“Anson? You in there?”
The handsome man revealed himself, showing off the dimple in his left cheek. “Sorry. Did I wake you? I tried to be so quiet.”
“Could you not sleep?”
He shook his head, tucking the tarp closed behind him. “I slept like a brick, thanks to you. You’ve been out for ten hours, little duck. Eight was a fantastic vacation for me. I woke up, watched you sleep for a while, and then decided to make myself useful. You want some breakfast?”
“Thanks, but I’m thinking a person can only handle so many mornings of quiche.”
“Not this person. I could eat your food all day long. But I wasn’t talking about quiche. I made you breakfast,” Anson declared proudly.
“I thought you didn’t cook,” she said suspiciously as he pushed her towards the kitchen.
“I don’t, but I make a mean bowl of cereal.”
“Aw! That was sweet of you.” She kissed his cheek, rubbing her nose in the stubble. She sat at the counter and sloshed milk over the nuggets.
His face was buried in her neck as he spoke. It seemed he was unable to be in the same room with her and not be physically connected in some way. He was starved for touch, but only hers. “Do you have any more paint? I’m running low, and I’d like to finish the second coat this morning, so it has time to dry.”
“Sure. It’s in the office. Just down the hall.” Etta smiled as she watched him walk away, enjoying the lithe look of his muscular, yet lean body. If this was life without Cooper, she reasoned it might not be so bad.
She indulged in her third bite of cereal, and had to admit that she did not hate it. Her fourth bite stuck in her throat, though. Etta choked it down as she ran to the office. “Anson, wait!” she called, panicked.
Not Papa’s things. Please don’t have touched Papa’s things! Her shoulders drooped from the stranglehold they had on her neck when she saw the door was still shut tight. Anson had ambled into the wrong room. He was in the studio her grandfather built her by erecting a wall to section off a small area of his office for her to have her own space. She lived in that room for weeks after he died, but only visited it once since Anson came to stay with her. The outlet she had been screaming for no longer haunted her, driving her to seclusion and torment.
Fear welled within when it dawned on her that she probably had not put away her paintings. They were displayed around the room so she could be engulfed in her own personal horror.
“No, Anson! That’s not the room!” She bolted into the opened door, aghast at the display. Fragmented and surreal portraits of her grandfather as she found his rat-infested body surrounded her in the tiny room. Air suddenly became difficult to come by. She wheezed and gasped as she tried to shove Anson out of the room. “Private! That’s private!”
Now it was her turn to fight through a panic attack. The pressure on her chest was so great; she wondered how long it would be until she passed out.
Embarrassed. So embarrassed. The crazy had not been a problem, because it had been her own private loony bin to deal with. Someone else witnessing her insanity made it all the more real. The pain she endured hit her over the head like a sledgehammer, shattering the bliss of their new relationship like a vase on the hard floor.
Anson lowered her to the ground and made a show of breathing deep, so she would mimic his behavior. There was shock in his eyes, but no judgment. At this, Etta fought her way through the wave of upset and sick that rolled through her until she was breathing more easily.
“Anson, I –”
“Not yet. Just rest for a minute. It’s all okay.”
When Anson brushed a lock of hair from her face, she began to hope that his reassurance was true. She wished for everything to be right side up again someday soon.
“I’m sorry.” She covered her face with her hands as she sat up. “I’ll get the paint. I don’t want you to see all that stuff.”
“I didn’t know you painted,” he remarked, making an effort at being polite.
“Yeah. I used to sketch the trees and paint flowers and stuff like that.” Tears rose like dew in her eyes, and then spilled down her cheeks. He had already seen her panicking like a baby on the floor, and had just witnessed the torment of her mind. She figured he could handle a few tears. “That’s my Papa. That’s how I found him.”
Anson did not say anything. He scooped her to his chest and let her cry. Cooper tried to make her talk about it. Benjamin asked her to explain it in detail. Jamie even attempted cheering her up. Chloe offered to take her down to Foot Town to get her mind off of things with free drinks from the bar she tended. No one had simply held her. And then, after the rape, she would not let them. It had been a long, retched spiral, squeezed into the span of a few months.
Anson remained silent for ten minutes, permitting her grief to flow all over his shirt. When she managed to quiet herself, he rubbed soothing circles into her back. “Do you want me to hang them out around the house?”
Etta snorted. “No. I don’t want to see them, but until you came along, I couldn’t get it all out of my head. It felt like showing the canvas was the only safe way to let it out.”
“Smart thinking. If you don’t want to look at them, do you want me to put them away?”
Etta stilled as she debated between wallowing and moving forward. Her eyes clenched shut as her fingers dug into his arms. “Please. Please pack them up.”
Anson kissed her cheek, and then released her, moving into the room with new determination.
Etta sat on the dark wood floor until the mental barrier she had on her brain began to shatter. Finally, she stood, anchored by the hope of a new life. “Anson, I’m going to the office. You needed paint for the dining room? I’ll put what we’ve got outside the door. I… I just need to do something, and it’ll take me a few hours. Is that okay?”
“Whatever you need is fine. Just promise you’ll call for me if what you need happens to be me at any point.”
“Will do.” She shut the door to her grandfather’s office behind her and exhaled. Though it might take all day, she would say a proper goodbye to the man who raised her. Then she would do her best to live.
The Handiest Man
It was eight o’clock when Etta’s stomach could no longer be ignored. She had long since packed up the last of her grandfather’s things and put them either in the attic or in a box to donate. Vera had cleaned out his bedroom for her the week after the funeral, and Etta assured the elderly woman that she would take care of the office. She did not want to admit that she had no intention of removing him from the house so soon after his death.
Etta had been sitting in her grandfather’s beat up leather chair, inhaling what was left of his scent before life removed it completely from her grasp. She ambled on unsteady legs to her bathroom, showering off the dust, sweat, tears and melancholy. As she was drying off, lost in thought, her guts reminded her that she had gone most of the day without eating.
She moved toward the kitchen, discovering Anson coming toward her with two plates of food. He smelled of soap, and his hair, like hers, was damp from a recent shower.
Anson’s eyes lit up at the sight of her. “Oh, good! I know you said you didn’t want to be bothered, but it’s been all day. I was starting to get worried. Hungry?”
“Thank you. I’m starved.”
“Well, would you like to eat in your new dining room?” he asked with a self-satisfied smirk.
“Really? You’re seriously done already?”
“As done as I can be. You need a new table and blinds. Yours are pretty broken and dinged up. I went for a walk earlier and finally got cell reception. I ordered a table that should look nice and fit okay in the room. Hopefully the snow will melt soon, and they can deliver it. Blinds, too.”
Etta stopped walking mid-stride. “Wait, you bought me a table? Like, a dining room table?”
Anson kept the smile he wanted to beam at her modest as he placed his hand on the tarp. “You needed it. I told you I would
manage this room. Couldn’t fix the table, so I found another way to take care of it.”
“Anson, why? You didn’t have to do that.” She thought she had squeezed out her last tear, but one more slid out. “I hate that table. That was where I was… and he…” She cleared her throat. “I hate that table.”
He kissed her forehead. “Well, you never have to look at it again.” His fingers gripped the tarp, and Etta could see his excitement. “You ready for it?”
Etta nodded, putting on her best anticipatory grin. She did not know what she had been expecting, but it was not what greeted her. Faded yellow walls had been painted a deep blue. The curtains had been removed, awaiting the arrival of the blinds. He painted the baseboards a soft white that had an opaque sheen to them. The china cabinet in the corner had been restained, and the contents cleaned and dusted. He even found two of her less horrifying paintings while packaging up the ones of her grandfather, and hung them. One was of the moon, and on the opposite wall, a swirling mass of constellations.
“You did all this?” She blinked as she walked into the room she had not set foot in since the incident.
“I can change it if you don’t like it. Just say the word. It’s your house. I can make it however you want.”
It was beautiful. The room. The gesture. The man. There were no traces of her missing virginity. No reminders of the horrible incident that wrecked her. It was a fresh start, and exactly what she needed.
“I love it,” she whispered. She gazed up at the man who understood what she needed before she did. Piece by crumbled piece, he was fixing the broken bits of her, reassembling her into the woman she feared she might never be again.
Before she knew it, she was kissing him. There was no decision; it simply was. “Is this what it’s like to be in a relationship?”
“No,” Anson admitted. “Not what I’ve experienced. That happiness is us, Etta. Just us.”
Bursting the Bubble
Anson and Etta continued their day by doing chores side-by-side, unwilling to part for even a few minutes. Everything was a delightful dance of perfection until she asked where he acquired the small scar on his hip. The cord of reality tugged on his heart, but he did his best to ignore it. “Rope burn,” he admitted, giving her the most condensed version of the truth possible.
Anson sucked on her neck as Etta twisted the screwdriver to fix a loose screw in the doorframe of the office. “I’m just never going to get anything done ever again, am I?” she asked him with a chuckle.
“Not if I have anything to do with it. It looks like the snow’s been plowed,” he said, glancing over his shoulder toward the window in the living room.
A loud banging interrupted their conversation. “Someone’s here. Do you feel like dealing with them, or did you want to make yourself scarce? Your choice.”
“I think I’ve had enough of Cooper for one day. Just wait till I get upstairs before you open the door.”
“Okay. Might want to hurry. My friends all have keys, and they let themselves in if I wait too long.”
Etta watched as Anson disappeared up the stairs, and then counted to three before opening the side door.
Cooper’s presence was not entirely surprising, but him being thrust at her was. Chloe stepped out from behind the scowling man, wearing her brunette hair pulled back in a ponytail and her I-can-cut-a-bitch face. “This belongs to you,” she stated. “Got something to say, idiot?”
Cooper straightened and mumbled a half-hearted apology that fooled no one. His attitude was obvious, and showed no signs of ebbing. “There, Chloe. You happy?”
“Thrilled. You should take up with the theatre troupe first thing. What Coop meant to say was that he’s sorry for being nasty to you. You’ve been through enough in the past couple months, and you don’t need him adding to the aggravation.”
Etta returned Cooper’s foul temperament with her own. “You don’t have to do this, Chloe. It’s obvious he thinks I’m a prostitute because I’m twenty-seven, and finally decided to kiss a guy.”
Chloe’s fierce expression turned in an instant to overjoyed. “Who? You did? Is he here? Can I meet him?” She threw her arms around her friend’s neck. “Oh, Etta! Good for you!”
“I missed you!” Etta exclaimed, returning the hug she had gone too long without. “How was your mom’s?”
Chloe unwrapped her scarf from around her neck, and then peeled off layers of barrier from the cold as she chatted with her only true girlfriend in the mountains. “It was fine. I felt horrible for leaving you, though. Came back as soon as I could. Well, after the snowstorm let up. I was stuck in Foot Town for a couple days.”
“Aw. What a bummer.”
“It wasn’t all bad.” Chloe pulled off her boots and pushed her way past a sulky Cooper. “Met someone while I was down there.”
Etta stopped mid-step. “You met someone?”
Chloe opened the refrigerator and ducked into it to hide her face. “Sort of.”
Etta was floored, and refused to move. “You never say that. You say you hooked up, or slept over or something like that. You never admit to actually meeting a guy.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Well, I technically meet them all. Oh, forget it. You’re reading too much into it. Lucas is just…”
“Lucas? You gave him a name? Goodness gracious, I need to sit down.” Etta fanned herself dramatically.
“Whatever. Yes, he has a name. We hooked up. End of story. I’m sure every guy I’ve been with has had a name.”
“Not one you bothered to learn,” Etta countered.
Chloe hopped up on the countertop, pointing her cherry red fingernail at her friend. “Stop turning this around. You kissed a guy for the first real time! Tell me everything! When did he check out? Are you seeing him again?”
Cooper groaned. “Could I not be here for this? Seriously. I’m this close to shoving this dish towel in my ears.”
Etta pointed to the ceiling. “He’s still here. And I won’t talk about him in front of this jerk.” She glared at Cooper. “You were horrible to me about him last time you were here. I’m not giving you more ammo.”
“Fine by me,” Cooper retorted. “I’d just as soon know nothing about the freak taking advantage of you.”
“Wow,” Etta commented. “That’s some apology. What did that last? Two minutes? Three? Go home, Coop.”
“That’s rich. You’re throwing me out? He’s the freeloader, but I’m the inconvenience. Great. That makes perfect sense.”
Chloe gasped, looking around Etta at the blue room that had been taped off for too many weeks. “Wow! That looks amazing! How long was I gone for? Did you do all this, Etta?”
“No. Anson did. You know, the guy I like? He wasn’t happy that I don’t feel safe in my house. He changed the room around so it doesn’t remind me so much of…”
Chloe’s mouth was wide open. “What a sweet guy! Seriously. That’s like, really nice.” She slapped her hands together. “When can I meet him? Bring him out! Show and tell.” A mischievous gleam lit her eyes as she glanced at the stairwell. She began dancing to her own song that traveled with her wherever she went.
“He’ll come down if he wants. Cooper was terrible to him last time, so he’s giving us some space.”
“Could we leave? Uncle Ben wants to know if you have any quiches to drop off.” Without waiting for a response, Cooper opened the freezer and began pulling out the twenty-two frozen egg pies. Instead of stacking them on the counter, he took them outside and loaded them up in his SUV to speed the departure along.
Chloe slipped past her friend and darted up the stairs, ignoring Etta’s pleas to leave her guest alone. Chloe knocked on the only shut door, donning her most welcoming smile. “Room service!” she sang, grinning at her friend, who looked annoyed.
“Chloe, leave him alone. He doesn’t like strangers,” Etta scolded, catching up to the brunette and tugging on her arm.
“It’s alright,” Anson called from inside the room. He fumbled wit
h the handle, gearing up to greet the women on the other side. When he opened the door, the outside world shattered his bubble of contentment.
“Ah!” Chloe leapt backward in shock. She stared like a fish with her mouth open at the handsome man in the doorway. “You!”
Anson stumbled back, his gumption dissolving into the shakes he had gone a whole day without. “No, I’m not!”
“You are! You’re Anson Gable! Etta! Holy Toledo! The guy you’re with is Anson Gable? Is this real?” She shrieked again, jumping up and down girlishly, colorful bangles dancing on her wrists.
Etta was dumbfounded at Chloe’s reaction. “Do you know each other?” She shook her head in newly-acquired dread. “Please tell me you haven’t slept together.”
“Only in my dreams!” Chloe squealed, clapping her hands together like a little girl. “It’s really Anson Gable!” She whirled on Anson, suddenly serious. “You’re missing! I saw it in a magazine while I was stuck down in Foot Town. No one knows where you are because you’ve been here? You’re in love with Etta? My Etta? That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard!” Unable to hold it in, Chloe let out another loud five-alarm scream, waving her hands like she was on fire. “It’s Anson Gable!”
Cooper bolted up the stairs when he came back into the house and was greeted by Chloe screeching. “What’s going on?” he boomed, chest puffed out.
“It’s him!” Chloe yelled, foregoing any semblance of an inside voice. She pointed at the man who was cowering in the furthest corner of the room.
Cooper postured, assessing the situation as best he could, and then barreled past the women. “Get up!” he commanded the shrinking man.
Etta snapped to life. “Cooper, leave him alone! I have no idea what’s going on, but you yelling isn’t helping anything. Out! Everyone get downstairs.”
Cooper turned on Etta with anger she had not witnessed in such a focused glare. “What did he do? Is he high?”
Liberating Mr. Gable Page 10
