Nicotine by Nell Zink Page B

nails on his boot heels click as he stumbles down the stairs.
    PENNY LIES FOR A LONG time on the rug—even after Patrick gets up and goes in search of a beer. Seeing Matt approaching, she rises and returns to the drum circle. Now it is reduced to its stubborn kernel, Norm’s closest living associates. The older men play complex patterns softly. The older women crouch, shuffle, smile.
    The sky begins to grow light. At the circle’s eccentric center, by the fire, Penny dances. Her body rocks, feet almost still, shells clacking as her hair sways. She feels entirely significant, as though she could be no one else and nowhere else—like nothing else matters, like a pilgrim in Jerusalem. Songbirds arc through the clearing, and sparks and ashhang in the air, discoloring her dress, burning holes. She looks at her feet. In the gray soil that bears her weight, mixed with spent embers and churned by the stomping, she can see Norm’s dead face.
    When the sun breaks the horizon, she breaks down, the way she imagined. She screams her premeditated grief. It is Norm’s howl of desire to go home. A long roar. But it is not cathartic. Instead of going out of her, the howl goes in—a long shard of something broken, straight into her broken heart.
    She stops dancing. She goes upstairs, undresses, and falls asleep in lukewarm bathwater. Amalia finds her there and puts her to bed.
    THE FOLLOWING EVENING, WHEN THE guests have all left, Amalia explains her position to her child and stepchildren. “By the laws of the State of New Jersey, your father’s property goes to me. I think it’s the fair way. You are young, hard workers. I’m an old lady. Time for me to think about the future.”
    Matt and Patrick—both older than Amalia—shift their weight on the hard padded benches that line the kitchen. “I don’t think that’s accurate,” Matt says. “Though I certainly wouldn’t pressure you to sell the house right when the market is taking off. By law, you get twenty-five percent up to two hundred thousand, and fifty percent thereafter.”
    â€œI don’t begrudge you one dime,” Patrick says. “You were there for Dad all those years. Come on! I was in New Caledonia! I’m still there. I’m doing fine. I can wait to inherit whatever there is to inherit, whenever .”
    â€œBeginning with this beautiful place,” Amalia says. “We all have free use of it, of course! But it will be nice if it stays together. I could never support seeing it cut up.”
    â€œYou couldn’t pay me enough to subdivide this property or let it leave the family,” Patrick says.
    â€œSince I’m unemployed and just got evicted,” Penny ventures, “maybe I could stay here?”
    â€œIt was the boys’ mother’s house,” Amalia says. “I can’t give it to you.”
    â€œI don’t want to run off with it,” Penny says. “Just sleep here.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with Morristown?” Amalia asks. “You could help me take care of the house. Mow the lawn.”
    â€œI’m out of college. I don’t want to move home. Please?”
    â€œWhat about the house in Jersey City?” Matt says.
    Patrick and Amalia look at him critically.
    â€œWhat house?” Penny asks.
    â€œGrandma and Grandpa’s house, where Dad grew up,” Matt says. “We could finally unload it. Penny could stay there for a while and hold the fort.”
    â€œI never heard of it,” Penny says.
    â€œYou can’t do that to her,” Patrick says. “It’s not habitable. The roof burned, and the basement stood full of water for twenty years. The whole place is rotten. It’s probably condemned, or already gone.”
    â€œThat was just Norm talking out his ass,” Matt says. “I drove past it twice in the last week. There’s people living there.”
    â€œIt’s an empty