Meanwhile, Carter aced the tests Andie wrote based on the curriculum, listened patiently to her explanation of whatever lesson was next, and wrote his critical thinking papers. Whenever possible he wrote on comic books, but his arguments were clear and concise and that’s all Andie was looking for. After one particularly good paper on the way comics were drawn, she took the kids to an art supply store on their way to the shopping center and saw him smile for the first time. Okay, she thought, I’m getting the hang of this, and loaded him up with quality drawing supplies. Other than that, nothing changed: Carter did his work silently, read silently, drew in his sketchbook silently, worked on his computer silently, and ate everything Andie put in front of him, although he was now growing at such an alarming rate that she thought there was something wrong. “I swear, he’s grown two inches in three weeks,” she told Flo when she called her for help. “I expected him to grow out with all the food I’m shoving at him, but not up. And he walks like his legs hurt. I want to call a doctor but he won’t go.” “He’s twelve,” Flo said. “It’s a growth spurt. Keep feeding him, he’ll be fine.” So Andie bought him new pants that would cover his newly exposed ankles and gave him aspirin when he winced, and kept feeding him, and Flo was right, he was fine. Silent, but fine.
And during it all, Andie tried to figure out what the hell was wrong in Archer House.
Because once the routines were settled-schoolwork in the morning, grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch, reading and drawing and baking in the afternoon, reluctant eating of new food for dinner, Go Fish after dinner (there was a routine Andie regretted immediately since Alice seized on it and refused to give up, snarling, “Go fish!” with venom whenever possible), and then bedtime and reading comics for Carter, and bedtime and the princess story for Alice-once all that routine was in place and the house was clean, and at least the illusion of stability had been established, Andie still felt that whatever was wrong was as strong as ever, waiting out there for her. And she was pretty sure the kids felt it, too: Carter seemed to be always looking over his shoulder, waiting for something, and Alice’s screaming seemed to be tied to more than just being crossed, erupting when anything threatened her routine. There was more fear in those screams than Andie had realized at first, mostly rage, true, but definitely fear underneath. It’s the house, Andie thought, and tried to find a way to break through their resistance to comfort them with no success.
“They’re just tolerating me,” she told North when she called him at the end of the third week to give him the update on their education. She was on the pay phone at the Dairy Queen, which wasn’t the best place to have long conversations but had the advantage that Mrs. Crumb would not be listening in. Add to that it was a sunny day in late October, and she was wearing her favorite skirt-greeny-blue chiffon with turquoise sequins-and Alice hadn’t screamed at all so far that day, and things seemed more doable than usual. It helped that she and North were being polite again after sniping at each other for a couple of weeks. The politeness was cold, but it wasn’t annoying.
“You’re getting the job done,” North said, his voice brisk and detached. “Everything is back to normal there.”
Andie thought about Alice sobbing the night before in another nightmare. “I think normal is still a long way off. I can hear Alice over the baby monitor talking to an imaginary friend at night after she’s supposed to be asleep, and she’s still having terrible butterfly nightmares.”
“Butterfly nightmares?”
“She cried last night because the butterflies were mad because we hadn’t mulched their garden. She said she and Aunt May put in a butterfly garden here and we needed to get it ready for winter. We just got mulch, so we can do that tomorrow, but in a day or so, there’ll be another nightmare. She has a lot of angry butterflies in her dreams. And she loves butterflies, North. I just don’t get it.”
“Poor kid,” North said. “I don’t know what a butterfly garden is, but we’ll put one in. How’s Carter?”
“Still silent as the grave. The only things he cares about are comics, drawing, and Alice. He won’t let me see his drawings but he works hard on them. I took him to an art supply store, and he looked like he’d died and gone to heaven. There was a drawing table there he kept looking at, but I didn’t want to buy it and put it in at the house since I’m trying to get him to move to Columbus.”
“Let me know which one it was and we’ll put it in his room here. Mother’s getting the bedrooms on the second floor cleared out now. She asked if there was anything the kids wanted.”
“Alice likes blue. And sequins. And butterflies. The butterfly garden will be important for that.”
“I’ll call a landscaper in the spring. That way Alice can plan whatever she wants with him.”
“Oh,” Andie said, taken aback by how careful he was being. Somebody else would have just socked in a butterfly garden, but North wanted Alice to be a part of it. “That’s a great idea, it really is. Carter will just want bookshelves and art stuff. He loves that computer, too. He’s a really quiet kid”-completely silent, actually-“so books and drawing supplies and the computer are probably all he needs.”
“What kind of books?”
“Comic books, drawing books, books on drawing comics…” Andie thought back to what he’d been reading, what he’d written about. “He likes… justice, so maybe some novels like that?”
“Justice?”
“He’s big on fairness, on lousy people getting what they deserve. His school papers are about that a lot. And his favorite TV is old Equalizer reruns. So any stories like that…”
“His dad was a lawyer. You think he’s interested in law?”
“As a career? Maybe. He’s twelve, he’s probably more interested in the hot cars and the cool spy gadgets.”
“And the cool babes,” North said, which was so out of character for him that Andie laughed.
“He’s twelve,” she said.
“Southie chased girls in kindergarten.”
“That’s Southie. When did you start?”
“I didn’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“Girls were always around, but I wouldn’t have passed up hot cars and cool spy gadgets for them.”
“So they chased you based on your limitless charm and devastating good looks,” Andie said, only half kidding.
“Well, the money helped.”
“It wasn’t the money,” Andie said, remembering the first time she’d seen him, leaning against the bar talking to some blonde in a black dress and looking like something out of an old movie. Cary Grant. Paul Newman. “It definitely was not the money. But still, you never chased girls?”
“Just you,” he said.
“Oh.”
“And you met me halfway. It’s hard to chase somebody who’s coming right at you.”
“I couldn’t help myself,” Andie said. “I’d never seen anybody like you before. It was like meeting a giraffe.”
“Well, thanks for coming to the zoo,” North said. “Although I’d have gone after you, if you hadn’t.”
“Next time I’ll play hard to get,” Andie said, and then realized what she said. “You know, in the next life. Or whatever. So the drawing table for Carter would be great, and the butterfly garden for Alice, but I’m still not getting anywhere in convincing them to leave. And you’d think they’d want to. This place is creepy.” Please don’t ask me what I meant by “next time.” Because I have no idea.
“You still think the house is creepy?” North said, moving on, to her relief. “I figured you’d be past that by now.”
“No, North, I’m not past it because you can’t get past it, it’s creepy. And then there’s Mrs. Crumb. She has some very odd habits. Like she plays gin by herself.”
“What?”
“Gin rummy. She deals herself a hand and sticks another hand in a card rack across the table, and then she plays both hands. It makes no sense but she does it most nights with a cup of spiked tea beside her. Several cups.” I have tea, Andie thought, trying to separate herself from the crazy woman. But I don’t drink peppermint schnapps. I have standards. I hit the Amaretto. “I think the house has made her insane. I swear, sometimes she’s two different people. One of them is grumpy and dumb and hates me, and the other is a lot sharper and thinks I’m an idiot. It’s like her mind comes and goes. We’ll be talking and she’ll just… change.”