Mark crossed into Victorian Village a little before midnight, his breath fogging the inside of the Volvo’s windshield, its heater struggling against the chill. A few stray flakes of snow curved from the darkness across the cobbles to his headlights. He’d driven here slowly, taking side streets. He’d seen almost no one else out, except a solitary salt truck rumbling north on Olentangy River Road.
When he reached the old house he drove past it—act casual, he thought, and nearly laughed aloud—and then circled the block, stopping finally alongside the curb at the far side of the park to the south. He turned off the headlights, but kept the heater running.
The old house was a hulk behind its protective trees; only the squat curve of the turret extended into the streetlights’ glow. Two lights shone out of the house’s mass: A lamp had been left on in the living room; another burned upstairs, in Brendan’s old room.
Chloe must have been here. She had stopped by the house before she left; she must have turned on a light there and forgotten it.
That was an easier explanation to accept than this one: That Brendan, somehow, knew Mark was coming; that he had turned on a welcoming light.
Mark dug the bottle of whiskey out of his coat pocket. Without taking his eyes from the lit window upstairs, he tipped the bottle to his lips and swallowed once, twice.
Then, eyes tearing, he crammed the bottle back into his pocket and got out of the car. He jogged across the park, the sparse snow pricking his cheeks, the bottle bumping against his hip. He passed by the front door, walked to the east end of the block, turned left onto Pennsylvania, and half a block later turned left again, into the alley that cut the block in half, east to west. It was darker back here; only one solitary security light shone from a pole at the alley’s midpoint; only two porch lights shone over the wooden fences of neighboring yards. The shadows at ground level were impenetrable, dizzying. Entering them was like wading into dark, cold water.
Mark walked forward. A dog, close but unseen, growled. A trash can not far away stank warmly, almost visibly, in the gloom. He tripped once, his foot coming down in a pothole, but he waved his invisible arms and did not fall.
He moved in slow motion, thinking: What had Chloe done, here? Had she talked to Brendan? Had she said, Daddy’s coming?
In minutes Mark stood at the rear of the house, beside the six-foot-high plank fence and gate. He and Lew had built the fence themselves, the summer and fall Chloe spent pregnant; a child meant they needed a contained yard, a place safe from the occasional stray dog or college student staggering down the alley. Homeless drunks.
He pressed down the lever; it didn’t budge. But he hadn’t supposed this would be easy, had he? He had not.
Mark looked both ways, confirmed he was alone, then grabbed hold of the top of the fence and—his feet scrabbling too loudly on the boards—heaved himself up and over into the dark yard. Luck was with him; instead of landing on a pile of tools or a jagged rock, he struck only frozen earth, pitching off his heels onto his side.
A security light flashed on above the porch. Mark crouched close to the base of the fence, then glanced up and around. He was only visible to one of the upstairs windows of what used to be Kurt Upchurch’s place next door. But that window remained dark, its curtains still. He waited several long minutes, but no hue and cry went up. He was still alone, invisible.
He allowed himself to look over his old backyard. It was different, now. What had used to be mostly grass was now sectioned off; half the yard was tilled, bare earth: flower beds, bordered by chunks of quartz, lined the fences—he’d jumped at just the right spot to avoid breaking his ribs on one. In the center either Margie or Connie had planted a small tree—he didn’t know what kind, but its bare branches were already twice as high as Mark’s head. The half of the yard closer to the house had become a patio. The grass there had been replaced by concrete and pavers, and a white wrought-iron table and chairs were in its center, frosted by thick ice. Beyond this was the smaller, raised wooden porch that led to the kitchen door.
These changes hurt. Of course this would not be the same house, of course others had lived here, too, and still did. Mark had been preparing for this. He and Chloe had long ago relinquished any claim. And yet the old house—the yard he knew, the house he knew—seemed a prisoner here, trapped behind the new trees, behind the very years that had grown them. Behind the decisions Mark had made. His neglect.
No. He had no time for this. If he’d injured himself in the fall he felt no pain—so he gathered himself and scuttled low across the yard to the foot of the porch steps. He sat on the bottom one and caught his breath. While he did so he considered how he might get inside the house. Break out the window beside the kitchen door? Force the door with his shoulder?
But would getting inside really have to be that hard? Connie had a young son; she raised him by herself. She was a worrier, overprotective. What if she worked late? What if something happened to her? Jacob had to have a way into the house. She’d give him a key. But little boys lost keys. Little boys were unreliable.
Wouldn’t she keep a key hidden? And if she did, wouldn’t it be here in back, where no passerby would ever see its location revealed?
The back gate had been locked. Maybe she’d hide a gate key in the alley, and another one here, for entry to the house. He checked the top of the door frame. No. Too obvious—and nine-year-old Jacob wouldn’t be able to reach that high.
But the flowerpots set in a line along the porch railing? The one with a molded Pooh Bear on its side, and raised letters spelling HUNNY?
Mark tipped the flowerpot toward him; inside was only a small semicircle of ice. But in the damp circle beneath it? A folded-over Baggie, containing a key.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Mark’s fingers, thick with cold, fumbled the key out of the bag. Quickly he opened the screen door—it shrieked—and slid the key into the lock of the kitchen door.
And, because he was not afraid, because he had nothing to fear—because he wasn’t a pussy—he turned the key; the bolt shot back. Mark pushed open the door, and then, for the first time in years, stepped inside the only house he’d ever owned.