Iain Reid - I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“They’ll do that sometimes, eat them, if the eggs aren’t collected,” says Jake.

“Gross,” is all I can think of to say. “You guys don’t have any neighbors, do you?”

“Not really. Depends on your definition of neighbor .”

We leave the coop, and I’m grateful to get that smell out of my nose.

We walk around behind the house, my chin pressed down against my chest for warmth. We’re off the path now and are making our own way in the unshoveled snow. I don’t normally feel so hungry. I’m famished. I look up and see someone in the house, in the upstairs window. A gaunt figure, standing, looking down at us. A woman with long straight hair. The tip of my nose is frozen.

“Is that your mom?” I wave. No response.

“She probably can’t see you. Too dark out here.”

She stays at the window as we keep walking, plodding through the ankle-deep snow.

MY FEET AND HANDS AREnumb. My cheeks red. I’m glad to be inside. I’m blowing on my hands, thawing them out as we step through the door into a small foyer. I can smell supper. Some kind of meat. There’s also that smell of burning wood again, and a distinct atmospheric scent that every house has. Its own smell that its inhabitants are never aware of.

Jake yells hello. His dad — it must be his dad — answers that they’ll be down in a minute. Jake seems a bit distracted, almost antsy.

“Do you want some slippers?” he asks. “They might be a bit big for you, but these old floors are pretty cold.”

“Sure,” I say. “Thanks.”

Jake rummages through a wooden bin to the left of the door, filled with hats and scarves, and digs up a pair of worn blue slippers.

“My old ones,” he says. “I knew they were in there. What they lack in appearance, they make up for in comfort.”

He holds them in both hands, examining them. It’s like he’s cradling them.

“I love these slippers,” he says, more to himself than to me. He sighs and hands me the slippers.

“Thanks,” I say, not sure that I should put them on. Eventually, I do. They don’t fit right.

“Okay, this way,” says Jake.

We step beyond the threshold, to the left, into a small sitting room. It’s dark, and Jake twists the switches on some lamps as we move.

“What are your folks doing?”

“They’ll be down.”

We step into a large room. A living room. The house, unlike outside, is closer to what I’d been expecting. Hand-me-down furniture, rugs, lots of wooden tables and chairs. Each piece of furniture or trinket is distinct. And the decor — not to be so judgmental — but few things match. And everything is antique-looking. There’s nothing in here that’s been bought in the last twenty years. I guess that can be charming. It feels like we’ve stepped back in time several decades.

The music adds to this sensation of time travel. Hank Williams, I think. Or Bill Monroe. Maybe Johnny Cash? It sounds like vinyl, but I can’t see where it’s coming from.

“The bedrooms are upstairs,” Jake says, pointing to a staircase outside the living room. “Not much else up there. I can show you after we eat. I told you it’s not fancy. It’s an old place.”

True. Everything is old, but it’s remarkably neat, tidy. There’s no dust on the side tables. The cushions aren’t stained or torn. What old farmhouse doesn’t have some dust? No lint or animal hair or threads or dirt on the couch and chairs. The walls are covered in paintings and sketches, lots of them. Most aren’t framed. The paintings are large. The sketches vary in size, but most are smaller. There’s no TV in this room, or a computer. Lots of lamps. And candles. Jake lights the ones that aren’t lit.

I assume it’s his mom who collects the ornamental figurines. Most are small children dressed in elaborate attire, hats, and boots. Porcelain, I think. Some of the figurines are picking flowers. Some are carrying hay. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it for eternity.

The woodstove crackles in the far corner. I walk over and stand in front of it, turning to feel its warmth on my back. “Love the fire,” I say. “Cozy on a cold night.”

Jake sits down on the maroon couch opposite.

A thought occurs to me, and before I can mull it over I blurt it out. “Your parents knew we were coming, right? They invited us?”

“Yeah. We communicate.”

Beyond the entrance to this room, past the staircase, is a scratched-up, ragged door. It’s closed. “What’s in there?”

Jake looks at me as if I’ve asked a really stupid question. “Just some more rooms. And the basement is through there.”

“Oh, okay,” I say.

“It isn’t finished. Just a nasty hole in the ground for the water heater and stuff like that. We don’t use it. It’s a waste of space. There’s nothing down there.”

“A hole in the ground?”

“Just forget about it. It’s there. It’s not a nice place. That’s all. It’s nothing.”

I hear a door close somewhere upstairs. I look at Jake to see if he registers it, but he’s lost in his own mind, looking straight ahead, intently, though seemingly at nothing.

“What are the scratches on the door from?”

“From when we had a dog.”

I drift from the stove to the wall of paintings and sketches. I see there are several photographs on the wall, too. All the photos are black-and-white. Unlike the sketches, all the photos are framed. No one is smiling in these photos. Everyone is stern-faced. The photo in the middle is of a young girl, fourteen, maybe younger. She’s standing, posed, in a white dress. It’s faded.

“Who’s this?” I ask, touching the frame.

Jake doesn’t stand but looks up from the book he’s taken from the coffee table. “My great-grandma. She was born in 1885 or something.”

She’s skinny and pale. She looks shy.

“She wasn’t a happy person. She had issues.”

I’m surprised by his tone. It carries an edge of uncharacteristic annoyance.

“Maybe she had a tough life?” I offer.

“Her problems were hard on everyone. It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know why we keep that photo up. It’s a sad story.”

I want to ask more about her but don’t.

“Who’s this?” It’s a child, a toddler, maybe three or four.

“You don’t know?”

“No. How would I know?”

“It’s me.”

I lean closer to get a better look. “What? No way. That can’t be you. The photo is too old.”

“That’s just because it’s black-and-white. It’s me.”

I’m not sure I believe him. The child is barefoot and standing on a dirt road beside a tricycle. The child has long hair and is glaring at the camera. I look even closer and feel a twinge in my stomach. It doesn’t look like Jake. Not at all. It looks like a little girl. More precise: it looks like me.

— They say he’d pretty much stopped talking.

— Stopped talking?

— Became nonverbal. Would work but not talk. It was awkward for everyone. I would pass him in the hall, would say hi, and he’d have a hard time looking at me square in the eye. He’d blush, become distant.

— Really?

— Yeah, I remember regretting hiring him. And not because he was incompetent. Everything was always clean and tidy. He did his job. But it got to the point where I had this feeling, you know? I sensed something. Like he wasn’t quite normal.

— This sort of justifies your feeling.

— It does. I should have acted, done something, I guess, based on my gut.

— You can’t start second-guessing after the fact. We can’t let the actions of one man make us feel guilty. This isn’t about us. We’re the normal ones. It’s only about him.