Chloe Noland

The Visit

He often pretended that his aunt was his mother. In fact, by the time he was twelve or so he half-wondered if it were true. He didn’t know what the game was about, why they refused to tell him the truth. He was clearly her son.

            But then, Dorian would think, sitting at the kitchen table, trying not to muss the crinkly blue paper on top, did that mean Mateo was his father? He hoped not. He hated Mateo, who stomped through the kitchen on his way out to the garage, squeezing through the narrow room to glare contemptuously at him and Aunt Ruth, where they sat in a pale triangle of sunlight at the table, drinking coffee out of Christmas mugs.

            “Is he allowed to have that?”

            “It’s fine.”

            “You’re running those chemicals back there.”

            “I know.”

            Mateo bent at the sink, fumbling with something in his greasy hands. As he worked whatever it was, massaging it through the thin stream of water, he raised his eyes to the window above the sink, as if contemplating something casually, and said: “You’re a joke, you know.”

            Ruth inclined her head stoically towards the sunlight, as if waiting for more. The silence in the kitchen was calm, almost soothing, with the drip of the water in the sink and a bird cawing inanely outside. Dorian could feel the blood moving in his neck. Mateo turned the drip off and walked curtly to the back door, shutting it behind him.

            Aunt Ruth leaned forward to add more from the coffee pot to Dorian’s cup. Several sheets of negatives were spread across the surface of the table. She’d been about to let him pick his favorites.

            Dorian used the little eyepiece for looking at the negatives, moving it down the glossy page like a detective searching for clues. She told him it was a called a ‘loupe,’ saying it like ‘loop.’ He wouldn’t remember later. The photos bloomed up in his hand, real and magnified. The shadowy corner of each negative implied a world beyond its borders, of hidden subjects just out of the frame. Dorian felt that he was right up against the edges of this strange place, the world created by her camera, tracing it with the eyepiece. He lingered on one photo for a moment, where a gray layer of fog implied water, figures in the distance, a sense of dread. Dorian didn’t know for what, feeling it nonetheless.

            His aunt could often tell what moved him. She tapped the negative with a finger.

            “I’ll take you there,” she said, smiling in a way which terrified and thrilled him.

            They had hotdogs for lunch, boiled on the stove. Aunt Ruth had hers with lots of relish. Scalding cups of peppermint tea. Dorian’s mouth was burning, the bread soggy in his cheek, laughing as she did her impression of Fire Marshall Bill.

            “Son, does your father always smoke a pipe?” She clapped him on the shoulder, grimacing, inquisitive while wild-eyed. Her teeth were tucked over her top lip, creating a sucking effect. “Pipes, cigarettes, are the number one cause of domestic fires!”

Mateo, who was ostensibly still out in the garage, seemed a million miles away now. They had the small house to themselves, which held the cold in during winter and the heat during the summer. It was fall now, his favorite time of year. Back then it seemed like the leaves always changed on time, and the cool weather dropped unceremoniously, without difficulty.

Dorian followed his aunt down the dim hallway, the smell of fixer tingling his nostrils. She’d commandeered the hall closet to be her darkroom. Nobody was ever allowed inside, and Dorian pictured all kinds of things: experiments with various compounds, soft explosions, layers wiped away and painted back on. Aunt Ruth, standing before her cauldron of chemicals, drawing out the pain of her subjects, transforming it into something she could use. He often wondered if her work was for good or evil, if she would ever let him be a part of it. Maybe one day she’d take his picture, and it would transform him. He had fantasies about such things.

Now, she turned left at the bathroom and went into the bedroom. Dorian had never been allowed in their bedroom before, and was immediately nervous to be in what he recognized as Mateo’s territory. But his aunt was motioning him forward, to sit next to her on the floor by the bed. He did so, and she pulled a shoebox out from underneath the faded dust ruffle.

Inside were black and white prints in various sizes. They spread them over the carpet, Dorian touching things that he liked, that scared him, that seemed important. Aunt Ruth watched, and helped him sort them into piles.

“There are two worlds,” she told him, as they sat there in the quiet bedroom, moving the pictures around on the floor. “Theirs—and yours.”

Dorian nodded; this made perfect sense to him. Outside they could hear a woodpecker drilling shrilly.

“Don’t spend too much time in either,” she said, pushing a photo towards him with her index finger. “Because they’ll both drive you mad.”

Later, putting on his coat, he could hear Mateo talking to his aunt in a low tone in the kitchen. She believed he’d already gone out to the car.

“—No need for it,” he hissed. “It’s just so you can look on your handiwork and gloat.”

“I’m not proud of it.” Her voice was still, unwavering, as if practiced for years in front of someone who terrified her.

“Yes, you are. I see it.”

Silence. And in the silence, a strained kind of tightening, like a fist around cloth.

When Dorian walked into the kitchen, Mateo had his aunt backed against the wall. His hands were around her throat, and her mouth was open, a fish sputtering in complete silence. He’d never seen anything like it. For some reason he focused on the pale yellow wallpaper she leaned against, her hair fanning across it, and the sleeves of her plaid worker’s shirt which were large and double refolded. Her arm was out at an odd angle to fight him, straining against the faded sleeve.

When they heard him, Mateo turned, dropping his arms, and his aunt slumped against the wall, free. They both looked horribly embarrassed.

“Dorian,” she said breathily, her hand on her chest. She suppressed a cough. “What are you doing?”

Mateo, who’d been staring at the boy, turned back to her.

“Happy now?” He sneered. And stomped past Dorian, standing like a ghost in the doorway, for the back bedroom.

“Don’t worry,” his aunt said to him. Standing against the wall, rubbing her neck and smiling in a half-hearted way, like she only found the joke sort of funny. There was an uncharacteristic tone of self-reproach in her voice that he’d remember for the rest of his life. As if the entire thing had been her idea.