wearing a thick black sweater with roll-neck, and looked like he'd never been cold in his life. ‘Okay, I'm sure Bob would be getting around to telling you, he's very straightforward, but it's actually been mainly empty a couple-three years now. There was kind of a thing that happened, apparently, and some new people moved in for a while, didn't take to it, and they're still trying to shift the place two years later.’ He winked. ‘So I'm saying Bob's likely to have a little wriggle room over the price – though you didn't hear that from me.’
‘What kind of thing?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘What kind of thing happened? Before the current owners bought the house?’
‘Well,’ the guy said. He hesitated, perhaps suspecting he'd said too much and was in danger of compromising his acquaintanceship with Bob-the-realtor, with whom he doubtless exchanged banter once in a while at the grocery market in Sheffer; but also knowing that he couldn't back out now without looking rude. ‘Basically, somebody died. A kid. A young kid.’
I nodded, not understanding why I'd pushed myself into having this conversation. ‘Really.’
‘Uh-huh. And, you know, from what I gather … nobody's too clear on what actually happened. I don't believe anyone in the family got charged with anything, but, well… I heard the kid was a strong swimmer but still somehow drowned, you know, with no one else but the parents around, and you've got to ask questions in those circumstances, right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, tightly. ‘I guess people do.’
‘But it's three years ago. And a house is a house and that one's as close to a solid investment as you're going to find in this market – they're not making any more lakes, after all. And it's not like you're scared of ghosts, right?’
‘No,’ I said, and smiled broadly.
Something must have been wrong with the way I did it, however, because the guy pulled his arm back inside the car.
‘Little insider information never does any harm,’ he said, defensively. ‘But you didn't—’
‘—hear it from you. Got it.’
‘Okay, well, nice meeting you.’
‘You too. By the way, one of your tail-lights is out. You might want to get that fixed.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said, with a final, curious look at me, and then his window purred back up.
I stood and watched as he drove away. When he had gone around the corner and out of sight I walked back to the gate and climbed over it.
I wondered, as I walked up the driveway, whether I'd ever done this before. You don't, as a matter of course. You're driving, naturally, hence the name. And so I hadn't noticed the way it went steadily uphill during the five minutes it took to walk from the gate. When I turned the final bend, however, the view was abruptly almost too familiar, like a scene from a dream I'd had only the night before.
Except things were different.
The grass around the house had grown very long indeed, and the birch trees on the far side seemed to have gotten closer, the alder and dogwood amongst them thicker. I walked down the slope to the centre of the lawn, wet grass swishing against my jeans, and then turned toward the house.
It looked like it was asleep. All the windows had been boarded over, and had large stickers warning about the alarm system. Assuming the absent owners had, unlike Ted, kept up the payments, I knew that a break in the house's windows, or disturbance to the contacts of any of the doors, would alert a security company over in Cle Elum. It would be a long way for vandals to come, anyhow. A long way for anyone.
I stood staring up at the triangular silhouette the house made against the trees and fading sky, and my chest suddenly hitched, and my neck tightened, until the tendons stood out like painful cords.
I did not really want to go any closer to the house, but nonetheless I walked toward the steps on the far side of the encompassing deck. Having come this way, I did not wish to find myself back in Oregon wishing I had gone a few more yards. It was foolish, especially as we had lived in the house for three months after the event, but as I trudged up the steps I almost believed I could feel the air move past me, as a younger man ran down the steps in the other direction, looking for his boy. It was a breeze, of course, and nothing more.
I walked slowly back to the other end of the deck, peering at the boarded-over windows and doors as I passed. Someone had made a good job of securing the house, though presumably that made it far harder to sell. The views from inside were one of its key selling points, and not everyone has the imagination for that when they're standing inside a cathedral-ceilinged coffin. I wondered at the financial reserves of a family who could buy a house like this, move out, and withstand it remaining unsold for a couple of years. Wondered also why they had not remained here. I had loved this house. Every room had something about it – its view, shape, or position in relation to the space where you had just left – that made you content to linger in it.
Perhaps the owner's problem had not been with the place itself, but with the locals, who had evidently started to retro-fit a juicy little scandal over what had taken place, with Scott as their own JonBenét Ramsey and Carol and I as the unconvicted perpetrators of negligence, if not something far worse. Why they would wish to do that I had no idea, but it had been as well that the SUV driver had moved on when he did. A good idea, too, that I not make a nostalgic diversion to Roslyn or Sheffer on the way back, in case I was recognized and someone said something they might regret.
I walked all the way around the house and found only one window, on the far side and at the back, where it looked like someone might have tried to break in. They'd got as far as levering one corner away and then given up. On the other side was a small storeroom at the end of the utility area, and for a moment I remembered it as it had been. Shelves, lined with produce bought from local markets. Backup supplies of batteries and bottled water – Carol had always seemed quietly convinced that the collapse of civilization was only a matter of time, and that it was best to be prepared. The smell of sheets, drying.
When I got back around to the front I paused for a moment at the spot halfway along the deck where I had been accustomed to stand at the end of a day's work, or with my first coffee of the day. The very position, in fact, where I had asked Carol where Scott had gotten to.
Being there should have felt momentous, or unusually horrible, but it did not. Just sad. The lawn below was overgrown and forlorn. The artisan yard furniture was absent, and I couldn't remember whether it had gone with my wife or if we'd left it with the house for the new owners. The latter, I thought. Either way, it was gone.
I looked for a moment into the woods, remembering how on that afternoon I'd noticed the paths were getting a little unkempt. They were completely overgrown now, ferns covering the ground. About sixty yards from the house were the scant remains of a sturdy old cabin, a remnant from pioneering days. I realized that if left long enough the big house behind me might disappear even faster than the cabin was doing, and the thought depressed me.
I went back down the steps and walked down the slope toward the final place I knew I should visit. The remaining light was reflecting off the lake at the bottom, turning it into a strip of blue-white glare. I kept my pace even as I walked out onto the jetty and until I reached the end, and then I stopped. Down here not much had changed. The lake stretched out ahead, the right fork of its L-shape disappearing out of sight at the end. Ours was the only house with direct access to this section. On all other sides trees came right
