Where We Belong (27 page)

The phone rang again.

I picked it up faster this time.

“Hello?”

Then I remembered I didn’t say it right, like last time. All polite and fancy.

“Me again.”

“Hi.”

“I’ve been thinking.”

He sounded pretty serious. And I got scared. I thought it was all about to come out from under me again.

“About what?”

“I was thinking you should move your family into the apartment over the garage while I’m gone.”

I didn’t say anything. Because I couldn’t. My mouth was out of order.

“I don’t just mean only while I’m gone. But I also have to be honest and say I don’t promise it’s permanent. When I get back, I think we should make some really solid ground rules for my privacy. If they work, great. If not, I know it’ll take you awhile to find a new place, but you can stay until you do. But even if it doesn’t work out, wouldn’t it help to have free rent for a few months?”

“Yeah. A lot. We’ll follow the rules.”

“I know
you
will. We’ll see how it goes, okay? No promises.”

“Okay.”

“Just you in the main house, though. Please. Even while I’m gone. Just you, okay? Even though I’d never know.”

“You know I always tell you the truth. Even though you’d never know.”

“I do. Yes. I know that about you. Will this really help? Or am I just pretending it helps?”

“It really helps. A lot.”

Silence.

Then I asked the pressing question. “Why? Why did you decide this all of a sudden?”

“I thought that would be obvious,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Because we’re friends.”

“Oh. Right. Because we’re friends.”

I walked down the back stairs and up the steep dirt driveway. I could hear and feel Rigby padding along close behind me. I’d never gone out to the garage before. It was bigger than it looked from the house. Two cars wide and deeper than usual, with a workshop and firewood-storage place. I puffed up the stairs and tried the door, but it was locked.

I thought I’d have to go back to the house and start over, but I felt in my shorts pockets and found the keys Paul had given me. It was a huge relief. Not because it was so miserable to walk a few yards uphill. Because I couldn’t wait to see the place.

I opened the door and sucked in my breath so hard that Rigby jumped a little. It was half again bigger than the place we were spending all our money on. And it was just as nice as the main house, with the same hardwood floors and wood paneling and shutters on the inside. About two-thirds of the floor was covered with this beautiful old antique Persian rug in soft blues, and one whole wall was a built-in bookcase.

There was no bedroom, though. It was all one big room. But it did have a screen, kind of a room divider, wrapped around a bed. I figured we’d need to get another bed, unless the huge brown suede couch folded out. But I didn’t feel like I had to worry about that just then. One corner was set up like a little kitchen, with a two-burner stove and a sink and refrigerator about the size of the ones they make for mobile homes. And a round wood kitchen table with two chairs. We’d need another chair. Which also didn’t matter yet.

At the back of the place, facing the snowy mountains, most of the wall was a sliding-glass patio door. So you could walk over and look out at the world like you were standing right out there, right in it. Not like you were inside at all. Or you could slide it open and step out onto a wooden deck with a rail. Which I did, just for a minute. Just to get the feel of it. There were wooden chairs out there, to sit on and watch the view. I didn’t sit. I wasn’t done looking around.

But that wasn’t even the best part yet.

The room was built like an A-frame, I guess to match the house. I don’t think it was constructed as a genuine A-frame, but it had that high, slanty ceiling. The middle just went up forever. It had open beams, with baskets and dried flowers hanging on them. And on each sloping side, a skylight.

I looked up and thought that every place I’d lived, right up until that moment, had given me claustrophobia. All of a sudden, I got free of this sickness I’d never even known I had.

I walked around for a minute like I was walking in a dream. Which I think I felt like I was. I ran my hand along the edges of the bookshelves. I bounced once on the couch to see how it felt.

It felt just the way it looked. Rich. Like I was suddenly rich.

I walked in a circle for a minute, because I couldn’t think what else to do. Then I sat down in the middle of the rug and cried. Rigby sat with me.

At first, I tried to explain to her that I wasn’t unhappy. It was more that I’d always been unhappy before. That things had been so awful right up to that moment, it was almost like I didn’t dare cry until it was over.

But maybe it was myself I was explaining it to, because Rigby is the last one in the world who wouldn’t get a thing like that on her own.

I just know I cried for a long time.

I put fresh ice on the fish before we left the house, and it started melting as we walked, and dripped all down my leg. It smelled a little fishy. I kept expecting to be followed by a herd of cats or something. At least, it would have gone like that in a cartoon.

It didn’t happen.

“I hope you’re not disappointed,” I said to Rigby. “I know when Paul catches two fish, you get one. But the first two are for Sophie and my mom, because they don’t eat as well as we do. If I ever catch an extra two, instead of just the two for them, I’ll give you one. In fact, I’ll take it a step further. If I ever catch two for them and then one more, I’ll split it with you.”

By this time, we were walking up the driveway of the old place. Funny how fast I’d started to look at it that way. It sure didn’t take me long to throw that tiny, expensive place away. I checked to make sure the ice wasn’t completely melted, but there was plenty to keep the fish cold. More than half what I’d started with.

My mom must’ve seen me out the window, because she threw the door wide.

“You can’t bring her in here. We’ll get in trouble with the Magnussons.”

The Magnussons were the people who lived in the big house. Our landlords.

“Fine. Come out.”

Sophie heard my voice and came blasting out, shouting, “Hem, hem, hem!”

I held the creel out to my mom.

“I caught you two fish. But I need the basket back.”

“Okay. I’ll put them in the fridge and bring it back to you.”

“Wait. I have news first.”

“It’ll only take a minute.”

She disappeared.

“You need to gut them,” I called after her. “Do you know how?”

“I’ll manage,” she called back.

“Teach me how, then, okay? And save the hook in that one’s mouth. I need all the hooks I can get.”

But I couldn’t tell if she heard me or not.

I looked down at Sophie, who was sitting in the dirt beside Rig. I wondered if she thought we were going for a walk. It surprised me a little to realize I’d missed her. Even though it hadn’t even been a full two days.

My mom popped back out and handed me the empty creel basket.

“What’s the news? Good or bad?”

“Good.”

“Thank God. Tell me, then.”

“Paul’s going to be away much longer than he thought—”

“How long?”

“Like, months.”

“Ah. Great,” she said. Like it wasn’t great at all. “So he must be paying you a lot. Because nothing else makes this good news. You come over here and tell me I’m on my own to work and pay bills and take care of Sophie for months, and you tell me it’s good news. So it must be a lot of money. It’d better be.”

“It’s not money. I’m not letting him pay me.”

“Get to the good part, Angie, and get to it fast, because my head is about to explode here. If you think I’m going to—”

“He’s letting us live in the apartment over his garage.”

Her eyes narrowed a little.

“How big is it?”

“Bigger than this.”

“Is it nice?”

“It’s incredible. Nicer than any place we’ve ever lived.”

“Then we can’t afford it.”

“Oh, yes, we can.”

“What does he want for it?”

“Nothing.”

We just stood there in the warm sun for a minute, while she let that sink in. Rigby was snuffling Sophie’s hair.

“He’s letting us move in for free?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t let him pay me for taking care of his dog. Which you thought was such a terrible idea.”

She just stood there blinking for a while longer. I could tell the idea of the thing just couldn’t quite break through.

“Just while he’s gone?”

“Not necessarily. He says when he gets back, he’ll make some ground rules, so he can still have his privacy. And if you can stick with them, we can stay. If it doesn’t work out, we can stay till we find someplace else.”

I waited. But she still just blinked.

“I’m waiting for the moment you get it and start being happy,” I said.

That seemed to be the ticket. Her face changed, like somebody had stopped electrocuting her with cattle prods all of a sudden. She rushed in and picked me right up off my feet in a hug.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “No rent?”

“No rent.”

“So the money I make…”

“We can buy food with it. And put gas in the car. And stuff like that.”

“Oh, my God, we’ll have so much money!” Her voice came up to a shriek on the word
money
, and it hurt my ear. But I really didn’t mind. She put me down and let me go. Held me out at arm’s length by my shoulders. “Can we go see it?”

“Sure. Do we have any gas at all?”

“None. I’m not even sure it would start. We’ll have to walk.”

“Fine. We’ll walk.”

As we massed down the driveway together, all four of us, she stroked my hair and said, “Honey, I’m sorry I’ve been such a mess lately. I know I haven’t been very nice to be around. I was under so much pressure, and I was just so scared.”

“I know,” I said. “I knew that.”

But she’d denied it, right up until that moment. So it was nice to hear it from her own mouth. Not like I always needed to be right, exactly. More that it felt good to be told I wasn’t imagining things and I wasn’t crazy.

“Oh. My. God,” my mom said.

She was looking straight up when she said it. Right up into the middle of the ceiling. Up at the rafters, with the baskets and the dried flowers. And, between us and them, all that room. All that space. Almost like freedom. Like not having to live with your elbows in, even though I knew that wasn’t really right, because that’s horizontal space, and this was vertical. But that was how it felt.

“This is so much bigger than it looks from the outside. So you’re telling me we can stay here forever and not pay rent? I can’t quite wrap my head around that.”

“Forever is kind of a long time,” I said. “But if it works out, we won’t have to move when he comes home.”

“I’ll follow the rules. I promise.”

“Told you it was good news.”

“You did.”

Rigby was lying stretched out on the rug like a sphinx, the way she used to do on the other side of the fence at Aunt Vi’s. Sophie was lying right beside her in the same position.

“How’s his brother?”