Taken in My Sleep by My Stepfather David and His Friends novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: House Rules

She sets her terms to all four men. The road is closed, and David promises to walk her to the wedding himself on Friday if she still wants it. Through the floor she hears Ellis ask if she remembers what she sent.

Ellis put a duffel bag on the table and unzipped it.

"Your clothes," he said. "Jeans, boots, two sweaters, the grey coat."

I looked inside.

It was my grey coat, the one from the back of my closet, and my good boots, and the sweater I wear when I'm sad.

"You went through my closet."

"David did," Ellis said. "I held the flashlight."

"Ellis," David said.

"She asked."

I took the bag into the bedroom and shut the door.

I got dressed with my back against it and my hands not quite steady.

When I came out they were all still at the table, sitting up straight.

I stood at the end of it and put both hands flat on the wood.

"Here are my rules," I said.

Nobody laughed.

"Nobody touches me. Not a hand, not a shoulder, not a pat on the head. If I want to be touched, I'll say so out loud."

"Done," David said.

"And only when I'm awake, with my eyes open."

Bernard put his mug down.

"That's the best rule I've heard all year," he said. "Put it on a plaque."

"I mean it."

"I know you do, kid. I'm agreeing."

"Don't call me kid."

"Zelda," Bernard said, with great care. "Ma'am. Your Majesty."

I didn't want to laugh.

It came out of my nose anyway, and Garson looked at the table to hide a smile.

"That's rule two," I said. "Nobody makes me laugh."

"That one I can't promise," Bernard said.

Ellis took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. "Anything else?"

"Yes. Where is my phone going to live?"

"On you," David said. "It never left you. I held it so you wouldn't wake up to forty calls."

"And the truck?"

"Keys are in my pocket." He didn't move his hand toward them. "Road gets plowed Friday morning. If you still want that wedding Friday night, I'll drive you to Connecticut myself and walk you down the aisle."

"In a suit."

"You'll hand me to Clarence."

His jaw went tight, once, and then it was gone.

"I'll hand you to whoever you're standing next to," he said.

I stared at him.

Nobody spoke.

"Fine," I said.

I went out the back door to get away from them, and stood on the porch in the cold with my arms crossed.

The lake was grey and flat.

My mother's old snowshoes hung on a nail by the door.

Someone had oiled the leather, and the nail was new.

My mother had loved this cabin.

She had brought me up here every August until I was sixteen, and then I had grown up and stopped coming at all.

I hadn't been here since the funeral.

Bernard came out behind me with two mugs and stopped five feet away.

"I'm staying over here," he said, and held one mug out at the full length of his arm. "Tea. The kind you like. I made it myself."

"Is it poisoned?"

"It's a little weak. Ellis says I over-think the steeping."

I took it.

He backed up until his boots hit the step.

"I have to say something," he said. "Not about the stairs."

"Say it."

"You looked scared when you woke up. I'm sorry for that. The rest of it, I'm not sorry about."

"That's not an apology."

"No," he said cheerfully. "It's an honest one."

He went in.

I drank the tea on the porch until it was cold.

I spent the afternoon being angry in a chair by the fire.

Nobody came near me.

At nine I went up the ladder to the loft, which was my mother's old sleeping loft, and lay down on the bed on top of the quilt in my jeans.

The floorboards were thin.

I could hear the four of them in the kitchen below me, washing up, talking low.

I wasn't trying to listen.

Then Ellis said, "Does she remember what she sent?"

I stopped breathing.

"Not yet," David said.

"She will. She's too smart not to."

"Then she'll ask me," David said. "And I'll tell her."

"Before Friday?"

"When she asks."

A chair scraped.

Somebody turned off the kitchen light.

I lay in the dark with my mother's pillow under my head and went through everything I had ever sent anyone.

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