“My cat,” he says of the animal who is stretched out on a comforter next to a paperback ofCrazy Rich Asiansand positively dwarfing it.
“That’s not a cat, that’s a five-year-old in a Muppet costume,” I say, and Gideon frowns.
“Rude,” he mutters, settling back again. “We think they’re part Maine Coon.”
“They? You have more?” I ask. “Do you have an army of giant cats who do your bidding?”
“Have you ever met a cat who’ll do anyone’s bidding?” he asks, shifting against the couch.
“My roommate had one who would sit and shake,” I say, which is true-ish. “Well, it was more of a high five.”
Gideon doesn’t look impressed.
“Dolly’s mom showed up at a friend’s place and had kittens,” he says, after a beat. “He adopted the mom, I took Dolly, and some other friends took her siblings.”
“That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard,” I tell Gideon, and he rolls his eyes and puts his phone away but I’m pretty sure he also blushes.
CHAPTERNINE
ANDI
To put it lightly,Gideon is not a good patient.
To put it honestly, he’s a grumpy nightmare who seems bound and determined to fuck up his ankle as much as possible and who thinks that I, an adult woman in her thirties, can’t make a simple dinner of spaghetti, sauce from a jar, and frozen peas. He limps around while claiming he just wants to feel useful as he narrates the extensive contents of the pantry to me, and I finally yell that I spent ten years living in Brooklyn with three roommates and a grocery budget of about fifty bucks a month, I’mvery goodat weird “whatever’s in the fridge” dinners, and he needs to go sit on the couch and put his foot up before I hit him with a wooden spoon.
I don’t hit him with the spoon, but it’s a near thing. I also choose to ignore the scratching sound that seems to be coming from the wall near the doorway because I don’t want to deal with Gideon coming in here and harumphing about whatever it is. Probably a squirrel on the porch or something.
He wins our standoff about who’s sleeping where that night, mostly because he’s already on the couch and no matter how annoyed I am about it, there’s no way I’m going to be able to carry him to a bed, so I leave it. He’s in a bad mood, and no matter how hard I try, that putsmein a bad mood that I can’t help, which leaves everyone irritated and no one happy and both of us still stuck in a tiny cabin with no chance of getting out in the next few days, at least.
That night, it takes me forever to fall asleep, lying on a lumpy twin mattress under my sleeping bag with a zipper that I finally had to dismantle to get apart. My brain feels like an asteroid belt or something: giant, worrying chunks flying every which way and sometimes crashing into each other, knocking loose smaller chunks that are still plenty big enough to cause concern.
I moved back to Sprucevale a couple of months ago, and in that time, I’ve seen William Bell, Gideon’s father, once. My aunt Lucia is friends with the editor of Sprucevale’s tiny newspaper, so when the reporter who usually covers the school board meetings called in sick, she asked if I’d be willing to attend and write it up since at the very least, I can string a sentence together.
I wasn’t expecting what I got, which was William Bell and two of Gideon’s brothers—Matt and Elliott, I think, but it’s been so long—in all their button-down, pleated-slacks glory enumerating a long list of books that they wanted the school library to ban. A couple people spoke against them, and they lost the vote, thank God, but it rattled me all the same. It was proof that Gideon’s father hadn’t changed in twenty years, and that at least two of his sons had grown into his likeness.
At least Gideon wasn’t there,I remember thinking.At least I don’t have proof that Gideon grew into this, too.
What I want right now, and what I don’t have, is proof of the opposite. That Gideon is just being an asshole right now because his ankle hurts and he’s stuck here with a surprise guest, not because he dislikes everything about me and still thinks I deserve to go to Hell.
Here’s what I want to believe: that the reason Gideon won’t share this bedroom and won’t mention my queer parents is because he’s an awkward, quiet guy, not because of sin or whatever. I want to believe that he skipped Christmas with his parents because he sees them for what they are. I want to believe that his little brother lives with him because Gideon is kind and open-hearted and offered his home when the kid needed somewhere to go, but I don’t know anything about the story. Maybe Gideon’s house is just closer to his job.
I just need to keep my head down and my mouth shut for a few more days until I can get out of here, and then I never have to worry about any of this again.
* * *
“It’s not an outhouse,it’s a composting toilet,” I’m telling Rick as I stand in the kitchen, watching twilight fall through the window. “It’s in the regular bathroom and everything, I guess we have to… empty it… every so often? Hopefully, I’ll be out of here before it’s my turn.”
“Wow, fancy,” Rick says. “It’s a wonder you want to go home at all.”
“The sink and tub have drains?” my dad asks, on their house’s other extension. “Where do the drains go?”
I glance down at the sink, like the drain in it will have that information written on it.
“The… ground?” I guess.
“I’m sure there’s a septic tank,” Rick informs my dad.
“Could just drain into the creek,” my dad says.
