The stairwell shifted uneasily, creaking with a sound like old bones were splitting apart, one by one, step by step, top to bottom. At the foot of the staircase lay a red and green rug, faded and gray now after sitting there for some fifty-eight years. It was no wonder it had gone thread-bare and pale. This was the house of Carmella Drescher, who had passed away just this last Saturday. Dr. Reese had pronounced that it was exhaustion that led to her demise, though many believe, whispering amongst themselves, that it was melancholy which did her in. Home is where the heart is.
Carmella Drescher had been born in that house at the corner of Monroe and Lumpkin some seventy-four years ago. It was the only house she’d ever lived in and, except for a few visits to see her sister Sharella who had moved to Chicago with Willie Simpsons (had an ice box shop and then, later, about when the war started, he sold radios and all sorts of gadgets that had no practical use – or so Carmella believed, looking over ‘em like a crane, afraid to come too close) well, except for those few weeks when she’d gone to Chicago (God forsaken place) she’d hardly left the house at all.
It was not that she was, by genetic
nature, a homebody. Her parents, Rube and Candy, had been in large measure
outgoing, lively. Rube Drescher worked at the hotel as a clerk and he did some
work at the church as well. Both the Dreschers sang in the church choir and
often, when the warm breezes of spring had opened up and the first daffodils
began to bud, they'd take Carmella and her sister down to
This vivacity, however, did not fully take root in their youngest daughter. Carmella was a pretty girl when she was young: long red hair that curled over her shoulder, bouncing when she walked, carrying groceries to the hotel say, where along the street young men would whistle and remove their hats. There was no question that Carmella could’ve had her share of beaus, local lads from town, most of them shy and inexperienced in the crafts of courtship. But fate had different plans. It was the year of 1942 when many of the young men where at war she first met Howard McIntyre.
They had met at a party the Pearsons were throwing for their daughter Melissa, who’d turned 16. Howard was a guest of Sally and Demone Gessler, a cousin of some manner, twice removed, or by a second marriage. No one knew for certain where he had grown up or what all he’d done before coming to town and meeting Carmella. Sally had introduced them, dragging Howard halfway across the living room.
“Carmella, Carmella. How are you darling?”
Carmella curtsied and looked up at them both with her big brown eyes. She noticed the gentleman at Sally Gessler’s side had a large black moustache which curled at the ends and his eyes, when he smiled at her, were very small, but still they seemed to twinkle.
“I’d like you to meet Howard McIntyre. Howard, Carmella. She lives in the little white house at the corner.”
“Charmed,” he said, and kissed her hand.
There are many people who are convinced, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that love at first sight is a myth, a misconception of the uneducated masses. Like all matters of the heart no device exists to verify one’s conviction, whatever one believes true. It can be said, however, that Carmella, when she talked with Howard McIntyre, and held his hand as they proceeded down the front steps to the yard (he picked a flower and put It behind her ear) could feel her heart quicken, her breath become short and her head turn dizzy as if in a spell. It was a sensation quite set apart from anything she’d ever experienced, whether real, as she thought surely it was – real as the bright buzzing of the bees – or imagined, as some will always maintain.
Before two
months had passed they were married, in a small wedding, and Howard McIntyre
moved in with Carmella and her parents in their little house on the corner of
Lumpkin and Vine. Turned out, Howard was a doctor of sorts, can expert in the
field of rheumatism and ailments of the bones. He had a degree from some
university in
As for
Carmella, well, everything was perfect. She looked over Howard’s every need. He
showed her all sorts of recipes he’d picked up while in
Then suddenly, on a cool October evening in 1949, Howard never returned. There were rumors he’d been kidnapped. Some believed he committed suicide. Three weeks later, in fact, a body was found in the river, 20 miles downstream. But no one could make it out. Carmella, disbelieving, went to the church and prayed.
Her confused hopefulness soon led her into strange ways. She began to worry constantly about the condition of her home. Before a month passed she’d polished every stick of wood in the house twice. The care with which Carmella began attending to the ordinary housekeeping and maintenance of the home was beyond what could be termed simply chaste, or tidy, but instead turned unnatural; obsessive. She would awake in the morning and dust the mantle – indeed, the interior of the fireplace caught such attention it looked like it’d never been used (though during the previous winter Howard had stoked many a blazing fire), then she would take on the chairs and the coffee table, waxing and dusting until her fingers turned brown, and then she’d turn to the windows and mirrors all throughout the den. Her preoccupation with her house consumed her daily activities to the point where what had once been normal routines – picking up groceries on Saturday morning, baby-sitting for the Turley’s when they’d go see a movie, even church service on Sunday morning – all took on secondary importance.
Though her parents tried their best to pull her out of the lapse – buying her books, dragging her to church when possible – at Rube’s death in 1956 and Candy’s some five years later, Carmella’s reclusive urges simple worsened. Guests would come over (mostly uninvited) and remark to themselves how the place smelled like linseed oil.
Though many pondered over her ways, no one could get from her even the quietest intimation concerning her problems, and their own speculations were without sustaining evidence. Uncle Horace talked about her like he was speaking of a ghost, leaning back in his rocking chair, taking a puff on his pipe.
“She believes to this day that that old McIntyre quack’s gonna rise up and reappear. Show up with a bunch of flowers in his hand and carry her up the stairs.”
“Horace!”, his wife Gerry would cut him off, setting her coffee cup down hard. “Have some pity on the poor girl, holed up there all the time. You ought’er invite her over.”
Horace would then puff again on his pipe, letting the smoke drift out in front of his face like a cloud.
“Ain’t no use in that Gerry. I’ve tried my share. Girl’s just made as a blither.”
Cousin Dottie would wrinkle her face and start to speak up – as she always did – by blowing out a puff of air: “Jus’ had her not broken. That’s all.”
“Well what about the body they found down river?” It was Dottie’s son, Billy, speaking up. “I can’t believe no one’s made the connection between the old man and suicide. Could be Carmella knew the reason why he did it. Could be she killed him. An accident perhaps. Say he fell in the river and couldn’t swim.
“Billy!”, Gerry said. Dottie echoed her: “Why that’s preposterous!”
“No, no,” Horace quieted them with an outstretched hand, chewing on his pipe stem, suddenly leaning forward, “Let him talk. The boy’s made some good points. From what I’ve heard, however, the body – such as it was – didn’t appear to be the doctor. Something about the teeth.”
“Yes, but nobody’s sure!” Billy shook his finger. “Fact is, they don’t really know, one way or the other.”
“Well one things’ for certain,” Horace continued, leaning back again, rolling his eyes heavenward, “Carmella ain’t gonna be reasoned with. I hear she stays up late at night and sings to herself on the porch, oblivious to the universe.”
“No!”, Dottie’s friend, Maureen said. Maureen had known Carmella since they were children.
“Yes,” Gerry said. “It’s a fact. The kids walk by and they say her window will be lit up sometimes all night, the flickering light of candles. And they tell some terrible stories: say she’s a ghost, or worse – a witch!” Gerry leaned to Horace and put her hand on his arm like she was the one who’d made up the stories.
When Carmella’s death came, just this last Tuesday, it put to rest much of the talk, just as her body had been laid to rest and covered from sight in Rugged Cross Cemetery. The funeral had been a simple one; the reverend had made it short. And at the reception few had much to say about the deceased. In fact, for a time after Carmella’s death the entire town seemed to quite down, as if there were nothing left to say about anything. No points of view to exchange. No news.
But this modest quiescence had recently been disturbed. A rumbling had begun to emanate throughout the interior of Carmella’s old home as though a freight train were traveling through it, pouring over a rusted track. Each closely meted nail and joint seemed to be losing the firm clutches that they’d held perfectly for so long. The oak and pine wood boards, where forever they’d been straight and firm, suddenly and with insistence began to lose their constitution and begin trembling. Plaster fell loose, filling the house with a cloud. Lights flashed on and off, books leapt from their shelves and, as the shaking of the walls heightened to a greater intensity, the Bentwood china (perfectly stacked in the rose wood buffet cabinet) clattered with the sound of skull’s teeth.
Two young women were walking across the street and they looked up as the noise from the house became suddenly more vibrant.
“An earthquake!” One of the girls exclaimed, stepping back, on hand over her mouth. But as they listened to the house moan and whistle, they could feel the sidewalk solid and still beneath their feet. They watched the windowpanes explode and the bricks tumble from the chimney. And then the vibrations expanded to such a degree that the girls wondered (frightened, but too curious to move) if Carmella’s home might not rise up off its foundations and begin some purposeful journey. In the next moment, however, the entire structure heaved towards the heavens and with a horrific sigh fell in upon itself, disintegrating into a mound of splinters. The dust billowed out into the night breeze and swept by the two girls. Just then, they would swear later, they heard the humming of a tune.