Soon the motor purred to life, and the boat as well as its captain grew smaller and smaller across the waves.
Evan turned back to the island, surveying the lush forest on the acreage, listening to the wind cutting through the trees, and breathing in the scent of fresh water and pine needles. Shaun waved at him, and he waved back before picking up one of their bags. When he glanced over his shoulder, Jacob had disappeared from sight.
They were alone.
5
A musty blast of air swept past Evan’s face when he opened the door to the house.
Like a crypt opening.
He shook his head, forcing the odd thought away. Hefting Shaun into a better position, he nudged the door open and stepped inside.
They were in a small entryway, with a closet directly opposite them. To the left, a living room opened into a wide space interspersed with comfortable-looking leather furniture. An entertainment center stood against the far wall, with a large flat-screen TV above it. The bank of windows in the room overlooking the lake were dusty but gave a great view of the yard and water.
Evan walked farther into the house, pausing every so often to take in a painting on the wall or a knickknack standing on a shelf. Past the living room was the kitchen, modest and clean, with a long, wooden table in its center. A fridge stood beside a small dishwasher, and another series of windows looked over the backyard, which was more overgrown than the front, hemmed in by trees that obscured the lake from view save a shimmer here and there between their trunks. To the right of the kitchen were two doors.
“Let’s see what’s in here, buddy,” Evan said, and grasped the handle of the door on the left.
It was the master bedroom, a neatly made bed in its center and a walk-in closet off to one side. The windows faced the woods to the south, their growth even thicker than those in the backyard.
A wave of self-consciousness rolled over him as he looked at Jason’s grandparents’ bedroom, as if they would come through the front door any moment and catch him and Shaun intruding in their private space. He shut the door, stanching the invasive feeling.
“How about door number two?” he said, tousling Shaun’s hair. The boy giggled.
Evan grasped the doorknob and pulled. The door swung open—
—to darkness. A set of stairs led straight down and disappeared from sight.
“Basement,” Evan said.
Reaching out, he felt along the wall for a light switch he knew must be there. His fingers found it, a disproportionate amount of relief flowing through him, and snapped it on.
Nothing happened.
Everything below them remained shrouded in black. Evan stepped back and shut the door, pulling his palm away from the knob as though it were hot.
“Let’s go find your room,” Evan said.
They moved through the living room to the opposite end of the house. The three-season porch branched off to the left, its hexagonal shape holding a gas grill, four lawn chairs, and a small table. The only bathroom in the house sat before two other doors, and when Evan opened them, he found that they were almost identical guest bedrooms. Picking the larger of the two, he went inside and set Shaun down on the edge of a twin bed.
“What do you think, buddy? Is this your room?”
Shaun’s eyes roamed the ceiling and flitted across the closet and chest of drawers. He pointed above Evan’s head, his upper teeth biting into his lower lip.
“Fa, fff ...”
Shaun paused, his jaw working to dislodge the word he wanted. Evan mimicked his expression and coaxed him with the same sound.
“Fffff.”
“F-f-f-fan,” Shaun said, and smiled at the ceiling fan hanging in the middle of the room.
“Good boy,” Evan said, and hugged his son close. “That’s right, that’s a fan. Can you say it again?”
“F-fan!”
“High-five!”
Shaun raised his small hand and placed it against his father’s much larger one. “Five.”
Evan grinned, and in that moment Shaun looked so much like Elle it hurt his heart. How she would have loved to see his progress. Biting back a line of tears that threatened to spill out, he stood and gazed out of the window at the swaying trees.
“Come on, son. Let’s get the rest of our gear inside.”
~
They worked for the next two hours, Evan hauling their belongings up the short hill and into the house while Shaun watched from his chair in the shade near the front door. Every so often Evan would stop to take in their surroundings. Spring birdsong filtered into the yard from the dense copses of trees to either side of the house. The fresh air tasted good on his tongue, and his muscles burned in an almost pleasant way.
He took the other guest room, mostly because he wanted to be within feet of Shaun in case he had a seizure or needed him in the middle of the night, and only partially because he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep in the master bedroom. As he set his suitcase on the bed, a silver wristwatch on the bedside table, atop the cover of a paperback thriller, caught his eye. Evan picked it up and saw that it was a self-winder, the kind that used energy from the movement of its wearer. Its hands were stopped at 12:17. Frowning, he set it down and made a mental note to tell Jason his prior caretaker had left it behind.
After Evan deemed them adequately moved in, he made them sandwiches from the meager supplies he’d brought to get them through the first day or two. They ate on the screened-in porch, enjoying the view and listening to the wind and occasional whine of an outboard motor on the lake.
“This is beautiful, huh, buddy? We’re going to stay here for the summer. Is that okay?”
Shaun gazed around at the trees, his eyes returning to the lake over and over.
“A lot of people would pay a bunch of money to stay in place like this, but Uncle Jason is paying us.”
Evan glanced over his shoulder at the house that wasn’t anything near a cabin. It didn’t need a full-time caretaker, not really. Someone could’ve handled the chores one day a week, if that.