“Okay,” I tell the house.“Let’s see what we’re working with.”
The entryway is narrow, painted the kind of off-white that was probably called “Swiss Cream” on sale in a hardware aisle ten years ago.There’s a crooked family of nail holes on one wall where pictures used to be.The ghost of other people’s happy occasions.My stomach does a small, mean twist at the thought that somewhere, there’s probably a Christmas card with this house in the background, back when it had seen better days.
That’s fine.
I’ve never minded a little competition.
The kitchen is to the right, past a doorway with no door.The tile is cracked in three places.Someone tried to cover it with a rug that now smells like feet and spilled coffee.The cabinets are old wood—not the good kind, just tired—with hinges that complain when I open them.There are stains on the counters in the shapes of things that used to sit there.Toaster.Coffee maker.Knife block.
I open the fridge out of habit.Filthy.The light inside flickers weakly, as if it’s surprised to be involved.
“Same,” I say, and shut it.
Living room: beige carpet, worn down to the backing in a path from door to couch to hallway.There is no couch, just the outline of one.A rectangle, where the carpet is slightly less filthy than everything around it.The windows that look out back are smudged with fingerprints on the glass at about knee height.
Kid height.
I try very hard not to think about that.
The hallway is lined with more nail holes, more empty outlines of frames.Bathroom: pink tile, mildew in the grout, a broken mirror that doesn’t quite let me look myself in the eye all at once.Bedrooms: two small, one bigger.The bigger one faces the street.
Across the road, the neighbor’s walking toward Luke carrying a large glass.She hands it to him and then glances in my direction.
Damn it.
The handyman was right.She’s watching my every move.
Which means I’m going to have to wait for nightfall to unpack.
It’s fine.It’s actually quite temperate out.
And, either way, it serves Charles right.
Especially after what he did.
But there’s no time to dwell on that now.I go back to the kitchen and find the soft spot under the sink Luke warned me about.I press my thumb into the warped wood, feel it give like damp cardboard.He was right about that, too.Annoying.
“I can do this,” I tell myself, and the house, and maybe the version of me who signed the papers and said,No really, I’ll be fine.
I have YouTube.I have an Allen wrench and a hammer from a sad emergency toolkit tossed in by the realtor like a pity prize.
I can fix this.
I last exactly twenty minutes.
9
Luke
Mrs.Mather cries in pieces.
She never does it all at once.That would be undignified.She cries the way some people lie—quietly, mid-conversation, buried in the middle of something else.
I am fixing her fence when she crosses her lawn, a tall glass of tea in her hand, ready to spill her guts—and whatever else is floating through town.
It’s the section near the road, where the posts lean just enough to saywe stopped trying.I replaced one last spring.It didn’t hold.Some things don’t.
“You heard about the Miller girl,” she says, not looking at me.
