“They’d never plumb a residence that way.”
“It’s not a residence, it’s an emergency shelter,” my dad says. “Do you remember that place you and I went to the Poconos for—”
“First of all, that was your sister’s nephew’s hunting buddy’s off-grid hideout that I’m a hundred percent certain he had as some sort of doomsday prepper backup plan,” Rick says. “He didn’t exactly build it to code. The Forest Service hasstandards.”
“I don’t think it drains into the creek,” I offer, even though I’m not sure. Seems like it wouldn’t.
“Then who’s up there servicing the septic tank every fifteen years?” my dad asks.
“I imagine they hire someone,” I say, and my dad grumbles a little.
The two of them are still worried about me, and being the people they are, they express that worry via increasingly detailed questions about the infrastructure and logistics of where I’m staying. After I moved into my first Brooklyn apartment at twenty-three, Rick spent a whole weekend cleaning the traps under every sink and installing carbon monoxide detectors in every room. I can always tell how anxious my dad is feeling when he visits me based on how many toolboxes he brings along, just in case I need something.
Knowing all of this doesn’t make their questions about the plumbing here any less frustrating. I don’t know how it works, I just know that it does, as far as I can tell.
“Is it still snowing?” Rick asks, clearly changing the subject.
“A little, not much,” I tell him. “I think we’re in the clear for a couple—”
I break off when I hear the couch in the next room creak and my irritation spikes through the roof.
“Hold on,” I tell my parents, then cover the phone’s microphone. “I CANHEARYOU STANDING!” I shout, because Gideon is supposed to be sitting on the couch, reading his book, with his busted foot propped on a chair and wrapped in ice packs because I would like to leave this cabin someday soon, which means I need his ankle to operate a clutch.
He, however, seems absolutely fucking determined to put as much strain on it as he can. Earlier today I had to stand in the doorway and refuse to move so he wouldn’t go outside and clear the snow off the porch steps, which is the dumbest thing I can imagine doing with a sprained ankle.
Two seconds later Gideon appears in the doorway, jaw set, and gestures sarcastically at the bathroom.
I clear my throat and feel like an asshole.
“Sorry,” I say.
He limps across the corner of the kitchen and closes the door behind himself, and I go back to the phone.
“Sorry,” I say again.
“Was that Steve Wheeler?” my dad asks instantly. “How’s that going? Everything okay?”
“Totally fine,” I semi-lie.
When I get off the phone five minutes later, Gideon’s back in the other room, sitting on the couch next to the wood stove with his foot propped up, when I go to give Gideon his phone back. Mine’s not hooked up to the satellite doohickey, since in order to do that, I need to download something and in order to dothat, I need to be hooked up to the satellite doohickey.
“Thanks,” I tell him. “Also, you’ve got a billion notifications, you should probably answer people.”
He glances down, frowns, and scrolls.
“How are your… parents?” he asks without looking up. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged that there’s two of them.
“They’re good.”
“Glad to hear it,” he says, then gestures at his foot, which is elevated and wrapped in ice packs, as per my protocol. “See?”
In a moment of saintly forbearance, I don’t point out that healing his ankle is also beneficial for him and that I’m hardly being an asshole by wanting him to be healthy. Gideon looks down at his phone, the screen off, like he’s thinking.
“They worried?” he asks, maybe the first time all day he’s initiated conversation.
“Yeah. You know,” I say. “Parents.”
Then he looks up at me, still fidgeting with the phone in his hand, and his expression is familiar and unreadable and god, this is all so weird and awkward, what am I evendoing. Jesus.
