by Daya Daniels
CHAPTER THREE
I struggled to get out of bed but managed. I was still quite bruised and sore but was able to stand and walk around.
Gabriel was nowhere to be found. I assumed he was outside working on something. He always seemed to be busy.
I walked out of the bedroom to the bathroom across the hall, hoping to take a shower. The bathroom was fully stocked with fluffy white towels, soaps and shampoos. There was a green fern in the corner that sat in a wrought iron plant holder. I slipped off the white T-shirt given to me by my gracious host. I turned it inside out and the tag was monogrammed with his initials. I stood naked in front of the large mirror above the vanity. It was the first time I’d seen my reflection in a mirror since the morning of my birthday…when I was pretty. Except, I didn’t know the person that was staring back at me. She looked different. Her face was pale. Her body was covered in cuts and faint bruises—some of them old, some of them new. There was a wound in the shape of upper teeth over the top of her right shoulder. I ran my right hand across my collarbone and felt the warm sensation of it moving across my skin. The reflection was real. She was me.
I touched my breasts, looking at them in the mirror. I felt their firmness and roundness in my hands. I’d always been curvy. I was thinner now. I needed to eat. I turned to the side to look at myself. My ass was as shapely as I remembered and my stomach was still taut. I leaned in close to the mirror and opened my mouth. I was grateful I still had my teeth. They could have been knocked out along with everything else they ruined about me. I forced a happy grin in the mirror. It all still looked the same.
I heard a knock and lifted my eyes to meet Gabriel’s. He poked his head in the door which I left slightly ajar. I made no attempt to cover myself. There was no point.
“Do you need any help? I noticed you left the bed and I just came to check on you,” he said.
I wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there, watching me examine myself.
“I’m okay. I think I can manage.” He quickly left, closing the door behind him.
I grabbed a towel out of the vanity and leaned into the shower to turn the water on, careful not to get my cast wet. The shower was spacious with dark grey tile and recessed lighting overhead. There were three fixtures for the direction of the water, a rainfall showerhead above me and two nozzles lower down in the shower, on each side. I stood in the hot water for what seemed like an hour, enjoying the steam and the scent of eucalyptus body wash that I’d grown used to since living here.
***
After drying off. I slipped on a white pajama shirt that Gabriel gave me and some red sweatpants that he’d cut at the knee.
I decided to look around the rest of the cabin. It was impressive. It had a cozy dark interior like the bedroom. There were huge windows around the place which allowed a lot of light in, balancing the dark brown wood of the walls. The floors were all ebonized hardwood and there were exposed oak beams which ran across the entire vaulted ceiling of the cabin.
The kitchen had a double-wide stainless steel fridge, stove and microwave and a huge center island made from oak with copper edging. There was a small calendar that stuck to the fridge marking some dates. I realized that tomorrow was Christmas.
It was Christmas Eve. A few days over, one square was marked “Lily-monthly.” I cringed at Gabriel’s ability to be so thorough. Christmas hadn’t been much of a holiday for me since my parents died. I didn’t know if he celebrated it either.
Just off the open-plan kitchen there was a small laundry room and another large room that looked as though it functioned as an office. There was a desk. On the wall on the other side of the room there were numerous screens. I peered a little closer. It looked as though they captured the areas just outside the house and the perimeter of the property. The images on the screen were the live feeds from surveillance cameras.
There was a spacious sunken den. An eight-foot tall fireplace was the focal point of the room. It was surrounded by old grey stone. There was a plush cream rug that covered most of the wood on the floor of the room. I saw a few heavy blankets folded next to the brown soft leather sectional—where Gabriel usually sleeps.
A hardcover copy of Pale Fire by Vladamir Nabokov sat on top of the blankets. I picked it up and flicked through the pages. He had a bookmark placed at page seventy-three. Next to it was a large sketchbook filled with architectural plans and handwritten notes.
There were no family photos or personal trinkets left lying around that told me anything more about Gabriel, except for what I already knew.
In the corner of the den there were two large dog beds for Rocco and Sable.
The far wall of the den had two nine-foot tall floor-to-ceiling windows that had a breathtaking view of the Rockies. The large telescope that we occasionally used sat in front of the large window. It gave a spectacular view of Gabriel’s property and I estimated that it sat on close to one hundred acres of open bordered land.
There was a large building to the right of the house where he said the horses were kept.
Across the den there was a flight of stairs that led to a loft area which sat behind floor-to-ceiling glass. There was a sizeable gym to the left with modern equipment and a library space stocked with books to the right which had another fireplace. There were guns kept along the wall behind glass casing.
Artwork hung on the walls throughout the large space, one of which I recognized. It was Jackson Pollock’s abstract painting Convergence, which hung a few feet above the fireplace. I doubted it was an original but it was still beautiful to look at it.
“Merry Christmas, Lily,” Gabriel said smiling, when I entered the kitchen.
“Merry Christmas,” I replied.
Gabriel made lunch. He cooked a small turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, and pumpkin pie. It all smelled wonderful.
“I don’t usually make a huge deal out of Christmas, Lily, since it’s only me here, but I thought this year we could celebrate a little.”
“I don’t celebrate it anymore,” I said honestly.
We sat quietly and ate together, looking out at the scenery of the mountains. White snow covered the green and brown tree branches and I spotted a few squirrels scurrying to the tops of two of them. Each time I glanced out the window and back to my plate, I caught him staring at me.
“You won’t look me in the eye, Lily, why?”
I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I just feel a bit weird these days I guess. I’m finally able to get around on my own. I realized yesterday that most days I wake up I have to remember where I am.”
“You are still trying to find your bearings.”
“Plus, I’m living in your house, using your things, wearing your clothes, eating your food.” I gestured to the plate in front of me. “I just feel bad I guess that I’m imposing and I have nothing to give you for it.”
“Lily, please make yourself at home.”
Gabriel was handsome. His olive skin made him look as though he always had a tan, despite the cold outside. When he smiled, it lit up his entire face, exposing brilliantly white perfect teeth and dimples on both of his cheeks. His hair was a bit longer and when the sunlight hit, through the skylight above us, I could see a few gold strands on the edges running through it.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
“This is a beautiful house. It’s very modern for a cabin,” I said.
“Thanks, I designed it myself actually.”
I closed my eyes. “I think of the woods. And ah, eating out of tins, no electricity or running water. And an outhouse!”
Gabriel let out a loud laugh, pointing his fork at me. “Exactly. This house is the exception.”
We ate silently for a few minutes, listening to the crackle of the fireplace in the den.
“I see you’re reading Pale Fire by Nabokov.”
Gabriel stopped chewing to look at me. “Have you read it?”
I laughed. Absolutely not.
“No, I haven’t. I
sn’t it one ridiculously long poem?” I asked curiously.
“I’ve read it before.” Gabriel smiled. “No, but it is presented as a ridiculously long poem, nine hundred and ninety-nine lines I believe, written by the character John Shade. The foreword and all the commentary is by a colleague of the poet, Charles Kinbote.
“It’s basically a book made up of footnotes. It has been interpreted a lot of different ways. I don’t want to bore you.”
I laughed. I had no interest in listening to the interpretation of Pale Fire. There was a small gold box resting in the middle of us wrapped in red ribbon.
He gestured towards it. “Open it.”
I hesitated. “I didn’t get you anything.”
Gabriel rested his fork down for a moment, reaching across the table to touch my hand.
“Lily, please open it. It isn’t anything new. It’s just something small that I thought might mean a lot to you.”
I reached for the box and started to unwrap the ribbon then the paper. I slowly took the top off and saw what was inside. It was my dreamcatcher. My mother had given it to me the day she and my dad had left to go on vacation when their plane crashed. It was the only keepsake I had left.
“Where did you get this? I thought I lost it. It was lost,” I whispered in shock, my eyes filling up with tears.
“It was clutched in your hand when we found you.“
“Thank you, Gabriel.”
“You’re welcome, Lily.”
Gabriel gave me a thick sweater of his and some cut-off jeans and rain boots to lounge around in for the time being. I stepped outside in the morning. The sky was slowly becoming a mixture of yellow and orange as the sun peeked over the horizon. It was beautiful. The ground was covered by thick fluffy white snow. The cabin was surrounded by fifty-foot-tall pine and fir trees that concealed the location. The fog outside sat low. The snow-covered peaks of the Rockies were in view clearly in the distance from the deck.
It had been three months. These were the first few days I’d actually ventured outside to look around the property. It was the first time I noticed that the cabin actually sat on fiberglass pilings, putting twenty feet between most of the foundation and the ground. There was only a section beneath the cabin for the garage which was built out of concrete and had a massive steel door to it, accessible from inside the house through the kitchen.
Gabriel explained that the twenty-five-foot-high ceilings of the cabin that were divided by two floors prevented some of the larger animals, like mountain lions, from being able to jump on the roof. The stairs to the deck also gave the cabin additional protection from some of the larger animals that lived in the area. They were made of steel and could retract into the foundation of the cabin, making it if necessary completely inaccessible from the ground. All the windows and doors that surrounded the cabin were constructed with Hammerglass which was virtually unbreakable. It was an impressive construction.
There was another building approximately thirty feet away from the house. It held the greenhouse, the stables where Winnie and Jack were kept, and a large tool shed. The walls of the building were high, at least fifteen feet, and the windows sat at the maximum height of the roof.
Gabriel usually accessed it by walking outside, but when it gets too cold he said there was another entrance through the garage by an underground tunnel that would allow you direct entrance to the building, without having to endure the cold.
Eventually, I settled into a bench on the deck, staring out at the sunrise for a few minutes, thinking. I chuckled this morning when Gabriel told me “not to think too much,” so I tried not to.
“Do you want company?” Gabriel asked, peeking out of the door.
I shrugged and leaned against the bench. He settled next to me, passing me a mug filled with coffee.
“Thank you.”
Gabriel only nodded, staring out at the spectacular view. “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, giving him a smile.
“I don’t think anyone knows true peace until they come here, Lily,” he said, taking a sip from the cup he held in his hand.
The sound of low chatter came from the kitchen the next morning. A sweet voice intertwined with Gabriel’s deep one told me that there was another woman in the house. I slipped out of bed and wrapped a blanket around myself. I cracked the door open, straining to hear their lowered voices. Gabriel was standing near the stove with a cup of coffee in his hand. I overheard them discussing me.
“I brought all the new clothes and underwear you asked for. They should fit.
“I also ran her blood work. There were some small traces of a tranquilizer in her system but she’s clean and she’s not pregnant.
“Her iron count is a little low but that’s nothing that a supplement couldn’t cure. Everything else is fine,” she said.
Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief in response.
“Would you prefer I tell her myself directly? Maybe introduce myself?”
“No, Abigail. Lily has been through a lot. You giving her this information might be embarrassing.
“I’ll give it to her myself and she can open the envelope when she’s ready. I don’t think bombarding her with new people and questions right now is the best thing for her. She still needs rest,” Gabriel went on.
“It’s good to know you’re not here alone. You’ve always been here alone and it’s not healthy. Is she nice? Is she pretty?” the woman asked.
I leaned on the door a bit more and it creaked, causing Gabriel and the stranger to look up from their coffee cups. Shit. I decided to walk out then.
“I didn’t know you were awake,” he said, gesturing to the coffee pot. “Coffee?”
I moved closer to where he was standing.
“Hello.” I introduced myself to the woman standing in the kitchen.
She was medium height like me. She had beautiful green eyes, brown skin, and a long black braid down the middle of her back.
“I’m Lily,” I said.
“It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m the real doctor,” she said grinning.
Gabriel’s brows lifted in clear amusement. “Lily, Abigail is a veterinarian.”
“Anywho, Lily. My name is Abigail, Dr. Abigail Preston. If you ever need anything and I mean anything, please call me. Oh, I’m also Gabriel’s sister-in-law. I must say you are very beautiful.”
Abigail glared at Gabriel again, giving him a blinding smile.
“Thank you,” I whispered, turning probably several shades of red.
“Well, I must get going, lots to do today. Jacob will be by later. Please open the door this time when he knocks,” Abigail said with a pleading look on her face.
Abigail left a white envelope on the center island and tapped on it nodding in his direction, before she darted out the front door with her coffee still in hand.
***
Gabriel held the coffee pot while I grabbed a mug out of the cabinet. “Sugar?” he asked.
“Yes, please.” I held up my cup waiting for him to fill it and froze when I noticed how badly both of my hands shook uncontrollably.
Gabriel pretended to not have observed my trembling and snatched the coffee cup from me, placed it on the center island, and poured the coffee like nothing was amiss. I noticed this tremor before and hoped it would go away, but now it seemed like it was becoming more severe by the day. I stood staring at my hands for a few seconds.
“Lily,” he whispered interrupting my thoughts, enclosing my hands with his. “It will stop. It’s just nerves.”
I looked up meeting his gaze, trying to keep the tears from trickling out of my eyes and I nodded.
“Yep, just nerves,” I said in a half-convincing voice.
I quickly grabbed the coffee, went back to bed, and closed the door.
***
A few minutes later there was a quiet knock at the door. I opened it noticing that Gabriel left two shopping bags on the floor in front of it.
There was a
white envelope placed on the top of one of the bags with a pink Post-it note stuck to it with Lily – private written on it. I sat on the bed and went through the bags carefully. The first one was filled with new clothing, all size four, and shoes. The bra and panty sets and socks were labeled Calvin Klein and were all my size exactly. The second bag was filled with toiletries—tampons, pads, Midol, razors, shaving gel, a select few colors of fingernail polish and polish remover, shower caps, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, moisturizer. There was everything in there a girl could need.
Gabriel purchased all of this. I sighed quietly, realizing that the list of growing debt I had yet to repay him was getting longer each day. I nervously opened the envelope. The letterhead read Preston Veterinarian Practice, patient blood testing. Name: TBD—tests run negative for pregnancy, no STDs, only low iron count. The contents confirmed what I overheard. Why didn’t I feel any better?
Gabriel’s brother, Jacob, stopped by later that evening and we were introduced. Jacob had the same olive skin. He was just as tall as Gabriel but stood maybe two inches shorter with dark-brown hair that was cut close to his scalp. Jacob had the same deep voice and a pleasant smile. He was handsome like his brother. A worried look colored his face when he first arrived to the cabin and he was covered in sawdust.
The two brothers had very dissimilar personalities. Jacob was more talkative and friendly. He reminded me of a young college frat boy. Jacob spent most of the hour he’d visited asking Gabriel questions about this and that. I heard them both outside on the deck laughing loudly. When I overheard his muffled voice, I moved closer to the window to watch them.
“Bear, there’s a lot going on out at the sawmill. We need you back full time if you can swing it. If not, I need you to come down to Helena for an official handover. Work is piling up and I’m not sure how much longer I can manage it on my own without you on the ground. I need some direction.”