Rise--How a House Built a Family

by Cara Brookins

  He really was smart, genius-level smart. My own Da Vinci–minded inventor. He held patents on a handful of creative devices that could actually make the world a better place. Always thinking. Always a step ahead of the average guy.

  I had seen a few letters from companies interested in his ideas. They were real. And he told me he was negotiating with major people who wanted a piece of his latest patent. It was big, he said, a revolution for the construction industry, bigger than the cut iron nail. And a dark car had been following him, putting on the pressure to sell for pennies on the dollar.

  Technical drawings and disassembled devices covered every inch of his cluttered office. Dozens of clocks and watches, a telegraph printer that had worked when he bought it, bizarre medical tools, tubes, mechanisms from the Victorian era, and boxes of modern electronics all gave the space a surreal, science-fiction look. He never built anything new or put the ancient things back together, just placed the screws, gears, diodes, and microchips in neat lines on his worktable, each screw and component meticulously labeled.

  The kids had to be kept away from these important experiments, and I wasn’t allowed to touch them either. Jada was just a toddler, grabbing with damp fists at the metal pieces whenever she tottered close. But she was easier to keep clear of the parts than Drew, who was early in his elementary-school years and already building perpetual-motion machines and robots. They were learning, though, that touching the forbidden projects was not worth Adam’s belt.

  Someone always wanted the ideas blossoming in his head, the things he put on paper only after they had bent and tortured him—and me—for months. In a single hour he might sketch ideas for bubble-bath containers, children’s socks, and complex laser scanners. But he had never actually sold a patent. Not one. And while I’d seen them come in the mail with a gold seal and a red ribbon to prove their status with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, I had no idea where he hid them after holding them up in victory and promising big things.

  I had never seen the cars following him, or noticed anyone sitting in the red truck in the neighbor’s backyard. That’s what he was staring at, writing a secret message on the window to someone hidden in that truck.

  “Why isn’t it a black truck,” I asked. “I thought you said a black truck was following you.”

  “That’s part of the message. They want to make sure I see it. A red flag.” He pointed up at the air-conditioning vent over his head and then pressed an index finger over his lips to let me know they were listening. They were always listening. And then, as though he’d still been counting off the seconds while answering me, he broke off to drag his index finger slowly across the glass to form a letter “G.”

  I tossed a small handful of rock salt into the aquarium and sprinkled fish flakes on the waving surface. He wasn’t going to tell me anything more and I wasn’t in the mood to be reminded that I wasn’t smart enough to understand the intricate details of high-power negotiating.

  When I looked up, he had formed his index finger and thumb into the shape of a handgun, the way my brother and I had when we were barefooted Indians fighting cowboys around jack pines in Wisconsin. He jerked the hand back and then settled the fingertip against the glass again and again.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The phone rang, but he didn’t seem to notice. I went to the den and closed the door before I answered.

  “This is Mr. Travis from the Peabody. I’m calling about an outstanding balance, three months overdue.”

  It was hard to concentrate. Images of Adam shooting out the back door at the red pickup truck were circling, looking for an explanation before they settled on a perch. “We’ve never stayed at the Peabody,” I finally said. “There must be a mistake.”

  “No mistake. I’ve got the invoice in front of me for a boardroom rental totaling twelve hundred dollars.” He continued with the date and time, but they meant nothing to me. I got a kick out of how hard he tried to sound stuffy, failing miserably with his extreme Southern accent. “… the Furton boardroom for six hours. The bill is nonnegotiable.” I heard something tapping, like a pen on a desk, and reminded myself it was not Adam’s finger against the door glass.

  I had little fight left in me, but we didn’t have enough in our bank account to cover the bill. Adam had been taking a lot of time off to work on the patents. We’d have all the money we ever needed after just one big sale, he promised. I blew out a breath and realized I was still holding the phone. Rustling and whispering on the other end surprised me. Mr. Travis should know that whispering wasn’t the least bit stuffy or dignified.

  “Miss Kimmy helped your husband prepare the room and has some insight if it would help.”

  “Yes, plea—” But he had already handed the phone over and I could hear the rapid, nervous breathing of a young woman.

  “I was, like, the one to help set up the boardroom that day. He was two hours early, and he talked half the staff into helping him.” She breathed out a laugh, but not a happy one. “He kept, like, winking at the women and patting Jeff and Tyrone on the shoulder like he’d known them his whole life.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I talked the kitchen into giving him enough coffee for his guests even though he didn’t pay for it. He said it was a big event—real important, like.” She was talking in a normal volume again.

  My hair stood on end. Of course it was a big event. All Adam’s events were big. And it was no surprise that he’d charmed everyone into serving him; he had that way about him. He was likable, believable, and the nicest guy in the world … until he wasn’t.

  She wasn’t done, though. “He named a bunch of super important guys from Apple and Google and stuff like that. Big people. There were execs coming in from all over the country, or maybe he said all over the world, I don’t remember exactly. And he had a patent—even showed it to me when no one else was looking—that all these companies wanted to buy. It looked real. And he didn’t seem like he was crazy or anything. Not at first.”

  Oh, Kimmy, they never do. They never seem crazy until you get up real close. Then you see crazy like you never imagined.

  All at once I was furious. He had really done it. He had made a big deal and sold one of his patents and then hid it from me. After all the years I had tiptoed around and tried to make his life happy, he had cut me out at the end. I was speechless, and it seemed little Miss Kimmy was, too. But then she started again in a whisper I could barely hear through the angry blood pounding across my eardrums.

  “He announced the meeting was starting with this crooked little smile, that cat-who-ate-the-canary smile, you know?”

  Yes. I knew.

  “And then he closed the double doors with a little bow to us—to me and Tyrone.”

  Her breathing went funny again and she was quiet for too long. “Did something happen?” I asked. “Did he throw them out or something?”

  “Yes. Well, no, he didn’t throw them out, but something did happen. Or, didn’t happen.” She groaned a little. “Oh fudge. I’ll just say it. There was no one there. No one had gone in the room before he closed the doors. The folders were in front of each chair—I’d helped him make copies and they had all sorts of figures and sales lists in them—and the coffee mugs were full. We could hear him talking. Presenting. But there weren’t any people.”

  “Videoconference?” I asked, even though it made no sense.

  “The Furton Room doesn’t have equipment. Not even a telephone. And he didn’t have anything with him. And besides, the coffee…”

  “Yeah. The coffee. And the papers.” I had shredded three tissues into confetti in my lap.

  “When he opened the doors, Tyrone asked him how things went and he said, Oh, they went just perfect. He had them right where he wanted them. It was all even bigger than he thought. That’s what he said, it was bigger than he thought. And then he left. He didn’t take any of the papers with him and all that coffee was just sitting there cold. Some mugs were half empty. Some of them had used sugar and cream.” She la
ughed. “I mean—”

  “I get it. He was alone in the room the entire time. There were no other doors in or out?”

  “No. Just the main entry and a table down the middle that seats twenty-two. Sometimes we put chairs along one wall, there’s room, but he didn’t ask for extra chairs.”

  “No,” I said. “I guess he wouldn’t need extra chairs, would he.” I wasn’t really listening to her anymore. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “Listen, I’ll talk to Adam about the bill and see what’s going on.”

  “Oh my God! I shouldn’t have said so much. It was just so weird. Did I break some confidentiality thing?”

  “No, no. You’re fine. We’ll get the bill straightened out. Thank you so much for explaining.” I hung up before she could say anything else, before she could hear the scream in my head.

  He hadn’t sold a patent. He hadn’t sold anything. Why hadn’t they shown up, these people he invited? It didn’t make sense. Had he given them the wrong date? The wrong address? Anything was possible, anything at all. Until you thought for just one second about the coffee. Then everything unraveled into the explanation I’d been hiding from for too long.

  Adam’s behavior had slipped beyond eccentric long ago. He had bridged over into insanity.

  –7–

  Rise

  Plan B Is for Sissies

  Every night after the kids went to bed, I worked on a book I’d been trying to write for too long. I had sold a couple of middle-grade novels, but I wanted to break into the adult mystery market. The goal gave me hope for a completely new future.

  I was exhausted after doing the laundry and unpacking from our Thanksgiving trip and decided the book could rest for another night. I stacked my hoard of mystery novels on the other side of the bed just under the pillow, where I was pleased to know they would remain undisturbed. It was now the empty side of the bed, not someone else’s side, and that reminded me to breathe easy. I climbed in with a notebook, a pen, and a remnant of the smile I’d taken to bed in the cabin.

  I started making a short to-do list of errands to complete before we built a life-size version of our stick house. I really meant to do this, and it felt good. It felt big and loud and real. It felt alive.

  The list filled the first page, then the second, and was well on the way to flooding the third when I dozed off. Even though it was already apparent that we were in over our heads, I had no intention of backing down. A woman stubborn enough to stay with an abusive man is not a woman who gives up easily. We would do this. We’d dive in and keep working, eyes straight ahead.

  At the top of page four, I wrote, “Plan B.” I stared at the blank page, imagining the depressing alternatives. We could buy a tiny house and stack bunk beds in the corners. I could write in a closet or just give it up and keep programming. The kids would go off to college feeling as low, afraid, and small as they did today. I ripped the page out, crumpled it, and threw it on the floor.

  Backup plans were for quitters. They were for people who were scared. They were not for people brave enough to hang red curtains and wear V-neck shirts. I told myself we had faced our worst fears and had nothing more to be afraid of. I pretended I believed it. “It’s do-or-die time,” I whispered. “Do or die.” And then softer, moving my lips with nothing more than a hiss coming out to warn away the nightmares that turned out to be inevitable whether I whispered or shouted, “It’s a figure of speech. Do or die. It’s figurative, not literal.”

  The next week was crazy busy, and I wasn’t one to use the “c” word lightly. I spent Monday and Tuesday patrolling a thirty-mile radius from our house, looking for land. Several promising properties were eliminated by the cost, one by a den of snakes, and several more by the strict neighborhood rules that required I use an approved, licensed contractor. I had already checked with the city and learned I could pull my own building and plumbing permits, and act as my own contractor. But that didn’t mean neighborhoods had to approve me as a builder.

  At sunset on Tuesday, a flood of texts came in from Drew while Roman and I were half lost and scanning ditches for realtor signs.

  Drawing house plans? Drew asked. Where’s the oversize paper? Drafting ruler? Mechanical pencil? Where are you?

  “Time to go home,” I told Roman, who had fallen into a sleepy trance. I stopped on the narrow side street I had wandered down and started a three-point turn that doubled to a six-point turn. When I shifted back into drive the final time, I spotted a handmade sign on a tree. Sloppy cursive writing announced one acre, with a barely legible phone number at the bottom. The acre looked like a park, with beautiful hardwoods trimmed high. It was on a hill with a pond on one side and a dense forest behind it. I pulled the passenger-side tires into the grass and got out, half expecting something terrible to appear—another snake den, skunks, vampires. But the land couldn’t be more perfect.

  I let Roman climb out, and I called the number while we hiked through the tall grass. “The number you have reached is not in service. Please check—” I redialed, changing the uncertain 0 into an 8.

  “We just posted the sign this afternoon,” a woman said, her Southern accent strong enough for a country song. “My daddy gave me that land when I turned eighteen, even though I said I wouldn’t never live next to him. That was thirty years ago now. I decided on a whim to sell.”

  I made an offer on the acre over the phone. It was ten thousand less than they were asking but still ten thousand more than I had. Less than an hour later, we signed a basic, handwritten agreement on the hood of my car. When I flipped the paper over at a stop sign, I discovered that it was their receipt for four new truck tires and an alignment at Tire Town. I giggled until a few tears flowed. The entire thing was absurd. Maybe I really had traveled through Drew’s portal to an alternate reality. I wasn’t the sort of girl to buy an acre of land on a tire receipt. Roman laughed with me from the backseat, and I wiped away the tears, sobering. Today, I was exactly that sort of girl. The spontaneous girl in the rearview mirror was me after all.

  Drew and I sketched preliminary plans at the dining-room table on giant sheets of paper, glancing over at the stick model for inspiration when things got tedious. We kept our pencils sharp and our lines straight, working into the early-morning hours to make sure the staircase width met code and the landing had enough room to swing around a king-size mattress. Roman slipped by in stealth mode, stealing our erasers and hiding under the table to gnaw on them like a teething puppy. The tenth time I pulled a fat pink eraser from his slobbery fist, I lifted him up to see the stick house. “This is what we’re drawing. We’re going to build a big house like this. One we can live in.”

  “Yup,” he said, nodding his head until his eyes jiggled. His feet were running before they hit the floor. He skidded into my mostly empty office, where Hope and Jada were googling energy-efficient building ideas from the PC propped on my great-grandmother’s trunk. When they came up with something good, they shouted it out for us to incorporate. I could have moved the computer to the table, but the chaos of their conversations swinging from excitement to bickering and insults would have driven Drew and me nuts while we struggled to play amateur architect.

  We had already named the imagined house Inkwell Manor. It would be the place where my dream of writing for a living came true. I stared down at the model house, imagining Roman crawling up the staircase. A tiny bag of colorful beads hung at the top of the stairs. One of the girls must have added it, but I had no idea why. Another bead bag hung over Hope’s bedroom door, and one over the back door. It was a bizarre way to decorate. Then I spotted a series of sharp screws sticking through a wall in the garage and more by the front door. A mini skateboard blocked the dining-room door. “What on earth?” I mumbled, pricking my index finger against one of the screws.

  Drew looked up, wearing a half smile that made him look all grown up. “You found the improvements. What do you think?”

  “What are…” Then I saw the slivered edge of a CD along the back door and knew
immediately what they had done. “Booby traps.”

  “Home Alone–style. Jada did the beads. Hope came up with some ideas that were seriously scary.” He shook his head, but didn’t lose the smile. “It’s what you get, raising kids around your mystery novels.”

  “Are these cameras?” I pointed to the acorn hats on every corner of the house’s exterior, and he nodded. Wouldn’t it be nice if they really had made the modifications because I was a mystery writer? Wouldn’t it be nice if imagination were the only thing they had to be afraid of?

  I sat back down and sketched as quickly as I could. It was long past time to get out of this house.

  On Friday morning I took the plans to a copy shop, painfully aware that even after I had the printer darken the ink they looked like exactly what they were, pencil-drawn renderings done by amateurs. I took them to my bank, shoulders back and confident that my great credit would put me on the fast track to borrow everything I needed. The balding loan officer whose heavy glasses slid to the tip of his nose twice a minute declined my request, and not without a smirk. “We only loan to licensed contractors. Experienced contractors.” Down and back up went the glasses. “I can recommend a couple, hon. They’ll take good care of you.”

  I tried two more banks, feeling so defeated at the last that my request sounded more like a squeaky apology. We could do this. I knew it with everything in me. But of course we couldn’t do it without the money to buy supplies. And if the bank made us hire a contractor to oversee the work, we couldn’t afford to do it at all.

  Over the weekend I downplayed the rejections to the kids, playing it off like we had tons more options when I hadn’t thought of a single new possibility.