Page 45 of Shelter
I swallowed an inhale at the thought, realizing that I’d always wanted her to think well of me. Even when I tried to hide who I was — who we were as a family — by acting like my shit didn’t stink. By looking down my nose at her.
I exhaled the breath, and with it, I blew out that old need to pretend. Elise knew the worst things about me already. Maybe now I could show her the rest. It wasn’t much, and few others knew it existed, but I couldn’t help but want to add her to that number.
* * *
Two mornings later— after staying up past one o’clock immersed in web design — I awoke to the sound of singing. Someone was singing Christmas carols — badly — beneath my window. I stretched my arms over my head and turned in bed to face the back yard, straining to listen harder.
It wasn’t Ava. It wasn’t Flora. And it certainly wasn’t Mom. Which meant it could only be Elise.
I threw the covers off and vaulted out of bed. At the window, I lifted a single wooden blind so I could peer out unnoticed. And there she was on the patio outside the guesthouse, not thirty feet away. Elise sat on her heels, newspaper carefully laid all around her, with a can of spray paint in one hand.
And she was singing “Sleigh Ride.”
“Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy cozy are we…”She shook the paint can, and I could hear the ballclack-a-clackwith her movement.“We’re snuggled up together like two birds of a feather should be…”
She wasn’t belting out the lyrics. She was actually singing pretty softly, but the way the sound must have bounced off the patio beneath her and up to my wall and windows created an accidental amphitheater. Faint and remote, I could hear a radio playing the Ronettes somewhere beyond her.
“Let’s take the road before us and sing a chorus or two…”Elise uncapped the can and shook it once more before aiming it at a white object in front of her.
I squinted to make it out, but then Elise leaned forward, testing the spray, and a bright red mist shot from the can, making it impossible for me to see what she was painting.
She kept singing and spraying, and the need to figure out what she was up to — to get a closer look — overtook me. Besides, I wanted to give Elise her Christmas presents. I’d bought her an iPhone the day before, and her website forElise Cormier Originalswas now ready to go live.
I jogged to my bathroom, splashed water on my face, and brushed my teeth. I ran my fingers through my short hair, trying, without much luck, to tame the bedhead spikes that had emerged during the night. The only thing that would make my hair obey would be a shower, but I doubted I had time for that.
Glancing at my bedside clock, I saw that it was a quarter after eight. I grabbed the box I’d wrapped the day before, opened my bedroom door, and stuck my head into the hall. The house was quiet. Likely my father had already left for work, and Ava was still asleep. On light feet, I sped down the stairs and peeked around the dining room door, expecting to find Mom at breakfast, but the table was empty and free of dishes. The kitchen was empty, too, so I walked to the back door and opened it as quietly as possible, tucking the present behind my back.
Obviously, I’d missed the rest of “Sleigh Ride.”
“There’s a tree in the Grand Hotel… one in the park as well…”
I heard her off-key singing as I stepped onto the porch. I had to draw my lips in and hold them between my teeth to keep my smile under control. I didn’t want to smile. I wanted to laugh. Notather, butbecauseof her.
Elise was dressed in pajama pants, fuzzy socks, slippers, jacket, scarf, and hat, bundled up like it was snowing when it couldn’t have been below forty degrees. And I now saw that she painted what looked like an old dresser drawer. The white was rapidly disappearing as she evenly sprayed. She didn’t even turn at my approach. She just kept singing and painting.
She was beautiful.
She always had been — even as a child. But the little girl was gone now.
I stood and watched her for several seconds before I started to feel guilty. I didn’t want to scare her or creep her out, so I clearing my throat, I stepped forward.
Elise jumped at my approach, and to my disappointment she stopped singing mid-verse. She lowered her paint can and stared up at me, those wide amber eyes looking doomed.
I gave her the smile I’d been holding back. “Morning. What are you doing?”
She blinked once, and then her eyes tracked from my mouth to my bare chest before landing on my feet and making the return trip back to my chest. I’d come down in a rush, not wanting to miss the show, and I was still just wearing the sweatpants I’d slept in. They way her eyes rounded when she saw me, I wondered too late if I should have put on a shirt.
Her gaze met mine again, and it was full of confusion. “What?” Elise asked, almost inaudibly.
I suppressed a chuckle. “What are you doing?”
Elise looked down at the project in front of her as though she’d never seen it before. Then she blinked again. “Oh,” she muttered without looking back at me. “I’m making a present for Mama.”
She gripped her paint can and started spraying again, but I noticed that her cheeks were pink. Pinker than they’d been a moment before. Was she embarrassed I’d caught her singing? Did I make her nervous?
“What is it?”
Elise passed the stream of paint evenly along the bottom of the drawer, keeping her eyes on her work the entire time. “Well… when I’m finished, it’s going to be a jewelry organizer.” She spoke absently, as though the paint job required her full attention.
