Wolf Stuff 4

We waved at Buzz as we drove away for the evening. We were tired and hungry and wanted to find a restaurant downtown that we could write home about. Or, at the very least, we wanted to find a restaurant that we couldn't find in every other state we were passing through. L was driving, because I couldn't. I was almost putty. I was almost a puddle. All I could do was point and say, "There."

On a side street in downtown Kalispell, we found a little wine bar. We sat at the bar and L ordered an appetizer while I sucked down a glass of red from a local vineyard. I didn't want a buzz. I wanted the knots out of my neck. I tried to sit upright on the bar stool while L went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"What's there to do in this town on a night like tonight?" I asked the bartender.

"Nothing," he said, but not in an unfriendly way. He shrugged and smiled. We talked a little about the wine, then a little about the July weather, and then a little more about winters in Kalispell. "You can always spot an out-of-stater by two things," he said. "Their fancy trucks and their fancy trucks in the ditch when it snows."

Apparently, driving in the snow was something you learned when you were young and all the folks who came from out of state had a hard time adjusting. I thought of Roger. He was a resourceful sort. When one of his horses kicked him in the face, and his jaw was wired shut while it healed, Roger didn't stick to an ice cream and mashed potato diet. He put a Big Mac in a blender and drank it with a straw. That's not the kind of man who comes to Kalispell and blinks at a little snow.

But, as I learned, it wasn't a little snow that the bartender was talking about. I shook my head. I was still in a California state of mind when it came to naughty weather. I frowned when I had to wear a hoodie in the evenings because it gets chilly in the desert. But, many feets of snow? I pursed my lips.

I'd rather drink a Big Mac.

"What are you girls doing in town?" the bartender asked. I was a little self-conscious about my real reason for coming to Kalispell. I didn't want to spill my secret to the bartender.

"Passing through," I said. I explained the drive from California to southern Ohio. I sold it as a simple road trip. All the details could get exhausting for a stranger.

Somehow, in our chit cat, the bartender told me to check out Glacier National Park. I'd barely noticed it on the maps when I was planning the trip. It was north a little ways, and a tiny bit out of the way. I said so.

"Yeah," he said. "But Going to the Sun Road is something you've got to see."

I nodded. I liked to happen upon things when I traveled. I liked to talk to the locals. I wanted to know about the places they thought made their town distinct. I listened to the bartender describe the narrow road through the mountainous park. I kept nodding. It sounded exquisite.

Wolf Stuff 3

We sat in the car and watched the man with the hippie hair walk by. We watched him in silence. He climbed into the passenger seat of a waiting pickup truck.

"What was that?" L said. I shrugged. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or give up. I still hadn't recovered my language skills, and I was aggravated that our left turns were getting us nowhere. It was still somewhat early in the day. If we could just find the damn place, then we could set up camp and relax for a while. I was desperate to relax. I was desperate.

I pulled the car back into traffic and made my way to the place where we were supposed to turn left. "What if we didn't go left?" L asked as we approached the intersection.

"You mean, what if the directions were wrong?" I asked. By then, I couldn't remember where we even got the directions.

"Yes. What if we just went straight?"

I aimed the car straight. About a mile ahead, we could see a giant sign for the White Birch. It boasted a big white arrow directing us to turn right.

And then there it was: the motel of my adolescent imagination. I'd made it up in my mind and when presented with the real thing, I wasn't disappointed. It was rustic, but clean. I pulled up in front of the office.

"I'll go pay for a camping space," I said. L stood outside the car and smoked a cigarette. I took a deep breath. I had no idea what or whom to expect.

The woman behind the counter was friendly. "What can I do for you?" she asked. I mentioned that we wanted to camp. She told me the prices. I told her we'd only be there one night. We chit-chatted and I handed her the cash. I was about to chicken out. But, I heard a pause in the conversation and I knew it was my chance. I couldn't ask her if she was Roger's second wife, that seemed too personal and too forward. Plus, I wasn't sure I wanted her to know who I was.

"Are you the owner?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. She went about her business, pulling together my paperwork.

"How long have you owned the place?" I asked.

"Oh, my husband and I bought it from the previous owner a few years ago," she answered.

I smiled. She wasn't Roger's second wife. The timeline didn't work. But she probably bought it from Roger's second wife.

"Why, honey?" she asked.

"Oh," I said. I didn't know how to answer her. "My dad's friend owned this place for awhile."

"From Ohio?" she said.

I felt my face go numb. I showed up without a plan. I was too scared to make a plan. I didn't ask my parents about to whom Roger left the place or if his second wife had stuck around after his suicide. I didn't know whether to ask the new owner, "Yeah. Where did the guy commit suicide?" I never looked up a newspaper article about it and I never read an obituary. I was just a girl on a road trip, headed back  to Ohio, leaving a little life in Beverly Hills to make a bigger life for herself in the foothills of Appalachia. I felt very young, then, as I stood in front of this stranger and said, "Yeah. From Ohio."

She smiled and handed me my receipt and a copy of the campground rules. I smiled back, took the papers, and spun left on my heel. L was leaning agains the car.

"Well?" she asked.

"She doesn't know Roger," I said. I was shaking my head. I didn't want to answer questions or talk about it. I wanted to pitch the tent. And I wanted a drink.

We found a spot between two other tents and bent the poles and inserted them into the openings and created the tent structure in no time. It sat upright. It looked like the other tents. We went back to the car to get all the blankets, then turned around to watch the tent tumble away. It rolled and rolled and wanted to jump over the little summit and down into the creek nearby. L ran after it while I stood and watched with all the linens in my arms.

"What. The. Hell." I said under my breath. But, even under my breath was loud enough for the man across the little paved path to hear me.

"You didn't anchor it down. You've got to nail it into the Earth," he said. He went into his camper and came out with a hammer and some ties. L placed the tent back in the spot we'd originally chose, and the man kindly secured our tent in place.

"There you go," he said. His dog barked from the open camper door. We all walked back to the little paved path.

"That there's Buzz," the man said, pointing at the dog.

"Hi, Buzz," L and I waved at the dog.

The man walked over and picked the dog up. I pulled my tiny digital camera from the glove box. The man hugged Buzz close to his face. Buzz was an overweight dachshund. He seemed practiced at having his picture taken.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot Part 2

L and I went into the thrift store. While I browsed for my next great souvenir, she bought pink gingham sheets and a few thick blankets. I walked out empty-handed.

We had some trouble finding the White Birch. We stopped at a gas station and they told us to go up the road and take a left. The left turn took us back the way we came. We stopped at a fast food joint to eat grease and steady ourselves. We'd been on the road for only six days, but we'd managed to tour the Hearst Castle, stop at Nepenthe near Big Sur, eat a tuna melt at the Madonna Inn, spend hours in Powell's in Portland, avoid fireworks on the 4th of July and then shop at Pike Place in Seattle. We drove on toward Montana, with a pit stop in Idaho. In Montana, we'd managed to stop at a large used book store in a town with only ten houses. We bought wolf stuff at the trading post and from the guy who warned us against camping while menstruating. By the time we made it to Kalispell, we looked as wild and as unkempt as we felt.

And we kept trying out left turns with the confidence that eventually, one left turn would be the right one.

The White Birch would eventually have to reveal itself to me.

After ingesting roast beef and curly fries, we continued on. One more left turn took us to another gas station. I went in to grab snacks, while L smoked a cigarette outside. I had my arms full of soda bottles as I turned away from the coolers, and turned straight toward a man wearing little round sunglasses. I couldn't see his eyes. His hair was long - hippie long, not metal long. It was graying slightly. He held his hands up when he saw me, like I was about to place him under arrest.

"Whoa!" he shouted. "No guns!"

I stepped around him and joined L in line. She was waiting to buy another pack of cigarettes, and I had all the soda we could need for the night. The man with the hippie hair sauntered up behind me. When I looked at him, he pointed at L.

"She," he said as he pointed at my friend, "is beyond reckless."

L stared at the man. She was wearing a "Hard Times Saloon" t-shirt from the lone bar in the poverty-stricken town in which I was about to live. Her long curly hair was unwashed since Washington state. Mine was too.

We paid quickly and ran to the car. We had a motel and suicide scene to find.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot

When I was a little girl, my family and I spent a lot of time with my dad's best friend, Roger, and his family. Roger had a daughter exactly one year older than I was. When I say "exactly," I mean it. Kara and I share a birthday. We were fairly close, or at least we were as close as some cousins are close. More importantly, my dad and Roger were close.

Eventually, though, Roger and Kara's mother divorced and Roger remarried and moved from southern Ohio to Kalispell, Montana. He and his new wife bought a motel and campground. There was talk of possible visits. There was talk of a family trip to Big Sky Country. There was talk of wilderness. There was event talk of domesticated wolf pups. But we didn't go. I was too young to know why. It just seemed to me that, as a family, we weren't supposed to cross the Mississippi River.

As an individual, I crossed it. Several times. Back and forth I went from east to west and west to east. I crossed it with my best hometown friend and I crossed back over it with my brother. I crossed it again by myself, and then headed back east with L, my college friend, the one in the farmhouse. When I was ready to leave California and come back home, she flew out to make the journey with me. And that journey, I insisted, had to include a pilgrimage to Kalispell.

I was going to see that motel. It had taken up a lot of time in my childhood. My imagination exercised regularly to thoughts of Kalispell. Kalispell. I always remembered the name of the town. It seemed so sharp and awkward. Kalispell.

But I wouldn't be seeing Roger. Because part of what my imagination used for fuel was his story. His violent, tragic ending.

I was eleven years old when my father lost his best friend. He got a call from Roger's new wife. One day Roger went out to the shed and shot himself. Suicide. My father raged. He grieved. He speculated all the reasons why his best friend might take his own life. Some evenings, he dared to suggest that maybe Roger didn't. I was privvy to these conversations, even as a young girl. And they made an impression.

My father didn't go for a funeral. Roger was cremated. Montana stayed a distant dream.

Until I left California. I was going to Kalispell. One of us had to get there eventually.

L liked my itinerary, and we were both eager to see what the Big Sky state had to offer. We drove in from Spokane, across the top of Idaho, after making an overnight stop in Cour d'Alene. It was July, and everything was a deep green. We started to notice subtle differences from Washington and Idaho. In Montana, you could always get an espresso. They served espresso at rest stops. Also, they had a lot of junk. We drove through whole towns populated only with thrift and antique and junk stores. I was okay with all of it. I like coffee and gently used things.

At the start of the trip, I knew I needed to pick up souvenirs for the two boys who called me Aunt Mandy. Cam was about the age I was when Roger moved to Montana, and he had a thing for wolves. Somewhere near San Francisco I asked L, "Do you think I'll find wolf stuff in Montana?"

L and I stood outside a giant tourist trading post. I held a bag in each hand, each bag was filled with wolf t-shirts, trinkets, faux scrimshaw pocket knives. At one junk shop, I found a plaster cast of a wolf paw print. L turned to look a me and said, "I think you'll find wolf stuff in Montana."

Montana is full of wolf stuff. Any kind of wolf souvenir you could ever want, you'll find in Montana. I would go so far as to say that Montana is the wolf stuff jackpot.

But finding wolf stuff wasn't my only agenda.

We had to get to Kalispell. To the White Birch Motor Lodge and Campground. When L heard the word "campground," she started collecting gear. We were going to camp. In Montana. She bought at a used tent at the junk store where I found the plaster print. The man who sold us the stuff said, "If you ladies are going to camp, be sure it's not during your lady time. That attracts wolves and bears."

It wasn't lady time for either of us, but the prospect of wolves and bears being attracted to us in any way or for any reason made me nervous. And then he gave us further advice.

"You'll need to get some deet," he said.

I grew up camping with my dad. We sometimes sprayed ourselves with bug spray. We mostly just dealt with stings and bites after the fact. A little calamine lotion went a long way in our household. But in Montana, in July, I learned all about deet and why it was important.

By the time we reached Kalispell, we were beat. We stopped at a thrift store to get a few more things for a camping adventure. And because we were enjoying the number of thrift shopping opportunities. I pulled into the parking lot and suddenly lost all ability to speak. I tried to say I was tired. I opened my mouth and said gibberish. I parked the car, and the gibberish continued until it turned into giggles. I had never been that tired in my life. Or maybe I was nervous, too, that I'd made it to Kalispell. I didn't know what I'd see or learn there. I didn't know if I'd gain insight into Roger's death. I was pretty certain I wouldn't. I didn't have a plan beyond walking around the White Birch property. If anything, I'd close a long case of curiosity only about what the damn place looked like.

And no one cared but me. I wasn't reporting anything back to my dad. I wasn't in contact with Kara. We hadn't seen one another in years.

Remember the Weilands

Dear Willa,

Remember the Weilands? They lived in a shotgun house on the street behind the school. The place had maybe two bedrooms for two parents and five kids. One of the rooms had a rotting floor, and they were poor. Appalachian poor. The youngest was in my class, and she was quiet, but sharp. She didn't say much, but she saw everything. And when we were little, she wanted to have a slumber party. Her big sister warned her against it. She didn't want her little sister bringing in girls who would go home and gossip about how the Weilands lived. She kind of threw a fit about it, but the mother was determined to give her little girl what all the other girls had - a childhood. 

Her name was Stephanie, but her siblings all called her "Step-fanie." They added a hard "P" before the "fuh" sound in her name. She invited five of us over. Her mother and older sister had cleared the living room and filled it with blankets. We were supposed to make blanket beds on the floor. The father and the boys were gone - someone said they were camping. The next morning we'd learned that by "camping," Stephanie meant that they were sleeping in the woods up on the hill.

I thought of them today, those boys, stringing makeshift hammocks up between the trees. They simply grabbed old sheets and ripped where they needed to and braided the strips when they needed to make them sturdier. They didn't hang them high, just enough off the ground that they wouldn't get too wet with dew. I remember sitting on the back step with Stephanie once the other girls had gone home. She told me that they did that sometimes. That sometimes the house was just too crowded, so they'd go stay in what the father called their "country home." 

Last night, there was a boy who had some sort of fancy hammock, one you'd buy at a sporting goods store. It was orange and light and he tied it high up in the trees. I stood underneath him at the camp for a minute. He didn't know I was there. I just looked up at him in his hammock and I resented the Hell out of him. He didn't put that thing together, he didn't learn to make do. He bought his gear and started his adventure. Anyone who can afford a hammock like that must not need to be out here. Then again, how many of us need to be out here. Or what need are we fulfilling? 

Selecting Furniture

If I closed my eyes, I could see the place: dark hardwood floors and woodwork, white walls, lots of light. It was small, but cozy. I was going to make it my home.

I was living in a studio apartment when I was accepted into the program. I had a futon and a skinny kitchen island I'd bought at a big box store and used as a desk. I would stand at it and type on the laptop I'd bought myself after college, or I would perch on the barstool I found at a yard sale and spend my time writing stories about women who were on the edge. In the six months I lived in the studio apartment, I wrote a story about a woman at a temporary secretarial job who beat up a guy in the lobby for constantly being nice to her.

Knowing I'd be leaving that apartment for the one on Dearing Place brightened my perspective a little. Plus, it gave me something to do.

I started shopping for furniture, dishes, domestic wares. I bought a book on Feng Shui. I agonized over living room rugs.

The kitchen was small, but there was room for a tiny table. I was reminded of the "ice cream table" or parlour table on the balcony of the apartment I'd rented in Paris right after college. It had reminded me of going for ice cream in my hometown, at a little ice cream parlour across the street from the cemetery. The tables had black and white marble tops. The claw foot bases were painted black. The chairs were practically made of wire hangers. And that's exactly what I wanted for my kitchen in the South.

My father found a base and heavier, sturdier wire chairs at the flea market. The chairs were missing seats and backs. He cut wood circles, added padding, and upholstered them with black and white striped referee shirts. He painted the base. And then he reminded me that I had a marble table top coming to me whenever I wanted it.

His friend, Gus, owned a marble and tile shop. He made bathroom sinks and countertops. When I was about to graduate from high school, Gus offered to make me a marble table of my own design. I didn't think much about it while I lived in college apartments, but this would be my first "grown up" place. I called, and he was happy to deliver. I asked for black and white swirled top. I got it. It was custom made for my perfect apartment.

I wasn't about to make the futon a permanent sleeping option. In my mind, it took the place of a sofa. I needed a bed, and I looked for a bed. I looked for a wrought iron bed at the flea market, in antique stores all over southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and in every shop in Huntington, West Virginia. Nothing seemed right, or the right price. I was browsing an antique store in my hometown when I saw the odd bed. It wasn't intricate. The posts were thicker, the iron less delicate. The white paint had cracked over the years. I said, "I'll live with that." I was happy to find it back home, in my hometown. It would be from home. The seller said it was as old as the late 1800s. It had lived in southern Ohio a lot longer than I had. And now I was making it a piece of my own history.

Like all furnishings, my possessions made statements. We made the ice cream table. The top was custom made. The bed was from a mercantile near the river. My bookshelves belonged to my grandparents - my Mamaw's childhood bookshelf and one my Papaw built himself in his garage.

I wanted a rocking chair, and found one that needed new caning. Instead, we put flat wood on the seat and I covered it with a comfortable pillow.

I moved it all into the little one bedroom just before the left curve at the top of the street. And it felt like home so fast that the neighbors could have been anyone.

And they were.

Missing

When Ginger pulled into the driveway, she knew immediately that something was...amiss. She put both feet on the ground and stood slowly, turning slightly and then placing her hands on the top of her car. Daniel was in the yard screaming at Eddie, who held his hands up like a clueless criminal. He was standing on the porch near Ginger's front door. The overgrown bush separated him from the hysterical man, who whipped around and pointed his finger at Ginger.

"You!" he screamed. "You can't just take her."

She understood the scene all too quickly. The little girl must be gone, and Daniel would have assumed that she was either at Ginger's or with Ginger. Her face became a grimace that Eddie must have noticed, because he threw his head back. The three of them each felt hopeless, but wouldn't unite in their despair. Daniel needed to point fingers. Apparently literally. Ginger needed to figure out why the little girl was gone, and how, and where. Eddie wanted to go back inside and finish his dinner, maybe play a little guitar, caulk a sink or something and go to bed.

"Daniel," she said as she carefully closed her car door. "I didn't take her."

He was still pointing at her. Then he pointed to her passenger seat. Then at her again.

"When did you notice that she was gone?" Ginger asked as she took a step toward him. She could see Eddie out of the corner of her eye. He dropped his arms and let them hang reluctantly at his side. He tilted his head in disbelief. Playing along or soothing Daniel may not have been the absolute best idea, but she didn't think aggravating him further would help anyone. Least of all the little girl.

His face was red and his eyes were swollen and wet. He was in a panic. "Where is she?" he yelled in Ginger's direction.

"I don't know," Ginger said. She looked at her watch. Usually at this time of night, the little girl was eating dinner - either with her or Daniel. Last night, the little girl had dinner with her. She ate a bowl of peas with butter melted over them. She asked Ginger if she liked her parents. Ginger said yes.

"They taught me how to do a lot of this stuff," she told the little girl and waved her hand over her head to indicate all the renovation work. "We had this house when I was a kid," she told the little girl. "And we worked on it until we loved it."

The little girl's face had softened, and Ginger could have quit the story there, at the happily-ever-after part. But, she didn't, because she wouldn't, and because both she and the little girl deserved better. Ginger liked to live with the painful, obvious, hilarious truth.

"And as soon as we loved it, my folks moved 5,000 miles away from it," Ginger said.

The little girl paused, the spoon hovering just below her open mouth. She held Ginger's eye contact for half a minute or so, and then they both started laughing. They giggled. They guffawed. They howled at the moon.

It was just dark enough that the moon was making an appearance in the night sky. Ginger sighed. She lost all will to remain gentle and walked over to Daniel and grabbed him by the collar. She half led, half dragged him over to the step, where she shoved him down to sit. She motioned for Eddie to go get a phone by making the appropriate hand gesture with her pinky pointed toward her mouth and her thumb pointed toward her ear.

She sat beside Daniel. "Where would she go?" she asked.

Daniel shrugged.

"Has she ever done this before?" she asked.

Daniel shook his head.

"Could someone have taken her?" she asked.

Daniel started to sob. From beneath the cries, she heard him say, "No."

"Is that an answer?" she asked. "Does that mean someone didn't take her?"

Daniel screamed. It came from deep within his gut. It got caught on his crying. It made Eddie stop in his tracks. He didn't want to come any closer, so he put the receiver on the porch and pushed it toward Ginger with his foot.

She grabbed it and started to call the police, but Daniel smacked it from her hands. It landed in the yard with a thud.

"What the hell?" she said, still staring at the phone in disbelief.

"I took her," Daniel whined. He choked a little before he looked Ginger in the eyes and whispered, "I took her."

Rental Agreement

Ginger was unpacking the small bag of tile samples for the kitchen when she heard a crash and a howl come from the front porch. She opened the door slowly, with caution, to see a handsome man backing down the step. He stopped in the yard and brushed the front of his pants with both hands.

"Are you alright?" She called out to him.

She startled him, and he turned around quickly, almost in a complete circle, before he saw her. He pointed at her and she took a step toward him.

"I was looking at the sign," he said.

The red and white "For Rent" sign was in the window, and it looked as if he tripped over a few loose bricks and stray painting accessories she left lying in front of it. She walked across the porch and joined him in the yard.

"Are you interested in the apartment?" she asked as she approached him. Once she was closer, she realized he was as handsome as she thought. His face was friendly, and he smiled when she offered her hand to shake. He reached out to take it when she noticed the little girl standing behind him, near the bush that ran the length of the porch. It was a tall bush, taller than the little girl. Ginger shook the man's hand while the little girl gave the bush a nonchalant kick.

"How many bedrooms does it have?" the man asked. While Ginger gave him the details - two bedrooms, one bath, nice kitchen with a view - the little girl kicked at the bush again.

"How much does it rent for?" the man asked. Ginger answered.

The man shook his head. "I can't afford that," he said.

"What do you do?" Ginger asked.

"I teach physics over at the college," he said. "My schedule is all over the place. Sometimes I tutor kids in math."

"That doesn't pay well?" Ginger asked. The little girl kicked again and a bit of shrubbery fell to the ground.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "My name is Daniel, by the way."

"Ginger," she said.

"What's the landlord like?" Daniel asked.

Ginger smiled. "The landlord is fair," she said.

The little girl looked over at Ginger, and in that second, Ginger recognized her. It was the little girl her gave her the finger, who put all that energy into flipping her the bird, as she drove by the other day. The little girl went back to what she was doing. She kicked at the bush again, but instead of causing the bush any damage, her foot caught in a branch and she fell flat on her back.

"Honey," Daniel said as he lunged toward the child, "are you alright?"

The little girl stood up and brushed her legs with both hands. She glared at Ginger for another second. Ginger could feel the little girl's hostility. That kid wanted to flip her off again. Her, or anyone. It didn't matter. Daniel just turned to look at Ginger and smiled a half-hearted, exhausted smile.

"How much can you afford?" Ginger asked.

Weight Loss Surgery

She moved onto the street long after my husband moved out and away.

The real estate crash must have busted up the fortunes of the folks who lived at the top of the street. One house was equipped with an elaborate wood post and wire fence. The other boasted large white cameras bolted above each entrance. Each house sat empty for a few months, and then a couple moved into one and a single man moved into the other. The single man immediately started ripping out the weird fence. The couple kept the cameras.

I heard her before I ever saw her. She had a thick Appalachian accent and a temper toward the single man across the street. They fought. A lot. I sometimes saw her husband walking back from the single man's house. Then I'd hear yelling. I would sit in my living room and listen to it escalate. I started calling her "Weight Loss Surgery" because I never learned her name, but I knew she'd had weight loss surgery. I knew it because she told me she was going to have it. She told me she went to Mexico to have it. She told the single man she had it. She yelled it at him regularly when they fought over who-knows-what.

I think I know what. The what was probably drugs.

But I heard him call her names: ugly, loose-skinned, skinny bitch, fat bitch. And I heard her defend herself. She screamed, time and again, "I had weight loss surgery!" She yelled it after telling him she hated him and she yelled it after telling him to stay off her property. She slurred it sometimes, but she yelled it often.

My own interactions with Weight Loss Surgery were few and far between. Once, she came up to me as my father and I were getting out of my car. My dad was in town to install motion lights in the driveway and under the back deck after my house had been broken into. Weight Loss Surgery was standing in the middle of the street when we pulled up. She was carrying a red plastic cup. She came over and asked me, "Is that your husband?"

"That's my Dad," I answered.

"Hmph," she said. "My Daddy is my husband."

Then there was the time I was working in the front yard, making the flower beds presentable since the For Sale sign was already stuck in the ground. She wanted to see the house.

"Come on in," I said.

She swayed and stumbled and slurred her words as she told me which color to paint each room. The hallway should be green, but not dark green, lime green. "Almose ne-uhn," she said. The living room should've been turquoise instead of the "boring gray" I'd painted it.

"I had weight loss surgery," she said.

"You do look thinner," I responded.

Maybe with every pound she lost, her voice got louder. She kept yelling at the neighbor. He kept yelling back. And I had another Cincinnati story to tell. I loved that city for the stories it gave me, and my neighborhood always delivered.

Card to Folks

Every year, she sent her parents a joint birthday card, even though her mother was born in May and her father was born in September. Ginger took pictures of her properties and made a collage, then wrote a little update. She mentioned how much she paid for each property and what renovations she made to each. Then she wrote out the birthday poem that her father started when she was little and through the years became a family tradition:

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
You're getting older.
And I am, too.

When her parents sent her a birthday card, they wrote out the same poem. Every time Ginger wrote it out, she missed them terribly.

After years of buying and fixing up properties all around the lower part of the state, her father decided he was tired of catering to the upper middle class. He was tired of using his skills solely for profit. Her mother agreed. They decided that instead of retiring, they'd try pioneer life. They sold off most of their properties except the larger units, and they let a management company take care of those. Ginger was able to purchase the house she grew up in, which she was slowly renovating. It was taking her more time than any other house or apartment she'd ever worked on. Some days she wanted to gut it and other days she wanted to preserve it.

"Burn it," her father advised from the two room cabin he shared with her mother in the Alaskan wilderness. It became his salutation, his sign off, before he signed his letters to his daughter. Instead of "Sincerely," he wrote, "Burn it." And he always meant the family home.

It wasn't fancy. It was a simple three bedroom ranch with a few mid-century modern touches, although not enough to entice an enthusiast. The yard was small. The back steps were crumbling. There was water damage in the garage. The basement was always damp. But every time Ginger walked into the kitchen, she thought of the first time she ripped up carpet, the first time she measured for appliances, and the first time she fitted face plates on the light switches and electrical outlets. She wasn't quite ten years old.

"You're getting pretty good at that," her father said as she turned the tiny screwdriver to secure the tiny screw which held the plate in place.

"By the time we're done here," her mother said, "she'll be a master at it."

The face plates were plastic numbers made to look like paneling or wood. By the time her parents moved far away, the face plates were outdated. They were old. And Ginger was getting older, too.

But she didn't think that was a good reason to demolish the dwelling. Even if, as her mother said, "It's sometimes easier to start from scratch."

Instead, she let the house sit and wait for her to decide what to do.

Storage Unit

Gigi tossed the key up with her right hand and caught it with her left. She kept throwing it into the air and snatching it out of the air all the way from the car to the storage unit. The three women had to make three trips because they kept getting lost, kept needing to back track, kept needing to count their way back to their new unit, their professor's last gift to them.

Once they found it, Angela snatched the key from the air and away from Gigi, who pouted, briefly, before shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot and sighing loudly while Angela struggled with the padlock. Finally, Joely took over and with one quick twist, the lock clicked and popped off the handle. All three women took a step back. Angela looked at Gigi. Joely looked at Angela.

"Go ahead," Joely and Angela said in unison. Gigi shook her head, and the three women stood in silence.

"Okay," Gigi said. She wrapped her fingers around the handle and pulled the garage door up. Angela took the flashlights from her pockets and gave one to each girl.

"Close the door behind us," Angela said. Gigi pulled the door back down, and the girls directed the light onto the contents of the unit.

Mostly, they saw boxes. But, in one corner, behind a collection of books stacked as tall as Joely and wide as a Buick, was a peculiar assortment of furniture. A little end table sat beside a rocking chair. Beside the rocking chair was a bassinet covered in white with a fancy, frilly ruffle adorning the canopy. An old oil lamp and an antique tin of talcum powder sat on the end table. The bassinet was filled with stuffed animals, which Gigi started to pick up and examine.

"I wonder if these were her's as a child," she said.

"You can keep them," Angela said.

"What if I don't want them?" Gigi asked.

"We'll take them to the Goodwill," Joely said. She sat down in the rocking chair and pushed back. She let herself fall into the rhythm of the rocker: back and forward, back and forward.

"I'll take the chair," she said.

"What about the bassinet?" Angela asked. Both she and Joely already had babies who were well past the baby furniture age. She didn't think Gigi would ever have children, but she might want to keep the animals in the same place their professor did. Angela studies the bassinet from behind Joely in the rocking chair. She only looked up when Gigi gasped.

Gigi dropped the animals in her hands. She stepped back into the wall of books, which collapsed immediately upon contact. She jumped. She let out a little scream.

"What the Hell?" Joely said and stepped forward to look inside the bassinet. She gasped, too, and turned to look at Angela.

Angela made her way over slowly. When she glanced down, she saw a dark figure, maybe a stuffed animal. She took a deep breath and looked down again. She thought she was looking at a rodent or a taxidermy item. It looked like it might possibly be a reptile. She shrugged and looked up at Joely and Gigi, who were standing across from her, the canopy separating them. Joely and Gigi both directed the beams of light from their flashlights onto the figure in the bassinet. When Angela looked down again, the figure became clear.

It was a dead baby.

It was a human infant, and it was mummified. It's skin was dark and dry, although no one touched at that moment to determine whether or not it was fragile and paper-like or hardy and leather-ish.

"It's a dead baby," Angela said.

"A dead baby?" Joely asked.

"A dead baby," Gigi stated.

The three women stood still, surrounded by the fallen books, silenced by the scene in front of them. Each worked hard on the explanations they were about to share. They rushed to come up with something that made sense, that sounded like something their professor would have done, that fit the behavior of the woman who left three former students a storage unit where she kept a dead baby.

Shoplifting Makeup

A little glamour went a long way on the road, and a little eyeliner or mascara could create quite the allure. There were times when she applied makeup in a sliver of shattered mirror, glass at her feet and the lighting deplorable. But that's why it was important to put it on in the first place. It wasn't a part of her travel plan. It wasn't a tool to get her picked up, nor was it a device to pull in more cash on the rare occasion that she panhandled. Her makeup was strictly about how she wanted to feel. From time to time, she wanted to feel glamorous, and eye makeup was her way.

Of course, she didn't want to spend her hard won monies at a makeup counter. She wouldn't go hungry over an eyebrow pencil. And, she didn't need a lot. She was known for doing a whole lot with very little. But, the fact that she had a makeup stash at all was a fact to ridicule, and she met her fair share of folks who were willing to do just that.

"You make room in that pack for face paint?" Spoke's friend said to her one night when she was sorting out the contents of her toiletries bag. She didn't flaunt the contents of her pack. She was looking for cotton balls to help clean out another camper's cut. She'd moved away from the fire, outside the circle, and make a place for herself against the tree. There was just enough light to see, until the guy stood in front of her and blocked it. He looked down at the stuff she'd taken out of her bag and made his judgment. He made his snide remark. And if he ever needed medical attention, he'd probably recognize her as the girl who carried the makeup.

She was comfortable with that. Of all the things she was known for, the people who remembered her as the girl who packed the fancy makeup was just another identifier. It was another way to approach her, too. She could look pretty in her makeup and clean up your cuts. As far as a reputation went, she felt her's was a rare currency.

Working with Eddie

One of her single family houses needed a new countertop before she could rent it out again. The previous tenants had apparently set their hot pots directly on the counter, without putting down a towel or a pot holder. They didn't like to clean up grease, either. Scorch marks and burned indentions decorated the pale blue kitchen surfaces, and Ginger would have none of it. She liked to offer smooth surfaces to her incoming tenants. It seemed fitting, like a display of the service she provided as their landlord. Landlady.

"Domestic Dwelling Provider," Eddie once said.

Strong pipes, smooth kitchen surfaces and safe electrical currents. "If I advertised, I'd make that my tagline," she said to Eddie.

They lifted the countertop out of Eddie's truck bed and carried it quickly into the house. It was a quick job, and the sink fit without hassle. All the measurements lined up.

"Smooth like the new counter," Eddie said.

"Easy installation equals easy living," Ginger agreed.

Once the hard part was over, the pair started to clean other areas in the kitchen. The stove sat under a window, and oil had made its way onto the glass. Oil was splattered across the ceiling, too.

"I'll get the step ladder," Eddie said.

While Ginger scrubbed the windowsill, she thought about how little she knew about most of her renters. She knew a few from her bar tending days, which meant she really only knew their names, their best jokes, and their drink preferences. A few she knew by credit score. Some of them had better jobs than others. She remembered that one of her tenants was a doctor of some sort. And she knew that Daniel had a daughter who didn't talk much, but had a heck of a way with a hammer, a wrench and a paint roller.

She sighed. When she looked up, Eddie was standing on the ladder and scrubbing the ceiling. His arm reached over his head and lifted his shirt away from his waist. She reached out and slid her finger through a belt loop on his jeans. He stopped what he was doing, looked down into her eyes, and then lowered himself slowly from the ladder.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Do you want kids?" she said.

Eddie shut his eyes for a minute. When he opened them, she was still looking at him, waiting for an answer.

"I don't know. Do you?" He thought deflection might be his best bet. He didn't want to answer incorrectly, if there was an incorrect answer. He just wanted to finish up and go back to Ginger's place and kick back and watch television. Maybe he'd play a little guitar. Maybe he'd put in a light fixture.

She looked around the kitchen. "I've got these places," she said, as if it were the same thing.

Listening In

Ginger scooted the milk crate closer to the wall. She leaned in, pressing the water glass against her ear, which was still wet from the shower. When Eddie walked in, he took one look at her, wrapped in her bathrobe, wet hair clinging to her face, straddling a milk crate, and he hung his head. He walked over and took the glass from her grip. She smacked at his hand until she realized he was just turning it around and handing it back to her. She'd been holding the wrong end to her ear. Once she leaned back toward the wall, she could hear much better.

Eddie sat on the sofa and watched her listen hard. He studied the scene. She had a wild look in her eye he didn't see often. Her body was completely still, as if every cell in it were concentrating on the task at hand. He stood up to join her, but his small, quiet movement was too much distraction. She waved him away and back into his seat on the couch.

When Eddie walked up to the door, he saw that the lights were off in Daniel's apartment. He would swear that no one was home. But Ginger seemed convinced otherwise. He sat there, watching her react to whatever she was hearing through the water glass. Something was happening in the dining room next door.

She was essentially listening to a silent argument. Daniel and his daughter were trying to out quiet one another.

Ginger could feel the little girl's presence in the room, but she couldn't hear it. She was desperate to hear her voice. Once Ginger knew that the little girl was okay, she promised herself she'd put the glass down, go sit on Eddie's lap, and pretend it was a night like any other.

But Ginger also knew that the little girl didn't always speak, and if she did, it didn't mean she was alright. It just meant she felt like she had something to say.

She let the glass slip away from her ear and out of her hand. Eddie stood up as it shattered on the floor. He walked over and scooped her up in his arms. She let herself hang limp, arms dangling over her head and toward the floor. Eddie had to stop halfway down the hallway to readjust her body. She brought her arms up and put them around his neck. She looked him square in the eyes and said, "You can just take me."

Daniel Flips Out

Daniel stood on the front step, arms crossed, and stared at the empty driveway. When Ginger turned the corner and drove up the street, she could see him concentrating. It was almost as if he were trying to will her car into its usual parking spot.

He didn't seem to notice them approaching, but when she pulled in, his head snapped up and he suddenly realized that they were real. He made them appear. He manifested them. Ginger and the little girl opened their car doors, but before Ginger could come around to the step, Daniel grabbed his daughter by the arm and shook her enough to frighten Ginger.

"Where have you been?" he growled. The little girl went limp in his grip. All the personality that Ginger had encountered over the last few weeks disappeared, and she was the little girl with the blank face again. The one who didn't speak.

"Hey!" Ginger shouted and took a step forward. Daniel released the girl's arm, and she slid to the ground. She laid there in a pile. Ginger looked from one of them to the other.

"What the hell?" Ginger said.

"You can't just take her," Daniel said. He stepped toward Ginger with his index finger pointed at her face. "You can't just take her."

Ginger started to smack his hand out of her way when she noticed the little girl shake her head at her. Instead of start a fight, Ginger lowered her voice and said, "I'm sorry. I had an emergency and I didn't want her staying here alone."

Daniel lowered his finger. "You can't just take her," he said again. Then he said it one more time. "You can't just take her."

"I can't just take her," Ginger said. Daniel's face was blank for another second, and then he looked at his daughter lying still on the ground. He went over and sat beside her in the grass. He whispered something in her ear, but she didn't change her expression at all. She stared ahead, away from Ginger, away from the house. Ginger watched them sit on the ground in silence for a few minutes. Then she shook her keys and said, "Do you want a beer?"

Her tenants looked up at her but neither said anything. She unlocked her front door and stepped inside. She turned to look at them, but they were both staring off into the distance by then. She shut the door, turned on the lights, walked to the kitchen and reached for a longneck. She was tired, but she was also concerned. She went to look out her front window and saw that father and daughter were still in the same spot.

Ginger walked outside with her beer in her hand. She approached them carefully, slowly, but neither looked up at her again. She was standing over them before Daniel seemed to notice her. The little girl didn't bring her focus back to the immediate area. Her stare reached more than a thousand miles.

"Go inside before I call the cops about a couple of vagrants sleeping on my lawn," Ginger said.

Daniel stood up first. He reached down and scooped the little girl up. She was completely limp in his arms, her head dropped back dramatically, her hair practically brushing the ground as he carried her toward their apartment. Ginger turned to watch the little girl be carried away. The little girl's face was upside down, but Ginger thought she saw a tear run up the girl's forehead. It disappeared into the little girl's hairline. Ginger stepped forward and then stopped herself. She watched Daniel open the door, cross the threshold, close the door behind them. Ginger took a swig from her beverage and sighed.

"You can't just take her," Ginger said to the closed door. Then she sat down in the grass and finished her beer.

Apartment Maintenance

Ginger was waiting for a pizza to be delivered when she received a call from her tenant across town. She owned a four-unit in the neighborhood where she once tended bar. Most of the people to whom she rented apartments in that building were old regulars. She knew their criminal and credit histories without having them fill out the usual paperwork.

"Pipe burst in the basement," Ron, a one-time rabid whiskey drunk, said when she answered the phone. Most tenants called the service she hired to take such calls. The folks in that particular building called her directly to report problems. When they told her about the issue, it sounded like they were placing an order. They gave short, curt statements full of expectation. Because they expected swift service. The nature and location of their relationship had changed, but in a lot of ways, Ginger's role was exactly the same.

She looked at the little girl, who had already set the coffee table with paper plates and napkins. Eddie wasn't around, and if the pipe burst, she didn't want to wait until she found him to fix it. She considered, for a second, leaving the little girl alone in her apartment filled with power tools. Ginger sighed.

"Put your shoes back on," she said to the little girl. Ginger wrote a note on a napkin that said, "Leave it on the porch," and then taped the note to the door with a twenty dollar bill. "We've got to go take care of a place," she told the little girl.

They were quiet in the car. Ginger didn't like to take the freeway, so she drove surface streets to get across town. The little girl stared out the window and seemed to watch every turn that Ginger made. When they got to the building, the little girl reached into the backseat to grab Ginger's tool box. Ginger let her carry it through the building's front door. When they reached the door to the basement, she took it back.

"Stay right here until I make sure it's safe to come down the steps," she instructed. The little girl nodded.

Ginger was pretty sure that Daniel would be furious if he knew that she'd taken his daughter on an evening fix-it job. He had a real aversion to the possibility of his daughter leaving the duplex or learning a trade. If the little girl didn't love it so much, Ginger obviously wouldn't have kept showing her how to do things. But the little girl took to it the way Ginger took to it when she was growing up. And frankly, Ginger thought it was better to encourage her, to feed that hunger, rather than leave that curiosity wide open with no teacher in sight.

"Come on down," Ginger yelled up the stairs. The little girl stuck her head in the door first, then made her way down the open stairs. She stopped on the bottom step and looked at the floor.

"It's wet but not flooded," the little girl said.

"It's always a little wet," Ginger said. "I don't put a washer or dryer down here and no one has ever asked to use it for storage.

"Where do people do laundry?" the little girl asked.

"Down the street at the laundromat," Ginger answered.

The little girl stepped down and walked over to the tool box. She opened it up and dug around until she found the wrench. She held it up like an offering to Ginger.

"Because it's a pipe problem," the little girl said.

"Good call, kid," Ginger said. She was proud of her protege. She was going to smile at the little girl, but as she reached out her hand to take the wrench, she noticed her mouth had already made the decision. The corners were turned up. Her teeth were showing. She felt the weight of the tool in her grip and she stood there for a minute. Beaming.

Perfect Apartment

My mother and I spent hours driving around town, searching for the right neighborhood and the just-so apartment. I was never a fan of the big complexes. I didn't want a box in a building I couldn't recognize from all the ones around it. I cared about other things. I wanted sidewalks. I wanted to be able to walk to campus. When we happened upon Dearing Place, I stopped the car. I got out just to walk the length of it.

It was simple street, tucked away near downtown. I thought it must be in a historic district. All of the houses were nice, but one house, midway down the block, stood out. It was obviously an old Antebellum home. The street was lined with trees that touched in the middle. At the end of the street, two brick pillars stood, each marked with a stone plate that announced your entrance on to Dearing Place. Just beyond it, across Queen City, was another southern estate. In the yard stood two large shrubs in the shape of peacocks.

I drove down the street and circled back around to drive down it again, and then again. We drove around the neighborhood to find a tiny grocery store, a gift store, a bar and a used bookstore in an old house - all within walking distance from the apartments at the end of the street. We drove back down Dearing Place so I could write down the number on the front of the building. There were no "For Rent" signs. There was no indication that an apartment was available that Fall. But I was going to call anyway. I was going to beg if I had to.

Back at the hotel, I was nervous while I dialed the number of the real estate office. I heard a strong southern accent say, "Hello?" 

"I'm calling about the apartments you own at the end of Dearing Place. I was wondering if any of them were one bedroom and if so, are any of them available for this Fall?"

I was put on hold and then a man picked up the line. "It looks like we do have a one bedroom available on Dearing Place this Fall."

"How much is the rent?" I asked.

When he told me the very affordable price of $295.00, I practically squealed. "It's perfect!"

"Well, if it's perfect," the man said, "then it's $400.00." 

Then we both laughed. 

I hadn't even been inside the apartment yet, but I knew that street was home. I didn't consider the neighbors. I didn't think about who might live near me. All I could see was the architecture and the tree tops that touched in the middle of the street. I kept saying the name over and over again on the drive from the hotel back to Dearing Place to see the apartment. Dearing Place. "Dearing Place," I said. It sounded significant. It was. It would be.

Girl's Mother

The little girl was asleep on Ginger's sofa when Daniel came to pick her up. Ginger stepped out onto the porch and said, "Why don't we let her sleep a little bit longer?"

As a response, Daniel stared at his feet.

"Do you want a beer?" Ginger asked him.

He looked at her and a sincere wave of relief rolled over his face. He shook his head as if he were too exhausted to make his mouth form the word, "Yes."

When Ginger handed him the beverage, he hesitated at taking it from her. Then, once it was in his hand, he held it to his chest. Ginger twisted the top off from the bottle she brought outside for herself. She took a swig as she sized him up.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" she said.

He nodded. His gaze had fallen back to his feet.

"Where's her mother?"

He glanced up quickly and then focused his sight on the top of the bottle. He inhaled deeply, and with the exhale said, "Well...."

Daniel started to rub his hand across the back of his neck.

"She's gone," he finally said. Ginger had almost finished her drink by the time Daniel gave her that much of an answer. "She's gone," he repeated.

"Passed away?" Ginger asked. She knew she was prying, but something the little girl said earlier made her curious.

"No, no," Daniel said. "Just gone."

They sat in silence a while longer before Ginger said, "Well, thanks for clearing that up."

Daniel looked her in the eye and said, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure," Ginger said.

"Where did you learn to do all this stuff?" Daniel waved his hand toward her door. Ginger was puzzled for a moment before she realized he meant the remodeling work.

"My folks," she said.

"Where are they?" Daniel asked.

"Gone," she said. "Just gone."

Remodeling Work

The little girl had quite an aptitude for painting the hard parts. She was good at cutting in, keeping paint away from woodwork and off the windowsill. Ginger showed her how to use painter's tape, but once left alone to do her work, the little girl didn't place one piece of it on the wall. Instead, she wrapped a single strip around each wrist, like tight bracelets, and another over her mouth. Ginger smiled when she saw it. She liked to stay silent when she worked, too.

Slowly, Ginger's side of the duplex was coming together. Eddie finally had all the electric working. The floor was no longer a splinter garden. Rooms were starting to take on identities. The kitchen was complete enough to have face plates on the electric outlets and even a few appliances plugged into them. The little girl helped apply the sticky tiles to the floor in the kitchen, and then Ginger had her painting the back wall, the big one, the one it would be hard to mess up. The little girl painted it, then she painted the space between the overhead cabinets and the countertop. She somehow pushed the refrigerator away from the wall just far enough that she could wedge herself in to paint that wall, too.

Left unsupervised, the little girl could get things done. Ginger admired her efforts, and gave her bigger jobs.

She was alone, painting in the living room, when her father stopped by.

"Are you getting paid for this?" Daniel asked his daughter. She sat on the floor with her back to him and the doorway in which he stood. She didn't answer him. She just kept painting.

"She's well compensated," Ginger said from the dining room.

"Well," Daniel said, "I hope so." He took one step forward to hand her his rent check.

"Thanks," Ginger said. "You want to come in? See what your daughter can do?"

He looked down at his daughter, who still ignored him. "Oh, I know what she can do," he said.

Ginger didn't love their dynamic. And, since the little girl spent more time at her house, she noticed Daniel's demeanor change, as well as his behavior toward both of them. He didn't like it. He didn't like something about their relationship. Yet, he didn't stop the little girl from spending time with Ginger. Instead, he glared at both girls. He gave short, rude answers to questions. And he snarled at any mention of his daughter's good work.

It made Ginger consider, briefly, adding a kindness clause to the lease.

Hospital Wives

In the waiting room, the wives sat with their backs to their husbands, who sat with their backs to the wives. Everyone stared ahead blankly. When Katherine arrived, she looked at both rows and said, "Hey!" and they seemed to snap awake. She held her palms up to ask, "Where is he?" Ellen started to stand up, but hesitated when the row of men rose in unison.

"He's in surgery," Joshua said.

"They say he'll be fine," Julian said.

Abraham stood with his arms hanging limp at his sides. He kept his eyes on the ground.

"I'm going to talk with the doctor," Katherine said and walked away, toward the nurses' station. She stood in front of the desk and stared at the tiny gray dots in the countertop. One of the nurses saw her and asked, "Can I help you?"

Katherine just looked up and said, "I needed to get away from my family."

She leaned against the desk and set her gaze in the direction of the waiting room. Ellen would be driving herself crazy with anxiety, trying to decide whether or not to join Katherine. Josie would be pretending to watch television while she watched Ellen out of the side of her eyes, ready to pounce with scorn if she left her place in the row. And Katherine had no idea what the men would be doing. She tried to imagine them talking with their wives or offering one another comfort. She couldn't see it. All she could see was the two strange lines they formed in an otherwise sterile environment.

That Empty Feeling

I remember driving the freeways around Central Ohio and feeling absolutely hollow. I was young, in my early twenties, and sometimes drove the freeway for fun. It was a novelty in my life. We didn't have freeways where I came from. We had highways, which turned into main streets. I grew up on one of those main streets. I could wait patiently for all the semi-trucks and traffic to stop at the red light a half a block away and then I could run across the street and climb up the hill. My childhood home faced that hillside, which I took for granted all the years I lived in my hometown. I looked out the front windows and saw the slanted earth rising. I lived at the base, and there was always something to see when I looked up.

I drove the freeways in Central Ohio and felt the hollow feeling and looked out my windshield and saw the flat earth stretching. It took a few months for the novelty to wear off, and then I was terrified. It wasn't the freeway that scared me. In theory, freeways are supposed to connect people to places. Period. Instead, I felt completely isolated every time I found myself on one. I felt empty. I was too young to understand why.

It wasn't ten years later, but almost, when I was driving in Southern California, on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. I was near the base of the Hollywood Hills when it occurred to me that I didn't feel empty when I was driving in LA. I didn't drive the freeways often, but even then, I didn't look out my windshield and feel as flat and empty as the landscape beyond me. I remember writing to my friend and saying, "I don't feel that empty feeling here that I felt in Central Ohio." I still didn't see it. And I wouldn't until I was back home in the hills of Southern Ohio for a while.

Whether it was a car window or a room window or standing outside in the middle of the road, I could look in any direction and see hillside. It filled every view. And it filled me.

We are products of our environments, and that isn't limited to just our family's influence. We are products of the landscape in which we were raised. The land is as much a part of who we become as the customs and comforts of our heritage. When confronted with flatness, I feel its void. I need hills to hug me, to offer their sides to climb, to present the views from their summits.

The Mail

At least once a week, Willa felt differently about the mail. Usually, she checked it and sorted it: bills, junk, birthday cards. But she had days when the mail seemed promising. She walked out to the road to retrieve it, and with each step, grew a little more excited by the possibilities.

There were few real surprises - or sources of surprise in her life. She had one wild card, and the likelihood of receiving a wild card, or a tame one, for that matter, from the wild card, well, it was unlikely. If Pritt sent a piece of mail, then there'd be a trail. And Pritt was careful not to show up on the radar of anyone from her old life.

Pritt's mother stopped asking Willa about her daughter years ago. Pritt didn't want to be a part of her mother's empire, if you could call it that. She didn't like the term or the treatment and she wasn't sure about all the legalities. Pritt's mother had a good lawyer on her team. She had a police force and council and adequate protection.

The New Guy

I wore monkey slippers. One little monkey face per foot. I wore monkey slippers at home, and by "at home" I mean that I wore monkey slippers in my apartment and on the porch and when I took out the trash and when I walked across the driveway to go to P or E's apartments. I wore monkey slippers to the pick up Chinese takeout or rent videos sometimes, too. I wore monkey slippers to go up the stairs and introduce myself to the new guy and invite him to the party a few of us in the apartment complex had planned for that night.

It's strange that I already thought of him as "the new guy" as I climbed the stairs to knock on his door. It wasn't really his door. He was subletting from the girl who normally stayed there. When Nora was about to leave for the summer, she made sure to let the rest of us know that she had found a renter for the summer.

"He's an archaeology student," she said. We were all standing in a circle in the driveway, sharing news from our days. We nodded and filed the information away. A few days later, he showed up in a tiny car. I watched from my perch in my bedroom window as he carried his few belongings around the side of the building. I could hear him on the stairs. I could hear him moving around in the apartment above me. I thought he'd be a lot quieter if he invested in some slippers.

That's all I knew of him when I padded up the stairs and knocked on his door. It took him a minute to cross the small apartment, and when he opened the door, he did so quickly, like he was going to take whatever was knocking by surprise.

"Hi, I'm your downstairs neighbor," I started. I stuck my head inside the door, which made him step back. I kept on chirping while he took a look at my monkey slippers.

"We're having a party out back tonight," I said as I stepped inside the apartment. I took a look around. Nothing in the apartment had changed except for the few items scattered across Nora's coffee table. Well, two items: a passport and a very large knife.

I stood next to those items in my monkey slippers and explained how much fun the party would be. "A lot of people from the English department will probably be here," I said. "And a bunch of folks from the campus radio station. We'll have a fire and a keg. You should come."

"Um, I'll think about it," he said. Then I remembered that it's polite to let the people who you're inviting to your party know what to call you.

"I'm M, by the way," I said. I waited for him to tell me his name, once he was finished scrutinizing me.

"S," he said, as way of introduction.

"Well, S," I wrapped up, "Hope to see you tonight. We'll be right out there," I said, gestured to the backyard, and then stepped toward the door. "Nice to meet you," I said.

He mumbled something along the lines of "You, too."

I wore my monkey slippers down the steps and across the driveway and up the steps of the other building. I opened P's door, and when I noticed he wasn't in the living room, walked over to knock on the door of the computer room. I heard the wheels of his office chair roll along the hardwood, and then he opened the door. He and K were watching something on the computer, but paused it to hear my quick story.

"So," I start. "I just met the new guy."

"Yeah?" P said.

"And I invited him to our party tonight," I said.

"Yeah?" K said.

"And I went inside the apartment," I said.

"Yeah?" P and K said in unison.

"Yeah," I said. "And the only thing he's got in there is a passport and a giant f'ing knife."

P looked back at his computer screen, completely disinterested in how other people may or may not decorate their apartments. But K's eyes grew wide. He looked at P and then he looked at me and then the shouted his realization.

"He's Indiana Jones!"

I wore regular, run of the mill flip flops to the party that night. I sat on the back step and drank cold beer and stopped what I was doing when I saw the new guy try to walk to his car without notice. He stayed in the shadow of my building, his building, and almost made it past my car to his own. I glanced over at K just as he noticed the new guy trying to get by us.

"Jones!" K yelled at him. The new guy kept walking toward his car.

"Indiana Jones!" K yelled again. The new guy looked over at K, who was waving his arm at him, signaling him to come on over. I saw the new guy glance up at me and then take a step toward K. He was hesitant, but he came over. He accepted K's offer of a cold beer. And he sat in our circle.

I don't think K knew his real name for weeks. That night, he told everyone at the party, "This is Jones!"

Bedroom Renovation

When she walked into the room, she stepped on a pile of outlet covers and their loose, tiny screws. Eddie was on the floor, hunched over the small, square hole in the wall. Wires poked their wild yellow and red heads out. The room was losing light as the sun set. She crossed her arms and looked at Eddie. Here they were again. Out of electricity.

"It's been days," she said. It had been days. She woke up every morning and reached for the flashlight on her bedside table. She made her way to the kitchen, where Eddie set up a camp stove. Some mornings she fumbled her way through making coffee in a french press. Other mornings, she sat in the dark until and the light hit the windows and then she banged around the kitchen and slammed the cabinet doors until Eddie woke up.

"Getting a late start," he said as he came down the hall.

She glared at him. "I work for myself," she answered.

She lived in unfinished rooms without flinching. The possibility of a splinter sticking in her bare feet as she walked down her hallway didn't phase her a bit. Drywall and plaster and tools on the floor - she could handle it. But she needed to be able to see the mess in order to live with it. She had to confront it daily, and the darkness in the morning made her aware of it on another level. She knew it was there. She could feel it. She couldn't see it. And to fix it, she had to look at it.

Eddie sat on an empty milk crate. She kept a lot of those lying around. He reached for her cup of coffee, which she sat on the counter. She watched him lift it up and bring the mug to his lips. He sipped from it. He flinched at the bitterness of it. She drank it black when she made it at the house. Any other time, she'd have filled it with cream and sugar. But at her house, in the dark, without a refrigeration to keep the cream cold, she didn't bother.

"I'll have the bedroom done today," he said, and sat the mug right back where he found it.

She simply nodded. There was a time, in the beginning, when she directed his work. She would have told him that the kitchen was more important. She would have demanded faster progress. That time was long over. Instead, she nodded. She understood. He knew which room was the most important in the house.

Good Days

She didn't hate her husband. She couldn't place the feeling that came over her when he sat at the table and spent his day staring at one sheet from his legal pad. She thought about how she'd ended up in a cottage baking for bearded men who wrote poems, sometimes sewing with their wives - women who didn't seem to like one another much, but bound themselves together out of necessity. 

It was necessary because they needed the company. 

On the days they lost their partners to art, they could cling to one another. 

Katherine sighed. She looked out her front door. She leaned against the frame and looked past the tree that never once wore a swing, and beyond that to her patch of wildflowers. Roby dug the space for her on their two year anniversary. They brought rocks up from the creek to contain her space. They tilled the soil together. It wasn't a large plot. It wasn't a whole garden. It was a lovely gift from a husband who once upon a time encouraged her to love wild things.

Once they'd prepared the spot, he left her alone to toss handfuls of seeds onto the dirt. She didn't want a designed garden with perfectly aligned plants. She didn't want a designed life, either, she thought. And that's how she ended up in a cottage baking for bearded men who wrote poems. Her marriage was the result of tossing seeds at the dirt. Some stick and grow. Some don't make it. 

And some end up in a vase on a table under a window where she once fell in love with the light.

Renegade Wife

While Roby was on the road, Katherine met with the other wives to sit in a circle, sew and knit, and exchange polite conversation. They always met at Mellie's house, and her husband, Adam, was always home. He stayed in the attic, and Katherine had once joked that he was "the madman in the attic," locked away from polite company and the pleasantries they exchanged. Josie, the oldest of the wives, looked at Katherine over her reading glasses and said as slowly as she rocked in the chair, "Is that some college thing?" 

It wasn't a college thing, but because no one else seemed to think it was funny, Katherine just nodded and went back to binding the baby quilt she was making. She planned on giving it to the mother of her favorite student, who was having her third child. Her student, Sally, was very sweet and very excited to have a little sibling of her own. Her big sister was five years older, and always telling Sally that she had something that Sally didn't: a little sister. 

"Well, you have something she doesn't have," Katherine told her. "You have a big sister."

"I don't want something my sister doesn't have," Sally said. 

That was good enough for Katherine. 

Katherine didn't have brothers or sisters. Her parents were elderly and living in a facility of their choosing, with money they'd saved for just that occasion. She supposed she should be grateful. She wasn't expected to care for them or pay for their care. She wasn't expected to be their sole means of entertainment. They were content with the weekly call she made to check on them, which they always showed up for, even though sometimes they seemed distracted and often had board games or card tournaments needed to rush off to.

She looked around the room at the women, the wives. She wondered about their ambitions. She wondered how often their husbands read their work to these wives. She wanted to ask questions. She inhaled, about to ask Ellen about the gift baskets she made for baby showers, but before she could speak, Josie said, "Ellen, I hear Horner's is stocking fine teas now."

Horner's was the local department store. They'd asked Ellen to create baskets for them numerous times. Every time, she said, "I'm flattered, of course. But I just wouldn't have the time." 

"I heard that, too," Ellen said. 

"We should have a tea party," Katherine suggested. 

Ellen looked at Josie, although Katherine could see the light in her eyes. Josie squinted at Katherine, who then said, "Maybe one night while the men make their poems." 

To Husband's Home

Roby brought her to live in a country cottage he inherited from his grandmother. The small house was painted a pale yellow and stood alone on two acres several miles from the nearest town. Katherine imagined hanging the laundry out to dry on a line she'd run from the house to a tree in the front yard. Roby had told her about the tree. He promised to hang a tire swing for her so she could hover a while.

When Katherine first laid her eyes on the house, she thought it was romantic and immediately fell in love with the light that came through the kitchen window. "We need a table right there," she said and pointed to the spot that would become Roby's writing place. At the time, though, Katherine imagined coffee dates with her handsome husband. She imagined passing him the newspaper and buttering toast at the table. She hoped he'd read to her while she sat and embroidered pillow cases - a skill she learned from her own grandmother who wasn't fortunate enough to see her only granddaughter grow up and marry a man who knew how to hang a swing and tend a beard.

She leaned against the kitchen sink and looked out the window she'd loved the first time she saw it. She could see the tree clearly. No clothesline was ever connected. She dried laundry on racks in the basement. No swing was ever hung. She didn't hover, or drift, or give her mind any time to roam on its own. She quit daydreaming. She started baking.

The Vacuum

Usually, the back and forth motion soothed her. Jeannie pushed the vacuum cleaner forward and pulled it back to her and she pretended it was rowing practice for a minute. She wouldn't allow herself to get lost in a fantasy. She tried to stay present while she cleaned, especially the floors. She liked tending to the ground she stood on. She swept the floors and vacuumed the carpets and pressed her bare feet onto the wood and then the rug and thought about how much she enjoyed caring for a space she inhabited.

She saw Roby sit at the table and start scratching away, taking notes, making things. She looked down at her feet on her floor and flinched. Both actions, writing and sweeping, were repetitive and never produced perfect results. She looked up at the ceiling and saw that she was way behind on knocking the spider webs from the corners. She didn't enjoy that task as much. Maybe it was the guilt she felt over destroying a spider's masterpiece, their home, and their massacre spot.

Jeannie never once wiped the table. She only cleaned the tablecloth if Roby remembered to put it in the hamper. She tried to think of the last time she sat down there. The idea of sitting at the table felt as foreign to her as the possibility of spending time in a spider's web. She'd get stuck. She'd be among killers who made intricate things.

First Encounter with Little Girl

It had been two days since Ginger put the sign in the window and she was doing nothing but fielding calls from people who asked, "How much?" The deciding factor was never beautiful cabinetry or the view from the kitchen window. When it came down to it, people cared most about the price. It was no surprise. She just tired from saying the same thing over and over.

On Wednesdays, she drove around and took a look at the other properties she owned. She checked in on her tenants, and took notes on any concerns they had. If something needed fixed, she nodded and wrote it down in a steno pad. She could have dropped her pen and fixed a lot of problems on the spot, but she found that her tenants didn't trust her handiwork. She hired a guy to show up and do the work. It cost her money she could have saved if she'd done it herself, but she found that tenants stayed longer and didn't call her as much if a man took care of the maintenance.

When she fixed a leaky faucet or changed out a hot water heater, sometimes tenants kept calling, certain they heard dripping, convinced their water wouldn't heat up - even though a ten second test proved otherwise. She shrugged it off and hired a handyman. She still inspected any job first, though.

She was on her way back from a property when she saw a little girl at the bottom of the hill. She was alone on the sidewalk in front of a house that rented for two times what Ginger charged for her duplex apartment. As Ginger drove closer, the little girl's face seemed angrier. Just as Ginger was about to turn up her street, the little girl pushed her middle finger as high up in the air as she could - thrusting it in Ginger's direction. The little girl seemed to be straining herself. Ginger's eyes widened, and then she shook her head to herself. "I know," she said aloud in her car. She knew that feeling. She understood what it was like to want the world, or anyone, even a random stranger driving by in a car, to just go to hell.

Bearded Poet Finds Wife's Poem

He found her digging through one of the five steel filing cabinets that lined a wall in the garage. Some people had work benches for tools and shelves for gardening equipment. Some people parked their cars in their garages. Roby and Jeannie and kept their papers in theirs'. Jeannie claimed to know just where to find old recipes, tax returns and papers from her freshman year at college. If Roby needed old poems for a contest he wanted to enter, she sent him out to his cabinets - the three closest to the door. Sometimes, Roby would spend hours out there, browsing through his body of work.

She was thinking about her own history with the written word when he found her pulling folders out from the two cabinets that she claimed.

"Looking for a recipe?" he asked.

"No," she said. "I thought of something earlier. Something from a long time ago."

"What is it?" he asked.

She shook her head. She didn't want help. She would find it. She had to find it.

"Will you check on the soup?" she asked him. He shook his head.

"I want to help you out here," he said.

She stopped what she was doing and they stared at each other. He knew what she was looking for. He knew she'd read his latest contest submission. She knew that he knew.

For all the ways she supported him through the years - the baking, the encouraging, the financial support - she never once thought he'd take more from her. She never once thought he'd feel entitled to her words.

He stole her poems and passed them off as his own. He'd already sent the manuscript. She knew because she dropped it off at the post office.

"What do you have to say to me?" she asked.

He leaned against one of his filing cabinets and rubbed his beard with his ink-stained hand for a minute. Then he crossed his arms and shrugged.

"Nothing," he said. "Which is what you were doing with that stack of old stuff."

"You're right," she said, and started to nod her head slowly. "You're right. I was doing nothing. Which is what I've been doing all these years with you, too."

Bearded Poets Opening

For six years, Jeannie made baked goods for her husband's poetry night. When Roby and his three burly friends gathered around her tiny kitchen table, she placed a platter of warm scones or muffins or cookies in the center. They placed their whiskey glasses and steno pads in their spots, and tore into the treats as if all the words they'd need for the night were hidden somewhere deep in the dough. Later, Jeannie would clean up crumbs and finds discarded drafts, wadded up pieces of steno paper, littered on her floor like the trash they were. She always sneaked a peek, and she got to know a little about each poet's obsessions.

For instance, Joshua wrote a lot about mermaids. At least, he wrote a lot and threw away a lot of poems about mermaids. Julian wrote about gardening tools. Abraham wrote about his youthful travels. And Roby, the man to whom she pledged her life, abandoned poems about the futility of baking.

He kept the poems about his disappointment in pastries.