Mountain Madness (15 page)

She found Epsom salts and some kind of eucalyptus beads she didn’t remember buying under the sink and decided to use a handful of each. She sprinkled them through the rising bathwater and dipped in a hand to double check the temperature.

Just right.

Before leaving the bathroom to fetch the rest of her bath-time goodies, Libby paused in front of the mirror to give herself a quick once over.

Fastened to the back of the bathroom door, the mirror gave her a full-body view. She stood with her back to the door and looked at her reflection from over her shoulder. Her legs looked long and trim, her bottom firm beneath the thin panties. She turned sideways and lifted her shirt. Stretch marks crisscrossed her tummy, left over from her fluctuating weight during and after her pregnancy, but the belly itself was flat and well muscled. Libby stepped closer and studied her face. The bags under her eyes were noticeable, but not outrageously so, and although it could have used a trim, her hair was as silky and sleek as it had ever been.

All in all, not bad. She might not be nineteen anymore, but she wasn’t exactly falling apart either.

She posed like a swimsuit model at the end of the runway, then pouted and blew herself a kiss.

Behind her, water bubbled. The tub was a quarter full already. She’d have to hurry or risk it spilling over the rim. It was an old tub with no overflow safety feature.

She ran through the bedroom, barely hearing the ex-Beatle end one song and begin another.

In the kitchen, she grabbed the beer, a lime and a paring knife, and the least-suspenseful-looking book of the three she’d brought home. She sifted through the junk drawer until she found a box of unused tea light candles and another box of matches.

Libby guessed that would do it. She juggled the items and walked out of the kitchen, not wanting to drop anything but also not wanting to dawdle. She heard the bath still running upstairs and knew it had to be getting awfully close to full. She didn’t want to spend her evening cleaning eucalyptus-scented water off her bathroom floor. The purpose of all this—the bath, the beer, the book, the music—was to relax, not add stress to an already stressful day.

She’d moved through the dark living room and up the first five stairs when the doorbell chimed behind her. She stopped mid-step and frowned.

“Hold on,” she said, setting the beer and the rest of her armload onto the stairs from which, not long ago, she’d removed her son’s toys. “Be right there.” She couldn’t answer the door without shutting off the faucet upstairs, and she definitely couldn’t answer dressed the way she was. Unless it happened to be her gynecologist at the door, she was showing just a little more crotch than was generally considered polite.

She ran to the master bathroom and shut off the water with what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds to spare. Before she got into the bath, she’d have to let some of the water drain out, but she’d worry about that later.

In the bedroom, she found a pair of scrub pants and slipped into them. The doorbell rang again, and Libby huffed. She’d said she’d be right there, hadn’t she? Jeez.

In her rush to get to the door, she almost forgot about the discarded items on the stairs. She’d have ended up with a foot in the ice bucket if she hadn’t seen it at the last second and avoided it with a carefully timed jump down two of the risers. She hit the landing beneath the stairway awkwardly, and the joints in her left ankle tensed.

The front door had a group of three windows set just above eye level, and through them Libby saw the very top of someone’s head bobbing in and out of view. Before opening the door, she engaged the security chain and hid most of herself behind the door so that only her eyes and the top of her own head would show through the narrow gap. Such measures were probably unnecessary and wouldn’t have done her much good if the doorbell ringer had been a shotgun-wielding maniac intent on blowing her away, but they made her feel safer just the same.

The man on her front stoop wasn’t a shotgun-wielding maniac, but Libby wasn’t sure he was much better. Seeing her through the opening, he smiled brightly and pushed forward a bouquet of wilted daisies.

“Hey,” he said. “Just thought I’d drop by.”

Libby closed the door and undid the chain, but before she opened up again, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Why tonight
?

Wondering how in the hell she’d get rid of him this time, she opened the door without smiling, accepted the flowers reluctantly, and motioned him in.

SIXTEEN

MIKE NEVER PARKED
the pickup in the stand-alone garage. He’d allocated that space for his workshop, and it had been one of the reasons he’d purchased the property to begin with. Separated from the house, the small building provided the perfect space for working late into the night. When Trevor was here, Mike could run his table saw or his router, his drill press or his lathe without ever having to worry about keeping his son awake. And the nearest neighbors lived a mile away—able to hear the sound of his machinery, maybe, but not likely to be bothered by it.

Different lengths and sizes of wood he needed for his projects filled the workshop to the ceiling. He’d stocked a utility shelf with wood stain, lacquer, and glue, a sorting bin with dowel rods, and a chest with handles and hinges and the other bits of hardware he required for many of his pieces. The tools spread over the room’s many work surfaces, most of them loose and unplugged, but others, like the drill press, bolted permanently in place, easily accessible. He had installed heavy-duty work lights overhead and added an industrial-sized fan to use during the hottest parts of the day. Likewise, he’d brought in a space heater for the winter months, though his fear of accidental fire kept him from using the heater in all but the most extreme conditions.

He parked the truck in the driveway just shy of the garage-turned-workshop and shut off the lights. It hadn’t grown entirely dark yet, but he’d gotten into the habit of leaving his lights on all the time while traversing the mountain roads. You never knew when you might alert an oncoming motorist to your presence from around a blind curve or a switchback, when the use of your headlights might be all that stood between you and a head-on collision.

Trevor unbuckled his safety belt and popped open his door. He had a new action figure and had spent a good part of the drive testing the limits of its articulation. More than once, Mike had looked over and seen the boy bending back an arm or a leg so far he was sure it would pop right off the torso, but the little guy held together. Mike guessed they made toys a lot more resilient now than they had when he’d been a kid. He vaguely remembered one of his transformers breaking apart in his hands as if it had been made of wet sand.

The garage doors were shut, but not locked. This far into the mountains, Mike didn’t worry much about thieves. He also wasn’t worried that Trevor would wander into the shop unattended. Back home, Mike had worked out of the corner of their garage at a group of tables Trevor passed by almost every day of his life. Trevor had long been familiar with both the workings and the dangers of Mike’s many tools. He’d been in and out of Libby’s garage as often as any other room of their house and was in no more danger now of doing something foolish (sticking his hand beneath the chop saw or playing guns with the battery-powered drill) than he had ever been. But although Mike hadn’t actually banned him from entering his new workshop, they had an unspoken agreement that he should not go in alone.

The fact was, he had no
reason
to go in. In the garage back home, a deepfreeze held not only meats, frozen pizzas, and bags of fruits and vegetables, but also something like ten lifetime supplies of popsicles. That alone had kept Trevor sneaking into the garage at every opportunity. There was, however, nothing similar here. If Trevor had thought Mike was hiding something from him, he’d have snuck into the garage the first chance he got—Mike still remembered being six—but Mike didn’t think the boy had once set foot in the workshop without Mike there to watch over him.

Occasionally, he’d come out to watch Mike work through a pair of oversized goggles that made his face look like a headhunter’s shrunken trophy, but he never stayed for long, and Mike got the impression Trevor considered the work a little dull. To a six-year-old, Mike supposed it probably was. Although Mike felt entirely satisfied with his craft, it
was
sometimes slow going and tedious. It certainly didn’t have the action-packed appeal of Trevor’s anime cartoons or his super-hero comics, and they wouldn’t mass-produce a furniture-making action figure anytime soon.

Trevor took Mike’s hand, and they walked together to the house. Although his son did it naturally and unthinkingly, Mike knew the days of holding hands with Trevor were probably limited. He couldn’t remember holding hands with his own dad, must not have done so much beyond the age of four or five. He’d remained more affectionate with his mother, at least until his teenage years, but only slightly so. Of course, most of that distance had been his parents’ fault. Though not exactly unloving, Mike’s mother and father hadn’t been swoop-you-up-and-hug-you-till-it-hurts types either. Mike had tried to succeed where his own parents had failed, had tucked Trevor in at bedtime every chance he got, had always returned the boy’s kisses with more of the same, and had attempted to give Trevor at least ten hugs for every one he’d gotten during
his
childhood.

A few strides short of the porch steps, Trevor let go of Mike’s hand and bound up to the front door.

The door, like the garage, was unlocked, and Trevor only had to twist the knob to let himself inside. Mike hurried after him, instantly chilled by the air escaping through the open door. He’d turned up the air-conditioning earlier, when it had still been muggy outside, and had apparently forgotten to turn it back down before leaving for the mall.

“Brr,” Trevor said, somehow managing to rub his upper arms without letting go of his action figure. “It’s
freezing
.”

Mike said, “Yeah it is,” and hurried to the thermostat. Under his shirt, his nipples had become two little flesh BBs.

Shivering, he returned to the front door and opened it wide. The arctic air rushed past him. Mike shivered and followed the breeze onto the porch. It was warmer outside, though by no means toasty. “Hey,” he called back to Trevor, who was on his way out to join him, “guess what I forgot?”

“What?” Trevor asked through clenched teeth.

“I’ll give you a hint,” he said. “It comes in little white envelopes.”

Trevor brightened. “Can we go get it now?”

Mike nodded. He hadn’t actually forgotten the mail, had noticed that the mailbox’s door was slightly ajar when he drove past on his way out earlier that afternoon, but he knew Trevor enjoyed the long walk to the mailbox on the main road, and on the days Trevor stayed with him, he left the mail until they could go and get it together.

He hadn’t planned on taking the trip to the mailbox right away, and might have waited until the next day and gotten two day’s worth in a single excursion, but the house needed a chance to warm up, and the walk would not only provide the necessary time, it would also give him a chance to stretch his legs and get his blood flowing again. The drive up from Foothill had taken no longer than usual, but as had been the case when he hiked across the Mountain View’s parking lot, Mike was ready for the exercise.

Trevor reached out to close the door, but Mike told him to leave it open, and Trevor obeyed unquestioningly. 

“You gonna bring your little friend with us?” he asked, indicating the action figure.

Trevor nodded and said, “Yeah. He wants to see where we live.”

“Ah,” Mike said simply. He wondered how it felt for his son, having two homes, two bedrooms, two toy boxes into which he had to split his belongings. Couldn’t be easy. He’d often wondered if he and Libby should have toughed it out for Trevor’s sake, wondered if they were inflicting permanent psychological damage. Trevor flew his toy through the air, smiling, and Mike guessed he didn’t have it
too
bad off.

With night drawing ever closer, they walked together away from the house. The trip to the mailbox and back, normally about a thirty-minute ordeal, at least by foot, was prolonged by Trevor’s constant stops to retie his shoes. Mike could have offered to help, could have double-tied the sneakers so they never came undone again, but Trevor obviously took pride in his impending mastery of the task, and Mike would never have dreamed of taking away his son’s confidence.

Trevor’s new shorts, still pleated where they’d been folded on the shelf in the mall, poked out from his thighs as if they’d been starched. Mike reminded himself to run them through the washer back at the house. Although Trevor had a decent supply of outfits here, most of his clothes stayed at Libby’s house, where he spent the majority of his time.

They collected the mail in the last of the day’s light, and Mike squinted at the return addresses. Circulars, credit card advertisements, and bills, some of which he’d have to deal with eventually, but nothing exciting. He handed the stack to Trevor, who clutched it to his chest like it was found treasure. Later, at home, he would go through the pile one piece at a time and ask Mike exactly what they were. It was a kind of ritual they had. Mike wasn’t sure why the mail held so much fascination for Trevor, but he always indulged the boy’s questions, sometimes marveling at his seemingly endless curiosity.

For part of the walk back, Trevor skipped, humming a song under his breath that Mike thought he recognized—might have been the theme to one of the Saturday morning cartoons—but couldn’t place for sure.

Halfway back to the house, Mike’s stomach growled. Libby said she and Trevor had already eaten an early dinner, but Mike hadn’t had anything since lunch, which had itself been only a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a handful of tortilla chips, and although his left wrist was bare, he knew from the setting sun that it was about eight o’clock.