Eloise

“Are you starting to warm up?” Gabe asks as he shoves another log into the wood-burning stove.

“A little,” I say.

At least my teeth have stopped chattering.

We stayed in the lake too long. I think Gabe thought it would be an in-and-out dunk, but we ended up splashing and tossing each other around in the icy May water until I was shivering so much that I started turning blue.

And of course there weren’t any towels or clothes at the lake. We had to run to the house.

Gabe wrapped my naked body in a comforter, laid me on the floor and made a roaring fire in the wood-burning stove.

“I should’ve brought some hot chocolate.”

“Coffee is fine. I’d be fine with hot water at this point,” I say, taking another sip of the coffee Gabe made for me.

He steps away from the fire and turns on several lamps. The room is a good size, with two big couches angled to the windows and the view of the lake.

The walls are covered in clusters of photographs. I stand and wrap the comforter tight around me.

I move to the wall alongside the fire. The photographs are family snapshots, and all seem to have been taken here. There’s a picture of a young boy and girl standing knee deep in the water. The boy’s smile makes it obvious that it’s Gabe.

There’s another of Gabe and the girl with a blue pup tent set up on the lawn.

“That’s your sister, Melanie?”

“Yeah,” Gabe says, and sits on the couch.

I can feel his eyes on me as I look at the pictures, but he doesn’t say anything or move from his spot.

At the top of the group of photos is a black and white one of an old man in a suit standing in front of the house. This house must’ve been in Gabe’s family for decades.

“Who’s he?” I ask. I don’t turn around or point to the photo, I know Gabe’s been watching me.

“My great-grandfather.”

“This was his house?”

“He built it.”

Gabe doesn’t offer any more details, and I carry on looking at all the photographs. They’re mostly of him and his sister on this wall. Some of them are the two of them on their own, but two have a woman in them. In one, the woman is holding Melanie on her hip and cuddling Gabe with her free hand. In the other, she’s crouching down with Gabe and Melanie in the shallow water. A natural smile beams across her face in both photos, and I get the sense she was smiling for her children and not for the camera.

“Is that your mom?”

“Yep.”

“You look like her. You have the same eyes and nose.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely, have you looked in the mirror?” I laugh.

“Huh, I never really thought about it.”

“She’s beautiful, and looks like a loving mother.”

Gabe falls silent. I move to the long wall that separates the room from the kitchen and squeeze myself and the bulky comforter between the angled couch Gabe is sitting on and the wall.

He clears his throat, and I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t.

The snapshots on this wall all seem to be of older generations. I scan over the smartly dressed men and women posing on the lawn and near the lake. There’s a baby in one, which I guess might be Gabe, but otherwise he’s not in any of the photos.

“That’s all my dad’s side of the family.”

“It was their house?”

“Yeah, my mother’s family is all in Pittsburgh. My dad grew up around here, and after my grandfather died, he gave the house to my dad. We used to come here every weekend as kids.”

“So this is still your dad’s house?”

“Nope, it’s mine.” Gabe stands and climbs over the back of the couch. He stands close but without touching me. “When I moved back to Rochester I waited a few months then came out here. I figured I’d find him living here, but the house was empty and neglected. The key we kept hidden was still in the same spot and I let myself in.”

“Wow, that’s great. Does he know you come here?”

“I emailed him and demanded he transfer ownership to my name.”

I tilt my head to face him, my eyes wide.

“That’s bold.”

“Fuck him, it’s rightfully mine.”

“And he agreed to transfer it?”

“He seemed glad to get rid of it.”

“And he’s never come by?”

“Not even once,” Gabe sighs. “I guess the good memories for me are hard memories for him. Whatever, I don’t give a shit.”

“Is that him when he was a kid?” I ask, pointing at a boy wearing bell-bottomed jeans.

“Yeah, I don’t know why I keep his photos up. They’ve have been on the wall for decades. I took them down when I painted, but figured they belong where they always were.”

“You painted?” I ask, and laugh. His apartment looks like it hasn’t been painted since he moved in.

He drapes his arm over my shoulders and squeezes me against him.

“I did a lot more than paint. This place was falling apart when I started coming here, I’ve spent the last two years fixing it up, starting with the hole in the roof.”

“You’ve done a great job,” I say, looking around. “It’s a far cry from your bachelor pad above Incredible Ink.”

“That place is just a convenient place to sleep. This is my home.”

“Do I get a full tour?”

“You’ve seen this room and the bedroom, that’s about it.”

“The kitchen?” I ask, wandering toward the internal doorway.

“It’s not very exciting. I had to buy a new fridge and stove, but haven’t done anything else to it, so the cupboards still need to be replaced.”

We stand in the middle of the kitchen. There’s a big window over the kitchen sink, looking out over the lake. The cupboards are plain varnished wood, and look like they’re been here as long as the house.

“I love the cupboards, you can’t take them out.”

“They’re pretty rustic. I’m surprised you like them. I didn’t think they’d be perfect enough for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gabe flashes me a broad grin, and says, “You know you’re always concerned with things being perfect. Why? Did your parents put a lot of pressure on you?”

“No, my parents never pressured me to be perfect.”

“Then where did it come from?”

My eyes drop to the floor as I contemplate Gabe’s question. We talked a little about this before, when he said it was the reason I couldn’t have orgasms but I never tried to understand why.

Shifting my gaze to Gabe, I say, “I think I just looked up to my parents my whole life. And they’re perfect so I always put pressure on myself to be perfect too.” Gabe winces as I speak and I feel bad for talking about how perfect my parents are when he doesn’t have any.

Running his hand from my shoulder to my fingers, he laces his fingers through mine. He lifts our hands to his mouth and kisses my fingers.

“Isn’t life more fun when you’re not trying to be perfect?”

My heart warms, and I laugh. “Definitely.”

He tugs at the comforter, and says, “That’s the end of the tour.”

“There’s only one bedroom?”

“Nah, there’s a second bedroom but it’s where I shoved everything from the rest of the place when I was clearing it. A lot of it is stuff my parents put here before we moved to Pittsburgh. Things like photo albums and keepsakes from when my sister and I were a little. There’s even schoolwork of ours.”

“That’s incredible.”

“I couldn’t figure out what to do with it all.”

“There’s a whole bedroom full?”

“A couple of chests, plus there is a lot of my dad’s stuff. They must’ve thought that we would move back here after… you know.” Gabe shrugs.

“Sometimes things don’t happen the way people plan.”

“I have to figure out what to do with it all, but for now I’m happy to ignore it.”

Gabe pulls me into his arms, and works his way into the comforter. We stand in the kitchen, our bodies tight together, huddled in the comforter.