“Your silence is killing me,” he prodded, spurred by her loitering reaction to their new home. “Do you not like the house?”
“No, it’s beautiful. But why is the ranch called Keeper?” Paola’s breath formed clouds of doubt around him in the winter chill.
“It’s what’s known as a keeping room house,” Vaun answered over the fingernail he had clenched in his teeth. Bitting it off, he spat it to the floor. His startling green eyes under his full, dark lashes swept from one side of the L-shaped structure to the other. “It’s one room around a central fireplace for warmth— or it was one room until the addition.”
“It’s amazing, Vaun,” Paola said, touching the smooth lip of the sink.
“You don’t sound sure. Is it the smell of the kerosine lights? I can take them out. They’re just a backup in case the solar fails. There is propane.”
Paola moved away from him, crossing in front of the little hallway tucked off the kitchen.
“This was the addition?” she asked about to enter it, but the darkness stepped forward. Backing away, she collided with Vaun as he trailed her.
“Yes, in the twenties, two bedrooms for bunking were added, but when the indoor plumbing was installed, the smaller bedroom was converted into the bathroom.”
Vaun put his hands on her shoulders, but before he could direct her down the hallway, she slipped from his grasp. Moving instead toward the oak dining table opposite the fireplace. Four front-facing windows set perfect squares of sunlight dense enough to eat with a spoon.
“You don’t want to see the bathroom or the bedroom? I can lite the lamps.”
Paola turned to smile at him. “In a minute.”
She slipped between the posts, moved through the sitting area, and sat on the queen bed in the room’s far corner. The only oddity of the bed in the front room was that it didn’t seem odd.
“Are we to sleep in the keeping room or the bedroom?”
“The king bed and the crib are in the bedroom, but it’s your choice.”
Paola caressed the silky softness of the antique quilt. Age had pulled the fine stitching loose and diluted the colors making it deliciously flawed. She wondered where Vaun had found it, but when she looked up to ask, the fear in his eyes stopped her.
“Have I fucked up? Maybe we should have kept to the original plan and had you come to see it before we decided?”
“Vaun, you’ve done a beautiful job. Why are you so nervous?”
“Your reaction is so flat. I could skip a stone on it a dozen times. Something is bothering you. Tell me so I can fix it.”
Encased in a display of his anxieties, he was framed by the stone walls he had painstakingly sanded the sharp crags into safe, smooth curves. Working for months like a bowerbird building a nest, it was easy to see what Vaun thought was important.
Over his shoulder, in sunlight stolen from the front windows, pearl-colored puffs of dust danced in the outline of a face giving Paola the faintest idea they were being watched. Sniffing the air, she detected the delicate scent of lilac.
“Has a woman ever lived here?”
“No. There have been housekeepers, local women who come out to cook and clean for the ranch hands, but they’ve never lived here. The closest any would have come was during world war two. There was a bunkhouse built out by the spring. It was built to in-prison Japanese Americans, but it was never used, and the army removed it decades ago. You can still see the scars on the land from the footings.”
“That’s odd. This house feels like a woman’s house,” Paola said, talking over the growing discomfort in her stomach. It was like a belt was tightening over her hips.
“It is a woman’s house. It’s yours, Paola.” Vaun’s hopefulness floated between them.
The pressure expanded into Paola’s tailbone. She got up, but the feeling followed her. “I need to walk.”
Her sudden exit from the house stopped Calvin and the dusky blue heeler trailing him in their tracks. Calvin had been pacing in the driveway, smashing the spiderwebs of frost frozen into the red dirt with his steel-toed boots.
Paola still found it odd to see him in work clothes. His skinny jeans and graphic tee-shirts were replaced by tan coveralls splattered with white paint and hemmed with mud. Working double shifts in the city during the week and weekends with Vaun preparing the ranch had whittled down more than the fashion of Calvin’s wardrobe. It had refined the bulk of his muscle into a learner casing on his naturally broad frame. Sheepishly, hidden behind the distraction of his blue eyes and unruly blonde hair, Calvin surveyed the couple attempting to judge the mood.
Paola could feel Vaun’s plea for his younger cousin’s help at her back.
“Is it the lowness of the ceiling?” Calvin asked, stepping up. “You’re so small, Paola; we didn’t think it would bother you.”
“No, it’s all lovely,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I especially like the—” she had to stop speaking to catch her breath.
The pain let go of her. She blew out a breath. It crystallized in the wintery air before falling away. “Well, that’s better,” she said, rubbing the side of her belly.
“You especially like what?” Vaun asked
“The softness of it,” Paola answered.
“The softness of so much stone?” Vaun drawled. His perplexed expression clung to tightness in his jaw as he stroked his short dark beard and looked back at the house. Paola crossed through his shadow. Drifting towards the stone hot tub with its low belly hanging open, waiting for a fire to be lit so it could heat the water a story above it. A set of stone steps wound around to the pool on top. They reminded Paola of the pixelated painting of the tower of Babel from Sunday School. Labeling the iconoclastic architecture as steps to heaven, Paola savored the bittersweetness of her irreverence.
“Was that a contraction?” Calvin asked, chasing after her.
His question spun Vaun. He moved so fast that he nearly tripped over the dog.
“No, the baby was just sitting wrong. May I see the rest of the ranch? I’d like to see the whole canyon.”
“Paola, you’re only six months pregnant. If you’re having contractions, we need to take them seriously,” Calvin said, stepping in front of her.
“I read false contractions are normal.” Her conviction was shallow against Calvin’s decade as a paramedic. He had her by the elbow, turning her back to the house, leading her around Vaun and back inside.
“Vaun and I will light the fire for the hot tub while you put your feet up.” Guiding her to the bed, he sat her down. “We’ll get it warm enough to soak in but not too hot that it will raise your blood pressure any higher than it already is.”
A sharp pain rippled through her stomach, startling her. Paola grabbed the corner of Calvin’s coat.
“Oh shit,” Calvin swore under his breath. “When did this start?”
“On the drive down. I thought it was motion sickness.”
“Did you tell Vaun?” he asked, lowering himself to sit on the bed.
“No, he was so excited about showing me the ranch. I didn’t want him to worry anymore about me than he already does.”
Unavoidably her eyes scanned the yellow and pink burn scars in various stages of healing on her forearms and fingers from the fire.
“How many big ones have you had?” Calvin dipped his head, dropping the twisted tips of his hair into his eyes. His hand curved to the exact roundness of her belly, but he was careful not to touch her.
“Just the two.” Paola winced as the pain filled her stomach.
Vaun entered the house with the dog at his heels. “Is she okay?”
Paola’s fingers were tightly wrapped around the edge of Calvin’s jacket. Awkwardly, Calvin slipped out of it, laying it over her as he stood up, backing away.
“She’s fine, Vaun. She’s just gonna lay down while we start the fire under the tub. My guess would be between the long drive and the excitement of seeing the house, she’s over-extended herself. Paola, are you hydrated?”
“That might be it,” Paola sighed, feeling foolish. She had intentionally cut back to avoid needing the restroom on the two-hour drive down. “I have a water bottle in the truck. Would you please get it for me, Vaun?”
Vaun’s eyes narrowed. “Cal and I spent every weekend for four months replumbing this place. Not to mention twenty-thousand remodeling the kitchen. Those are the best energy-efficient appliances on the market. And you want a water bottle from the truck?”
“If you don’t mind?” She smiled at him adoringly.
“I’ll get it,” Calvin said, muttering something under his breath that Paola couldn’t hear. Whatever it was freed Vaun’s wide grin, sinking the corners of his eyes into the plateau of his high cheekbones.
“Will you be warm enough? I could start a fire,” Vaun asked, adding his own coat to her cover, then a quilt from the end of the bed.
“I’ll be fine.” The pain had fallen low into a dull, sad note deep in her hips. “I’m sorry I’m ruining this.”
“You aren’t ruining anything. But you should’ve told me you weren’t feeling well. Calvin always knows things first— it makes me wonder.”
He brushed her dark hair from her cheeks.
“The trick with Paola is to ignore what she says and watch what she’s doing,” Calvin chuckled, jogging back in, and handed her the water bottle over Vaun’s shoulder.
A shadow moving slowly across the floor caught her attention.
Vaun kissed her forehead. “We’ll be right outside if you need us.”
From behind him, the shadow shifted into the figure of a woman. As the woman neared the bed, she was aging, transitioning from young to old like a half-eaten apple withering in the air. Paola’s fear was superseded by her curiosity.
“Vaun, please make sure you leave the door open,” Paola mumbled distractedly.
Chasing her gaze, Vaun turned. “Paola, what are you looking at?” Dropping his tone into a cellar of a stone whisper, “Is it Jack?”
Calvin pivoted, glaring, unseeing through the old woman as she sat down on the bed beside Paola.
“Who’s Jack?” the old woman asked in a voice so scratched it brought a tornado of red sand through the open door into the room. The column collapsed on the rug at Vaun’s feet, causing the dog to growl.
“No, Vaun,” Paola answered as the woman faded away. “Jack is buried. Everything he will ever do has been done— and some of it has even been undone. Really, I’m fine. I’m just getting a feel for the place.”
“Right, holler if you need us.”
Scooping up the dog, Vaun placed it at her feet and ordered him to stay. The grit beneath their boots squirreled as both men crossed the room and ducked under the door frame, neither in danger of hitting his head, but the lowness compelled the effort.
Calvin dropped a trail of concern behind them. “Cousin, I worry about her so far out here. Have you thought this all the way through?”
Vaun’s answer, which he undoubtedly had, was lost to the dryness of the red wind.