The Good Life Read online

  “Isn’t that just perfect,” said Sam sarcastically. “What if there was a national emergency on a Sunday, another Pearl Harbor?”

  Nate shrugged, then crossed the kitchen and grabbed the plate of cookies Selma had left for them on the counter. He brought them back to the table, where Sam was leafing through the yellow pages of the Michigan phone book. “Let’s have some cookies,” he said, holding out the plate to his grandfather. “Do you want milk?”

  “Absolutely,” said Sam, showing the first smile Nate had seen that afternoon. “A nice, tall, cold glass of milk would hit the spot right about now.”

  “Coming right up,” said Nate, walking to the fridge for the half-gallon jug.

  “Wow,” said Sam, biting into a cookie. “That’s the best cookie I’ve ever had.”

  “That’s good news,” said Nate, bringing the glasses of milk to the table. “I could use a good cookie right now.”

  Sam chuckled. “That’s very funny,” he said.

  “Well, thank you,” said Nate, chewing.

  Sam took another cookie and put the whole thing in his mouth. After he finished chewing, he sat back in his chair. “So,” he said, “what are we going to do about this trip?”

  “Not go?” asked Nate.

  “That’s a defeatist attitude that I didn’t expect from you.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I think we should go,” said Sam. “I’m all packed. Let’s just get in the car and go.”

  “Where, exactly, is it you want to go?”

  Sam looked surprised. “To the meeting, of course.”

  “Which meeting?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, son, the farm insurance meeting in Hartford.”

  “Oh, that meeting.”

  “Do you want to drive, or shall I?” asked Sam, pushing back from the table.

  “I’ll drive,” said Nate. “Let’s get your bag.”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Sam, rubbing his hands together. “It will be an adventure. I haven’t taken a road trip in years.”

  Nate followed Sam back into the bedroom, where the suitcase lay untouched. Sam closed the top and pushed the brass flipper latches down until they clicked. “Do you have everything you need?” asked Nate.

  “I like to travel light,” said Sam.

  “We’re off then.”

  “What about your bag?” asked Sam.

  “It’s up at the big house,” said Nate. “I’ll run and get it and then come back here to get you.” Nate jogged up the path to his parents’ house and into the kitchen, where his grandmother and sister were sitting at the kitchen table playing cards.

  “How’s it going?” asked Eileen.

  “Fine,” said Nate. “Do you mind if I take him for a drive?”

  “No,” said Eileen. “Do you want company?”

  “Nope,” said Nate, grabbing his keys from the wicker basket and his backpack from the floor. “We’re going on an adventure.”

  “Well, have fun,” said Eileen, smiling.

  Nate ran back down the path to the guesthouse, where his grandfather was standing in the front entrance with the suitcase in his hand. Nate held up his backpack. “I’m all set,” he said.

  “Let’s go!” Sam said. “Let’s get out of here before we change our minds.”

  “Good plan,” said Nate, taking Sam’s suitcase and leading the way to the garage. Halfway there, Nate realized Sam was not beside him. He turned around and discovered his grandfather had made very little progress from the front door. Sam moved slowly even though he looked like he was moving as fast as he could. Stooped with his eyes to the ground, he shambled along the sidewalk, an old man on an urgent trip to nowhere. It would have been hilarious, Nate thought, if it hadn’t been so terribly sad. Nate walked back to meet him. “The first thing we should do,” said Nate, taking his arm, “is fill the tank with gas.”

  “Excellent idea,” said Sam, winded. “I always fill up at the beginning of a trip. That way, you can accurately calculate the gas mileage.”

  “That’s right,” said Nate, walking at Sam’s pace. “I’ll leave that to you, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’d be honored,” said Sam.

  They walked the rest of the way to the garage in silence. Finally there, Nate punched the code into the keypad and the large steel door began to rise. Sam ducked, even though they were nowhere near the moving metal, and didn’t straighten up until the gear box lifting the door stopped grinding. They walked inside and split company—Nate moving toward his car and Sam moving toward the Lamborghini. He lifted the protective covering and peeked underneath. “Let’s take this one,” he said.

  Nate laughed. “You have good taste, Gramps,” he said. “My father, however, would kill us both.” Nate led Sam instead to his silver BMW and opened the passenger door. Sam ducked his head, but not quite far enough, and bumped it on the car’s cloth hood. After the impact, he reeled backward. Nate dropped the suitcase and caught him, almost falling to the floor himself. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” said Sam, holding his forehead with one hand. “I have no idea why that happened.”

  “It happens to lots of people,” said Nate. “Let’s try again.”

  Nate put his hand on top of Sam’s head and guided it under the roof of the car like a police officer would a crime suspect. Next, he helped him swing his body around so he could ease himself down to the seat. Once seated, Sam told Nate he was fine. Nate buckled his seat belt, then grabbed Sam’s suitcase and put it and his backpack in the trunk. He hopped into the driver’s side of the car and turned on the engine before he realized his grandfather’s legs were still hanging out the passenger side. This, thought Nate, is where caregivers lose it. He’d seen the stories on various news shows, depicting the abuse of the elderly. Grown-ups hit, pushed, and slapped their husbands, their wives, their mothers and fathers, or their paid responsibilities, treating them like misbehaving toddlers who couldn’t understand instruction. And, if Nate had had an even larger headache than he did, he might have walked around to the other side of the car and roughly adjusted his grandfather’s legs. But something stopped him. Perhaps it was because they had all the time in the world. They weren’t on their way—late now—to a doctor’s appointment or another scheduled event; they were embarking on a fictitious adventure. What did it matter? When Nate did walk around to the passenger side, he gently lifted Sam’s legs and tucked them into the car. “All set?” he asked, when he was again sitting in the driver’s seat.

  “Ready to roll,” said Sam. “Where are we going?”

  “That,” said Nate, backing the car out of the garage, “is a very good question.”

  Nate chose Route 10, which quickly took them out of town and into the country. Nate drove out there occasionally with Jenny, who loved animals. The more cows and chickens she saw, the more likely she would consent to a make-out session on an old dirt access road. They drove past farm after farm in silence until Sam urgently beckoned Nate to pull over and stop the car. “Back up,” he said.

  Nate put the car in REVERSE and backed slowly along the deep irrigation ditch at the side of the road. A hundred yards back, Sam again asked Nate to stop the car as he pointed at a white clapboard farmhouse set back from the road. “That’s my house,” Sam said. ‘I’m sure of it.”

  “Gramps,” said Nate, “you grew up in Pennsylvania. This is Michigan.”

  “Then somebody moved my house,” said Sam, still pointing. “That’s where I grew up.”

  “Okay,” said Nate neutrally.

  Sam turned to look at Nate. “Can we go in?” he asked quietly.

  Nate looked into his grandfather’s eyes and saw, more than anything else, fear. Was he afraid Nate would say no, or was he afraid of something else, less tangible or inexplicable? “Sure,” said Nate, turning the car around.

  “Do you think my mother’s home?”

  “No,” Nate said. “But someone else might be there.”

  Nate pulle
d the car into the rutted driveway and stopped next to the worn, warped brick walk that led to the front door. He helped Sam up and out of the seat to a standing position. “Do I look all right?” asked Sam, reaching up but not quite touching his hair.

  “You look great, Gramps,” said Nate. “Let’s go.”

  Together they walked slowly along the salted path and up three cracked cement steps to the front door. Nate pushed the doorbell button. A middle-aged woman, wearing jeans and a red turtleneck, partially obscured by a brown and white bib apron with little skipping bears along its waistline, opened the door and smiled at them. “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello,” said Nate. “I’m Nate Barons and this is my grandfather, Sam Sanford. He grew up in Pennsylvania, but he thinks he may have grown up in this house.”

  “I did grow up in this house,” said Sam.

  The woman looked at Nate and then Sam. Her eyes lingered there, as if she were trying to read Sam’s mind. Soon enough, she stepped aside and pushed the door open wider. “Would you like to come in?” she asked. “I’ve got some brownies in the oven that are just about ready.”

  “I love brownies,” said Sam, lifting his foot to step up into the house.

  “We won’t stay long,” said Nate apologetically.

  “It’s no trouble,” said the woman, leading them into the living room, where she took their coats and laid them over the back of a large, overstuffed armchair. “The house was built in the nineteen-twenties by two brothers. One of the brothers lived here for fifty years; the other brother lived in the house next door, which is the one they built just after this one. You can see it through the window over the couch.” Sam took the few steps to the couch, then peered out the window. Across a lawn, maybe seventy yards away, was another house that looked very similar to this one, only it was different. “They’re opposites,” said the woman. “The square footage is the same. The layout is opposite.”

  “That’s clever,” said Sam. “They’re the same, but they’re different.”

  “Exactly,” said the woman, walking toward a doorway. “You wait here. I’ve got to check those brownies.”

  “Who lives there?” called Sam after her.

  “The Taylors,” she called back. “They’re actually the ones I’m making the brownies for. It’s my turn for dessert.” A long minute later, she walked back into the living room. “I’ve set them on the counter to cool. Let’s sit a few minutes and then I can give you hungry travelers one for the road.” Nate sat down next to his grandfather on the couch. “What looks familiar to you?” the woman asked Sam. Sam stared at her blankly.

  And then they all looked around the room. The walls were covered with paper that featured what might have been tiny pink roses, but it was hard to tell, as whatever was there had faded into tan dots. Sheer curtains, lifeless without a summer breeze, hung at the windows, just like those from Sam’s childhood. The navy blue couch they sat on had worn arms and cushions and a number of visible stains, in spite of its dark color. Sam wondered if over the years people had gathered for Saturday night dinner parties and eaten as they sat upon it. He could picture them, awkwardly holding china plates on their laps, gasping when they dropped a chunk of lasagna, a dribble of coffee, or a bite of cheesecake. After school, the children, with small bowls of buttered popcorn on blue-jeaned laps, had watched cartoons, absentmindedly eating their snack. Sometimes the popped kernel had gone into their mouths, and sometimes it had gone into the couch. Sam shook his head. While he had grown up sitting on a similar couch, it had been, most definitely, light brown.

  Nate saw the stains on the couch, too. They matched the stains on the chair across the room that held their coats. And that was all that matched. It was as if the furniture had been purchased separately, one garage sale at a time. It was inviting furniture, not like the arranged pieces in a showroom window, and certainly nothing like what filled the living room in his parents’ house. That furniture, while attractive to the eye, was not welcoming to the body. And no one with a piece of chocolate cake or a mug of tomato soup would dream of sitting on his mother’s white living room furniture. Nate had trouble just breathing in that room. He went in there only when summoned by his parents in an attempt to impress a visiting dignitary with the domestic tranquility of the Barons family. Nate sank deeper into the couch, resisting the temptation to close his eyes. He was suddenly very tired in this stranger’s house. He wondered what she’d think if he announced his intention to nap, and quickly decided she wouldn’t think anything. She’d probably get him a pillow and blanket from the scarred wood hutch in the corner and tell him to rest as long as he needed. She’d encourage him to put his feet up on the couch because the wet salt on the bottom of his shoes wouldn’t matter to her. And this was not because she was a slob and didn’t care about her house; of course she cared. She would never apologize for its appearance because it wouldn’t occur to her to do so. “Let me get those brownies,” she said, standing. “Would you like a glass of milk?”

  “Yes, please,” said Sam like a child practicing his manners. Nate watched the woman walk into the kitchen. He looked over at Sam, who gave him a wink. “I can’t believe we stumbled across my childhood house,” he said. “I haven’t been here in sixty years.”

  “It’s a nice house,” said Nate.

  “And my daughter,” said Sam, smiling. “Didn’t I tell you you’d like her?” The woman walked back into the room carrying a tray, with two glasses of milk and two plates with brownies. She set the tray on the table in front of Sam and Nate, then handed each of them a plate. Sam took a huge bite, then immediately began to talk. “Who are the Taylors?” he asked, his mouth full.

  “Our neighbors,” said the woman. “Karen, the mother, slipped on some ice and broke her leg. She’s having trouble getting around, so all of us neighbors are helping with meals for a while.”

  “All of you?” asked Nate.

  The woman laughed. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “We live on a straight road out in the country—where’s the neighborhood, right? But we do have a neighborhood, of sorts. We all look out for each other.”

  “Like people used to,” said Sam, chewing. “Nobody looks out for neighbors anymore. They all keep to themselves.”

  “Not around here,” said the woman. “We get together once a month for dinner, and twice every summer for picnics and games. And, of course, we see each other when we’re out working in the yard or shoveling show.”

  Nate never saw his neighbors; he didn’t even know who some of them were. It was not that the houses were all far apart. It was simply because nobody worked in their yards. The landscaping companies raked the leaves in the fall, weeded the gardens and mowed the lawns in the spring and summer, and plowed the long driveways in the winter. Two guys, in their red pickup truck, washed the windows, outside and inside, twice a year. Cleaning crews arrived on Friday mornings, just in time for weekend entertaining. (Since Emma cleaned the Baronses’ house daily, the cleaning agency came just twice a month to do what his mother called “deep cleaning.”) And AquaMan, in his blue van, maintained all the neighborhood pools, including the Baronses’ kidney bean. Nate and Lauren had been excited about the pool at first. Their parents had even thrown a couple of pool parties the summer after they moved in. But then everyone got too busy or lost interest or something. Occasionally now, his mother would have a party around the pool, floating candles on the surface of the clear, still water, but never in July or August. Because even though Pete’s Pest Control had thoroughly sprayed the yard that afternoon, the mosquitoes would inevitably drive everyone inside at dusk.

  Nate did know one neighbor, Katie from next door. She was in his math class, and that was the only time he saw her. He knew she was inside the black Suburban that pulled out of their driveway every morning as he was driving out of his, but they never talked about it. He had once thought about offering her a ride to school, mostly because she was gorgeous, but had never done anything about it. Jenny probably woul
dn’t have liked the idea anyway. Nate finished his second brownie and swigged the last of his milk before returning the glass to the tray. “We should get going,” he said, standing.

  “I guess you’re right,” said Sam.

  “Thank you for stopping by,” said the woman. “It’s nice to have company.”

  “Where is your family?” asked Sam.

  “At church. There’s a father/child Bible study twice a month. I just send all four kids with Bob,” she said, smiling.

  Sam leaned forward, grabbed the edge of the heavy oak coffee table, and then pulled himself up. His agility was like a light switch, thought Nate, on or off. “Good for you,” Sam said to the woman. She took their coats from the back of the chair and handed them to Sam and Nate. Nate helped Sam with his coat. “I’m glad we came,” he said, allowing Nate to zip him in. “I’ve missed you.”

  “And I you,” said the woman, giving Sam a quick hug.

  Nate led Sam to the front door. He thanked the woman, and then took his grandfather outside and helped him into the car. Nate backed the car out onto the road and headed for home. They rode for several minutes in silence. “I don’t know why we don’t go there more often,” said Sam. “It’s so close and we’re family.” Nate said nothing. “I don’t even know if my mother knows about this,” said Sam. “It’s uncanny.”

  “What is?” asked Nate.

  “The fact that we’ve had these people living in our backyard and hadn’t the slightest idea.”

  Nate yawned. The events of the day coupled with his alcohol abuse the night before were catching up with him. All he could think about was his bed and a nap. Nate saw that Sam, too, was tired. Before Nate turned onto the main road, Sam, with his head against the window, was asleep. Ten minutes later, Nate pulled into the driveway and directly into the garage. He gently nudged Sam before helping him out of the car and along the path to the guesthouse. It was an extra slow journey; Sam was still sleepy. When they reached the door, Nate led Sam inside to the couch, where he was eager to lie down. Nate covered him with a blanket. Selma, who was in the kitchen cooking, waved at him. “Thank you,” said Sam softly.