The lower level had another sunken room that was like a bunker. No windows. A dusty mothball smell mingled with stale popcorn grease. A vintage movie projector, an eight-millimeter, occupied the center and there were two plush La-Z-Boys on either side in front of a big screen. The eight-millimeter collection was “off limits,” he had explained to me while giving me a tour of the house, so I stuck to his Betamax shelves. Here in this windowless place, while the mirage of images flashed on the screen, I felt safe enough to sleep. I didn’t so much sleep as catnap for a few hours. I think I had the best naps ever in my life in that La-Z-Boy recliner, under the spell of my meds and Hollywood.
I was just getting into The Exorcist when the doorbell rang. The sound jarred me from the dark dream of the movie. Who could possibly be here? This house was in the middle of nowhere. I paused the movie and climbed the spiral staircase. I opened the door to reveal a skinny girl who appeared to be about my age and was dressed in a pea green army coat, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. Her dark hair was chopped short, her features sharp and hawkish, her eyes brown and almond-shaped. Her coat appeared too thin for the weather, her face pale as the clouds dropping snow behind her. She tilted her head, birdlike, as if I was the mystery here. “Who are you?”
“Me? Lucien. I’m looking after this place for the Krolls.”
“Lucien?” She frowned as if she disapproved of the name.
I considered explaining how I’d been named after a cherished grandfather, but truthfully I’d never cared for my name. I thought maybe I really should change my name to Meshach.
The girl peered past me into the foyer as if looking for someone. “Where are my parents?”
“Uh . . . parents?” Neither Kroll had mentioned any daughter. Rambling through the house, I’d seen no pictures of this girl, no toys or dolls or any sort of evidence that any child had ever lived here. The only framed photos mostly featured Mr. Kroll in blaze orange or camo posing with recently slain animals, elk or bear or some other luckless beast, blood freckling the leaves about him.
She hugged herself with her arms and let out an exasperated sigh. Her lips had a bluish cast from the cold. “Listen, I don’t know who you are.” Her tongue darted out to touch her lips, and her eyes locked on mine as if she had made some vital determination. Without another word she pushed past me, tracking snow into the foyer.
I snagged her by the elbow. “Hey,” I said. “I didn’t say you could come in.”
The girl looked thin and bony, but she shook out of my grip, dropped her duffel, and jabbed one finger right in the center of my chest. She smelled like she hadn’t bathed in a month, a musky animal odor overwhelming in tight quarters. “What have you done with my mom and dad?” she said, advancing on me until she had me backed against the wall.
“They’re in Texas,” I told her, still not sure what to believe. I squeezed past her to the open door, taking one fresh gulp of cold air before shutting it and turning back to her. “South Padre Island. At least until March or April. I’m caring for the house and dog while they’re gone.”
“Kaiser?” she said, her nose twitching. “And they’re gone all winter?”
She made it sound like they had never done it before, which had not been my impression. “They couldn’t wait to escape the cold.”
She quirked one thin eyebrow, as if she knew there was more to it than that. I hadn’t mentioned any of the Y2K talk. I considered it vaguely reassuring that she knew the name of the dog. “They’ll be back when the snow melts,” I continued. If the world doesn’t end on December 31st, I didn’t add.
“And you’re in contact with them?”
I massaged my sore hip, which ached from the cold the girl had brought into the room with her. “I have their number in case something goes wrong.” Such as a stranger forcing her way into the house.
“Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing. So, you’re . . . their daughter? You think they would have mentioned something like that.”
She spread out her hands, palms up. “Why would they? We’ve been estranged . . .” She lingered on that word, her small, sharp face tightening at some unpleasant memory. “They wouldn’t expect me to come home for the holidays.”
“There aren’t any pictures of you anywhere,” I said. Not a single room bore any girlish trace, like a stuffed bear or a pink quilt, but then again she didn’t seem the girlish type. Thanksgiving was little more than a week away. How long was she planning to stay? I resented this intrusion on my peace.
“We aren’t on speaking terms. My dad wiped his hands of me.” She made a gesture, a flat, slapping sound as her palms came together. I could picture Mr. Kroll doing the same.
“I’ll call them,” I said. “They’ll want to know you’re here.”
She shook her head, her brown eyes huge and pleading. “Don’t,” she said.
The pain in my hip jogged up into my skull and started to party there. Starbursts began to pop and flare at the corner of my vision. Not again. Not now. I didn’t feel so hot. Fuck. After the accident migraines came on when I was stressed, thunderclouds boiling up inside my brain, a roaring wind across the plains.
“I wasn’t expecting a happy homecoming,” she said. “I just need a place to stay for a while. I took the bus from Bellingham and then walked the rest of the way.”
Bellingham? I pinched the skin between my eyes. That was halfway across the country.
“Heh? What’s wrong with you?”
“I just need to sit down for a minute.”
The girl led me into the kitchen by the elbow and sat me on one of the chairs. She banged around in the cabinets before finding a glass she filled at the tap. Shaking, I accepted the glass, stood again, and started walking away. My sumatriptan was on the nightstand in my bedroom, and I needed it now. The girl tailed me. I still didn’t know her name, thought there was something off about her story, but I had pressing physical concerns of my own, a monsoon drumming behind my temples.
In the bedroom, pain walloped me. I nearly dropped the glass I was carrying. It felt like I had a whole fraternity inside my skull, all of them drunk and hurling bottles and shit at the walls inside my head. I managed to set the glass down and reached for my medication, but I was shaking so badly by then I couldn’t get it open.
“Here,” the girl said. She took it from my hands, unscrewed the cap, and fished out a pill. “Open up,” she commanded, so I did and she set the pill on my tongue gingerly, like she was doling out a Communion wafer. I chased it with a gulp of water, but the migraine had me in such a fierce grip I couldn’t even see straight. The girl guided me to the bed, pulled back the covers. I felt her take my shoes off. I no longer noticed the intensity of her odor. Her voice was soft as she laid a cool hand on my forehead. A winter priestess attending her parishioner. “It’s going to be okay,” she said.