degrees.
“Fifty-five,” I said. “That would explain why it’s cold.” I turned the thermostat up to seventy-five. I could hear the heat kick on.
My mother had made a trail through the piles that wound its way through the house. Brad followed behind me as I found my way through the maze. It was like we were exploring an undiscovered landscape. We could have been carrying torches. Of course, if I’d had a torch, I would have been tempted to just toss it into the middle of the room and run.
“It smells terrible in here,” I said. “Makes me think we should be wearing masks or something.”
“We probably should. Hoarding creates all kinds of health risks. That’s actually what I used to win the lawsuit against the hoarder woman. I argued that the woman had created a public biohazard as well as a fire hazard, and what the church people had done in cleaning it up was no different than shutting down a meth lab. She was endangering herself and the neighborhood.”
“The jury bought it?”
“Yeah. Fortunately for us, she wasn’t the most sympathetic individual. She kept calling the jury ‘a bunch of idiots’ and wanted the people who cleaned up her house to be put in prison for life.”
I stepped farther into the room, to the edge of the living room, an ironic title, as nothing but mold was alive in this house. There were things I remembered from my youth. A quilted rendition of a Grandma Moses painting and a small resin replica of Rodin’s The Kiss.
I remembered that there had once been a piano next to the fireplace. I honestly didn’t know if it was still there, as all I could see was a mountain of boxes.
“I think there might be a piano under there,” I said. “A Steinway. Her uncle left it to her.”
“Steinway Model O, 1914. It’s worth about forty grand.”
I looked at him. “How did you know that?”
“It was in the will. It hasn’t been played in twenty years. Maybe if you dig into the mountain you might find other treasures.”
“Or I could just take a match to it.”
He rested his hands on his hips. “You know, there are companies that specialize in hoarder cleanups. They come in and cart it all away. I could recommend one.”
I kept looking through the piles. “Maybe. But not now. I want to go through it.”
“Then perhaps I could recommend a Dumpster rental.”
“That I could definitely use.”
“Their number is 801-555-4589. I’ll text it to you.”
I looked at him quizzically. “Why would you have their number memorized?”
“They were called in to court as character witnesses in my hoarding case.” He shrugged. “I remember numbers.”
“Do you remember your wife is still sitting out in the car?”
“Yes, she’s fine. She’s rereading one of your books. There’s not many authors she likes, so if there’s nothing new, she just rereads yours. The funny thing is, she forgets how they end, so she enjoys it just as much as the first time. I swear the woman could plan her own surprise party.”
I grinned. “I would appreciate the Dumpster.”
“Let me call them for you. They owe me a favor. He glanced at his watch. “It’s probably too late to have it delivered today and tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ll see if they can deliver it first thing Monday morning.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You know, the house could be worse,” he said.
“How could it be worse?”
“She could have had cats.” He scratched his head, then said, “I’d better go. Call if you need anything.”
“Do I need to sign any papers?”
“You will, but not yet. The will is still in probate. I filed it the day after your mother died; it will probably be another three or four weeks.”
“So the house isn’t mine yet,” I said.
“No. But since there’s no other caretaker, it’s our firm’s policy to contact the future owner so they can take care of the place before it’s handed over. Before that we had a few homes burn down before we could deliver the title. What a legal mess that was.”
“I see. Thank you.”
“No, thank you. You made my wife’s day, month, and year.” He grinned. “Heck, you made her life.” He turned and knocked over a pile of boxes. “Sorry about that.” He walked back out of the house, closing the front door behind him, leaving me alone in my mother’s mess.
CHAPTER
Five
I laid my coat over one of the cleaner piles, then began moving boxes away from the spot where I guessed the piano was. (Moving boxes around the living room was like one of those sliding tile puzzles where you slide one tile at a time to the open space and keep moving it around until you arrange a picture.) After I had moved an entire stack of boxes, my curiosity got the better of me and I opened the top one. It was filled with tattered National Geographic magazines.
I dug back into the mountain of junk. After moving the next pile, I uncovered the ebony leg of the piano bench. There were boxes on top of the bench as well as beneath it. I moved them back, then cleared the piano. My mother had set boxes and paper directly on the piano’s keyboard. I uncovered it and pushed down on a key. Even with the lid shut and boxes piled on top of it, the sound of the piano resonated beautifully in the room.
I got up and walked into the kitchen. It was no cleaner than the living room and smelled worse. Ironically, the counters were covered mostly with bottles of cleaning solution, from what I could see, two or three of the same kinds, grease cutters, scrubbing pads, dishwashing soap. There was a can of Lysol spray. I sprayed it, or at least tried to, but nothing came out. Apparently she had even kept empty cans. I opened the window a few inches to air out the room.
The small Formica-topped kitchen table was covered with stacks of plates and bowls as well as Tupperware containers and empty cottage cheese tubs. It was all baffling to me. She had lived alone and, to my knowledge, never had anyone over. Why would she need more than a few place settings?
Under the sink, I found an unopened box of plastic garbage bags. I took out a bag and began to fill it with everything that was unquestionably disposable, like a pile of Cool Whip container lids and a sizable collection of catsup and mustard packets from drive-in restaurants.
It took me about five hours to clean about half the kitchen. I had gathered the bags in a big pile outside the back door. I was covered with dust and grease.
The half of the kitchen I had cleaned revealed a long scratch on one of the cupboard drawers. That was my doing. I was only eight at the time. I had damaged the drawer when I tried to ride it down the stairs like a sled. Actually, I damaged more than the drawer: I also broke my arm. My mother no doubt would hav
e beaten me had I not already been screaming in pain.
I felt a little like an archaeologist, digging through sedimentary layers, uncovering the past. But not someone else’s past. My past. That’s probably why I couldn’t hire someone else to clean or just take a match to the place. Maybe someday I would, at least figuratively, but only after I had found what I was looking for. I wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but I was certain that there was something.
As I finished cleaning for the day, it was already dark outside and I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. There was food in the house, just nothing edible. I had opened the refrigerator and just as quickly shut it, the smell of curdled milk and mold-filled Tupperware containers was more than I could stomach.
I washed my hands and arms off in the sink, locked the back door, and, after taking one last look around, turned off the light and went out the front door. I stopped for sushi on the way back to my hotel. I hadn’t even known what sushi was when I left Utah. I don’t even know if there was a sushi restaurant back then.
That night I dreamt again of the young, dark-haired woman, only this time my dreams were especially lucid. These were the clearest dreams I had had of her so far. We were in my mom’s kitchen. It was just the two of us and she was standing next to the sink. Something was wrong. She was bent over the sink throwing up. I was afraid that she was sick and might die. But then she looked back at me and smiled. “It’s nothing,” she said.
CHAPTER
Six
December 11
I woke the next day to my phone ringing. The sun was streaming in through the windows. I rolled over to answer my phone. It was Laurie.