Page 63 of Good Days Bad Days

I hold back a groan. “You’re moving her home? Dad, she’s gonna flip when she sees the stuff is gone, and then she’ll start hoarding again. Don’t let them fix the house only to have it ruined again.”

“This is the clearest I’ve seen her in a long time, and these bursts are happening less and less frequently. I want her to be somewhere familiar when things really go downhill. I want her to spend her final days in our home.”

“You really do love her a pathological amount,” I say, envious he never loved me that way.

“I do love her. I do. And I know we failed you as parents, Lottie, but I tried. I swear I tried. Not hard enough, but I did. Back then, the social worker arranged a hard clean of the house, and they started to do exactly what Dino’s doing now.

But halfway through, your mom had a total breakdown, and I was afraid . . .”

“Afraid of what, Dad?” It’s hard to imagine something more terrible than losing his child.

He bites at a hangnail and then rubs a thin spot on his jeans. “You don’t know this, but my mom took her own life after my brother died.” I slide back a bit, shocked by the revelation. “And your mom—well, remember how Dino said that’s common for people dealing with your mom’s affliction?”

“Wait, your mom was a hoarder too?”

“No. No. Not at all. But I knew what it was like to lose someone that way,” he says, being careful not to say the words hoarder or suicide.

“I was afraid of it happening again. You were safe in foster care, and whenever I talked to you—you said you were happy and fine. I thought . . . I thought a different family would be better for you, at least until your mother got better.”

“I was lying,” I say, sadness swelling in my throat and tears burning my eyes.

“I wanted to go home. I prayed for it and begged for it every single day until I turned eighteen. Then I realized—you weren’t coming back and so I had to let you go.

I had to let my hope go. I wasn’t OK. I don’t think I’m OK now, believe it or not,” I add with sarcasm.

Nothing about my behavior lately seems like that of a totally stable woman.

“I see that now, but your mother read your book. I told her not to, I thought you’d say something about how you were raised or about the house and your mother and me. As much as it would’ve hurt to read those sad truths, I think it hurt her worse to be erased.”

“I was erased, Dad. You both erased me from your lives. For what? For a house full of junk? I never wanted to be like her, so I used to throw everything out if I’d had it longer than a year or two.

I did the same with relationships, ditching them before they could do it to me.

And then my own kid—I let her go live with her dad without putting up a fight. Turned out like you guys after all.”

Greg’s brow furrows. He pats my head and gives me his signature shoulder squeeze.

“Oh, honey. No. You’re not like us—at least, not in that way.

You have to understand that your mom had a reason for being like that with the house.

” He refers to her hoarding disorder in generalities again.

“You saw her books and her show. Every woman who watched her show wanted to be her, and every man wanted to marry her. She was all that, until . . .” He glances at Betty, who is completely absorbed in the TV show.

I think I know what he’s going to say. It’s starting to make sense, at least a little.

“The thing with Laura?” I ask, bringing up the topic of my sister again.

“Yes,” he replies, pausing again to ensure Betty’s not listening. “It was a fire. It burned her house to the ground and took her husband and baby with it. A . . . a furnace malfunction.”

I raise a skeptical eyebrow. “I heard something far more—upsetting,” I go on to share what Taylor, the waitress, told me and then ask, “Is that what it was? Murder?”

Greg’s face is pale, and he looks miserable, as if an ancient worm lodged in his stomach is trying to climb its way up through his esophagus and into the light.

He peeks over at my mom and then back at me and blinks slowly, staring at the speckled hospital tile as he finally—finally puts my desires in front of my mother’s.

“She called me the night it happened, crying and asking for my help. Her husband was a real piece of work—my old boss at WQRX—and I knew he was bad news. Your mom and I were . . . close. So, I drove to Janesville, but when I got there, the whole place was on fire and she was the only survivor.”

“Did they conduct an investigation?”

“Yup. Never found any evidence against her. Don and the baby died from the smoke, and Betty was only spared ’cause she was waiting outside for me to arrive.

But it was in all the papers. She lost everything, her family, her house, her job.

She got me, which doesn’t seem like a fair trade on her part.

” He lets out an odd kind of chuckle at the self-deprecating comment.

“But when we started over, I couldn’t bear to ask her what really happened that night.

I just couldn’t. Whenever it came up, she’d freeze or break down and—why dig it up?

Why make her relive it all? I simply wanted to fix her life at that point, start over.

We built the house. Got married. Then you came around, and it all seemed good.

At first it was a bag or two of supplies, a box of clothes she’d bought or made.

Then it started to get out of control, like a snowball rolling down a hill, and then it was too late and—we lost you, too. ”

His voice cracks and he wipes at his nose with his shirtsleeve.

I wonder how long he’s been holding this inside.

I have to give him credit, as basic and trusting as his retelling is, it’s also the most open I’ve ever seen him.

He’s obviously been wearing blinders for so long that he’s lost the ability to see clearly, but the fact that he’s trying helps.

I tilt my head and cautiously ask the question that’s been tickling the tip of my tongue.

“But what if she did it? What if she did start the fire? Were you ever worried that she’d—”

My dad starts to answer, but Betty interjects.

“I didn’t start any fire.”

“I know, dear. I know,” he says, moving to her side, patting her arm lightly, clearly mortified she’s heard our conversation.

“Stop fussing over me for a minute so I can be heard,” she snaps, waving him away, and Greg listens, as always.

He steps back, folding his arms and leaning against the darkened windows on the far side of the room where he watches as I slide the stool to the head of the bed.

Her eyes are clear and focused as she speaks.

“I didn’t kill them. I didn’t kill Don, and I didn’t kill my baby,” she says, her voice growing warbly when she mentions her firstborn child. My father flinches like he wants to comfort her again, but I raise my hand, urging him to let her finish.

I take her hand in mine and she continues.

“My husband came home that day, and he was drunk, drunk and mad, mad and drunk. I’d seen him that way before, he was like that more and more since the baby and . . . and . . .” She trails off, seemingly losing her train of thought.

“Don. He came home from work the day of the fire,” I remind her, and she starts again.

“Oh, yes. Don. He was tall but not as tall as Greg. Greg’s a boy I work with—a kind man, good with tools,” she says.

For a split second, I can envision him as a young man: a handsome, scrawny guy with big hands, curly hair, and a nervous smile.

“That night Don and I fought because he wanted to leave town and leave our house.” She closes her eyes and winces as if she’s replaying the argument behind her eyelids.

“I went to bed. I woke up in the dark and . . . and there was a strange smell in the house.”

“The fire?” I ask.

“No, no. This was a different smell. This was . . .” She opens her eyes, fear evident in them.

“Exhaust. Car exhaust. I ran to the garage and I found him in the car. It was running. I opened the automatic door and dragged him out. He was still breathing just fine. He confessed that he was in trouble at work, and he thought this would solve things. I could get the life insurance instead of a husband in prison for whatever it was he’d done.

” She brushes the detail aside as if it’s nothing and then focuses in closely.

“He was fine—worked up and still a bit drunk, but fine. I made him coffee and sat him on the couch. I went to check on the baby to make sure the outburst hadn’t woken her, and . . .”

Betty explodes, not into her usual fit of anger, but into a sorrowful flood of tears.

Greg rushes across the room to her side and I can’t stop him this time.

He sits next to her on the bed, his arm around her, dabbing at her tears, shushing her sobs.

He gives me a pleading look asking me to let her be done.

“Of course,” I say, emotional myself at my mother’s retelling of Laura’s last night on this earth, but as I start to pull away, she shakes my hand to get my attention. The eagerness in her eyes tells me that it’s not me forcing her. Betty finally wants to tell her story.

I give her a reassuring squeeze.

“The garage was below the nursery,” she says, sniffling but stable.

My father stays by her side, the look on his face telling me he’s never heard this part of the story before.

“Somehow, maybe bad insulation or another flaw in the building was to blame, but when Don tried to take his own life—the exhaust had risen up into the room above it and taken my little Laura instead.”

I inhale sharply. What a tragedy. What a horrible, horrible loss. What a—totally valid reason to lose your ever-loving mind and burn shit down. I lean in, eager to know what happened next.

“I tried to get her to breathe, but she wouldn’t.

Then Don tried, and he couldn’t either. He screamed and screamed, and I had to run away from his screaming or it was going to shatter my mind into a million pieces.

I called Greg, asked him to come, and went outside to wait for him, but while I was sitting on the front porch, I smelled something new.

This was not exhaust. This was burning. This was fire.

I went to open the door to go inside and get Don and Laura, but the handle was already red hot, and I knew there was no way to get in.

I ran to a neighbor’s house and called the fire department, but by the time they got there—it was too late. It was all gone.”

She finishes the story, holding up her bandaged hand as though she’d just burned it on a superheated doorknob and starts to cry again.

I release her other hand and step away as she turns into my father, burying her face into his chest. He pats her arm, soothing her gently, whispering sweet words to her that I try not to listen to, feeling like an interloper.

“Promise you’ll stay,” she begs my dad. “Promise.”

“Of course I will, darling. Shhh. Shhh,” he replies, curling his body around hers, murmuring, “I didn’t know. You never told me.”

In the hallway, I find a nurse and explain Betty’s emotional state. A few minutes later they add a sedative to her IV, and soon she begins to drift off to sleep. I gather my belongings and stand by the door, waiting for my dad to notice so I can say goodbye.

He’ll stay here tonight, probably until she’s ready to return to Shore Path, which means the project at the house will be on hold for a few days. That’s just enough time for Ian and me to get up to speed and make a few important decisions.

“I’m sorry,” I say to my dad when he looks up, hoping the apology covers all the mistakes I’ve made since I stepped foot in Wisconsin.

“It’s all right. We’re all right,” he says calmly, chant-like, rubbing large circles on Betty’s back.

Though Greg Laramie stayed by Betty’s side without needing to know what happened, I like to imagine he’s grateful to know the truth—or at least what this version of Betty claims is the truth.

I can search records to confirm her story the best I can, but even with that, I don’t think we’ll ever really know for certain.

But I got enough of what I needed today.

My father cracked open his locked door just a little and whispered to me from inside, and my mom, she gave me a tiny glimpse into the tragic origin of her compulsion to hoard.

It’s likely she won’t remember this in the morning—she won’t remember him or me or even why she’s in the hospital. But I’ll never forget the sight of my father holding my mother as she weeps for the daughter she lost to death while talking to the other daughter she lost to life.

As I’m about to slip out of the room, I hesitate. I watch my father tenderly kiss my mother’s cheeks and pet her hair, and suddenly I see them as they once were: young, broken, and living this life like we all do—without instructions.

I rush across the tiled floor and lean down to kiss Betty on her head, just like I used to do with Olivia when she was younger, and as Betty did with me when I was a little girl, feeling a sense of coming full circle in this moment.

As I walk into the waiting room where Ian and Olivia are sitting, I’m grateful not only for all I’ve gained as I’ve faced the pain of my past but also for all that I’ve started to purge.

Sometimes I forget that the first step of renovation is demolition.

It’s not easy to look trauma in the eye and have a conversation with it, but I’m learning it might be the only way to not become captive in a prison of your own making.

We are not healed by any means, not me and my parents or me and Ian or even me and Olivia, but one month ago I thought our family was too damaged to repair. And now I think maybe we’re finally ready to try and put the pieces back together—one truth at a time.