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The day passed quickly in a haze of sawdust and hammer sounds, and for the first time in weeks, I felt as if I’d accomplished something. When Michael returned—much later than he’d hoped, since returning the moose turned out to be quite difficult once Verda noticed the Tuckers replacing the sculpture out in her garden and called the police—I’d sanded the two rooms I’d cleared.
“You did a good job,” he said, wandering through the rooms and looking at my work.
“It wasn’t hard with that huge sander, I guess,” I said.
“You’re pretty strong though,” he told me. “That thing tires people out, and you have to be a certain size to handle it.”
I flexed one of my arms, making my bicep bunch up beneath the sleeve of my flannel shirt. “Guess all those gym classes paid off then.”
The men were wrapping up outside, and we went out to talk to the foreman, who said they’d return on Saturday to finish the work. Already, the house looked fresher, with the very top already sporting new slate tiles. The previous tiles, the roofer had said, had lasted more than a century—something he attributed to the durable nature of slate. That had figured into our decision to spend a small fortune to replace the roof with a fresh layer of slate instead of the less expensive wood shingles he offered.
“It’s gonna look good,” Michael said.
“Hey, Dad.” Daniel appeared then, coming around the back of the property past the little one-car garage, wheeling his bike at his side. “Ms. Tanner.”
“Hi Daniel,” I said, feeling awkward for no reason I could discern around the boy. I took a step away from Michael and then wondered what in the world had made me do it. “You can call me Addie,” I added.
“The house is a disaster,” Daniel observed, glancing around the lawn, which was strewn with pieces of old roof tiles.
“They’ll clean up when they’re done,” Michael said. “But watch your step out here, okay?”
Daniel shrugged, leaning his bike against the railing of the back porch and letting himself inside.
Michael offered to cook, but Daniel talked him into ordering pizza, and we ate it around the little table in the kitchen. Daniel told us about school and asked his father a million questions about the moose that had appeared in the town square again.
As the evening wound down, I began to feel awkward—it wasn’t like we could all lounge on the couch in front of the television. We didn’t have a television. Or a couch. And so I excused myself to my room.
“You’ll be okay?” Michael asked me in a way that had Daniel squinting his eyes and looking between us.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured him, not feeling quite as sure as I sounded. I’d go to my room, get into bed, and read a book, I decided. And I took myself upstairs to get ready for bed. I spent more time than necessary brushing my teeth and washing my face, dragging my feet a bit about the idea of closing myself yet again in the room where I’d awoken to screaming and beady little eyes staring at me from the edge of my mattress. I knew it was ridiculous, that it was likely I’d dreamed the eyes and that the “scream” was just some sort of plumbing issue, but it was hard to convince myself of that completely.
As I stepped into the room, which felt chilly and cold compared the warmth of the little kitchen downstairs, Michael appeared in the hallway. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I paused, a hand going to my hair, which I’d just piled atop my head in a bun.
“We’re gonna watch a movie on Dan’s laptop. Wanna join us?”
Relief swept through me. I didn’t have to be brave yet. “Sure.”
“I’ll help you move the air bed so you have somewhere to watch,” he said, and with that, we were moving me into his room again, where Daniel already lay on his stomach on his sleeping bag, flicking through movie options.
“The Ring?” He suggested.
“No,” Michael said without a pause.
“Friday the Thirteenth.”
I cringed.
“Definitely not. No ghosts, serial killers, or knife-wielding psychopaths.” Michael peered over Daniel’s shoulder.
“That’s all the good ones,” Daniel complained.
I settled onto my bed as they debated, feeling warm inside and out. I didn’t care what we watched—though I agreed that ghosts and killers were not my preference given our current location—I was just happy not to be alone for now.
In the end, we agreed on one of the Avengers movies none of us had seen, and it was perfect. The house creaked softly around us as we lay on our respective makeshift beds in the darkened upstairs room, and I marveled at how much more at home I felt at this moment than I had in at least the last four years.
My life in New York had consisted of waiting for Luke almost constantly. At first, he was good about calling, about texting when rehearsals ran late or when some of his colleagues were going to go out together for a drink after a performance. And in those days, he always seemed excited to return home to me, happy to have my attention and my questions. We traveled together for his performances across the country when my job could spare me, and I would have said we were happy.Hemight have even said we were happy.
