Thankfully, I had a couple pairs of thick wool socks I could use to line the boots if need be. I just needed to lug all this crap into the den of a cabin Dad had loaned me and dig them out of my bag. Turning with a renewed sense of purpose, a mission to unfreeze these feet, I took a deep breath.
And then wished I hadn’t.
A garbled noise left me, followed by choking sounds.
“I don’t remember it being quite this… quaint,” I mumbled to myself.
Small didn’t even cover it. The phrase converted fishing shack came to mind, but in the small cabin’s defense, it was so covered with snow, the trees surrounding it, sidled up next to the little house in a way that made me worry for my safety if one of those monsters were to tumble, I couldn’t really say if it simply looked smaller due to all these factors or I’d just built it up to something larger in my mind.
“It’s bigger on the inside,” I said with a laugh, flicking my Tardis themed scarf over my shoulder, drawing the middle of it up over the lower half of my face to help chase the chill.
Thinking of the DVDs I’d brought hoping to initiate the little bros on all things Dr. Who, I hoped this woodpile had a TV and DVD player. Or working electricity, I thought, eyeing it critically.
Back into my car I quickly dove, nabbing up my laptop bag, as well. I could always watch the DVDs on that. I held out little hope there was Wi-Fi to use to log into my digital movies account and watch something that way or download a few books for my reading device. Dad had money but he was cheap.
When I opened the door to this place, I expected to find the bare minimum, if I was lucky, with a dash of neglect.
With a bit of wiggling and picking at the ice crusting the lock, threatening to leave me stuck on the tiny cement slab of a front porch step, I had the key in the lock and was turning it when the smell hit me.
Expecting mustiness, a stink akin to patchouli and a thick smothering of pepper hit me. “Ugh. Dad,” I garbled out, nose crinkling. Stepping inside, dumping my things where I stood, I found the light switch, pausing to mumble, “Aziz, light,” to flip it on. The lights came on, those mock daylight bright bulbs the old man had favored illuminating the room. “I stand corrected.” Muttering under my breath as posh meets pothead with a bachelor pad flair I didn’t care for greeted me, I scooted my bags out of the way and reached behind me absently, searching out the doorknob.
Shutting the door behind me, I began the task of peeling wet layers. The chill in the air was uncomfortable but nothing compared to the howling winds gusting that freezing crap around outside. Peeling my gloves off, shaking my head, I pulled out my phone. A quick look around as I got the small electric heater going had me wanting to sanitize the place. Opting to stand in the middle of the room, I shook my head as I scrolled through my contacts list.
Clicking on that familiar number, I pressed talk and waited. He answered on the first ring. Considering the contents of his… love nest? Party den? This certainly was not your granddaddy’s weekend fishing hole, I wasn’t surprised in the least.
“You’re having your eldest child chill at your hoochie hut,” I said flatly, “instead of telling your wife to drink some man-up water and accept you had a life before her, and your horrid first life children are all part of that deal. Whether anyone liked it or not.”
“Hoochie hut?” Dad burst out.
“Love den? Sexual sanctuary? Pit of promiscuity? Seriously, am I going to find things I shouldn’t if I have a peek around?” I quipped quickly to add fuel to the fire, because I was annoyed, on top of everything else, to be shunted off to his den of iniquity like one of the countless mistresses he’d probably holed away the hours doing god knows what with in here under the premise of a ‘business trip’.
There was silence on the other end for so long I pulled my phone from my ear to make sure the call was still connected.
“You won’t tell,” he said with utmost certainty.
He was right, I wouldn’t, but it wasn’t for his sake. “I’ll tell her if you don’t sell it.” My voice was silky smooth. He could go turn around and buy another hoochie hut for all that I cared, but to see what he’d done with this little piece of Mom, of what our family had once been so long ago I’d almost completely forgotten, he was shitting on my memories. A huge, get your freak on, those looked like restraints on that thickly padded chair in the corner, what the fuck my daddy’s a freak, dump on Mom’s memory.
“You bought this for her.” My throat hurt as the words croaked free.
Dad blew out a long breath. “Why do you think we bought it?” As my eyes widened and I made a face, because I so did not want to know that, he added, “We kept all the good stuff stored in the shed out back when we brought you kids there.”
As I sat there digesting this, glancing around at hints of things that made me want to fumigate, scrub, sanitize the entire place, I cringed inside and out. One does not need to know these things about their parents. Ever.
“Your mother knew about Bethany and I.” His voice softened into that same sad tone reserved for talking about his dead wife. He still missed her as much as we did. Bethany did not a Mom make.
Why did this not surprise me, to hear that she knew? “She wanted you to be happy,” I mumbled awkwardly. He wasn’t, but that was beside the point.
“She was worried. She wanted us all to be happy.” More of that fun pausing stuff. “There’s a box of ornaments you kids made with her in the cupboard with all the board games,” he admitted hesitantly. “The angel snow globe ornament she gave you is still in there.”
“Thanks.” What did one say to all of this?!
“I miss her.”
“Me- Ah- Me, too.” Ah, of course my voice chose now to crack.
“I can’t sell it, but I’ll stop, ah-”
“Don’t say it,” I barked, making him laugh. Argh. Ick. Nasty- Disgusting-
“I was thinking of giving it to you anyway…” He let the offer trail off.
“Is this before or after I burn everything inside of it but the family memories?” I asked blandly. And there was a peek of the old comradery, at the price of my silence for a slice of family memories tainted with yet more bullshit. Yay?
“What about Beau?” I pointed out.
“What about Beau?” A snort left him. “He’d just turn around and sell it for whatever he could and cut you out of it, if possible. If you have it, it’ll still be here.” With confidence, he added, “You’d keep it around. You could even write your next book in it.”
It would certainly be quiet, I admitted, if only to myself. With the haunting moans of my parents’ past sexcapades and his adulterous affairs of long past. Blech. Burning it to the ground after I’d picked out the few good memories was sounding better and better. The shed was getting lit first.
“I’ll pay to renovate it? Think of it as a Christmas present, from your daddy to you, huh?”
My forever single sanctuary. Sex den to nun hole. How lovely.
Let us address the heart of the issue first. “To keep me quiet.”
Again, the sound of silence sang to me. He couldn’t accept us into the fold, but he’d pay his children off to hold us at bay.