He never actually met the homeowner. The final inspection was handled by the app genius’s wife. She had their young son with her, happily running and sliding in his stocking feet on the new wood floors.
“Donald can’t wait to get away,” she said, leaning against the kitchen island, tousling her son’s hair. “He is so busy right now working on a product launch. He checks the snow report three times a day. He really loves to ski. I like it okay. I’m not very confident, though. This little guy is going to get lessons this year. Donald is adamant about starting him out young. He says a child has to start before he has a real fear of falling. That’s the best way. I didn’t start until I met Don, which was too late, really.”
Rand was nodding. He’d never skied in his life. “So,” he said. “If you don’t have any more questions, I’m going to get out of your hair. I’ll leave you this refrigerator magnet here, it has the company’s contact info and my personal cellphone. If anything, and I mean anything, comes up, please don’t hesitate to call me.”
When Rand turned to leave, she followed him to the door. She stood on the threshold, one hand on the door, perfectly manicured nails tapping on the knob. She looked back into the house to make sure her son wasn’t within earshot.
“There was one thing,” she said. “I heard about what happened. Those workers. I’ve been handling most of the details about this house. I never even told Don because I knew he would worry. But, I just, well, this might be weird, but I have to know. Were they in the house, I mean, actually inside, when it happened? It shouldn’t matter, it’s such a tragedy, but for some reason I’d like to know exactly where, they were, um, discovered.”
She had a small, fixed smile on her face. Rand thought that this was a woman who was used to being found ridiculous. Her husband, a tediously practical man, was no doubt in the habit of acquiescing to her desires, but not without first patronizing her.
Rand had a brief urge to lie, to tell her Angel and his men had been working on the stone fireplace, that he’d found them slumped right there on her living room floor where the kid was slipping around in his socks. He wanted to give credence to her fears somehow but he couldn’t, because she had that smile, the fragile kind.
“Outside,” he said. “They were working on the entryway. They never even went in the house.”
“God, it shouldn’t matter,” she said hurriedly. “It’s just such bad energy, a horrible way to christen a beautiful new chapter in our lives. And after all the work you’ve done, I mean this place is fabulous, you must be very proud. Something like that is such a detraction.”
Rand shrugged. “It was unfortunate. An accident. They were good workers. I didn’t know them well.”
She nodded and crossed her arms under her breasts, hugging herself. She must have been cold in the doorway with no coat. “I’m going to put up a wreath,” she said. “Right on the entryway there. It’s not much but it will be my own little memorial. I don’t think I’m going to tell Don. It’s not something he’d deal with well.”
Rand shook her hand and got in his truck and never set eyes on the house or its occupants again.
—
After Rand told him about the accident, Sam was constantly inviting him to do things with him and his new bride. Come over for dinner, Rand; Stella is making spaghetti. Meet us out at Jake’s; Stella and I are going to get a drink. Stella and I are going camping; you should come along. Rand managed to wriggle out of most of these invitations. The latest was he wanted Rand to join him in a sweat lodge ceremony.
“This is just what you need, man. It’s purifying. I did one last month and I felt like I’d been wrung out and hung out, you know what I mean? In a good way. I felt light.”
Rand had been avoiding Sam, not returning his calls, and then one evening, as Rand was loading up in his truck to head home after work, Sam pulled in, blocking his way. “Hop in,” Sam said. “We’re going to be late.”
“What? I’m going home. I’m tired.”
“Nope. We’ve got sweat lodge tonight. I told everyone I’d be bringing a friend. They’re expecting you. Let’s go. I brought you a towel.”
Sam drove them out of town and then on a series of ever-narrowing roads that wound back into the low hills. The sun was setting behind them as they pulled up in front of a pale-blue trailer house. There were half a dozen other vehicles parked in the drive. Two paint ponies stood motionless in a corral. There was an elk skull and antlers on the trailer house roof, long tapering lodge poles leaning like massive knitting needles against the porch railing.
“This is Stella’s grandparents’ house,” Sam said. “They raised her. They’re different from most of the people around here. They brought her up the way they themselves had been raised. Traditional, you know? They still follow the old ways.”
“The old ways?”
“Yes. Notice, for example, the fact that they don’t have a satellite dish on their roof. Everyone out here has a satellite dish. Stella told me they just got electricity a few years ago. They used to spend the whole summer in a lodge up in the Bighorns. A tipi, Rand. They lived half a year in a tipi gathering berries, fishing, hunting, living. That’s why my wife is so beautiful, right? She was running wild out in the hills as a kid, not drinking Pepsi and watching The Real World and working at a casino, living shabbily off whatever scraps we toss their way.”
“We?”
“Yes. We. Call me crazy but I feel like in small way she and I are doing some sort of small mending in the huge tear that we made in these people’s universe.”
“I didn’t tear anyone’s universe. I don’t want to do this. I’m going to just sit in the car.”
“Nonsense. They’ve adopted me, Rand. I’m family and you’re my guest. It’s going to be great, trust me.”
Moments later, Rand stood shivering in his underwear in front of a low, canvas-covered dome. There was a fire going outside, rounded river rocks were piled in the blaze. He could hear talking and laughing coming from the lodge. Sam motioned for him to follow and ducked into the low entrance.
A furious wave of wet heat hit Rand upon entering. He coughed and dropped to his knees next to Sam, sweat already pouring from his face and shoulders. It was dim. Faces periodically appeared in the steam. There were half a dozen men seated around a pit filled with rocks. Rand watched a man, his bare torso shiny with sweat, reach out of the lodge with a pair of metal fireplace tongs and bring a rock from the outside fire. The rock was still glowing faintly red in the gloom, and he placed it carefully on the other rocks in the central pit. He did this twice more, and then squirted water from a two-liter soda bottle onto the rocks. There was a great hiss, and huge gouts of white-hot steam filled the air. Then, a noise like a rifle shot in the enclosed area as one of the rocks split. Rand swore and flinched. There was soft laughter from the shadows. The increase in steam made Rand feel as if his skin were being parboiled from his body.
“Relax, man,” Sam said. Smiling, his blond hair plastered to his skull with sweat. “Focus on your breathing.”
Sam introduced him around. All of them were relatives of Stella. Brothers, cousins, uncles, and the oldest, her grandfather — long thinning gray hair, small compact potbelly and skinny crossed legs. The old man was staring at him. Rand lowered his head and concentrated on taking shallow breaths.
“Hey,” the old man said. “How tall are you?”
Rand looked around. The old man was still staring at him, one eye perfectly black, the other with the scalded-milk skim of cataract.
“Me?”