Merriton

“Lucky thing this house came with so much furniture.” Kevin looked at the contents of Randy and Sierra’s apartment. They all fit in the foyer. “I thought you guys had a lotta stuff when I was packin’ it, but here it looks like you got nothin’.” Sierra looked at the pile of her belongings. “I need a shower.” She left the two of them downstairs and took her suitcase into Edith and Arbitus’ room.

She put the suitcase on the unmade bed and imagined that Edith would have been appalled that she had left the bed unmade for so long. She pulled up the bedspread a little to compensate. Her eyes were red and swollen from sleeping in the dusty bed that night. They cried out to be rubbed, but she avoided touching them. She was still wearing the clothes from yesterday’s drive. She hadn’t even undressed last night.

The bathroom had a claw-foot tub. She didn’t remember that. So much of this house she hadn’t even looked at for more than a second or two. It was the place that Randy wanted and she was to the point that she was going to do anything to get him out of this funk. This was the worst that she had ever seen him and she had seen him through what she thought had been hell. It had just been purgatory waiting for this moment.

“He shouldn’t have sold it,” she thought to herself. “If he hadn’t sold Zerbitz, everything would have been fine. We would have been struggling for money, but at least we wouldn’t be in the middle of freakin’ nowhere in a haunted house next door to an idiot sheep farmer.” She stepped into the huge tub and allowed the water from the showerhead to fall over her, washing away the dust. She rubbed her eyes in the water while her hair became soaked. “I was sick of the law firm anyway.”

It didn’t ring true. She might have been sick of the firm, but she wasn’t sick of practicing. She had been considering doing pro bono work for the underprivileged, but then Randy quit. He didn’t even tell her he was going to do it. She just answered her cell phone and Randy told her on his way back to their apartment, “I quit.”

She had been writing, so it felt good to have a break. “You quit? I thought you said you were going to stay?” She could hear his sorrow on the other end of the line. “I can’t do it, Sierra.” She had been so confused. According to his contract, he could have quit three months ago with no financial disadvantages, but he had decided to stay. “You don’t have to do it.” She heard him make a noise, “You’re not mad?” She shook her head, “Of course I’m not. That place is sucking the life out of you and we certainly don’t need the money. You want me to come home?” She heard him sob on the other end. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes, okay?”

The warm water seemed to wash away her exhaustion. She could hear Kevin talking non-stop downstairs. Twenty-four hours with Kevin was more exhausting than moving all of her earthly belongings twelve hours away from the only place she ever called home. She washed her hair and body and then plugged up the tub and let the shower fill it. When it was full, she turned off the shower and lay in the water. The tub was so deep, she could completely submerse herself. Kevin’s excited voice downstairs quieted to a mumble under the water.

She almost floated in the water. The last time she was in a tub this big, she was just a child. Actually, the tub was small and she was smaller, so the tub only felt big. The last two places they had lived had only had showers. She hadn’t taken a relaxing bath since the last time all three of them visited Merriton. Kevin had skied all day. Randy had stayed in the condo, pouting over Zerbitz’s competition, and she had sat in a coffee shop all day, watching people. What a strange trip. “I wonder if that coffee shop is still open,” she thought to herself as she pulled the plug.

“Hey, Sierra! I need to go to the bathroom and I don’t want to go into the suicide room.” Kevin was knocking on the door. She wrapped up in a towel. “I’m almost done.” She opened the door and let him pass. “Hey, are you going to finally learn how to ski now that you live here? Nothin’ else to do.” She shook her head and headed out of the bathroom. “No, Kev. I think I’m going to see if that coffee shop is open. You want one?” Kevin had shut the door, but she could hear his voice on the other side, “Yeah! Let’s all go. I need a shower, though. Any hot water left?”

Sierra stood in the hallway rubbing her hair with another towel. “As much as you could want. This house has some weird water heater thing that heats up the water as it passes through it. It looks weird, but it’s supposed to be better because it doesn’t just sit there keeping a bunch of water heated just in case. It seems to work just fine. I filled up that huge tub and it never got cold. You’re going to have to find your own towels, though. I packed these ones. Should have packed the sheets…” Kevin called back, “That’s alright. I know where the towels are. I used them to pack up the shot glasses and beer steins.”

She walked into Edith and Arbitus’ room and shut the door. She wondered how long it would take for it to feel like her room. Would she be like those other people? Were they going to just leave within two years? Was it going to stay Edith and Arbitus’ room forever? Would she leave any mark on this house? “Hope not.” She thought about the stain on the wall of the room downstairs.

Randy walked in. “Naked wife!” He wrapped his arms around her. He smelled of dust and sweat and she enjoyed the musty scent. “We’re going to see if that coffee shop is open during the off season.” Randy handed her a pair of underwear. “What coffee shop?” She dressed. “I don’t remember the name, but the last trip we came up here I stayed there a lot. I liked it. People just stay there and talk all the time.” Randy shook his head. “The last trip?” She nodded. “You know, when we found out that they weren’t going to open Zerbitz up nationwide or take it out of Beta or whatever…”

Randy sat on the bed. “Yeah, I remember that trip. Kevin skied the whole time.” She smiled. “Yeah. That’s why he came here. He invited us to HIS ski trip, remember?” Randy picked up her discarded towel. “Any more of these?” She pulled her shirt over her head. “Kevin said he packed the towels with the shot glasses.” Randy pulled off his shirt. “I’m just going to use yours.”

She watched him walk out of the room and listened to him argue with Kevin about who would get first dibs on the shower. In the end, Randy won out and Kevin headed downstairs to find himself a towel. They fought like brothers. The two of them were so different. Randy was quiet and Kevin talked non-stop. Time with Randy was always a little off for her when Kevin was around. She couldn’t wait for him to leave, but she was worried to death about what would happen to Randy’s mood when he did. She pulled the bedding off the bed and headed downstairs to the laundry room.