Stranger Son by Jim Nelson

Author:Jim Nelson [Nelson, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780990480259
Published: 2020-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-nine

She returned to find Kyle dozing. The morning's events had taken something out of Ruby as well. From the kitchen's meager supplies, she produced a bowl of corn flakes, which she consumed ravenously with a soup spoon. She sliced up a bruised Red Delicious apple, salted the quarters, and ate them not quite as ravenously.

At some point after Dr. Benford left, Kyle had reiterated to Ruby she was to use the master bedroom upstairs. She hauled her army surplus backpack up the stairs. The second floor consisted of three rooms, the two bedrooms, and a narrow hallway bathroom between them. It warmed her to know she would be sleeping just a few feet from Henry. He's grown into a fine young man, she thought. He resembled his bridge mother, although in her memories, Cynthia was taller than Henry. He looked so much like her grandfather Barry, his namesake before the Weymouths adopted him.

The house was shoddily built. Ruby could see and feel the cheapjack construction. The stair railing did not feel firmly attached to the plasterboard wall. It rocked in its mounts every time she put any weight on it. The carpeting was balding in trafficked spots. A thin stripe of wear ran down the center of the stairs, revealing the foam underlayment. The door handle to the master bedroom was loose. It felt like she could push the knob through its hole and reach her hand inside.

A waft of pent-up stuffy air escaped when she opened the door, as though the master bedroom was heaving a sigh of relief. Her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the dim light inside. A king-sized bed filled most of the room. She crossed to a set of full-length curtains on the far wall. They covered a sliding glass door leading to a patio balcony and a humbling view of the Sierra Nevada. The towering mountains practically sprouted from just beyond the rear of the property line and accelerated toward the heavens. A tight weave of royal green and golden-red trees covered the mountains to the white caps of year-round snow high above.

She gingerly set her backpack on the bed's thick, downy comforter, which she imagined was entirely unnecessary in the heat they were now experiencing. Over the bed's headboard was a framed panoramic photograph blown up to four feet wide. She could not be certain, but it looked like it was taken at a summit of one of those mountains dwarfing the house. She could not get close to it without standing on the bed, so she leaned across the pillows to study it. She imagined she might find in the photograph the house she was standing in now, a pinpoint of white stucco and brown shingle among a tan bed of packed dirt.

Out of nowhere, she realized why Cynthia looked taller than Henry. The last time she'd seen Cynthia, she was thirteen years old. Cynthia was erect and muscular, wide-necked and deep-voiced. In her last years, she held herself like a football quarterback.

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