That’s the word, the label for this feeling like my heart and soul are too big for my mortal body. There is this tree, bark, leaves, a scurrying ant. The ladder. My body, hands, arms, legs, moving up, rung by rung, as if I’ve climbed this way a thousand times before. Up, up, all my worries and responsibilities and even my grief falling away.
My head pokes through a round opening, and I laugh out loud in sheer delight, looking around me in amazement and wonder. Floor pillows to sit on. A treasure chest, actually painted with a skull and crossbones, and above it a rough map tacked into the wood. I recognize the confluence of the Colville River with Lake Roosevelt and guess that the big white X lies approximately over the location of this treehouse. A stack of paperbacks, waiting to be read. A cardboard box full of snacks.
A tap on my foot and a voice from below asking, “Are you sightseeing or are you going in?” reminds me that I’ve stopped moving, and I climb on up to make way for Tony.
There’s not room to stand upright without bumping my head on the ceiling, so I sit on one of the pillows, looking out a window into leaf-green light and a wisp of blue. Tony enters on hands and knees, crawling over to the other pillow and settling himself with a satisfied little grunt.
“Getting too old for this,” he says, though he’s clearly not too old at all.
“What’s in the treasure chest?” I ask him.
“Arrr, if I told ye that, the pirate ghosts would come for me, sure and certain.” He laughs and opens the lid, revealing more books, a length of neatly coiled rope, a radio, and a row of bottled water.
“Thirsty?”
“I am.”
The water he hands me is warm, but no drink ever tasted better.
For some reason, the dim light, the slight sway, the whispering of wind in leaves all around us, relieves me of the pressure to make small talk, and we sit in silence, him cross-legged, me with my knees drawn up to my chest.
My water is gone, and so is Tony’s, before either of us says a word. He’s the one who breaks the silence.
“So, you and Greg.”
“We’re not together.”
“Does he know that?” he asks, and that edge is back in his voice. “Not that it’s my business.”
I clasp my knees tighter against my chest, clinging to the fragile sense of safety the treehouse gives me. Tony doesn’t hate me, at least, or he’d never have brought me up here. The treehouse lends itself to secrets, but still I’m quaking inside when I whisper, “I’ve only just realized how—things are between us. Like at the funeral. He’s married to somebody else, but if he thinks I like somebody, he still pops up like a malevolent genie.”
“Try asshole on for size. Genie sounds too Disney and Robin Williams.”
A dry laugh turns to dust in my throat, and I cough instead. My body is damp with cold sweat, a reaction to speaking my thoughts aloud.
“Seriously, Maisey. I don’t know you well, but why do you put up with a guy like that?”
“I don’t. Usually. I mean, I try not to.”
Tony’s silence speaks for him, and I fumble my own defense.
“I only talk to him when I have to. About Elle. I didn’t even know he was coming to the funeral. I certainly didn’t expect him to be sitting in Mrs. Carlton’s living room.”
Tony shifts his weight and brings his eyes to focus on me, instead of the wall. A minute ago I wanted this. Now I squirm beneath his scrutiny, and it takes all my will to keep my chin up and meet the challenge of his gaze.
“He thinks he owns you.”
“He does,” I whisper, realizing. My throat constricts, an invisible chain tightening, tightening. “He does own me.”
“I’m so confused.” Tony leans back against the wall, and I take a deep breath as he releases me from that intense observation. “Don’t take that as criticism,” he quickly amends. “I get it. My mom was abused until—” The stop is as abrupt and as violent as a collision. Glass shattering, metal screeching.
When the dust settles, he starts over. “My mom was abused. She couldn’t make decisions about what to do because he was mind-controlling her all the time. It’s hard to make that break.”
“Greg’s not exactly abusive—”
It’s my turn to crash into what I’m about to say. To stop. To feel the new reality strengthen around me.
Greg hit me. He slapped our daughter. He puts me down, controls my decisions, and chases away men who are interested in me.
“It’s Elle,” I say, very low. “I’m afraid if I stand up to him, he’ll take her from me. She’s the best thing in my life, and she’s also my cage.”
“I’m sorry.” He means it. I’m not sure what he’s sorry for, or if maybe he’s just offering up general sympathy. It sounds more like commiseration than pity, and so it’s okay. Especially when he adds, a moment later, “I’ve got my own cage, I suppose. My mother. My sisters.”
It’s my turn to put on X-ray-vision glasses and try to see through him. His turn to flush and avert his eyes.
“How?” I ask. “They’re all grown up.”
“I was the only boy,” he answers, as if that explains everything when it’s not an answer at all.
When I say nothing, he adds, “He beat them all. My mom, my sisters. So now I’m forever making it up to them, I guess. It . . . interferes.”
Math has never been my friend, but even for me something doesn’t add up. “They’re all older than you,” I say, thinking out loud. “Except for Mia. Weren’t you a child? Didn’t he hit you, too?”
He shivers, then scrubs both hands over his face, the way my father does when he can’t think straight. “We moved here, away from Seattle, because of me. Tore the girls away from school and their friends. Because of what I—” His voice cracks. He sucks in a breath, lets it out slowly, and asks, “Why are you here? Tonight? What made you come here?”
“Hey, not so quick. It’s your turn for the grilling.”
“Could we talk about the weather? Or the Seahawks, maybe. That’s a fine topic of conversation.” His face is still in his hands.
I put my hands over his and draw them down and away. He keeps his eyes cast down. I trace the scar on his forehead with my finger. And then the bump on his nose. He shivers beneath my touch, but doesn’t move.
“This,” I say. “Your father did this.”
“Don’t.” He grips my hand in one of his and pulls it away from his face, letting it rest against his chest. I can feel his heart thudding against his ribs. “This is where angels fear to tread, Maisey. You don’t want to go there.”
He’s right. I can feel the anger crawling under his skin, the way it bunches up his muscles, speeds his breath.
“Greg slapped Elle this morning,” I blurt out, as a change of subject. “For no good reason. He wasn’t even angry. He did it because he could.”
Tony draws in a breath. Holds it. Lets it all out in one long whoosh. “Told you he was a bastard.”
“He wants to take Elle back with him, and she’s not going. So we are hiding at your house. Also, we are going in search of my ever-so-pleasant sister tomorrow, and Elle was determined to ask you along as bodyguard.”
“Consider me hired.”
“Just like that? No lecture? No advice?” My hand is still trapped under his, the fingers splayed over his pectoral muscle, the heat of his palm almost enough to burn.
“Would you change your mind if I did lecture?” His head bends down over mine, so close his breath stirs the fine hair in front of my ear.
“Probably not.”
His lips graze my cheek. I can feel the tension in his body, his muscles rock-hard. Both of us are trembling.
“This is a very bad idea, Maisey. We are—”
I silence him with my lips against his. Lightly, at first, a brush, a taste, and then his arms go around me and he pulls me in hard, our lips moving into a kiss so deep it makes me dizzy.
He’s the one that breaks away, holding me by the shoulders and pushing me back to arm’s length. Both of us breathe like we’ve been running a marathon. I think there are tears on my cheeks, but I can’t quite feel my face.
“I can’t do this.” Tony’s voice is harsh. His hands are firm, inexorable, but there are no fingers digging into me. No pain, except for what is breaking open in my heart.
“Why, exactly?”
“All the reasons,” he says. “Greg being one of them.”
He’s right, of course. What was I thinking? Shame heats my body.