Free The Dwelling: A Novel by Susie Moloney Page B

was, and even Donald, in the extremities of his own anger, was reluctant to state, she wasn’t cooking quite as well lately. Fire had become a major source of concern. Linda, Victoria’s middle daughter, had taken to calling every night around eight, to remind Mom to turn off the elements on the stove. A small incident the previous November had given everyone (Victoria included) a heads-up. Victoria, for her own safety—and so those goddamn kids couldn’t accuse her of being senile—went meekly about the house, checking elements, toasters, kettles and heating pads.
    She had lived on Belisle Street since her marriage, in 1930, to John Warwick, ten years her senior and, by the time she married him, well on his way to the ulcers that would take his life just neatly after Victoria had given birth to the last of their seven children, Graham. John, however, had been a prodigious saver and a thrifty man, not to mention a man with a deep and abiding faith in insurance. His death had paid off their house and left them comfortable for long enough to get all seven children started on the path to goodness and success. Graham, the baby, was already ten before his mother had to begin to take in boarders in the large three-story house at the east end of Belisle.
    The last one had departed nearly fifteen years ago. The top two floors of the house were closed off, to all intents and purposes (she had no idea that for three years her young grandson Lawson had been growing pot, quite successfully, in a boarded-off room in the attic), the two floors a favorite storage place for the discards and seasonal dreck of her many children, grandchildren, and suddenly, over the last few years, great-grandchildren. The milestones of a changing nation, technologically and ethically, could be found up there, and Victoria depended upon her sons and grandchildren to keep it maintained and critter-free (for three years, a job taken over enthusiastically by Lawson, a most attentive and regular mouse hunter, “Hi, Grandma! Gotta check the traps!”).
    Victoria sighed with remembering, lumbering her way slowly up Carson and not waiting to cross the street to Belisle, but just stepping out onto the busy road, waving her cane in front of her. Her bag, small as it was, was getting heavy. In it was a pint of sour cream, and while at the store she’d seen some fresh strawberries and found she had a sudden hankering for those, too. So she’d bought a small container and a tub of that ready-made whipping cream (she berated herself for this all the way up the street). There were also two purple onions, and a bar of pretty lavender soap that she had picked up in the sale bin at the druggist’s.
    It was Sunday afternoon already and she had to haul herself home, because Donald would be coming in the afternoon to pick up her list for next week’s shopping. Like clockwork, he picked up her list on Sunday afternoon and spent an uncomfortable hour sitting with her (Ma! Don’t make me nothing to eat! I just ate!) and then left on his way back to his own family, duty again fulfilled. It would be an interesting and quiet visit this week, because they weren’t speaking. But she just bet that wouldn’t keep him from staying the hour and making strained conversation. She would pout at him the whole time. Drove him batty.
    She had to make her list for him, and it was a chore she dreaded. He was a precise (somewhat prissy, in fact) little man, who got too excited over things like a poorly written list, and she herself was used to shopping by whim and sight. Instead she had to think ahead and decide on Tuesday afternoon what she wanted to eat on Friday. Damn shame. She shook her head.
    She was close enough to see the tall oak tree in her own front yard. She looked to the side and paused to get her bearings, because she could never quite remember which house it was anymore. Though she thought of it often and smiled while she did.
    Halfway up Belisle, she could sometimes hear a