He holds the door open. “Come on in.”
I follow him in. “Do you live here?”
“Yeah. Downstairs. I man the door to get a few bucks off my rent.” He nods to a few chairs in the foyer. “Have a seat. I’ll buzz Agnes for you. What’s your name?”
“Katelyn Brooks. No. Wait. Tell her Katie Brooks.”
Aunt Agnes always called me Katie. She was the only one. Except for Jared that one time.
“She says to go on up,” the guy says a few minutes later.
I nod and follow the familiar staircase up to the second level of the brownstone. The door stands just as it did ten years ago. I knock.
The door opens. An old woman stands there. She’s gray, her hair piled into a knot on the top of her head. She’s gained weight, and her face now has wrinkles that divide her jowls like highways on a map.
But it’s Agnes.
I clear my throat. “Hello…Aunt Agnes.”
Her deep-set brown eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “Katie? Little Katie?”
Little Katie? I was eighteen the last time she saw me.
“Yes.”
“My God. We all thought…” She clasps her hand to her mouth. “But…you’re here. Why didn’t your mother call me? What happened? Where have you been?”
I could fill about ten volumes of books with the answers to her questions, and none of it is anything I want to talk about. But I came here for a reason—a reason that eludes me at the moment.
“Come in,” Aunt Agnes says. “Please. Come right in.”
I walk through the door. A golden retriever with a white mask around his pretty face sniffs at me.
“Go on, Rufus,” Aunt Agnes says.
“He’s okay. I don’t mind.” I pet his soft head.
“Old Roof is twelve years old, and he still gets up every time someone comes to the door. I wish I could say the same about your Uncle Bruno.”
“Twelve years old?” I wrinkle my forehead. “Then I should remember him.”
“No reason you should. We got him when he was four. One of Tony’s friends was moving out of state and couldn’t keep him.”
“Oh.” For some reason I feel better. For a moment I wondered if my memory had gone.
But no. I remember everything else about this place. The faux Turkish rug in the foyer, which now looks even more faded than it was. The mirror on the wall above the roll top desk. The scuffed hardwood. The living room, with the twin paintings of Jesus and Mary, and the green vinyl recliner, with Uncle Bruno still sitting in it as if he hasn’t moved in ten years. Smoking his pipe, reading the paper, watching the TV, or snoozing. He gets up only to go to meals or go to the bathroom. Oh, and he farts. Even now the methane overpowers the pipe tobacco.
But it’s the kitchen I remember most.
Is its retro décor still the same? Aqua blue and white? Does Aunt Agnes still call the refrigerator an icebox? Does she still keep canned goods in the coat closet in the hallway? I inhale. Yeah, the spicy scent of her marinara still drifts from the kitchen. Didn’t matter what was on the stove. The kitchen always smelled like tomatoes, basil, and garlic.
“Sit down, Katie. Please.” She nods toward the living room. “I’ll get us a snack.”
Instead I follow her to the kitchen and take a seat on one of the kitchen chairs. They’ve been reupholstered. They’re a blue flower print now. Not the orange and green I remember.
But the chairs are the same. Retro design again, with chrome legs.
“I have some biscotti and oatmeal raisin cookies,” Aunt Agnes says.
“No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”
A few seconds later a plate appears in front of me anyway. I pick up a cookie and take a bite. Though I expect it to taste like sawdust, cinnamon and brown sugar explode across my tongue.
Aunt Agnes was always an amazing cook. I loved her meals, especially compared to my mother’s Kraft macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper. More often it was fast food or takeout.
Macaroni and cheese. That was what Aunt Agnes truly did better than anyone. I couldn’t stomach the Kraft stuff after tasting hers.
Aunt Agnes sits a glass of milk in front of me as well. I take a sip. Mmm. Whole milk, probably still delivered in glass bottles.
I feel like I’ve entered a time warp back to the 1950s.
“Katie.” Aunt Agnes sits next to me. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”
“I will,” I say.
It’s not a total lie. I’ll tell her a few things. “But first, where are Tony and Jared?”
Aunt Agnes’s face falls.
Bad news? Couldn’t happen to two nicer guys. Though I feel for Aunt Agnes. She can’t help it that her sons are derelicts.
“Oh, Katie.” She shakes her head. “Tony’s incarcerated at Atticus. And Jared…” Her eyes glaze over. “My Jared took his own life ten years ago.”