The Knock on My Own Front Door

Ardis stood beside me on the walk, her suitcase parked by my boots.

Through the storm door glass, I saw somebody come up the front hall. Not Brett. A young man in a dark T-shirt and jeans, his hair mussed like he had been asleep on the couch.

I had never seen him in my life.

He looked at me. He looked at Ardis beside me and at the suitcase by my boots. Then he pushed open my storm door, and the cold came in around him.

“Can I help you folks?” he said.

“I’m Gordon Brekke,” I said. “This is my house.”

I watched it happen on his face. First nothing. Then confusion. Then the color went out of him, all at once, from his forehead down, like somebody had pulled a plug.

“No,” he said. “No, sir. This is Brett’s house.”

“Brett is my son.”

“He said his folks gave it to him,” the young man said. “He said you moved to Arizona for good. He said you signed it over when you retired.”

Behind me, I heard Ardis let out a breath.

“We did not sign anything over,” I said. “We wintered in Mesa. We were due home in May.”

He put his hand flat on the door frame like he needed it to stand up.

“Oh, man,” he said. “Oh, man. Mr. Brekke, I am so sorry. I’m Austin. Austin Kessler. I’m Jade’s brother. I swear I thought this was his place. I’ve been paying him the first of every month. Cash, in an envelope. I’ve got a little notebook where I write it down.”

“I believe you,” I said. And I did. Nobody could fake that color.

“I’ll get out,” he said. “I’ll pack right now. I can be out tonight.”

“It’s March,” I said. “And it’s going to be nine degrees tonight. Nobody’s going anywhere tonight.”

He looked at me like I had said something in another language.

“Can we come in?” Ardis said from behind me. “My feet are cold.”

Austin jumped out of the doorway like the step had caught fire. “Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am. I’m sorry. Come in. It’s your house. I mean, I know it’s your house.”

Part Five: What Was Inside

The house smelled like somebody else’s cooking. Onions and some kind of spice Ardis never used. Not bad. Just not ours.

There was a pair of women’s boots by the door, small, with fake fur at the top. A pink fleece jacket hung on the hook where Ardis’s barn coat usually hangs. A big new television sat on the stand where our old one used to be.

But the place was clean. I will say that. The kitchen counters were wiped. The dishes were done and put away in the right cupboards. Somebody had even polished the faucet.

Ardis walked straight past all of it to the front window, to her violets.

She had about twenty of them on that stand. Some were from her mother. One came from a cutting her sister brought to the hospital the day Brett was born. She had cried, the first year we went to Arizona, about leaving them.

Every one of them was alive. Every one was blooming. The soil was damp but not wet, and somebody had turned each pot so the leaves grew even toward the light.

She touched one of the leaves with the back of her finger. She did not say anything.