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Veggie Restoration
Michael
Iwoke to sunlight streaming through the dirty film that covered the windows of the bedroom. The filth gave the light a gauzy quality that seemed to float around the room, ethereal and insubstantial—like a ghost might be, if such things existed.
A shaft of light fell across the woman sleeping three feet away from me, her hair spilling across the white linen of the pillow and onto the floorboards surrounding her. Addison’s face was turned toward me, and in sleep she looked innocent and serene. When Addie was awake, she was beautiful, but when she was asleep, there was something in her expression—so unguarded and trusting—that made my heart twist inside my chest when I looked at her.
I lay for longer than I probably should have, resting on my side, my eyes wide open as I considered her. Mrs. Easter had said we were babies together—well, I would have been the baby. Addison was five years older than I was, not that any of that mattered now that we were adults. In the soft possibility of dawn, I searched for any memory of us as children, in this house maybe, but none came. And the realization made me sad, because I thought now that any time I got to spend with such a beautiful woman would be time I’d want to remember forever.
Quietly, I slipped out of my sleeping bag and to my feet, picking up my clothes from atop the old chest as I did so. The roofers would be starting early, and I’d need to wake Addison so I could head down to the store, at least for a bit, but for now I was going to let her sleep. It had been a rough night.
As I brushed my teeth, my mind kept creeping back to the previous night, to the fear and terror I’d felt when I’d heard Addison scream. I didn’t remember running to her room, or going to her bed. All I remembered now was holding her, pulling her against me and wrapping my arms tightly around her, fiercely. As if I could protect her from anything that threatened. As if she really needed me to. But in that moment, Addison Tanner had not seemed like the competent and decisive career woman I knew she was. She’d seemed vulnerable and scared, and while I knew there wasn’t much I could do for a woman like Addie who could certainly take care of herself, I knew I could at least use my size and strength to give her a fighting chance.
I laughed to myself. A fighting chance? Against what? There was nothing in this house except some really old plumbing and a lot of memories belonging to other people. I didn’t believe Addie had seen eyes in the darkness any more than I believed the witchy women who’d stunk up the place the previous day were actually banishing spirits. I pulled open the medicine cabinet, where I’d stashed my razor, and stared inside for a moment, not fully awake.
I reached for the razor on the top shelf, and my fingers brushed something against the back of the cabinet I hadn’t noticed before. Removing the razor, I peered inside. And reached in to remove a key. It was old and tarnished, but not ancient looking. Who would hide a key in a medicine cabinet? I might have, when Dan was small, I thought. But a key to what?
When I was downstairs, I slipped the old key onto my keychain and set about making coffee and muffins. Daniel had always loved chocolate chip, and while he wouldn’t be here until after school let out, he wasn’t picky about eating muffins that had been made hours before. It was my version of giving him an afternoon snack—one I had time to prepare, since he usually met me at the store in the afternoons during my week with him to help out.
Twenty minutes later, I heard the telltale creaking of floorboards overhead, the groan of pipes in the bathroom, and then Addie’s feet on the stairs. For some reason, anticipation built in me over the thought of her coming down to the kitchen, still touched with sleep and whatever strange thing had passed between us the night before. Something in the way I thought about Addison had shifted, and it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. She might have been a Tanner, and I’d been bred to despise those, but more than that, she was Addie.
“Muffins?” she asked, looking around the kitchen in surprise. “I smell muffins?” Her hair was wet from her shower and had been braided into a long plait that hung over one shoulder. Her skin was pink and clean, and those dark eyes were wide and clear. She looked like she belonged in a soap commercial, and for some reason my stomach flipped when her eyes came to rest on me.
“Yeah,” I said, a twinge of embarrassment pulling my eyes to the floor for no reason I could fathom. I fought the feeling and forced myself to meet her gaze. “I make them for Dan sometimes.”
“Oh, he’s coming today, isn’t he?”
“Yep. I plan to be back here around one, and he should be here by four. I’ll make dinner for us all tonight if you don’t have other plans.”
Addie laughed lightly, but the sound was sad. “I have no plans, Michael. Except Sunday dinners with Lottie.” She crossed the kitchen, pulling a mug from the open shelf and then turning to the coffee pot. The machine made single pods or a full pot, and it had felt like a full pot kind of day. “May I?”
“Of course,” I said, feeling out of place, as if I was hosting this beautiful woman in my house. I took a cup too, mostly to give my hands something to do.
“So roof today, right?”
“Yes,” I said, and her reminder had me peering out the windows toward the back, but the old garage would have blocked my view of any arriving work trucks. “They should be here soon. Want to hear a roof joke?”
Addie looked uncertain.
“It’s on the house.”
“Stop that,” she said. “That’s terrible.” But the corners of her lips turned up in a way that made it feel so much better than terrible.
I shrugged and turned back to the muffins. Dad jokes were in my blood.
“Anything I need to do? To supervise or whatever? I’ve never had a roof repaired.” She wrapped long fingers around her mug and sat at the wood table, those eyes fixed on my face.
“Just be here in case they have a question or find something unexpected.”
She nodded, and then sipped at her mug.
“Oh, speaking of unexpected.” I pulled out my keys and took a seat across from her, singling the one I’d discovered out from the others. “This was upstairs in the medicine cabinet. Any ideas what it might fit?”
She looked at it, one of her fingers tracing the outline against the wood of the tabletop. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t look that old.”
“I haven’t been able to get into the garage,” I said. “Maybe it goes to that door. I’ll try it on my way out.”
She nodded. “Let me know. So while you’re gone, I will supervise roofers, and I guess I can clean out this pantry.” She angled her head toward the open door at the back of the kitchen. “There are cans in there from nineteen-twenty, I bet.”
