The Space Between Knocks

By six o’clock, Judith had filled twelve boxes and accomplished almost nothing.

The dining room was bare except for the chandelier and the pale rectangles on the walls where her mother’s pictures had hung. Without them, the room looked larger and somehow embarrassed, like someone caught undressed.

Judith carried another box into the kitchen and dropped it beside the others. Ava’s name was written across the top in black marker.

“Of course,” she muttered.

Inside were two high school yearbooks, a ceramic horse with one ear, the entire Flowers in the Attic book series, three cassette tapes and the blue ribbon Ava had won at a sixth-grade science fair for proving something about bean plants that Judith could no longer remember.

Judith picked up the books and shook her head. “Well, this explains a lot.”

She took a picture of the box and texted it to her sister.

Found more of your crap. I’ll keep it for you. You’re welcome.

She took a picture of the box and texted it to her sister.

Found more of your crap. Will keep it for you. You’re welcome.

Three dots appeared, disappeared and then appeared again.

Finally they vanished. Then came, “No, please. Don’t exhaust yourself.”

Judith set the phone facedown, pinching the bridge of her nose and shaking her head.

Outside, rain had begun stippling the kitchen windows. The forecast had called for showers, but the sky had darkened quickly, pressing against the glass until the familiar backyard looked farther away than it should have.

She opened the silverware drawer and stopped because her mother’s reading glasses were inside.

Judith picked them up by one arm. For one stupid second, she thought, She’s going to be looking for these. Then her throat tightened.

“Jesus, Mom.” She put the glasses back exactly where she’d found them, closed the drawer, then opened it again.

That was when she called Ava.

Ava answered on the fifth ring. “You know there’s a three-hour time difference, right?”

Judith looked automatically at the large wooden clock above the stove, though it had stopped at 2:17 sometime during the Reagan administration. Then she peered at her watch and grimaced. “It’s six-thirty.”

“For you.”

“Oh.” Judith leaned against the kitchen counter. “Well, you’re awake.”

“I am now.”

Despite herself, Judith smiled.

Ava answered on the fifth ring. “You know there’s a three-hour time difference, right?”

Judith looked automatically at the large wooden clock above the stove, though it had stopped at 2:17 sometime during the Reagan administration. Then she peered at her watch and grimaced. “It’s six-thirty.”

“For you.”

“Oh.” Judith leaned against the kitchen counter. “Well, you’re awake.”

“I am now.”

Despite herself, Judith smiled.

Rain ticked against the window over the sink. For a moment neither of them spoke.

“How’s it going?” Ava asked.

Judith looked around the kitchen. Two cabinet doors stood open. Their mother’s chipped yellow colander sat on the floor beside a cardboard box marked DONATE. On the table were three stacks Judith had been rearranging for most of the afternoon: KEEP, THROW AWAY, and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I CAN’T THROW THIS AWAY.

“Great,” she said. “I’ve narrowed Mom’s entire existence down to thirty-seven boxes and a gravy boat.”

“That gravy boat is hideous.”

“You remember it?”

“I have eyes. Even if they’re not stardust blue like yours.”

Judith rolled her eyes. “Oh, let it go.”

“I have let it go. Completely. I barely remember Mom introducing you as ‘my blue-eyed girl’ for the first eighteen years of my life.”

“It was twenty.”

“Thank you for making my point.”

Judith laughed, and the laugh surprised her. It came out too loudly in the empty kitchen and disappeared into the rooms beyond it. “You could have come, you know.”

There it was.

Ava was quiet. Judith picked at a loose corner of the countertop.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well, I’m here by myself, Ava.”

“I know.”

“Going through both our things. Talking to the realtor. Meeting the junk people. Figuring out what to do with forty years of National Geographics because apparently throwing away the 1987 issue about the Amazon would have been a crime against humanity.”

“Mom liked to be prepared.”

“For what? The return of 1987?”

Ava laughed this time, but Judith didn’t. “I could have used some help.”

The rain seemed suddenly louder.

“I know,” Ava said again.

“Then why didn’t you come?”

Ava breathed into the phone. “Because I already left that house once.”

Judith stopped picking at the counter.“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it means.”

“No, it doesn’t. You always do that. You say something dramatic and then make everybody else figure out what the hell you’re talking about.”

“And you always make a joke right before you say something backhanded.”

Judith straightened. “I wasn’t taking a shot at you.”

“I know.”

“You just said I was.”

“I said you do it right before.”

For several seconds, all Judith could hear was rain and Ava breathing three thousand miles away. Then, somewhere behind her—

Knock.

Judith turned.

Knock.

Knock.

Her hand tightened around the phone.

“What?” Ava said.

Judith stared toward the hallway. “Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

“The pipes.”

“What pipes?”

“The pipes made a noise.”

Ava didn’t answer. Judith pushed herself away from the counter. “Do you remember,” she said slowly, “when we used to knock on the wall?”

Another silence. This one was different.

“Ava?”

“I remember.”

“When there were storms.”

“I remember, Jude.”

Judith walked toward the hallway. “Three knocks.”

“I said I remember.”

Something in Ava’s voice stopped her.

“Why are you saying it like that?”

“Because I don’t want to do this tonight.”

“Do what?”

“Turn her into someone she wasn’t just because she’s dead.” Judith felt the words physically.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I said we used to knock on the wall. Jesus Christ, Ava.”

“No. You said we. We didn’t.”

Judith stood very still. Rainwater streamed down the dark window beside the front door. “What are you talking about?”

“You knocked.”

Judith said nothing.

“When you got scared,” Ava continued. Her voice had softened. “You’d knock on the wall. Three times.”

“And Mom knocked back.”

Sometimes, Judith thought she heard Ava whisper.

“What?”

“I said sometimes.”

Judith closed her eyes. She could see the bedroom suddenly. Not as it looked now, stripped of furniture and smelling faintly of plaster, but yellow. The wallpaper had tiny white flowers. Her stuffed rabbit had one ear. Lightning would illuminate the whole room for an instant and then leave it darker than before.

Three little knocks.

Are you there?

Three in return.

I’m here.

“She came,” Judith whispered.

“I know.”

“She did.”

“I know, Jude.”

“Then why are you making it sound like she didn’t?”

“Because sometimes she came. And sometimes I did.”

Judith opened her eyes. “What?”

“When Mom didn’t answer.”

The house seemed to shift around her.

“I would get out of bed and knock on your wall.”

Judith stared down the hallway toward the bedrooms. “You never told me that.”

“You were little.”

“You were younger than me.”

“I know.”

That did it.

Not the death certificate. Not the hospice nurse folding their mother’s hands over the blanket. Not the funeral home or the realtor putting a red-and-white sign on the lawn of the house where Judith had learned to ride a bicycle.

Ava saying I know.

Judith slid down the wall until she was in a lump on the floor. “I miss her,” she whined.

The words came out broken.

“I know.”

“I don’t understand why.”

This time Ava didn’t answer quickly. When she did, her voice had changed. “Because you kept waiting for her to knock back.”

Judith covered her mouth.

For the first time since her mother died, she cried without trying to be quiet.