Alone - Carol Arnold

Willa is still in the house. My orange baby dolls didn’t do the trick with Johnny. He just told me he’d take care of it when the time comes. Sure, when hell freezes over.

The board and care papers are still laying on the kitchen table, now covered over by a pile of napkins. Like everything else in the kitchen, there are dozens of napkins, some fine old linen, most of them rags. Everyday Willa irons and folds a few, then piles them up in a neat stack next to the dishes. I’ve never seen her even use a cloth napkin. It’s Kleenex for everything, damp wads all over the house.

Johnny has grandiose plans as usual. He’s going to tear down the crooked walls of the dining room, put a beam in the living room where the ceiling is falling in, replace all the rotted windows, unstuck the doors, remove the plaster and restore it with what he calls a Pho look. You name it, he’s going to do it. Where the money is going to come from is a mystery he’s leaving to God.

So here we are, the three of us alone in our own worlds, Johnny ranting about the renovation, Willa making stacks of things, and me, well, I’m just trying to keep my spirits from going down the drain. All this water! The rain’s constant drip, drip, drip, the charcoal skies, the green on the trees so dark they looked bruised, what’s a girl to do but think about grabbing a knife and killing herself?

Johnny tells me this morning the first thing we need to do is rewire and replumb the house. He’s right about that. Every time I turn on the light in Bun’s old bedroom where we’re sleeping on the floor (I wouldn’t touch his bed if you gave me a million dollars – well, maybe for that, but only that), a spark jumps out of the fixture on the ceiling. It makes a noise like an insect getting zapped. And the toilet barely flushes. I have to do it three times to make everything go down if you know what I mean.

But what do I know about wires and pipes? I tell Johnny I need a special project, something I can call my own, something I know how to do. He knows I’m a pretty good housekeeper, that I can even make our “country cottage” in Petaluma look pretty good. So tonight he tells me the attic needs a thorough cleaning out. I’ve been afraid to go up there, afraid of what I’ll find. But I jump at the chance. It’ll get me away from his rants and Willa’s stacks, at least during the day. At night I’ll be so tired I’ll just fall out next to Johnny and dream of sunny climes.