Lydia's Island #2

Taylor's "new" House Part 1

The house sits on a hill, at the end of a long, rutted driveway. From the covered porch, Taylor can see the bay, and his grandmother's island. A patch of awkward phlox grows, tangled, in front of the house. Taylor remembers sitting on the porch with his grandmother, eating ice cream and watching storms over the bay, the clouds smudged like charcoal. Now one of the chains on the porch swing is broken. One end of the seat rests on the ground while the other swings in the breeze. The red cushion is faded to pink and losing filling. When Taylor lifts it up, the chain creaks and the seat sways. He can't find the hook it used to hang from, so he gives up for now.

The porch floorboards creak under Taylor's feet, and the far corner slopes into a rotted hole. He goes down the steps, walks a few giant steps away from the building to get some perspective. Grayish paint peels off the house like sunburned skin. In tall grass below the porch, Taylor finds the metal chime that makes the sound of the MDI buoy. It's rusty, but still sounds right, so he hangs it up in its old spot.

In the backyard, grass grows through the patio of red bricks. A plastic hummingbird feeder has cracked and yellowed, but still dangles from its metal stand.

The key to the back door is hidden above the door frame. Now Taylor's tall enough to reach it.

He goes through a narrow entryway crowded with blue metal snow shovel, open bag of salt, piles of newspaper tied with string. The entryway smells musty, and the carpet is peeling up from the bare wood floor. The kitchen is just as he remembers it. The last time he was here was the day his grandfather died and his grandmother left. He remembers squeezing into his spot in the breakfast nook and watching the people come and go. He especially remembers Stew Bunker coming in, Stew's tired face yellow from the overhead light. Stew pulled Taylor's uncle Cubby aside. Cubby, the oldest son, was the leader that day. Taylor couldn't hear what was said, because Stew spoke too low. What he remembers is that Cubby didn't crumple when he heard the news. He didn't put his hand to his mouth or turn away or even spit into the sink, something Taylor had seen men do before, when fed some news they couldn't keep down. Cubby just stood there, nodded once to Stew and shook his hand. Cubby looked at Taylor when he passed him, and his expression gave nothing away. But Taylor knew, from the finality of that handshake, that his grandfather was dead.

Now the kitchen is dim, the windows dirty from ten years of pollen, snow, ice, frost. Taylor stands in the center of the room, his head almost touching the overhead light. He pulls on the string, but the bulb has burned out. He doesn't open any of the cupboards or drawers, but he imagines his grandparents' brown plates with the flowers in the centers. He imagines knots of yoyo string in the junk drawer, remembers how his grandfather marveled at Taylor's patience with knots. Sometimes Taylor asked his grandfather to tie knots for him, big, matted, complicated ones, just for the pleasure of untying them.

Taylor walks through the seldom-used dining room. The dark wood table is still shiny, the placemats laid out in exactly the same spaces. Taylor half-expects to see the same food in the avocado-colored refrigerator, the labels reflecting the style of ten years ago. But he remembers his mother cleaning it out, later that night. He remembers the big black trash bag on the hard kitchen carpet, and his mother throwing out all the food, the bad along with the good. It was uncharacteristic of her to be so wasteful. Now it also strikes him as odd that his mother knew with such certainty. Not only was her father gone from this house, but her mother too.

On the living room walls hang framed cross stitch designs his mother made when she was in high school, about Taylor's age. A lighthouse. A fence with birds and vines. A fishing boat. The script on the prow says Lydia Lee, the name of his grandfather's boat.

His grandfather's records line up on white painted shelves around the TV, so thin he can barely see the titles. But he knows. Johnny Cash. Waylon Jennings. Willie Nelson. Flukes like Night Ranger and Kansas. Taylor's favorite song used to be "Carry on My Wayward Son." He remembers playing it over and over, sometimes five times in a row.

The couch is brown and white, woven polyester cushions in a dark wood frame. It was an impractical couch to sleep on because of the wooden arms, but Taylor remembers spending many nights there when his mother worked late. He remembers lying there before school, dreading the walk to the bus in the cold, and after school, watching the Dukes of Hazzard or Rosanne or whatever else was on. Sometimes Taylor watched his grandparents' movies. Ivanhoe. When Eagles Dare. Casablanca. He liked the leading men. Their grand pronouncements. Their echoing dialogue. Their strong jaws. Sometimes he imagined his father was like one of those men, but he knew better.

Now Taylor notices shelves of dusty paperbacks, the mystery novels his grandfather read all the time. Taylor remembers his grandfather's thick leather bookmark and the plain blue bar tattoo on his arm and the special meatballs he made on Christmas Eve. He remembers when he showed his grandparents the formal photo of his second grade class and his grandfather told him to write everyone's name on the back, because he would forget soon enough. Taylor couldn't imagine ever forgetting, and he also didn't know why he'd need to remember. But his grandfather was adamant. Still, Taylor hasn't done it yet.