The young man glanced down the hallway before looking back at me.
"He's not here right now."
I kept my hand around the key in my pocket.
"Where is he?"
The man shook his head.
"I don't know exactly."
That answer bothered me more than it should have.
Brett had lived in our house long enough to know when we might come back. He knew we had planned to stay in Arizona until May, but he also knew we had never promised to remain there regardless of circumstances.
He hadn't called.
He hadn't written.
And now a stranger was answering our door.
"Are you Brett's girlfriend's brother?" I asked.
The young man hesitated.
"Yes."
I nodded.
"I'm Gordon. This is my wife, Ardis. We own the house."
He looked at us again, this time more carefully.
The surprise on his face seemed genuine.
"You own it?"
"I do."
He released the edge of the door, then caught it again before it could swing shut.
"I thought Brett owned it."
Ardis lowered her eyes.
I felt something tighten in my chest.
There it was.
Not an explanation, exactly, but the first indication that Brett might have told this man something very different from the truth.
"No," I said. "Brett doesn't own this house."
The young man looked toward the living room.
Then he stepped back.
"I didn't know."
I believed that he hadn't known who we were when he opened the door.
I wasn't ready to decide whether he had known anything else.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Tyler."
He spoke quietly, as if he expected me to raise my voice.
I didn't.
"Tyler, we'd like to come inside."
He moved away from the doorway.
"Sure."
I picked up my suitcase and carried it across the threshold.
Ardis followed me with hers.
The first thing I noticed was the warmth.
The furnace was running, just as it should have been.
The second thing was the smell of food, something fried with onions or garlic.
It wasn't unpleasant.
It was simply unfamiliar in a house where Ardis usually made soup or baked bread before we left for the winter.
I set the suitcase beside the wall.
The runner was still on the floor, but there were muddy marks near the edge.
A pair of boots stood beneath the coat hooks.
They weren't mine.
Tyler closed the door behind us.
"I can explain," he said.
I turned toward him.
"Then start with how you came to be here."
He rubbed one hand over the back of his neck.
"My sister is dating Brett. She moved in around Christmas, and I came later."
"Did Brett tell you that you could live here?"
"Yes."
"Did he tell you the house belonged to him?"
Tyler looked down.
"Yes."
Ardis sat on the edge of the living room sofa.
She placed her purse beside her and folded her hands over it.
I remained standing.
"How much are you paying?"
"Six hundred a month."
"To Brett?"
"Yes."
"Every month?"
Tyler nodded.
I let the silence sit between us.
Six hundred dollars was not a small amount for somebody who thought he was renting a room in a family home.
It was also not a small amount for our son to collect while leaving us responsible for the property.
I had no idea what Tyler earned or how much he had saved.
I did know that people didn't usually hand over that kind of money without expecting something in return.
"Does Brett give you a receipt?"
Tyler shook his head.
"He said it wasn't necessary."
I looked at Ardis.
She didn't move.
Her face had gone pale, but she was listening closely.
I asked Tyler whether he had signed anything.
"No."
"Any kind of agreement?"
"No. Brett said we could work it out between us."
That was another answer I didn't like.
Not because I wanted to punish Tyler for failing to demand paperwork, but because it meant there was nothing clear to show what Brett had promised him.
I glanced toward the basement door.
It stood closed near the end of the hallway.
I had spent years opening that door without thinking.
Now I wondered what had been placed behind it.
"Is your room downstairs?"
"Yes."
"Can we see it?"
Tyler looked uncertain.
"It's a little messy."
"We've driven across the country," I said. "I think we can manage a messy room."
He gave a brief, nervous smile.
Then he walked toward the basement door.
Ardis rose from the sofa and followed.
I went last.
Tyler turned the handle and switched on the light.
The stairs descended into the basement, where the air was cooler and carried the familiar smell of concrete and old wood.
I took the first step.
The railing felt the same beneath my hand.
At the bottom, the room opened in front of us.
My old workbench stood against the wall.
Several of the shelves remained in place, though boxes had been shifted to make room for a mattress.
A small television sat on a low table.
There were clothes in a laundry basket, a pair of sneakers near the wall, and a plastic container holding what looked like cooking supplies.
The room had been turned into a living space.
Not a temporary place for someone to sleep after missing the last bus.
Someone had settled in.
I stood still long enough for Tyler to notice.
"I tried to keep things neat," he said.
I looked at the mattress.
Then at the boxes stacked beside it.
"You've been living here since when?"
"January."
I counted backward.
That meant he had been there for weeks before Vern called.
Possibly longer than Vern had realized.
I looked at the little basement window.
It was the same narrow window I remembered, with the glass set high in the wall.
I had once stored paint cans beneath it.
Now a folded blanket covered part of the sill.
"Where do you cook?"
Tyler pointed toward a small electric appliance on the table.
"Mostly upstairs."
"Who pays the electric bill?"
"Brett said he handled that."
I looked at him.
"Did you give him money for utilities?"
"That was supposed to be included."
Supposed to be.
I had heard enough variations of that phrase in my life to know it often meant that two people had different ideas about what had been agreed upon.
I walked over to the workbench.
A small drawer was open.
Inside it, I kept screws, washers, nails, and assorted pieces that came in handy whenever something broke.
Some of the containers had been moved.
A screwdriver lay beside a roll of tape.
Nothing seemed valuable enough to be worth an argument.
That wasn't the point.
I had not given anyone permission to reorganize my things.
I turned back toward Tyler.
"Did Brett ever tell you to contact me?"
"No."
"Did he give you my number?"
"No."
I studied him.
He looked uncomfortable, but he wasn't acting as if he wanted to fight me.
He seemed to be waiting for me to tell him what was going to happen.
I couldn't do that yet.
I needed to speak to my son.
I needed to understand what he had told his girlfriend and what he had promised her brother.
Most of all, I needed to know why he believed he could make decisions about our property without consulting us.
I looked at Ardis.
She was staring at the mattress.
I could tell she was thinking about all the things we'd left behind when we went south.
Our house had not been a hotel.
We had not advertised rooms.
We had not asked Brett to turn our basement into a source of income.
He had taken the trust we'd placed in him and used it to make arrangements that benefited him.
I was angry now.
But I wasn't going to settle the whole matter with Tyler standing beside a laundry basket.
I turned off the basement light.
"Let's go upstairs," I said.
Tyler followed us.
At the top, I closed the door gently.
I didn't slam it.
That would have made me feel better for a second, but it wouldn't have answered a single question.
Ardis picked up her purse from the sofa.
Then she looked toward the front window, where the purple flowers were still blooming.
"At least the plants survived," she said.
I nodded.
Someone had remembered to water them.
I wished that small kindness had been enough to make me feel at home.
It wasn't.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Six Hundred Dollars a Month Was Only the Beginning of What Brett Had Arranged Without Asking the Two People Who Owned the House
The Call From Home That Turned a Quiet Arizona Morning Into Something I Could No Longer Ignore
Part 5 of 9
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