Jodie gripped my hand and squeezed it. “This is great.”
“It needs some work.”
Upstairs, there were two bedrooms—a master and a spare—as well as a third room that would make a perfect office for my writing and Jodie’s work on her doctoral dissertation. A second full bathroom was up here as well. With some disdain, I scrutinized the chipped shower tiles and the sink that could have been dripping since Eisenhower was in office.
“Travis,” Jodie called from down the hall. “Come look. You won’t believe this.”
She was in the master bedroom at the end of the hall. The movers had propped our mattress at an angle against one wall and left our dresser in the middle of the room. Boxes of clothes crept up another wall.
“Look,” Jodie said. She was gazing out of the wall of windows that faced the backyard.
I came up behind her and peered over her shoulder. Beyond the white smoothness of the lawn and seen through a network of barren tree limbs, a frozen lake glittered in the midday sun. On the far side of the lake, tremendous lodgepole pines studded the landscape, their needles powdered in a dusting of white. It was a breathtaking, picturesque view, marred only by the curious item toward the center of the lake—a large, dark, indescribable structure rising straight up from the ice.
“Did you know there was a lake back here?”
“No,” I said. “Adam never said anything.”
“Jesus, this is gorgeous. I can’t believe it’s ours.”
“It’s ours.” I kissed her neck and wrapped my arms around her. “What do you suppose that thing is out there? Sitting on the ice?”
“I have no idea,” Jodie said, “but I don’t think it’s sitting on the ice.”
“No?”
“Look at the base. The ice is chipped away, and you can see the water.”
“Strange,” I said.
Suddenly, we were both startled by a high-pitched wail, followed by the quick patter of small feet on the hardwood floor. It wasn’t the type of frustrated cry typical of agitated young children; there was fear in this shriek, possibly pain.
I rushed out onto the upstairs landing and glanced down in time to see Madison running into her mother’s arms in the foyer. Beth scooped up the little girl and hugged her tight.
“What happened?” I said, coming partway down the stairs.
Beth shook her head: she didn’t know. She smoothed back Madison’s hair while the girl clung to her like a monkey.
Adam appeared beside them and asked Madison what was wrong, but she did not answer. Her crying quickly subsiding, she seemed content to bury her face in Beth’s shoulder.
Adam looked at me. “What happened?” The amount of accusation in his tone rendered me speechless. “What’d you do?”
It wasn’t until Jacob came up behind me on the stairs that I realized to whom Adam had been directing his questions.
“What happened?” Adam repeated.
Jacob shrugged. The kid looked miserable. “Maddy got scared.”
“Scared of what?”
Again: the slight roll of tiny shoulders. “Something scared her. Wasn’t me. I promise.”
Adam sighed and ran his fingers through his tight, curly hair. “Get down here, Jacob.”
Expressionlessly, the boy bounded down the stairs.
I followed, stuffing my hands into my pockets. I paused beside Beth and rubbed Madison’s head.
She squirmed and swung her legs, causing Beth to grunt when she struck her in the belly. “Cut it out now,” Beth muttered into her daughter’s hair.
“You never said anything about a lake out back,” I said to Adam.
“Didn’t I?”
“And the basement? Where is it?”
“In the attic. Where else?”
“Ha. Don’t quit your day job.” I strolled past him down the hallway toward the one door I hadn’t yet opened.
Adam called after me: “The movers put all your boxes marked storage down there.”
“Thanks.” I opened the door on a set of rickety wooden stairs that sank deep into a concrete cellar. Somewhere down there a light burned, casting a tallow illumination on the exposed cinder block walls. I descended the stairs halfway until I saw an exposed bulb in the center of the low ceiling, hanging from several inches of wire. Its pull cord swayed like a hypnotist’s pocket watch.
A number of boxes were stacked at the foot of the stairs. I stepped over them and tugged on the pull cord, which broke off in my hand and sent the bulb swinging, casting alternating shadows around the room.
“Goddamn it.”
Standing on my toes, I reached up and steadied the light but couldn’t slip the cord back into place to shut it off. In the end, I padded my fingers on my tongue, then gave the bulb a half turn. The light went out.
We spent the rest of the daylight hours moving boxes from room to room, putting pieces of furniture together, scrubbing the bathrooms and the kitchen, and overall warming up to our new surroundings.
By the time night had fallen, we were all hungry and exhausted. The kids began to fuss, and Beth herded them home, insisting that we join them for dinner.
Their house had a closed-in porch, heated in the winter, where we charged through a meal of roast pork, some string bean and bread crumb concoction, mashed potatoes, and corn bread. For dessert, Beth set out an apple pie and ice cream, eliciting cheers from the children, and Jodie poured the coffee while Adam hunted around his basement for a bottle of port that was bent on remaining elusive. My brother finally returned from the basement empty-handed and defeated, then cut himself a giant slice of pie to make up for his efforts.
Beth talked about my last novel, Water View, and how she’d introduced my work to the neighborhood book club. “You’ll meet most of them next week. We’re having some people from the community over for a little Christmas party. It’ll be a great opportunity for you two to meet your new neighbors.”
“Please, Beth,” I said. “Don’t go wearing yourself out on our account.”
“My book club was going to meet anyway. I’ll just invite a few more people over, have them bring some desserts. It’ll be fun.”
“It’s a nice town,” Adam said. “Quiet, friendly.”
“Did you know the people who used to live in our house?” Jodie asked.
“The Dentmans,” Adam said. “We knew them a little, I guess.”
“We didn’t know them at all,” Beth corrected. “They were weird. Kept to themselves.”
Adam shrugged. “Desiring privacy doesn’t make you weird, hon.”
Beth flapped a hand at her husband, then turned to Jodie. “Don’t listen to him. They were weird.”
“Well, the house was a steal,” I said.
“Property isn’t very expensive out here,” Adam said, his mouth full of pie. “It’s like a well-kept secret from the rest of the state. Those mooks in Baltimore don’t know what they’re missing.”
“Mooks,” Madison parroted, giggling.
“And,” he went on, “it’s the perfect place to raise a family.”
“Yes, Adam,” Jodie piped up. “Please explain that to my husband. He seems to be ignorant of the whole biological clock phenomenon.”
I groaned and leaned back in my chair. “A week ago we were stuffed in a two-room flat with no central heating. We had to chase homeless people off our front steps every morning. You wanted to introduce kids to that?”
“Look around. We’re not there anymore.”
“Hey,” Beth said, lifting her glass of wine. “I want to make a toast. I’m so happy you guys moved out here.” She glanced at me, too obvious not to notice. Anyway, I think she wanted me to notice. “To new beginnings.”
“New beginnings,” Adam repeated.
We drank.