The Accidental Siren Read Free Page B

dungeon, perpetually moist and sprinkled with the gnarled
nestings of rats. But it was huge, it was cheap, and it was a
beautiful place for kids to grow up.
    Dad agreed that the investment was
promising... pending a substantial overhaul of the dilapidated
interior. (I don’t recall the exact stage of the do-it-yourself
remodel in 1994, but I’m sure there was a layer of sawdust over
every flat surface, unfinished drywall scrawled with crayon
graffiti, and a mountain of torn carpet in at least one room.)
    The estate sat on the outskirts of a quaint
tourist-trap town called Grand Harbor, placing us squarely inside
what the elementary playground dubbed “hillbilly township.” The
world as I knew it stretched for five miles along the lakeshore,
starting with the red lighthouse at the State Park and ending with
A.J.’s home on Hickory Street a half-mile south. In between sat
Whit’s middle-class suburb, the Township Walmart, and the glorious
castle where I grew up.
    Trees hugged the brick structure on three
sides, nestling it comfortably atop a dune grass bluff with an
extraordinary view of the lake. From the beach, the mansion was
intimidating with three steeples of varying heights, mismatched and
awkwardly placed windows, a tower that stood higher than the
tallest oak, and wrought-iron accents that bestowed the palace with
a gothic aura. When the sun dropped just below the horizon, the
castle looked majestic; “A little piece of heaven,” marveled my
mother’s friends whenever they stopped by. But at night, when the
moon cut zagged shadows across the brick and glass, I imagined the
house among the eerie fog and lamplit cobblestone streets of
Transylvania.
    Woulda been perfect for a movie , I
thought.
    A new hummingbird feeder graced the eve above
the front door and glistened red in the light from the setting sun.
Leo, the stone lion, stood guard. I stroked his mane, thumped his
back, and went inside.
     
    * * *
     
    Years later, the smell of basil would remind
me of Mara’s eyes; how they matched exquisitely the flicking
emerald glass of the tea-candle sitting between my lasagna and her
Chianti at the Campanile in LA. But in the mid-nineties,
basil meant Mom’s kitchen.
    “What happened to your cheek?” she asked
without looking up from the stove. “You know how worried Whitney’s
mother gets when you wrestle.”
    “We weren’t wrestling. I just tripped. Where
is everybody?”
    “Jake has a time-out in Mom and Dad’s room,
Bobby has a time-out in your room, Dad’s in the tower with his head
in the clouds, Fantasia’s right behind you–rock her for me?–and
Olivia’s in her room with... what’s her name... the redhead?”
    “Kimmy? I thought you said no friends on
Saturday nights!”
    Mom looked up but continued to stir. “You
want some cheese with that whine? Next week is your sister’s first
set of exams and I told her she could study with a friend. Don’t be
a little booger tonight, okay? They’re nervous.”
    “I thought exams were for high
schoolers.”
    “Junior high too. Do Mom a favor and be sweet
to your sister, okay?”
    “I’ll be good.”
    “Pinky promise?”
    Whenever I fly home for the holidays, I make
it a point to squeeze my Mother’s shoulders, to calm her hazel
eyes, and to ask her about her. Like most “stay-at-homes,”
Mom lived for everyone but herself. She was a chameleon of
necessity with the ability to morph–seamlessly and without
complaint–into whatever roll her family demanded. At once she was a
gourmet chef, a fast-food employee, a soccer player, baseball
player, frisbee thrower and Monopoly banker; a nutritionist, cab
driver, hair-stylist, architecture consultant, surgeon
(specializing in sliver removal), lover, mentor, counselor and
executioner. She performed her duties despite a low metabolism,
high cholesterol, and a weakness for things covered in cheese; she
wasn’t fat, but her body fluctuated between varying degrees of
“round.” During the nineties,