Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN SCRUBBING BEHIND MY NEW HOUSE
The moment I saw my wife kneeling barefoot beside a cracked washbasin, her scalp shaved raw and her wrists thinner than broomsticks, I understood that every dollar I had sent home had purchased something.
It just had not purchased the life I thought I was building.
Behind Gwen, our new two-story house gleamed beneath the late-August sun in Springfield, Missouri.
A gold-colored gate guarded the driveway.
A black Ford F-150 sat polished beneath the carport.
Through the open back door, I could see leather furniture, a glass dining table, and a chandelier large enough to belong in a hotel lobby.
And there was my wife, washing greasy plates in the backyard.
A ceramic bowl slipped from her fingers.
It shattered between her knees.
From inside the house, my sister shouted, “That bald woman better not come inside looking like that while people are here.”
I stopped walking.
My duffel bag slid from my shoulder and struck the concrete.
Gwen turned.
For one heartbeat, her face became the woman I remembered.
Her mouth opened.
Her eyes brightened.
“Gavin?”
Then terror erased everything.
She pulled a gray wool cap from beside the basin and dragged it over her head even though the Missouri afternoon was close to ninety degrees.
I crossed the yard.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
Her voice barely carried.
I crouched in front of her.
“Gwen.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay.”
“I’m just tired.”
I reached toward the cap.
Her hand shot up and caught my wrist.
“Please.”
That word frightened me more than the bloodless skin beneath her eyes.
I lowered my voice.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She looked toward the back door.
Not at me.
At the house.
I gently removed the cap.
For four years in Yellowknife, I had carried one photograph in the inside pocket of my winter coat.
Gwen standing beside Table Rock Lake on our fifth anniversary, brown hair blowing past her waist, laughing because I had dropped my phone into a cooler.
She brushed that hair every night.
She used to complain when I rolled onto it in bed.
Now there was nothing.
Her scalp had been shaved nearly to the skin.
Thin red cuts crossed the crown.
Some had scabbed over.
Others were newer.
I stared.
“Who did this?”
“Gavin.”
“Who?”
The back door opened.
My mother stepped outside.
Margaret Cole had turned sixty-eight in May.
When I left for Canada, she wore Walmart reading glasses on a cord and complained that every blouse cost too much.
Now she wore emerald silk.
Gold bracelets chimed around both wrists.
A thick necklace sat against her throat.
Behind her came my younger sister Paige.
Thirty-six.
New iPhone in one hand.
Louis Vuitton bag in the other.
She looked me over.
“Well.”
No hug.
No tears.
Just calculation.
Then she smiled.
“You really came home.”
Mom stepped toward me.
“Don’t make a scene, Gavin.”
I looked at Gwen.
“What happened to her hair?”
Mom sighed.
“She used some cheap chemical treatment.”
Paige rolled her eyes.
“It started falling out, so we helped her shave the rest.”
Gwen’s fingers curled around the edge of the washbasin.
“You helped her.”
“She asked.”
Gwen whispered, “No.”
Paige’s head snapped toward her.
“What?”
Gwen lowered her gaze.
Nothing.
Mom touched my arm.
“She’s been difficult.”
I moved away from her hand.
“What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t eat.”
Paige laughed.
“Then she tells everybody we’re starving her.”
“Everybody?”
Paige realized the mistake.
Mom answered quickly.
“She complains to neighbors.”
I looked at Gwen’s cardigan.
Burgundy.
Too large.
The sleeves swallowed her hands.
When I left Springfield four years earlier, Gwen weighed maybe a hundred thirty-five pounds.
Now she looked under a hundred.
“What happened to your arm?”
She pulled the sleeve lower.
I caught a glimpse first.
Yellow-purple bruising around the inside of her elbow.
Medical tape residue.
An IV.
“When were you in the hospital?”
Mom said, “It was nothing.”
I turned.
“I asked my wife.”
Gwen swallowed.
“Last week.”
“What happened?”
“Dehydration.”
My mother laughed.
“She refuses water when she’s being dramatic.”
I stared at her.
For four years, I had worked twelve-hour shifts at a metal-fabrication plant outside Yellowknife.
Winter temperatures dropped so low my eyelashes froze together walking from the employee bus to the plant entrance.
I slept in a rented basement room that smelled of heating oil and wet boots.
Every month I sent between two thousand and twenty-five hundred dollars home.
More when overtime was good.
More than one hundred thousand dollars in total.
Mom had suggested using her account.
“Canadian transfer fees are ridiculous,” she told me. “Send it to me. I’ll handle the contractors, utilities, Gwen’s groceries, everything.”
I trusted her.
She was my mother.
Gwen and I had purchased the lot before I left.
The plan was simple.
Build slowly.
Pay cash where possible.
Come home to a mostly finished house and a smaller mortgage.
Then, eighteen months earlier, I checked Greene County property records during a night shift.
The property showed Margaret Cole as owner.
Mom laughed when I called.
“Permit issue. Temporary transfer. The contractor said it would make inspections easier.”
I should have asked a lawyer.
Instead, I asked my mother.
The truck under the carport had Paige’s plates.
The furniture receipts Mom proudly texted me were in her name.
The savings account containing my remittances was under her control.
I finally understood how carefully they had built a life out of my absence.
I also understood something else.
If I screamed now, Paige could drive away.
Mom could empty accounts.
Documents could disappear.
The house could be mortgaged before I found an attorney.
And Gwen was looking at me as if she believed one wrong sentence might get her punished after I went to sleep.
So I forced my hands to open.
Then I lied.
“I didn’t come home only because the plant shut down.”
Mom’s eyes sharpened.
“What happened?”
I looked at Paige.
Then back at her.
“The company is settling with some of us after that furnace fire in March.”
Paige stepped closer.
“What kind of settlement?”
I pretended reluctance.
“Cash and shares.”
Mom’s voice softened immediately.
“How much cash?”
“Maybe four hundred thousand.”
Paige’s mouth actually opened.
I looked away before she saw me notice.
“But there’s a problem.”
“What?” Mom asked.
“The tax attorney says I need proof of assets and investments in my name back home before I accept the package. Property, accounts, anything I funded.”
The silence lasted two seconds.
Long enough.
Mom smiled.
“Of course.”
Paige hooked her arm through mine.
“You should see the truck. It’s practically yours anyway.”
Ten seconds earlier Gwen had been an embarrassing bald woman in the backyard.
Now I was Mom’s poor hardworking boy.
That evening she laid out a feast.
Roast chicken.
Fresh bread.
Green beans with bacon.
A bottle of Cabernet.
A sheet cake with WELCOME HOME GAVIN written in blue icing.
Three neighbors came over.
So did Paige’s boyfriend, Tyler Reed, who talked for fifteen straight minutes about the truck I had apparently helped buy without knowing it.
Gwen never appeared.
I waited until Mom began cutting cake.
“Where’s Gwen?”
Paige took a sip of wine.
“She prefers eating alone.”
“Where?”
“Her room.”
I looked toward the hallway.
“Our room is upstairs.”
Paige laughed.
“Not anymore.”
Mom put down the cake knife.
“She sleeps better downstairs.”
“Show me.”
“Gavin.”
“I’ve been gone four years.”
I smiled.
“I want to see where my wife sleeps.”
Mom’s smile tightened.
Paige exchanged a glance with her.
Then Mom led me down the back hallway.
Past the laundry room.
Past the pantry.
To a narrow door beside the garage.
She took a key from her bracelet.
I stopped.
“Why does Gwen’s room lock from the outside?”
Mom turned.
“For her safety.”
She unlocked it.
The room had once been intended for lawn equipment.
No closet.
No air vent except a small ceiling register.
A cot stood against the wall.
One blanket.
A plastic pitcher.
No phone.
No television.
No personal belongings except a grocery bag containing two dresses.
Then I saw the inside of the door.
Deep scratches crossed the paint around the knob.
Mom said quickly, “She panics sometimes.”
I stepped inside.
The mattress sank beneath my hand.
Something crackled underneath.
I lifted it.
A folded sheet of paper had been hidden between the mattress and frame.
Mom moved toward me.
“What is that?”
I opened it before she could take it.
It was a photocopy of a real-estate document.
At the top:
RATIFICATION AND SPOUSAL RELEASE.
Property address:
My house.
Grantor:
Gwen Elizabeth Cole.
Her signature line was blank.
May you like
Across the top, in my mother’s handwriting, were three words.
MAKE HER SIGN.
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