The Cabin

by Wilder Jasinda

  “Yup.”

  “You seem so…normal.”

  I laugh. “Thanks, I think?” I sigh. “But as regards my dad, and the guitar. I knew I had to go my own way. He expected it. He was just mainly trying to get me close to adulthood so I could figure my life out. So, as soon as I felt ready, I knew it was time to leave. My dad was difficult and weird. My childhood was difficult and weird. But my dad loved me. He just had his own way of showing it. So when I left, I missed him. I don’t hate him. He didn’t abuse me. He never yelled at me, never hit me. He taught me a lot. He taught me how to craft things from wood, how to take pride in what my hands can do. How to see what the wood wants to be and help it come out.” I swallow hard; I haven’t talked about Dad like this in a long, long time. “I missed him. I missed his voice, those songs he’d play. He always packed that guitar with us, wherever we went. We’d sit in the shelter by the fire and he’d play. Teach me a few chords, and we’d sing songs together, whatever he could figure out by ear. So yeah, once I was on my own, I really missed him, and picked up a cheap old guitar from a pawn shop and learned how to play all his favorite songs, because it made me feel…closer to him, I guess. Like maybe we were playing the same song at the same time. Him out in the woods somewhere, me in my shitty sub-level one-room roach- and rat-infested apartment.”

  She blinks hard. “That’s really sweet, Nathan.”

  “You asked.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  Our food comes, and we take a few minutes in silence to dig in. By unspoken agreement, we save the rest of the wine for after. The food is really, really good. The piano player is teasing out a romantic rendition of a pop song I recognize but can’t name. The sun is setting, and it’s probably the most gorgeous one yet.

  We finish eating and I let her give me some folded twenties toward dinner, and I put it on my card. We take our wine out onto the dock and walk along—it extends around the shore quite a ways, and there are benches every few yards.

  We find one not far from the restaurant, and we sit. Too far away from each other, at first. I slide closer; extend my arm across the back, my wineglass resting on my thigh. She sits upright, prim, not quite in the shelter of my arm, but not shying away either.

  Several loons paddle in a gaggle, creating complicated V ripples in the sun-stained lake. Geese honk overhead.

  There’s nothing to say for a moment. We just sit, and somehow, inch by impossible inch, Nadia seems to slouch closer and closer to me. Until she’s nearly against me. My heart is beating, hard. I want to curl my arm, let it drape around her. Maybe she feels it, maybe I let it slump lower a little, I don’t know.

  She looks at me, and in this light her eyes seem lit from within, star-shine jewels of iridescent green. Smoothed by olive skin, her high cheekbones now seem elegant and exotic. Her hair is the purply gloss black of a raven’s wing in the summer sun, long and thick and shimmering, loose and twisted to fall over one shoulder. Her lips are plump, red, damp.

  God, she’s beautiful.

  My eyes must show my thoughts.

  “Nathan, I…” she murmurs, and her voice catches.

  She shoots to her feet, pauses, staring at the last sip of wine in her glass. Shakes her head, and sets the glass on the arm of the bench.

  “I…I have to go.” She swallows, refusing to look at me. “I need to go. I’m sorry.”

  And she’s gone, speed walking around the side of the building to her little red convertible, the black top forward and closed. She’s in, the engine starting with a smooth purr, and then she’s squealing out of the parking lot too fast. She had two glasses of wine spaced out over a meal and more than an hour, so that’s not an issue.

  I lean forward, elbows on my knees. Sigh harshly, head in my hands.

  What went wrong?

  Maybe, though, it’s more of a question of what went right: too right, too soon.

  That’s a cruel joke, if that’s what it is.

  Learn me, Find You

  I can’t breathe properly. My lungs won’t open all the way. My hands shake, and I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles hurt.

  I don’t know how I get back to the cabin. I don’t remember the drive, and I’m not sure how I even know the way back. But here I am, skidding to a stop beside the cabin. I’m on the porch before I realize I didn’t even turn the car off. I go back, press the button to shut off the motor, close the car door, and barely make inside before I start sobbing. Not even sure why. I’m up against the door of the cabin, the wood pressing against my forehead. Hand on the knob. Shaking. Sobbing.

  Why am I so upset?

  It’s too much to figure out.

  I hear his truck, the rattle-thrum of the diesel engine coming to an idle and then silencing. Door opening, closing. I hear his boots clomp slowly up my steps, across the porch, stopping outside the door.

  No, no, no. I can’t deal with you, Nathan. It’s too much. You’re too much.

  “Nadia.”

  He’s on the other side of the door. I feel him. I can almost see him, hands braced high and wide, gripping the frame with his huge rough hands. Forehead to the wood, eyes closed.

  “Nadia?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can you let me in, Nadia?”

  “I can’t do this with you, Nathan.”

  “I can’t not do this.” His voice is so rough, a ragged rumble. Vulnerable.

  “Nathan, god, please. Just leave me alone.”

  “I can’t.” I hear him inhale deeply, hold his breath, let it out in a rush. “You tried, remember?”

  I don’t know what to say.

  I hear him humming something. A song. I don’t recognize it, at first. And then the hum becomes singing: “…I knew you were trouble when you walked in…”

  He’s singing Taylor Swift. Starts with the chorus, his voice like stones tumbling in a well, and he sings it through, I don’t know why. He knows the whole song, start to finish.

  I could sing it with him, but I don’t have a voice.

  Once he’s sung the song, there’s silence, and it feels deafening. Hearing it sang a cappella, I realize despite the peppy melody, it’s a sad, depressing song and I wonder why he sang that one. Stuck in his head, maybe. How does he even know that song?

  He’s right on the other side. I can hear him breathing.

  “I can’t walk away from this, Nadia. And I don’t think you can either.”

  “Just…please, just give me tonight. I need to…to think.”

  “I’ll bring coffee.”

  “Okay.”

  He’s still there.

  “Nathan?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “I just don’t know how to do this with you.”

  “I know.”

  “Just…just give me tonight to figure myself out, okay?”

  “I’ll be at your door in the morning. Six thirty.”

  “Thank you, Nathan.”

  Still silence.

  Then I hear a scuff of a boot on wood. Hesitant, reluctant. The porch creaks, and I hear his heavy sigh. Slow tread, as if still hoping I’ll change my mind at the last minute and open the door for him.

  After a while, I hear his cabin door thunk closed.

  I turn my back to the door, slide down to sit against it.

  It was just too much. The candle, the flower on the table. My favorite color, lavender. The sunset on the lake, loons swimming, fluting to each other. My favorite food.

  How did he know?

  Something isn’t adding up.

  Or it’s adding up too well. My favorite wine, my favorite flower, my favorite dinner.

  The champagne thing.

  So many things.

  He just knows me.

  He knows me too well.

  It scares me. Because I feel comfortable with him.

  That was a date. It was utterly romantic, perfect. Incredible. I’ve rarely felt so…seen. Known. So intimate. I felt myself falling.

  I felt myself toppl
ing toward him. If we’d finished the date, we’d have sat on the dock looking at the stars and I’d have kissed him.

  Invited him in.

  Kissed him by the fire.

  Kissing is as far as my brain goes, as far as I can allow thoughts to progress, but the full reality is there under the surface.

  It’s happening. In some ways, it’s already happened.

  Love again, Nadia.

  Tears trickle.

  How can I, Adrian? You were my love. You were my present and my future, my past, my everything. You WERE. Now you’re gone but my heart doesn’t totally realize it. Can’t quite accept it. I’ve learned to exist as a human without you by my side, but living again, without you?

  To hold another’s hand. To let him into my heart, into my world. To put my body at his mercy. How do I do that again?

  I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m not sleepy. I don’t want to drink. Can’t think clearly enough to read; I have no focus, no mental or emotional direction. I’m a ship without a keel or rudder, becalmed, just floating, spinning with the currents.

  I never turned on a light, and I realize I’m sitting alone in the darkness, lost in my thoughts.

  Wondering what would have happened if I’d stayed at the restaurant. If I’d opened the door for him.

  Everything; nothing. The impossible—the inevitable?

  I am drowning again. I was doing better, but one date, and I’m lost again. Did I really think by simply driving separately and paying for my own part of the meal that it would be less of a date? Less romantic, less intimate. Less meaningful.

  I enjoyed it. It was beyond mere companionship, when I’ve been so lonely. Even with Nathan to talk to and hang out with, there’s a loneliness in holding your heart aloof. In keeping people out. I’ve kept even Tess out, to a degree. Kept her from seeing how destroyed I am. She knew, but I wasn’t showing her. With Nathan, I’ve kept the shell of ice around my secret heart, and that date melted it. That armor of uncaring cold melted in the candlelight and sunset warmth, in the glow of his smile and easy conversation, in the delicate complexity of good wine and the savory satisfaction of good food.

  Now that secret, broken heart of mine is bare, unarmored, exposed. And I am absolutely terrified.

  I make it to my bed, fall in fully clothed and lie there, unsleeping, staring at the ceiling for hours. Maybe I should just leave. Go home. But something in me shies away from that. I went a week not seeing Nathan and I honestly hated it. I kept the depth of feelings buried under the ice, but it was lonely and not as fun and I missed him.

  Now that I’ve had that date with him, it’d be even worse. I miss him right now, I hate that I’ve hurt him, made him sad, made him feel rejected.

  I could feel it on the other side of the door.

  I feel it from here.

  I have to talk to him.

  I don’t know what I’ll say, but…I have to see him.

  I’m out the door before I realize I’m even on my feet. The weather has turned—a strong wind blows, whipping my hair and bending the trees, stirring the lake into frothing waves. There’s rain on the wind, drops here and there portending a downpour.

  His lights are off, but I see a flicker of orange, smell smoke on the air; he’s lit a fire in the fireplace.

  I don’t knock. I just open the door and walk in, like I have every right to, like he’s expecting me. He’s sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, bare feet presented to the flames, wearing only his jeans. Bare chest, spackled with dark curly hairs, some silver here and there. Heavy chest muscles, heavy shoulders. Broad arms. Huge, leathery hands.

  He has a book in his hands.

  “Nadia,” he murmurs. Stands up. “Hi.”

  I swallow. Not sure what I’m doing here. “Nathan, I…”

  My eyes go to his hands. To the book held open by a big thumb. I can read the spine.

  Redemption’s Song.

  By Adrian Bell.

  I know every book he ever wrote, including the half-begun, abandoned projects, the deleted chapters, the partly finished short stories and unpublished novellas and experimental sci-fi outline. That is not one of his books.

  Yet there it is.

  In Nathan’s hand.

  “What is that?” I ask, my voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Um…” He’s flummoxed. “I, it’s—” A sigh. “His last book.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “That’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Try.”

  “He…” Nathan trails off, licks his lips. “Shit.”

  “Nathan, why do you have a book written by my dead husband that I’ve never heard of?”

  “This is the only copy.” He slips a receipt out from between the last two pages, sticks it in his place and closes the book. Crosses the floor between us in a few long strides. “Here.”

  He hands it to me. Turns away, goes back to the fireplace and grips the mantle as if it’s all that’s holding him upright. The fire plays on his bare chest. I never really realized exactly how big Nathan is until now. Easily twice my size, and then some. So much power in him, but he’s so gentle.

  Right now, all that power seems taut, the wires pulled tight. As if he’s barely containing everything boiling inside.

  I hold the book in my hands. The cover is something I can tell he did himself, with public domain images and some design software. It’s matte, and the colors are all pastels, an out-of-focus flower made into abstract art. Just something to use on the cover, since no one but Nathan, apparently, would ever see it. The title on top in an all-caps script, his name on the bottom in a sans serif font. I open the cover, and there are two individually folded packets of paper, letters, from a very familiar yellow legal pad.

  “Might as well read those too,” he mutters. “Get it all out there.” A sigh. “Read the longer one first.”

  Nathan,

  Out of the blue, I know. On purpose.

  You’re still mourning Lisa. I could see it on you, hear it in your voice, when we sat down to drinks that last time. And yeah, buddy, I knew then that I was dying. I was in denial still, to a point, but I knew. I was picking your brain, that day. I hope I didn’t cause you pain with my questions, but I needed to hear the answers from someone who knew.

  I was coming to grips with understanding that I’d be leaving Nadia behind. How could I prepare her for it? What would it be like, for her, after I’m gone? Will she be okay?

  The letter blurs as tears haze my vision. I blink them away, try to settle my nerves. “You knew him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How?” I’m still processing, so I’m numb, yet.

  “I was set construction foreman for Love, Me. We would meet downtown for drinks now and then. Talk westerns and whiskey, mainly.”

  I sniffle a laugh. “He loved old Western movies. Rooster Cogburn, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”

  “Yeah.” A sigh from him. “I wasn’t a secret best friend or anything. We weren’t even really drinking buddies. Friends, that’s all. We’d get together once in a while, in the years since the movie, drink some whiskey and talk some shit.”

  I nod. Go back to the letter.

  Read it through, make a sound that’s half sob, half laugh at the signature: The Ghost of Adrian Bell. What an asshole. There’s a single slip of a note, explaining the cabin, and a lockbox in town.

  “He bought both cabins and gave one to you, one to me.”

  He nods, facing the fire, nods as if his head is too heavy for his neck.

  “And I assume the other letter and the book were in the lockbox?”

  “Yeah.”

  I read the second letter.

  I wrote it for you. And for Nadia…it’s about moving on. About finding love after loss…

  You’re here for her.

  Don’t show it to her. Not yet. She’s not ready.

  I’m not crying, but my eyes sting, feel damp and salty. My throat burns, feels tight, constricted. I fl
oat across the floor to the large easy chair by the fire, sit, and start reading on page one.

  Nathan just stands by the fire, staring into the flames. Waiting.

  By the end of the first chapter, I understand. “He set us up.”

  Nathan just nods heavily again.

  “You knew.”

  Another nod.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice is tight, hard, sharp.

  He turns, a hurt, confused, angry frown on his face. “What was I supposed to say? When am I supposed to bring that information out, Nadia? First day we meet, I say, ‘oh, by the way, I knew your dead husband. He gave me a secret book about you, and he wants us to…’” he trails off, shaking his head.

  “Wants us to fall for each other,” I finish for him. “But all this time, he was feeding you information about me, in this.” I shake the book. “It explains so much. How you knew about Josh wine, and my thing for champagne, and chicken parmesan, and…how I can’t make my own fucking coffee. He’s showing you how to make me fall for you.” I stand up, and I don’t know if I’m more angry or confused. “And you know the craziest fucking part? It was totally working.”

  I walk out. Leave his door open, and the book upside down on the chair, still open.

  It’s drizzling. I don’t care. I’m heading for my cabin, and then Nathan is in front of me.

  “Nadia, wait.” His hands are on my arms, gentle but so strong. “Please, wait.”

  “Is this part in the book, Nathan?” I stare up at him; raindrops freckle his cheeks, bead in his eyelashes, on his beard. “Is this part of the…the script?”

  “No.” He sighs. “We’re off-book, now, as they say in show business.”

  “I think that means something different. Like, you’ve memorized your lines to the point that you can extemporize, improvise, just play the role without having to think about the lines you’re supposed to say.”

  “Right.”

  “So are we off-book?” I pull out of his hands. “What’s my line, here, Nathan?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

  “How was it supposed to go? I fall for you, we make love by the firelight, and maybe in a few years you tell me the truth? That my dead husband gave you pointers from beyond the grave on how to woo me? Or were you not going to tell me? Were you just going to keep that little tidbit to yourself?”