by T. J. Klune
He’d lost it then, and by the time he was able to wipe the tears from his eyes, Little House it had been named.
I gestured toward the Trio, unsure of what they’d want. Unsure of what to say. Mary and Christie had been staying there since they arrived. I couldn’t find the words to say no, no I don’t want Little House. I can’t stay there. I can’t live there. I don’t want to live there.
She shook her head. “They can stay here with me.”
I balked. “There’s not room here for all of you. It’d make more sense to just let me go back to my old room. They can keep using Little House.”
“Benji, it’s okay to—” Christie started, but she stopped when Mom raised her hand toward her, causing her to fall silent.
“It’s yours,” my mother said, her voice hard. “Big Eddie built it for you. You’re obviously grown up enough to gamble with your future, so you will take the house and you will live in it. You will clean it, you will handle the upkeep. You will pay for the utilities. You want to grow up so fast, fine. You’ll act like an adult. That’s what you want? Fine. Have at it. Do what you want.”
The Trio tried to leave the room quietly, but Nina, ever the klutz, ran into the door, causing it to fly open, smashing into a kitchen chair that fell over and skittered across the tile. My eyes never left my mother’s and hers stayed on mine. “Sorry,” Nina said hastily.
“Good God, Nina!” Mary huffed. “So much for a smooth exit. We’re trying to not make this any more awkward than it already is!”
“Really,” Christina said. “Do you have to run into everything?”
“I didn’t see it!”
“You never do,” Mary said, their voices fading as they left the kitchen.
I waited.
Lola Green broke eye contact first and moved to the center island and pulled open her knickknack drawer. She dug through it for a moment, her brow furrowed. She sighed when she found what she was looking for and placed it on the counter in front of her and stepped back again.
She waited.
The silver key reflected a beam of sunlight pouring in from a window and flashed over my vision, and it was like my father was standing next to me. I could hear him chuckling on his way to breaking into full laughter. Everything about him reflected back at me from that key, that tiny key that was meant to be mine.
A little house, huh?
Yes.
I sighed and closed the distance to slide it into my hand. For a moment, I felt as if there was a warmth there, a flash of heat. I shook my head. Just from sitting in the sun, I told myself.
I didn’t know what else to say, if there was anything left that would make things right again. I had turned and started to walk away when she grabbed me by the wrist, her touch gentle but firm. Insistent.
I said nothing.
Finally, she said, “It’s good to see you.”
I breathed my relief. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I missed you,” I admitted. “I missed everything about this place.”
She stroked the back of my hand. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“I wish you hadn’t come back.”
“I know.”
“You’re too good for this place.”
I shook my head. “This is my home. You’re my home. That will always be enough.”
“You should never have just enough.”
“I don’t want anything more.”
“Look at me,” she whispered.
I did. I had to. I couldn’t say no.
Her grip on my hand tightened as my gaze again found hers, and, as she searched my face, I could see that even in those three months, even in that short amount of time, she’d aged. There was no flash behind her eyes. The lines around her mouth looked deep. Her hair was dull as it fell onto her shoulders. She had been grieving, the same as me. And I knew then that while she had hoped I could make something of myself away from this place, and she’d spoken true that she had wanted me to become something my parents had never been, the real reason she had sent me away was so she could grieve. So I wouldn’t have to see her when she was lost. She had been thinking of me, yes, but for her own selfish reasons.
A shadow crossed her eyes for a moment, but then it was gone. Her breath caught in her throat as she choked out a watery laugh.
“What?” I asked her quietly.
“I see him in you,” she said, her voice atremble. “God, those eyes….”
I didn’t stop myself then as I gathered her up in my arms, this tiny woman who was a shell of her former self. She was stiff against me, startled at my brazenness. It was awkward at first, but then I felt pieces of her that had come loose start to break away, and she collapsed against me and shook, clutching at my back with her hands. Pulling, clawing.
I held her, for a time.
I pulled up in front of Little House, switching off the truck. I sat there, staring
up at the house, for an unknown length of time, willing myself to go in, telling myself that enough time had passed, that Big Eddie would no longer be a part of Little House, that he’d no longer be infused into every corner, every nook and cranny of the house he’d built. I told myself that I’d moved on. Those three months in Eugene where I’d let myself go, where I’d drank to the point of blacking out as much as my body could stand it, where I’d wandered rather than attending class.
I didn’t have the heart to tell my mother that I’d already been flunking out of the U of O, even only after three months. I couldn’t tell her about the rathole of an apartment I’d moved into off campus. I wouldn’t tell her about the nameless men that I’d brought to my bed almost nightly, more for the touch of something human than the sex. I wouldn’t tell her how feeling skin against mine was the only way I maintained my sanity—the soft trail of a tongue at the base my spine, a quickened breath in my ear as someone thrust above me.
I couldn’t tell her how I had obsessed over the accident. I couldn’t tell her that I’d called Shirley who worked as dispatch for the sheriff’s department. She and I had gone to school together, and she was sympathetic. I’d gotten a copy of the police report on my own, its contents telling me nothing more than I already knew. Shirley was able to get me scene photographs, showing my father’s truck upside down in the river at mile marker seventy-seven, showing his tire marks on the road and gravel, the scarred boulder down at the river’s edge that had struck the left front tire of the truck, breaking the axle and causing the truck to flip. It also showed a second set of tire tracks on the road, but noted no other debris was found. The river would have washed away any paint transfer as the truck stayed upside down underwater, the tail end sticking in the air at an angle.
I read my own statement that had been provided, and my mother’s, both of us saying Big Eddie had no enemies, that everyone worshipped the ground the man had walked on. I don’t remember speaking with the police, but I could see the anger in my words, could feel the heartbreak I’d felt, the denial.
But it was the coroner’s report I was most interested in. The coroner’s report that showed my father had suffered a broken clavicle from the impact and broken ribs, one of which had punctured his right lung. He had a splenic abrasion, a tencentimeter laceration on his right forearm. Another, smaller laceration on his forehead. A broken bone in his left ankle. None of which were life-threatening. No drugs or alcohol were found in my father’s system. His heart, the coroner said, was slightly enlarged, but otherwise he was a healthy forty-seven-year-old man when he died.
Cause of death: asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen to cerebral hypoxia.
Which is a fancy way of saying that my father was alive when his truck came to rest upside down in the Umpqua. We were told that most likely he was unconscious as the water levels began to rise in the cab of the truck. It would have been fast, they said. He wouldn’t have felt a thing, they said. That the accident didn’t k
ill him, but that the river had. My father had drowned.
The longer I looked, the more I was sure my father was awake when the cold water filled his nose and mouth. His lungs. This thought became an obsession.
The police investigation had concluded it was a single-vehicle accident. There was no evidence of another vehicle involved. The black skid marks on the roadway had been partially washed away by rain that had begun to fall shortly after the accident would have occurred. Given the amount of water in my father’s lungs, the coroner thought he’d been in the water anywhere from four to six hours before he’d been discovered by a motorist who just happened to look down at the river as he passed by.
Possibly he’d fallen asleep, they’d said. After all, he’d gotten up at four that morning to head up to Portland to meet up with some friends.
Possibly he’d gotten distracted, they said.
Possibly he’d swerved to avoid a deer.
Possibly it was weather-related, given how great the storm was that day. Everyone was surprised it hadn’t flooded. They were sure it would. The town’s contingency plan had been put on notice. Sandbags were made ready. The Shriner’s Grange had been made available in case people needed to escape the rising waters. None of that had happened, of course. The river did not flood anyone or anything. Except my father.
So many possibilities, they said. We may never know, they said. But it didn’t appear to be foul play, they said. There was no evidence to suggest that. Everyone loved Big Eddie.
I didn’t tell my mother I thought that was a lie.
I gripped the steering wheel and stared up at Little House.
He’s gone, I told myself. He’s gone. He’s not here anymore. There’s no reason for him to be here anymore. He’s gone.
I opened the door, grabbing my bag off the seat next to me. I closed the door to the Ford and clutched the silver key in my hand as I forced one foot in front of the other. I ignored the way my hand shook as I slid the key into the lock. And for the first time since Big Eddie had died, I opened the door to Little House and stepped inside.
I didn’t know I was holding my breath until I realized I wasn’t breathing. I let it out slowly and reached over to flick the light switch. The lights flashed on overhead. The entryway lit up in front of me. Living room off to my left. Kitchen, off to my right. Hallway ahead led to bedrooms. I waited. I listened.
Nothing except the normal settling of Little House.
It hurt to be in there, yes. It hurt because I could look at the walls and tell you the exact day they’d gone up. It hurt because I could look up and see the exposed beams overhead and tell you how I’d held the ladder for him while he hammered away. I could tell you about everything having to do with Little House, the house my father built.
My heart thundered in my chest.
I hung the key on a key rack. I closed the door behind me. I set my bag down. I took a step forward.
And a hand that wasn’t there touched my shoulder.
I closed my eyes as I trembled. No, I thought. He’s gone. He’s not real. This isn’t real. Big Eddie died and this is my house now. Little House is mine, and oh my God, someone is breathing on me—
I spun around.
For a moment, I could have sworn I saw a flash of blue, deep and dark. But I blinked and it was gone and I couldn’t be sure it’d been there in the first place. I blinked again, my breath ragged in my throat. No one was behind me. The door was still closed. I thought about opening it and running up to Big House and cowering in my old bed, the covers pulled up and over my head, waiting for daylight, waiting for everything to make sense, for the world to brighten again, to lose the haze it had fallen under. But somehow, I stayed.
“I felt…,” I said out loud, not knowing who I was speaking to. My face grew hot and I shook my head. “Forget it,” I muttered. “I’m—”
haunted
“—home. That’s all that matters. I’m home.”
Little House shifted, the creaking of the wood its only reply.
Sheriff Griggs’s taillights have faded into the dark behind me.
An accident. That’s all it was. Sure, I think. Why not? Everyone else thinks it was an accident. The cops. The staties. The town. The Trio. Even….
Even Mom.
It’s easier, I think, for her to believe it was an accident, that there was nothing more behind Big Eddie’s death. Maybe that’s what she needed to move on. Maybe that’s what she needed to be able to fall asleep at night. Maybe that’s the only way she could stay sane.
I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t make me wonder if I loved him more than she did.
Sheriff Griggs isn’t coming back, so I start up the blue Ford and pull back out onto the road, headed for home. The truck feels empty now, like whatever is (or isn’t) with me has gone.
I think about stopping at mile marker seventy-seven. But I was there yesterday, and I need to try and stay away. It’s getting to be too much again, seeing that place. It’s starting to follow me into my dreams again as well: a flash of a river, then brake lights pointing toward a grayed-out sky as rain pours down, lightning flashing blue and bright. A flutter of massive wings from some bird I can’t see somewhere in the distance. A hand always rests on my shoulder. The scene and sounds before me fill me with horror and I open my mouth in a silent scream, but the hand grips me tight. There is comfort there, near the river. Even so, I wake up sweating, a strangled noise dying on my lips as the roar of the river fades from my ears.
No. I need to stay away from seventy-seven tonight. It’s getting late as it is, what with Officer Friendly pulling me over. Even after all these years, I can’t pinpoint what it is about Griggs that bothers me. He and Big Eddie went to school together, were friends of a sort, along with my mom and the Trio, only four years age difference separating all of them. But they went their separate ways after high school, and when they all returned to Roseland after college, things had just been different. Dad had married Mom. The Trio lived in Seafare, on the coast. “People grow up and grow apart,” Big Eddie had said once when I asked.
Which is true, I guess. None of my friends, what few there were, stayed in Roseland after we graduated from Umpqua High over in Wilbur. They’d all talked about getting out of here and going to far off mythical places, like California or New York. I pretended to ignore the looks I received when I mumbled that I was perfectly happy right where I was. The world is too big for someone like me. I worry about getting lost. At least here, in Roseland, I know where I am. People know who I am. It’s enough.
If you were to ask me if there was something else buried in the anger, in the depths of my grief, I’d look at you funny, not understanding what you meant. There’s nothing else besides grief. Besides anger. But it’s a shelter, a haven that I have amassed around myself to protect me, to focus my thoughts and energy away from the inevitable truth.
I have no qualms admitting that Big Eddie was my best friend. Most sons and daughters would probably shudder at the idea of admitting it out loud, and maybe they’re right. But I’m not normal. I never have been. I was the nerd. The geek. The weirdo. I had friends, sure, but no one close. No one like my father. No one I felt like I could tell everything to, even the greatest secret I carried with me for months before I finally broke down and told him one day toward the end of building Little House. Toward the end of his life. Even that I could not keep from him.
“Spit it out,” he growled at me when I handed him the wrong-sized nail.
“What?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Something’s been on your mind for weeks, Benji,” Big Eddie said, pulling himself to his full height. It might have been intimidating to most, and usually it wasn’t for me (he was my dad), but I couldn’t look up into his eyes.
“Oh,” I said, shuffling my feet. “That.”
He dropped a big hand on my head and ruffled my hair before sliding his hand to my chin and gripping it gently, pulling up until my gaze was locked onto his. “What do men do when they
have important business to discuss?”
“They look each other in the eye,” I whisper out loud, pulling into the driveway,
almost home and lost in memory. “They look each other in the eye because it shows respect.” I barely acknowledge the blue flash that skates off somewhere to my right in the dark.
“That’s right,” my father said, dropping his grip from my chin, then putting his
hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. “And I respect you, and you respect me, right?”
“Right,” I said, never turning my gaze away.
“Now, what’s going on, son? It isn’t like you to keep things from me. Not for this long.”
“I’m scared.”
His eyes widened. “Of me?”
I shook my head. Then shrugged. I didn’t know which was true.
“Benji, what on earth would make you scared of me?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice cracking. Still, I couldn’t look away. “Did you break the law?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you hurt someone?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
He blurred as my eyes burned. “Because I’m afraid you won’t look me in the eye anymore. That you won’t respect me.”
Big Eddie leaned over, so that our faces were only inches from each other. He studied me and I let him. “I will always look you in the eye,” he finally said. “I’ve raised you to be honest and kind. I’ve raised you to be brave and strong. If you can become the man I think you’ll be, then you and me will always be eye to eye. You get me?”
I nodded, because I did. “Deep breath,” he said, his hand still on my shoulder. I took in air. “Let it out,” he said. I did. “Now, tell me.”
“I think I might… be… you know. Gay. Or whatever.”
He cocked his head at me and squinted his eyes, which would have been funny under normal circumstances. But this was not normal. I couldn’t breathe. He tightened his grip on me. His nostrils flared. He dropped his hand and stood up straight, still looking me in the eye. I followed him as he went up. “You think?” he said, crossing his arms across his chest.