He was concerned, careful. “And she’ll be able to find me? Even if I walk around?”
“Oh yeah, this is all the same place. You can’t really hide from her.”
“Okay, then, yeah. Let’s walk.”
Anna hopped off the bench, and James followed her. She led him along one of the paths, through oak trees. There was water flowing somewhere, but Anna had never been able to find it. It must belong to someone else.
James was quite a bit taller than her. He walked with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing faded green cotton pants and sensible leather shoes. He could be in any sort of story. He was stolid and reassuring. His face was freckled, and there were laugh lines around his eyes and his mouth.
“Do you usually stay around here?” he asked. “On the bench?”
“Oh no, I get around. I have a house.”
“You have a house? I don’t think I have a house …”
“At first, I just had a room,” Anna said, “but there’s a whole house now. Do you want to see it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Do you mind?”
“No, not at all. Come on.”
She led him along the path. She could get to the house by deciding to get there, and it only took as long as she wanted it to.
She decided to give it a few minutes. She liked walking with James. She wasn’t in any hurry. There was only so much she could show him anyway. There was only so much here.
The farmhouse appeared in the distance. They turned down the gravel driveway.
“You live on a farm,” he said.
“Yeah, I think it’s one of the places she lived when she was a little girl. I was a little girl when I first got here.”
He stopped to look at her. “Wait, you grew up here?”
“Sorrrt of …” she said, cocking her head. “It’s more like shegrewme up. Revised me up. Over the years.”
James smiled gently. His eyebrows were raised in the middle again. “Anna, that’s so weird.”
She goggled her eyes. “Iknow.”
“How long have you been thirty-four?”
“A decade at least.” She reached out and tugged on his forearm. “Come on.”
She pulled him through the yard. There were chickens out pecking in front of the coop. There were goats, too, in the back. There’d been a horse for a while, but not anymore.
The front door wasn’t locked. Anna took James through the old kitchen. There was a pump by the sink and a big table instead of counters.
She showed him the living room with the antique sofa and the television …
She never told anyone else about the television—they’d be so jealous. The house always made people jealous at first. Then, over time (it usually took longer than three minutes), they saw it as something pitiful. And then, over more time, it scared them. The older ones wouldn’t come anywhere near it. They acted like it was haunted. Like Anna was the ghost.
But James wouldn’t be around long enough for that. She showed him her bedroom, with the homemade quilt and stuffed animals. “I don’t know why those are still here. Everything’s a bit haphazard.”
She showed him the bathroom with the pedestal sink and the cast-iron tub. “Do you have to go to the bathroom?” she asked.
“No.”
“No,” she agreed. “No one ever does.”
