Coming Home to Greenleigh

Chapter 26

There was no longer a television at all in that room, and the gray armchair had been replaced by an antique bentwood rocker that the delighted auctioneer had found in the attic. He had placed it lovingly next to the wood stove in that room, which when he had discovered that it not only worked but could easily heat up half the ground floor, had sent him into raptures.

Elisabeth walked slowly up the stairs, reluctant to open the doors of the abandoned bedrooms. Her parents' room was nearly empty. She'd boxed up what remained of her mother's knickknacks and tucked them into the attic. Nothing valuable or sentimental there. She paused in the doorway of her own room, which looked odd and starkly empty in the dim half-light of the afternoon.

She'd decided to leave that one photograph of Shawn behind. It sat alone on her dresser, a relic of a distant past. She'd listened to Gunnar and thrown out most of her wardrobe, replacing it with a set of short wool skirts and turtleneck sweaters, which served to make her look more bohemian chic than she felt. She hoped that she'd be taken seriously in Seattle. Gunnar told her she absolutely would be, if she would stop assuming the worst and remember that she was a competent professional.

Elisabeth knew that she could stand up for the little guy—she wasn't afraid of any courtroom, any judge, if it meant protecting someone weaker than herself. But she wondered if there was a place for someone like her in a big city in the west. And if there wasn't—what new part of society would she inhabit?

She couldn't even fathom what that would be like, and she didn't know how she felt about the strangeness of all of it.

Someone was banging on the front steps. She recognized Gunnar's heavy tread—he always wore these big combat boots and would ritually kick the snow off of them before entering the house. He didn't bother to knock on the door anymore, but would shout her name into the hallway when he entered.

"E-lis-a-beth—!" he bellowed. His voice echoed off the newly bare floors and walls.

"I'm up here," she replied.

He bounded up the stairs two at a time.

"Yo," he said, coming up behind her. He bent to kiss her neck and she shrugged him off automatically.

"Stop."

"Why?"

"You know why."

"You're a prude."

"Maybe I am."

"Huh." But he didn't sound upset. "Are you done? Done-done?"

"I think so. I don't even know what I'm looking for."

"Do you have pictures?"

"I think so."

"We can catalogue things later. I'll help you. It's the easiest way to take an inventory."

Elisabeth sighed. She went into her room, clicking on the light as she did so. "I did what you said, but Gunnar, no one is going to steal anything."

"I never said anyone was going to steal anything," Gunnar objected. "An inventory is just so you know what you own. Are you really a lawyer? I have to tell you everything, like. Someone should give me a law degree."

Elisabeth was opening drawers and shutting them. They were all empty.

"Someone should," she said. "Why don't you go back to school? You'd make a great lawyer. You'd kick my butt."

"No school," Gunnar shuddered. "No way."

"Can you just leave the tattoo shop? Just like that?"

"Yeah. They can always find someone else."