Chapter 4

Some hours later with four stops along the way, Hazel pulled into her mother’s driveway on Little Pumpkin Lane. She leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment. She was home. The house where she’d grown up. A house of secrets. The house where she’d been lonely, sad, angry. So many memories.

Now why had she expected her mother to be standing in the doorway waiting to greet her. 

Because that’s what mothers usually did when an offspring returned home for a visit.

"A stupid expectation." Hazel decided.

She climbed out of the car, leaving Roxie in the car while she unloaded her bags and boxes of things she’d brought with her.

After Four trips into her house, Hazel carried Roxie into the house and settled her and her litter box in the laundry room. She called her mother’s name, knowing there would be no answer. Her mother was a busy lady who did good deeds twenty-four/seven.

All she did was sleep at the house. It was like that while she was growing up, too. Laura Myers for the most part had always been an absentee mother with various housekeepers,  her father took over making sure she ate a good dinner, brushed her teeth, helped her with her homework and tucked her head into bed at night. For some reason though, she’d never felt cheated.

All of that changed when her father died of a heart attack in the lobby of the Pentagon on the day after she graduated from college. If her mother had grieved, she wouldn't have seen it.

Armed with her substantial inheritance, Hazel had relocated to Boston where she worked for a PR firm to get her feet wet before she opened her own small agency.

She called home once a week, usually early on Sunday morning having an inane conversation with her mother that never lasted more than five minutes.

She returned home for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas day because her mother was too busy to visit. For the past two years, though, she hadn’t returned home at all. Her mother didn’t seem to care. No matter what, Hazel always kept up with her early Sunday morning phone calls because she wanted to be a good daughter.

Now here she was, home to do her mother’s bidding. For the first time in her entire life, her mother had asked for her help. She couldn’t help but wonder if there was an ulterior motive to this particular command performance.

Hazel carried her bags, one at a time to her old bedroom on the second floor. It all looked the same, neat as always, devoid of human presence, smelling like lemon furniture polish. A cold, unfeeling house.

Her mother’s fault or Her father’s?

Hazel hated the house. She thought about her homey five-room townhouse, chock full of doodads, knick-knacks and tons of green plants that she watered faithfully. In the winter she used her fireplace every single evening, not caring if the soot scattered from time to time or if the house smelled like wood smoke.

She had bright-colored, comfortable furniture and she didn’t mind if Roxie slept on the couch or not. Her garage was full of junk and she loved every square inch of it. There simply was no comparison between her mother’s house and her own. None at all.

Hazel stopped in the hallway and opened the door to her father’s old room. It still smelled like him after all these years. How she’d loved her father. She looked around. It was stark, nothing of place. A man’s room with rustic earthy colors. She opened the closet the way she always did when she returned home. All her father’s suit hung neatly on the double rocks, exactly two inches apart. His shoes were still lined up against the wall. This was a room that didn’t include her mother. Hazel had always wondered why. She backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

She had no interest in checking her mother’s room. Instead, she opened the door to her room. A bed, a dresser, a bookshelf and two-night tables on each side of the twin bed. The drapes were the same, so was the bedspread. She hated the patchwork design.

Long ago she’d taken everything from this room, even the things she no longer wanted. There was nothing here that said Hazel Natalie Myers ever lived in this room. It is now a guest room, nothing more. 

In a fit of something she couldn’t explain, Hazel carried her bags back down the hall and opened the door to her father’s room a second time. She would sleep here for the next two months. The bed was king-size, and there was a deep reading chair and a grand bathroom, complete with a Jacuzzi.

She said to herself, "This is it."

As Hazel unpacked her bags she wondered if her father’s spirit would visit her. She didn’t know if she believed in such things or not but she had an open mind.

She set her laptop on the desk nearby, her clothes hanging next to her father's. The picture of her and her father on her fifteenth birthday–taken by the housekeeper whose name she couldn’t remember went on the night table next to the house phone.

She looked around as she tried to decide what she should do next, walking over to the entertainment center that took up a whole wall. Underneath was a mini-fridge. She opened it to see beer and Coca-Cola. She wondered when the drinks had been added, popped a Coke and looked for the expiration date.

Whoever the housekeeper was, she was up-to-date.

Hazel settled herself in the lounge chair and sipped her drink. All she had to do now was wait for her mother.

Roxie leaped into her lap and started to purr, Hazel stroked her, crooning words a mother would croon to a small child. Eventually her eyes closed and she slept, her sleep invaded by a familiar dream.

It was late because her room was totally dark and only thin slivers of moonlight showed between the slats of the blinds. She had to go out to the hall because she could hear the angry voices. 

She scrunched herself into a tight ball with her hands over her ears but she could still hear the voices.