The Old Man at My Door

Prologue: Yesterday’s EyesI had no intention of opening the front door on that Saturday morning. It was a tentative pound, five times, done with a gloved hand. It did not have the rawness of the UPS man’s bare knuckles, plus it was way too early. Answering it would violate my own rule of never letting anyone see the smeared eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara I had neglected to remove before dropping into bed. My friend Trina called those “yesterday’s eyes,” the lazy equivalent of a walk of shame. It was a housecoat kind of day. That’s what my grandmother, who’d sit for hours in her Barcalounger completing her order from the new Blair catalog, would have called it. Maybe I should own a chartreuse housecoat, one with a zippered front or, better, one with Day-Glo buttons as large as saucers. For now, I’d settled for the XXL flannel shirt Matt had left behind, and baggy sweatpants even baggier at the knee. They’d both become inhabitants of the hook on the back of the bedroom door. A timid knock like this usually meant a child had been dropped off to peddle overpriced candy bars to benefit a school-something. Or it could have been that a car had stalled, and its owner wanted to borrow a shovel or ask for a push. Where we live is not handy to a gasoline station. Except it’s not a we who lives here, not anymore. I need to tell you about our house. It’s a main character in what came after the knock. That’s what he called it, and I will honor that. But, to tell it properly, accuracy is important. There. I did it again. It’s not our house. It’s just mine now, the iconic farmhouse on the left, the one with the red barn and an unused grain silo that’s an affectation. Depression-era farmhouses eschewed any showiness and were of modest proportion. Even the halls were like the roads that surrounded the Wisconsin countryside: narrow, no-passing zones. Farmers had no time or energy to entertain. They slept, ate, worked. I am not so different. I barely know the people at the address nearest me; I am not especially neighborly. I’ve never even had a trick or treater. Their parents probably told their kids all the ‘oddball lady’ would put in their bag was a business card. The house was the recent subject of a flattering feature in the Baldwin Journal’s Sunday Home section, which was probably more due to the purchase of a separate, sixteen-page, full-color insert of the furniture store franchise I oversee. You scratch my back, etc. A McMansion it’s not, yet houses have to evolve to suit the specific needs of the owner. A purist would probably be disdainful of the rooftop’s solar panels, but technology can coexist with integrity. Matt taught me that. I thought we’d ultimately become the cool version of American Gothic. How incorrect that was. The week had, as usual, been long, walking sales floors with disinterested managers, and my energy level still wasn’t what it was before chemotherapy and radiation. I had every intention of a leisurely but fruitful Saturday, or even weekend, if the snow accumulated and drifted as forecast. The Dust Bunnies—a borderline-offensive name I have suggested the cleaning team change—had been to the house on Friday. I was considering baking; organizing the many recipes I’d torn from Bon Appetit; clearing the pantry of plastic bags, some from a grocery that no longer existed; doing my nails, which were a wreck; or mocking Hallmark movies through unexpected tears. Maybe I’d return to bed, where I’d finally re-mastered the art of sleeping alone. (Tip: less pillows, not more.) There, I could stream Golden Girls episodes all day. Not only had I not had coffee, I hadn’t yet made coffee. But first, I wanted a fire in the two-sided fireplace, so I could watch the winter storm escalate in intensity from the kitchen. Christmas had not been white, and January had been endless gray days of temperatures too cold for accumulating snow. This one, the Milwaukee weather report promised, would be at first heavy and wet then, as the winds picked up, would drift into swirling commas. I especially liked what snow did to the farmhouse’s exterior, how it clung like fresh white mortar around each brick…how little pillows formed on the cedar split-rail fencing…how it outlined the celestial weathervane Matt had found on eBay, which I promised myself I would trudge out to look at. When the second wave of knocks came, they were more insistent, confident someone was home and that they would respond. Which I did. An old man was at my door.