Samantha Hunt - Mr. Splitfoot

“Not much of a housekeeper?”

He rinses two mugs at the sink. Steam from the tap surrounds him. “Not my house. I stay out in the woods.” He pulls a kettle off the floor. He finds tea bags in a tin canister, smells them, plops them into the mugs.

“Whose house is it?”

“Guy named Mardellion. I never met him.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“Crazy name, crazy guy from what I understand. He was a cult leader who wanted a massive meteor to land on this house.”

“Why?”

“Turn his followers back to stardust so they could fly off to outer space and he wouldn’t have to take care of them anymore.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been here a long time and he’s never shown up.” Nat pushes an empty box of rice onto the floor. “Neither did his meteor for that matter.” The kettle rattles over the flame. Nat shuts the burner down.

I fold my hands across the baby. “Why are you here?”

“How can I leave without her? What if she came back?”

I tilt my head.

“Didn’t she tell you anything?” He looks at me. “All right. All right. She doesn’t talk.” Nat pours the hot water, looks scalded. “I fixed up those old houses. I run a shelter for kids who age out.”

“Nice.” I think of El again. “That’s really nice.”

Nat rests elbows on the table. “Not always. Sometimes we’re hungry. Sometimes there’s fighting. Drugs. Not enough money. It’s hard to escape where we came from. Even all the way up here.” His eyes cross their sockets slowly, loaded tankers on a tight river. “Still it’s better than a lot of other options. I’m sure your mom’s told you.”

“Yes.”

“She did all right by you though, huh?”

“Yes. She did.”

One of the boxes of cereal on the table tips itself over and pours its contents onto the floor like punctuation, a short symphony of grain meeting linoleum. Nat looks at the mess. The tea tastes like metal. Dust motes continue to hang in the late sunlight. Nat picks dirt from under a bitten nail. “You’re here for me?”

“I think so.”

“I’m glad to see you.” He looks at me like no one ever told him not to stare. “What about you? What’s your life been so far?”

My mouth makes a nervous click because all the easy answers to Nat’s question read like an Internet search of my name and feel just as shallow: insurance adjuster, Daisy girl, honor student. I study the floor pattern, the grain of wood on the table. I think of other tables, other kitchens, and people who have sat across from me. “So far I’ve been a daughter. Not always a good one. And I’m a really good walker.”

“And soon a mom.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s El?”

“I need my mom,” I tell him. “In fact, I really need her. Do you have a phone?”

“I do but the reception’s horrible here. Sometimes it works up in the temple.”

“The temple?” My stomach grips. The tightness steals my breath.

“Yup. Come on.”

I follow Nat up a large center stair. It feels familiar, like following Ruth only now I’m on my way back to El. Velocity equals gravity at last. I had to gain some weight and distance before I could fall back to her. The upstairs hall is a long passage lined with closed doors and dark wood. My head itches with filth. My oily jeans and greasy socks are a carapace so worn, they’d hold their shape if I disrobed. They’d wait like a horse attending its rider, bucking and breathing, hoofing the ground. Good horse carried me so far. I grab the wall. The tightness passes through my middle again.

Nat turns to see if I’m all right. The shape of his shoulders, the cut of his uneven hair, applies more pressure on my lungs. I used to think Nat was so much older than me because we were kids. Now there’s barely any difference. “How old are you?” I ask.

“Thirty-one.”

“Funny a kid like me can catch up to you. I’m already twenty-five.”

Nat stares at my belly. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s weird.”

“It’s really weird.”

“Can I?” He extends a hand.

“Everybody else does.”

Nat steps up, puts his left hand on one side, his right hand on the other, making a closed circuit, a conduit for electricity so the baby can study its fingers by Nat’s light. “I didn’t think it would be so hard,” he says. Having stepped into a form, dirt basic and fiery, we stay that way. Two bodies, three, in a shape older than geometry and all this blood between us.

I knew there was going to be something big at the end.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says.

The temple is white, huge, smooth, rounded, and I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re inside a tremendous egg. The ceiling soars high overhead. Below, tucked in a corner, is a sorry-looking command center: a small color television with coat hanger bunny ears and an ancient Coleco Adam Module #3 computer. “What is this place?”

Nat smiles. He tunes into his phone. “Let me see if I can get this to work.”

I haven’t seen a computer in a long time. Feels like running into an ex-boyfriend. I pull on the TV’s knob, some daytime talk show in the static. Its hum sounds like a hive of yellow jackets, like everything I lost on the road is swarming, trying to flow back into me — Lord, Single Premium Immediate Annuity 1035 Exchange Request Forms, anti-aging creams, a movie starring John Travolta I once watched in a friend’s basement rec room, the World Wide Web. I switch the set off quickly. I shift the mouse and am surprised when the old computer springs to life. A pale blue dot flashes, waiting. “This computer works.”

Nat nods. He holds the phone in front of his waist as one might a flashlight. He paces the temple, searching for a connection.

My stomach muscles grab the baby and squeeze with everything they’ve got. Pale blue dot. I’m having a baby. The cursor blinks onscreen. I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help. The computer’s cursor blinks all the time now, wherever I go. The contraction releases, but the cursor’s still waiting for me to ask something. What do you want to search for?

Nat’s looking for a signal.

What do you want to search for?

Nat curses the phone.

My stomach grips hard. I really want my mom. The cursor’s blink accelerates. Sweat forms on my brow. “Anything?” I ask Nat. I really want to find my mom. The contraction lets me go again.

“I can’t even get one bar.”

A portable record player, a high-design relic from the late ’60s, is perched on a small white dais. A record waits to be spun. I drop the needle to the first track on an amber-colored album, a golden record. Chuck Berry’s guitar, a switchblade, slices the air. Nat looks up and smiles. He closes the phone. “Never ever learned to read or write so well. Play the guitar. Ringing a bell. Go. Go. Go.” The music is tinny and blaring through the small speaker. “Ringing a bell.” Something inside me writhes. “Go, Johnny, go.” The Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi. I angle my fingers as if lightning is streaming from their tips. A sound escapes from deep inside, a moan.

“You OK?” He puts a hand on the small of my back and one under my arm.

A contraction that stops the world again, this pale blue dot. What do you want to search for? My mom. I hold still. The record continues to spin. And Ruth. Where’s Ruth? I look beyond the white ceiling wondering what did I hope for here at the end? Did I want the mystery solved? Or did I just want to know that the mystery has no end? And where, where, where is Ruth?