Floating Staircase(3)

Despite the hazardous driving conditions, I stole a glimpse of my wife. Aquiline-featured and mocha-skinned, her springy black hair tucked beneath a jacquard cap, she looked suddenly and alarmingly youthful. Memories of our first winter in North London rushed back to me: how we’d huddled around the wood-burning stove for warmth when we couldn’t get the furnace to kick on while watching an atrocious British sitcom on cable. London had been good to us, but we were excited by the prospect of returning to the States—to my home state, in fact—and finally owning our own home.

The past decade of struggling to make ends meet had paid off when my last novel, Water View, rocketed in sales and managed to attract a Hollywood option. The film was never made, but the option money put my previous book advances to shame, so we decided to trade in our draughty Kentish Town flat for a single-family home. It hadn’t occurred to us to come back to the States until Adam called to say he found us a house in his neighborhood. The previous owners had already moved out and were desperate to sell. At such a bargain, it promised to go quickly. I conferred with Jodie and, blindly putting our trust in my older brother’s judgment, we bought the house, sight unseen.

“Are you nervous?” Jodie said.

“About the house?”

“About seeing your brother again.” She rested a hand on my right knee.

“Things are okay between us now,” I said, though for a moment I couldn’t help but remember what had happened the last time we’d been together. Except for the clarity of the memory, it could have been a dream, a nightmare.

“We haven’t been around family for Christmas in a long time.”

I said nothing, not wanting to be baited into talking about the past.

“I think that you’ve somehow driven us off the face of the Earth,” Jodie said, blessedly changing the subject.

“It’s gotta be—”

“There,” she said. There was an edge of excitement in her voice. “Down there!”

In the valley below, a miniature town seemed to blossom right out of the snow. I could make out the grid of streets and traffic lights like Christmas balls. Brick-fronted two-story buildings and mom-and-pop shops huddled together as if for warmth. The main road wound straight through the quaint downtown section, then continued toward the mountains where clusters of tiny houses bristled like toadstools in the distant fields. The whole town was embraced by a dense pine forest, through which I thought I could see the occasional glitter of water.

Jodie laughed. “Oh, you’re shitting me! It’s a goddamn model train set.”

“Welcome to Westlake,” I said. “Next stop—Jupiter.”

I took the next exit and eased the Honda down an icy decline. We came to a T in the road, and Jodie read the directions off a slip of paper I’d stowed in the glove compartment. We hung a left and drove straight through the middle of town, digesting the names of all the businesses we passed—Clee Laundromat, Zippy’s Auto Supply, Guru Video, Tony’s Music Emporium. The two most creative were a hair salon called For the Hairing Impaired and an Old West—style saloon, complete with swinging doors and a hitching post, called Tequila Mockingbird.

Jodie and I groaned in unison.

We turned down Waterview Court and followed it as it narrowed to a single lane, the trees coming in to hug us on either side.

“Did you notice?” Jodie said.

“Notice what?”

“Waterview. It’s the name of your last book.”

“Maybe that’s another one of your beloved omens,” I said. “A good one this time.”

Waterview dead-ended in a cul-de-sac. Warm little houses encircled the court, their roofs groaning with snow.

“There he is,” I said and hammered two bleats on the car horn.

Adam stood in the center of the cul-de-sac, mummified in a startling red ski jacket, knitted cap, and spaceman boots. He had a rolled-up plastic tube beneath one arm. Behind him, two puffy blots frolicked in the snow—Jacob and Madison, my nephew and niece.

Smiling, I tapped the car horn one last time, then maneuvered the vehicle so I could park alongside the curb. The undercarriage complained as the Honda plowed through a crest of hard snow, and before I had the car in park, Jodie was out the door. She sprinted to Adam, hugged him with one arm around his neck, and administered a swift peck to his left cheek. My brother was very tall, and Jodie came up just past the height of his shoulders.

“Hey, jerk face,” I said, climbing out of the car. “Get your mitts off my wife.”

“Come here,” Adam said, grabbing me into a strong embrace. He smelled of aftershave lotion and firewood, and I was momentarily kicked backward into nostalgic reverie, recalling our father—who had smelled the exact same way—when we were kids growing up in the city. “Man,” he said, breathing into the crook of my neck, “it’s good to see you again, Bro.”

We released each other and I took him in. He was well built, with a studious, sophisticated gaze that was capable of being stern without compromising his charm and his innate approachability. He’d put those traits to work to become the policeman he’d always wanted to be when he was a kid. From seemingly out of the blue, I was overcome by a sense of pride that nearly buckled my knees.

“You look good,” I said.

“Kids!” Adam called over his shoulder.