The Imperfects Read online

  “What’s this shit?” Rico asks when Jake hands him the pen, twisting it between his fingers.

  “The key to domestic bliss,” Jake says, grabbing the pen and taking an unsatisfying pull from its metal mouthpiece. The high is good, but the oil tastes like pennies and he can’t feel the smoke as he holds it in his lungs. Maybe Kristi is trying to get him to quit, after all.

  A few minutes later, Jake is waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change, pleasantly high, enjoying the final moments of natural light before he retreats into the fluorescent belly of Trader Joe’s.

  “Jake?”

  In his current state, it takes him a moment to recognize the man standing beside him at the light. It’s the cinematographer from the film Jake wrote years ago. Tim or Todd or something like that.

  “Hey...man,” Jake says, hoping the guy won’t realize that Jake can’t remember his name. “It’s been forever.”

  “You’re telling me. What have you been up to? Working on anything new?” Ted Sullivan, Jake remembers suddenly, who won a Spirit Award for Jake’s film. Last Jake heard he was shooting a new Marvel movie.

  “Just this and that,” Jake says, and Ted nods eagerly until he notices Jake’s Hawaiian shirt. Even without his nametag, it’s obviously a Trader Joe’s uniform.

  “Cool.” Ted draws out the word before falling silent. Jake prays for the light to change as cars continue to race down Hyperion Avenue.

  Conversations such as these notwithstanding, Jake enjoys working at Trader Joe’s. The register is his favorite. He loves talking to everyone who passes through his lane, learning how to spatchcock a chicken or about the mystical benefits of organic pomegranate seeds. In the past, he would have viewed the customers as potential characters—the cheery newlywed who buys sunflowers each morning, the waifish actress who slips a bag of jalapeno cheese crisps on the counter, the elderly man who pays in bills that have been folded into origami cats—but Jake barely thinks about writing anymore. Only at times like these, when he runs into someone from his past or when his older sister, Ashley, the only family member besides Helen who still speaks to him, carefully asks him if it’s time to try writing again. Kristi never pressures him, despite his failure to fulfill the promise he’d had of the up-and-coming screenwriter when they’d met.

  Kristi. Her name hits him with a pang of guilt when he remembers what she told him this morning. Well, not told him so much as barked at him, “I’m pregnant, you idiot,” before leaving for the veterinary clinic where she works as a technician. He’d only been teasing when he’d found her huddled over the toilet and asked if she’d one too many chardonnays. How was he supposed to know she was puking for more natural reasons? After she left, he returned to bed, staring at the crack along their ceiling. He and Kristi have been together for two years and have never talked about having kids, even though they are at the age where every couple either has kids or has at least discussed it. Every couple except Jake and Kristi, so obvious is the impossibility of their raising a child together.

  The light finally changes and Ted waves goodbye as he steps into the crosswalk. Jake remains on the curb, letting Ted get a comfortable distance ahead, as he tries to relax his spiraling mind. Reality is ruining his high.

  As he steps into the crosswalk, his phone buzzes.

  Helen is dead.

  He freezes in the middle of the road, rereading those three words blazing on his screen. Helen is dead. They become a strange configuration of curved lines and circles that he cannot decipher. Helen is dead? He spoke to her last week. She’d called him from the hardware store to ask if there was any difference between generic triple-A batteries and Energizer. She often called him with questions that she could have asked the clerk or the waiter or the librarian but preferred to ask Jake.

  One horn wails, then another. Jake’s eyes drift toward the line of drivers, waving for him to move. Someone shouts, “Get out of the way, asshole.”

  Holding his phone, Jake jogs to the parking lot, head foggy and mind on loop.

  Helen is dead?

  * * *

  The email the Millers receive is from Beck, who, at thirty-five, is Helen’s youngest grandchild. Not Rebecca or Becky or Becca, except to her grandmother, but a curt, efficient Beck that suits her personality. She’s the only Miller that still lives in Philadelphia, the closest to Helen, the next of kin. At least, she was the closest to Helen until a few days ago, when she arrived at Helen’s house on Edgehill Road to find the front door ajar. It was supposed to start snowing again, and Beck had wanted to make sure that Helen’s fridge was stocked. Right away, she knew something was wrong. Helen was standing in the middle of her spare living room, ranting to herself in German. Helen never spoke German. She’d renounced the language when she immigrated to America.

  Alarmed, Beck placed the bag of groceries on the coffee table and tiptoed over to her grandmother, who stared vacantly into the fireplace. When Beck lived in this house as a teenager, her grandmother would light a fire every time it snowed. Beck and Helen would bundle on the couch, watching reruns of Murder She Wrote and adding logs to the fire. A few years later, when Beck went to college, the chimney cracked and was deemed structurally unsound. The fireplace hadn’t been lit in decades.

  Beck touched Helen’s shoulder, alarmed at how frail it was.

  “Helen? You okay?”

  Helen didn’t react, just kept muttering to herself in German. Beck listened for familiar words. She just heard a string of harsh inflections, one syllable repeated like a chant: brush, brush, brush with a slight roll of the r.

  Helen had always been remarkably lucid, recounting spots along the Danube where she swam as a child and annual visits to the Wiener Staatsoper because her father loved the opera. She’d recall legal cases Beck had worked on better than Beck did, conversations about warehouse parties that Beck had been to in high school, parties she couldn’t believe she’d detailed to Helen. Before that day, Helen had never appeared remotely senile.

  “Helen,” Beck said louder. She debated calling her Grandma. The Millers rarely called Helen Grandma. They never called Deborah Mom, and both were fitting. Helen was more than a grandmother; Deborah was less than a mom.

  Helen turned toward Beck, eyes unfocused, white hair loose around her weathered face. Helen always painted her cheeks red, her lips fuchsia, always dressed in slacks and a blouse, even on days when she wasn’t expecting to see anyone. Yet here she was: face bare, body cloaked in a pink bathrobe, feet disappearing inside plush slippers.

  “You.” Helen approached Beck, standing close enough that Beck could smell the staleness of her breath. “You took it. My brrrush.”

  “Shh,” Beck whispered. “It’s okay. I brought lunch from the deli.”

  “What’d you do with it?” Helen demanded in her faint accent.

  “It’s right there.” Beck pointed to the grocery bag on the coffee table.

  Helen grabbed the bag, throwing the food on the floor.

  “Stop that!” Beck bent down to pick up the sandwiches.

  “It’s not there. Where’d you put it?”

  “Please, Helen. Let’s sit down. I’ll get you a glass of water.” She tried to guide Helen toward the couch, but the old woman was surprisingly strong and Beck didn’t want to hurt her.

  “Diebin!” Helen shouted. “You thief.”

  “Helen, you’re scaring me.”

  “I want you out.”

  “You’re being absurd.” Beck dropped to the couch, the old cushions giving with her weight, metal springs digging into her thighs.

  “Absurd? For not wanting a thief in my house? My own flesh and blood, who steals from me?”

  “Steals from you? I brought you liverwurst, on rye. What kind of thief brings lunch?”

  Helen crossed her arms against her chest. “You’ve been a cheater since high school.” Helen’s gaze raked over Beck. �
�And all those tattoos, like some sort of criminal.”

  Beck looked at the faded robin on her right forearm, the pyramid on her left, focus in block letters on the underside of her wrist. Helen had always been intrigued by her tattoos, asking Beck to tell her why a bell jar was so important she had to graft it onto her ankle. Although Helen went to schul on high holidays and lit candles every Sabbath, she didn’t have the same stance on tattoos that most European Jews her age did.

  Helen opened the front door, letting in a blast of cold air. “Get out of my house.”

  Beck’s body tensed as she remained seated. They were at an impasse, one Beck didn’t understand.

  Finally, when it was clear Beck wouldn’t budge, Helen began to shout that word over and over again—brrrush, brrrush—until Beck started to worry that a neighbor might call the cops, might take Helen away, deciding a woman in her nineties—none of the Millers was certain how old Helen was—shouldn’t be living alone.

  Beck stood and smoothed her jeans. “You win. I’ll go.”

  She fought for Helen’s flushed cheek, giving her a gentle peck before she left. As she waited on the curb for her Lyft, she kicked at a hard, blackened pile of snow. Periodically she turned toward the house, wishing the curtains weren’t drawn so she could see inside. When the car pulled up, Beck hopped into the backseat, unable to hold back the tears any longer.

  Beck wasn’t sure what to do. When she got home, she looked up the German word from Helen’s feverish outburst—brush, which Google informed her was spelled brosche. Brooch. Right away, the story came together for Beck. For unclear reasons, Helen thought Beck had taken some brooch she’d misplaced or possibly hadn’t owned for years. Beck tried to remember any notable jewelry Helen had owned. She wore clip-on earrings, a thin, gold chain around her neck. No brooch.

  “Maybe it’s time to put her in a home,” Ashley, the eldest and wealthiest Miller sibling, had suggested when Beck called. That was always Ashley’s first impulse, to throw money at a problem.

  “Absolutely not. Helen would rather die than be put in a home.”

  “It’s not up to her.”

  “It’s not up to you, either.”

  It was up to Ashley, ultimately. Ashley would pay for the home, and with the checkbook came the final say. Everything Ashley would have selected, somewhere near her in Westchester with nutritionists and higher thread counts than any sheets Helen had ever slept on, would have been the opposite of what Helen would have wanted. It was why, of the Miller children, Ashley was the least close to their grandmother—not because she was the oldest and had lived the shortest period of time with Helen, but because they never understood each other. Helen liked a modest life; Ashley had run as fast as she could from it.

  “Don’t take it out on me. I’m worried about her, too,” Ashley said.

  Beck knew the appropriate response was to apologize, but it was easy for Ashley, two states away in New York, to worry.

  “We’re not sending her to a home.”

  “Do you want me to come down?” Ashley asked. “No, wait, Ty has his last indoor soccer tournament of the season this weekend. I could drive down Sunday, once it’s over. I’d probably only be able to stay until nine or so. I have to get the kids to school in the morning.”

  Ashley did have a husband, perfectly capable of cheering from the stands and buttering toast, but Ryan was never the type to make the bed or bag lunches, even before they had children. Beck liked Ryan. Although a large man, he was unimposing, happy to follow along with whatever activities the Millers had planned, so long as it didn’t interfere with college football.

  “Maybe I can see if the kids can do a sleepover next weekend.”

  “Ash, it’s fine.” Beck waited for Ashley to fight her on this.

  “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  Disappointed, Beck briefly considered calling Deborah, who lived an hour away in New Hope, but decided not to. If anyone knew how to make a bad situation worse, it was her mother. It did not even occur to her to call Jake, all the way on the west coast, despite his closeness with Helen. Once again, Beck was left alone to take care of their grandmother.

  Beck repeatedly called Helen, trying to explain the misunderstanding, to get her grandmother to realize she would never steal from her. Each time, Helen would hang up on Beck or, if she was feeling indulgent, call Beck a diebin—a thief—which sounded crueler in German than it did in English. Beck wanted to confide in her ex-boyfriend, Tom, a partner at the firm where Beck worked as a paralegal. If they’d still been together, he would have stroked her hair as he told her to give Helen a little space. Soon enough, she’d realize her mistake. But Tom had dumped Beck a few weeks ago. Now, instead of finding excuses to walk by his office, she hibernates in her cubicle. This is exactly what’s she’s doing when she gets the phone call about Helen.

  * * *

  At 2:36 p.m., Beck receives a call from a 610 number she doesn’t recognize. She intends to silence her phone, then hesitates, intuition compelling her to answer.

  “Becca, is that you?” a vaguely familiar voice asks. Becca. Only Helen calls her Becca.

  “Who’s this?” Beck asks more firmly than she intends. She hasn’t been sleeping well since Tom left.

  “Becca, it’s Esther.” When the name doesn’t immediately register, Esther adds, “Helen’s neighbor.”

  “Oh, hi, Esther.” Beck is too confused to intuit where the conversation is headed. Her finger traces the robin tattooed onto her forearm, its red crest fading to orange. “Did Helen ask you to call me?”

  The typing of the other paralegals reverberates in Beck’s ears as Esther breathes into the receiver.

  “Esther?” Beck asks, worry creeping in. “What’s going on?”

  “Helen didn’t show up for our bridge game yesterday. Or our walk this morning. I went by her house, but she isn’t answering.”

  And with those swift words, with the panic in Esther’s voice, the fight with Helen fades away.

  “I’ll be right over.” Beck puts on her coat before she’s even hung up the phone.

  Beck peeks over the top of her cubicle toward Tom’s office. His light is on, and she dashes in the opposite direction toward the HR office, knocking on the frame of Karen’s open door.

  Karen looks up when she finds Beck standing there, clearly rattled. She’s a no-nonsense middle-aged woman with a heavy South Philly accent—wudder not water, beg-el instead of bagel, tal never towel—and the look of pity Karen casts at Beck is so out of character it makes Beck even more uncomfortable around Karen than she’s already been feeling. After they broke up, Tom had insisted they inform Karen that they’d decided to amicably part ways when it was obvious that Beck had been dumped.

  “Something’s happening with my grandmother,” Beck says, her voice catching.

  “Go,” Karen responds without hesitation.

  Beck nods and hurries out into the cold, damp afternoon.

  * * *

  “Helen,” Beck calls as she knocks on Helen’s door. She and Esther stand on the porch shaded by an oak tree that helps keep Helen’s house cool in summer and outright cold on this mid-March afternoon. A strong gust of wind pounds their sides. “Helen, are you there?” The curtains are drawn in the living room. The porch light is on, despite the brightness of the afternoon. “Helen,” Beck shouts over the roaring wind.

  Beck digs through her purse until she locates her keys. Using her hip, she pushes open the door, warped from years of hot summers with no air-conditioning. As soon as they are inside, she sees that it isn’t just the swollen wood that has caused the door to stick. A pile of mail blocks the door, and Helen’s living room has been trashed, as if a robber had ripped it apart.

  “Oh, dear,” Esther says when she sees the mess.

  “Helen,” Beck calls as she runs upstairs, pausing when she arrives at Helen’s c
losed bedroom door. Despite having lived in the house for seven years, Beck has only been in Helen’s room a handful of times. Helen locked the door every time she left, even when she was only headed down the hall to her sewing room, the key dangling from a gold chain around her neck. Today, the room is unlocked, which means one thing: Helen is inside.

  Beck cracks open the door.

  “Helen, are you there?” When there’s no answer she opens the door wider, momentarily relieved to find the bedroom smelling, as the house always does, of cigarettes, floral perfume, and mildew. Then she notices the mound beneath the bed’s pink comforter.

  Helen’s eyes are shut. Her long white hair, woven into pigtail braids, falls to either side of her unmoving shoulders. During the day, Helen twists those braids into a crown around her head. In high school, when Beck’s hair was longer, Helen would fashion it in the same style, only Beck would wind glow sticks in her crown before running off to a warehouse party with her friends. Helen would shake her head, telling Beck she looked radioactive.

  Beck sits on the bed beside her grandmother, shaking her lightly. “Helen?”

  Helen’s stiff body rocks when Beck touches her, causing Beck to bolt to the other side of the room. She thuds into the right side of the dresser, and there’s a clatter as something that was lodged behind it falls to the floor. Beck bends down to retrieve a bejeweled flower brooch. It’s surprisingly heavy, about the length of her palm. A large shield-shaped yellow crystal hangs beneath a V of smaller dark green crystals. Some of the clear rhinestones on the studded petals and sepals that surround the flower are missing, leaving empty circles of white metal in their place. An orchid, Beck thinks. Of course. Brosche.

  Oh, Helen. It was right here this whole time.

  A gasp echoes from the doorway, and Beck turns to find Esther standing at the threshold of Helen’s bedroom, hand over her mouth. Beck slips the brooch into her blazer pocket where it’s bulky against her hip. “Call 9-1-1.”