Page 55 of Art of Sin

24fear

“Deirdre?”

Gideon’s voice shatters the memory. I blink, eyes watering in the fierce glare of the afternoon sun off the windshield. Slamming my door closed, I propel my unwilling feet around the hood.

“You wanted to see a place that was meaningful to me? Well, here we are. Maybe you should be more careful what you wish for.”

Gideon straightens, dropping his arm from the passenger door. His gaze brushes my face, featherlight. Heavy as iron.

“Never.”

The word is final and grave, punctuated by his car door closing.

I’m not surprised. Oddly, his answer blunts the edge of my tension. Allows my shoulders to drop a fraction. Not for the first time, I feel the irrational effect his presence has on me—safety, stability. Comfort.

Like our madnesses are a perfect match. Our sins the same. He saw it from the beginning, but I’m beginning to see it now.

I grab the warped handle of the screen door. The merest tug and the frame pops from the hinges, narrowly missing my face as it sails sideways and clatters to the dusty ground. I stare at it, frozen in surprise.

“I take it no one’s home?”

My laugh is rusty nails. “Not likely.”

Grabbing the inner doorknob, I turn and push. The warped wood doesn’t budge.

“Allow me.”

Without waiting for a reply, Gideon brushes past me and with one shove of his shoulder, the door jerks inward. A dank, moldy smell rolls out on a wave of shadow.

I wince. “Lovely.”

Gideon squints into the darkness. “Mice. Or rats.” As an afterthought, he adds, “Hopefully. Want me to go first?”

I roll my eyes, stepping past him into the trailer. Dust billows from tattered curtains as I yank them away from the windows. Light pushes stubbornly through filthy, cracked windows.

I turn. Looking around. Seeing but not seeing. Anything of value has been taken over the years, from appliances to furniture to magazines for burning. Even Mama’s crosses are gone, dark spots on the wood siding the only hint they hung there for years.

But I don’t see what is—I see what was.

“Tell me a story.”

Breath whispers against the nape of my neck. I sway back, am caught by his chest. An arm wraps around my waist. Anchoring me.

“Tell me a story, Deirdre, so I can paint something beautiful with your words.”

* * *

I tell him a story.One of the worst, though it doesn’t feel that way. It comes smoothly, flowing like silk from my chest to my lips to his ears.

“My dad and I had a code for the nights he had company—the lackeys of the distributor he worked for. They always came here. For effect, my dad said, so we’d know how much trouble we’d be in if he fucked them over by skimming money, cutting their drugs, whatever. Since they always came in the middle of the night, usually unannounced, my dad had a special knock for my door.”

“Your closet, you mean.”

I slant him a wry look. “Don’t be a snob. Just because you grew up with bedrooms twice the size of this trailer doesn’t—”

“I didn’t, but you’re right,” he says soberly. “That was stupid of me to say.”

My nod of acknowledgement is so stilted and emotionally uncomfortable that his eyes twinkle. Escaping his knowing stare, I walk into the six-by-six room that was mine. The only sign of my childhood is a faded, moth-eaten blanket, a warped box spring, and a decaying pile of children’s books.

---