Free Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) by Shawn Lawrence Otto Page A

table and above the bench on the door side. The opposite wall had a small bookshelf behind the bench, and next to it, across from the door, sat a brown faux-leather sofa. To the left of the door was a galley kitchen with more gold-speckled countertop and white-enameled cabinets, and an old O’Keefe & Merritt gas stove,chrome and white porcelain. Opposite the narrow kitchenette was a small utility closet, a built-in furnace and water heater, and a tiny blue bathroom with a pull-chain light hanging over a medicine cabinet and a small porcelain sink.
    He pulled the mirrored door on the medicine cabinet open. There were two rippled glass shelves and a rusty slot opening into the wall. The words Used Razor Disposal were embossed in the metal just below the slot. It reminded JW of a similar one in his childhood home, which he had always imagined as some kind of strange portal into another dimension. He swung the door shut.
    Behind him was a small frosted glass window over a mismatched blue toilet and a narrow shower stall with enameled pressboard walls that were painted to look like tiles. He stepped out of the bathroom and continued on.
    To his right, the kitchen aisle ended at a door to the bedroom, which was at the opposite end of the trailer from the dining table. It smelled musty and was filled by a double bed with a thin blue-striped mattress. A high bank of windows ran around the bedroom, affording some privacy, he imagined, when lying down, but letting in a porch-like light. The narrow floor space before the bed contained a dark wooden nightstand in the medieval revival style of the early 1970s, and a narrow bedroom closet with a thin bifold door on the same side of the trailer as the bathroom. He measured the wall’s thinness at the edge of the doorframe. It fit easily between his thumb and fingers.
    He turned and walked back into the kitchen aisle.
    â€œI haven’t been in this one,” the rental agent said from the door. Her tone was apologetic. “The ones up over the hill are way nicer—”
    JW looked out the kitchen sink window, and saw itafforded a convenient view of Eagle’s house and yard. He gave her a friendly smile. “This’ll be fine.”
    She frowned and shrugged. “Why not?” She laughed and threw up her hands. “I’ll go get the lease!”
    Alone, he ran his hands over the cabinets, taking in the aura of cheap nostalgia. Although everything in the trailer was decades old, on closer inspection it seemed surprisingly well-cared for, with little bits of epoxy patch here and a few replaced and glued handles there, as if it had been repeatedly fixed and maintained in crafty ways.
    He sat at the small table with the rental agent and completed the paperwork. Then he walked her to her truck, and she departed. She seemed in disbelief at her good fortune to have rented one of the places out here, let alone the one JW had chosen. He turned back and took a deep breath as he surveyed his new home. It was a mission, like being in the army, he told himself. This was his barracks, and all that mattered was its utility. He opened his car, grabbed two of the lawn-and-leaf bags, and carried them toward the trailer. When he went back to get his suits, he saw the boy again, leading a big chestnut horse toward a railed-in riding paddock in Eagle’s side yard. The horse was planting its feet almost every step of the way. The boy, he realized, had little idea what he was doing.
    He hung his suits in the tiny bedroom closet and sat on the flaccid mattress, testing it. It had a large tan water stain at the foot of the bed. Someone must have left the windows open in a driving rain. He looked out the windows to his right, over the lamp on the bedside table, and watched the horse running loose in the paddock. He watched as the boy approached and it galloped away.
    JW snorted. Horses were a constant challenge, he reflected,a mirror of one’s own weaknesses. If you