It’s raining, so I’m out on the porch of the lodge, but not in one of the rocking chairs. I’m just on the boards, leaning against the side of the building, knees drawn up, sleeves down over my hands and hood pulled over my head.
When they said they wanted to ask us about Percy and Mary and Emily, they really meant they wanted to ask Jonathan. Basically, all my interactions with the residents get recorded, and that basically only applies because Agatha slash Dina came to my cabin a couple times. Everyone else comes to the lodge and looks to see who’s at the desk. It’s my job to do what the guests ask of me. It’s not my job to screen them or psychologically analyze them.
The door opens and someone steps out, but I’m kind of hidden down here, so …
It’s Truman. He’s not even surprised to see me like this. He just moves one of the rocking chairs out of the way so he can sit down next to me, arms resting on his own knees, and he sighs. I fully expect to hear the crack as his head drops back against the wall. “They told you?”
“They’re all dead.” He’s left a space between us, which means he hasn’t invaded mine.
Truman wrinkles his nose. “They tell you how?”
“No.” I flick my eyes over to him but otherwise don’t move. “How’d you find out?”
“Push notification.” He has to shift around to pull out his phone—carrying it while on Loon Lake property, tsk tsk—and opens up to photos. “Go through those.”
Those happen to be screenshots of an article explaining how Ferguson and Sype were traced to an abandoned house near Champion, wherever that is. It doesn’t explain how police got there, because the focus is on the firefight that happened as soon as they arrived, with Ferguson opening up and the police responding in kind.
There’s a video, but these are screenshots. “Did you watch the video?” I ask, swiping to the next photo.
Truman nods.
“And?” I prompt.
He licks his lips. “The window blows out, and they start shooting back, but Mary tries to come out of the door and you can see her hands are up and empty. No bandages over her face.”
I shudder. The comparisons to Bonnie and Clyde seem too apt. “Emily?”
“Not in the video. Found dead inside.” He swallows. “It says her corpse was riddled with police bullets.”
I frown and skim further, looking for a detail. “She was dead for hours.”
Truman nods once. “Yeah.”
“Did they find any of the money?” Is there actually any evidence that yes, it was them?
Truman nods slowly. “About half. They figure it was one of their stashes, just in case.”
“And now.” I hit the home button to get out of the photos. “They’re just dead.”
He frowns. “What are you doing?”
I shrug one shoulder. “You don’t have my cell phone number.”
Truman watches me put it in. “Why do I need your cell phone number?”
“Jonathan gave me one of those ‘If there’s anything I can do’ offers. I figure we need a day off together, and I might lose you in Walmart.” I hold it out so he can take it back.
“Uh.” He accepts his phone. “You think I’m going to Walmart?
Yeah, this is all just a distraction. “What did you want to tell me before you saw that push notification?”
Truman blinks a few times and settles back in, looking out at the rain but not quite as far away from me as he used to be. “Okay, there’s kind of a list.”
I nod.
“I’m intimidated by your dad, which I shouldn’t be, because you so clearly put your foot down and chose me over him. Which Camille tried to argue, because she said maybe you chose staying here over going home, but I told her no, I heard the whole thing, and that was clear.”
I nod again.
Truman takes a slow breath. “I keep going back and forth between living in the moment and getting freaked out by planning for the future, except I can’t not plan for the future, because then this is temporary, and I can’t handle that.”
This nod means I’ve heard him, not that he’s right.
“I can’t not compare your family to my family, except they’re different, except they can also reject me because they’re still alive, except if they do that, then you’re cut off, too, and that’s not fair, but it’s your own choice, and you’re clearly an adult, and you can walk out of here at any time.”
I lean over and rest my head on his shoulder.
“And we’re both stressed, and we don’t know what Henry’s going to do, even if we’ve got some sort of ending for the Percy, Mary, and Emily thing, except that’s not going to really be over, either.” He sighs and gently tilts his head over to lean against mine. “So we get to work on our communication skills and figuring out what the other person needs and not just what we need, and me believing you when you say you want to stay.”
“How long have you been seeing Camille?” I ask.
“Actually, not for a while. We agreed to end the weekly sessions a couple years ago, but I called her up again at the start of the season when, uh.” He chuckles a little. “When I realized maybe Jonathan and Lydia finally found someone I wouldn’t be fine saying goodbye to come October 1.”
I carefully pull away so I don’t jar his skull. “And how long did it take you to come to that conclusion?”
“Forty-eight hours, give or take.” He shrugs, blushing, but he holds my gaze. “Normally I’m fine being on my own after eight, or all day on my days off, but it was just so obvious to me when you weren’t there.”
I bite my lip, but he’s said it right to my face. “I’ve had some of those same thoughts myself.”
He leans in to kiss my forehead before tucking me under his arm and holding me close. “I can’t see me being enough for you when I know how much I miss my family.”
I’m more or less okay until his voice breaks, and I close my eyes and hold his arms so he won’t let me go. I can’t tell him I don’t miss them, because that’s not true, or that the ones I miss the most can’t come back to me anyway. “I love you.”
He kisses my hair and holds me tighter. “I love you, too.”
We sit here for a while just out of the drizzle, holding onto each other and not saying anything, until the back door bangs open and boots clomp out. “Mr. Truman? Miss, uh …”
“Gladieux.” I sit up and sigh. “Like ‘Glad you could be here today.’” That’s what my dad always says, which is part of the reason I don’t particularly want to say it, but also I’m not really glad they could be here today. I could do a day without police in my life, thanks.
“We have a few questions for you, if you’d just come inside?” he invites, except of course it’s not really a request. To be fair, I’m cold and damp and would like to come inside, but not because he’s asking. Truman nods and gets up first, offering me his hand, and I delay by putting the rocking chair back in line before we do indeed head inside, where these strangers want to ask us more questions we can’t answer.
Cold Comfort: Saturday, October 5, 2024 – Alyssa, coming September 9
Rebecca Frost 