by Lisa Unger
While she sipped her espresso and stared out the kitchen window at the hole in the barn where the door used to hang, she thought about calling Ayers. She was surprised that he hadn’t called about the test: Raven had surely texted him as soon as she got on the train. He’d want a Big Talk. He was a communicator.
Ayers would probably want to come to the house for the weekend, which would be fine. He could help with the basement. And after Raven was asleep, maybe they’d find their way to each other. It had happened a number of times since they’d split; the attraction between them had never waned. The last time had been a couple of years ago. Come back to me, he’d whispered as they lay in the dark. She’d thought about it that time. But she’d thought too long. And now there was Ella.
She rested her hand on the phone, the landline, and was about to call her ex-husband when it started to ring. She saw the name on the caller ID and for some reason almost didn’t answer. It was Wanda Crabb, the woman she’d called for a reference earlier.
Mrs. Crabb sounded like her name, older and a little crotchety.
“He does decent work, as much as anybody does these days,” she said. “He refaced my cabinets. Work was fair at a fair price. I didn’t have to call and call to see when he was going to show up like some of them. Seems to have grown into decent fellow. Not like his brother.”
“Oh,” said Claudia. “Do they work together?”
“No, no one’s seen Rhett for years. Good riddance. He’s probably in jail; that’s the rumor anyway. I was the English teacher here at the local high school for twenty years; seen all kinds. Anyway, you must know all this. Rhett Beckham was a bad seed, if ever there was one.”
There was something a little unsettling about a teacher referring to a child as a bad seed, wasn’t there? It touched a nerve, a concept that Claudia could not allow herself to entertain. And—know all what? She found that happened a lot here; locals assumed a lot of knowledge on her part just because the property had been in her family for a long time. Anyway—stay focused, Claudia!
“But Josh?”
Wanda Crabb issued a cough, then another. It was an unsettling sound, deep and growling. Claudia noticed that she’d involuntarily put her hand to her own chest.
“Josh was an okay kid—as long as his brother wasn’t around,” she said finally, sounding raspy still. “Rhett was that kind of kid, the kind that could get otherwise good boys to do bad things. He knew how to exploit weakness.”
“Oh,” said Claudia.
She could hear the old woman breathing on the other line while she tried to think of what to say. Then: “Anyway, you said you were looking for a reference. That’s my reference.”
“Well,” said Claudia. “Thank you so much.”
She was about to go out on a limb and ask Wanda what it was that Claudia must know all about it. But the other woman had already hung up. A hit and run; Claudia was exhausted. She’d always had an inability to protect herself against other people’s negativity. She was fighting back the creep of anxiety and self-doubt when she saw him emerge from the trees, silent as a wraith as if he’d melted out from the color around him.
He was large, with a tawny coat, and long bushy tail, a regal, thoughtful face. She moved to the window, and he stood, watchful, looking at the house. She wasn’t sure if he could see her, but she felt as if he could, as if he was looking right at her, wondering at her as she was at him. The first time she saw him, she’d thought he was a coyote. But a quick bit of research on the internet and she’d determined that he was a coywolf, a coyote-wolf hybrid. They were bigger than coyotes, less skittish of humans, with bigger heads, and longer, fuller tails. She’d given him a name, Scout, and she liked the sight of him, always felt a flush of excitement at his arrival, even though she didn’t go out when he was around. There’d only been one human fatality involving a coywolf, a young girl killed in Canada by a coyote-wolf pack. Mainly, they were unseen by humans in their environments, which were increasingly urban. They were smart, adaptable, and good at hiding in plain sight.
Scout took a seat and lifted his nose toward the air. As Claudia watched him, a kind of calm came over her. She took and released a breath. She heard on the local news that a male coywolf had been killed a couple of towns over. Police claimed that his behavior was aggressive. Only afterward was it discovered that the coywolf was protecting the den where his pups and his mate were hiding. Coywolves mated for life; Claudia had spent an unreasonable amount of time worrying about the female and her pups. Would they be all right on their own? How did animals process loss? Would the mate just pull herself together and do what needed doing, leaving her cubs behind in the den as she went out to find food, returning later with her kill? Would she bay at the moon, mourning her lost love? Sometimes at night, you could hear them—yipping, talking, howling. It was a sad sound, lonely and distant.
Scout stood up abruptly, his reverie interrupted by something, then quickly turned and disappeared into the trees. Claudia always had a moment of disappointment when he went on his way. She turned to see that blue Toyota pulling up the drive, and she watched as Josh Beckham climbed out. For a second, she thought there was someone in the car with him, but he got out of the car alone. He stood a moment, looking at the barn door, shaking his head, running a hand through his unruly head of blond hair.
Wanda Crabb’s words were still echoing, even though they had nothing to do with Josh really. It was his brother that was the problem. So why couldn’t Claudia shake it? That worried feeling. Trauma and its aftermath were tricky, even so many years later. Even though, emotionally, she had healed more or less, meaning she could function, love, trust, meet people, make friends, connect. Sometimes it was as if her body still remembered; she still jumped at shadows, was attuned to strange noises and even scents.
When he knocked, she hesitated a moment, then opened the door.
“So it came down after all,” Josh said, stepping into the foyer. “I had a feeling.”
He filled the room with the scent of sawdust and soap, something else—paint. It took her a second to remember what he was talking about.
“Oh, the door,” she said. She glanced down at her watch. “They should be here soon, too. The guys from Just Old Doors.”
She was happy they would all be here at the same time.
He nodded. “They’re good guys,” he said. “I’ll talk to them and make sure they take care of you on the price.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Hopefully, some promotion on the blog will help, too.”
“I liked your picture shelves,” he said. “You did a good job—using the laser level and that digital stud finder and everything.”
She laughed a little, pleased at his praise even though she didn’t want to be. She’d filmed her mistakes, as well as the final success, just so people could see that home repair and renovation wasn’t as easy as they made it look on television. When you did it yourself, there was a learning curve. You made mistakes and tried again, hopefully finally getting it or maybe admitting defeat and calling a professional. She put it all up there. Luckily, when it came to home repair, there was almost always a fix—even if you had to bring in the drywall guy.
“I messed it up a couple of times before I got it right,” she said.
“I like how you show your mistakes,” he said. “That’s how we learn.”
Something about the way he said it had more weight than she thought he intended. He dug his hands deep into his pockets and glanced down at the floor, then around the foyer—up at the ceiling (water stain from leaky plumbing in the bathroom), at the wainscoting along the stairs (still big sections in need of refinishing), the banister (still loose).
“Want to walk through the house with me and talk about my punch list?” she said. “I thought we’d start with one project and see how it goes. Does that work?”
He gave her a nod. He had a nice smile, warm and open, that caused his eyes to squint a little. In his jeans and work boots, another long-sleeve tee, this on
e fresh white, he had a disarming boyishness about him. As they walked through the house, talking about the endless number of projects, she forgot all about Wanda Crabb’s negative energy and the unpleasant things she had to say about Josh’s brother, who was—lucky for them all, she guessed—long gone.
ten
There’s no one in there. It was just the dog.
I logged miles that night after sparring with Mike, walking from the dim desertion of residential Twenty-Seventh, up the constant melee of Broadway to Ninety-Sixth Street. Then I cut west and moved though the shadows of Riverside Park, heading north slowly, a watcher, gliding through the quiet streets. Often I roam, no destination in mind, until I am tired enough to think I might sleep.
After a while, fatigue finally tugging at me, I headed back downtown. As I moved from neighborhood to neighborhood—the eternal crush of Midtown, the sleepy West Village—my brain churned. I thought about what I knew, what I’d done, what I had yet to do. I thought about Paul and how angry he’d been with me. I thought about Seth’s question and Mike’s warning. I’d imagined I’d feel better after the plan was in play. But I didn’t. No, there was something else now. A buzz, a white noise of anxiety.
What now? Paul had asked. Have you thought about that?
I actually hadn’t thought about that, if I was honest. I didn’t think there would be an “after.”
The city is always alive with people, all kinds—a circus of good and bad, wild and tame, freakish and square. Even at that hour, I wasn’t alone. Paul always says that it’s safer than it used to be. But it’s still not safe. Nothing is. Not even the quiet, rural place where I grew up.
I loved that isolated farmhouse that my father rented for cheap from an old man who bought properties for investment. With its creaky floors, and fireplace, the big barn out back and acres of woods where I could get lost without ever being lost, it was a child’s dream.
My dad loved it, too. We’d wander with our dog, Catcher, out in the woods, down to the river. It was a big luxury—all that land, all that space and sky—for a city boy like my dad, who had lived in an apartment most of his life. He hated the city, didn’t even like to visit. Unlike Paul, who couldn’t sleep without city noise, who could never imagine himself anywhere but the East Village. They were very different.
My parents and I felt like the place was ours, not a rental, because the old man who owned it never paid it any mind. If something went wrong—the toilet clogged, or the roof needed repairing—my dad would call Mr. Bishop, and the old man would either tell my dad to take care of it and deduct it from the rent, or if the repair required more money, time, or skill than my father possessed, Mr. Bishop would send someone to take care of it quickly. It was the rare relationship that worked without conflict. We probably would have stayed there forever.
• • •
BY THREE IN THE MORNING, years and miles, eons away from the farmhouse, I was back at Nate Shelby’s loft, loping into the opulent lobby under the suspicious eye of the night doorman, a thick guy with the scarred face of someone who once had terrible acne. There’s something flat about his gaze, menacing about his gold-ringed hands. He would never pass muster for the day doorman, who needed at least a modicum of refinement.
“Where you staying again?” he asked as I tried to slink past him.
“I am house sitting for Mr. Shelby,” I said. I didn’t slow my pace toward the elevator.
“There’s a package.”
I paused, keeping my back to him.
“Where?”
“In the apartment,” he said. “It came late. Mr. Shelby called, said to bring it inside.”
“Okay,” I said.
The conversation was going on too long. The elevator was slow, and he walked around the desk to keep talking. Which was weird.
“What’s with the getup?” he asked. Finally, I had to turn to face him. It was too weird not to. “The hoodie, the backpack, the Chuck Taylors.”
I looked down at myself. “It’s not a getup. It’s just what I wear.”
“Just saying,” he said. “You’re a pretty girl. What are you hiding from?”
It wasn’t wolfish or threatening. In fact, now that he was talking, there was a softness to him, an easy curiosity. A kind of twinkle. I didn’t answer him, though. I am not much of a conversationalist.
“Good night,” he said as I walked away, ducked into the waiting elevator. The doors closed. That made three times I’d been seen when I didn’t want to be seen: caught on camera, green-eyed Erik asking me out for a drink, inappropriately curious doorman.
What was wrong with me? Why was I not invisible?
I knew the answer, though. It was getting to me. I was vibrating, giving off the energy of the thing I tried to hide and harness. I had given it a name. A thing that lived inside of me. The Red Hunter. Rage.
In the apartment’s inner foyer there was a box, which I might have left where it was except there was a noise coming from it and Tiger was sniffing around it mewing loudly. There were wide holes in the side and on top; beside it was another box, filled with supplies. I flipped the lid with my toe, and sitting on a bed of newspaper was a white kitten with one blue eye and one green eye.
“Meow,” he said, opening his tiny mouth wide. “Meow.”
There was no hissing from either Tiger or this new addition, just some rubbing and a little purring. The white kitten climbed clumsily out of the box as I stood watching, trying to process this turn of events. There was a note on top of the supplies—toys, kitten food, litter, a tiny litter box, a bed, all from the expensive organic shop where I got Tiger’s stuff.
Let’s call him Milo.
Best,
Nate Shelby
Milo was cute, but the whole thing was an annoying distraction, one that I had created. This is what happened when you let yourself show; you attract things into your life. I had violated a personal policy and reached into Nate Shelby’s world, causing a reaction in him. He had reached back into mine. The best thing to do would be to quit. To write him a note and say I got called away; he would need to find someone else.
But I didn’t do that. Instead, I unpacked the supplies, filled Milo’s litterbox, and put it next to Tiger’s in the tiny laundry room. I put out Milo’s food and some water across the kitchen from Tiger so there wouldn’t be any issue about whose food was whose. Of course, there would be, but they would need to figure that out. Then I watched the two of them tangle on the floor a little, finally settling on the windowsill together. I felt something I hadn’t felt in a while. Was it pleasure?
If you open the door, life wanders in. It’s harder to ask it to leave than never to invite it in the first place.
I almost went to bed. Fatigue weighted my limbs. I almost sank into the white bliss of Nate Shelby’s bed. But the computer screen beckoned. I couldn’t unsee what I had seen earlier. I needed to go back to it. I needed the information so that I could formulate the final stages of my plan. That’s what I told myself.
It was surreal, dreamlike to see the house online, to see the hallway where our pictures used to hang, the room where I used to sleep. The corner where we used to put our Christmas tree. And the basement where every nightmare I ever had came true. As I scrolled through the photos, the videos she’d posted, I couldn’t see anything as it was. I could only see it as it had been. Memory is like that; it colors the present like a patina.
Outside the tall windows of Nate Shelby’s loft, the cats watching me from the sill, the city hummed—its ceaseless song of sirens and horns and voices and tires on asphalt. Inside, all I could hear was the thrumming of the engine in my chest, my deep breaths.
• • •
THE NIGHT IT HAPPENED, I snuck out to meet a boy. Seth Murphy and I had been dancing around each other for a couple of months, stealing glances in algebra, smiling at each other in gym class. Jenna asked his best friend if Seth liked me and the answer came back yes. Then, finally, he’d asked me to the movies. And my parents said yes—mu
ch to my surprise and delight. But then they went with us, smiling but watchful chaperones, sitting far behind us in the back row during the seven o’clock show of Minority Report.
Seth and I held hands in the dark as Tom Cruise tried to stop crimes before they occurred, and I could feel the heat of Seth’s skin. When Seth leaned in to kiss me, his breath smelling of root beer and popcorn, my father cleared his throat loudly—unbelievably! humiliatingly!—from the back of the theater. Seth looked briefly embarrassed in the blue light from the screen, and then we both started laughing, earning annoyed shushing from the people around us.
The next Monday, Seth left a note taped on my locker.
Meet me at Old Bridge around 11? If you can. I’ll wait. Just try.
My father was a cop, so sneaking out was no small feat. I knew that when he was home they usually checked on me around ten, then went to sleep. So I waited, pretended to be sleeping until I heard my father come in. He placed a hand on my forehead, then left, turning out the light in the hall. I waited until it felt like the house was asleep. Then I crept downstairs. Catcher, our huge yellow Lab, was lying by the back door. He stared at me with sad eyes, his tail wagging hopefully.
I didn’t have any choice. I had to take the big lug with me, otherwise I knew he’d start barking at the door after I left. So I did. I didn’t lock the door behind me. It was cold, my breath coming out in clouds, my jacket too thin. The sky was clear and riven with stars, a bright high moon lighting the road in front of me. I remember feeling proud of myself, excited—I don’t know if it was about Seth Murphy as much as it was just having a moment of freedom. My parents were strict, my dad especially. He wasn’t so hard; I knew he loved me. He just thought the world was a bad place, filled with bad people, and he wanted to keep me safe as long as possible. Turned out that he was right.
