“I love it,” he said, giving her a kiss. “And I love that you’re so excited about this!”
“Riley will be a big help. She’s so great, Nate. I can’t wait for you to meet her. She looks like this Goth girl with crazy hair, tattoos, and piercings, all dressed in black, but she’s a total history nerd! And in the summer, she builds houses for Habitat for Humanity. I told you she offered to come give us a hand, right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I think we should take her up on it. Maybe I’ll schedule a work day and have her and Olive come; maybe we can invite Olive’s dad, too. We can get pizza and beer for after. What do you think?”
“Sounds great, hon.”
“Nate? I just had an idea.”
He smiled. “You’re on a roll today.”
He was right, her mind was whirring. She felt so good. Keyed up.
“What do you think about sleeping in here tonight?”
He laughed. “What, on the floor between the sawhorses? Make a bed from bundles of insulation and sawdust?”
Hisyou’ve gotta be kiddingsmile turned to a frown. “You’re serious?”
She put her hands on his shoulders, gave them a little convincing massage. “Come on! It’ll be fun! We can clear a spot in the living room. Bring our sleeping bags. Light some candles. It’ll be like camping, only better. The first night in our new house!”
“I don’t know. I—”
“First sex in the new house,” she whispered.
“Okay, I’m in,” he said, stepping toward her, giving her a scratchy kiss.
. . .
They’d had two bottles of wine, which would explain Helen’s pounding headache and terrible thirst. She woke up naked, disoriented. She turned her head. They were in the bare bones of the unfinished new house. On the living room floor. In the spot where their old braided rug would one day go.
One of the candles in the glass votive jar was still flickering dimly. Nate snored softly beside her. They’d zipped their two sleeping bags together, making one large bag, which now felt suffocatingly hot and damp with sweat. The plywood floor beneath them was hard, too hard to sleep on comfortably. Her back and neck ached. And she had to pee.
She unzipped her side of the sleeping bag and crawled out, searching around on the floor until she found her T-shirt and panties. The air felt startlingly frigid. She rubbed her arms, trying to brush the goose bumps away.
Something creaked behind her. The house settling, maybe?
Did brand-new, totally unfinished houses settle?
There it was again, a loud creaking sound.
Jesus. Whatwasthat?
Her damp skin turned even more cold and clammy.
Turn around,she told herself.Just turn around.
She took in a breath, then slowly turned so that she was facing the kitchen, looking at it through the framed opening with the new beam up above. The beam from the hanging tree.
It’s the beam making the sound,she thought.The beam remembering the weight of Hattie hanging from one of the tree’s sturdiest branches.
She recalled something she read once about hangings: how unless the victim’s neck was broken with the initial drop, she would hang and slowly suffocate. A terrible way to die.
Helen felt her own throat tightening as she reached down to grab the candle and forced herself to shuffle forward, passing under the beam, moving into the kitchen, which was all shadows. The windows in the house had all been framed, but she and Nate hadn’t cut through the plywood that covered them yet, so they were dark. No views. No moonlight coming through.
It was like being in a tomb with only a dimly flickering candle.
