House Rules: A Novel Read online

  In my laundry list of contingencies, I never thought to include the legal fees incurred when your son is accused of murder.

  A woman with dyed jet-black hair and a suit that’s wearing her instead of the other way around steps out of the cubicle. She has a very tiny nose stud and doesn’t look much older than twenty. Maybe this is what happens to snowboard chicks whose knees get arthritic, to Goth girls whose eyeliner aggravates dry-eye syndrome—they are forced to grow up like the rest of us. “I’m Abby LeGris,” she says.

  When she shakes my hand, her collared shirt gaps a little, and I can see the edge of a Celtic tattoo on her neck.

  She leads me into her cubicle and gestures for me to take a seat. “So,” she says. “How can I help you today?”

  “I was hoping to talk about a second mortgage. I, well, I need a little extra cash.” As I say the words, I’m wondering if she can ask me what I’ll use that cash for. If it’s illegal to lie to a bank about that sort of thing.

  “So basically you’re looking for a line of credit,” Abigail says. “That means you only pay us back for the portion you use.”

  Well, that sounds reasonable.

  “How long have you lived in your home?” she asks.

  “Nineteen years.”

  “Do you know how much you owe currently on your mortgage?”

  “Not exactly,” I say. “But we got the loan here.”

  “Let’s look you up,” Abigail says, and she asks me to spell my name so that she can find me on her computer system. “Your home’s worth $300,000, and your first mortgage was for $220,000. Does that sound right?”

  I can’t remember. All I can see is the night Henry and I danced through the house that was ours, our bare feet echoing on the wood floor.

  “The way it works, banks lend a portion of the equity of a home, around eighty percent. So that’s $240,000. Then we subtract the amount of the first mortgage loan and …” She looks up from her calculator. “You’re talking about a $20,000 line of credit.”

  I stare at her. “That’s all?”

  “In today’s market, it’s important for the client to have a vested interest in the house. Makes them less likely to default on the loan.” She smiles at me. “Why don’t we fill in some of the other blanks here,” Abigail says. “Starting with your employer?”

  I’ve read statistics that say references aren’t checked more than fifty percent of the time, but surely a bank must fall in the other half. And once they call Tanya and realize I’ve quit, they’ll be wondering how I’m going to pay one mortgage, much less two. Saying I am picking up the slack with self-employment won’t help, either. I’ve been a freelance editor long enough to know that, for institutions like banks and future employers, self-employed translates to “nearly jobless but scraping by.”

  “I’m currently unemployed,” I say softly.

  Abigail leans back in her chair. “Well,” she says. “Do you have other sources of income? Rental property? Dividends?”

  “Child support,” I manage.

  “I’m going to be totally honest with you,” she says. “It’s not likely you’ll get a loan without another source of income.”

  I cannot even look at her. “I really, really need the money.”

  “There are other credit sources,” Abigail says. “Car title loans, loan predators, credit cards—but the interest will kill you in the long run. You’re better off asking someone close to you. Is there a family member who might be able to help?”

  But my parents are both gone, and it is a family member I’m trying to help. I’m the one—I’m always the one—who takes care of Jacob when things are falling apart.

  “I wish there was something I could do,” Abigail says. “Maybe once you get another job …”

  I mumble my thanks and leave her cubicle while she is still speaking. In the parking lot, I sit in my car for a moment. My breath hangs in the cold air, like thought balloons of all the things I wish I could explain to Abigail LeGris. “I wish there was something I could do, too,” I say out loud.

  It isn’t fair to Jacob or to Oliver, but I don’t go right home. Instead, I drive past the elementary school. It’s been a long time since I’ve had reason to go there—after all, my boys are grown now—but in the winter, they flood a front field into an ice rink, and kids bring their skates. During recess, little girls spin in circles on the ice; boys chase hockey pucks from one end to the other.

  I pull over across the street, where I can watch. The kids who are playing outside are tiny—I’d say first or second graders—and it seems impossible that Jacob was ever that small. When he’d been a student here, his aide had taken him onto the ice rink with a pair of borrowed skates and had Jacob push two stack milk crates around. It was the way most toddlers learned to skate, and they’d quickly graduate to the tripod method, where a hockey stick provided a third leg for balance, before feeling confident enough to glide off without any props. But Jacob, he never did get past those milk crates. In skating—as with most physical things—he was clumsy. I remember coming to watch him, and seeing his feet splay out from beneath him, so that he’d land in a heap on the ice. If it wasn’t slippery, I wouldn’t keep falling, he said to me, apple-cheeked and breathless after recess, as if having something to blame made all the difference.

  A sharp rap at my window makes me jump. I roll it down to find a police officer standing there. “Ma’am,” he says, “can I help you?”

  “I was just … I had something in my eye,” I lie.

  “Well, if you’re all right now, I have to ask you to move along. This is a bus zone; you can’t stay here.”

  I glance at the kids on the ice again. They look like molecules colliding. “No,” I say softly. “I can’t.”

  When I get back home and open the door, I hear the sound of someone being beaten to a pulp. Unhh. Ow. Ooof. And then, to my horror, Jacob’s laughter.

  “Jacob?” I call, but there’s no answer. Still wearing my coat, I rush into the house toward the sounds of the fight.

  Jacob stands—perfectly unharmed—in front of the television in the living room. He’s holding what looks like a white remote control. Oliver stands beside him, holding a matching remote control. Theo is sprawled behind them on the couch. “You so suck at this,” he says. “Both of you.”

  “Hello?” I take a step into the room, but their eyes are all glued to the television. On the screen, two 3-D cartoon figures are boxing. I watch as Jacob moves his remote control, and the figure on the screen swings his right arm and knocks down the other character.

  “Ha!” Jacob exclaims. “I knocked you out.”

  “Not yet,” Oliver says, and he swings his arm without looking first, hitting me.

  “Ouch,” I say, rubbing my shoulder.

  “Oh, jeez, sorry,” Oliver says, lowering his remote control. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Mom,” Jacob says, his face animated in a way I haven’t seen in weeks, “this is the coolest thing. You can golf and play tennis and bowl—”

  “And assault people,” I say.

  “Technically, it’s boxing,” Oliver interjects.

  “And where did this come from?”

  “Oh, I brought it over. I mean, everyone likes playing the Wii.”

  I stare at him. “So you didn’t think there was anything wrong with bringing a violent video game system into my house without asking my permission first?”

  Oliver shrugs. “Would you have said yes?”

  “No!”

  “I rest my case.” He grins. “Besides, we’re not playing Call of Duty, Emma. We’re just boxing. It’s a sport.”

  “An Olympic sport,” Jacob adds.

  Oliver tosses his remote to Theo. “Take over for me,” he instructs, and he walks me into the kitchen. “So how was your errand?”

  “It was …” I start to answer but become distracted by the state of the kitchen. I missed it when I first ran through, trying to find the source of