“We don’t know for sure if there’s a problem,” answers Lori, looking to John. Her head tilts slightly and her eyes blink rapidly.
“No, you’re right. There’s a possibility there’s no damage.” John pauses, swallows. “You could certainly take that chance.”
The wife stands in place, her optimism still there like firelight, undimmed. John’s eyes are repelled from her as from a blaze. “Another thing I remarked before you arrived, during my exterior inspection, is a questionable septic. You’ll notice the grass in the back is bright green. That’s the classic sign of an overworked field. It’s hard to say how many years might be left, but you’d be wise to be careful with your water usage. Short showers, easy on the laundry, and so on.”
The woman stands silent, clear-eyed, watching John. Then she turns an expressionless face toward her husband, a barely perceptible quiver at the lips.
“Here’s your report summary,” John murmurs, handing the clipboard to the husband. “Excuse the chicken scratch. The full, typed report should arrive in the mail within forty-eight hours.”
Lori stands in place, smirking slightly, the creases beneath her eyes etched in a kind of shallow mirth. It’s as if she is waiting for the joke to reveal itself, for John to break into a grin and rip the report in two.
Instead, the husband signs the paper, and John tears the top sheet across its perforated line, leaving the carbon copy beneath. He touches his ear involuntarily. His voice catches as he speaks, croaking.
“Nice to see you, Lori.”
She opens her mouth, then lets it close again. She nods and crosses her arms over her chest, as if concealing an unbuttoned blouse. After he leaves, John imagines, she will use her most coaxing broker’s tone to try to allay the damage. She will return her clients’ attention to the granite countertops, Jacuzzi tub, piano room. There will be no one to stop her from trying. John turns and leaves them in the basement.
He drives silently home. As he moves through town, he is aware only of the blunt power of his truck gripping the road. He concentrates on this feeling, the simple momentum of driving, of making a dull push upon the world. On Mercy Avenue, the town’s main concourse, he does not slow, as is his habit, to take proud note of the properties he’s inspected. He lets the houses blur past.
John turns onto Iron Horse, beneath the mature oaks and maples that have shaded his walks with Bethany and Diana on so many summertime mornings. He presses the brake gently as the roof of his own house comes into view, its chimney like a snorkel. Drawing closer, he views it the way another inspector might. The house is a plain brown box, on its fifth year of paint. It rests at the base of an incline that turns icy in winter and channels storm water in spring. The basement is prone to flooding. This is an error of siting, impossible to solve.
The growl of John’s truck dies as he cuts the ignition. He steps along the front walk, over the same seven cracks in the flagstone that grow wider each year. The boxwood still needs pruning. The porch steps list, and the railing bobs under his hand. His work boots are heavy and slow, but they bring him to the door before he is ready. He pauses there for a long moment, his key in the knob, suspended between the sidelights’ dark margins.
THE WONDER GARDEN
JFK IS disgraceful. The arrivals hall is dirty, sickly lit, clogged with sour-mouthed taxi drivers. What a shameful first face for the country to offer its rosy visitors and inspirited immigrants, Rosalie thinks, this unpainted face of neglectful contempt. You’re on your own is what it seems to say. She holds up a sign with the girl’s name on it and attempts a smile sunny enough to obliterate the gloom.
She and her family have been standing for nearly an hour behind a metal barrier, like cattle, waiting for the passengers of Etihad Flight 101 to come through baggage claim. Finally, a river of new arrivals comes into view: tight-lipped, dark-skinned people hunched jealously over mounded baggage carts. A woman with an airline badge stops in front of them, a scrawny girl at her side. During the handoff, Rosalie maintains her smile, but is unnerved by how strongly the girl resembles a mongoose, with round black eyes and a pointed chin. Her hair is severely parted down the center, and a tight ponytail exposes elfin ears. She is dressed in a blue T-shirt and lightweight olive pants, not the elaborate native costume Rosalie had expected.
Hannah vibrates with excitement like a dog who would bound upon the girl, licking. There is no doubt for her that this will be a great new friend, plain and malleable.