Chapter 1: The Hallway Between Us
The wood paneling in the hallway always made the cabin feel smaller than it was. That afternoon the light coming through the front windows was warm and even, the kind of daytime light that made the dust visible in the air, and I was standing by the staircase in my light gray sweatshirt with my hands at my sides trying not to move. My stepmother stood in the opening to the living room and looked straight at my dad.
Her voice didn't shake. "I want your son out of this house."
It didn't sound like something you say to someone you live with. It sounded like a line she'd practiced. My dad was still in his black polo and brown pants, his belt and watch catching the light, and for a second nobody answered her. The patterned rug was under his shoes and the stone fireplace was behind him with the framed photos lined up on the mantel and the flat-screen TV dark on the wall. Everything ordinary stayed exactly where it was while she said it.
My name is Michael and I was fifteen that winter in my father's cabin.
I heard the rest of it before I could figure out what to do with my hands. She said, "My daughter doesn't feel comfortable with the way he looks at her." She said it like it was a fact already decided, not a question. I could see my stepsister in the hallway next to me, her brown ribbed shirt tight around her wrists, her light brown hair parted in the middle, her cheeks flushed pink. She wouldn't look at me.
My mouth was dry. I said it before I thought it through.
"Dad, that's not true."
The words came out smaller than I meant them to. I swallowed. "I didn't do anything." I could hear my own breathing and the faint tick of the heater. The staircase behind me creaked even though I hadn't moved.
My stepsister's eyebrows pulled together. Her eyes were wide and wet and she spoke fast, like she wanted to get it over with.
"Yes, he does," she said. "He's always looking at me."
I stared at her. I didn't know what she meant. Looking at her when? At dinner? When we passed in the hallway? We lived in the same house. Of course I looked at her sometimes. I wanted to ask her what she'd told her mom, but my dad stepped forward first.
His voice dropped. He didn't raise it, but the whole living room went tighter. "You want my son to leave his own father's house?"
My stepmother didn't flinch. Her dark hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and her black button-front top with the little gold buttons didn't move as she folded her arms. She said, "Yes." Then, quieter, "My daughter feels uncomfortable."
My dad let out a short sigh through his nose. He looked at her like he was trying to see if she was serious and then realized she was.
"Wow, how funny," he said.
"What do you mean? I'm being serious," she said.
"Oh, really?" he said. "Then take your daughter out of my house and go live with her father."
He didn't shout it. He said it flat. "If my son makes her uncomfortable, she can leave. This is his father's house, not hers."
The last line hung there. No one moved to pick it up.
May you like
My stepmother's face changed then. The color left it and then came back all at once. Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened just a little, like she'd been shoved. She turned her head slightly toward me and my stepsister where we stood blurred in the hallway behind her, and in that second I could see she hadn't expected him to choose.
I stayed against the wall by the staircase and didn't breathe too loud. My stepsister was still looking at the floor, her gold hoops glinting, her hands balled in her sleeves. The rug, the fireplace, the photos, the wood beams on the ceiling — all of it stayed perfectly still while the four of us stood locked in that shape, the door behind us closed, the next word still not spoken.
