Truth Tellers
Since sleep wasn’t on our menu at the Thanksgiving cabin, but an enormous meal was, we spent the night alternating between the stick-house design and helping Hope prepare green-bean casserole, a swanky eight-cheese macaroni dish, and a pie. For our feast the next day we would just sit back and smell it baking alongside the peppered ham. We had a lot to be thankful for.
Drew and I worked out the lower level of the house, spreading extra glue on the structural pieces and spending an inordinate amount of time getting the staircase right. I made doors with pieces of cardboard, and hinged them in place with loops of thread from the sewing kit. My library had French doors with glass panels made out of plastic wrap from a block of cheese.
Roman handed Drew a chunk of bark the size of a domino. “Swing.”
“I’ll put it right here,” Drew said, “so Mommy can watch you from her library window.”
“No. Here.” Roman moved the bark swing deliberately to the side of the house, sounding exasperated, like Drew should know where the swing belonged.
When the first floor was mostly complete, we carefully slid the structure onto a cereal box that had been cut at the seams and spread flat. I moved it to the hearth, where the fire would dry it quickly. Roman had fallen asleep by then, so it was safe from his drummer hands.
We started on the second floor while Hope and Jada made furniture out of sticks, cardboard, and anything else they could think of. A milk top made the coffee table, and water-bottle pieces had been turned into bathtubs and television screens. When I stood up to stretch at one A.M., I went for a glass of juice. I laughed at the state of the refrigerator. Foil casseroles filled with Thanksgiving treats filled the bottom two layers, which was normal enough. But on the other shelves and in the door, every container was missing bits and pieces that had been cut away and turned into furniture or decoration. The covers were gone from the mini tub of butter, the milk, and the juice. Labels were peeled away from the mustard and mayonnaise, and the entire top of the egg carton was gone. If this went on much longer they would be carving lounge chairs from blocks of cheddar.
Crafts and projects had always been part of our lives, but never like this, never so focused and certainly not with a purpose that captured the girls and Drew with equal and united energy.
I sat across from Drew and straightened a bedroom wall, but my energy was sapped and no amount of juice revived me. Jada had crashed more than an hour ago, one arm and one leg draped off the sofa. She was the only morning person in the family, so she was always the first to fall asleep, sometimes even before Roman. “I’m fading, guys. Roman will be up in a couple hours so I’m going to sleep awhile.” Drew and Hope made distant “Umm-hmm” noises without looking up. The design and division of labor were remarkably organized even though we rarely said a word aloud. We were united with a single, cohesive vision and purpose.
I climbed in the bed next to Roman, expecting to crash fast. But the night noises in the middle of the forest were foreign. Every scrape and scurry made me wonder if Hope had been right, if maybe someone had followed us after all. Recurring nightmares pulled me into a state of semirest with an unwelcome familiarity. The location and small details changed, but I was always inside a house, trying to lock a door that wouldn’t lock. Either the lock would be broken or it would spin back around and unlock itself. With slow, methodical steps, the danger crept closer to my unlockable door. I woke at sunrise in a cold sweat with an irrational level of terror.
I slipped my shoes and coat on and grabbed my car keys and cell. The covered windows and locked doors were making me more afraid, not less. I needed out, even if it was just for a few minutes. Using the residual nightmare adrenaline, I ran full speed up the path, tugged open the driver’s-side door, and sat, tucking my hands under my arms in the cold morning air. Then, to keep from crying, because I hated crying, I started straightening things in the car. Dorito crumbs, napkins, earbuds, I worked over anything out of place—and there was plenty of it to keep me busy.
I ran across the stack of mail I’d grabbed on our way out of town, and the ordinariness of the gas bill and preapproved credit-card applications first calmed and then angered me. I didn’t want same-old, same-old. We needed something new. Something big. Something that changed the way we saw ourselves. We needed to replace the victims we’d become with heroes. No matter how hard I tried to see that possibility as the truth, it felt like make-believe, like another lie I would start and the kids would dutifully repeat.
I threw open the car door and jumped out, snowing bits of napkin and Doritos onto the leaves and gravel. Slowly, I walked back to the cabin. By the time I reached the porch, the idea had grown larger. We’re free. We can do anything.
But before I went inside, I still checked the window to see if I could see in around the shade. It was sealed tight, and I left it that way. The door was unlocked, which reminded me of my nightmare even though I knew I was the one who had left it unlocked. Okay, so we were on our way to being free, but we weren’t there yet.
Jada was awake. I could hear her cards slapping the coffee table in a game of solitaire. She would cheat and win every game, and Hope would be shocked every time. I joined her, happy that Roman was sleeping in. We worked together, tossing cards in place like it was a timed, world-record-setting event. “Hope is afraid,” she said, illegally sliding an upside-down card out from under a king.
“When we don’t understand what someone is thinking, it can scare us,” I said, hating my pretending after vowing that I wouldn’t cover up for anyone anymore. But what could I do? You can’t ever unlearn a thing. I was still pretending that it wasn’t too late, that I could protect her. It was one of the last big lies I ever told myself.
“What are you thinking, Mommy?”
“I’m thinking after breakfast we should go for another treasure hunt while Thanksgiving is in the oven.”
“I want cookies,” Roman said, scooting backward down the stairs and stopping every other step to push Peek-a-boo, his ratty, one-eyed, stuffed cat, down ahead of him.
“We’re having pancake cookies,” I said, holding my arms out. He climbed into my lap and melted against me in the way only sleepy two-year-olds have mastered.