Floating Staircase(5)

Adam tossed me the house keys. “So, are we gonna stand around here freezing our butts off, or are we gonna check out the new digs?”

I handed the keys to Jodie. “Go ahead. Do the honors.”

Jodie mounted the two steps to the porch, hesitating as they creaked beneath her. There was a porch swing affixed to the underside of the awning by rusted chains, the left chain several inches longer than the right. The wicker seat had been busted out presumably a long time ago, leaving behind a gaping, serrated maw. The electric porch lights on either side of the front door were bristling with birds’ nests, and there was bird shit speckled in constellation fashion on the floorboards below. Yet if Jodie noticed any of this, she did not let on.

Jodie slipped the key into the lock as the rest of us gathered on the porch behind her. We waited patiently for her to open the door. Instead, she burst into laughter.

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

“It’s insane,” she said. “This is our first home.”



The house had a very 1970s feel to it, with ridiculous shag carpeting and wood paneling on the first floor. At any moment I expected a disco ball to drop from the ceiling. There were floor tiles missing in the kitchen, and it looked like the walls were in the process of vomiting up the electrical outlets, for many of them dangled by their guts from the Sheetrock.

The Trans-Atlantic movers had deposited our belongings pretty much wherever they found space, and we maneuvered around them like rats in a maze as we went from room to room.

Jodie gripped my hand and squeezed it. “This is great.”

“It needs some work.”

Upstairs, there were two bedrooms—a master and a spare—as well as a third room that would make a perfect office for my writing and Jodie’s work on her doctoral dissertation. A second full bathroom was up here as well. With some disdain, I scrutinized the chipped shower tiles and the sink that could have been dripping since Eisenhower was in office.

“Travis,” Jodie called from down the hall. “Come look. You won’t believe this.”

She was in the master bedroom at the end of the hall. The movers had propped our mattress at an angle against one wall and left our dresser in the middle of the room. Boxes of clothes crept up another wall.

“Look,” Jodie said. She was gazing out of the wall of windows that faced the backyard.

I came up behind her and peered over her shoulder. Beyond the white smoothness of the lawn and seen through a network of barren tree limbs, a frozen lake glittered in the midday sun. On the far side of the lake, tremendous lodgepole pines studded the landscape, their needles powdered in a dusting of white. It was a breathtaking, picturesque view, marred only by the curious item toward the center of the lake—a large, dark, indescribable structure rising straight up from the ice.

“Did you know there was a lake back here?”

“No,” I said. “Adam never said anything.”

“Jesus, this is gorgeous. I can’t believe it’s ours.”

“It’s ours.” I kissed her neck and wrapped my arms around her. “What do you suppose that thing is out there? Sitting on the ice?”

“I have no idea,” Jodie said, “but I don’t think it’s sitting on the ice.”

“No?”

“Look at the base. The ice is chipped away, and you can see the water.”

“Strange,” I said.

Suddenly, we were both startled by a high-pitched wail, followed by the quick patter of small feet on the hardwood floor. It wasn’t the type of frustrated cry typical of agitated young children; there was fear in this shriek, possibly pain.

I rushed out onto the upstairs landing and glanced down in time to see Madison running into her mother’s arms in the foyer. Beth scooped up the little girl and hugged her tight.

“What happened?” I said, coming partway down the stairs.

Beth shook her head: she didn’t know. She smoothed back Madison’s hair while the girl clung to her like a monkey.

Adam appeared beside them and asked Madison what was wrong, but she did not answer. Her crying quickly subsiding, she seemed content to bury her face in Beth’s shoulder.

Adam looked at me. “What happened?” The amount of accusation in his tone rendered me speechless. “What’d you do?”

It wasn’t until Jacob came up behind me on the stairs that I realized to whom Adam had been directing his questions.

“What happened?” Adam repeated.

Jacob shrugged. The kid looked miserable. “Maddy got scared.”

“Scared of what?”

Again: the slight roll of tiny shoulders. “Something scared her. Wasn’t me. I promise.”

Adam sighed and ran his fingers through his tight, curly hair. “Get down here, Jacob.”

Expressionlessly, the boy bounded down the stairs.

I followed, stuffing my hands into my pockets. I paused beside Beth and rubbed Madison’s head.

She squirmed and swung her legs, causing Beth to grunt when she struck her in the belly. “Cut it out now,” Beth muttered into her daughter’s hair.

“You never said anything about a lake out back,” I said to Adam.

“Didn’t I?”

“And the basement? Where is it?”

“In the attic. Where else?”