In-Between

Men sweated all around her, but Karen Fleiss felt the heat only as a pleasant baking sensation after the cool of the SUV. She knelt next to the exposed footer to read the letters printed there.

SHAWN

She smiled. The name was blocked out in a childish hand, made clumsy by the drag of wet concrete. Still obscured by dirt and washed out in the high desert sun, it was surrounded by markings she couldn’t quite make out, but which seemed to place the name at the center of an eye with spiky lashes all around. She imagined the little boy, barefoot and dirty, scratching doodles around his signature, then running off with a grin. Into the wash, into the hills and scrub, in search of further mischief while his family finished constructing their new home.

These days he’d be sitting in the car with a tablet.

She would have it kept, of course. The name. Gene probably figured that much out already. He’d thought to point it out to her, after all, during her morning inspection. After six months, three designers, and five blueprints, he knew her tastes. It looked a little rough to go over the fireplace, but maybe it could be incorporated into some other part of the hearth. She already had plans to reuse concrete from the demolished footer. Maybe there were more designs. It would add a nice touch. A sense of continuity. Karen loved repurposed material.

“Kid could be my age by now,” Gene offered cheerfully, standing behind her.

Karen did not like that thought. She had been reaching out to touch the letters. Now she dropped her hand. A fresh-faced cherub was one thing. A middle-aged man was another. Sweet kids grew into terrible adults all the time. Now she had to think about things like whether or not Shawn had a criminal record. Gene Naddler did, she knew. Just the one offense, which she’d found before hiring him. She eventually decided to overlook it, since he came so highly recommended.

That’s why Karen reserved her affection for animals and children, especially animals. They, at least, stayed innocent. That’s what she told her political young niece, whenever she went on about whatever new injustice was bothering her. It’s what she told those activists always accosting her on the way into the store, looking for money. I donate to the Humane Society.

That’s why she was out here. A cattle-guard between her and everybody else’s problems. No one else’s buildings fencing in her stars. No one else’s light washing them out. She loved the space. She loved the sky. And all just a 5-minute drive into the city. Jess would of course be welcome to bring her children out to run around, like Shawn, if they could all just give up their screens and their causes for a day.

“I thought the house was older than that,” she said, frowning.

“An addition,” Gene explained, pointing. “Older style, with a footer instead of a slab, but abutted to the original wall.”

“Hmm,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

“Got everything handled here, ma’am,” he replied, then sobered. “Good luck today.”

With any luck, you can beat this, the doctors had said. We're doing everything we can.

She nodded but said nothing, looking back at the name with the odd symbol scrawled around it. It was smudged at one end of the eye, like it had originally been a closed shape but got spoiled at the last minute by a careless finger. She wondered if that had upset the child. She reached out to touch the place…

… and stood back to study her work, the stick still dangling from a thin left hand, caked in grey. She pushed a wild hank of hair back from her forehead. Shawn did not smile.

“Now this room is yours forever,” said a voice behind her. “You’re written into the foundation. You’ll go right up through the walls.”

Shawn continued to stare at her name in the fading light. Gloaming, the time in-between, when everything you did mattered a little bit more.

“It’ll be safe out here,” her mother promised.

Would it? Shawn thought of the people back in town. She thought of their eyes. She looked back at the lights of the small city, laid out on the valley floor. She watched the windows, winking open one by one. Those eyes would follow her, eventually, even here. They’d dot every hill, climb every ravine. Her mother didn’t know that, but she did. And they would all stare.

“Why did we have to come here?”

Her mother did not reply.

“Why don’t you ever smile?” a boy had demanded once at school, before her mother had taken her out. “Why don’t you ever look at anyone?”

She thought about that boy. His voice. Something hurt behind it that she couldn’t fix. She thought about the girl down the street, who didn’t mind all that, and how Shawn used to teach her spells, until one day she stopped coming over. She thought of Ms. May, and how she had only ever tried to help. She thought about the doctors.

We've done everything we can, they said. A state hospital would be best.

Her mother disagreed, and here they were. They’d build the room together, she said, so Shawn would know what was in the walls. Together they mixed and laid the concrete, though it took so very long by themselves. Others would come help lay stones in the morning - friends, her mother said - but in the meantime Shawn had been able to add her own ingredients to the foundation. As it dried, they put down Shawn’s wards at each corner, the ones she’d drawn all around her old room so she could sleep. Her mother was old-fashioned, and her mother had come from another land entirely, so they also buried one shoe each near the door that would lead into the main room.

After everything was done, though, she also insisted Shawn write out her name, like a normal child might do. That was fair. This way they both felt better. But now that she had done so, Shawn began to feel afraid. Her name looked so alone there on the smooth concrete. Exposed.

“Sweetie?”

Quickly, Shawn drew a circle and felt a little better. A curl around her name. Hugging, almost. Protecting. She thought a moment, then added the spikes.

“What is that?” her mother asked. “It looks scary.”

Shawn didn’t answer. It did look a little scary. Good. Why did they have to be here? She hated it. There was too much space. The sky was too big. There were too many stars. And behind them, endless black.

“It’s so closed in,” her mother complained. “Your name looks like it’s in jail.”

Shawn shook her head. Her name wasn’t in jail. It was safe. She felt her mother touch her arm, ever so lightly. She’d waited long enough that Shawn was expecting it and didn’t jump away.

“How about this,” her mother said softly, pushing past her a little to crouch at the wet concrete. “Can we leave open a little door, at least? In case your name ever wants to come out?”

Shawn hesitated. Would her name ever want to come out?

“Maybe,” she said.

“What did you say?” asked Gene.

“Maybe we can keep the footer,” Karen lied, standing up.

“You want to work it into the floor plan?” he replied, his tone carefully neutral. “We’d have to have another meeting with all the subcontractors.”

Karen studied Gene a moment. In a half year of working for her, he had always been congenial. He even accepted the background check with equanimity. That was his job, but she suddenly realized he probably didn’t like her very much. Why should he? Pain in the ass rich lady always changing her mind in the middle of a project.

“Or we could just go with what we’ve got,” she said, picking up her bag. “I was just thinking out loud.”

Was that a look of irritation?

“I’m really distracted today,” she held up a hand in apology. “I’ll leave it to you. Really. Before I know it, I’ll have a great home to die in.”

“Ma’am,” he began, looking embarrassed. Karen sighed. She was making things worse.

“A good place to spend some time with family before that happens,” she amended, turning back toward her vehicle.

Tablets, politics, and all. Maybe.