Deborah Greenhut - The Hoarders Wife: A Novel

The Hoarder s Wife

A Novel

Deborah S. Greenhut

Woodhall Press

Norwalk, CT

Woodhall Press, 81 Old Saugatuck Road, Norwalk, CT 06855

WoodhallPress.com

Copyright 2022 Deborah S. Greenhut

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages for review.

Cover design: Asha Hossain

Layout artist: LJ Mucci

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

ISBN 978-1-949116-63-2 (paper: alk paper)

ISBN 978-1-949116-64-9 (electronic)

First Edition

Distributed by Independent Publishers Group

(800) 888-4741

Printed in the United States of America

The Hoarders Wife is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and dialogue are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Where actual institutions or locations and real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those entities, places, and persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to describe actual events. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Contents

Prelude: Fear Death by Water

First Movement: Salsa son clave. Then, Lamento

1. The Tuning

2. The List

3. The Call

4. The Accident

Second Movement: YesterdayPaul McCartney

5. Intermezzo

6. The Plan

7. A Threnody

8. Jakes Melody: Del Segno

9. What the House Said

10. The Bee MeetingSylvia Plath

11. Flight of the Bumble BeeNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Third Movement: Arias Duets. The Minuet of Dtente

12. Da Capo: The House

13. Lonely WomenSong by Laura Nyro, 1968

14. Im Only SleepingJohn Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1966

15. A placer. Rubato

16. Adagio. Con Amore

17. Con brio. Caesura. Silenzio.

18. Fantasia. Fuga.

Fourth Movement: Grave. Requiem.

19. Sforzando. Abruptly.

20. The Siren Song of Sugar

21. Anniversary Waltz

22. The Right Kind of Wife

Intermezzo: Nocturne. The Nettles.

23. Minuet among the Sculptures

24. Year Thirty-One

25. The Valkyries Meet Mastercard

Interlude: Floating with the Water Music

Fifth Movement: Largo gives way to triple meter. Giddy fragments of a waltz.

26. Solfge. Do Re Mi.

27. In Search of the Lost Chord

28. As Tears Go ByMick Jagger, as sung by Marianne Faithfull

Sixth Movement: Finale. Allegro non molto. Allegro maestoso.

29. The Rest is Noise

30. Simons Song: Marche Funbre

Coda: Pastoral. Elegy.

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Prelude

Fear Death by Water

Monday afternoon, April 4, 2016

S-s-sorry, Missus, the cab driver stammers.

I half-hear but ignore him as he tries to hand back my credit card with the terminal. My fingers are still tapping out the first movement of a Bach cello suite on the seat next to me, an old, self-soothing habit borne of an anxious childhood spent studying to be a concert pianist.

I have been talking on the phone to my sons since I gave directions to the driver at the airport. The last short stretch from the turnpike to this address is the first moment of quiet Ive allowed myself, but its about to end.

Weve arrived at the house . This is what my sons and I have called it ever since it ceased to command the meaning of home following my divorce from Ludwig Berg four years ago. From the moment Luddy took sole possession, the rotting accumulation of belongings and garbage had drowned out even the metaphor of family.

Missus? Im sorry! I hear the driver try again. This time, he adds a little wave.

Oh! Right!

I sign for the ride, leave a nice tip, and then fumble the card back into my purse as I hand him the machine. I want to say something so he wont think Im crazy, but what? I land on this: No, I should be the one apologizing, for making you listen to those phone calls!

As if we were in the middle of a conversation.

Hat in hand as he exits the cab, the driver bows his head, waves away my concern, and quickly retrieves my suitcase from the trunk. He rolls it to me gently. I see that he wants to show his understanding, but from a safe distance.

I imagine that his wifetheir wedding photo sits on the dashboard just under the hanging crossis superstitious, and he doesnt want to come too close to my tragedy. Hes afraid, I guess, that he might bring it home with him like a virus. Hell have to tell his wife this story. He doesnt want her to panic from the scent of death he might carry from this encounter. Many riders are uninteresting, but I fancy Im now in his top five most fascinating ever.

At least Ive achieved something today.

He couldnt have heard everything, but he must have heard enough to know that hes transported me to a horror show. His furtive glances in the rearview mirror as I spoke of death told me he was on to my story.

I watch as the driver makes a slow U-turn down the block to avoid the ambulance and police cars cluttering the front of the house, glancing over at the driveway where I stand, waiting to embrace my son Simon.

Im grateful the cabbie agreed to pick me up at the airport. I know I looked like a wild thingthe rider from hellin front of the dispatcher. Although I was crazed with adrenaline, I still saw myself in slow motion. My flailing hands precipitated the shrinking away of the crowds around me, as if the ocean had parted. People let me cut the line! That never happens at Newark Liberty. I could have been carrying a weapon. I could have been nuts.

My driver risked it. I saw him roll forward, looking apprehensively out the window to take my fare. We both knew that if he passed on it, hed have to drive back to the end of the queue or head back into Newark. Que ser !

I guess he figured classical music would calm things down, so he switched on WQXR, keeping the volume low. I saw him cross himself.

Where to? he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

I was headed to a town in the middle of the state with a British-legacy name despite the Revolutionary War, reflecting the largesse of a king, a prince, or a duke as opposed to a more plebeian mill. Many of these mills dot the Delaware and Raritan Rivers, now defunct or serving a random boutique purpose, if only to preserve the property value in each community. I told him that most of the trip would be on the turnpike, so he wouldnt have to think too hard about the GPS until the end.

He nodded with great seriousness.

Ill give you directions from the exit, was all I said after naming my town. I must have sounded rational enough; he relaxed a little as he pulled out of the queue, heading toward the smallish house on a riverbank facing a wood in a small town in the middle of the state.

The house where we were going to live forever. A little small for four people, but perfect for when we retired.