Finding Eden(90)

Calder's eyes warmed a little and he squeezed my hand and started walking toward the car.

Twenty minutes later, after making several wrong turns that Calder muttered were probably signs, we pulled onto a dirt road and saw the number the maintenance guy had given us painted on the tilted mailbox out front.

I scanned the property as we pulled the car slowly into the dirt driveway. It was a hoarder's dream: three broken down vehicles stripped of most of the external parts were sitting on large blocks, a dilapidated, brown couch sat next to the front steps of the small house, and there was unrecognizable junk and garbage everywhere.

My eyes moved to the house itself—the roof was sagging, the paint was peeling and one shutter was hanging sideways on the front window. I looked over at Calder, his expression one of shocked disgust.

He turned off the ignition and just sat there for a minute, unmoving. "I don't think either one of us is going to like where I came from, Eden."

Worry moved through my body. "He's been sick for a long time," I said quietly. "He probably doesn't have a lot of money. That doesn't mean he's not a decent person. And even if he isn't, he deserves to know who took his son from him at the very least, don't you think?"

Calder ran a hand through his hair and nodded. He put his hand on the door handle and I got out on my side and we met in front of the car, joining hands and maneuvering silently through the waste strewn everywhere. I wanted to wrinkle up my nose at the smell lingering in the air, something like garbage mixed with sulfur, but I forced myself not to. The last thing Calder needed was for me to make this worse by acting repelled by where he came from.

We got to the front door and I had a brief flash of picking up that huge, brass lion's head knocker. This was that moment for Calder. I squeezed his hand tightly and gave him a small smile, nodding my head at him. "You can do this," I said.

He reached his hand up and hesitated briefly, but then knocked, three loud raps. We both stood there, completely still, listening to movement beyond the door. Someone was coming toward us on the other side. High overhead an eagle cried out, the sound piercing. I squinted up into the bright but overcast sky to see it circling above us.

I startled slightly when the door swung open and a young woman in jeans and a green turtleneck sweater stood there, looking expectantly at us.

"Uh, hi," Calder said. The woman stared at him and tilted her head, some sort of understanding seeming to come into her face.

"Hi, are you a relative?" she asked.

"Yes," Calder said, spacing the letters out. "My name is Calder Raynes and this is my girlfriend, Eden Everson."

The woman smiled. "Please, come in. I'm Addy Dover." Her face took on a sympathetic expression. "You did know—"

"Yes," Calder said. "And you're from Hospice?"

Addy shook her head. "Oh no, no." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Hospice employees won't come here. I'm from Our Lady of Mercy Church. I was a home health nurse though." Her lips flattened into a thin line for a second before she said, "No one should have to die completely alone." But something in her expression looked unconvinced. I wasn't sure what it meant.

My eyes widened and Calder frowned. We started to take a step inside, but before we could, Addy looked backward and then turned toward us again. "So you've met him before, right?" she asked.

Calder shook his head. Addy nodded.

"Oh, okay, well . . . he's . . . well, he's not the nicest person." She worried her brow. "I don't say that to be disrespectful of your family, but, well . . . since you haven't met him before, I think it's good that you're prepared. It's very nice of you to come visit him for this last time. No one else has."

We both nodded and started to step inside once again, but again, Addy stopped. "Oh," she said turning around and grabbing something off a narrow table on the wall next to the door. She handed us a small plastic container and pointed to under her nose. It was then I saw that there was a very light bluish tint on the skin right under her nostrils. "The smell," she explained simply. "You'll want this."

I frowned and I looked over at Calder whose face had drained of color. He glanced at me looking embarrassed as if he wanted to run. I unscrewed the cap on the container and smeared some of the blue stuff under my nose and handed it to Calder who haltingly did the same. We stepped inside.

Despite the strong, camphor-smelling gel under my nostrils, the smell of the house hit me like a ton of bricks and I almost stumbled back. I looked at Addy. I must have had a shocked look on my face because she nodded knowingly and said, "I know. You'll need to change clothes when you leave here, too." I swallowed down the bile that wanted to come up my throat and tried not to breathe. When I looked over at Calder, he was scanning the inside of the house, his eyes wide with what looked like shock mixed with equal amounts of disgust.