Then Dell ambled toward Dickens, who had finished scooping dirt and was stomping on the pit with his flip- flops. And I tried not to think about what had slid from the buckets, what was now buried there in the yard. I wanted to eat and not think about anything.
But my brain wouldrft quit.
World full of holes, I thought. Holes everywhere, full of people and things. Squirrels and doll heads and bog men. Things go inside holes and sometimes never come out again for a thousand years. Some houses are like holes too, like tombs.
I ripped at the jerky, picturing this mummy that was once on TV. He was in Egypt. He was a king. Several of the men who discovered him died mysteriously. One choked on his vomit, another was smashed by a slab of marble. The TV voice said murnrnies had strange powers.
Dell and Dickens wandered toward the cattle trail, disappearing among the high grass. And I swallowed, wondering if my father had any powers, if it would take all day for him to dry.
17
Like an airship descending -- the picnic basket landed beside the wood-burning stove, the silverware clanked, and Dell said, pulling back the top, removing a foil-covered plate from within, as if she were proffering a cargo of rare jewels, 'For the Rose child of dear Noah-'
Beer-Braised Rabbit, she explained, with carrots and onions and potatoes. A thermos of apple juice. Pound cake for desert, one slice.
'A very special treat.”
She’d returned after nightfall, hoodless and without Dickens, in unusually cheerful spirits, bringing the basket and the plaid quilt.
'We’ve chores ahead,' she told me, 'so eat. Stuff yourself.'
It was an indoor picnic, and I was the guest of honor- swigging from the thermos, alternating bites of rabbit with bites of cake -- watching as Dell wrapped my father in the tarp, bundling him like a mummy. Then she rolled him up in the quilt until only his head was exposed, and used safety pins to join the fabric and bind the untucked corners.
'Looks like a burrito,” I said.
'Ridiculous. Don’t speak with food in your mouth, you’ll choke.”
When I was done eating, we straightened the furniture in the living room, and folded my father’s clothes, stacking them neatly on the leather chair. Then Dell asked about the map dropping from the wall.
'It’s JutIand,” I said, 'Or Denmark, I’m not sure.”
'And why does it exist here?”
I shrugged.
'We’re supposed to be in Jutland instead of Texas. It’s his favorite place to live. But I guess we got lost or something, I guess.'
'Rose, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
She yanked the map from the wall, squinted her good eye, and studied Denmark closely.
'What a strange secret,” she finally said, looking at my father, addressing him. 'I knew you so well and you never told me. No, this isn’t right, no.'
A frown crossed her face as she crimped the map into a compact square, creasing the edges. Then Denmark vanished in a pocket of her housedress. She patted the pocket twice, glancing at me.
'Enough of that nonsense,” she said. 'Your house must be ordered. There’s too much filth, of course. We must clean clean clean.”
And that’s what we did.
In a duffel bag on the porch, there was a feather duster and a no-wax cleaning spray and plastic trash sacks and a sponge. Grandmother had a broom and dustpan in the kitchen. So my job was sweeping. Dell dusted. We started downstairs, in the living room, and worked our way upstairs, sweeping and dusting, collecting grime, making gray and fuzzy piles as we went. She whistled, blowing her pretty song, dancing the feather duster across windowsills, across the dining room table and the oak sideboard. I listened to her song, humming it to myself, while gathering dead june bugs and dirt balls, while dustpanning cracker crumbs and army ant bodies. And soon the air became rich with particles. My nostrils tingled, and both Dell and I sneezed from time to time.
'Mold gets in your head, makes you sick.”
We were in the kitchen. Dell dropped the remaining slices of Wonder Bread into a trash sack.
'Crackers are stale, no good, probably sampled by mice.'
Into the trash sack.
'But you won’t want for food,” she said. 'Dickens will bring your supper.”
Then she wiped down the counter and sink. She cleaned peanut butter off the peanut butter jar, dumped water from the gallon water jugs.
'Bad water is poison.'
'What can I drink then?”
She set the jugs on the floor.
'I’ll fill them at home and have Dickens bring them ‘round tomorrow. See, Rose, we’ll care for you, right? We share Noah now. He's ours and you’re his. You brought him back to me, I think. You understand, correct? You’re part of the family now -- and this is where you belong, right? So we can’t have strangers, of course. If they come, they’ll take your father from both of us. It’s very simple -- strangers always create messes, and messes mean problems. But I fix things, child. I stop Death from proceeding, and I keep troublesome strangers away -- that’s my calling. How do I say this so you’ll understand everything? When it comes to the things we treasure, child, nothing has to die or go into the ground. When you love something, everything can almost stay the same, correct? Then I don’t have to be alone, neither do you. Am I making sense? So this is what I do -- I keep strangers and Death away so nothing has to change -- not Mother, not dear Noah, not this house, or my house, or even you or me or Dickens. I tidy problems as I hold up a hand to Death and shoo him off like a filthy fly -- that’s what a caretaker for silent souls does. Am I making myself clear?'
'I think so,' I said. 'You don’t want him to be in Denmark.”
'Nonsense,' she replied. 'I don’t know what you’re talking about. What does Denmark have to do with anything. Don’t be silly, silly child. You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said. Pay attention next time.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there gripping the broom handle, looking at Dell’s black lens.
'Don’t gawk,” she said. 'We’re burning moonlight. There’s more to do, there’s always more to do.”
Upstairs -- sweeping and dusting, swabbing the toilet and the bathtub, clearing spiderwebs from the ceiling. In my father’s bedroom, folding his dirty clothes and zipping them inside his backpack, dumping the Peach Schnapps’ bottle and plastic baggy in a trash sack.
'What’s happening?' Cut ’N Style wondered as I lifted her from the throw rug, placing her on the night table.
'We’re getting clean clean clean,' I told her.
In my bedroom -- humming Dell’s song -- taking the doll arms and the legs and the torso from the mattress, putting them in my suitcase.
And my mother’s satin nightgown-
'Good lord, child, what’s this?”
Dell held the gown up by its arms.
'It’s my pajamas,” I said.
'No, no,” she said, 'it’s too large for you. I think so. I think you’ll have to wait until you’re a woman -- and a big one at that.”
Then, grinning as if she’d just found a great bargain, Dell took the gown downstairs -- where I spied it later in the picnic basket, packed beside the thermos and silverware and crumpled foil and greasy plate.
'Hard workers deserve gifts,” she said.
So she got the gown, I got another piece of pound cake - and at dawn, once our work was completed, once
