Floating Staircase(34)

“Even if that’s the case, why do you care?”

Because something in the house wanted me to find that room, I almost said. Something in the house wanted me to find that stuff for a reason.

We reached a clearing in the woods beside the cusp of the lake. I could see the Steins’ house opposite us beyond the rocky crags and up through the naked gray trees. We sat down on a tree stump that was large enough to accommodate the two of us while Jacob and Madison bounded farther through the field, snow crumbling off their boots and arcing off their heels as they struggled to run.

Adam offered me a cigarette, which I accepted. He popped one into his mouth, then balled up the empty packet and tossed it into a tin trash can that was conveniently nailed to the bole of a nearby tree.

I hadn’t answered Adam’s question, and it hung in the air between us like some mutual embarrassment.

“Listen,” Adam said eventually. “What do you do if you show up to that poor woman’s house, your car loaded with her dead son’s toys, and she breaks down on you? What if she just collapses at your feet, sobbing her eyes out? You think that will make you feel better? You think it’ll be for her benefit?”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly. This isn’t about the f*cking Dentman kid at all.”

“Then what is it?”

Adam turned away. “Forget it.”

“No,” I said. “I want you to tell me.”

“Goddamn it, man. Don’t you see? You’ve come to another classic impasse in your life, and in typical Travis Glasgow fashion you’re willing to do or say whatever you want as long as it makes you feel better for the time being, regardless of anyone else’s feelings.”

He would have hurt me less if he’d cracked me across the jaw. I think he realized this, too, because his gaze lingered on me a millisecond too long, and before he looked away, I saw his expression begin to soften.

I tossed the cigarette on the ground and stood.

“Fuck,” Adam groaned. “I’m sorry. That came out harsher than I’d intended.”

“It came out, all right.” For some reason my hands started shaking. I stuffed them into my pockets to hide them.

“Hate me if you want, but I can’t keep my mouth shut if I see you heading for harm.”

“Fuck all, man. You think you’re this great f*cking fortification against all the horrors of this world, that you’re burdened with being some goddamn martyr because you’re my older brother. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not thirteen anymore. I can take care of myself.”

“Cut it out, will you?” Adam sounded so goddamn calm I wanted to belt him across the cheek. “The world’s not against you. Neither am I. This whole woe-is-me thing ran its course years ago.”

Something vital snapped inside me. I whirled around. “You’re a piece of shit—you know that? You shut me out when we were younger because of what happened with Kyle, and every time you disagree with me you throw those same stones right back at me. You’re a prick, Adam.”

He jumped off the tree stump with a fierceness that I would have thought beyond him. I hated myself for flinching and taking an involuntary step back.

“I never shut you out, and I never blamed you for Kyle’s death,” he said. “I blamed you for the * you became after his death.”

“You had no idea what I went through—”

“I was a f*cking kid, too. You had no idea what I went through.” Those steely eyes were locked on mine, and I hated that I couldn’t look away. I hated that he was the stronger one in that instant and probably for the bulk of our lives. “I lost a brother, too, you dumb f*ck.”

The shaking in my hands had negotiated up my arms. I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but I was only able to offer a weak and uncontrolled grunt. An instant later, Adam doubled, then trebled in my vision.

“Christ,” Adam said and slung an arm around my neck. He kissed the side of my head.

“Get off me,” I muttered, but I didn’t mean it.

“You’re my brother. You’re all I’ve got.”

“You’ve got Beth,” I countered. Then I nodded toward his kids who were slugging it out in a snowbank, their voices rising to ear-piercing cries. “And you’ve got those two sweethearts.”

Adam chuckled as Madison fell backward on her ass in the drift. “Hell,” he said, arm still around my neck. “I guess there’s a chance you might even be right.”



He stopped by the house later that evening with an address scrawled on a sheet of lined notebook paper.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sometime during the night I was awakened by the sound of bare feet padding along the upstairs hallway. Dazed, I shook myself out of bed, just partially conscious of Jodie’s slumbering body beside mine, and stepped into the hallway, my eyes still fuzzy with sleep. I groped for the light switch, but it had apparently disappeared. Listening, I could hear the sound of the bare feet moving swiftly down the stairs.

For a long-drawn-out moment, I did not move. I couldn’t tell if I was fully awake, still dreaming, or caught in some abstract stasis of half sleep. My skin felt frozen while my insides were burning up as if with the onset of fever. Like a ghost, I crossed to the second-floor balcony and peered down into the foyer. At first I saw nothing. The longer I stared, I saw what appeared to be a small child standing motionless at the bottom of the staircase against one wall. Without pause, I turned and began moving down the stairs, one hand snaking along the banister in the darkness for support.