The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,68
in the span of a week, I have used the word me.
I still exist.
But then his brother Jack is beside him, staring at me.
“It’s you,” he says.
I decide not to say it again.
Then Selma appears and the spell is again broken, at least for now, because she is yelling, “Ruth! You’re back! You’re back!”
She is genuinely happy to see me, and I feel warmth seep all the way down to my toes as she hugs the air out of me. I hug her back.
She kisses my cheek and whispers, “I missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
At some point I know she’ll tell me everything—and it will be worth hearing. For now they will all have to wait—even Hank—until I get past this first reunion with Gran.
But before I can take another step, Hank grabs my wrist and ties the red ribbon onto it. For a split second everything goes quiet, and all I know is that wherever she is, my baby’s fat little wrist is wrapped in the other half of this ribbon.
I hear Dumpling’s voice saying, “It works, I promise.”
And I finally understand.
Hank is watching me closely. I point to Gran and say, “You might have to hold the space just a tiny bit longer.”
He squeezes my wrist and says, “I’m quite good at waiting.”
It feels as if Gran is miles and miles away, rather than just a few yards. She is even frailer up close. I’m not the only one who’s aged over the past few months.
“Hi,” I say.
She looks like she’s going to cry.
“Where’s Lily?” I ask, because she seems lost for words.
“She’s home baking you a cake.”
Then she adds, “Dora and Dumpling and Bunny are there, too. So I hope you’re in the mood for a party.”
“I named her after you,” I blurt out as fast as I can. If I don’t say it now, I might never say it.
“I don’t deserve that,” she says.
“I thought it might be like a do-over,” I say, and at first the old Gran looks back at me; her eyes narrow like I’ve insulted her. And then all of a sudden she laughs—not a deep, rolling laugh like Selma’s savior on the bus, but a dry, cobwebby one.
She hugs me tight, even tighter than Selma did, but the smell of her takes me by surprise.
They’re the same old smells: Lemon Pledge, Joy soap, and Hills Bros. coffee all jumbled together. But there’s one that catches me totally off guard. It’s the face cream that Gran has used every morning for as long as I’ve known her.
“Sister Josephine’s milk-and-honey lotion,” I say.
It’s the smell of two worlds colliding.
She kisses me on the top of my head, like we share a secret.
“I’ve never been very good with words,” she says. “I’m so sorry, Ruth.”
Now she really is crying. But so am I.
We link arms and I steer her across the icy sidewalk toward home. It suddenly dawns on me that there is a big difference between feeling tired and being weak. I place my hand on my chest one last time before we reach Birch Park, just to check.
It’s still there—my own heart, cobbled together and a little worse for wear—but it’s definitely not all beat out.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is a work of fiction, but it’s also only possible because four generations of one family have lived in one particular place for a very long time. I cannot thank the members of that family enough, every single one of them.
Mainly this started out as a free write in the home of my dear friend and talented writer, Lisa Jones. If Lisa Jones says “Let’s all write for twenty minutes about the smell of other people’s houses,” by all means, do it. Take a writing class from Lisa Jones if at all possible is probably the best advice I can ever give anyone.
I wrote a very different version of this book as my creative thesis while attending Hamline University’s MFAC program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. I want to thank all of the Hamline faculty, staff, and students, but especially the comma goddess, Marsha Wilson Chall, who was the first person to think this idea had any merit at all.
Claire Rudolph Murphy convinced me that it’s not cliché to write about the place you know best, even if it is Alaska (something she does so well herself).
And the incredible Kelly Easton worked so hard on this book that sometimes I still hear her voice in my head saying things like “This is very dark, even for you.” Thank you for everything, Kelly—especially for convincing me that the title should be The Smell of Other People’s Houses.
My early, early readers won’t even recognize what this book has finally become, and I’m sure they’ll be pleased about that. Thanks to William DeArmond, one of my dearest, smartest friends, who read it in its infancy and then again in its old age; to the brilliant Nathanael Johnson, who also reminds me a little bit of Jack; and to the amazing Hawaiian filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly, who doesn’t mince words and who keeps me on track about all things indigenous.
Rebecca Grabill and Elizabeth Schoenfeld, thanks for a wonderful writing retreat at Bald Head Island in North Carolina (and in Frisco, Colorado, Elizabeth) and for teaching me how to use Scrivener. Thanks to Anne Schwab for opening your cabin in Minnesota to me and to Jodi Baker for giving us weary writers a tour of your apple orchard. Much of this book was written at the Abbey of St. Walburga in Colorado, a place filled with ranching nuns who inspire me.
The Alaska poets who so graciously allowed me to use their poems—John Straley, Nancy White Carlstrom, and Ann Chandonnet—I cannot thank you enough. I have admired all of you for years.
I am indebted to my Athabascan and Inupiat friends who gave me permission to fictionalize aspects of their stories. I understand why you want to remain anonymous but admire and respect everything you do and all you’ve taught me.
Thank you, Nellie Moore, for reading and for being so patient with me for so many years. Now get back to work!
To my agent, Molly Ker Hawn, with whom I knew I wanted to work the minute she tweeted about catching her hair on fire while out to dinner with her in-laws. You are a ball of fire yourself, and I am so thrilled that you never gave up on this book. Or me.
Alice Swan, my lovely, lovely editor at Faber and Faber. Without you, most of the characters in this book would have perished in the Alaskan landscape. You were right that there is more hope in the world than I can sometimes see, but I will keep looking. The entire Faber crew, including Hannah Love, Grace Gleave, Sarah Savitt, and Rebecca Lewis-Oakes, has been just marvelous. Apologies to anyone I may be forgetting; many thanks to you all.
Wendy Lamb and Dana Carey, thank you for the hours and hours you spent on this with so much emotion and energy and the undying belief that it could become what it was supposed to become; and thank you to everyone else at Random House for your care and enthusiasm, especially copy editors Ellen Lind and Colleen Fellingham, designer Trish Parcell, and readers Alexandra Borbolla, Sarah Eckstein, Teria Jennings, Elena Meuse, Makenna Sidle, Alexandra West, and Hannah Weverka. Wendy, thank you for opening your door for us in New York and for keeping it open throughout this whole process.
Ray Shappell, thank you for the gorgeous Random House cover—you nailed it.
Lori Roth Adams, without your Christmas card I would have forgotten about the importance of fishing charts—but never do I underestimate the importance of friends.
Chris Todd, thank you for bringing me coffee in bed every single morning, even when I didn’t deserve it, and for reading way too many drafts (even the ones you said you read but only skimmed).
Most of all, to Dylan and Sylvia—millions and millions of mallards to the two people who save me over and over again every single day.