“You can move up there with him, Lily,” Karen said. “Helen and I will stay in here and get rid of the snakes once and for all.” And what could be further proof of our bond but that Lily and I received this and didn’t gloat? We didn’t even look at each other. I pressed the coffee. Lily found a place for her head on Karen’s shoulder, puzzle piece to puzzle. Karen put her arm around Lily and pulled her in close.
* * *
These days, Karen was the only one who went into the camper with any frequency. It was where she kept her tools. I opened the door, but could hardly stand up inside, could hardly move, the ceiling was so low, the walls so close. I could hardly believe I had lived here with my boyfriend, or that I’d spent a winter in it alone.
The narrow space was filled with insulation spilling out of contractor bags, double-paned windows with cracks patched by duct tape, an old screen door, metal shelving disassembled, a three-legged utility sink with mud still in the drain, Perley’s old high chair, a pressure cooker with no gasket, my old bicycle, now frozen into rust. I stopped to look inside Karen’s toolbox. She had tools in there that I couldn’t identify, some kind of chisel set with bamboo handles, a series of finely toothed handsaws lovingly encased in leather, a heavy iron thing, half clamp, half pliers, meant for what use I couldn’t say. I admit to a pang then, remembering building the house with her. She said I’d rushed her, that I’d overstated my skill. Maybe I had. I certainly hadn’t asked her any questions. But history had borne me out, hadn’t it? We had lived in our house for years now, and it hadn’t fallen over. True, we had to work steadily to stay ahead, patching the roof, replacing stovepipe where it had rusted, adding more insulation to the walls, jacking up one side of the porch where it sank into the mud. True, most of that work fell to Karen while I worked for Rudy or gathered wild foods. But that was life. We all contributed in our own way. And if I hadn’t pushed us, the house might never have been finished. There was an old saying, wasn’t there? The perfect is the enemy of done. I closed her toolbox and reclaimed my light feeling. I was purpose. I was needed.
I flung open the door and raised all the small windows, packed the cold woodstove with yellowed newspapers and magazines, junk mail, cardboard boxes. I stoked the fire to dry the place out and to banish mold. I piled load after load into the wheelbarrow, hauled windows, shelves, insulation, tools, all down the path to the garden, then down through the garden to the house. There was nowhere else to put everything, so I filled our house to bursting between sofa and stove. Karen and Lily cradled Perley on the sofa while he slept, talking quietly to each other. They smiled at me as I heaped junk before them. As the day wore on, our house became the new storage shed. By evening, the camouflage camper was clear, ready to be lived in again.
I found the others around the firepit. They had dragged the bloody snake oil bedding outside and set it ablaze. They sat on camp chairs, Perley on Lily’s lap, Karen pulled up nearby. They leaned into one another in the dark. Perley put his hand up to his face. Lily grabbed it and moved it back to his side. Karen turned to me. “How’s it coming?” she asked, not impatient, not skeptical. Kind.
“Home sweet home,” I was so happy to reply.
I insisted they borrow my old down sleeping bag. Lily carried it. Karen carried Perley, and together we made our way up the hill. The camper windows, dark for so long, showed the light of an oil lamp. The chimney sent forth a modest stream of woodsmoke. Karen set Perley down, and he approached the camper in the manner of a young prince.
“My own house,” he said. “Here, I make the rules.”
“Don’t worry, Piglet,” Lily said. “I’ll sleep up here with you.”
“No way,” he said. “Not unless I say so.”
“Someone’s got to be with you tonight, at least,” Karen said. “We’ve got to watch your temperature, and change the dressing on the wound.”
“You keep trying to mess with it,” Lily said, catching his