Bottles and a Button

*This is a sad story with a twist about a young woman and a tragedy her family can't get over, with a touch of the supernatural. Fiction, mostly.*

I unlocked the front door and let myself into the cool hallway. The wood trim and floor gleamed with a high polish, like a funeral parlor.

"Don't move! You stay right there!" Pa pivoted around the corner from his parlor into the hallway. "Hey, kid!" I caught a whiff of booze on his breath as he embraced me in a fake bear hug.

"Hi, Pa. Sorry I'm late. The bus got held up."

"Ah well, don't worry about it. Jim isn't going anywhere. Ma's finishing up the bouquet, then we'll go." He winked like a creepy uncle and let go.

I set my bag on the floor, took a deep breath, and stepped over the creaky floorboard. Eleven years ago in this same spot, my four-year old sister Margaret and I waited for my mother to take us Christmas shopping. Ma wanted us to wait by the door, "But I have to pee!" Margaret whined in her pea-sized voice. Losing control of my mean streak, my nine-year old self bent down and whispered, "Don't move, or a shriveled troll will pop up from the creaky spot and grab you and take you away!" Margaret's little face with the button nose crumpled, her lower lip quivered. A tear trickled down her cheek, then a stream of pee down her leg and all over the floor. Ma didn't fuss about it, just went back to the kitchen for a towel to wipe up the mess before changing Margaret's clothes. In that moment when Ma was gone, I stamped my foot and leaned close to Margaret's tear-stained face, "I hate you." A month later, a troll named Meningitis took Margaret away forever.

"Oh good, you're finally here, Daniella." Ma emerged from the kitchen with a bouquet of yellow roses, "If you hadn't moved and stayed home instead, you would have been here already. Oh well, let's go. There's a lot to do before the party tonight." I looked at the spotless house, the plastic holly garland already wrapped around the bannister, and the full bottles of liquor on the cart in Pa's parlor.

"I need to put my bag upstairs." I said.

"Later." Pa said, "Let's go."

***

Is it inappropriate to ride in a red '62 Mustang to a graveyard visit? Probably, but at least this was the only time Ma didn't tell Pa that he was too old for cars like this. Not that he cared. He always drove the latest head-turner.

December's brisk air streamed through the car window, mixing with smoke from Pa's Lucky Strike. Bare, gray trees blurred until we pulled up near Pa's family plot, where Uncle Jim lay at rest. Pa explained to me once that Jim was a coward and got shot in the back in 1950 during the Korean War. Arlington Cemetery didn't want him, so Uncle Jim came home. Pa waited for Ma to place the roses on the headstone, then wandered to the oak tree two rows over and smoked. I brushed the yellow grass with my toe, stifling a yawn and praying Ma wouldn't linger forever. After all, he was Pa's brother, not hers, and I never really knew Uncle Jim. He had moved away and wandered a lot after I was born. I suppose she felt that even the failed fallen deserved some kind of consideration. "All right," she sighed and headed towards the apple red car.

Pa ambled over from the oak tree to join us, "While we're out, do you want to visit..."

"No. Another time. I'll go alone." Ma answered. We rode home in the same silence as the ride over.

***

Pa barely smiled at me as he unlocked the back door and let Ma pass into the kitchen. Ma said, "I have to make sure we have enough glasses and ice, and did you clear the bed forcoats, Pa?"

"Yes, everything's ready, and the house looks fine." Pa replied, rolling his eyes and taking her coat. Then he disappeared into the parlor and poured a drink. I returned to the hall by the front door and picked up my bag. Several months ago, I had packed absolutely everything I owned and moved to an apartment in downtown Nyack. Ma didn't like the idea of a young woman living alone, but the move shortened my commute from an hour to ten minutes, and maybe I'd have a better chance of meeting a nice young man. That cheered her up like any appropriate lie.

I stepped over that creaky floorboard in the hallway which Ma and Pa never seemed to notice. Someday I would step on the floorboard accidentally and instead of the shriveled troll, Margaret would pop up and reproach me. Would she still be four? Would she be fifteen? Would she have rotted? I did not want to know.

Approaching the stairs, my eyes followed the pale, ghostly streak in the wallpaper from the lower landing to the dark regions of the second floor. Thousands of passes by careless hands and tipsy elbows had rubbed away at the wallpaper's pattern of children holding hands and running through the pines. One might picture an ecru spirit zipping up and down the wall, haunting us upstairs and downstairs, in its nightgown. I gripped my bag with my right hand, looking left to avoid the streak. As I ascended, I caught a glimpse of Ma trotting back and forth across the kitchen. It's a wonder she hadn't worn trenches in the floor, as much time as she spent working in the kitchen. More like hiding in the kitchen since Margaret died. I took a deep breath and pushed that memory out of my head, of those three days Ma locked herself in her room. On the fourth day she had emerged perfectly coiffed, dressed, and cooked dinner. She rarely spoke about Margaret ever since.

I dropped the bag on the bedroom floor and sat on the edge of my bed with the beige quilt. Ma always wanted me to have a pink blanket, which I refused. Not my style. Margaret's, maybe. I swung my feet, smiling. I finally freed myself from this house and huge master bedroom my parents had abandoned. Several years ago after one of the holiday parties, Pa had left with a guest but had the guts to return the next morning. After that, he and Ma decided I needed a bigger room. Ma took my room and Pa took the attic. I got their master bedroom, including the bed.

"Ma, we got any Cointreau?" Pa asked downstairs.

"No, why don't you get some?" Ma replied.

"I could have sworn we had a bottle." The clinking of bottles ceased in Pa's parlor, then footsteps clumped down the hallway and the coat closet creaked. The front door opened and shut. Good. Pa expected guests to arrive in a few hours. I kicked myself for hiding out in my room and not helping Ma, so I changed into a plain dark green velvet dress, brushed my hair, and returned downstairs.

"Okay, Ma, what can I do to help?"

Ma, hands on hips in the middle of the kitchen, said, "Well, believe it or not, I think we're ready."

"Plates and utensils in the dining room?"

"Yep."

"Glasses lined up in Pa's parlor?"

"That's done, too."

"Well, all that's gotta happen now is let the guests bring the potluck! Oh, and get some Cointreau." I said.

Ma smirked, then giggled. I looked at her wide-eyed.

"Daniella, my secret stash is on the top right shelf in the hutch. Go get it for us, and two of the nice teacups."

"Ma, you drink?" She shrugged and wiped the clean counter.

I stepped through the doorway from the kitchen into the formal dining room with the tall windows and long white curtains. The glass-like cherrywood buffet stood to the right, covered with a linen table runner and stacked with plates, cutlery, serving spoons and folded red napkins with little holly leaves embroidered at the corners. First thing tomorrow morning, Ma would sweep that clutter away like a tidal wave and place the tiny ring of prickly plastic holly in its stead. In the middle of the ring, Ma's precious snow globe. She placed that snow globe with a tiny child, dressed in a red snowsuit, running and waving among lilliputian pine trees, in the same place every Christmas. It irritated me. It's not that I didn't like the snow globe, but she mooned over it like the Hope diamond. Uncle Jim had sent it to her shortly after Margaret was born, I guess to celebrate Margaret's birth. Now it just seemed to remind Ma of Margaret's death. I missed Margaret and longed to talk about her. I could never muster the words.

I shook my head, grabbed a dining chair, and dragged it to the towering hutch standing against the wall divided the kitchen from the dining room.

"You're not stepping on my chair in your shoes, are you?" Ma called from the kitchen.

"No," I called back, kicking off my Mary Janes before stepping onto the needlepoint seat. I opened the hutch's right cabinet door with a click. Reaching far up to the right and back, my hand hit a bottle, but my pinky brushed against something soft. I culled out a bottle of Cointreau, wouldn't you know, and set it on the hutch's ledge. Then I reached further for the soft object, teasing it out of the corner. My hand felt over it, then as I pulled it out, it nearly fell out of its newspaper wrapping, but I caught it. The snow globe. The white plastic chips inside the globe flurried like my heart. Thank God I didn't drop it.

"Hon, you find it?" Ma called.

"Uh, yeah, I found it. A couple of buttons popped open on my dress. I'm just buttoning them again," I replied to stall for time. I re-wrapped the snow globe as quietly as I could with my sweaty hands and slipped it into the pocket of my dress, hiding the bulge by carrying the bottle and teacups in front of it. "I need to run upstairs for a minute. I'll be right back." I lied as I set the Cointreau and cups on the counter.

I wanted to run up the stairs, but walked so as not to draw attention. The holiday mantra good will to men never set well with me, and if anything, brought out my mean streak. I didn't know why I took the snow globe or what I was going to do with it. For the time being, I placed it on the mantle of the defunct fireplace in my room and covered it with a red paisley scarf.

I blew my nose loudly a few times so my excuse to go upstairs seemed valid. Before I left, I looked in the direction of the snow globe and whispered, "I'll see you later, Margaret."

Ma sat by the kitchen counter on the same white stool as Margaret used to, when she watched Ma dash cups of flour into a mixing bowl, singingDoop!in a high sing-song voice with every cup. Margie giggled and waved her hands in the puffy clouds of flour dust. Margaret was aways amused, but not always amusing. One morning Ma answered a phone call, leaving Margaret alone in the kitchen with a bowl of cake batter to bake in the afternoon. Now late for an appointment, Ma spent twenty minutes searching for the house key. Finally, Margaret confessed, "Mamma, I couldn't find batter spoon so I use key -doop!" Sure enough, the key lay at the bottom of the batter bowl. Marg couldn't reach for the mixing spoon, but the house key was handy, so...

But that was long ago. My eyes stung remembering an incident so annoying back then, but now thank God for that memory. I tipped my head back and blinked back the tears.

Ma looked up at me, "Got something in your eye?"

I replied, "Yeah, I mean, no. Just dust or something." I pulled another stool to the counter and sat while Ma poured a shot of Cointreau into my teacup. A shaft of late afternoon sun shone through the kitchen window and warmed the back of my neck. Why did Ma always sit with her back to the window, instead of facing it? I turned and looked towards the western sun. Squinting into the light, my eyes focused on the answer. Margaret's weed-ridden flower garden with the broken birdbath still took up a spot under the maple at the very back of the yard.

The click of a teacup on the counter turned me back around.

"So, Daniella, no fellows at work? New friends?" Ma asked.

"No, I haven't met anyone. I mean, sometimes the girls go out after work. I just don't feel comfortable enough to go out with them yet."

"No one at all? You've been working there for what, about five months?"

"Yes, but what can I say? I don't talk to anyone." Mom didn't respond. I continued. "It's not that I don't want to meet anyone... but I don't." Talk about something else. I took a deep sip of the Cointreau, then another. Ma rattled off a comment about our neighbor Elsie's weight and the sad state of Mrs. Strogan's driveway across the street, then poured us another drink. The liquor slipped into my bloodstream, and the mellow warmth loosened my tongue, "Ma, talk about her."

"Talk about who? Mrs. Strogan? Well, she..."

I looked at her and shook my head, "Not Mrs. Strogan. You know who I mean." A crooked frown crossed her face. She sighed and swirled the Cointreau in her cup. After a few moments, she spoke, "I was mad at her when she died, and heartbroken."

"We were all shocked and sad. Still are."

She stared at her Cointreau, slowly shaking her head. "No. I was mad. I love her so much, and I was so angry when she died. You know, years ago, I wanted Pa to take a job in another city. He said no. I told him it would be a better position and more money. He said no. I wanted a different house, one that had beautiful large windows in the back. He still said no, claiming this house had better street presence, whatever that is." She took another deep breath and looked at me. "I wanted more children after I had you. Pa said no, but eventually I won." She chuckled a little, but turned her eyes away to stare at the cup. "Or at least I thought I had. After you and Margaret, I said, 'I'm good now. This is enough.' I had two children and a house I could live with, and a husband I had to live with. I had a life I was willing to stick with because it had enough laughter and love to keep me not feeling like a total failure. Pa wasn't thrilled about having a second child, but...," She took yet another deep breath, almost raised her cup to drink, paused, set it back down. "... it didn't matter. By the time I was with Margaret, he'd already started drinking more and staying later at work. He stuck around enough as if to say he cared about us when really, I think nothing was further from the truth." Ma traced imaginary circles on the Formica with the bottom of the cup. Dreamily, she continued, "Margaret was always up to mischief because that's what happy, curious children do." Ma burst out in a little laugh and a higher pitch, "She used to take all of my utensils out of the drawers and line them on the counter, going down them one by one, inspecting them, reporting any dings or damage like a five-alarm fire going off!" Ma smiled awhile, and I let her. It was nice to see her happy. "I suppose I shouldn't have focused on her as much as I did." The smile faded. "Your father's behavior made a fool of him. And of me, but you seemed okay." She looked at me. "At least I hoped you were." She shook her head. "I was so concerned with raising Margaret and saving face, I ignored you." She put her hand on the side of my face. I didn't know what to feel. We heard Pa come through the front door and Ma jerked her hand down.

"Pa?" She called out. "I found the Cointreau."

***

The guests arrived in the evening, sparkly and beautiful, like an evergreen branch glistening with water droplets. Pa greeted each guest as if he hadn't seen them in years, although most were from his office. He slapped the men on the backs so loud you could hear it, and shook the ladies' hands longer than necessary. I greeted guests at the kitchen doorway and took potluck dishes and bottles of champagne off their hands. I put the champagne in the refrigerator and the potluck dishes on the kitchen counter before Ma whisked them one by one to the dining table, constantly rearranging the riotous gathering of mismatched casseroles and crocks. Pa piled a few coats on the bed upstairs, and always came back down laughing with whatever lady friend he'd just shown the house. He'd make the funny trek upstairs, then back, laughing with another lady, guiding her to the parlor to mix her a drink. His hand always seemed to be on the woman's back, sometimes lower. Ma peeked around the corner of the kitchen once, spying Pa's roaming rump hand. Her stony face seemed a concrete mix of disappointment and I don't care. Eventually, he handed coat duty to me. While Ma re-arranged the pot luck for the fiftieth time, I snuck two bottles of champagne from the refrigerator and hid them underneath a guest's coat, careful that the bottles didn't clink. I carried the coat upstairs to my room and locked my door. With a cloth over the mouth of the bottle, I twisted the wire and popped off the cork quietly. I had plenty of experience opening wine and champagne in the solitude of my apartment, and Lord knows I watched Pa open all sorts of liquor over the years. Two big gulps went down my throat and I the champagne in the back of my closet before I returned downstairs.

Ma barely left the kitchen as the level of booze in the bottles lowered. I helped Ma clear dishes and guide guests to the bathroom, those who couldn't remember where it was from one hour to the next. Oddly, I never saw a drink in Pa's hand that night, but I noticed the warm twinkle in his eye turned to an icy glint as the evening wore thin and wild. Occasionally he'd wink at me and say, "Nice work, kid!" as I carried another handful of dirty glasses to the sink. Only once did Pa come into the kitchen. He put an arm around Ma, scrubbing an empty casserole, and gave her a peck on the cheek, "Thanks, great party!" Poof! Gone again, like a ghost, replaced by a flushed lady in a faded red velvet dress. She offered to help Ma with the glasses, but Ma shooed her away, "Oh, I don't mind. All part of being hostess!"

The woman snorted, "Hostess? More like housekeeper. Don't let the evening get away from you without a little bubbly." She imposed a glass of champagne on Ma, then left. The untouched flute stood alone on the counter and sparkled for no one.

The evening threw in the towel at some late, bleary hour. Bumbling guests, some ba-haing still, some rather sickly, stumbled around saying goodbye and gathering their empty potluck dishes. I ran up and down the stairs, retrieving their hats and coats and sneaking gulps from my own secret stash. I doubted anyone would notice booze on my breath. I mean, I watched two men in switched fedoras leave, totally unaware of their mistake. They'd figure it out and sheepishly exchange hats on Monday. A skinny-nosed woman wearing a raccoon fur coat giggled and whispered endlessly with another woman, whose skin and hair matched her putty-colored coat. Braving the chill, the dateless women hobbled out the door into the black night to their cab. I never saw them again.

After the get-out flurry and final goodbye, Ma quit the kitchen and disappeared into her bedroom. The evening's energy dumped me like a lead weight, hollowing out my head and filling it with marble fruit. Something was missing. The last guest gone, kitchen clean, a successful party by many accounts, but something still missing. Pa. Pa wasn't home. I knew he wasn't, and I didn't care. I took a wine glass from the freshly washed set and went to my room.

I clicked on the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves lamp that stood on the bedside table, and set down the wine glass. I locked my door, kicked off my shoes into the closet, and took out the second bottle of champagne. Next, I slipped the bandana off of the snow globe, "All right, Margaret, finally some peace and quiet." I carefully picked up the globe and moved it around, the fake snow rocking back and forth. No matter how I held the globe, I could never seem to make the child inside look at me.

My body longed to lie down and sleep, but I drank instead. The silence in the house felt like a quilt, comforting rather than menacing, so I got up, shook the snow globe, and set it back on the mantle. The snow whirled around the child. Talk to me, Margie.

I watched the snowflakes settle into stillness. And silence. I drank half of the second bottle, slipped into my nightgown, and shut off the light. Lying on my back, I felt like the ceiling was closing in on me, yet moving millions of miles away. Thoughts whirled like snowflakes as I floated downward into my warm, dark bed. Then, in my haze of booze and sleepiness, the snowflakes waltzed upwards into the infinite black of the dissipated ceiling, morphing into moms pushing baby buggies loaded with bottles to Destination Iniquity. I pictured myself dressed in an apron and lying in a buggy. A petite mom with crimson lips and a red tartan scarf smirked down at me. A face appeared behind her, unbidden - Pa, of course. I shut my eyes, but the spins made me sick, so I opened my eyes until sleep defeated me.