This Must Be the Place: A Novel by Kate Racculia Page B

Anna shrugged. “You know I’ve got a soft spot for strays.”
    Anna was the town’s veterinarian. She had moved into the Darby-Jones four years ago when she divorced her husband, and Oneida, despite realizing it was strange that Anna continued to rent a single room from her mother long after she could afford to move out on her own, couldn’t imagine life without her. She was a short, plain woman with curly brownhair pulled back in a ponytail with the aid of copious bobby pins and clips, as though her hair, should she not take special pains to hold it back, would explode. She spoke to everyone as though they were frightened animals, in soothing, measured tones that cultivated confidence, security, sleepiness. She was gentle but firm; Oneida could imagine her at the clinic—smelling slightly of disinfectant, dander, and the indistinct tang of animal fear—setting cat bones, wrapping cones around the heads of mutts, soothing an anxious German shepherd moments before putting it to sleep. The euthanizist within Anna both unnerved and awed Oneida. She suspected, beneath the curly, fuzzy exterior, that Anna possessed a core of titanium steel, one that allowed her to kill family pets as a matter of everyday business. No doubt it was this same strength of will that allowed her to screw around with Sherman Russell, the high school shop teacher and another resident of the Darby-Jones, without anyone—other than Oneida—knowing about it.
    Oneida had discovered their affair the previous spring when she woke up thirsty in the middle of the night, went to get a drink of lemonade from the kitchen, and passed Anna’s rooms on her way to the stairs. At first she’d been afraid Anna was having some kind of fit or was being strangled, but then, in a humiliating moment of clarity, she understood. Sex was happening. Behind that door. In her house.
Right now
. She’d run back to her room, not caring who heard her feet pounding along the creaky hallway. Oneida had seen enough movies to know that kids occasionally stumbled on their parents having sex; it was usually played for comedy, but, at the time, Oneida didn’t see anything remotely funny about it. She felt dirty, like she’d been spying and had found out something she couldn’t forget. It was equally disturbing as an object lesson in the dangers of getting exactly what she wished for: maybe she didn’t want to know
everything
after all.
    The next morning, Sherman Russell, a short man who wore plaid flannel shirts and motorcycle boots and let kids she wouldn’t trust with a pencil operate giant saws, had greeted her over his morning cup of coffee nonchalantly. Were they all pretending it hadn’t happened? That Oneida hadn’t heard the queen bed with the carved acorn newel posts thumping against the floor and the wall, hadn’t heard Anna’s voice, sounding alternately alarmed and thrilled, calling Sherman’s name?Anna poured herself a cup of coffee shortly thereafter, offered a cordial good-morning to all, and opened the
Ruby Falls Register
to the sports section. Oneida realized that what was going on between Sherman and Anna was a secret. More than a secret—it was illicit. Maybe they thought her mother would kick them out if they were discovered, which didn’t make any sense at all to Oneida; if anything, Mona would just insist that they each continue to pay rent before blessing them to boink with impunity.
    More likely, they were keeping their relationship a secret for her sake.
Most of all,
Oneida thought, and giggled into her bowl of cereal, it was so patently ridiculous,
most of all, you’ve got to hide it from the kids
. Well, the kids find things out, and then she heard another song in her head:
The kids are quite aware of what they’re going through
. She felt happily full of knowledge, buzzed on information. It was a complete reversal of the way she’d felt the night before, and she understood it wasn’t the knowing of things she craved—but the knowing of